them.
They offered me a job when I left the Navy, but I said no.
I went to law school, I spent three years on Wall Street, they came after me three more times, and I always said no. Finally--God, it took some discipline--finally I said yes.'
'Why did they want you so much?'
'Because of the NIS prosecutions. That was the plan. I sent fifty-seven young men to Vietnam, Marines, naval seaman, even a couple of junior officers. I reported on dozens more that I turned up in the other services, and many of them went, too. There was never a better secret policeman anywhere, one with less mercy and more ambition.
They could see how fierce I was. I was so good. I was astonishing. They wanted me so bad it almost killed them, and I played so hard to get it still amazes me. But that was our plan from the beginning.'
His face gleamed with vanity and pride. This was his great triumph, the core of his life, what made him better than other men, his work of art.
'Who are you, Bonson? Who the fuck are you?'
'The only time I ever came out on a wet operation was that one night when that idiot Pashin showed up without a driver's license. You needed a driver's license to buy that much ammonium nitrate, even in Virginia! That idiot.
GRU begged the committee for help, and I had the best identity running, so I drove down to Leesburg and bought it. I met him in the restaurant to tell him where it was secured. He was a brilliant operator, but in little practical things like that he was stupid.'
'And you were unlucky. Trig the human camera had followed him.'
'I always worried about that. That was my one moment of vulnerability. But now, you've taken care of that for me.'
'Who are you?' said Bob.
'You have to tell me that.'
'I don't have to tell you anything. I can kill you and I'm forever secure.'
'In seventy-one, you were the source of deployment intelligence, weren't you?'
'You bet I was,' said Bonson.
'I invented chaos. It was the best professional penetration in history, the way I orchestrated it.'
'You killed the little girl on the bridge, right? Amy Rosenzweig, seventeen. I looked it up. I saw how much trouble it caused.'
'Oh, Swagger, goddamn, you are smart. We picked her up, shot her up and dropped her into the crowd. It was a massive dose of LSD. She never knew what hit her.
My friend Bill here'--he indicated a man on his team-'did it. She freaked and went over. God, what a stink it caused, it almost wrecked the credibility of the U.S. government in that one thing. The pressure it caused.'
'Those are your boys, aren't they, your security team? Which of 'em killed poor Peter Fan-is?'
The five men in suits arrayed around Bonson glowered at him. They had hard eyes, glittering with pure aggression, and taut, professional faces. Their pistols were in their hands.
'That was Nick.'
'Who got the picture of Donny and my wife?'
'That was Michael. You'd like them, Swagger. They're all ex-NCOs in the Black Sea Marines and SPETSNAZ.
They've been with me for a long time.'
'Who blew the building in Wisconsin?'
'That was a team job.'
'And when you were running the mission against Solaratov, you were really running it against PAMYAT.
Against Pashin, who was now a nationalist, and if he wins the presidency it sets you guys back even farther. You always knew Pashin was Fitzpatrick, but you had to find a way to get that information to us without compromising your position. You turned everything inside out, so that in the end, the American government was working in the interests of the communist party. The Cold War never ended for you, right?'
'It never will. History runs in cycles. We're in retreat now, largely underground. But we've been underground before. We started underground. We have to eliminate our enemies in Russia. First Russia, then the world, as the great Stalin understood. We'll be back. This great, rich, fat country of yours is about to explode at the seams, it'll destroy itself and I'll help it. I should get the directorship shortly. From there, politics. The very interesting part of my plan is just about to start happening.'
'Who are you?' boomed Bob.
Why was he talking so loud?
'I'll tell you. But first, you satisfy me: when did you know?'
'I began to suspect at the meeting when the kid wanted to let Solaratov take out Julie and nab him on the way out. That was the smart move, even I knew that. But you said no, you couldn't do that to me. Fuck you, that was never you. You could send anybody down. I knew that about you from what you done to Donny. So when you say you could never do that, I knew you was lying. You had to stop Solaratov. That was your first mission.'
'Smart,' said Bonson.
