Face Off--A Kirk McGarvey Novel Read online

  But security inside the building had always been minimal. This part of Turkey was not considered high risk. The two marine guards at the gate were frosty—it was a part of their training—but they were looking for trouble from the outside, not inside.

  He was going deep, contrary to Marty’s suggestion, but the DDCI did have a good idea in his head after all. And that was a job as a contractor or adviser—but not to the good guys.

  Rowe had always considered himself a James Bond simply looking for a happening. Here and now was his prime opportunity, a place to make his chops. He had gone up against McGarvey and survived.

  He was a made man.

  The woman was not moving.

  Rowe took out his Wilson carry and conceal pistol, which was modeled on the 1911 Colt .45 that had been the standard issue for the American military forever, until it was replaced by the Beretta. From his jacket pocket he pulled out a suppressor and screwed it onto the threaded muzzle.

  The Wilson’s claim to fame was that it was the most accurate handgun on the planet. But at close range it wasn’t an issue.

  Light on his feet, despite his bulk, Rowe stepped up to the gurney that had been used as an operating table and studied the side of Pete’s head for a long ten seconds.

  She was a good-looking woman. She and McGarvey had made a striking couple. In addition she was smart, well trained, and physically capable.

  The errant thought crossed his mind that it would be a good deal to fuck her first and then kill her. But that was crazy.

  He started to raise his pistol, when Pete suddenly turned toward him, a subcompact Glock 29 pistol in her hand.

  “Your choice, Mark,” she said.

  He hesitated.

  “Shit or get off the pot.”

  The thought of running, even with McGarvey after him, was a hell of a lot more appealing than the thought of spending his life rotting in some supermax prison.

  He raised the pistol, but as he started to pull the trigger a thunderclap burst inside his head.

  * * *

  McGarvey had been pretending to sleep on top of the covers in his stateroom. He sat up, took off his shoes, and padded to the door. There was a lot of traffic, among them fishermen, this close to the Turkish shore. Najjir had assigned the two shooters to take four-hour shifts just outside in the companionway.

  “I need some air,” he said, loudly enough for the guard to hear but not so loud that his voice carried over the noise of the twin diesels. “I’m coming out.”

  The guard had stepped back, the room broom at the ready, when McGarvey emerged.

  “I can’t sleep. And I don’t think that the Russians are going to let me do much wandering out in the open.”

  “Fuck you,” the bulky guard said. He was dressed in black night fighters’ camos, as the others had been, and his accent put him as an American.

  “I’m going outside,” McGarvey said. “You can either shoot me or come along.”

  Mac brushed past the man and at the end of the companionway went up the half dozen stairs to the aft deck. The running lights of at least a dozen ships dotted the still overcast night aft and to port and starboard. This was a busy waterway.

  He stepped up to the rail, and the guard was right behind him.

  “Care for a swim?” McGarvey asked.

  He grabbed a handful of the man’s blouse and rolled over the transom, the sharply cold water closing over him and the guard.

  PART

  THREE

  Novorossiysk

  FORTY-SIX

  Otto was still at the kitchen counter, monitoring his darlings, while Louise was just taking the pizza she’d made out of the oven, when his rollover work number rang on his cell phone. It was Erick Kraus, the duty officer at the consulate in Istanbul.

  “It was Mark, just like you thought it might be.”

  “Do you have him in custody?”

  “He had his gun out, but before he could fire, Pete—Ms. Boylan—shot him between the eyes. He was dead before he hit the floor.”

  “How is she?”

  “Fine, but she wants to know about Mr. McGarvey. I’ll put her on.”

  “Where’s Mac?” she said. She sounded out of breath, as if she had just run up a flight of stairs. But Mac had once told him that sometimes, when Pete got super excited, she tended to hyperventilate.

  “How are you, really? Lou and I were worried.”

  “Goddamnit, Otto, I’m talking about Mac. Do you know where he is or don’t you?”

  Otto looked up. He’d switched to speaker mode when Erick had called, and Louise had heard everything. She shrugged.

  “He’s disappeared, but it may not be as bad as all that; could be he’s on his way back to Istanbul.”

  “Back from where? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I think Najjir took him out of the city to a marina about ten miles from the Black Sea. Lou managed to get a series of good satellite passes from one of our Jupiter birds in geosync orbit, and we got a shot of four men getting out of a car and boarding a yacht. One of them was looking up, and my darlings have a fairly high confidence that it was Mac.”

  “Sounds like him, thinking maybe someone was overhead, so he looked up,” Pete said. “What do you have on the yacht?”

  “The Farashatan, registered to one of the distant royal cousins.”

  “Then let’s nail that bastard.”

  “No need. The yacht’s been in charter service for two years now. Oil revenues have been down, and distant cousins are at the low end of the feeding trough.”

  “So they’re still docked there, or are they headed across to Russia?”

  “They were on their way across, but a half hour ago they stopped and began to circle, like they were looking for something.”

  Pete actually laughed. “He was outgunned and he couldn’t take over, so he decided to swim back to shore. Do you think they found him? Did they stop?”

  “No. They’re on their way back to Turkey.”

  “He’s still in the water?”

