The Outer Circle (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 3) (29 page)

Laguna Beach, CA

It was time to go, before they started worrying. Jennifer took one more look at the rocky part of Emerald Bay Cove across the water. She wore large sunglasses and a hat, craving solitude and anonymity. The Secret Service didn’t know whether they were still supposed to protect her or not. She told them to leave. Tom, the one that grew close to them, asked:
“Mrs. Kron, let us stay. You may still need us.”

There was guilt in his eyes, in his posture. The innocent guilt of not being able to save Jeff. She shook her head: “No.”

How did it all come to be? A chain of random events stretching over eighteen years: her father somehow having a role in Jeff’s release, Jeff coming to thank her, accidental involvement in politics that grew into a movement... And now he’s gone. Just like that. A few days ago she said bye, and that was it. Why didn’t she stay with him? Better yet, why didn’t she insist that he come with her? She was angry at him, so angry... The people from the movement wanted something from her, they were looking up to her as if she was the one with the answers. Jennifer turned off her phone so she didn’t have to talk to them.

Yes, time to go. Her mother, her grandfather, her daughter, they were all waiting. They need her. Her daughter needs her. She made her way to the car and unthinkingly drove to Sam Baker’s house on Ocean Way. An unfamiliar car was parked in the driveway. Damn, she didn’t want to see anyone.

Wondering who the visitors might be, Jennifer made her way to the familiar patio overlooking Woods Cove. Nana and Karen were busily talking to four people, three of whom she immediately recognized as Oleg, Maggie, and David. She ran towards them:
“You are OK! Oh my God, what are you doing here? I thought you would be in hiding!”

“There’s no need for them to hide now,” Sam Baker came from the direction of the house. He walked straighter and with more authority than only a few days ago, as if being active helped him shed a few years. “The dogs have been called off, so to speak.”

“I am so sorry about your husband,” Oleg, who was the nearest, squeezed Jennifer in a bear hug. David shook his head, swallowed hard, and held her for a good minute. Maggie and Jennifer stood looking at each other for a few seconds, then burst into tears as they embraced. The fourth person, a handsome, dark-skinned, dark haired man with a goatee introduced himself as Alejandro and expressed his sorrow. “Alejandro has been hiding us and helping to arrange everything,” explained Maggie.

“Grandpa, what do you mean by dogs being called off?” asked Jennifer. “Who can possibly do that?”

“The President of the United States, for one,” smiled Sam Baker. “He can do that.”

“This is wonderful!” Jennifer clapped her hands. “But how did you manage to do that? Did you just pick up the phone and call him?”

“No, as a matter of fact, he called me,” replied Sam importantly.

“Really? What did he want?”

“I’ll explain in due time. It’s going to get dark soon and your mother worked hard on today’s dinner.”

“Well, Nana helped me, so it was really the two of us making this dinner. We’ll share the credit... or the blame,” laughed Karen. “The table’s been set, let’s eat.”

By the time desert had been served, it was well past seven and the sun was half-dipped into the ocean. Nana turned on the lights.

“Jennifer, there is something I must talk to you about,” started Sam Baker.

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“I don’t know how to begin so I’ll just jump right into it,” Sam made a chopping movement with his hand. “Jennifer, you should run in Jeff’s place!”

“What? What are you talking about?” she recoiled. “I can’t. What have I done to be qualified? My husband has just been killed, can’t I have my time to grieve?”

“I am sorry to ask you, sweetheart,” Sam hung his head. “I know it’s very hard for you now. I know it’s a terrible time to ask. But the elections are only three months away, your party is on the ballot with no nominee, and Brian Tice is going to walk away with it all. Everything that Jeff and you worked for will be lost.”

“Can’t someone else run? Why does it have to be me? I’m in so much pain!” Jennifer started to sob.

“Sweetheart, I am so sorry to put this burden on you,” whispered Sam after a minute. “I wish there was someone else. But you are the only one in the Reform Party that has the name recognition. People like you. If you don’t do this, no one will.”

