The Cabal Page 12

  Four other cars pulled up, and people got out and joined the two women, and Kangas felt a brief pang that the funeral party was so small. But then he figured that his own wouldn’t be any larger, because besides Ronni there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of people who gave a damn. He hadn’t spoken with his ex-wife in nearly five years, they’d had no children, his mother was dead, his stepfather didn’t give a shit, he had no siblings and only a handful of aunts, uncles, and cousins, none of whom he’d spoken to for a long time.

  “No McGarvey,” Mustapha said.

  “Not yet,” Kangas said, and a Cadillac Escalade with government plates came down the hill and pulled up at the end of the line. The windows were so heavily tinted that Kangas couldn’t make out who was inside, but then a woman got out from behind the wheel, and a very short man got out from the other side.

  They stood there for a moment or two, looking at the group gathered near the hearse. The rear doors opened and a pair of large men got out, one from either side, followed by Kirk McGarvey, on the passenger side.

  “Bingo,” Kangas said, half under his breath. Yet he was a little disappointed, because the former DCI didn’t look like much after all.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Liz had insisted that there be no church or chapel service, Todd would not have wanted it. What ceremonies were to be performed and what words were to be said, would take place graveside. She’d also insisted that his name as a CIA officer not be placed in the public record, instead she wanted only the anonymous star on the marble wall in the lobby of the OHB at Langley.

  “He belongs there with those heroes,” she’d instructed. “He was one of them. He’d feel at home there.”

  Nor had she wanted a big crowd, though all the instructors at the Farm and many students of Todd’s wanted to pay their respects today. She hadn’t wanted to share her grief or theirs with them.

  “Stay here, please,” McGarvey told the deputy marshals and his CIA minders. “You have my word I won’t try to run.”

  Ansel and Mellinger didn’t like it, but they nodded, and McGarvey walked past the line of cars to where Katy and Liz were standing near the hearse. The chaplain had walked back up the hill, but stepped discreetly aside.

  Katy was holding on to their daughter, and she looked awful, her hair and makeup a mess. He’d never seen his wife this way, but Liz was practically catatonic with grief.

  “It wasn’t just a robbery, was it?” Katy asked, her voice trembling, and barely audible.

  “No,” McGarvey said, kissing his wife on the cheek. “Where’s the baby?”

  “At the Farm.”

  Liz suddenly focused, and she looked from her father to the hearse where the funeral director and his assistant had opened the rear door and withdrew the flag-draped coffin out onto a wheeled stand, and she almost collapsed.

  “Easy, sweetheart,” McGarvey said, taking her arm.

  “It’s not real,” she whispered. “This is not real.”

  She was trembling, but not crying, and McGarvey’s heart broke not only for Todd, but because he couldn’t do a damn thing for his daughter when she needed him more than she’d ever needed him.

  “Is it someone we can find and punish, Daddy?” she asked, her grip tightening on his arm.

  “Yes,” he said close to her. “I’ll find them, I promise you.”

  “No trial.”

  “No trial,” he said.

  Six men who’d come up from the Farm to represent everyone there, took up positions on either side of the coffin as pallbearers, and Liz turned to look at the people gathered on the side of the road, waiting to follow the coffin down the hill.

  “We have to wait,” she said. “Otto and Louise aren’t here.”

  McGarvey looked around, but she was right, and a tiny worry began to nag at the back of his head. “They’re probably hung up in traffic. They’ll get here, but we need to start now.”

  Liz glanced at the people waiting, then up into her father’s face. “Okay, Daddy,” she said.

  McGarvey nodded at the pallbearers, who gently lifted the coffin off the trolley, and with the chaplain in the lead they started down the hill, Liz’s and Katy’s bodyguards nearby, reminding everyone that this business was far from over.

  Dick Adkins and Dave Whittaker held back, even though it would be up to Dick to present Todd’s widow with the flag, and McGarvey suspected they wanted to distance themselves from him until they saw which way he would jump. After Germany they were treating him like something volatile, nitroglycerin ready to explode at the slightest mishandling.

  When the mourners were seated, and the coffin placed on the lift’s framework over the open grave, the chaplain began, and when he spoke Todd’s name out loud, Liz squeezed her eyes shut. Todd’s parents were dead, and only a few distant relatives had shown up. He’d once explained to McGarvey that his family was filled with odd ducks. They had sacks of money, but no one much cared for one another. It was one of the reasons he’d fallen for Liz. For as long as he could remember he’d wanted a wife and children, loads of kids and in laws and people who cared.

  The chaplain was speaking about service above self, love of country, dedication, bravery, and finally the ultimate sacrifice of a man in his prime; platitudes, but comforting, except McGarvey was having a tough time settling down.

  He glanced over at the two bodyguards from the Farm, and they acted nervous, too, their heads on swivels as if they expected something to happen at any moment. Adkins and some of the others seemed ill at ease, though Whittaker was apparently paying attention to the service.

  None of this made any sense to McGarvey; not Todd’s death, not the obviously fake disk, not the murders of the Washington Post reporter and his family, not Sandberger and Administrative Solutions, especially not the Friday Club, because if there was a pattern he wasn’t seeing it. Yet everything within him, all of his senses, all of his experiences, his entire hunch-mechanism, if that’s what it could be called, were singing. Trouble was here and now, and he wasn’t armed.

