A Man Overboard (25 page)
Authors: Shawn Hopkins
“And the books were to be translated according to his code?”
“Yes. When the SVR got wind of Vadim being turned, and I guess after my mother failed to eliminate him, they began feeding him false information. But then, when it looked like the CIA was planning on using him as a patsy for some kind of false flag, the SVR activated my mother again, not giving her the option to fail this time. But Fedyenka saw the false flag as a golden opportunity and made sure everything he did could be covered beneath its umbrella. He had Vadim as a patsy twice over.”
“But then your mom kills Vadim.”
“No. Then
you
survive and get the FBI involved. Which makes the CIA eventually scrap the op. But Fedyenka had planned for that and was still proceeding with his own attack, still setting up Vadim as the fall guy.”
“And then Vadim is killed.”
“And he needs another patsy.”
He felt the realization run over his brain like melting ice, cold understanding dripping into his eyes and clearing his vision. “You.”
“When you told me about the
Donzerly
book, I knew he’d been in our house. That he was setting me up.”
“What was he trying to accomplish by blowing up an event about water?”
“A war that would revive the Soviet Union and make Russia the world’s primary superpower.”
“He thought Russia could win that war?”
“With everything he was. He was a rogue agent, though. Nothing he was doing came down from the chain of command. He took it upon himself to instigate a war, to get the show on the road. Only it couldn’t be discovered that the attack came from some radical terrorist, which is why he preferred it to be covered by an inside job. He didn’t care who started the war, as long as there was one. There are parties on both sides, it seems, that want to get the whole thing over with.”
“But why
this
event?”
“I got him to believe that I was totally on board with his psychotic plan, and I suggested something that would really stir the American public into action. The kind of impulsive action that would make everyone too angry to think things through. The need to go kill someone. Anyone. Like after 9/ll. Like the first Gulf War. Just like Americans wouldn’t tolerate that ‘babies being thrown from incubators’ fiction, neither would they tolerate something like this.”
Jack’s head spun. “This was
your
idea?”
“I needed to stop him. And the best shot I had was letting him go through with it. It was risky, but it was the only way I could be sure he wouldn’t come after our family, or that he wouldn’t try blowing something else up later on.”
He rubbed his forehead, trying to massage understanding into his brain, and watched as Stacey’s lower lip began trembling.
“But I couldn’t get to the last two bombs in time,” she whispered.
His wife racing around a stadium trying to deactivate bombs before they could detonate? Who the hell was this woman? Who had he married? “What about Fedyenka?”
“When you mentioned the book, I knew he was planning on pinning the whole thing on me. I don’t even know how he was planning on doing that, or how it would appear that Russia was behind it. But I had the drop on him. I hit him in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher.”
“And…he’s dead?” He almost wished he wasn’t so that he could do the honors himself.
“I hit him a lot.”
Jack turned her tale over in his head, searching for a crack or fissure that would topple the whole story. When he couldn’t find one, he asked, “So is it done now?”
She managed a small, pleading smile that barely made it through her mask of exhaustion. “I guess that depends on you.”
The puzzle pieces were spinning too violently for him to place them in their right and proper places. The storm would have to run its course before he could effectively connect all the dots and decide whether or not he believed her story. Right now…he just didn’t know. She’d lied to him before. He was angry and sad, but he was relieved that she was okay. He didn’t know what that meant. Regardless of her motive, she’d helped plan an attack that killed up to fifty innocent people.
Stacey climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to her shoulders, tears trickling onto the pillows.
Jack just stared at her.
What was he supposed to do? Make a citizen’s arrest? Call the cops? The FBI? Homeland? What about Joseph? Could he live with himself if he chose to forget it? Even if an investigation didn’t lead to Stacey, would they really be able to move on?
Stacey closed her eyes and said softly, “I’m sorry. For everything. You deserve so much more than this.” And then she opened her eyes and looked at him. “I want you to do whatever you think is right. If you have to turn me in, then turn me in.” She paused. “But there’s something you should know first.”
“What?”
“We’re having another baby.”
* * * *
Jack sat at the kitchen table, his fifth cup of coffee resting between his hands and sending wisps of steam floating upward. He’d wanted alcohol but was able to resist the urge for that familiar numbness, knowing that he needed to stay as sharp as possible, to think through this whole mess with a sound mind.
After Stacey fell asleep, Jack had sat there next to the bed, watching her until the early hours of the morning. The slap she delivered proved to be a padded one. And while it spun his head and dizzied his senses, it was not the blow of betrayal and mass murder that he had feared. Staring at her that long brought back shared memories that would always be precious to him, and he realized that he
wanted
to believe her. As the storm clouds piled up in the sky above the house and rain began to fall, Jack wondered what purpose she would have to lie now? With Viktoriya dead, Vadim dead, and this other guy dead, she could’ve left last night, disappearing into another identity after the explosion. Of course, he realized that she could’ve returned for Joseph, and that she might have him thrown off another boat as soon as possible. Maybe she was a Russian plant and this was her cover all along. Maybe her mission had been to stop Fedyenka, a rogue agent operating according to his own volition. Maybe she was CIA and the whole thing was more complicated and twisted than he could ever understand. How could he ever
really
know? He could get in touch with Johnson, but if Stacey was telling the truth, then he would have exposed her background to the FBI for nothing. Then she’d probably end up being
their
patsy for some future terrorist plot. It was these thoughts, and scores like them, that prevented him from fading to morning. Instead, the sound of thunder accompanying him down the stairs, he started on the coffee.
