Benjamin stood up and made his way to the coffeepot on the stove. He thought maybe some caffeine would make this extraordinary revelation clearer, or perhaps make it go away. Maybe he was still unconscious, dreaming it all.
Wolfe stood up, came over to him.
"We've had a little more time to adjust to this… discovery than you have, Benjamin," he said. "Remember what you told me about the Indian wars? That you thought this secret group of Puritans had used them, perhaps even provoked them, to gain power and hold on to it?" Benjamin nodded but didn't say anything. "Well, this is the same idea, only with nuclear missiles instead of bows and arrows."
Wolfe shook his head. "There's still so much we don't know. But I assume once Arthur felt Fletcher's research was showing results, he brought him to the Foundation so he could control those results. Perhaps he even thought they could use that research to better hide any cracks in their forty-year-old cover-up. That's only one of the questions I plan on asking him." He looked thoughtful for a moment.
"I also assume it wasn't Arthur that authorized Fletcher's murder. I think that was our rash friend Hauser's doing, when Fletcher asked to see what he thought was the original diary at the Morris Estate. Anton told me what you discovered at the Library of Congress. What with so much of the Foundation's funding coming from the Morrises, that sort of embarrassment might have put the kibosh on this contract with the State Department even after all this time. The Foundation couldn't have that." He sighed, as though suddenly feeling the weight of so much betrayal and revelation. "But once it was done, what better way to still discover whatever other cracks might exist in their cover-up than bringing me in to investigate? And once I brought my findings to Arthur, well then…"
"They'd eliminate you?"
Wolfe didn't answer.
"I still don't understand," said Benjamin. "Forty years of fear? Of scaring the whole world with this nightmare of a nuclear Armageddon? An Armageddon that was a fake? Why not just admit the fallacy of the whole thing? Why not just negotiate?"
"Ah, Benjamin, you idealist you. They didn't do this out of any fondness for the Soviets. They did it because the only alternative was detente. Real detente. They needed an enemy with nuclear teeth, but one that couldn't really bite."
Natalya came over to the counter, put her empty plate in the sink. "Lenin once said that 'even the Devil is an acceptable ally if it means staying in power,' " she said.
Benjamin shook his head. "But all those people…"
"Who kept doing exactly what they would have done anyway," said Wolfe. "As far as anyone outside the small group of conspirators knew, it was real. On both sides. They thought they were working for the Cause."
Wolfe looked out the window into the apparently infinite darkness outside.
"And when you think about it, Benjamin, if there hadn't been such a conspiracy, the two political structures probably would have acted much the same way. Each needed an archenemy to keep their respective citizenries frightened and in line." He placed a hand on Benjamin's shoulder. "In the final analysis, it almost doesn't matter whether there was a conspiracy or not. We all got the cold war we needed."
Then Benjamin had another thought.
"But all of this, everything you've discovered, it still doesn't prove that the Foundation is involved, only Arthur and Hauser."
"As to that…," began Wolfe.
At that moment, there was a small pop, and a tiny hole appeared in the window in front of them. At the same instant, the oil lamp on the table shattered. The spilled oil was immediately ignited by the heat of the lamp, and a small river of flame spread toward the papers on the table.
"The journal!" Wolfe shouted.
Then several things happened simultaneously: Wolfe crouched down behind the counter, pulling Benjamin with him; there was a second pop and the window shattered. Something struck the fireplace, sending out slivers of stone. Natalya threw one of the coats over the flames from the lamp even as Nikolai reached for another of the oil lamps and pulled it down from the table.
"The other lamps," hissed Wolfe. "Put them out!"
There was yet another crash, this time of some of the vodka bottles on the shelf. Clear liquid flew from the shattered bottles onto the floor, where it touched some of the burning oil. The vodka ignited with a wavering blue flame, and soon there were two fires: one on the table, and a second spreading across the floor.
Now all of them were crouched on the floor. Anton was yanking journal pages from the table, beating them on the floor to extinguish their burning edges; Natalya was trying to smother the fire on the floor; and Nikolai had reached the other lamps and turned down their flame, so now the only light was from the fireplace and the burning oil and alcohol.
"Is anyone hit?" asked Wolfe.
"Bastards don't need to hit us," said Nikolai from the floor. "Just burn house down."
"Or burn book," said Anton. He was sitting on the floor next to the fireplace, Leverotov's journal clutched to his chest.
"How many?" said Wolfe to Nikolai.
"One, maybe two," answered Nikolai. "But they probably have night scopes."
"Who the hell is out there?" asked Benjamin.
