Flash Points: A Kirk McGarvey Novel Page 14

  It was an unexpected turn, and yet McGarvey wasn’t really surprised by the connection, though he didn’t know why. Something just outside his ken was niggling at the back of his head.

  “Brothers-in-law out together for an after-work drink?” Louise suggested.

  “What else?” McGarvey asked.

  “They talked about you not being dead. Grace Metal was evidently working for Echo, but whoever put the bomb in your car wasn’t in the consortium. Someone else is coming after you and it’s freaking them out.”

  “Not Kamal?”

  “His name never came up,” Otto said. “And that’s not all. Chambeau said you were their number one target. But until you were eliminated the ‘flash point probes’—his words—would have to wait.”

  Again something just outside of the box was bothersome, whispering something to McGarvey so softly he couldn’t quite make out the words. But the hairs at the nape of his neck bristled. “Is there more?”

  “They have a great deal of respect for you. In fact, Echo said that they had been warned—but he didn’t say by who. And he suggested that they just bide their time and let whoever else was gunning for you do their thing.”

  “We’ll need a list of everyone who knows I’m alive,” McGarvey said. “And by now it’s bigger than I’d like.”

  “Could be anyone,” Otto said.

  “The nurse in the clinic at the Farm knew who I was.”

  “And Kyung-won, and Grace Metal, and General Echo and Colonel Chambeau. Probably the entire Consortium.”

  “Cat’s out of the bag,” Louise said. “Time to go deep?”

  “They found me at New College and they found me at the Farm,” McGarvey said. “Let them find me at my apartment and on campus. Maybe even the Next undergrad.”

  “Maybe the White House,” Otto said.

  “Hatchett?”

  “He spent two days in Beijing last month, supposedly meeting with someone in the government. But absolutely nothing showed up in the media, nor was his flight included in any logs that I had access to.”

  “Is someone in the MSS on your list?” McGarvey asked. The Ministry of State Security was China’s main intelligence service.

  “No,” Otto said. “The question is, what was he doing in China?”

  “Something for the president,” Louise suggested. “Back-burner diplomacy, happens all the time.”

  “Xi Jinping can’t stand Weaver,” Otto said. “He’s gone on record publicly that he will not work with the White House no matter the circumstances, not until—in his words—the American people come to their senses.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Kamal parked the RAV4 SUV he’d rented in Ciudad Juarez in the long-term parking garage at Chihuahua City’s R. F. Villalobos International Airport, one hundred miles south of the desert training camp, just before noon. The morning was already hot.

  Taking his bag he tossed the car keys in a trash can as he headed into the main terminal, reasonably busy for the size of the airport, and went down to the arrivals level and outside to the waiting cabs.

  He’d booked a suite yesterday at the Sheraton Soberano, the only decent hotel in the city, for just one night under his Paul O’Neal identity, the same one he’d used in New York what seemed like an eternity ago.

  The edges were beginning to unravel for him. In just about every other operation he’d been involved with, including the staging of his own death at sea, he had been the one in charge. He’d been the one who’d called the shots. Until McGarvey. On the French Riviera last year and then in Manhattan where he’d barely made it out with his life.

  Two failed attempts taking out McGarvey—the first in Sarasota, the second at the Farm he knew nothing about—were disappointing. The woman on the phone admitted that she was as much in the dark as he was.

  “I’m not involved this time,” she’d said. “I’m just an observer on the sidelines, but since you’re part of whatever’s going on I have to warn you to be extremely careful around that bastard. The man has got nine lives.”

  “What word are you getting?”

  “About what?”

  “About what’s going on.”

  The woman was silent for several beats. “I don’t know what to tell you because I had no idea you’d become involved. Who are you working for, what have you been hired to do?”

  “Kill Kirk McGarvey.”

  “And?”

  “Just that.”

  Again the woman was silent for a beat. When she was back she sounded cautious. “Okay, whoever the hell hired you, it looks like we’re on the same page. McGarvey is job one.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  The woman laughed. “As long as McGarvey is your target, I’ll continue to give you whatever information you need. But once he’s out of the picture this number will be disconnected. And if you try to reach me after that…” She paused. “The consequences will not be to your liking.”

  Sitting in the cab he thought how satisfying it would be to put his hands around her neck and strangle her to death. Perhaps he would do it while he was fucking her.

  But then, there was more than simple pleasure to his business this time. And even more than the money.

  His reward would come when he was up close and personal with McGarvey, watching the life go out of the man’s eyes; seeing the expression on the man’s face when he realized that he was dying, and that there was nothing or no one to save him.

  * * *

  The hotel was barely tolerable by Kamal’s standards, but his suite looked toward some mountains in the distance, and the sitting room had expansive floor-to-ceiling windows and a complimentary bottle of Veuve Clicuot, at the very bottom of his drinkable champagne list.

  At two he called his Washington contact again. It was picked up after one ring, but no one answered.

  “I’ll phone this evening,” he said and he hung up. She was almost certainly at work, and in a place where she was not able to answer the phone.

  Downstairs in the reasonably laid out and decorated Restaurant Candiles, he ordered a filet mignon rare and a Caesar salad. Surprisingly a Dom Pérignon ’06 was on the list, and he ordered a bottle, very cold.

