Red Dawn Rising (Red Returning Trilogy) (39 page)

“Don’t you?” he asked with knowing eyes.

“It’s possible,” Ava answered. “You know that one of our saboteurs is talking. It seems we didn’t get them all.” She turned to Liesl. “And you may not be in the clear yet, either, Liesl. President Gorev, once again, is having to deal with subversives in his midst. We believe Pavel Andreyev and Vadim Fedorovsky are on a short list for execution now. Until they, like Volynski, are gone, you may not be entirely safe.”

“Who is?” Liesl asked bitterly. “Certainly not all those people on the bridge yesterday. They were just going home from work, thinking about what to fix for dinner. They might have noticed the tugboat heading their way—like the postman coming down my sidewalk on a calm Saturday morning—but never suspected they might not make it off the bridge. So
who
among us is safe?” She paused. “I prefer to live like someone who’s never been shot at.”

Ben reached up and stroked Liesl’s arm. She leaned over and laid her cheek on his head. “I’m so sorry about Jeremy.”

Ben released her hand and picked up the call button. “Anna and I have known a very long time that Jeremy’s days were numbered. I’m just sorry I ushered in the last one.”

The nurse arrived with a syringeful of relief that she inserted into Ben’s IV. It was potent enough to extinguish his words, slow his breathing, and lower his eyelids. Liesl and Ava moved quietly toward the door, where Liesl stopped and looked back at her sleeping friend. She returned to his side, laid a gentle hand on his head, and prayed, “Lord, please heal him. And make him know it was you.”

Chapter 48

T
he national address had been called for seven o’clock Wednesday evening. President Noland would speak from the Oval Office on a matter of national security, his press secretary had announced that morning. After the arrest of Hans Kluen, the aborted attack on the Brooklyn Bridge simultaneous with the mysterious explosion of a private helicopter over the river, the Inauguration Day attack, and the attempt to bring down the Supreme Court Building, the nation staggered under the weight of its own fear. Every news outlet in the country had stoked that fear until it was white hot. And they didn’t even know about the contents of Sonya Tretsky’s little flash drive. Not yet.

Cass and Jordan had just finished the dishes and moved into the living room of the Southampton house, its undraped windows overlooking the night sea. The following morning, they would accompany Jilly Kluen on her first visit to the prison where Hans awaited trial. It promised to be sensational, the media had drooled. Cass would liken it to an elaborate stage set where drama and pathos would play out to the end of the third act. Then the audience would go back to their normal lives, and a stagehand would turn off the lights. After the spectacle of Hans Kluen’s trial, though, there would be no normal life for his wife and daughter to return to.

Even now, they had already lapsed into something like an altered state—like those
Titanic
survivors Cass had recalled after finding her apartment ravaged.

And so it was that Cass had come to pull two fleece throws from a cabinet, spreading one over her mother, who’d just come down from her bedroom and curled into a recliner near the television, with little more than a smile in greeting. Jilly Kluen had seldom spoken since her husband’s arrest on Monday. For two days, she’d puttered silently about the house, cleaning out closets and drawers, rearranging accessories, polishing the silver service, and hauling withered houseplants to the garbage. One might consider such mindless chores mere distraction from the ruin, but Cass knew better. As Jilly had done her whole life, she was systematically shedding an outer layer of blighted skin. How many times could she do that before she discovered nothing new growing beneath? Had that time now come?

As Cass settled onto the sofa next to Jordan, she pulled the other throw over them both, warming to the soft spread of fleece and the symbolic bundling of two friends into one couple. When he stretched his arm around her and pulled her against his side, she fit. As if molded together in another time, predetermined by an unseen hand, they fit to each other.
Is that possible?
she wondered as she looked up at the contentment on his face.
Did God do this? If he did, will he now pull me and Jordan closer to him? And Mom, too?
Cass believed he would.

Jilly turned in her chair, her eyes lingering on Cass and Jordan, something fearful in her face.

“Mom, can I get you anything? A cup of coffee maybe?”

“No, dear. I just need to see you.”

Cass got up and went to her mother. She knelt beside her and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll get through this, Mom.” Jilly stared into space. “And don’t forget—it was Hans who warned the FBI about the bridge. It was Hans who dared to sneak that flash drive out of that woman’s purse. Without the names of all those terrorists, imagine what might be happening all over the country right now. And it was … my father who positively identified the man responsible for all this.” She searched her mother’s stricken face. “We can be proud of him for that. Can’t we?”

Jilly looked into her daughter’s eyes, but only for an instant. It was long enough, though, for Cass to read her mother’s dismissal of such a notion. “I will visit him every weekend, but there will be no pride.”

She motioned for Cass to turn on the television. It was time.

Travis Noland watched the cameramen scurry around the Oval Office to connect their cords and test the lighting. His press secretary stood by with a copy of the speech in his hands and the pallor of doom on his face. The president had waited until just moments ago to issue the speech he’d written himself. There was no time to assuage the press secretary’s misgivings or alter the message. Travis Noland had finally reckoned with that burning prompt inside him.