"I would guess some old friends of Anton's from 12 Directorate," Wolfe said. "They've got as much a stake in keeping this secret as the Foundation. Maybe more." He was looking around the cabin. Then he spotted Boris's gun rack. "If only there was a way out of here other than the front door."
"There is," said Nikolai. "In bathroom, hole in floor, little tunnel. For when militia come."
"All right," Wolfe said. "Benjamin, you and Natalya and Anton, stay put. And stay low."
He crawled across the floor to the gun rack. Reaching up, he grabbed one of the rifles by the stock, pulled it down from the rack. Even as he did so, another bullet struck the gun rack, splintering the stock of the remaining rifle. Wolfe slid the rifle across the floor to Nikolai. He pulled his automatic pistol out of his parka, began crawling toward the bathroom.
"Come on, Nikolai. If they think we're still inside, perhaps we can sneak around them."
Nikolai crawled from the table, and both men moved slowly across the floor and into the bathroom. There was the sound of a section of the flooring being removed, and through the open doorway Benjamin could see the two men drop down through the floor to the ground beneath.
With both fires out, the only light now came from the flickering fireplace. Benjamin wasn't sure what to do. He crawled awkwardly across the floor to Natalya, trying to keep his shoulder from bumping into things in the dim light.
"Are you all right?" he asked, reaching her.
"Yes," she said. "Are you?"
"I'm okay," said Benjamin, cradling his shoulder.
"Me, too," said Anton from the fireplace, "if anyone asking."
"I should be out there," Benjamin said. "They don't know how many there are."
"With that arm in a sling, what could you do, except make a fine target?"
"I don't know," Benjamin said. "Something. Anything. But I feel like a coward, hiding here."
"Benjamin," Natalya said. She put her hand to the side of his face. She looked into his eyes. "What you did at shakhta thirty-four was not the act of a coward." She put her arm around his neck, pressed her head against his chest.
Benjamin smiled, but immediately winced in pain. "I was almost useless. If Samuel hadn't shown up-"
Suddenly there was the sharp crack of a shot somewhere outside the cabin, followed in quick succession by two more.
"If only the other rifle hadn't been hit," Natalya said, "at least we could defend ourselves."
It was then Benjamin remembered the Makarov pistol in his parka. He looked around the cabin.
"Natalya," he said, "where did you put my parka?"
"That's it," she said. "On that chair."
"Natalya, can you reach it?" he asked.
She began crawling toward the chair, keeping close to the floor. There was another crack of a rifle from outside, then the higher-pitched snap of another gun in response, and the cry of someone in pain.
"My father!" whispered Natalya.
"Just stay down," Benjamin said. "Your father's pistol is in the parka pocket. Throw it to me."
Natalya was at the chair. She reached up, felt in the right-hand pocket of the parka. "There is only a glove," she said; then, "No, wait, I think…"
Suddenly the front door to the cabin was thrown open. Against the dark backdrop of the night sky, littered with the white dots of snowflakes, there was the silhouette of someone tall, someone in a white snow parka and pants. In the dim light they could see he was dark skinned, with a black beard.
The figure began to raise its arm. And then Benjamin noticed that there was some sort of helmet on the man's head. In the flicker of the firelight, he saw the reflection from lenses set in the helmet, with a faint green glow behind them.
Now the figure moved its arm to the side-toward where Natalya lay, under the table, her hand inside the parka pocket.
A sudden shaft of bright light was cast into the room. Benjamin turned his head, saw Boris standing in the doorway to the bedroom, the light flooding out into the room.
"Kagogo Diavola?" Boris said.
The figure in the doorway raised an arm in front of his face, blocking out the sudden glare of light that must have blinded his night vision; at the same moment he fired a quick shot in Boris's direction. Boris jerked back as the bullet struck his thigh.
And then the figure was swinging his arm back toward Natalya.
Suddenly there was an eruption from the pocket of the parka over the chair-and the figure at the door staggered back as if hit by a fist in the chest. His gun discharged a bullet into the ceiling.
But he didn't go down. As he was lowering his arm, aiming again, Natalya fired a second time.
The figure lifted its arm weakly-but the pistol dropped from his hand. And then he fell backward, out into the snow, and lay still.
"Anton!" Benjamin shouted. "Anton, put out the fire!"
Anton moved from the fireplace, jerked a coat down from a rack on the wall, patted it over the fire in the bedroom. Boris lay on his side, groaning. Natalya crawled over to Benjamin.
"Are you all right?" she said, clutching him. She still had the smoking Makarov in her hand.
He nodded. "Yes, I'm all right." He gently took the gun from her with his good hand, then put his arms around her.