And there he still sat; only now he was watching Stacey and Joseph in the room across from him. They were tickling each other, laughing, and running around, morphing continuously into a wide variety of animals. Joseph’s adoration for his mother was unmistakable, pure joy beaming in his eyes as they regarded her. How could Jack ever take that away from his son? How could he put his son through what he’d experienced at six years old? No, he
needed
to believe her, for Joseph’s sake if not for his own. But that wasn’t even the most influential component helping make up his mind. The biggest nail pinning his verdict to the courtroom door was the stunning revelation that his wife was expecting again. Whether she was telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth suddenly became inconsequential. What was he going to do, deliver his pregnant wife to the CIA? Condemn the woman carrying his child to some black site to be water-boarded, the rest of her life spent in a secret prison somewhere? Would the child be presented to him at the Pentagon, a flag-swaddled gesture of good faith on behalf of a forgiving nation? Not likely.
Love believes all things, hopes all things,
endures
all things.
He sipped more coffee. He hadn’t spoken to her yet today, but they’d made eye contact a few times, and she seemed to know that he really didn’t have a choice now that his unborn child was part of the equation. Maybe that had been her plan, her security net, her assurance that he wouldn’t turn her over… He might never know for sure, but he was throwing all his chips down on love and hoping for the best. There was no other option, was there?
He stood and made his way into the living room.
Stacey watched him curiously as he approached. When he sat down on the floor beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders and kissing her lightly on the cheek, she asked, “So is this goodbye or hello?”
Joseph jumped in his lap, and he tousled his hair. “You lied to me twice, three strikes and you’re out.”
“I’ll hit this one out of the park, I swear.” She smiled. “I love you, Jack. I always have. You know that’s why I never told you anything, right? To protect you? To keep you?”
He took her hand. “We’ll take it from here.” And then he paused. “Under one condition.”
“Anything.”
“You quit your job. No more event planning, no more anything. Stay here with the kids.”
“Deal.”
“And I want the whole story. Step by step. There are still some holes that I need filled.” And indeed there was. One of them was the books. Who wanted them? Was it the CIA that burnt down his house like Johnson thought, or was it Fedyenka reclaiming his books and collecting Vadim’s letters in order to properly make Vadim out to be the fall guy? Were the books and letters meant to be saved and later planted or destroyed with certainty? He would ask her later. But not now.
“Okay.”
And though he knew the happiness was slightly exaggerated beneath all the unasked questions and the shadows of doubt that still lurked within their house, he thought back to when he was sinking in the middle of the ocean and the three things his mind fixated on in the face of certain death. Stacey. Joseph. God. And though the last of the three was vague and still needed some pursuing, the first two were not. They were everything to him and always would be. The coming months wouldn’t be easy, but he was jumping in with both feet, perfectly aware that no ship would be coming back for him this time. This was it. He was giving himself to her, pledging his trust to her.
He hoped it was the right decision. He hoped Grandmom was right.
* * * *
Later that night, they watched as the corporate news channels and the White House all blamed some new Bin Laden for the attack. They were already talking about more police state legislation needing to be passed and that more troops should be sent somewhere fast. No one knew where exactly, but everyone assumed the same thing. Some windbags on certain “news” channels were already calling for a nuclear strike on Iran.
“Well,” Stacey said. “Looks like everyone’s getting what they wanted out of this anyway.”
Jack nodded. “They’ll finally get their war with Iran, and they’ll torch the Constitution for more Patriot Acts…”
“Every American family will probably be assigned a live-in TSA agent.”
“Oh, man, that would suck.”
“And you,
Jerry
, will be named an enemy of the state and executed for treason by a new division of thought police.”
“Think I’ll be in Canada by the time that happens.”
“Still part of the NAU. There’s no getting away now, my love. Agent Johnson’s probably turning you in as we speak.”
He frowned. “You’re right. Russia gets more time to prepare as we jump into another war. We’re the Soviets fighting Afghanistan, and they’re just waiting until we’re spread so thin and fighting so many wars… It might as well have been a false flag attack by both sides. They both got what they wanted out of it.”
She picked up the remote and shut off the war propaganda. Leaning into him, she kissed him.
He thought that he would resist any type of intimacy for a while, but he found himself leaning into her kiss, everything that had happened in the last few months suddenly gone. Thrown overboard, stories of cancer, missing doctors, murdered friends, burnt down houses, false flag operations, other husbands… It was all a dream, and her kiss had finally awakened him from it.
If only that were so
, he thought, sadness returning at the thought of Ivan, Donny, and even Viktoriya.
But soon Stacey had his mind off them, too, and Jack could only hope that there would be no masked men waking him up this time.
Love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things…
He found himself muttering, “Amen.”
Stacey smiled at him.
FOR A SPECIAL ALTERNATE EPILOGUE, CLICK
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About the Author
Shawn Hopkins is the author of the supernatural action thriller,
Progeny,
and the conspiracy thriller,
The Solomon Key
. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and two daughters.
For updates, author interviews, booktrailers, his blog, and all kinds of other stuff, visit his
website
. You can also follow him on Twitter @shawnahopkins.
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