  “Mac’s a damned good swimmer, and there’s a lot of traffic where he went overboard—if that’s what happened. Someone’s bound to pick him up.”

  “Not unless Najjir sent a Mayday. Commercial ships don’t maintain man-overboard watches,” Pete said. “Was there any radio traffic from the yacht?”

  “One short burst, via satellite. It was sent in what I think was one of the new quantum algorithms the Russians started playing around with a couple of months ago. My darlings are chewing on it, but it could take a bit of time.”

  “Christ,” Pete said softly. “Any Russian warships on their way to where he might have gone overboard?”

  “Not within a hundred miles. But as soon as Lou can snag some more satellite time, we’ll take a look.”

  “Could be a couple of hours,” Louise said, loudly enough that Pete could hear her.

  “Nothing any sooner?”

  “You know as well as I do that retasking any of our spy birds, especially a Jupiter, damned near takes an act of Congress. So I’m doing it the old-fashioned way.”

  “By stealing the time,” Pete said. “We have to find him before the Russians do, because once they have him they’ll kill him rather than admit he’s there.”

  They could hear the desperation in her voice. “We’ll find him,” Otto said. “I’ve alerted Incirlik, and the CO promises he’ll keep a chopper on standby.”

  The US Air Force base was located on Turkey’s southeastern coast, not far from the border with Syria.

  “He’d be sticking his neck out to send one of our resources into the Black Sea,” Pete said. “Lots of Russians there.”

  “He’s a good man,” Otto said. “But what about you?”

  “I want to stay here, but they ordered me out of the country. The doctor insists I get to All Saints ASAP. He’s worried about my liver.”

  “Then do as he says,” Louise said. “We’ll pick you up at Andrews.”

  “
Find Mac before the Russians do,” Pete said.

  “Will do,” Otto told her.

  “Promise?”

  “Honest Injun.”

  * * *

  Najjir came down from the bridge to the salon where Miriam was staring out the windows at the pitch-black predawn sea, waiting with a bottle of water. She looked almost as bad as he felt, and yet he kept assuring himself that they were going to come out of this situation just fine.

  She turned to him. “What’d they say?”

  “They have our position and they’ll either find him alive or they’ll find his body. Either way they’ll fish him out of the water and get him to the base.”

  He’d radioed their situation to the maritime border guard’s Stenka-class patrol boat, which had come out of Novorossiysk to meet them midsea, in what was essentially international waters. The 125-foot boat was originally designed for antisubmarine duty and could cruise at thirty-five knots. Armed with 12.7mm and 30mm machine guns, antisubmarine torpedoes, and a pair of depth charge racks, she was a formidable fighting vessel, with a crew of more than thirty officers and men.

  “What about the Americans?” Miriam asked. “The man was the chief of the CIA. If they traced him this far—which is possible—mightn’t they send someone to look for him?”

  “They’re not going to start a shooting war.”

  “Even if they think the Russians have him?”

  “If they believe that, they’ll send it to the diplomats,” Najjir said. “Nothing to worry about now. He’s off our hands, and we’re well shed of him. We did our part and now it’s time for the SVR to do its.”

  Miriam turned again to the dark windows. “You don’t think they’ll be waiting for us at the marina?”

  “No reason for it.”

  Miriam shook her head. “He’s out there. I can feel him. And even if the Russians find him alive and pull him out of water, he’ll move heaven and earth to come for us. Especially when he finds out that his lover has been killed.”

  “The Russians will never admit they have him, and I guarantee that they’ll never let him walk free. So stop worrying.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Fuck it, go ahead and worry. I’m going to get a drink, and when we get ashore I’m going back to the hotel for a few hours’ sleep, and this afternoon sometime I’m flying out.”

  “To where?”

  “A safe haven,” Najjir said. “Something you might think of for yourself.”

  “Maybe I’ll come with you.”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Why?” Miriam asked. “I’m not such a bad lay.”

  “Business, nothing more.”

  “You enjoyed it.”

  “Playacting. And now that it’s over I wouldn’t fuck you for all the gold in Fort Knox.”

  “No?”

  “I’m gay, sweetheart. And besides, you have a horseshit fashion sense.”

  “Pufta,” Miriam said. “I almost hope McGarvey does come after you.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  McGarvey figured that he had been in the water for eight or ten hours, but aside from being cold, he was in pretty good shape. The dawn had broken cloudy, which made it more difficult to spot passing fishing boats—the ones he wanted to pick him up—but it would warm up soon.

  Within minutes after he’d gone overboard the yacht had come back for him. But each time it got close, its spotlight sweeping toward him, he dove under the surface and swam in the opposite direction for thirty seconds or so before coming up for air.

  The cat-and-mouse game had lasted for nearly thirty minutes, until the spotlight was turned off and the yacht headed southwest, back to the Bosphorus.

  An hour ago the ferry to Yalta, on the Crimean peninsula, had steamed within thirty yards or so from him. A half dozen people were at the rails, but no one spotted him waving, and within a few minutes the ship was out of sight over the horizon.

