“What are the objectives?”
“To bring the chickens home to roost. To repay the stab in the back. To avenge the dead, including your father. To find the traitors still in our midst. To find the worst traitor, a man code-named Talbot, and kill him. And ultimately to complete the larger mission we were assigned in 1942—to put an end to any power that is dedicated to our destruction.”
“That assignment was terminated by Truman in 1945.” She pointed to a framed document on the wall, signed by Harry S Truman.
“We don’t recognize that termination order. We were born of necessity, we live of necessity, we are immortal. Not in the physical sense, of course, but in the context of the immortal corporation. We may have to reorganize from time to time, take on partners, hire and fire, but we don’t go out of business. Not until we’ve finished what we set out to do.”
Her mind had reeled under the impact of what he was saying, though she had suspected it for some years. He had let her see small glimpses of it and had waited patiently until she had made the right conclusions and the right decision. She had asked him something of the logistics, the how, why, and where of it all.
O’Brien had replied, “Do you think we couldn’t see what was going to happen after the war? When they were through with us, like all governments who use people, they intended to throw us back on the scrap heap. But they miscalculated. They didn’t fully understand what talent they’d assembled. The war acted as a catalyst, brought us together within one organization.
“We saw them sharpening their knives to finish us after we’d finished the Nazis. So we took precautions. We began to go underground. We kept files and records in various places. Some are right here in these offices. We formed close contacts with the British intelligence services, which, we knew, would survive into the postwar world. And we stole money. Yes, we stole. We had a section called Special Funds. We had a worldwide banking system of more than eighty different currencies. There was over seventy-five million dollars of those funds, a huge fortune in those days. Congress and the President gave us this money grudgingly, with no strings and without regard, as they said, ‘to the provisions of law and regulations relating to the expenditure of government funds.’ They had no choice, really. You can’t run an outfit that is supposed to engage in assassinations, kidnappings, sabotage, economic warfare, and other unsavory pursuits, without unvouchered funds. Also”—a small smile broke across his face—“we actually made money on some of our operations. We were, after all, mostly businessmen and lawyers.”
He had stepped closer to her and said quietly, “Over the last thirty-five years we’ve accomplished a good deal of what we set out to do, though I can’t give you details. But I will tell you we’ve uncovered and eliminated a number of Americans and Britishers who were working for the other side.” He had put his hand on her shoulder. “Do you still want to belong?”
“Do you know who killed my father? I mean… it wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“It wasn’t an accident. The persons who arranged his death also arranged the deaths of other good men and women, including, I believe, the parents of your new friend, Peter Thorpe. They nearly got me, too. And they nearly got the Free World after the war. Eventually, we will know all there is to know about them.”
She had stood and said, “I never knew my father… I always felt cheated… but I consoled myself with the fact that he died in the war, the way others had. But this is different. I’m not vindictive by nature, but I’d like to—”
O’Brien had nodded. “There are personal scores to settle as well as political scores. Either motivation is good. Are you with us?”
“Yes.”
That night she’d called her sister, Ann, who was in Bern at the time, and asked, “Do you belong?”
After a brief hesitation, Ann replied, “Yes.”
“Me too.”
Katherine looked now at Patrick O’Brien standing at the window with a fixed stare on his face. There seemed to be some special quality to these men and women that had kept them mentally alert and physically sound. Yet they understood, as O’Brien said, that they were mortal, and so they’d begun to recruit. Nicholas West was one recruit. Somehow the fact that he belonged made it seem all right for her. Nick was level-headed, careful, not likely to get involved with something that was reckless or unsavory.
Katherine thought of Peter. He belonged only in a peripheral way, and that, she knew instinctively, was a good decision on O’Brien’s part.
An unbidden image of Tony Abrams flashed through her mind. Abrams didn’t really want in, and she liked that. O’Brien, too, preferred reluctant recruits.
She thought of the Van Dorns. George Van Dorn was in the group, though by the nature of the group one never acknowledged such a fact except in the most oblique way. Katherine did not particularly like George Van Dorn, and she sensed that O’Brien found something peculiar about him. If she had to propose a candidate for a man who could have been a traitor for over forty years, it would be George Van Dorn.
She thought of Tom Grenville, James Allerton, and all the people she’d become involved with over the years. In the conventional world, people were judged by certain accepted standards. In the shadow world, no one was who he or she seemed, and therefore no judgments could be made, except a final one.
One thing Patrick O’Brien had told her from the beginning, which she thought about now: “You understand,” he’d said, “that we could not have eliminated so many of our enemies and caused them to suffer so many setbacks without incurring casualties of our own. You must be aware, Katherine, that there is an element of personal danger inherent in this game we are playing. You’ve attended some funerals of men and women who did not die natural deaths.”
She looked at O’Brien now and spoke. “Do you think Carbury is dead?”
“Of course.”
“Is this the beginning of something?”
“Yes, I believe it is. Something very terrible is in the wind. We’ve sensed it for some time. Actually, we have some hard information that the Russians don’t expect us to be around after this summer.”
She looked at him. “Don’t expect… who not to be around…?”
“Us. America. They seem to have discovered a way to do it — with minimal or no damage to themselves. It’s obviously some sort of technological breakthrough. Something so far advanced that we have no defense. It was inevitable that one side or the other should skip a few generations of technology. So far we’ve advanced side by side, one side or the other taking a short lead, like a long horse race. But we have reason to believe they’ve created a sort of time warp that will put them into the next century within a few months. It happens. History is full of such examples — the ironclad Monitor’s blowing the Confederates’ wooden ships out of the water at will. Our atomic bombs that obliterated two great cities in a few seconds… ”
She tried to formulate several questions, but no words came out.
O’Brien said, “We know their plan depends on a person or persons who will open the gates of the city in the night, a sergeant of the guard. Someone with a key.”
She said, “Someone like Talbot.”
He nodded.
She spoke softly, “We were so close… the diary… the papers… ”
O’Brien waved his hand in a motion of dismissal. “That’s not important.”
“What do you mean?”
“I wrote the diary — or had it written. It’s not your father’s. I’m sorry. The diary was bloody red meat, and I knew if there was a beast about, he’d smell it and reveal himself. He did. Unfortunately, Randolph Carbury, who was holding the meat, got eaten too. But now we have a trail to follow, the spoor of the wolf in the wet earth.”