  . . .

  The funeral was short, and after Adkins presented Liz with the folded flag he and Whittaker, who’d avoided eye contact with McGarvey, headed back up the hill to their limo, Dick’s bodyguards preceding them. The chaplain came over and shook hands with Liz and Katy and McGarvey and he, too, left, the other mourners stepping over to where Liz and Katy were seated to pay their respects.

  Neither Katy, nor especially Liz, was engaged in any of it; they were in a different world, which made McGarvey feel all the more helpless. Senseless; so goddamned senseless, and yet there was a reason for Todd’s assassination.

  When the last of the people were finally gone, McGarvey helped Liz and Katy to their feet, and walked back up the hill with them, their bodyguards never more than a few feet away.

  At the road, he helped them into the CIA limo that would take them back to the Farm until the situation was resolved one way or the other, or until in McGarvey’s estimation it was safe for Katy to take their daughter, with bodyguards, back down to their home on Casey Key.

  McGarvey stood at the open door, and touched his wife’s cheek. She was looking up at him, her eyes large and moist. She hadn’t cried during the service, she’d already shed her tears, and there would be more to come, but for now she was holding on.

  “I can’t go with you now,” he told her, and she nodded.

  “I understand,” she said. “And I know it’s foolish for me to say it, but be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Hurry back to me, darling,” she said. “I miss you terribly.”

  He reached in and kissed her. Liz looked at him. “Take care of Audie,” he said. “For now, that’s what’s important.” But she didn’t respond.

  No one said a thing to McGarvey when he walked back to the SUV and got in the backseat, Ansel and Mellinger beside him, and Pete behind the wheel with Green riding shotgun. They were subdued, and the deputy federal marshals knew enough to keep their peace, and
McGarvey was happy for it. He didn’t want to start any trouble, but the funeral, and being with his grief-stricken wife and daughter, had put him right at the edge.

  The hearse had left immediately after the coffin had been carried down to the grave, and the chaplain and mourners were all gone now, leaving only the CIA’s Lincoln limousine a half-dozen car lengths up the road.

  Pete started to pull out, but McGarvey stopped her.

  “Let’s follow them,” he said. “I want to make sure they get out of here okay.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pete said, and although the marshals didn’t like the delay they continued to hold their silence.

  Something heavy was in the air, McGarvey could feel it, feel that something wasn’t right. He powered down the window and looked out, but except for the Tomb of the Unknowns up the hill no one was at any of the other graves or monuments within sight.

  “That’s bulletproof glass, Mr. Director,” Ansel said, but McGarvey ignored him.

  It was nothing but an imagination that was severely overworked, he told himself, as the Lincoln started down to the South Gate, and Pete fell in behind.

  “They’ll be okay,” Pete said. “They have good minders who know their business. And once they reach the Farm no one will be able to touch them.”

  “They have to get there first.”

  Pete glanced over her shoulder. “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” McGarvey said. “I want to follow them down to the Farm.”

  “No way,” Ansel said, but Dan Green looked over his shoulder at McGarvey.

  “I think it’s a good idea, Mr. Director,” Green said. “Just to be on the safe side.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The limo with the two women followed by McGarvey’s Cadillac SUV headed down Miles Drive that connected with Grant and then Clayton to the South Gate, at the same time Kangas got behind the wheel of the Taurus, Mustapha riding shotgun with the mobile phone detonator, a dreamy expression on his face. They had switched from the LeSabre, they had used before as an ordinary tradecraft precaution.

  “Watch the delay,” Kangas said, pulling out of the parking area onto Memorial Drive, heading as quickly as was prudent in the direction McGarvey and his women had gone.

  “The numbers are in,” Mustapha said. “All it wants is the nine.”

  Kangas suddenly had a sharp premonition of doom, almost like the battlefield hunches that your time was numbered. He was spooked, in part because he’d temporarily lost sight of the two CIA cars around the curve, and in part because although McGarvey hadn’t looked like much in person, the man’s reputation was nothing short of fearsome.

  “There they are,” Mustapha said, and Kangas saw the SUV through the trees below and to the left.

  He started to turn onto McPherson Drive, which led straight down to Grant, when a Toyota SUV with a man behind the wheel and a woman riding in the passenger seat suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and he had to brake hard to avoid a collision. When the Toyota passed he pulled in behind it, but they were going too slow, and he was conscious only of the possibility that if they missed McGarvey this afternoon they’d have to try again. It was a prospect he did not relish, especially if someone discovered the IED under the storm sewer lid. McGarvey would put it together and realize that someone was gunning for him.

  “Get around them,” Mustapha said. “We won’t make it in time.”

  “We don’t want to get stopped.”

  At the bottom of the hill where Grant met Clayton Drive, Kangas spotted the limo and McGarvey’s SUV through the trees approaching the South Gate. They’d run out of time. Except for some blind stupid bad luck they would have been in perfect position by now.

  Mustapha was fingering the cell phone’s keypad. “What do you want to do?”

