Girl of Vengeance (43 page)

Adelina’s nerves were as taut as they’d ever been, the muscles in her neck stiff, her hands lightly shaking as she finished applying her mascara. The anxiety was a pit in her throat, slow burning and twisting like a rabbit on a spit. She was back in the same room she’d occupied off and on for more than thirty years. The room where she’d cried and wept. The room where she’d tried to nurture and protect her daughters, and the room where she gave up her dreams. The room where she’d waited all night after her 1 am arrival, tossing and turning, worried about what the morning would bring.

She sighed. She was afraid to go out there. Afraid to see all of her daughters. She was afraid of their judgment and their anger.

It didn’t make any sense, really. She’d presided over a thousand family functions over the years. Birthdays and graduations, marriages, Christmas and Thanksgiving meals. She’d never been perfect, but she’d always done her best.

But inside, she was consumed by shame. Shame that she’d stayed married to Richard so long. Shame that she’d listened to his threats and his abuse. Shame that she’d let her daughters be exposed to such things.

Above all, shame that she had sent Andrea away. Even if it was to save her life.

So she stayed in her room and fretted. She prayed and wrote in the journal Julia had returned to her. She tried to build up the courage to face them.

And then, a knock on the door.

Adelina sat straight in her chair. “Yes?” she called. “I’ll be ready in a moment.”

Silence. Breathing outside the room. Then the words, “Mother, may I come in? It’s Andrea.”

Adelina sniffed. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was strong enough to do this. She could do it. She could do it.

“Come in,” she said. Her voice cracked.

The door opened and Andrea slipped inside.

Andrea wore one of Carrie’s dresses, a professional looking knee-length black affair with a wide belt.

She stepped into the room and said, “Won’t you come out?”

Adelina swallowed. Then she whispered, “You know I didn’t want to let you go. But I was afraid Richard would harm you. He told me he would, and I believed him.”

Andrea nodded. “I know.”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

Andrea walked close to her mother and rested her hands on her shoulders. Then she said, “Yes. I forgive you. You gave me my life. And my faith. Then you saved my life, and I didn’t even know it. There’s nothing to forgive, Mother. I’m your daughter and I always will be.” As Andrea spoke, tears began to run down her face. Then she whispered, “I’ve always wanted to have my mother. And now I do. Now come out. The rest of your family is waiting for you.”

Adelina whispered, “Okay.”

Andrea turned and opened the bedroom door. Quivering with apprehension, Adelina followed. Out into the hallway, the hallway she’d walked through literally a thousand times. But never, not even during the worst of times with Richard, had she walked down the hallway with this much fear.

Her daughters were in the living room. As she entered, Julia came to her feet, followed by Carrie. Her two eldest daughters held hands and watched her with concern in their faces. Alexandra was close by, her husband’s arm around her shoulders. Even Jessica came to her feet, Sarah beside her.

Carrie’s eyes were wet. She reached out and took Adelina’s hand. Julia said, “Mom … welcome home.”

“Welcome back, Your Highness.” The speaker was US Air Force General Hainey, who had arrived at Andrews Air Force Base once again to meet George-Phillip. This time, George-Phillip had just arrived on a return flight, which had raced the sun around the earth. He’d left London at 5 am—midnight in Washington—and arrived at Joint Air Base Andrews just before 3 am.

He shook hands with the General, the General’s aids, and got in the car that had been provided by the Ambassador.

Inside the car was Linda Happer. Officially a translator with the Embassy, Linda was actually the MI6 Chief of Station in Washington, DC.

“Good morning, Chief,” Linda said. “Nice flight suit.”

“That’s questionable,” he replied. “What’s the news?”

“That’s the key question, sir. There’s a lot—first this.” She handed across a copy of
The Washington Post.
Splashed across the front page in two-inch high type was the headline:
GRAND JURY OPENS WAR CRIMES PROBE.
Beneath, the subheadline said:
Richard Thompson, Leslie Collins implicated in poison gas massacre.
Underneath the headline, taking up nearly half of the top half of the front page was a color photograph of the inside of a cave. Arm in arm, with wide grins on their faces, were a much younger Leslie Collins, Richard Thompson and Vasily Karatygin.

“Well. That’s something,” he said.

He scanned through the article, then flipped to the second page and his eyes widened. The headline on page two said,
Former headquarters of CIA officials became a crypt.
A photograph showed a cave scattered with bones and bodies. A cabinet was overturned, and papers were scattered about the room.

The cave had been sealed for thirty years following the massacre.

“We used dynamite to blast the opening to the cave,” said Vasily Karatygin, the former Soviet defector and conspirator who is now dying. “It was the only way guaranteed to keep the secret. Everyone who assisted us died. But the documents, and the weapons, were all left behind. It was death to go back in that cave.”

By the time I entered the cave last week, the sarin had long since dissipated, leaving behind a monument to monstrosity. Inside the cave were twenty-two bodies, both men and women, all of whom presumably worked for the conspirators. I also photographed and examined dozens of documents and papers, which are depicted in this report. The most damning: a letter from Adelina Thompson to her husband. The letter is terse and unemotional, consistent with the background of their marriage (see A Marriage Forged in Revolution, page A6), and demands that Thompson release sufficient funds to pay for renovations to the Thompsons’ San Francisco home and for their daughter to attend day care. The letter (pictured below) is the clearest and most damning evidence placing Richard Thompson at the scene of one of the most notorious war crimes of the twentieth century.

“You’re mentioned in the reporting, Your Highness. In the story about the Thompsons’ marriage. You’re discussed in there quite a bit. The Ambassador is livid.”

