“Grebnevo?” asked Sean.
“We don’t have time for this!” urged Katherine, keeping an eye on the clock.
“We have all the time we want! We are in control now!” exclaimed Surkov. He had spent sixty years planning that day and was going to savor every moment.
“Grebnevo was our home for the project, where your twin grew up. My Sean was a dreamer. He wasn’t blessed with your talents or brains but idolized you, wanted to be you so badly.” Surkov reminisced. “Grebnevo was where all the twins grew up. It was top secret and set up at the end of the war under the direct command of Joseph Stalin. Dr Mengele, the visionary, worked there with me until he died. He never went to South America. That was just a cover story to keep the Israeli’s from asking too many questions. They never understood the wonderful work Dr Mengele achieved.”
Sean wanted to snap the old man’s spine, but held it down. He wanted to know more and it seemed the old guy wanted to talk.
“And your Sean?” asked Sean.
“Your twin brother! When your mother gave birth she received you and I received the other. We set up a clinic in Washington, London and Moscow and we were ultra exclusive and guaranteed success and the best pre-natal care in the world. Presidents, movie stars, anyone who was anyone flocked to our door but very few got in. We hospitalized all our mothers with three months to go and performed emergency caesarians due to complications that kept any prying eyes away. When they woke up, they had the bouncing baby they expected, they just had no idea they expected two. This was long before scans, so nobody ever knew and of course our people were on call 24/7, if a mother had a problem, they called us.”
“But how did your Sean end up in Texas?” asked Sean, the longer he kept him talking the more time he had to work out how he could escape and save the Governor.
“He escaped from Grebnevo but I thought he had died during the escape. When you turned up after having allegedly died three months earlier, I knew my Sean hadn’t died during the escape. There weren’t three of you!” he surmised.
“So you wanted me dead.”
“Not you, the other Sean! But I didn’t know which Sean you were, if that makes sense?”
Sean nodded, bizarrely it did. “But why?”
“Because he was a dreamer. As I said, he wanted to be you, not what we wanted him to be. He didn’t believe in what we were doing and knew our plan. He would have spotted it had commenced and could have stopped us. He was a risk to our objectives!”
“So what now? The Soviet Union rises and becomes the only superpower while you let your Governor become President and run America into the ground? The American system won’t let it happen,” scoffed Sean.
“You still don’t get it!” laughed Surkov, cocking the gun and aiming it at Sean’s chest.
“Katherine, take this drink through to the Governor.” Surkov nodded towards a goblet that sat on the bedside table, a small vial lay next to it. “And say goodbye to Mr Fox, he’ll be leaving us now!”
Just as Sean was about to make his move, the door crashed open.
Chapter 80
“Nobody move!” barked Borodin, crashing into the room with his pistol raised.
Sean realized the gun was being pointed at the others and not him and more strangely, he was speaking English.
“General Borodin, glad you could join us, I’ve just caught this spy!” said Surkov, pointing his gun at Sean.
“I heard everything Surkov!” he replied. “I saw him coming in this door.” He pointed at Sean. “And I followed him. I’ve heard everything you’ve said from behind the door.”
“So you get it?” asked Sean thoroughly confused. He’d have thought Borodin would have been with Surkov. After all, it was a Soviet plan.
“I get it and I’m still struggling to believe they nearly did it.”
“But they’re Russians, they’re on your side!” said Sean.
“Ah,” said Borodin realizing why Sean was confused. “They weren’t speaking Russian, Mr Fox!” said Borodin, understanding why Sean hadn’t got it. “They were speaking German, they’re fucking Nazis!”
Sean couldn’t believe how stupid he had been. He had just assumed they were speaking Russian. He hadn’t paid sufficient attention. His mind had been elsewhere. It had been a long time since he’d made that kind of schoolboy error. He really needed to start learning other languages. German, Russian and Spanish were top of the list. Arabic and its dialects were not much help outside the Arabian Peninsula.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Sean as the full extent of the plan hit home.
“They’ve been planning the Fourth Reich!” explained Borodin, furious at having been deceived by them. “They were going to build the Russian Army up to its previous power!” He didn’t mention it would have been with his unwitting help. “And I can only assume they’d have done the same in America!”
“And the world would be in a far better state!” spat Surkov, the hatred contorting his face.
“We would unite our powerful armies and crush everyone else!” added Alexey Gagarin, the impostor President of Russia.
“The people would have stopped you!” countered Sean.
“The people would do as they were told,” laughed Surkov. “The timing is perfect, just like Germany in the thirties after the great depression. Americans and Russians are desperate for work, desperate to rebuild their economies. We would give them work, we’d make them proud and strong!”
The scariest part of what Surkov was saying was that Sean believed him. The people probably would have loved it. They just would have had no idea where they were being led until it was too late.
“Sixty years in the planning and scuppered at the last breath. Must be so frustrating,” offered Sean, bating Surkov.
Surkov flushed with anger but didn’t react.
“God, Mengele must be looking down and wishing he had picked a better protege!” added Sean.
Surkov snapped and pulled the trigger but Sean was already moving and as Surkov fired his pistol, Sean was already taking Borodin down, having dived into his midriff. Surkov’s bullet had been aimed at Borodin but whizzed past Sean’s right ear, taking a small chunk on its way. Another scar to add to the list. As they landed in a heap, Sean grabbed Borodin’s pistol. He rolled and shot Surkov cleanly through the heart. More than the crazy old Nazi deserved.
Katherine screamed, launched herself at the dead Surkov, grabbed his gun and rolled across the floor towards the drawing room door. Sean fired again.
As she reached the door, it opened and took the bullet that Sean had intended to stop her in her tracks.
As the bullet thudded into the heavy wooden door, a bewildered Governor appeared from behind it and entered the State bedroom. Katherine was up in a flash and using the Governor as a shield had the gun at his head.
“What the fu…?” said the Governor as first Katherine grabbed him and then he saw his double, his identical twin, the brother he never knew he had.
“Drop the gun, Fox!” barked Katherine, pushing the gun against the Governor’s head.
Sean shook his head and continued to aim at her.
“Rick, go and take Sean’s gun from him!” instructed Katherine.
The Governor began to move, Katherine pulled him back. “Not you, the other Rick!” she said angrily.
“Can somebody tell me what the fuck is going on?!” shouted the Governor. It was bad enough he had a double, never mind one with the same name.
Sean swung his gun and aimed at Yolana. “One more move and she dies!” Although they were not twins, the likeness of the two women was undeniable. Sean had figured out they were sisters and it certainly explained the tear in Katherine’s eye when they had met.