The forty-nine-room Georgian-style mansion sits on thirty-six heavily treed and fenced acres. Built in 1912 by George Pratt — son of the founder of Pratt Institute, the world-famous art school—“Killenworth” was purchased in 1948 by the Soviets as a weekend retreat for their United Nations personnel.
But located dead center between the commercial and financial centers of Manhattan and the aerospace defense industries on Long Island, Killenworth quickly became a prime Soviet COMINT installation. The acronym stands for communications intelligence, and the space beneath the mansion’s slate roof that once quartered servants now concealed electronic surveillance gear and personnel dedicated to intercepting the high volume of sensitive, and often top secret, transmissions that traverse the corridor.
Upon arrival, Gorodin gave the package of Kira drawings to a waiting courier for immediate transfer via diplomatic pouch to Deschin in Moscow. Debriefing sessions followed, after which Gorodin swam and played gorodky, a popular Soviet club sport which colleagues teased bore his name. Many offered congratulations on his success in Houston. Nevertheless, between sets of gorodky, one GRU colleague who had been involved in the debriefing probed at a nerve he had sensed was exposed.
“Dangerous to leave a live witness, Valery,” he remarked.
“It was dark. They were struggling,” Gorodin replied nonchalantly, repeating the litany he had recited earlier. “I couldn’t get a clear shot.”
“Never known you to do that before,” the fellow said. He turned from Gorodin before he could reply, and began positioning the gorodkys — wooden cylinders the size of bowling pins — within a white outlined square. The object of the game is to clear the square of cylinders with a single throw of the bita, a striped stick the length of a cane. The colleague finished, handed the bita to Gorodin, and nodded challengingly.
Gorodin saw that the cylinders stood in a nearly impossible pattern. He sensed he had to clear them with one throw to end discussion of leaving a live witness. The throw-line was thirty feet from the “city,” as the square is called. He positioned his toe against it, reared back, and hurled the bita toward the cylinders.
It whistled through the air like a boomerang, the stripes blurring in concentric rings, and slammed into the three cylinders on the left. Then it kicked across clearing the center and headed for the wall beyond, leaving one standing. But, as Gorodin had intended, his throw had such force, the striped bita ricocheted off the wall and came back through the city, taking out the last cylinder with a loud thwack.
He swung a victorious steely-eyed look to his colleague. Despite the run-in with McKendrick which blemished the purity of it, Gorodin immensely enjoyed operating in the field again. He was eager for more, and wanted to remove any suspicion that he was unfit.
His evenings had been spent with young Russian women who staff Soviet installations around the world for such purposes. The Kremlin’s spymasters encouraged these liaisons to eliminate incidental social contacts. This lessened the chance that an agent might fall into a honey trap — a sexual relationship set by a rival intelligence group which then blackmails the target to do its bidding.
Gorodin found the State-supplied trysts to be sexually extreme, and satisfying. But they left him emotionally empty.
While at Killenworth, he speculated he would be posted to Moscow or perhaps his home city of Kazan, approximately eight hundred kilometers east of the capital on the Volga. He was pleasantly surprised by the nature of his next assignment. He’d never been to Rome, and looked forward to using his Italian.
In a Quonset hut in southeastern Louisiana, Theodor Churcher lay on his back in the dark. He had no idea where he was. For a moment, he thought he was dead. But the pain that wracked his body insisted otherwise. The fingers of his left hand tingled and itched incessantly, but he had no left hand. He stared panic-stricken at the bandaged stump, trying to reconcile the discrepancy, and prayed what he saw was part of an enduring nightmare.
Doctor Phan and Dinh’s family observed Churcher’s survival with trepidation, concerned he might make trouble for them upon recovering.
But even in his weakened state, once Churcher’s mind started working again, it started calculating, and he quickly dispelled their fears. He was pleased the authorities hadn’t been notified. The world, and more importantly the Russians, thought he was dead, and he’d keep it that way for now.
“You keep my secret,” Churcher said to Dinh, “and I’ll keep yours — under one condition. Soon as I’m well enough to leave here, I want you to go to Houston and fetch somebody for me.”
In Houston, Ed McKendrick had been barely alive when the paramedics arrived at the Churcher estate that night. But they had started pumping plasma into him immediately, and six hours of surgery later, his heart was still beating powerfully and his brain waves were peaking evenly; he had survived.
He had spent most of the time in intensive care at the city’s renowned Medical Center.
Andrew had been to see him a number of times, but today was the first day McKendrick felt strong enough to carry on a conversation of any duration. He was staring blankly at the television over his bed when Andrew entered.
“Hey, Drew,” he said, brightening. His face was bruised, fist encased in plaster, shoulder and thigh heavily bandaged; an IV stabbed into his forearm.
“Come to stick your thumb up my ass again?”
“That was your thumb,” Andrew replied. “You’re too big an asshole for mine.”
McKendrick laughed heartily.
Andrew was pleased that McKendrick was his raunchy self again.
“They’re torturing me, son,” he rumbled, gesturing to the TV. “That thing’s on twenty-four-hours-a-day. Christ, I’ve been sentenced to death by Phil Donahue.” McKendrick took the remote control and clicked off the television. “Thanks, kid,” he said, suddenly stone-faced serious. “Thanks a lot for what you did.”
Andrew nodded, and smiled self-consciously. Compliments and expressions of gratitude always embarrassed him. He never knew how to respond.
“I’ve been watching the boob tube all week,” McKendrick said. “Nothing new on your old man.”
Andrew nodded. “Coughlan called the other night,” Andrew said. “He told me some debris from the chopper had washed up east of Gal-veston. The FAA’s running tests. It sounds like it busted up pretty good. He had nothing new on my father either.”
Andrew’s eyes saddened and fell, momentarily.
“Bastards got away with the package,” McKendrick said, purposely breaking the silence.
Andrew nodded grimly, and said, “I looked for it.”
“But you didn’t—” McKendrick prompted, letting it die out when he saw Andrew understood.
“Not a word to anyone,” Andrew replied crisply. “If I’d found it, I would’ve sent it to Boulton.”
“Way to go,” McKendrick said.
“I told Coughlan the truth — we came back to the estate, spotted intruders on the grounds, and idiots that we were, we chased them,” Andrew explained. “I didn’t mention the museum. Couldn’t. I didn’t know about the break-in until I went looking for the package. Nobody’s been down there since that night but me.”
McKendrick pursed his lips, impressed. “Got it figured out yet?” he asked, teasing.
“Partly,” Andrew replied.
His tone left no doubt he was serious. McKendrick’s brows raised in curiosity. He inclined his head toward the door. Andrew reached back and closed it quietly.