A Man Overboard Page 15

  * * * *

  This time he dreamt of his own father and mother and the night he’d received the news of their death, and there was a tear running down his cheek when he awoke. He missed his mom and dad, at least what he could remember of them, and their memory made him miss Joseph that much more, his goofy smile, the fierceness of his embrace, and the love and trust burning in his eyes. Soon…

  The interior lights of the bus were turned low, and Jack saw that most people were either sleeping or reading. He turned his attention out the window and could make out city lights in the distance. He was stepping off the bus and stretching fifteen minutes later.

  He stood before the map that was hanging on the terminal wall. It offered a more detailed street plan than the one folded up in his pocket, and he realized that a rental car would be the right choice if not for it requiring a credit card. If “they” were still looking for him, then tipping them off to his being in Connecticut might give them an idea of what he was up to. And “they” would probably want to prevent him from opening that can of worms. So it would be a long walk down Asylum Ave.

  Asylum Avenue, he mused. What were the chances of that? The House of Thunder—a Soviet plot involving a false reality—came suggesting unpleasant theories again. Bears, books, conspirators, and now street names. Was his subconscious pulling familiar material from his life and twisting it with clues meant to wake him up from such a coma?

  He left the terminal, found Asylum Avenue, and began walking down the sidewalk that followed alongside it. Ten miles. He should make it just in time for brunch. He wondered if he should stop and pick up some coffee and donuts. Surprise, honey! It’s me! Your other husband! I brought coffee!

  The cool morning breeze whipped at his open coat and felt good on his face. The sky was partly cloudy, shielding Asylum Avenue from the sun’s fullness as it climbed the sky.

  And even though Jack escaped the heart of the city without a run-in with government assassins, he found his heart beating faster and faster, his hands shaking with fear.

  26

  Asylum Avenue connected with Albany Turnpike, and Albany Turnpike led to the street of the estate. Climax Road it was called, and that eerily fitting name haunted Jack all through the woods that ran along its side, pestering him until he reached a white, concrete driveway that came snaking across his path. Turning to follow after it, he made sure to stay within the shadow of the woods in order to avoid the eyes of any possible surveillance cameras.

  As the giant house appeared through the tree line like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, Jack became conscious of his sweat-stained shirt and the awful odor that was clinging to it. It wasn’t exactly part of his ideal reunion scenario. Maybe he should take it off, go in all bare-chested like some Hollywood action hero. You’re a salesman, he reminded himself. He kept the shirt on, dropping to a knee and tearing apart the package, freeing the pistol. He chambered a round and tucked it into the back of his pants, then got to his feet and made his way to the edge of the trees. There, he stood gazing at the property, at the manicured lawn sweeping away from him, at the driveway ending in a circle at the front of the house, at the fountain flowing from the circle’s center, at large Roman columns and armies of bright flowers and sculpted bushes circling the three-story residence. Maybe this is what Stacey left him for. If he waited long enough, would he see a silver Aston Martin DB5 pull out from around the back of the estate, some handsome playboy with one hand on the steering wheel, the other around his wife?

  The front door swung open before he could grow any angrier at the possibility.

  A man stepped out between the colonnades, and Jack dropped back to his knees. The man was wearing a polo shirt tucked into khaki shorts, sandals on his feet. Even from his position, Jack could see the polo being stretched across the Russian’s large chest.

  And then joining him was an attractive blonde. She stepped out of the house and took his hand.

  Stacey.

  Jack’s heart stopped at the sight of her. There she was, right in front of him. And before he realized it, he was actually stepping out from behind the cover of the trees, her presence attracting him like a moth to flame. His heart ached for her, and he needed to touch her, to hold her. He needed to cry and to kiss her. There she is. But instead of her running toward him with arms open wide, she was descending the steps hand-in-hand with some tall Russian and heading up the driveway.

  Other emotions surfaced, and he felt the sharp sting of betrayed love. His chest tightened and sadness dashed the elation that had pulled him out of the woods. He dropped back into shadow and waited for them to pass because inside him was also a curiosity that needed to know all the whys and hows. And he wouldn’t leave this place until he knew them all.

  Once Stacey (Anna!) and Vadim—at least he assumed it was Vadim—were out of sight, heading toward the road, Jack sprinted across the lawn, past the fountain, and up the stairs to the door. It was unlocked. That made him pause for a second. It didn’t seem like a double-agent kind of thing to do. Unless he had security guards patrolling the estate… He pulled the pistol out and pushed open the door.

  The inside seemed even bigger than the outside, and Jack wondered how Vadim managed to end up in such a place. Either his cover job was a really good one, or the CIA was sparing no expense in purchasing his loyalty. He swore and kept still, listening for signs of dogs or guards. The house was quiet. And suddenly, though he’d come in without a plan, he was now trying to figure the best way of shooting Vadim upon his return. Should he jump out behind him as soon as he stepped in, tapping him in the back of the head? Should he open the door for them and just put one between his eyes? Either way, the spy had to die so that he could get the whole story from Stacey—the true story. But no, not necessarily… With Vadim dead, if Stacey had run off with the SVR agent, then at that point she would just tell him whatever he wanted to hear. Which may or may not be the truth. He abandoned his plot to kill Vadim in favor of searching for any sign of Joseph.

