Prologue (4 page)

Robert F. Kennedy, that was the disk Grace needed, deVere remembered. Her class was studying the Robert F. Kennedy administration. “Robert F. Kennedy,” he said to etch it in his mind.

“Oh yes,” Raisa said, looking up. “Most historians prefer John Kennedy, but I like Bobby. He had more insight, I think, and he didn’t have the other Kennedy’s, ah...problems.”

DeVere nodded as Raisa prattled on about Robert F. Kennedy’s brilliant War on Poverty and ability to focus the attention of the
U.S.
on social injustice at home and not get involved, as some misguided reactionary elements in the government were advocating, when the
Malay Peninsula
adopted Communism in the late 1960s.

“Unfortunately, after the Kennedys left office, President John Lindsay committed America to stopping the advancement of Communism in Western Europe, but his reactionary Euro-Centrism only allowed the forces of progress, under the brilliant leadership of Fidel Castro and Ché Guevara, to liberate Central and most of South America. Naturally, we hope to be able to liberate the rest of
Western Europe
some day as well.”

The pictures showed a smiling Castro in
Nicaragua
, and a determined Ché in
Mexico City
standing next to a pinch-faced frowning soldier with a general’s insignia. Paul recognized him as the American defector who had helped Ché’s campaigns.

She moved in front of the largest panel, which depicted
America
’s capitulation. DeVere knew the story. In the late 1970s, Ché and Castro assembled an army of a million foot soldiers on
America
’s southern border. The
Soviet Union
and
China
fought the first of their two Great Wars. In an effort to oppose Soviet expansion, the
United States
supported
China
, which was then devastated by Russian nuclear and biological weapons. Millions, including over 315,000 American soldiers, died like ants. Then chemical weapons were detonated in
Phoenix
,
Houston
, and
New Orleans
, and a dirty bomb in
St. Louis
. In order to prevent America from suffering the same holocaust that the Soviet Union and China had just experienced, the United States signed an appeasement deal in the early 1980s, ceding the central and southern states to Soviet control and agreeing on what was then called “Hong Kong status” for the Northeast, the West Coast, and the Great Lakes states. As part of the deal, and to prevent any East-West holocaust, the
United States
had surrendered all of their own weapons of mass destruction, which had been quickly seized by international arms inspectors.

She talked cheerfully about the advancements of Soviet science making life better for Americans: the microchip, personal computer, and cellular telephone technology. “Unfortunately, there are revisionists who want to credit Americans with those inventions, but that’s to be expected,” she said.

He was about to thank the girl for her time and really mean it, when she pointed to a picture deVere hadn’t seen. “Soviet medicine and health care immeasurably improved the lot of the thousands of Americans who weren’t able to afford even basic medical services,” she said, pointing to a picture of a spit-and-polish Soviet ambulance in front of a house. Two uniformed EMTs were hurrying with a stretcher carrying a young boy. A young boy almost…Peter’s age.

Suddenly, he was in that hotel in
Tulsa
,
Oklahoma
again, sharing a room with his twin brother, Peter...

Peter started coughing again, but this time it went beyond the usual brief racking fit. He kept coughing and coughing, kicking off the bedclothes and falling to the floor. Alarmed, Paul scrambled off his bed and knocked on his parents’ door across the hotel hallway.

“Honey?”

“Mommy, Peter’s coughing a lot.”

His father opened the door, fumbling with his trousers.
His mother, hugging her flannel nightgown, shot by him into the boys’ room, where she picked Peter off the floor and placed him back in bed, bending over him to keep him on the bed.

His father appeared in the doorway. “It’s time to call the ambulance,” his mother said. His father nodded and went to the phone in
their own
room and called the Soviet ambulance service. His mother sat staring out the window into the blackness as Peter writhed in agony under her hand. She kept massaging his head, saying over and over, “It’ll be all right, sweetie, it’ll be all right.” In the next room his father called.
And called.
And called.
And…

“Sir?”

DeVere snapped back. He blinked and looked around until he saw the face of the guide looking up at him. She looked as if something were wrong with him.