  The restaurant was less than one-third full, and the food and service were excellent.

  His contact called when he was having his coffee and cognac.

  “McGarvey has been discharged again from the hospital. He’s at his apartment in Georgetown.” She gave him the address just across from Rock Creek Park.

  “What shape is he in?”

  “I don’t have the entire story, but evidently his back was severely burned and he lost his left leg at or below the knee in the explosion. And he was injured again in the incident at Camp Peary.”

  “The man is a cripple.”

  “Don’t count him out just yet.” According to a source at the Farm he managed to take down one of the hand-to-hand instructors.”

  “Does he have minders? Someone from the CIA watching over him?”

  “Unknown at this point. But I’d doubt it. The man has the reputation as a loner, except for three people.”

  “I’d guess a woman by the name of Pete Boylan.”

  “Yes, and a computer genius friend named Otto Rencke, plus the man’s wife, Louise Horn, who was an NSA satellite expert. In fact, she still has strong connections with the Agency.”

  “Weaknesses?”

  “His granddaughter. She’s four. Her mother—McGarvey’s daughter—and her husband were killed in an operation, and the Renckes took over as her adopted parents.”

  Kamal had never had any compunctions about killing, and the thought of holding a child as hostage, and even killing it, didn’t bother him in the least. “A cripple, two geeks and a woman.”

  “You’re a macho son of a bitch. All you bastards are the same. But McGarvey’s girlfriend has a rep. I’ve never met her, but by all accounts she’s one tough broad. You might want to keep it in mind.”

  “I will,” Kama
l said. “What else do you have for me?”

  “That’s it. But I wish you luck, and I sincerely mean it. A lot is riding on this.”

  “Like what?”

  But the woman was gone.

  * * *

  Back in his suite, Kamal made reservations for the early morning American Eagle flight to Dallas–Fort Worth, where he’d stayed at the Fairmont Hotel before heading down to Mexico. He’d used his O’Neal identification there as well, and had left a locked bag with a spare Glock pistol, three sets of IDs and three platinum Amex cards in storage at the hotel.

  It had made crossing the border into Mexico marginally easier, and would make coming back into the States much safer in case some overzealous customs agent decided to do a physical bag check. Extra security layers had been put in place over the past year or so because of all the bombings, mass shootings and airliner disasters worldwide.

  He stayed awake staring out the window at the distant mountains, their dark shapes just beyond the city lights, almost ominous. A bulwark, of sorts, between him and what was left to do in Georgetown and then San Francisco, New Orleans, Colby and Grand Central.

  And yet he couldn’t stop worrying about something that he might be missing. Something important, something vital not only to the mission but to his personal survival.

  It was well past midnight before he managed to get some sleep and in the morning he put his concerns to the back of his mind.

  * * *

  Clearing customs at Dallas–Fort Worth had been anticlimatic. Men in obviously expensive suits and close-shaved, carrying Louis Vuitton bags, were rarely singled out. They didn’t fit the profile of the Middle Eastern terrorist.

  He checked into the Fairmont, was given his suite from before, and his bag left in storage had been brought up. He gave the bellman a fifty dollar bill, and inspected the bag’s telltale—a tiny piece of grit in the lock—still in place.

  He ordered a bottle of Krug, his favorite wine, and when it came he took out his two Glock pistols, both of them subcompact Gen 4s, and took his time cleaning them.

  The clock was ticking, and whether or not he was on a downhill slide, he forced himself to enjoy the moment.

  No matter the lingering questions, this was the shit that made life bearable.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  It was around five in the afternoon when McGarvey ran along the path in Rock Creek Park across from his apartment. The water was low this time of the year. He’d been here like this in just about every season, in every weather—sun, rain, fog even snow—and just about every time of the day—even nights sometimes—and usually he loved it. Loved the aloneness, the physicality, his thoughts.

  More than Casey Key in Florida, which he’d shared for all too brief a time with Katy, this place felt like home to him. In part because of the Company, of course, but in large part because of Pete, for which he felt a certain amount of guilt. He shared the CIA with her, and Otto and Louise had all but adopted her as one of the family.

  Even his granddaughter, Audie, who had no memory of her mother, Elizabeth, or grandmother, had warmed to Pete.

  It had been hard trying not to fall in love with Pete. And he’d felt like a traitor to his dead wife and daughter for doing so.

  “You have to move on with your life, Mac,” Louise had told him one evening about eight months ago.

  “I don’t know if I can, or even if I should.”

  “It wasn’t your fault that Katy and Elizabeth were assassinated.”

  “Yes, it was,” he’d shot back, the vision of the exact moment of their deaths rising up in his head.

  They’d been in Arlington Cemetery, riding in a limo coming back from the funeral of Liz’s husband—himself a victim of an assassination—when the Cadillac suddenly exploded. McGarvey had been in the car directly behind them and he’d witnessed the entire thing. Nothing had been left, only small pieces of their bodies, a charred shoe, Katy’s purse, the pistol Liz had been carrying in a shoulder holster under her blazer.

