Brian Haig - The Kingmaker

There was something in his tone, a slight intonation, as if he knew something I didn’t know. Okay, I had to consider that. But the other thing I considered was that with or without those tapes, I could still accomplish a great deal of good by telling the CIA and, if they didn’t listen, the American press, all about Viktor and his cabal. And frankly, that was much bigger news than another spy scandal anyway. That was the news that would blow the top off everything.

“Okay,” I mumbled, and Johnson and Clapper relaxed back into their seats.

As if by some hidden cue, the door behind me opened and the guard yanked me back out of the room, so the grown-ups could be left in privacy to discuss whatever the hell it was they needed to close the deal.

I was led back to the sedan and then driven to a local jail, where I was given my own cell. I lay down, closed my eyes, and tried to sleep. I couldn’t, though. Between my hacking coughs and my troubled thoughts I was still wide awake at three in the morning, when two guards and two Americans in dark gray suits came to get me. I stared out the windows at Moscow’s streets the whole drive to the airport. The usual assortment of beggars and crippled vets were roaming around, all those poor bastards who never realized they were the pawns on the chessboard whose fates were being decided by men like Viktor Yurichenko. I actually had tears in my eyes as they loaded me on an American C-130 and it took off.

I spent a miserable week in the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, while the docs probed and checked every square inch of my body for infections and diseases I might’ve picked up at Camp 18. I had a blood infection, but they cleared that up in a few days. They emptied pharmacies full of drugs into my system for the pneumonia. The whole week they also kept intravenous tubes hooked into my arms so they could restore my vitamin balance, or my blood cell count, or maybe my sperm count. Nobody told me, so how the hell was I supposed to know?

In between my medical treatments, two of those glum-faced Agency guys kept coming into my room to debrief me. I went over everything. I told them about Viktor’s admissions, and about Milt Martin, and then about life at Camp 18. They taped every word and listened patiently, but I had no idea what they thought. Like most debriefers, they were as uncommunicative as brick walls. Every time I asked them what had happened in the past five months they just stared blankly and said they weren’t allowed to talk about it.

After the hospital released me, I actually took a civilian flight back to the States. The first thing I did after I was seated was bribe the stewardess into giving me six extra bottles of scotch. I deserved a little reward. Although unfortunately, my body was so battered and depleted that I was in a coma after the third one.

I woke up with an incredible headache and a stewardess shaking my arm. The plane was empty of passengers; it was just me and the cleaning crew. I stumbled down the aisle, feeling spectacularly sorry for myself. Was this any way to treat a returning hero?

I made it through customs in record time, and just as I was leaving the sealed-off area, I spotted a short black woman in civvies flapping her arms and running toward me. If I didn’t know her better, I’d swear she was excited to see me.

She walked right up and threw her arms around me, hugging me tightly, like a mother taking care of a child she knew had suffered some grievous misfortune. We stayed like that nearly a quarter of a minute, and it felt wonderful.

Then she backed away and her face got scrunched up. “You look like shit.”

“Well, hell, Imelda,” I said, “it sucked pretty bad.”

She shook her head and sort of half smiled. “Don’t you try any of that bitchin’ and moanin’ crap on me. I ain’t got no time for wimps.”

“But I-”

“But you nothin’,” she said, still smiling.

“Thanks anyway. I mean it, Imelda. Thank you. I owe you my life.”

She shrugged as if it was no big thing. “I gave ’em the tapes last week. General Clapper said it was part of the deal.”

“It was,” I admitted. “They give you a hard time?”

“Them bastards can’t spell hard time. They tried to turn up the heat pretty good for a while. Them people also sneaked into the office and my apartment, lookin’ for them tapes. Like I’d leave ’em in plain sight that way. Hummph.”

I put a hand on her arm. You have to know Imelda. If she said they tried to give her a pretty hard time, that meant they threatened to rip out her fingernails and kill every last member of her family.

I knew when I sent her the tapes, I’d just taken out the best life insurance a man could have. When I was still missing after a week, I knew Imelda would contact the right people and threaten the hell out of them with exposure. She’d know just how to handle it, too. Thirty years as an Army sergeant is the equivalent of a Ph. D. in making others suffer.

I kind of felt sorry for the Agency. They had never run into the likes of Imelda Pepperfield. She doesn’t respond well to pressure. Which is another understatement, because squeezing Imelda is like punching a porcupine. It ends up hurting you a lot more than it hurts her.

I finally said, “Imelda, I hate to sound ungrateful, but what took so damned long?”

She looked down at the floor in evident embarrassment. “It was part of the deal. Them CIA people said you couldn’t come back till they was ready.”

I filed that one away, as I patted her on the arm. “Don’t worry about it. Really. I was having a great time. I was cursing when they dragged me out of the special resort they sent me to. I’d made all kinds of friends. I miss them already.”

Anyway, she led me out to the parking lot where her black Mazda Miata was parked. I’d never reckoned Imelda as the cutesy Miata type, but then nobody’s ever exactly what you think they are, are they? We stayed on the Dulles Toll Road till we got to the Tysons Corner exit. She took the exit, and I asked where she was going, and she just shrugged. The next thing I knew we were pulling up to the front of Morton’s Steakhouse. A guy in a silly-looking uniform took her car and gave her a ticket.

When we entered, Imelda murmured something to the maitre d’, while I stood frozen in the entrance, literally swooning from the aroma of cooking steaks and lobsters and prime rib. The food here probably wasn’t nearly as good as Camp 18’s, but I thought, What the hell… why not give the place a chance?

Oddly enough, two stiff-looking types in dark suits were standing beside the entrance to the private room we were led to. I snarled at both of them as we walked in. For some odd reason I’d developed a real grudge against intelligence people.

Katrina came running at me. She threw her arms around my shoulders and kissed me right on the lips. Then she backed away, and Alexi was there with his hand held out.

“God, it’s great to see you two,” I blurted, and it really was. We shook hands like a couple of old pals.

“You’re, uh, you are still Alexi, aren’t you?” I asked.

“No, I am now Bill Clinton.”

“Bill Clinton?” I asked. “What asshole thought up that cover name?”

“Is only big joke,” he chuckled. “I am developing American sense of humor.”

“Who’s teaching you? The CIA?”

This one passed right by him. Maybe it wasn’t funny anyway. Maybe I needed a bit of work on my sense of humor, too. Five months in Siberia can cause you to lose a few steps.

He very seriously said, “Unfortunately, I am also being told I cannot give you real names. Tonight, Katrina and I will be moved to a new location to assume these new identities. Is all set up, because Viktor has people trying to find us. Mary says nobody can know of our new identities, not even you.”