  Ignoring the wooden steps that circled up to the next floor, he left the foyer and its obnoxious chandelier behind. He passed closed doors on either side of him and found himself in a cigar room. He aimed the pistol back and forth, the dark-hued shades that covered the windows casting the room in a crimson glow. Bookshelves decorated the walls, a globe sat on a cherry-red desk, and small sculptures replicating famous art he didn’t recognize stood as sentries in the corners. Spinning around, Jack could see a sunlit expanse at the other end of a long hallway and guessed it to be the kitchen. He went that way, gun held out in front of him.

  The kitchen’s almost the size of my freakin’ house, he thought. Until he remembered that he didn’t have a house anymore. There was a large table placed in an alcove that was surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows, the rest of the gourmet kitchen as big as a tennis court.

  A noise came from somewhere else in the house.

  Quickly ducking out of the kitchen, Jack found himself in another room. Maybe the living room, or at least one of them. It was remarkable, whatever it was. Huge cathedral-like windows were fanned out across the far wall, offering a more-than-adequate view of the Connecticut woods. A glass coffee table sat in the center of the room, a stone fireplace watching over it. More books were climbing the walls, and exotic plants were arranged to keep them company. Couches, chairs, and footstools… He pictured his wife and Vadim spending their nights here.

  “Well, well, well… Look what the tide washed ashore.”

  The voice was all too familiar, and Jack didn’t need to turn around in order to identify it. But of course, he did turn around, leveling the pistol right at her face.

  “Hello, Viktoriya,” he said. “Or is it, Natasha?”

  She was sitting in a large white chair that dwarfed her frame, and wearing white herself, it was no wonder that his cursory sweep of the room had missed her. She had a short glass in her hand, her legs crossed. She smiled and warmth seemed to rise in her gray eyes.

 
; “Sit down, Jack,” she ordered calmly.

  He stole a look out the huge windows, expecting to see his wife and her Russian husband approaching with guns drawn, good ol’ Viki having alerted them to his presence.

  But she shook her head. “They’ll be gone for a little while yet. They walk to a coffee shop that’s about two miles away. Frankly, I think it’s reckless.” And she shrugged as if to say, but who am I? Which was a position Jack had never known her to take on anything.

  Curious, he sat down on the couch across from her, resting the 9mm on his lap where she could see it. “What the hell is going on, Viktoriya? Where’s Joseph?” She seemed to regard him with a strange apathy, and he thought she might just be stalling.

  She took a sip of the caramel-colored liquid and then turned her gaze out the window, staring off beyond the trees and into her own thoughts. “I’m glad you’re here.” It was almost a whisper.

  “And why would that be?”

  She smiled, the lines in her face stretching taut. “I always liked you, Jack.”

  “You never liked me.”

  She didn’t rebut him, only cast her eyes to the floor. “How did you…”

  “Survive being tossed overboard?”

  She nodded.

  Jack wasn’t sure what was going on, but the Russian countess had dissolved into a frail, tired, old woman. “I guess someone saw my naked body careening through the moonlight. The ship turned around and came back for me.” Her eyes swept back to him, and he swore there was sincerity in the heaviness of them.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I know it must have been torture believing that she was dead.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a pretty crappy week. You wanna tell me why you put us on that ship to begin with?”

  She took another sip, her eyes returning to the unseen and the gravity of whatever it contained. And then she raised her index finger as though she was remembering something she didn’t want to later forget. “Joseph is upstairs.” She set the liquid in the glass swirling. “He’s been sleeping in lately. It’s been tough on him. He really misses you.”

  The news set water pooling in his eyes and a spreading warmth through his chest. He was about to get to his feet, but she told him to stay.

  “He is fine, and I have a story to tell.”

  Jack stared at her, trying to resist storming up the stairs and getting Joseph the hell out of there. He glanced out the window and to the driveway again, just making sure Vadim wasn’t about to launch a shoulder-mounted rocket through the window at him. “Okay.”

  Viktoriya settled back in the chair and began, “My husband, Stacey’s father, was KGB.”

  “I know.”

  And she squinted at him, as if she was just now asking herself how he’d found them.

  “I got the FBI involved.”

  “The FBI?” She seemed surprised.

  “Yeah, but the CIA railroaded them.”

  “Ah.” She nodded as if it made perfect sense. “Well, I’m sure they didn’t find out everything.” She licked her thin lips. “My husband’s name was Dmitri Aleksandrov. Stacey, or Anna…”

  He nodded, indicating that he’d discovered that as well, and she continued.

  “We had her in 1974, and I eventually brought her to New York. A couple years before Dmitri died.”

  “The FBI told me all that.”

  “Did they tell you that I was a plant?”

  No, they hadn’t told him that. He leaned forward. “What?”

  “I was an agent for the KGB, myself.”

  That was a shot to his blindside, and it rendered him paralyzed for a second.

  “Stacey doesn’t know,” she continued.

  “Didn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t.”