George-Phillip murmured, “I’m sure he is.” He felt at peace. If he had to resign his position today, he would be quite content.

She grinned.

“One more bit of news, sir.”

“Yes?”

“The Virginia State Police caught up with Oswald O’Leary, sir. He’s being held at a precinct in Alexandria for the time being. American Diplomatic Security is on their way to question them, but they gave me a courtesy call.”

“I see. Are we invited, do you think?”

Linda nodded. “Yes, sir. If you’d like to question him, we can go right now.”

“Let’s go then. I have a meeting with the US Secretary of State at 10 am, so we’ll need to make this quick and get back to the Embassy. I’m going to need a shower, that cockpit is cramped.”

This was a disaster.

Leslie Collins sat in his office, still in his bathrobe, reading the special report in
T
he
Washington Post
, which had been delivered less than twenty minutes before.

A disaster. Bad enough that his photograph was splashed across the front page. The interior of the special report was much worse. Photographs of bodies. Their headquarters in the mountains of Afghanistan, bodies still scattered inside the cave, along with gear and personal property that clearly belonged to both Collins and Richard Thompson.

A timeline of Andrea Thompson’s kidnapping. Links between Leslie’s holding company and the kidnappers.

He was finished. Destroyed.

He turned the pages, growing more and more distressed with each word he read. This morning his colleagues would be reading this report. His
children
would be reading it. The news media would circle like sharks, searching for weaknesses, smelling the blood, and then they would attack, sawing their teeth into his hide, ripping him limb from limb until there was nothing left.

The article was so damning.

A senior source in the investigation told
T
he
Washington Post
that investigators now have strong evidence Collins ordered the kidnapping and murder of Andrea Thompson. Sources speculate that Collins was concerned that once it became public that Andrea Thompson was not related to Richard Thompson, the resulting questions would quickly lead to the exposure of their involvement in the Wakhan Massacre.

Worried about that eventuality, Collins had a series of accounts opened in the Caymans in Richard Thompson’s name. Initially, investigators believed the accounts were what they appeared to be, and opened an investigation into both Thompson and his eldest daughter Julia Wilson.

“The trail didn’t make sense,” said the
Post’s
source in the investigation. “Once we obtained Julia Wilson’s cooperation, the story quickly unraveled.”

According to senior officials, Wilson will testify before the grand jury on Monday morning.

He leaned forward and placed his forehead on the desk. There had to be a way to survive this. There had to. He’d survived worse. He’d controlled lives. He’d run spies in a dozen countries; he’d protected his nation for a career spanning forty years.
Why?
This was terrible.

Collins jerked in his seat when the phone rang.

The secure line.

Hand shaking, he reached out and picked it up and put the receiver to his ear. “Collins.”

“Leslie, it’s Ralph Williams.”

Collins closed his eyes. Ralph Williams was former Senator Williams, former head of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and now Director of Central Intelligence. Williams was the highest ranking Intelligence official in the United States, and Collins’ boss.

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t come in this morning. I’ll be sending around a classified documents officer to collect anything you have in your safe at home.”

“Sir?” Collins let a little outrage creep into his voice.

“Let me be clear, Collins. You aren’t coming back. Now, or ever. You’ll be lucky if you don’t land in prison, but I guarantee you’ll never work in public office again. I suggest you get started writing your memoirs if you have any hope of protecting your reputation.”

Williams didn’t even use common courtesy. He simply hung up the phone, leaving Collins with a clicking silence.

Collins put the phone down.

He took a deep breath. Thompson was equally implicated in the story, which detailed far too much of what had happened over the years. There would be congressional hearings, and if the newspaper story was accurate, the grand jury might well indict Collins. But that wasn’t the biggest danger.

Prince Roshan was the biggest danger. Collins knew that if Roshan saw this article, he would likely send assassins immediately, lest Collins or Thompson implicate him. Roshan was ambitious—one day he hoped to be King. But there were more than 200 Royal Princes in Saudi Arabia—he was but one. A scandal would wipe out his chances for good.

Killers might already be on the way.

Christ.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Collins picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Hello?” The answer at the other end of the line was terse.

Leslie coughed and his voice cracked when he spoke. “This is Mister Collins. I know it’s late, but I’m hoping to get a ride to see my friend.”

There was a long silence at the other end. The code phrase was simple enough. It was a panic signal, a signal designed long ago to allow for his quick departure from the country when and if needed. He’d had that insurance set aside for more than ten years. Now it was time to use it.

The man at the other end finally returned. “Ten am. Stafford.”

Damn it.
Stafford Regional Airport was forty miles south of Washington, and rush hour would be coming soon. They needed to get out of the house right away. He stood and walked out of his office, shouting, “Meredith! Meredith!”

He stomped down the hall to their room, still shouting her name. She let out a panicked shriek when he switched on the bedroom light, then she cried, “What? What is it?”

“Pack one bag with your most valuable possessions and get dressed in something comfortable. Comfortable shoes. You’ve got ten minutes and we’re leaving.”

“What?” she cried, sitting up in the bed.

He reached down and grasped her shoulders and leaned forward, nearly touching his nose to hers. “Pack. Bags. Get. Dressed. I’m leaving in ten minutes. With you or without you.”

When he let go, she sagged back onto the bed, horror on her face. He didn’t care. He marched into the walk-in closet and tore off his bathrobe, then began getting dressed. He rarely wore them, but today he put on a pair of tough jeans and a thick shirt. Then he took a backpack off the top shelf and began stuffing clothes into it.