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  McGarvey had had the same thought.

  “You weren’t followed here? By anyone?”

  “No.”

  Rencke looked at the lavender screen. “They’re busy over there this morning, so it’s too dangerous to get back in. If you want to wait until tonight, I’ll show you what I came up with. But if you’re in a hurry—and I think you should be in one hell of a hurry—you’ll have to rely on my memory as well as my veracity.”

  “I trust you, or else I wouldn’t have come here in the first place,” McGarvey said.

  “What are your intentions? You said you’d meet with Murphy.”

  “It might depend on what you’ve come up with. Marta was a good friend.”

  Rencke was silent for a long moment or two. McGarvey thought he could hear the cats mewing at the door.

  “I dipped into your file while I was at it,” Rencke said. “You’ve been up against the best, and survived, though not without injury. A couple of times you almost bought it.”

  McGarvey said nothing.

  “This one is bigger, or at least I think it could be. Maybe more important. But you’d be up against a highly trained and well-motivated group. Not just one Russian hitman.”

  “Then there is a group of ex-STASI field officers?”

  “They’re called K-1, but what the significance of that is, or even if it’s true, isn’t clear. You have to remember that all I’m giving you is what came out of CIA archives, and out of one Operations file. Any of that could be in error. You know the drill.”

  “Do you know where they’re headquartered?”

  “There’ve been rumors that they went to ground somewhere in the south of France. Provence. Maybe even Monaco. But no one down there is talking, even to the SDECE.”

  “If the Action Service involves itself that might change. Anything on the leadership?”

  “There were about three dozen names on the possibles list, which I think is nothing more than a list of STASI goons still missing. Boorsch was on the list, and so was General Ernst Spranger.”

  “The butcher of the Horst Wessel,” McGarvey said. He’d been number three in the STASI, in charge of Department Viktor, modeled after the KGB’s assassination, kidnapping and sabotage section. His intelligence was outdone only by his ruthlessness.

  “You know the name?”

  McGarvey nodded. “If he’s on the loose he’ll be the one in charge. And in fact it was probably Spranger who formed the group. But what about their finances? They couldn’t have gotten much out of East Germany. There wasn’t much there to get at the end.”

  “We’ll come back to that. First, do you know why Boorsch shot that airliner out of the sky?”

  “It had to do with a couple of CIA case officers aboard. But the Paris COS wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

  “Don Cladstrup and Bob Roningen,” Rencke said. “They were on their way to Lausanne with a Swiss national by the name of Jean-Luc DuVerlie. Do any of those names tickle your funnybone?”

  “Roningen was a weapons expert at the Farm, I think,” McGarvey replied. “But who was DuVerlie?”

  “An engineer with the Swiss firm of ModTec.”

  There was something in Rencke’s eyes. Something, suddenly, in his voice. McGarvey sat forward.

  “What is it, Otto?”

  “Do you know what ModTec is into? Among other things.”

  “No.”

  “In order to construct a nuclear weapon these days you only need three high-tech elements. The rest of the components are of the hardware store variety. You need a critical mass of weapons-grade fuel—plutonium or enriched uranium, for instance. You need an initiator, which is nothing more than a tiny source of high energy particles to get the chain reaction going. Sort of like the lighted match tossed into a pile of firewood. And you need a number of electronic triggering devices to ignite the dynamite or whatever other explosive you use to force the plutonium together. ModTec builds the triggers, and DuVerlie was one of the trigger engineers.”

  “Spranger’s group went after the triggers, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Evidently. Which our Deputy Director of Intelligence Tommy Doyle believes is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s his theory that K-1 is after the whole enchilada. A working nuclear weapon … or the parts to build one.”

  “Did they get the triggers?”

  “Unknown.”

  “How about the other components … the initiator and the fuel?”

  “Unknown.”

  “What else?”

  “There were two new entries in the file, generated in the Paris Station. Tom Lynch was the signatory, and his source was your Action Service Colonel Marquand.”