At the end of the 3-2-1 countdown, the president looked straight at the camera. “Good evening, my fellow Americans. I trust I have the ear of the nation at a time when everyone needs to listen and understand the truth about recent assaults on our country. Too much misinformation has compounded the harm. I hope to reverse that course tonight.

“Once again, our nation has withstood acts of terrorism within our borders. We suffer, yes, but we don’t succumb. Terrorists interrupted our inaugural tradition. They didn’t eliminate it. What they did was prove the necessity for it, lest we fall to their brand of tyranny.

“Whether to destroy the seat of this land’s highest court or merely demonstrate that they could, the terrorists who bombed our Supreme Court Building only demonstrated their pathetic need for something they’ll never have—power over the American people.

“Monday afternoon on the East River off Manhattan, a man charged the Brooklyn Bridge with a tugboat full of explosives, a man bent on revenge for his army son’s death while serving our country in Afghanistan. You’ve seen the footage shown repeatedly on all the newscasts. While filming the FBI and NYPD’s battle to stop the tug, one cameraman inadvertently captured the midair explosion of a helicopter just downriver. We believe the man responsible for all these acts of terror was on that
helicopter
. We are now certain his name was Ivan Volynski, a former Russian KGB officer who sought to intimidate us, to frighten us into submission, and to warn us away from interfering with his grab for power in Russia. It was his agenda to return that nation to its glory days as the USSR. But there is no glory in brutal tyranny or cowardly acts of hit-and-run violence.

“What hasn’t been reported to you is the network of subversives this man left behind in our country, a sabotage network that would have brought widespread destruction upon us. Through the cooperation of two such saboteurs, others in that network have since been captured.

“Are we safe now? No more than we’ve ever been. Are there others out there who this moment are assembling their devices of destruction? Yes. Whether they act alone or within a terrorist cell such as we just uncovered, our greatest defense against these people is you, the private American citizen. When you practice situational awareness and report what rouses your suspicion, we’re all safer. Terrorists must live somewhere. Maybe near you. Maybe they send their children to school with yours. They must gather materials for explosives and other devices and weapons, perhaps in your store or business. They must scout their targets. If they aren’t lone wolves, they must gather with the rest of their cell. Be observant. No, don’t spy on your neighbors or bring unfounded accusations. We won’t tolerate McCarthyism again. But wherever you are, observe your surroundings and those who operate within them.

“Now, there is something else you should know. Ivan Volynski … was my brother. A half brother I didn’t know I had until I was twenty-six. I haven’t seen or heard from him in thirty-five years. Until this terrorist leader was recently identified, I had no idea this nation was under attack by one of my own kin. It grieves me to tell you this. I am not even entirely certain that my estranged relationship with him wasn’t partial cause for his violence against us. I doubt I will ever know. But there’s one thing of which I am certain. None of us can afford to ignore the peril around us. Whether it resides in our families or in foreign countries of strangers, we have to be alert and ready to respond.

“If this makes you fearful, then choose not to be. And listen to this.
‘God
did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.’ That is our ultimate strength and protection.

“God bless you all.”

The breakers behind the house tumbled on a crest of shimmering white foam, the kind that brightens a desolate, midnight beach. That was the hour Cass chose to pay one last visit to Rachel, alone.

Jordan and Jilly had long retired to their rooms, and Cass to hers, at least until the others slept. Now, she made her way across the back lawn, over the dunes, and toward the sound of tides pushing toward her. How many times she had stood at this threshold to Rachel’s chosen grave and wailed without voice for forgiveness, knowing it would never come. And still she returned, drawn as helplessly to that shore as its waters were to the lunar call.

But no more. Something had happened that Cass didn’t fully understand. She had finally reached the end of herself. Even before the night she first followed Hans into his tragic world, she’d used up all her tricks to survive the scourge, the relentless thrashing of Rachel’s vile act. Cass had become an empty chamber where the howling echoed without end.

Like a spit of foam riding the turbulence of a powerful wave, she’d been hurled through the past week with no control over its path, tossed by circumstances not of her design. On the way, though, a strange thing had happened. She forgot herself. She’d been swept into the chase to stop a monstrous threat to people she didn’t know. And the howling had stopped. Somewhere in that bell tower, she’d found her peace.

“I won’t be back, Rachel,” Cass whispered to the sea. “I am forgiven.”

Chapter 49

P
eople don’t get married on Thursday,” Ian insisted.

“Well, we are, Pop,” Cade said, wrapping his arm about Liesl’s waist. “When you’re engaged to someone as unpredictable and prone to calamity as Liesl Bower, you don’t wait around for protocol. Not anymore.”

Liesl smiled coyly at Ian. “Want to make it a double wedding?”

“Nothing doing,” Ian replied. “I can’t marry somebody with a gun on her hip. Besides, I’m too old to marry again. And so is she.”

“That’s for Ava to decide, don’t you think?” Cade said.

They heard a door open behind them and footsteps on the wood floor. “It’s all set for four o’clock this afternoon,” said Rev. Scovall, joining them in the narthex of the church. He looked at his watch. “It’s almost ten now.” He was fairly panting. “Mrs. Augustino is rounding up refreshments and some flowers.” He wiped a handkerchief across his damp brow. “I haven’t been this spontaneous in a long time. I rather like the rush.”