  He got tired just at dawn, so he took off his trousers, tied knots at the cuffs, and used the belt to tie the waist shut, trapping the air inside, in effect making a crude life jacket. It only held enough air to help keep him afloat for ten minutes or so at a time, but it allowed him to take catnaps.

  Just now, the deflated trousers around his neck, he got a massive cramp in his left leg. Ignoring the pain, he began to swim, heading south, the hazy sun over his left shoulder.

  All through the night large ships had passed him, some heading south, others north. But they traveled at such a fast pace that they were nothing but specks on the horizon for only a minute or so, before disappearing in the opposite direction.

  At no time was he ever completely alone in the sea. At night he could see the lights of a lot of ships in every direction. When the dawn had come, most ships passed in the distance, except for the ferry.

  Sooner or later, he suspected, the Russians would be coming for him, if Najjir had radioed or used a sat phone to report the situation. But if he had reported to someone, Otto might well have picked it up and called for help. Possibly from the US air base outside Adana.

  And if the Russians actually did pick him up—which he thought was likely—and if Otto and Louise had managed to snag some satellite time, and knew where to look—which was a little less likely—the ball would be passed to State, who would put pressure on the Kremlin.

  There were a lot of ifs in the equation, so for the near term, until he was picked up by whomever, he would work to not drown.

  One good thought was that Pete was safe at the consulate, probably patched up by now, and starting to raise hell about his situation. She would move mountains to see that he was found and rescued, wherever he was.

  He almost wished that he were a fly in the corner of the chief of Istanbul station’s office at the consulate, watching the fireworks.

  You will get off your fucking ass and find my fiancé or I’ll rip your fucking heart out of your fucking chest with my bare hands. Now!

  Someone behind him called his name on a bullhorn. “Mr. McGarvey.”

  He turned as an inflatable, with two armed men plus the driver, raced toward him from a patrol boat flying the white-blue-red Russian colors.

  * * *

  Pete was booked on a Delta/KLM flight direct to Dulles because, as Otto explained, it was the fastest way to get her home. Nothing was available from Incirlik, and by the time he could get something to her from Ramstein and then across the pond she’d already be touching down in the States.

  She moved slowly, though she was ambulatory Irwin had personally escorted her to the airport, and he didn’t leave until she was through security and on her way to the gate, a half hour ago. He’d managed a temporary passport for her, and one of the station’s cell phones.

  “Give it to tech support when you get home. They’ll sanitize it and get it back to us.”

  “Will do, and thanks for everything,” Pete had told him. “We won’t forget.”

  “Get him back.”

  “Count on it.”

  At the gate, with twenty minutes before her flight was ready for boarding, she called Otto. “I’m at the airport. Is there any word about Mac?”

  “The Russians picked him up a half hour ago.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Unknown at this point. But apparently he’s aboard one of their patrol boats on the way to Novorossiysk.”

  “At least he’s out of the water,” Pete said. It wasn’t the worst news. “What are the Russians saying?”

  “The director called General Subotin last night, but that was before they had Mac.”

  “What are we doing about getting him home?”

  “Marty and I are going over to the White House with Gibson, to see the president and his Russian adviser.”

  “Bill Rodak?”

  “He’s a friend of Marty’s.”

  “You’re bypassing State?”

  “Gibson’s call, and I agree with him. We need to make this personal right now.”

  “Before Mac h
as an unfortunate accident,” Pete said, holding back tears of fear and frustration. She had walked away from the people already in line for the boarding call. “I want him back.”

  “We’ll get him.”

  “Not in a body bag.”

  * * *

  McGarvey had been given dry dungarees and a Russian naval officer’s tunic without a name tag or insignia of rank, and had been brought up to the wardroom, where a young lieutenant brought him a cup of coffee laced with brandy.

  “The captain will see you shortly, sir,” the kid said. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “I’ll wait until I get back to Istanbul. I have friends waiting for me there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A slender man with blond hair and blue eyes came in. He was wearing the shoulder boards of a captain-lieutenant—two and a half stripes and four stars. His name tag read “Malikov.” He didn’t sit down.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked. His English was heavily accented but passable.

  “Happy that you rescued me. I was getting a little cold.”

  “I would imagine so. We’ll be back at our base later tonight, or more likely very early tomorrow morning. Depends on the sea. We have some weather approaching. But they might send a helicopter for you. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “I would like to have the use of a sat phone to call my people and let them know that I’m safe.”

  “I’m sorry, but that is not in my orders.”

  “Exactly what are your orders, captain?”

  “To rescue you and bring you back to the base.”

  “At Novorossiysk.”

  Malikov nodded.

  “That’s the new Spetsnaz base.”

  Malikov didn’t respond.

  “I’m sure that the SVR will inform my people that I wasn’t found and that I’m presumed drowned.”

  “I must get back to my duties.”

  “You might be better served by tossing me overboard and reporting that you didn’t find me.”

  “I’ve already radioed…”

  “Too bad for you,” McGarvey said.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Gibson’s limo, bearing the DCI plus Bambridge and Otto, was passed through the west gate. They were met under the portico by Bill Rodak’s secretary, who escorted them to the Russian adviser’s office in the West Wing, just steps from the Oval Office.