  “About finances. Marquand told me that the SDECE believed the STASI group maintained bank accounts in at least two Swiss cities, Bern and Zurich.”

  Rencke nodded. “The currency paid into at least one of those accounts was in yen.”

  “Japan?” McGarvey said, stunned.

  “The source was unknown, but the currency was Japanese. Makes for some interesting speculation, doesn’t it.”

  “Jesus, I guess,” McGarvey said sitting back. “What else?”

  “That’s it except for one little item concerning you. Seems as if you knew Karl Boorsch.”

  McGarvey nodded. “We had a run-in a few years ago.”

  “Did you recognize him at the airport?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t report it. That may have generated some suspicion. You have some enemies at Langley, among them the Company’s general counsel.”

  “Ryan.”

  “Right,” Rencke said. “Listen, Mac, I may be reading between the lines, but I think they might be on a witch-hunt out there, and you may be one of their primary targets.”

  “I can take care of myself. But I want you to destroy your enter and search program. If someone gets wind of the fact that you’ve been …”

  “Dallying in the valley they’ll put me in jail and throw away the key.” Rencke smiled. “Before they did that I’d unleash Ralph.”

  “Ralph?”

  “He’s a super-virus. Wouldn’t be a computer program or memory load in the entire defense-intelligence community left intact. And I don’t even need my computer to activate it. I only need access to a telephone.” Rencke was grinning maliciously. “They won’t fuck with me and get away with it.”

  It was after one in the afternoon when McGarvey showed up at the main gate to the CIA’s headquarters at Langley. He’d rented a car from Hertz, and he waited behind the wheel while one of the civilian contract guards notified Phil Carrara that he had a guest. The reaction was almost immediate.

  The guard came back out, a tense expression on his face. “Do you have any identification, Mr. McGarvey?”

  McGarvey handed out his passport, and the guard took it back inside. Two other guards came out, but they remained across the road, watching him.

  A half minute later the first guard came out and returned McGarvey’s passport, as well as a visitor’s pass for the car and a plastic lapel pass.

  “Drive straight up under the entry canopy, sir. Mr. Carrara is coming down.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said, and he drove the quarter mile up through the woods and out into the broad clearing where the headquarters building stood.

  It’d been a while since he’d been here last, and the old wounds, both mental as well as physical, gave him a twinge. He’d given a lot of himself to this place, or to its ideal, yet he never had been able to clearly answer his own question: Why?

  In the old days he’d convinced himself that it was a matter of honor, but in the last days he’d come to realize that he had no real idea what that word meant.

  Carrara was waiting at the main entrance when McGarvey parked his car in the visitors’ spot. “Do you pull this crap just to thumb your nose at the establishment?” the DDO asked angrily.

  McGarvey had to smile. “Somebody has to do it, Phil. Otherwise you people wou
ld begin to take yourselves too seriously.”

  22

  MCGARVEY HAD TO SIGN IN AT THE MAIN DESK AND BE searched with a metal detector before he was allowed to go up on the elevator with Carrara. He’d disassembled his Walther and hidden it among his toiletries back at the hotel. He didn’t think the pistol would be confiscated today, but he hadn’t wanted to take any chances. He figured he’d be needing it soon.

  “Your ex-wife is upset with us, and you,” Carrara said on the way up.

  “Can you blame her? It was a dumb move, sending your people out there like that.”

  Carrara looked at him. “Were you so sure that they were ours?”

  “The only people in the world who wear plaid sport coats and have short haircuts are your Technical Services legmen. And maybe the odd used-car salesman.”

  “Tom Lynch said he was quite explicit when he passed the general’s orders along to you.”

  “I’m not on the payroll, Phil. I don’t take orders from Murphy. Besides, I had a few things to do in Europe first. And I did come here under my own power.”

  “Where’d you go in such a hurry this morning?”

