Flash Points: A Kirk McGarvey Novel Read online

  And then the mark was his. A favor had been done, a favor was owed. Something small at first, the birth date of a minor government official. The private phone number of a low-level intelligence officer, perhaps the names of the officer’s wife and children.

  A favor returned, another given, and so it developed.

  NOCs were to be used, but never to be trusted.

  When the door was closed, Salem switched on a dim table lamp. He was holding a Wilson tactical pistol, which he laid on the table. “It’s happened, then?”

  “On the A course. The ropes on the river cliff had been cut through.”

  “I let the word out that you’d be there sometime tonight,” Salem said. “Who was it?”

  “Grace Metal,” McGarvey said. “She was coming up behind me and Larry got the drop on her.”

  “She’s dead?”

  McGarvey nodded. “She was hiding something, I picked that up the first time I laid eyes on her. But I didn’t think she’d been sent here to kill me.”

  “Me neither,” Salem said. “She goes back a ways with some important people. When she was vetted she was given the highest marks.”

  “Almost too high?” Kyung-won asked.

  A bleak look came into Salem’s eyes, and he nodded.

  “Only a bad legend is ever that lily-white,” Kyung-won said. A legend was the invented background manufactured for someone going under deep cover. Driver’s licenses and other documents, plus education and employment records, along with testimonials from real people who were either dead or unavailable for comment. A good legend always had a few flaws, to make it seem real, because no one was perfect.

  “Why’d she apply for a job?” McGarvey asked. “Doesn’t sound as if she was entry-level material.”

  “Said she was tired of sitting behind a desk. She was a former marine combat officer.”

  “The Bureau has to be notified,” McGarvey said.

  “I know. And they’ll be crawling all over this place, including up my ass,” Salem said. “I suggest that you get back to the clinic.”

  “I want to give Otto a call first,” McGarvey said. He turned to Kyung-won. “Get rid of your gun, and go back to your quarters.”

  “Not my gun. I took it from the armory.”

  “Sanitize it first and return it. Without being seen.”

  Kyung-won grinned. “I think I can manage that,” he said and he left.

  “We can use the computer in my office,” Salem said.

  “I’ll use my phone,” McGarvey said. “She said that someone had come down from New York to kill me. But she said that we didn’t know who it was.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah. But it was something I didn’t need to know, except that it wasn’t the same people who tried in Sarasota.”

  Salem glanced at the door. “Do you suspect Larry?”

  “At this point I suspect everyone,” McGarvey said. Just about every time in his career—especially his early career—when he’d tended to trust the ones who seemed to be straight arrows, he’d been bitten in the ass. His lessons had been hard-won. He was a lot more cautious now.

  “No chance she survived the fall?”

  “Larry shot her in the head first.”

  “I’ll call Langley to get the FBI out here,” Salem said. “But stay in the clinic until they get here. You were in the same class as Grace, the Bureau people will want to talk to you.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kamal was in his tent laying out his shaving things when someone knocked on the center pole. Razor in hand he turned. “Come in.”

  Ayman Baz pushed back the flap and stepped inside. The desert evening had been cold and it was still cool just before dawn, but by noon the temperature would be around one hundred.

  “You’re leaving,” the camp commandant said.

  “Yes. I’m finished here.”

  “I want to show you something before you go.”

  Kamal hesitated a moment. Just about everything was in place now and he intended to go to ground, maybe even back to France and allow the political situation to come closer to a head.

  Last night Weaver had been on the television news channels, including CNN, with his latest executive order. Any Muslim who’d ever been in an ISIS or al-Qaeda war zone—whether as a participant in the fighting or even a victim—would be immediately subject to arrest the moment they applied for a visa to come to the States. And the arrest could take place at any U.S. embassy or consulate anywhere in the world. If they made an application they would not be allowed to leave the building or compound.

  “What then, Mr. President?” an ABC reporter had asked at the White House news conference.

  Weaver had almost laughed. “Then they’ll get their wish. We’ll bring them here. But the only things they’ll ever see are the insides of a military courtroom and a supermax cell, or the sign saying: YOU ARE LEAVING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”

  “What about the innocent ones?” another network news reporter asked.

  “There are no innocent ones.”

  The reporter tried to follow up, but Weaver held her off.

  “All I’m saying is that I’m going to do everything within my power to stop another nine/eleven or any other attack from ever happening again. When it comes to immigrants my motto will be guilty until proven innocent.”

  “That’s against the basic principles of our Constitution.”

  “Where were you, and the weak-kneed politicians you covered, the day before nine/eleven?” Weaver asked. “I’ll tell you where: courting Saudi Arabia for its oil, instead of allowing exploration in the Gulf of Mexico or the Arctic. Or not allowing fracking to go ahead. Or blocking projects like the Keystone pipeline.”

  The White House press room erupted in pandemonium, but again Weaver cut through the noise.

  “Haven’t you people read your history?” he asked, not so much as an accusation but as a taunt. “Well, I have. And let me tell you; freedom has never come cheaply. The War of Independence, the Civil War, World War One and Two. Or do some of you think that we should not have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan?”