"I am now tired of people shooting at us," said Anton, smothering the last of the flames.
"I think it's over," Benjamin said.
Suddenly there was a thunderous sound overhead, and a blinding white light that made the trees stand out in bold relief.
As the roar grew louder, the light moved back and forth on the ground, then angled off beyond the front of the house, to the meadow across the dirt road from Boris's cabin.
Benjamin started to get up, and Natalya helped him to rise. Together they walked to the doorway, looked out onto the landscape turned into blazing white by the light from overhead. Benjamin realized it was a searchlight, and the deafening whomp-whomp-whomp was the sound of a helicopter-a huge one. As they watched, its dark bulk settled slowly onto the meadow. It was painted in olive drab and black camouflage.
A door in the helicopter's side slid open, and men began to tumble out, dressed in white snow-camouflage uniforms. Soon there were a dozen of them in front of the helicopter, each of them armed with an assault rifle.
Then someone else jumped from the helicopter. But rather than white, he was wearing a green officer's tunic and hat.
"Thank God, it is Vasily," Natalya said.
Lieutenant Colonel Kalinin shouted orders and pointed, and the men began fanning out into the woods-then stopped as two figures emerged from the trees. One was also dressed in a white parka and pants, but the other was in a dark parka and was grasping his upper arm.
"Nikolai!" shouted Natalya. Benjamin held her back.
The soldiers raised their weapons, pointed them toward the two men-then Kalinin shouted something, and the men lowered their guns. Kalinin approached Wolfe and Nikolai, spoke with them for a moment. Then he sent two of his men into the woods, and the rest of the group approached the cabin.
"If he's here to rescue us, he's a little late," said Benjamin, looking at Natalya and smiling. "You've already done that."
Natalya helped Benjamin back into the cabin and into a chair at the table, where Anton was sorting through the burned pages of the journal and Analiz 55.
"Saved most of it," Anton said. "But don't know yet which most."
"That's not a problem," said Kalinin from the doorway.
Wolfe and Nikolai entered, Nikolai cradling his left arm, and also sat at the table. Immediately Natalya turned to Nikolai, started to remove his parka so she could check his wound. Nikolai looked at Benjamin, smiled broadly, said "We match!" then accepted a glass of vodka Wolfe handed him and tossed it back.
Now Kalinin entered, telling his men to wait outside. He glanced down at the tall man lying in the doorway, cocked an eyebrow appreciatively.
"I see one here," he said, "and I sent two men into the woods to search for the other."
"Could you see from the air?" asked Wolfe, watching Kalinin very closely. "Are there any more?"
"No, I don't think so," Kalinin said. He went to the fireplace, removed his gloves and began warming his hands. He barely glanced at Boris, lying unconscious on the bedroom floor.
"And what means 'not a problem'?" asked Anton. He held up the burned journal. "You have any idea how important this is?"
"No," Kalinin replied. Then he turned around. "Nor do I want to know."
"Then you won't mind getting these men to a hospital," Wolfe said.
Kalinin didn't answer immediately. He walked to the shelves of vodka, took down a bottle, removed the cork and sniffed it, frowned, put it back.
"This is contraband," he said. "It will be confiscated." Then he walked to the table, held out his hand to Anton. "As will all contraband."
Anton, mouth open, looked to him, then to Wolfe.
"Is joking?" he asked.
"No," said Wolfe, watching Kalinin. "I think not."
"Then, you're here to finish their job," Benjamin said, struggling to keep his voice steady.
Kalinin, his hand still out, turned to Benjamin.
"I'm an officer in the Army of the Russian Federation," said Kalinin coldly. "Not a hired killer. My duty is to keep secrets of the Motherland safe and secure, not to punish foolish young adventurers." Then he faced back to Anton. "Please?" he said.
As though giving up the Holy Grail, Anton placed the singed journal in Kalinin's hand. "And those," Kalinin said, pointing to the pages from Analiz 55 spread across the table. Anton began scooping the pages together.
"Vasily, if you only knew what was in those pages," Nikolai pleaded, "you would understand, it is they who betrayed us. "
"I don't think Vasily is interested in the truth," Wolfe said.
"Truth?" Kalinin shot back. "Today, two American agents, a runaway Russian diplomat, and an ex-Red Army officer tried to breach the security of a Russian nuclear missile base, after impersonating journalists and bribing officials." Kalinin smiled. "You mean that truth?"
"But we know the truth," said Benjamin. "We know what is in those documents, even if you take them. We'll tell-"
"Who will you tell, Mr. Levebre? And without these," Kalinin waved the pages in the air, sending loose ashes floating about their heads, "who would possibly believe you?"