  McGarvey ignored the question, and moments later the elevator opened on the seventh floor. McGarvey had to sign in again with security people, and this time he was subjected to a hands-on search as well as a metal detector walkthrough. Murphy’s personal bodyguard waited in the outer office, and he carefully scrutinized both McGarvey and Carrara when they were passed through by the general’s secretary.

  Murphy’s office was huge, and very well appointed, with a large desk, bookcases, a leather couch and chairs, and a bank of television monitors and communications equipment. Large windows looked out over the beautiful rolling hills to the south.

  Lawrence Danielle and Tom Doyle were seated across from Murphy, who was talking to someone on the phone. When Carrara came in with McGarvey he hung up.

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  “Thank you, General, but I don’t know yet if it’s good to be back. Or, how long I’ll be here.”

  “There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you, and then we’ll offer you another assignment. If you’re willing, and if you’re up to it.”

  “I thought as much,” McGarvey said.

  Murphy motioned him and Carrara to take seats and he picked up his telephone and buzzed his secretary. “Ask Howard to step in for a moment, would you?” He hung up.

  “I’m sorry about your two people aboard one-four-five,” McGarvey said.

  Murphy nodded. “I understand your friend from Switzerland was also aboard. Quite an unhappy coincidence.”

  “Just that. Nothing more.”

  “Yes,” Murphy said. “We’ll see.”

  Howard Ryan, the Company’s general counsel, came in and handed a thin file folder to Murphy. He avoided looking at McGarvey for the moment. Their animosity toward each other went back several years.

  “Stick around, Howard. We might need a point of international law,” Murphy said. He extracted a printed form from the file folder and handed it across to McGarvey. It was a memo outlining the National Secrets Act and the penalties for divulging classified material to anyone not authorized. “Sign that and we can get started.”

  McGarvey laid the memo back on Murphy’s desk. “If I decide to take the assignment, I’ll sign it.”

  “You’ll sign it now, or we’ll have you in jail,” Ryan blurted.

  McGarvey languidly turned to him. “On what charge, counselor?”

  “Complicity in the murder of one hundred fifty-one crew and passengers aboard the Airbus, and a half-dozen assorted others on the ground.”

  This was a setup, of course, to try to get him to inadvertently admit something. Murphy and the others were not interfering for the moment. It had always been the same. He’d been a pariah here since Santiago, yet he’d been recalled time after time to help out. They hated themselves for their dependence on him, and consequently they despised and mistrusted him.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “You knew that we had people aboard that flight, and you knew that an ex-STASI officer by the name of Karl Boorsch was at the airport—you can’t deny that you were following him for one reason or another. And yet although you had every opportunity to give the warning, you failed to do so. Makes you a party to an act of terrorism.”

  “I see,” McGarvey said.

  “Well?” Ryan demanded.

  “I deny the charge, although I admit I thought I recognized Boorsch, but only after I’d cornered him in the VIP lounge.”

  Ryan started to protest, but Murphy held him off. “Why didn’t you tell Tom Lynch about Boorsch? It was important.”

  “Because I wasn’t sure.”

  “That you recognized him?” Ryan asked.

  “I wasn’t sure about Tom Lynch or the entire Paris station, which has had problems ever since our embassy was destroyed last winter.”

  “You were going to tell us about him this morning?” Murphy asked dryly.

  “Yes,” McGarvey said. “As well as my talk with Phillipe Marquand. You’re familiar with that name?”

  Murphy nodded.

  “And the real reason you went first to Switzerland?” Carrara asked.

  “That too,” McGarvey said. “Marquand told me that the STASI had formed a freelance group with bank accounts in Zurich and Bern. Boorsch was a member of the organization, and Marquand hoped that if I showed up in Switzerland the others might get nervous and come after me, exposing themselves.”

  “What happened?”

  “Absolutely nothing. I only got as far as Lausanne before the Swiss Federal Police arrested me and kicked me out of the country.”

  Murphy and the others exchanged glances. “Howard?” the DCI asked the Agency counsel.

  “What were you doing at Orly that morning?”