  It was a matter of seconds before the two cars would go through the gate and pass over the IED.

  “We’ll have to take the shot from here,” Kangas said, making the only decision that was possible.

  The car they were following turned onto Clayton, evidently heading to the South Gate, and just past the intersection Kangas slowed nearly to a halt, no cars behind them or ahead of them at that moment.

  Their view of the gate, and especially the driveway beyond it leading to Southgate Road, was mostly obscured by a line of trees. But it was the best they were going to do for now.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do?” Mustapha demanded. “I can’t see a fucking thing.”

  “Get ready with the nine,” Kangas said. “I’ll tell you when.”

  “Goddamnit . . .”

  “Stand by,” Kangas said as the limo passed through the gate. “Okay.” With a two-second delay from the time the last number was entered and the signal went to the IED, the timing would be tight. But they had no other choice.

  He could just make out the hood of McGarvey’s SUV passing the gate.

  “Now,” he said sharply.

  Mustapha pressed the nine, but almost instantly a large explosion hammered the quiet afternoon, blowing branches off several trees directly in their line of sight.

  No delay, the single thought flitted across Kangas’s mind.

  TWENTY-SIX

  One moment Katy’s limousine was there and in the next instant it was replaced by a bright flash, followed immediately by an overpowering bang and a millisecond later a concussion that knocked all the air out of McGarvey’s lungs.

  Glass seemed to be flying everywhere inside the SUV, which swerved sharply to the left, slammed into the ditch at the side of the driveway, and stopped at an odd angle, its front bumper stuck in the upslope of the swale, throwing everyone inside forward against their restraints.

  The front airbags had deployed but a large piece of smoldering metal had blasted through the windshield on the passenger side, slicing the airbag and decapitating Dan Green in a spray of blood that splashed McGarvey and the two federal marshals.

  Pete Boylan had been shoved back by the airbag, and she was pawing at the material, but she seemed to be in a fog, not really aware of what had just happened.

  McGarvey could just make out what remained of the Company limo, the wreckage lying on its side. Nothing was left of it except the engine block and some twisted lengths of metal attached to the badly distorted frame, which couldn’t be recognized as being a part of a car just a moment ago. Very little of the cabin was intact, nor were any bodies visible, though four people had been inside the car. Flames and dark, greasy smoke rose from the wreck.

  All of that came to McGarvey in the first second or two after the explosion, the horrible thought crystallizing in his mind that his wife and daughter had been killed right in front of his eyes. Not twenty feet away from him.

  Every part of his body ached; it felt as if he’d been run over by a truck, and sounds were distorted. It was as if he were in a dream state where he couldn’t make his arms and legs function.

  Ansel on his left had pulled himself up and he was saying something impossible to understand. And Mellinger had been shoved aside, and lay doubled over on the floor up against the right rear door.

  McGarvey managed to reach over him and yank the door handle, but the car’s frame was bent and the door jammed. He braced his back against Ansel, who was struggling to come to his senses, and kicked at the door, once, twice, and on the third time it screeched open.

  Ansel was trying to grab for him, but McGarvey scrambled over Mellinger, who was starting to come around, and tumbled out into the ditch.

  He got to his feet and for another second stood, drunkenly swaying, until he was able to climb up onto the driveway and totter toward the burning wreck. But the intense heat and thick black smoke stopped him from getting close.

  And it hit him, fully hit him, Katy and Liz were dead. There would be no bringing them back, nor would there be much of anything left to bury.

  He raised his right hand to shield his eyes against the brightness of the flames, wanting to see his wife and daughter, their remains, b
ut nothing was there. The blast had come up from the road, blowing out the bottom of the limo that had apparently been an ordinary VIP vehicle, and therefore unarmored.

  In the far distance he thought he might be hearing a siren, but then it was gone, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard anything.

  In pieces now it was really hitting what had just happened, and more than that, why it had happened, and he focused on two names: the Friday Club and Administrative Solutions.

  He saw the expressions on Sandberger’s and Remington’s faces in Germany.

  He heard Todd’s voice on the cell phone.

  He felt his wife’s body against his as he’d hugged her before the funeral, and saw the devastated look in Liz’s eyes.

  And Otto and Louise not showing up.

  Nothing was making any sense to him, and it was driving him nuts.

  He paced a few feet to the left, and then to the right, like a caged animal seeing its freedom just beyond a fence. For this moment he was hammered into inaction, if not submission, so overwhelmed by what had happened even he was having trouble fully comprehending the situation. The fear that his family would someday pay the price for what he was had always preyed on his mind; in fact, he had left Katy early in their marriage in what he’d come to believe was a false hope of saving her, or removing her from danger.

  And now he asked himself if he’d been right to come back, and that burden was the most terrible thing he’d ever faced in his entire life. He was mad at himself and afraid for what might happen next. What he might do. What self-control remained after Todd’s assassination had been erased.

  Someone was shouting his name, and he turned in time to see Ansel coming across the driveway, his pistol drawn, Mellinger just a few paces behind. For a split second he had no idea what they wanted, and what Ansel was shouting, but then it came to him in nearly the same force as the explosion, that he was their prisoner, and they were going to take him into custody.