“I’m new, and Tice is the Vice President. I can’t possibly beat him,” protested Jennifer through the tears. “People followed Jeff, not me. And Robert, his campaign manager, is also dead.”

“You can beat him, sweetheart. I will help. And there is someone a lot more important than me who wants to help you.”

“Who?”

“President Maxwell,” calmly replied Sam. People around the table involuntarily exclaimed: “Maxwell?”

“Yes,” confirmed Sam. “That’s why he called here. He wanted me to convince you to run.”

“Is that how you got us in the clear?” asked Maggie.

“Yes, that was my price. He offered you the Secret Service protection. You can adopt new identities, go live where you want to. Your records will be erased. You’re free.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Maggie threw her arms around Sam and started crying. David and Oleg hugged. Handsome Alejandro was the only one who didn’t look so happy.

“It’s my evening to bring attractive women to tears,” joked Sam, then grew serious again. “Jennifer, Maxwell will endorse you if you run.”

“What?”

“Yes. He’ll break party ranks. He believes that Tice will be bad for the country. He believes we need a fundamentally new leadership. He saw you. He believes in you, Jennifer.”

Jennifer got up and walked away from the table. She stood at the railing, looking at the dark-red sky, breathing heavily. A friendly arm wrapped around her shoulder. Jennifer looked to the side to see Maggie.

“Your father’s name was Pavel,” Maggie stated, not asked.

“Yes.”

“Your father saved Jeff. Fourteen years ago way back in Kiev, a boy named Pavel saved me. It’s like we were on parallel paths. This is a coincidence, of course, with no special meaning. It’s just that that boy saved me and years later, thinking of his sacrifice – and the sacrifices of others – I decided to publish the Schulmann file, to give people knowledge, give them justice. David and I, we came back because the task hadn’t been completed.”

“Have you been paying back the debt?” whispered Jennifer.

“Yes, I have. Many people willingly helped us despite danger, often at the cost of their lives. The people that protected us two years ago as we were looking for the Schulmann file; most of them died. The man who a few days ago got us the detailed data about Dimon and FreedomShield, the data that we passed on to you, he is probably dead. I can never fully repay that. I can only gather my courage and keep on fighting.”

“Are you saying I should run?”

“Yes, you should. Perhaps it’s your destiny. I want to believe the world is not random because we, the people, pay forward our debts. Your husband paid the debt he thought he owed to your father. He built something special. Now, it’s in your hands. You must be brave.”

“I never asked for this.”

“I know. I never asked to be a fugitive either. I’m just a regular person. But that’s what happened.”

Jennifer turned and hugged Maggie. They stood like this seemingly forever, holding on to each other until Jennifer let go.

“What are you and David going to do?” she asked.

“We’ve been running for over two years,” whispered Maggie. “I’m tired of running. I think I’ve paid most of my debts. Now, I want peace. And a child.”

St. Petersburg, Russia

At ten in the morning, the sun just rose over the horizon, its cold rays peeking through the clouds but barely warming the awaiting crowd. With the temperature right around the freezing point, the falling snow felt wet and heavy.

As the Air Force One taxied to a stop, the choreographed preparations kicked into full gear. President Mosin waited at the bottom of the ramp:

“Mrs. President, welcome to St. Petersburg! It’s been over fifteen years since the U.S. President came to Russia.”

“Thank you. Hopefully, it’s a start of more frequent visits between the leadership of our countries,” replied Jennifer Rostin-Kron.

They posed for the mandatory pictures, an old man in his 70s and a young woman half his age.

In the car, the conversation turned less formal:

“This is your second visit to St. Petersburg, Mrs. President,” stated Mosin.

“Yes, my father brought us here when I was a little girl. I’m still getting used to my title. Please call me Jennifer.”

“Only if you call me Boris,” smiled Mosin. “Congratulations on becoming both the youngest and the first woman U.S. president ever! Your election was a bit of a surprise to many.”

“Thank you. I just made it, age-wise, by a couple of years,” Jennifer smiled, then grew serious. “Of course, I only ended up running because my husband was assassinated.”