  “Seeing an old friend off.”

  “How’d you know we had people aboard that flight?”

  “I didn’t, although I knew they were there at the airport. I spotted their car out front. I thought they might be following me again. It’s happened before.”

  “And Boorsch?” Carrara asked.

  “If you check my file downstairs you’ll see that he and I had a couple of near-misses a few years back.”

  “Are you saying that Boorsch may have recognized you as well?” Doyle asked, speaking for the first time.

  “Almost certainly.”

  “Which means it’s possible that the others would know your face as well,” the Deputy Director of Intelligence said.

  “That was Marquand’s thinking. The French, by the way, don’t feel as if we’re cooperating with them.”

  Murphy seemed to have made a decision. He turned again to the Agency’s counsel. “Well?”

  “Have him sign the memo before you proceed. But if you want my opinion, I say lock him up and throw away the key. He’s a dangerously outmoded relic, and has been for some time. If we go ahead and use him again, we’ll be just as guilty by association.” Ryan got to this feet.

  McGarvey looked up, made a gun out of his forefinger and thumb, pointed directly at the man and let the hammer fall.

  Ryan shook his head, turned on his heel and left the DCI’s office.

  Taking a ball-point pen out of his jacket pocket, McGarvey signed the Secrets Act memo, then sat back in his chair. “I’m assuming you want me to go after this STASI organization, and you believe that I’ll have a better chance than you of digging them out because they’ll recognize me.”

  “Something like that,” Murphy said. “Your starting point, of course, will be their bank accounts in Zurich and Bern.” He turned to Carrara. “We’ll have to get him back into the country. Do you foresee any problem?”

  “I’ll manage that on my own,” McGarvey broke in. “If and when I need help I’ll ask. But as soon as I get started I’ll answer only to Phil Carrara. Personally.”

  Lawrence Danielle, who had sat silently through the en
tire discussion, suddenly looked to Murphy. “Do you think that’s wise, Roland?”

  “What’s your point, McGarvey,” Murphy asked.

  “No point,” McGarvey said. “It’s just the way it’s going to be.”

  “Do you think there is a leak among one of us?” Danielle asked in his soft voice. He was nearing retirement, and he looked and sounded tired, but he was still a power to be reckoned with.

  “I don’t know. But when my life is on the line I’ve learned to keep very close tabs on exactly who knows what I’m doing and how I’m going about it.”

  “Fair enough,” Murphy said after a slight hesitation.

  “But before I start, or even agree to take this assignment, General, you’re going to have to answer a couple of my questions. If I think you’re lying to me, or not telling me the entire truth, I’ll back out.”

  Murphy nodded.

  “Two of your people were aboard one-four-five. The STASI wanted them eliminated. Why? What were they involved with?”

  “They were investigating the possibility that the East German group had targeted the Swiss firm of ModTec. One of their engineers, a man by the name of DuVerlie, claimed to have information about it. Phil will show you the file.”

  “What were the STASI going for?”

  “ModTec designs and builds a number of components for nuclear weapons,” Murphy said.

  “The STASI may be after the technology, or perhaps even an entire bomb, is that what you’re saying?”

  “We don’t know that yet,” Danielle cautioned.

  “But it’s possible?” McGarvey insisted.

  Murphy nodded. “Yes.”

  “Were they successful at ModTec? Did they get what they wanted?”

  “We don’t know,” Carrara said. “DuVerlie never had a chance to tell us.”

  “Did you send someone else over there to find out?”

  Carrara exchanged glances with Murphy before he answered. “Yes, we have a team investigating the company.”

  “What about Tokyo,” McGarvey said, and the room suddenly went electric. He’d gotten their attention.

  “What do you mean?” Murphy asked after a long moment.

  “Marquand told me that payments into at least one of the STASI’s Swiss bank accounts were in Japanese yen. Is there a connection? Have you gotten any indications from Tokyo Station that the Japanese might be interested in acquiring nuclear weapons technology?”