  The Connecticut geography was beginning to shift below his feet. Why did the world always seem to spin whenever a revelation too big to swallow was thrown at him?

  “Vadim Sidorov came over in the mid ’90s as an active agent. Stacey didn’t know it. I didn’t know it. Though I suppose I should have suspected it. All the signs were there.” She looked him in the eye, as if knowing the next part of her story would cause a reaction. “They met in New York and got married in ’99.”

  No reaction.

  “You knew this?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I found—” and he stopped himself. “Just keep talking.”

  “He was okay,” she said. “At least he was Russian.”

  Ah…

  But she waved the thought away once she saw it cross his face. “The CIA found him in 2005 and turned the bastard.” She paused, took another sip. “That’s when Stacey learned who he really was, that he was a spy. And in order to protect her, he sent her away with me. If the SVR learned that he’d been turned…well, he didn’t want to have to worry about Anna. We moved to Philadelphia the same year.”

  Jack couldn’t believe that she was talking about his wife. His own wife! Might as well be talking about some random woman picked out of a phone book! He didn’t even know her.

  “By that time, she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. Her love had been young and blind, and she wasn’t able to see through the mask he wore. Not until later. Not until she witnessed firsthand the ruthlessness he’d kept hidden from her.” Her slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. “And she wanted to settle down and start a family. She never signed up to be the wife of a double agent, always having to look over her shoulder. So when he sent her away, she decided to leave him for good.”

  He had a finger-hold on a rung, the ladder it was connected to leading somewhere uncertain. But at least he wasn’t free-falling anymore.

  “Then she met you.”

  He leaned forward more, hanging on every Russian-accented syllable that came fluttering from her KGB lips.

  “She loved you. Loves you.” And her eyes became heavy with something uncomfortable, a sense of guilt pinning them to the floor. “In 2007, they found out that Vadim was working for the Central Intelligence Agency, and they activated me.”

  “The SVR?”

  She nodded. “Officially, the KGB was disbanded in 1991. But in reality, the SVR just took over where it left off. Anyway, my mission was to eliminate Vadim. And I can only assume they chose me because of our unique relationship.” She shook her head ever so slightly, her lips pursing. “What are the odds that my daughter ends up marrying an agent here? One of the reasons we took the mission was because we saw it as a way to give our daughter a way out. And she unknowingly married right back into it all.” She took a moment to collect herself, staring into her drink. “Anna was scheduled to go on a business trip a few days later, so I contacted Vadim, said that if he was going to be in the area, I told him that she missed him and wanted to see him, that it would be a wonderful surprise if he just showed up. And I gave him the hotel she was to be staying at.”

  “Did he know she was married to me?” He tried to recall Stacey going away on a business trip in 2007 but wasn’t coming up with anything.

  “No. If he knew that, then he might have killed her. Which is why when Vadim showed up, Anna had no choice but to play along. Knowing nothing about my mission, she played the role of dutiful wife.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She shared her bed with him.”

  Jack’s heart filled with something explosive, and the pressure in his chest mounted. The last five years…

  “She had to, Jack. They were still married. If he knew about you…”

  “Why? Why did you set them up?”

  “I booked a room in the same hotel, and I waited for an opportunity to either poison him or shoot him with a silenced pistol. But I never got a chance. He was careful.”

  Jack raised a shaking hand to his mouth. I haven’t gotten this drunk since Joseph was conceived… “Was she drinking a lot?”

  “It was the only way she could get through it. She hated every second she was with him, and she felt like she was cheating on you. She drank more than I’ve ever seen he
r drink.” She spoke the words as if they would relieve him in some way, and maybe they would have. If not for what they implied.

  Silence settled between them.

  “Is Joseph my son?”

  His mother-in-law pressed her lips together as her eyes lit up with revelation. “Oh my god…” She quickly began shaking her head. “No. I mean, I don’t know. I guess it was about the same time that she must have conceived, but…I don’t know. She never told me about those two days. She has carried that shame all by herself. As have I.”

  “Holy—” Jack leaned back, locking his fingers behind his head and trying to keep it from spinning off. His fingerhold on the ladder slipped, and he was falling into hell again. Joseph… All the traits he loved so much in him, all the idiosyncrasies, the gentle mannerisms, all the things that made him the apple of his eye…were from Vadim? He wanted to puke. He wanted to pick up the glass coffee table and throw it through the huge windows. Who needed windows that big anyway?

  Tears of frustration began spilling from the corners of his eyes. His best buddy in the whole world, his little four-year-old boy, was a fraud. An imposter. A lie. His real father a Russian spy! His eyes clawed their way back up to hers. “Does she know I’m alive?”

  “No.”

  He smirked beneath the teardrops. “She looked pretty content just then, walking hand-in-hand with her other husband like some little—”

  “She doesn’t have a choice.”

  “What do you mean? He’ll kill her?”

  “Joseph.”

  He tried to navigate his brain around the swells of indignation. “Is he that dangerous?”

  “He was always a little unstable. Like I said, she’s afraid of him. Afraid of the CIA and afraid of the SVR. She’s trapped, Jack. And all she can do is pretend that everything is okay now that she has been reunited with her husband.”