John Waverly was another new recruit, an agent from the FBI’s newly established Nashville office. Eric had applied pressure to get the Nashville office up and running, and Waverly had joined after a failed bio attack. “Was Eric right to recruit Mr. Waverly?”
“Why don’t you just tell me your opinion?”
He hesitated. “Are you angry?”
“Not everything needs to be a test.”
“I’m only trying to—”
“You’re always testing me,” Nancy said. “You’ve tested me my entire life.”
“Have I? I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to make sure you were ready.”
“I’m an adult, Father. I am ready.”
He sighed. “If you feel that I’ve been unfair, I assure you it was because I wanted to protect you. I didn’t want this life for you.”
Nancy smiled, and for a moment, he saw a vulnerability there. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
“I should have—”
“I know you hoped for something different,” Nancy said, “but I’m… happy. It’s like there was a hole in me that’s been filled. I have a purpose. I even have a friend.”
He cleared his throat. “I want to speak with you.”
She frowned. “We are speaking.”
“It’s about your mother.”
Nancy’s face went pale and her mouth opened and closed. “What about her?”
“The procedure I had last year… isn’t working as well as I’d hoped.”
“How long?” she asked.
“Hob isn’t sure, but perhaps a few months.”
“A few months?”
“Perhaps less. Perhaps much less.” She started to speak, but he continued hastily, “That’s the most unlikely scenario.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I love you, Nancy. You are my greatest accomplishment. I need to tell you this now, before it’s too late. I would do anything for you, and so would your mother.”
Nancy leaned forward in her chair. “You’ve never told me why she left.”
“If I had told you, it would only have upset you.”
She stared at him as the silence stretched on. Finally she said, “I want the truth.”
“Alexandra was sent to spy on the OTM.”
“I knew that.”
He licked his lips. “She was supposed to seduce me, but it…”
“It what?”
“I suspected she was a spy, but I couldn’t help myself. Neither could she.” He shook his head. “We weren’t supposed to have a child. In our world, a child was a liability.”
“A liability,” Nancy muttered.
“That’s… not what I meant. Our life is the liability. We couldn’t offer you a childhood of fun and adventure and two loving parents to take you to dance recitals…”
Nancy shrugged. “I can’t imagine such a life.”
“You deserved that life,” he said. “You deserved so much more than we gave you.”
“This doesn’t explain why she left.”
“Alexandra told me she worked for the Russians. If she gave birth to the child… to you… she could never return.”
“Why didn’t she hide me…?”
“It’s not so simple, my dear. Alex’s handler was a brilliant young man in the SVR named Vasilii Melamid. Discovering the OTM’s existence was just the first step. The Cold War was raging. Nuclear war seemed imminent. The SVR wanted to use Alexandra as leverage.”
“But—”
“A child was the ultimate bargaining chip,” he said. “All Alex had to do was go along with their plan.”
“That’s why she left,” Nancy said.
He nodded. After all the years of lies and misdirection, telling Nancy the truth took a great weight off his heart. “The SVR marked her for assassination for her betrayal. I spoke with Melamid. He was willing to declare your life off-limits, as long as Alex never returned.”
“Then why send me away?” Nancy demanded.
“Because I wasn’t about to trust his word,” he snapped. “You made a tempting target. That’s why I moved you from family to family. I had to keep you safe.”
Nancy chewed at her lip. “We should have been together. As a family.”
“There may still be time,” he said.
“You said she was marked for death.”
“She is.”
“How?” Nancy demanded.
“I’m willing to take extraordinary measures.”
“You can have the assassination order removed?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “I don’t know how much time I have.”
“What about the device? The brain stimulator?”
“It was a temporary measure. It’s given me a few months. We need to find your mother before I’m gone.”
“Don’t say that.”
He leaned back in his chair and glanced around at his office. Aside from the desk, there was nothing to mark his presence.
Who will remember me when I’m gone?
“We have to be realistic,” he finally said. “Time is… fleeting. Your mother is still alive. We must find her.”
Barnwell took the seat across from Smith. “How did she take it?”
“As well as can be expected,” Smith said. “Better than I’d hoped.”
“You really think you can change Melamid’s mind? He isn’t the forgiving type.”
“He won’t have a choice.”
Barnwell pulled a flask from his pocket. “Want a snort?”
Smith sighed heavily. “I worry about you, Hob.”
“I’m an alcoholic,” Barnwell agreed. He unscrewed the top of the flask and took a deep pull from it, the wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s going to kill me. I know. Save the lecture.”
“Of all the things I want to accomplish,” Smith said, “saving your life will be the most difficult.”
“You’re not my mother,” Barnwell said. “You’re not even my commanding officer. Not anymore.”
“I can’t let you drink yourself to death.”
They sat quietly until Barnwell finally said, “You know the funny part? I love Victoria with all my heart, but that’s not really true, is it? I love the drink more. I think about it all the time. Even when I’m not drinking, I’m thinking about drinking. When I’m with Victoria, right before we fall asleep, I imagine it burning down my throat. I pretend I’m getting up to use the bathroom, but I really go into the kitchen and pour myself a drink. Sometimes two.”
“Hob…”
Barnwell stared at the silver flask in his hand. “How can that be? How can I betray everyone and everything like that? I know better, damn it. Of all people, I know better.”
“I did this to you,” Smith said, “when I recruited you.”
Barnwell grunted. “You think that’s true? You think I was just one bad day away from becoming an alcoholic? That’s not it, and you know it. If I’d gone into private practice, I would have wound up an alcoholic. Or worse. It was always in the cards for me. We are who we are.”
“If that is true,” Smith said, “then I’m the kind of man who goes too far.”
Barnwell looked away. “Late at night, after I’ve had a few drinks, I wonder if we’ve done the right thing.”
“The world spins on,” Smith said. “We did terrible things to keep it spinning. Maturity has given me the perspective to know that when it’s all said and done, our ledger is in the black. Isn’t that what matters?”
Barnwell drained the rest of his flask and tucked it into his pocket. “If you’re hell-bent on doing this, then we have one last thing to try. It’s an amyloid-clearing drug. Combined with the others, it might halt the disease’s progression.”