Stone Cold

THE THREE WERE IN A CELLAR of a building that hadn’t been occupied in over a decade. It was a rat-infested, malodorous place, but right now it was the only location where they felt safe. The light was from a battery- powered lantern, the only chairs mounds of junk. It was the place of last resort for Oliver Stone. He only came here when he had nowhere left to go.

Stone leaned against a dank brick wall and stared at Lesya, who sat on a pile of old carpet, obviously lost in thought. Finn hovered by the door, every sense on alert. Stone turned his gaze to the younger man. “You killed Cincetti, Bingham and Cole, and you tried to kill Carter Gray by blowing up his house with an incendiary bullet after filling the place with gas. You climbed up the cliffs to get to his house and then jumped off the cliffs to make your getaway.”

“Don’t answer him,” Lesya said sharply, shooting Stone a suspicious glance. “I agreed to work with this man to keep us alive, but that doesn’t mean we have to trust him.”

“I wasn’t expecting an answer,” Stone said. “I was just expressing my admiration. It’s not easy to take out killers like that.”

“So do you think you deserve to die then?” Lesya said sharply. “You were a killer too.”

“Frankly, I’ve been dead for a long time.”

“They murdered your wife, didn’t they?” Finn said.

“Because I wanted to get out. And they almost killed me. To make matters even worse, Roger Simpson adopted my baby daughter. She never knew I was her father.”

“Simpson!” Lesya spat on the floor. “That is what I think of Roger Simpson.”

“You said you were working for us all those years ago,” Stone said. “But we were told that you had turned Solomon and that you both were working for the Soviets. That’s why he was targeted for termination, because he was a traitor.”

“They lied to you,” Lesya said simply.

“I know that now. But if you both were working for us, why would they want to kill you? Or him?”

“Because of a highly dangerous and confidential mission which Rayfield and I were given. We carried it out successfully with a group of Russians loyal to me.”

“What was this mission?”

“I haven’t told anyone all these years, not even my son.”

“Why?”

“I was a spy. We do not give up our secrets easily.”

“If I’m going to help you, I need to know the truth.”

“You, the killer of my husband, you make demands of me?”

“We can’t outresource Carter Gray. Yet together we might be able to outthink him. But before I help you I need to know the whole truth.”

Lesya did not look convinced.

Finn stepped in front of his mother. “I’ve already scared my family to death. I have no idea if they’re really safe. If I try to go to them, I could be leading Gray right to their door.”

“I told you there would be risks, many of them.”

“Like there was ever a question that I would turn my back on you,” Finn said angrily. “My whole life you’ve prepared me to do this. That it was my duty to make it right. That I was the only one who could do it.”

“Every man has a choice,” Lesya said. She pointed at Stone. “Like this man. He chose to follow rather than question orders and he killed an innocent man.”

“He was a soldier. He was trained to follow orders.”

“So were Bingham, Cole and Cincetti,” his mother pointed out. “Why is he different?”

“Because he came to warn us. But for him you and I would be dead now. That’s the difference. I think he’s earned our trust. Your trust.”

“I’ve never trusted anyone in my life, other than your father.”

“And me,” Finn said.

“And you,” she conceded.

“Well, if you really trust me, listen to me! You can’t go through your whole life thinking everyone is against you.”

“That philosophy served me well for many long years.”

“And if you hadn’t trusted Rayfield Solomon?”

Lesya fell silent, studying her son closely. Then she slowly turned her attention to Stone. “How well do you know your Soviet history?”

“I was there a lot if that means anything.”

“Do you know the two heads of the Communist Party before Gorbachev came to power?”

Stone nodded. “Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. Why?”

“Soviet leaders were generally known for their longevity. Yet Andropov lasted barely thirteen months, Chernenko roughly the same.”

“They were old men in ill health,” Stone replied. “They were filler after Brezhnev died. No one expected either of them to last long.”

Lesya clapped her hands together. “Precisely. No one expected them to last long, so when they died, no one was surprised.”

“You mean they were killed?” Stone said.

“It is not that difficult to kill old, sick men. Even when they’re Soviet premiers.”

“On whose orders were they killed?”

“Your government’s.”

Finn stared at her in amazement. “That’s impossible. Under U.S. law it’s illegal to assassinate a head of state.”

She scoffed. “What does that mean when you’re trying to prevent a nuclear war that will wipe out the planet? Andropov and Chernenko were old men, yes, but they were hard-line Communists. They were in the way. No real change would occur under them. And the Soviet Union was crumbling. Its back was against the wall. There was growing talk of very desperate measures that the Communist Party leadership was considering taking to restore its place as a superpower. That could not be allowed to happen. Gorbachev had to be given a clear field. Because even though early on Gorbachev seemed to be the same as the other party leaders, we knew he was very different. We knew things would change under him. He was still a Communist and we knew he would not dissolve the Soviet Union, but we also knew that the threat of war would go down considerably with him in power. Then Yeltsin came along after Gorbachev. No one could have predicted that, but it was under Yeltsin that the Soviet Union was dismantled.

“But we had to get rid of the old Communist Party leaders. We had to! And we told the Americans our beliefs about this. They agreed with us. And Rayfield thought the same. He knew as much about the inner workings of the Soviet Union as any American alive. But we did not come up with the assassination plot. That was the Americans.” She eyed Stone. “You believe it’s true, don’t you?”

“Heads of state have been assassinated before,” Stone admitted. “But are you saying Gorbachev knew of the plot?”

“Of course not. Only a very few of us did.”

“How did your orders come on this?” Stone asked.

“From our contact on the American side.”

“Who was that?”

“Does it not seem obvious? Roger Simpson.”

“And you and your team killed Andropov and Chernenko?”

“Let us say we helped them to their graves prematurely, yes.”

“And Rayfield Solomon was involved?”

“Deeply. The Soviets thought he was working for them.”

“How do you know this was approved by the U.S. government?”

“I just told you. We received the instructions from Simpson. He was our case manager. And he reported directly to Carter Gray. And Gray to the head of CIA.”