He opened the top drawer and she saw him remove a few items, one of them a pistol. He turned and started walking away.
Katherine rose from beneath the desk.
The man heard the noise and spun around.
Katherine said, “Hello.”
The sky had cleared and the moon shone blue through the gabled window next to the fireplace. Dust motes danced in the pale moonbeams, giving them both a spectral appearance, as though they had met in a dream. A slow smile passed over Henry Kimberly’s face. “That must be Kate.”
“It is.”
He nodded.
“Drop yours,” she said.
He held one hand in his right pocket. “I don’t think I will.”
“Then I may shoot you if you move.”
“I’ll try to be still.”
Katherine looked at her father in the pale light, then said, “Somehow I never accepted your death. That must be a normal reaction. When Carbury came into my office, I had the irrational thought he’d come to tell me you were waiting in the lobby.”
Kimberly didn’t reply.
She continued, “I always fantasized about how I might meet you, but I never thought it would be at the point of a gun.”
He forced a smile. “I should think not.” He stared at her and said, “Well, Kate, I thought about how we’d meet also. But that wasn’t a fantasy. I knew I’d be back some day.”
She glanced at the desk. “Yes, you were going to be President.”
He nodded and said softly, “I was going to use the remaining years I have to try to get to know you and Ann.”
“Were you? What makes you think Ann or I would want to know a traitor?”
“That’s a subjective term. I acted out of conscience. I abandoned my friends, my family, and my fortune to work for something I believed in. So did a good number of men and women in those days.”
She laughed derisively, “And you’re going to tell me that you don’t believe any longer? That you want to make amends to your family and your country?”
He shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said that. I cannot make amends and I do not intend to.” His voice became distant, as though he were in another room. “You have to understand that when a person invests so much in something, it’s difficult to admit even to oneself — that you may have been wrong. And once you go to Moscow, it’s not easy to come home again. You deal with the devil because he has the short-cut approach to power. And when you live in Moscow, you begin to appreciate power and all that goes with it.” He let out a breath and looked at her. “I don’t expect you to understand. Someone of my own age who lived through those times would be more sympathetic.”
“I know a lot of men from those times. They are not sympathetic.” She let the silence drag out, then said, “Some men commit themselves to a cause and announce their intentions. If you were just a turncoat or defector, I could understand that. But you have lied and cheated, you betrayed everyone who put their faith and confidence in you. You’ve caused the deaths of friends, and you’ve let your children grow up without a father. You must be a very cold and heartless man, Henry Kimberly. You have no soul and no conscience. And now you tell me you were just a victim of circumstances.” She paused, then said sharply, “I think all you’re committed to is the act of betrayal. I think…” Tears ran down her face and her voice became husky. “I think… Why? Why in the name of God did you do that to… to me?”
Henry Kimberly hung his head thoughtfully, then his eyes met hers. He said in a voice barely above a whisper, “Sometimes I think the last time I felt any honest joy in my heart was a day on my last leave. I took you and Ann to Central Park… I carried you in my arms and Ann put her little hand in mine, and we laughed at the monkeys in the zoo—”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
Neither spoke for some time, then Kimberly said, “May I go now?”
She wiped her eyes. “Go… go where?”
“What does it matter? Not back to Moscow, I assure you. I just want to go… to walk in the village… see my country… find some peace… I’m not important any longer. No one wants me, either as a hero, or as a villain. I am not a threat… I am an old man.”
Katherine cleared her throat, then said coolly, “Who is Talbot Three?”
Henry Kimberly’s eyebrows arched, then he replied, “There is no Talbot Three… Well, there was, but he died many years ago.”
She looked at him closely, then said, “You’re lying.”
He shrugged, then said softly, “May I go? Please.”
“No.”
He didn’t reply immediately, then spoke. “I’m afraid I must leave, Kate. And you won’t shoot me, any more than I’d shoot you.” He added in a tone that suggested the subject was closed, “I’m glad we met. We may meet again.” He began to turn.
Katherine shouted, “No! No, you will not leave.” She cocked the big Browning automatic.
Henry Kimberly looked back over his shoulder. He smiled, then winked at her. “Au revoir, little Kate.” He walked into the darkness of the attic and headed toward the open hatchway.
Katherine watched him, the muzzle of the pistol following his back. Her hands shook and her eyes clouded. A stream of confused thoughts ran through her mind, then suddenly focused on Patrick O’Brien. He had been her real father for all these years, and Henry Kimberly, a man unknown to her, and his friends had murdered him. And O’Brien would not let Henry Kimberly walk away, and would not approve if she did. Henry Kimberly had to pay. She said, or thought she said, “Stop,” but wasn’t sure if she had actually spoken. He kept walking. She fired.
The roar of the .45-caliber silver bullet shattered the silence, then echoed off in distant places. The sound died away, though the ringing remained in her ears and the smell of burnt cordite hung in her nostrils.
She looked across the twenty feet of open space that separated them. Henry Kimberly had turned at the open hatch and stared back. He looked neither surprised that she’d fired at him, nor surprised that she’d missed. They both understood that the act was a catharsis, a symbolic gesture. Kimberly lowered himself into the open hatchway and disappeared.
Katherine found that her legs had become weak, and she sat back in the chair behind the desk; his chair — his desk. His script lay scattered before her.
Katherine put her head down on the desk and wept.
Marc Pembroke sat in the dark alcove of the gable. He heard running footsteps coming toward him and watched in the half-light as about a dozen men and women, faces pale and eyes watering, filed past, heading for the staircase opposite him. He kept his rifle in the ready position and watched. His breathing had become difficult and he knew he was drowning in his own blood, yet his mind was still clear.
The Russians were not ten feet from him and he saw that some of them carried weapons. The first to arrive were staring down at the collapsed staircase. Below, on the landing, guards shouted up at them.
Pembroke saw the top rails of a ladder rising over the edge of the stairwell. There was some heated discussion over who was going to use it first — the guards who wanted to come up, or the technicians who wanted to get down.
A man in a suit stepped forward and settled the disagreement. Looking pale and shaky, but still arrogant, Viktor Androv pushed aside the crowd and began lowering his corpulent body onto the ladder.
Pembroke unscrewed the silencer from his rifle, then shouted, “Androv! Freeze!” He fired at the ceiling and the crowd hit the floor. He and Androv stared at each other over the clear space, Androv’s head and shoulders visible as he stood on the ladder, Pembroke sitting with his back to the wall in the alcove.