  He’d gone nearly insane that day, and as he pushed himself on the path along the creek the same blackness came up, threatening again to block out his sanity. Making him want to strike back at something, anything.

  Louise had been wrong; it was his fault that Katy and Liz had been killed. They’d died because of who he was, what he’d done. In fact, the bomb in the limo had been meant for him. Someone out of his past had surfaced.

  Just like now. Only this time he didn’t know why, exactly. He still had no handle on what was going on. Even more disturbing, Otto had no real idea either, except that whatever was happening had something to do with a consortium of mid-level intelligence officers in most of the developed countries around the world. And that once again McGarvey was in the crosshairs of an assassin. Very likely a name out of his recent past.

  His left foot and ankle began to ache, so he picked up the pace, his body drenched in sweat.

  “Phantom pains, in a part of your body you no longer have, but real pains nevertheless,” Franklin had told him.

  “For how long?”

  Franklin was walking out the door of Mac’s hospital room. He turned back. “Until something else of yours gets blown off.”

  Rush-hour traffic on the parkway to his left through the trees was picking up. But most of the other joggers who used the path every day had thinned out, only the occasional person walking, one man sitting on a park bench down by the water’s edge.

  The hair at the back of McGarvey’s neck bristled. Someone was behind him, and closing.

  He suddenly sprinted to the right, into a line of trees and brush, pulling the Walther from the holster at the small of his back under his sweatshirt.

  Pete pulled up short on the path and looked at him, his pistol pointed directly at her. She was grinning.

  McGarvey lowered his gun and reholstered it as he walked up to her, hiding his limp as best he could.

  But she’d noticed and her eyes narrowed. “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’ll live.”

  “That’s good to hear,” she said. “Let’s go back to your place. I could use a drink and you definitely could use a shower.”

  “I was about to turn around.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. But thank God you haven’t lost your reflexes.”

  “Did Otto come up with anything solid for me?”

  “For starts, Jennifer Echo is on the verge of bankruptcy. The girl likes to spend money at the better stores, but especially online.”

  “Could she and Chambeau be open for financial blackmail?”

  “That’s what Otto thinks. The DIA takes a dim view of their own analysts getting in over their heads.”

  “How about Echo?”

  “He was the general who mouthed off about maybe not following the commander-in-chief’s orders if it was Weaver sitting in the Oval Office.”

  McGarvey was scanning the rooftops of the buildings on 27th Street NW across the parkway for something, anything: the glint of binocular lenses, maybe a chance reflection off a small parabolic antenna pointed their way, even the gleam off a rifle scope. The shot would be an easy one.

  “What else?” he asked. With Otto there was always something else.

  “Looks as if Chambeau is having an affair with a coworker. A woman by the name of Susan Fischer who’s a signals intelligence supervisor at Fort Meade.”

  “Not so uncommon.”

  “Except that the woman could be a drunk.”

  “So?”

  “A drunk who talks to people on a cell phone equipped with a fairly sophisticated encryption algorithm.”

  “She’s a SIGINT super.”

  “Otto designed the program. He calls it a shape-shifter. Soon as someone tries to break the algorithm, the program changes. It’s theoretically unbreakable.”

  “Did he give it to the NSA?”

  “No.”

  “Then how the hell did the woman get it?”

  “Otto asked me to ask you,” Pete said. “And he s
uggested that we do everything in person for the time being.”

  They crossed to the other side of the busy parkway. Pete took out a small device about the size of a cell phone and keyed it. The tiny screen remained blank.

  “It’s a spectrum analyzer. Checks to see if someone is watching us electronically. To this point we’re clean. And so are both of our apartments, as well as Otto’s McLean house.”

  “But job one is still me.”

  “Yeah,” Pete said.

  “That’s a good thing. If someone gets close enough to take a shot at me, it’ll mean that I’m close enough to fire back.”

  * * *

  On the third floor of his building, McGarvey took out his pistol, unlocked the door and shoved it open with the toe of his peg leg.

  Nothing had changed since he’d left forty-five minutes ago. Especially there were no new smells; cologne—men’s or women’s—gun oil, dry cleaning residue on someone’s jacket or the distinctive residue of body soap, lotion or shampoo. Only his own smells: Irish Spring with aloe, bay rum aftershave and Dove shampoo with menthol.

  Pete was on his six, her pistol drawn. “Clear?” she asked softly.

  “Clear,” he said, lowering his gun. “Red or white this time?”

  “A merlot.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Otto was about to pull the pin for the day, when someone buzzed his door. Louise had called earlier and insisted that he be home for dinner for a change. Audie was asking if he was going to leave them forever, and it almost broke his heart thinking about their adopted daughter.

  “Dr. Estes is here to see you,” his program announced.

  “Is he alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let him in,” Otto said.

  He shut down the images on all of his screens, especially the main one that showed the ongoing results of the search his darlings were chewing on, and went to the front office of his suite as the door buzzed open and Estes walked in, a paper bag in his hand.

  “I’d hoped that I would catch you before you left for the day. The front gate said you hadn’t left yet.”

  “I was just on my way out,” Otto said. “What have you got on your mind?”