  “How about Vietnam?” someone in the back asked.

  “How about Vietnam?” Weaver demanded. “Who do you suppose lost that war for us? Our troops or our weakling politicians?”

  “You would have called for a nuclear strike on Hanoi?”

  “It would have done the job.”

  “What about China’s reaction?”

  “Do you honestly think that Beijing would have gone to war with us over Vietnam? Or earlier, even North Korea when we could have ended it with one decisive blow? What do you think war is all about?”

  “What, Mr. President?”

  “Winning,” Weaver said. “And the majority of Americans agree with me, otherwise I wouldn’t have been elected.”

  “But your poll numbers have been steadily dropping since the end of February,” a CNBC reporter said. “Would you care to comment, sir?”

  Weaver almost laughed again. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  Again the room erupted, but Weaver held up a hand.

  “Thank you,” he said, and he left the podium.

  * * *

  In the admin tent Baz perched on the edge of the conference table, which was nothing more than a piece of plywood supported by sawhorses. He and Kamal were alone for the moment. Outside, a half-dozen or more Kalashnikov rifles were being fired, and in the distance two sharp explosions, what sounded like suicide vests, went off.

  “I’ve talked to some engineers about your projects,” Baz said.

  “Saudis?” Kamal asked, though he was only slightly curious about what Baz wanted to tell him.

  “Some Russians too.”

  “About time.”

  “Your camper filled with Semtex won’t bring down the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “It was meant to be a soft target.”

  “Kill a few people during rush hour? Terrorize the population?”

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sp; “Your point?” Kamal asked. He’d asked himself the same question since the meeting in Beijing. But he’d been given the specific targets and methods and he’d been promised a very large payday. No questions asked.

  The strikes were weak, in his estimation. It was why he’d planned the separate strike on Grand Central Station and the method to carry it out.

  “A couple of kids with suicide vests standing at the base of a dike in New Orleans won’t do anything but superficial damage either. In fact, the only real target you’ve come up with is the church in Kansas, if my people aren’t stopped at the border. Or you don’t shoot them first.”

  “It was necessary for the others to see the seriousness of my intent.”

  “Yasmine would have done what you asked.”

  “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

  Baz was not happy, but he said nothing.

  “I’ve been given specific instructions,” Kamal said, and it sounded weak to his own ears. But except for Grand Central he was merely doing a job for enough money to retire. Or at least retire from everything except his own interests. Wherever they might carry him, simply for the thrill of the game.

  He turned away for a moment. His life had gone from Krug on the Riviera to a relatively modest seclusion in France. From the thrill of the hunt and the kill to looking over his shoulder waiting for McGarvey to show up.

  The e-advertisement he’d put out, and the assignment from the Gang of Three, had been a long way down for him. Almost to the beginning.

  He was insane and he’d known it for a long time. But instead of reveling in the fact, he was starting to get tired of the game.

  “The strike on the church in Kansas will work,” Baz said. “Won’t be a Christian anywhere in North America who’d feel safe again. I won’t mind sending my kids to do something like that.”

  “Your kids?”

  “I’ve begun to think of them that way.”

  Kamal nodded. “You said you wanted to show me something.”

  “The major said that you were the best. You’ll appreciate this.”

  Kamal followed Baz from the tent a hundred meters or so out into the desert, over the top of a rocky sand dune and down the other side where a half-dozen soldiers for God and two instructors—all of them wearing camouflaged uniforms—were standing around a Toyota pickup, waiting.

  “The sand dune is your dike,” Baz said. He made a signal and he and Kamal moved about twenty meters off to the left.

  Two of the young soldiers, both of them teenagers with scraggly beards, shouldered Stinger missiles, and fired.

  The base of the sand dune blew away in two spots, the top collapsing downward.

  “That will breach your dikes, and flood the city again,” Baz said. “And Washington will be blamed for doing nothing.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  McGarvey had used his encrypted phone to call Otto after leaving Salem’s quarters, but Louise said he’d disappeared. And she’d said in it such a way that Mac wasn’t to take it any further.

  “Anyway, why are you calling so late?” she’d asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m still laid up, but the doc says I’ll live.”

  “Have you talked to Franklin?”

  “Not yet. Has he been bothering you guys?”

  “No, and it’s not what Otto expected,” she said. “Anyway, Audie is here with us, and you’re at the Farm. Quite a switch.”

  “It’s a good thing.”

  “Something going on?”

  “I think so, but I don’t know what yet. The place is starting to light up like Christmas, but they took my peg leg so I’m stuck. What about Pete?”

  “I haven’t talked to her in two days,” Louise said, and it was obvious to McGarvey that she was lying. “Do you want me to call her?”

  “Not necessary. I’ll call her soon as I find out what’s going on.”

  “Sleep tight,” Louise said.

  “You too.”

  * * *

  It was a long night for McGarvey, though he was able to get a few hours’ decent sleep. He kept going over in his head Grace Metal saying that it was someone from New York who wanted him dead. But there’d been no time to ask her who or why before Kyung-won had shot her to death.

