He wished he could talk to her one more time, knowing everything he knew now. So he could thank her for protecting them and tell her she’d made the right decision. That he was proud to be her son, not embarrassed. Devin had never actually told his mother that he was embarrassed by her, but he didn’t have to. He’d sent that message loud and clear by shutting her out of his life.
“Hey. Earth to Devin,” said Berg, waving a hand in front of him. “Sorry I was so blunt. But I’ve seen what the Russians are capable of when they’re trying to protect a secret. We have the fight of our lives ahead of us, with no room for error.”
“Where do we even begin to start unraveling this?” asked Devin. “Kidnapping Wilson was my mom’s Hail Mary pass, and I’m still not clear why she kidnapped him. Wilson wouldn’t have kept a list of every sleeper. My guess is that nobody in the US ever had that list.”
Berg started to open the containers that had sat untouched for the past several minutes.
“How far did you read into the Wilson file?” asked Berg.
“I skimmed it for now,” said Devin.
“What about the Branson files?”
“I didn’t look at those yet. They’re connected to Wilson, so I figured I’d tackle them when I did the deep dive into his file.”
“They’re very connected. I dug into them while you were shopping,” said Berg. “Helen needed something to break open the case. To give her something tangible she could take to the FBI, without being immediately escorted out of the lobby after a call to CIA—followed by her car blowing up the next time she started it.”
“The exact same scenario I’d like to avoid,” said Devin.
“Bingo. You and I are going to get along just fine,” said Berg. “Anyway. Here’s the big question that Helen had become convinced was the key to unraveling this conspiracy and led her to kidnap Donald Wilson. How do you successfully brainwash, train, and constantly assess the loyalty of a hundred kids, knowing that it would only take one of them to spill the beans and unravel the entire system you’ve spent decades cultivating? Would you trust it to the parents?”
Berg sat back and crossed his arms, waiting for an answer. Devin liked it better when Berg was in lecture mode. Less thinking.
“No. You couldn’t count on the parents to objectively assess their own children’s loyalty to the cause and report them up the sleeper network chain of command if they posed a risk, knowing it would sentence the child to death or kidnapping. Like you said, all it would take is one to break ranks and take the whole thing down. They’d need an organized method. Something intensive and possibly even fear inducing. A Branch Davidian–type cult setting for several years, at least, but it’s not like they could create their own isolated community to support and raise the next generation of sleepers. That would be a big red flag on a security clearance or background investigation, and Helen’s research didn’t seem to identify any gaps in time fitting that pattern.”
“Your mother had a theory that makes a lot of sense, given the number of children involved and something General Kozlov had written in the note he’d slipped into her pocket outing Donald Wilson. The glue that holds the others together,” said Berg. “She had become convinced that the sleeper families attended a summer-long camp every year, somewhere near Branson, and that Donald Wilson played an administrative role in that camp. Possibly the head administrator. He relocated to Springdale, Arkansas, from the Phoenix area in 1977, a few months after his family was killed in a car accident. Springdale is about ninety miles from the Branson area.”
“I caught a snippet of that in at least two of the files. In the summary notes as Confirmed Branson connection,” said Devin.
“Right. While interviewing hometown neighbors of the sleepers—”
“Wait. My mom actually traveled the country interviewing their neighbors? I thought she did most of the research online. How did I miss that?”
“It was all in the Branson files. She interviewed anyone that could shed light on their lives. Neighbors. Teachers. Coaches. Local business owners. Longtime restaurant employees. Anyone that might have known them. She mostly posed as a security clearance investigator running background checks for the government or a reporter doing a story on the success of a sleeper. She discovered a pattern that clearly wasn’t a coincidence. In nearly every case, she was able to find at least one person who remembered that the families spent most of the summer away. In some towns she found as many as a dozen. Most people didn’t have much recollection of where they spent the time, but those who remembered referenced the Ozarks or Branson. One lady said Maine. A few others, Colorado. But the vast majority put all of these families in Branson, deep in the heart of the Ozarks, for at least two months of the summer. There’s your isolated community. Part time, but I’m guessing they could have accomplished a lot in those two to three months.”