Yolana excused herself as she heard the raised voices from the adjoining state bedroom. The Governor and Katherine nodded, before Katherine asked, “Is there a restroom in there?”
“Of course,” said Yolana. “Come with me!”
Katherine joined her sister and walked into the state bedroom and found Sean surrounded and Surkov covering him with a gun.
“Don’t panic Katherine,” said Sean, as Katherine entered the bizarre scene, “I’ll get us out of this, somehow.”
Katherine laughed and began talking to the others in Russian, a language she had pretended earlier she didn’t speak. Sean was beginning to think he was losing his mind.
When Yolana seemingly introduced Katherine to the Governor, it took on an even more bizarre twist as they kissed on each cheek and looked at each other as though they had never met before and began conversing rapidly in Russian.
“Will somebody tell me what the fuck is going on here?” said Sean cutting across all of the Russians talking.
Dr Surkov held up his hand to silence everybody.
“You are a very lucky man, Sean Fox. You are witnessing the take over of the world’s two super powers!”
“Sorry?”
“We don’t have time for this,” said Katherine.
Surkov gave her a look that silenced her instantly.
“Each of you in here is only alive thanks to me. All of you, with the exception of Katherine, were delivered at birth by me. Sean is one of you, just as the Governor in there is one of you!” he pointed towards the other room.
“Seriously, I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about,” said Sean.
“I met the visionary Dr Mengele in Auschwitz where he had done groundbreaking work into twins, in particular, identical twins.”
There were so many things fucked up about that statement that Sean didn’t even know where to start.
“We were years ahead of everyone, decades in fact, we were experimenting with invitro fertilization thirty years before the first public test tube baby was announced. You in this room are all test tube babies born before Louise Brown, allegedly the first. That was our work, Dr Mengele and I. The plan was simple and brilliant. We believed that the likelihood of a powerful or famous person bearing a future president far exceeded the likelihood of ordinary people. We had proven that we could produce identical twins at will. So we set up clinics to help certain people have children. A very select few, very select. Your father was a military genius, Alexey’s father was a hero of the country and the first man in space, Rick’s father was a billionaire politician. There was a chance that any of you could have stepped up to become president. There are more, it’s not just you, hundreds but we never knew who would make it and who wouldn’t, so we had to cast the net wide to catch the big fish. Once in position, we replace the twin with our twin, our beliefs, our doctrines, our grand plan becomes a reality. Alexey and Rick have spent their lives following every detail of their twin’s lives. They are the perfect mimics, there is nothing they do differently.”
“Jesus, you did kill the Governor’s wife!” said Sean. “She’s the one person that would have known!”
Surkov nodded. “She would have known. By the time we realized he was the best chance to become President, he had already met his wife. Katherine got as close as she could and became Chief of Staff but never got closer. A very honorable man, the Governor,” Surkov said, looking at the beautiful and captivating Katherine, “Of course, she will marry our Rick and will become the First Lady. Just as Yolana, who knew our Alexey from Grebnevo went on to marry the other Alexey. My two presidents and my two girls by their sides!”
“Grebnevo?” asked Sean.
“We don’t have time for this!” urged Katherine, keeping an eye on the clock.
“We have all the time we want! We are in control now!” exclaimed Surkov. He had spent sixty years planning that day and was going to savor every moment.
“Grebnevo was our home for the project, where your twin grew up. My Sean was a dreamer. He wasn’t blessed with your talents or brains but idolized you, wanted to be you so badly.” Surkov reminisced. “Grebnevo was where all the twins grew up. It was top secret and set up at the end of the war under the direct command of Joseph Stalin. Dr Mengele, the visionary, worked there with me until he died. He never went to South America. That was just a cover story to keep the Israeli’s from asking too many questions. They never understood the wonderful work Dr Mengele achieved.”
Sean wanted to snap the old man’s spine, but held it down. He wanted to know more and it seemed the old guy wanted to talk.
“And your Sean?” asked Sean.
“Your twin brother! When your mother gave birth she received you and I received the other. We set up a clinic in Washington, London and Moscow and we were ultra exclusive and guaranteed success and the best pre-natal care in the world. Presidents, movie stars, anyone who was anyone flocked to our door but very few got in. We hospitalized all our mothers with three months to go and performed emergency caesarians due to complications that kept any prying eyes away. When they woke up, they had the bouncing baby they expected, they just had no idea they expected two. This was long before scans, so nobody ever knew and of course our people were on call 24/7, if a mother had a problem, they called us.”
“But how did your Sean end up in Texas?” asked Sean, the longer he kept him talking the more time he had to work out how he could escape and save the Governor.
“He escaped from Grebnevo but I thought he had died during the escape. When you turned up after having allegedly died three months earlier, I knew my Sean hadn’t died during the escape. There weren’t three of you!” he surmised.
“So you wanted me dead.”
“Not you, the other Sean! But I didn’t know which Sean you were, if that makes sense?”
Sean nodded, bizarrely it did. “But why?”
“Because he was a dreamer. As I said, he wanted to be you, not what we wanted him to be. He didn’t believe in what we were doing and knew our plan. He would have spotted it had commenced and could have stopped us. He was a risk to our objectives!”
“So what now? The Soviet Union rises and becomes the only superpower while you let your Governor become President and run America into the ground? The American system won’t let it happen,” scoffed Sean.
“You still don’t get it!” laughed Surkov, cocking the gun and aiming it at Sean’s chest.
“Katherine, take this drink through to the Governor.” Surkov nodded towards a goblet that sat on the bedside table, a small vial lay next to it. “And say goodbye to Mr Fox, he’ll be leaving us now!”
Just as Sean was about to make his move, the door crashed open.