  At seven, Nurse Meade came into the room to check the bandages on the stump. She was brusque but not unfriendly. “Good thing you stayed in bed all night,” she said. “Dr. Franklin called and said you aren’t allowed to do anything physical for the next couple of days. And he was insistent, if you catch my drift.”

  “What’s going on out there?”

  “The FBI’s here in force. Apparently there was an accident on the A course.”

  “What kind of an accident?”

  “I don’t know, but a bad one if they had to call the cops.”

  When she was finished, she pulled the sheet back over McGarvey’s leg.

  “Thanks.”

  “I was Franklin’s chief nurse until eight months ago, when they asked me to do a one-year stint down here.”

  McGarvey realized that her face was familiar to him. “Do you know me?”

  “Yes, I do, Mr. Director. And when Dr. Franklin called and asked me to keep my mouth shut, I was happy to agree.” The clinic was quiet, but she glanced over her shoulder at the open door. “Was it you last night?”

  “The less you know the better off you’ll be,” McGarvey said. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded, but she was a little frightened. “Something’s going on. Just about everybody’s walking around as if they were on eggshells.”

  “What are they saying?”

  She shook her head. “It’s what they’re not saying. Ever since maybe February or March it seems like the entire country has become jumpy. Like everyone is waiting for the shoe to drop. For something to happen.”

  “What something?” McGarvey asked.

  “Breakfast should be up in a few minutes,” Meade said. She picked up her tray of bandages and went to the door. She turned back. “Maybe another nine/eleven?”

  * * *

  Pete showed up at nine. She was wearing her efficient, determined expression, and she was armed. McGarvey felt the pistol in the holster on her hip under her jacket when she bent over and gave him a hug.

  “Otto’s working on some things,” she whispered in his ear, before she straightened up. “Bob said you’d hurt your leg,” she said out loud.

  “Fell out of bed.”

  “A man your age oughta be more careful,” Pete said.

  Someone came into the clinic.

  “That’ll be one of the Bureau guys,” Mac said.

  “Franklin wants you back at All Saints. I’m here to pick you up. You’ll need help getting to my car.”

  Nurse Meade showed up at the door with a man wearing a dark blue FBI jacket and baseball cap. He couldn’t have been much over twenty-five, with a round baby face, wide eyes and a stern manner.

  “Thank you,” he said to the nurse and he came in. “Damon West?”

  “Yes, and what the hell is going on here?” Mac demanded.

  “And you are?” the FBI agent asked Pete.

  Pete showed her CIA identification. “I’m here to take Mr. West back to All Saints. He was injured in a training accident yesterday. Let me see your ID.”

  “Morton Gold,” the agent said and he showed Pete his ID. “Now, if you’ll excuse us I have a couple of questions for Mr. West.”

  “Don’t be long, the man is in pain,” Pete said, and she left with Nurse Meade.

  “I understand that you’re a field agent,” Morton said.

  “Yes,” McGarvey said. “Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

  “Just back from an assignment?”

  “Yes.”

  “From where?”

  “I couldn’t say. And you haven’t answered my question.”

  The FBI agent pursed his lips. “There was a fatality,” he said. “Did you leave your bed during the night?”<
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  “To use the bathroom and I screwed up my stump,” McGarvey said. He pulled his blanket back to reveal the bandages.

  “You get that in the field?”

  “I couldn’t say. Who was it got killed and how?”

  “Did you hear anything unusual during the night? Anything at all?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a gunshot.”

  “This is a training base, Mr. Morton. Gunshots and explosions occur just about twenty-four/seven.”

  “Last night?”

  “I’m a sound sleeper.”

  Morton nodded curtly. “Thanks for your cooperation, sir.”

  He stopped at the door and gave McGarvey an odd look, but then he left.

  When he was gone Pete came back in. “Let’s get your leg on and get you the hell out of here,” she said. She bent over him, cheek to cheek. “Did he recognize you?”

  “If he did he didn’t say so.”

  Pete got his peg leg as McGarvey pulled back the sheet and swung up so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  She stopped, her mouth tightening.

  “Not an appealing sight,” he said.

  She forced a smile. “I’m seeing a warm body—a live body. Good enough for me.”

  THIRTY

  It was dark, the sky transparent as only it can be in the desert, as Kamal walked a few hundred meters directly away from the cluster of tents. He had elected to stay another day at the camp; he had one more thing to do before he left for France.

  Everyone seemed intent on learning how to kill a lot of people. And no one, not even the ones planning to martyr themselves as suicide bombers, seemed to be the least bit concerned that the missions they were training for were almost certainly one-way.

  The seventy-one young soldiers—four more had shown up in camp earlier in the day—had finished their prayers and were having their evening meal in the mess tent with Baz, who was not only the camp commandant but the imam—the spiritual leader.

  “Yes, they’re all crazy,” the Saudi had told Kamal after the demonstration. “But then so are you, I suspect.”

  Kamal had not taken offense. “And you,” he said.