Kimberly nodded appreciatively.
O’Brien went on. “To make matters worse, Van Dorn, Arnold Brin, and a few others had zeroed in on some aspects of the Stroke, and were pushing me hard to find out more. I dragged some red herrings across their path — a nuclear explosion on Wall Street and a plot to access and erase all American computers — but it kept coming back to EMP. The old boys are good, Henry.”
“Yes, they are. And the diary?”
O’Brien smiled wide. “That was both a stroke of genius and an act of lunacy. I was desperate by that time. I dropped that diary on them in the hope that the old search for Talbot would consume their energies and obsess their psyches as it did four decades ago. I knew who Talbot was. It was I. I didn’t know it was you, too.”
Kimberly smiled slightly. “You set off a chain reaction with that, didn’t you, Patrick?”
O’Brien smiled in return.
“Yes. First that idiot Thorpe nearly killed me. Then Tony Abrams, who was pushed on me by your daughter, turned out to be cleverer than I thought. I decided to have Abrams killed rather than let him nose around. I used Claudia”—he nodded toward the body—“to set Abrams up. She thought she was working for Moscow. Abrams assumed it was Thorpe who tried to have him killed. Things are not as they appear in this wilderness of mirrors. I kept telling everyone that, and they all kept nodding, but no one seemed to understand that I was talking about myself.” He laughed.
Kimberly stared at O’Brien for a moment, then spoke. “How did you get here?”
O’Brien smiled. “I jumped in from a Sikorsky helicopter.”
“You are courageous, Patrick. But you always were.”
“Yes, it’s how I stayed alive when others died. I’m also ruthless.” He looked at Kimberly. “And unashamedly power-hungry. I want to be king.”
Kimberly stared back at him. “I am the heir apparent.”
“So Androv tells me now.” O’Brien shrugged, then glanced out the window. He said, “You know, Henry, if Operation Stroke succeeds, if Molniya explodes and spreads a wave of electromagnetic destruction across this continent, then, notwithstanding what’s happened in this house tonight, you and I will be the most powerful men in America.”
Kimberly said, “We have another compatriot who is to be rewarded with power. James Allerton. Did Androv tell you?”
O’Brien made a sound of contempt. “Androv did, but I knew long before that. Allerton is weak. Nearly senile. If it weren’t for his national reputation, Moscow would have discarded him years ago.”
“But they haven’t. And he is to form part of our troika.”
O’Brien’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “There’s a Secret Service man at Camp David whom I’ve spring-loaded to see that no matter what happens tonight, James Allerton will not leave there alive.”
Kimberly glanced at the pistol in O’Brien’s hand. He said evenly, “That leaves only you and me, and that’s one too many, isn’t it?”
O’Brien nodded absently, as though he’d missed the implication. He said, “You see, Henry, if the Americans win this round, then I can resurface as a hero who narrowly escaped death. But I can’t do that if you or Androv fall into their hands.”
“It was my misfortune to open this door.”
“Fortune has little to do with it. I always suspected the existence of the third man, and I’d planned to eliminate him at the first opportunity. The fact that it’s you, my old friend, makes it more difficult for me, but nonetheless, necessary.”
Kimberly said, “In other words, if Moscow wins tonight, you want to be President. If Moscow loses, you want to be head of the old boys again, until such time as Moscow does succeed.”
“Correct. And you, Henry, are an obstacle in either case.”
Kimberly said, “We can escape together. Go to Moscow.”
“I don’t want to go to Moscow. Tomorrow I want either to be in my old office at O’Brien, Kimberly and Rose, or in the Oval Office.” He looked closely at Kimberly. “No senior intelligence chief worthy of the name should ever have to be a fugitive. There should always be another office from which he can practice his trade. That’s the reward for living as we must.”
Kimberly said, “Moscow will not reward you. They’ll find out you killed me… and Androv.”
O’Brien motioned toward Claudia’s body. “Battle deaths cover murder well. You remember.”
Kimberly’s eyes fixed on the gun again. “Patrick… This is not… This is disloyal… They want me alive… Moscow wants—”
“What do I care what Moscow wants? They create traitors and they expect loyalty from us. Moscow is only a means to an end for me. The fastest, indeed the only, way to Washington for me, as for you, was via Moscow. Just as the last Roman emperors were made and unmade by the barbarians, so will the barbarians in Moscow crown me Emperor of America.”
Kimberly’s voice was sharp. “And depose you at their pleasure. You might be more secure if we shared power.”
“Perhaps — if there were power to share. But that may not be. I may be back in Rockefeller Center tomorrow to the amazement and relief of my staff. I have to plan for all contingencies, Henry. No hard feelings, old soldier.”
“No—” Kimberly reached for the pistol in his jacket. O’Brien fired his silenced automatic into Henry Kimberly’s heart, and Kimberly toppled backward like a felled tree, crashing to the floor.
O’Brien looked down at his former law partner and comrade-in-arms. “And then there was one.”
73
Tony Abrams moved down the first-floor staircase and saw that the body of Valentin Metkov had been removed. Abrams passed cautiously through the splintered panel door into the ruined security office. Davis’ body lay among the rubble, but the guards had removed Lara’s body.
Abrams felt he was following the trail of death and it was leading him back to where he had begun, in Patrick O’Brien’s office long ago. He could not fathom O’Brien’s motives for recruiting him then, and they were even less clear now.
Abrams looked into the hallway. No one was visible, but he heard voices in the distance. He slipped into the hall, moved quickly to Androv’s door, and saw that the lock was shot away. He held his rifle up and hit the door with his shoulder.
Patrick O’Brien was on his knees, rummaging through Androv’s desk. He looked up quickly, then reached for the pistol on the desk top.
Abrams leveled his rifle, and O’Brien slid his hand back. O’Brien said, “I didn’t think any of you would come down here again.”
Abrams said nothing but just stared at the man.
O’Brien stood slowly. “Who gave me away?”
“I figured it out.”
O’Brien smiled, an almost pleasant smile. “No, you didn’t, Tony. At least give me the satisfaction of thinking I was the most clever double agent this country has ever seen.”
Abrams nodded. “You were. Now you’re not.”
O’Brien nodded. “How do you feel? Angry? Betrayed? Foolish?”
“Yes. You’re very convincing.”
“It’s a matter of believing in what you’re doing and saying while you’re doing and saying it. When I worked for the old boys, I did my best. When I worked for the Russians, I did my best. Don’t feel too badly. I hoodwinked nearly every one of the so-called intelligence greats in this country and Britain for nearly forty years.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “At first it was young idealism. Then I wanted out, but they tried to kill me. Shot me on a hunting trip in Utah. I survived, obviously, but while I lay there in the hospital, I realized that they were ruthless, and that while we were once ruthless against the Nazis, we had gone very soft. That was the expression they used in those days. Remember that? America has gone soft. And it was true. The Russians — the Communists — were getting their way all over the world then. By 1948 it seemed just a matter of time before they took over. I joined the ruthless side.” He smiled. “The tide turned the other way, but I was happy by then, or at least at peace with my double life. I have no wife or children and I devoted myself to the game. Having been the victim of an assassination attempt, I was never again under suspicion the way I’d been during the war.”