Read Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02 for Free Online

students, even though they
learned English well and knew a good deal of “American,” could not sufficiently
adapt themselves to the very strange American culture and be a reliable
espionage agent as well. And even with the apparently perfect student, there
was no way of knowing what would happen to the intended target. Targets were
selected for their accessibility as well as their potential value, but over the
years there was no way to guarantee a useful match. Goals changed, opportunities
came and went, minds changed, paths crossed. An individual who was perceived as
the next President of the United States could turn out to be a corrupt
congressman; a candidate-target discarded from consideration could turn out to
be a future Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
                 The
target Ken James—the American Ken
James—would never have been considered only a few short years earlier: He was
the son of a psychotic Vietnam veteran; he grew up in a fragmented childhood
punctuated by a devastating family disaster; the family was split apart. The
boy himself was a loner, unpopular and remote, anti-social.
                 But
things changed. The loner turned out to be a boy genius. The father disappeared
from sight and was presumed dead. The mother married a wealthy multinational
corporate president, and both the stepfather and mother were candidates for
political office by election or appointment. The obscure boy was suddenly a
prime candidate for “cloning.” Still a loner, virtually ignored by his
jet-setting parents, he was nonetheless being educated and groomed for a public
life in government- service. A perfect target.
                 And
they found a boy in the Soviet Union equal to the challenge of a match-up . . .
and ultimate substitution. Andrei Ivanschichin Maraklov had a unique
combination of writer’s imagination and a savant’s intelligence—the stuff to
qualify him as Ken James’ intellectual and emotional twin . . .
                 Janet
Larson smiled as she noted the faraway expression in his eyes and propped
herself up again on one elbow so she could watch him. “Where are you now,
Kenneth?”
                 He
smiled at the question. It was a game they played when they were together. As
an administrative assistant to the headmaster, Janet Larson knew all about Ken
James—why he was there, what was expected of him after “graduation.” But some
students, the special ones like Maraklov/James, gave the nuts and bolts of
their alter egos a considerable amount of spice and feeling. It was forbidden
for the students to talk of their “lives” with any other student, but not so
with her, and especially not so with her and student Kenneth James . . .
                 “I’m
on my way to Hawaii,” he said. “One last fling before college. My mom and
stepdad are in Europe on business. They gave me a Hawaiian vacation as a
graduation present. I graduated last week, remember?”
                 “How
were your grades?”
                 “Straight
A’s, but it was an easy semester. I planned it that way. I could have graduated
and gone on to college after my junior year—doubled up on a few classes in the
summer—but I was told by my stepdad that a guy shouldn’t miss out on his senior
year in high school, that it has too many memories. That’s a crock. Anyway, I
cruised through the year.”
                 “And
what about your senior-year memories? Were they worth delaying college?”
                 “I
guess so,” he said as he ran his hand up and down her back and she saw that
smile slowly spread across his face. It was as if he was actually reliving
those experiences . . .
                 “I
was quite an athlete the whole year,” he went on. “Soccer in the fall, basketball,
baseball in the spring—I already had all my credits for graduation and I had
two gym periods every