“Sir?” she repeated.

“Sorry, lost in thought,” deVere said.

She nodded. “It happens a lot with people of your generation.”

“Old people,” he said kindly.

She flushed, looking at the floor. “My grandfather, you remind me of him.”

“I’m not that old,” he said.

She smiled and took the joke.
“No, of course.
Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you. You’re good at what you do.”

She nodded. “I think everybody should understand how we got where we are today. It’s important.”

“Agreed,” deVere said.

He went to the bookstore and told the clerk what school his daughter attended, her class number and the assignment code. He looked it up on his computer and burned the disk.

“Why can’t she download it from the site?” deVere asked.

“We try to encourage the students to come to the library,” the clerk said. “Get them out away from their computers for a bit, look around the library some.”

“So you see a lot of parents on their way home from work, do you?”

The clerk sighed. “You’re the eighth today.”

DeVere drove home, tracing his finger around the locked reinforced steel case on the seat beside him. Yes, he said to himself. It’s most important we know how we got where we are today. So the mistakes of the past can not only be avoided in the future, they can be undone.

Chapter 3

Natasha Nikitin wiped the palm of her left hand across her forehead before drying it on her bed sheet. Even stripped down to her panties and a loose T-shirt the heat pouring in her open bedroom window from the
Dorchester
street
below immobilized her. She sat splayed on her bed, her laptop and IM3 decoder opened in front of her. For a moment she wondered if closing the window might provide relief, but rejected the idea.

The locals remarked that this was becoming one of
Boston
’s hottest Julys in years. Yesterday, at the quaint Independence Day celebration and concert along the Charles River, the heat had been oppressive. She had asked Nigel to take her home even before the Boston Pops had performed their legendary rendition of the 1812 Overture to cascading fireworks, and the Overture was one of her favorite pieces-even though it had been co-opted by Americans in the Northeast District as some sort of stirring nostalgic reminiscence of past glory.

Natasha readjusted the search mode on the IM3 and continued hacking into Paul deVere’s computer files. The IM3 was the latest in Soviet computer intrusion technology, and it was making quick work of the clumsy passwords and trips that deVere, or more likely Lewis Ginter, had set. Despite the ease of intrusion, Natasha consistently came up as empty in her hacking efforts as she had in searching deVere’s office. In the eight weeks she had been in Boston she had gleaned zilch on deVere and his activities.

Computer hacking was not limited to Boston-heck, any agency operative could have hacked into most files from a cubicle in Yeltsengrad-but MIT had a closed circuit on-line file sharing system which required MIT access. The defense system wasn’t perfect but it did require an agent to be physically in the campus loop to achieve penetration. For Natasha, the MIT closed circuit on-line file system was not distressing. It had, after all, required her to be stationed in the Northeast District. Natasha sometimes found it hard to believe that only eight weeks ago she had hurried across the headquarters of the Central Agency in Yeltsengrad. Winner of a plum assignment in the Northeast District, she had had to report to Igor Rostov, now her handler.

She had found his building, his floor and his office and knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again. No answer. “Comrade Rostov?”

“Come in.”

She opened the door cautiously, peering around the frame into the dimly lit interior. Igor Rostov sat behind the desk staring at a computer screen. He didn’t look up when Natasha entered.

“Close the door.”

Natasha did, and walked toward the lone empty chair. The office surprised her; she had expected something more impressive. Even
her own
office was nicer.

“Sit.” Igor still had not taken his eyes off the screen.

Natasha sat. Igor typed something in the computer, closed the screen,
then
turned to face Natasha. “Tomorrow you leave for your new posting in
Boston
,” he said.

“Yes sir.”

“First time in the Northeast District?”

“That’s right.”

Igor nodded.
“MIT lab intern.”

“That’s right.”

“Excited, are you?”

“I’m happy to have the chance to serve my country.”

Igor snorted.
“Oh, no doubt.
You aren’t even thinking about the bars and nightclubs, cars, restaurants, clothing boutiques or the much higher standard of living than we
have
here in Yeltsengrad.”