“Please accept my condolences again, this time in person.”

“Thank you. And thank you for your role in my election.”

“My role?”

“You phoned President Maxwell and warned him about Dimon and FreedomShield.”

“I believe President Maxwell had other sources as well.”

“He did. It was courageous of him to first take down Dimon and then endorse me rather than his Vice President.”

“We had many differences, but I always respected President Maxwell,” nodded Mosin.

“Do you know who gave the order to kill my husband?” Jennifer’s voice turned as cold as the weather outside.

“It was Nemzhov. He controlled Dimon and FreedomShield and didn’t want to take any chances of Dimon not winning the elections.”

“Did Dimon know?”

“He may have suspected that your husband will be ‘taken care of,’ so to speak, but I don’t believe he knew the details. The attack on your home was done by FreedomShield. As you know.”

Jennifer inhaled hard, her hands folding into fists.

“What happened to Nemzhov?”

“He’s been eliminated,” lied Mosin. “He was hiding near Moscow, ready to step in when his putsch succeeded. After the plot failed, he tried running but he was cornered. I wish we could have taken him alive, to face justice.”

They rode in silence for a minute, then Mosin spoke again:

“Jennifer, one more thing. In Nemzhov’s files we found a mention of your father, Pavel Rostin.”

“My father didn’t kill himself, did he?”

“No. He stumbled on the evidence of a certain plot that Nemzhov was behind. Nemzhov had him killed.”

“This man has destroyed my family. My father, my husband ... And that plot, did it have anything to do with the crisis of 2019?”

Mosin hesitated, then nodded.

“Eventually. Obviously, there were many changes that took place between your father’s death in 2006 and the crisis of 2019, but many of the seeds had been planted then.”

“So, as the Russian President, you bear an indirect responsibility for the deaths of my father and my husband?” the words came cold and hard.

Mosin shrank back from the unexpected anger in Jennifer’s voice:

“Mrs. President, being in a position of power means bearing indirect responsibility for many, many things. I deeply regret the deaths of your loved ones. But the financial warfare between our countries... your side is as guilty as ours. Probably more so. And while this war is not conducted with bullets, there are victims. There are always victims.”

The car came to a halt.

“Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery, as you requested for your first stop,” announced Mosin.

The two presidents and their escorts walked by the eternal flame and by the mounds of mass graves in silence, Beethoven’s music playing. The guides directed them to the left just before reaching the sculpture of the Motherland. The snow had been cleared around one grave in a birch grove.

“Your grandfather’s grave,” said Mosin simply.

Jennifer stood in silence before a simple stone that read: “Vladimir Rostin, 1924 – 2006.” She then turned to her secretary:

“Robert, the diary please.”

The secretary gave her a notebook that she handed to Mosin:

“Mr. President... Boris, this is a copy of my grandfather’s diary. He kept this during the Leningrad blockade. My father brought it from St. Petersburg in 2006, just before he was killed. Jeff and I turned to this diary often, as a reminder of courage and sacrifice... and the horrors of war.”

“Thank you, Mrs. President,” replied Mosin, clearly moved. “At least we averted the war this time.”

“But we came close, didn’t we?”

“We did. We came very close. If not for a few courageous people, Nemzhov’s coup in Moscow would have succeeded. Then a bellicose Dimon would have taken power in your country and the leaders in Beijing would have started a war. Who knows how many millions would have died. It seems like every hundred years or so the world erupts in deadly wars. I hope we have broken this cycle.”

“I guess it depends, Mr. President,” responded Jennifer. “Extreme inequality, financial warfare, oligarchies, decay of democratic institutions – they all lead to discontent, to the rise of the Nemzhovs and Dimons of our world. We – you, me, other leaders – have a responsibility to our people.”

Jennifer turned around to leave. Mosin hesitated, fell a few steps behind. “Talk is cheap. Let’s see how you handle the power,” the old man whispered under his breath.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Jennifer looked back.

“Only that power is a mighty drug. As you’ll find out.”