The Cabal Read online

  “Or someone on Dick’s staff,” Rencke said. “Someone close enough to the DCI’s office to know policy developments.” Rencke was silent for a moment. “And you know what that would mean.”

  “That McCann had the cooperation of someone else inside the Company,” McGarvey said. “The point is what the hell do they want?” McGarvey said.

  “Foster is pushing the conservative movement. After Bush it’s become an uphill battle. So these guys are serious.”

  “Yeah, but to what end?” Mac said. “What the hell are they after that’s so important they’d gun down a CIA officer in broad daylight on a major highway? And what about Mexico City and the polonium, and the Pyongyang assassination? Because if there’s a pattern in there I don’t see it.”

  “Neither do I,” Rencke said heavily. “Neither does anyone else. But killing Todd for whatever was on the real disk Givens gave him is connected.”

  “Who else is involved with Foster?”

  “Everyone, Mac, honest injun. Their fingers are in just about every pie—Treasury, Justice, DoD, Interior, Homeland Security, you name it. Not only that, but some of those guys have been accused of illegal shit, like fund-raising, influence peddling, even tampering with elections all the way down to the county and local levels in some of the key states.”

  “Garden variety Beltway white-collar crooks,” McGarvey said, even more bothered than before Rencke had called. “But not terrorists. Not assassins. Which leaves us with Administrative Solutions and Roland Sandberger. Where is he right now?”

  “Baghdad, I think. Admin has a big contract bid coming up, personal security for our embassy people and other civilians, Halliburton and the like, and I suspect he’d want to be on the ground over there.”

  “Find out,” McGarvey said, unable to keep a hard edge from his voice. “Who’s running the offices stateside?”

  “His VP and chief of operations. A Brit by the name of S. Gordon Remington. I’ve dug out a few basic facts on him, and so far he comes up clean. I’ll keep digging, but something curious is going on with everyone in the company—contractors in the field as well as the front-office people. I’ve had no problem getting names and addresses, dates and places of birth, marriages, kids, that kind of stuff. Even social security and passport numbers, but if I had to write a résumé for Sandberger or Remington I’d draw a blank. Both of them served in the military—Sandberger in our Delta Forces; Remington in the British SAS—but I can’t come up with their service records.”

  “Encrypted?”

  “No, just blank,” Rencke said. “I mean, SAS has a record that Remington served for fourteen years, and was honorably discharged as a lieutenant colonel two years ago, but there’s nothing on where he served, or even what he did for them. And it’s the same with Sandberger. Someone erased their pasts.”

  “Convenient,” McGarvey said. “But you’re talking about computer records, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Find somebody they served with and see if they can tell us anything.”

  “That’s my next step. And I’m also looking a little closer at Admin’s personnel. There has to be somebody who’s got a grudge about something. A pissed-off contractor who quit or got fired, who might be willing to talk.”

  “How’re you going to find them?”

  “Tax records. One year’s return shows an income from Administrative Solutions, and the next year it doesn’t. Easy.”

  “Let me know if you come up with something,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime, have there been any rumbles from the seventh floor?”

  “Not a word,” Rencke said. “I think they’re waiting to see how it goes with the debriefers, and what you’ll do next.”

  “Who are they sending?”

  “Dan Green and Pete Boylan.”

  McGarvey knew them both. “Good people,” he said.

  “They’ll be fair.”

  NINE

  Rock Creek Park cut a broad diagonal across the northwestern section of Washington, separating Georgetown from the rest of the capital city. Joggers, hikers, Rollerbladers, and bicyclers were almost always present, lending the area an anonymity. It was Washington’s Central Park, with trails, a golf course, an amphitheater, a nature center, and picnic areas with tables and grills dotted here and there, a lot of them along Beach Drive, which more or less followed the winding course of the creek until it emptied into the Potomac.

  The dark blue Toyota SUV pulled off to the side of the road just after it crossed to the east bank of the creek above the golf course and Kangas cut the engine. It was seven and still fairly early, but the park was unusually empty, though two young women in jogging outfits passed by; a few moments later, a deep blue Bentley Arnage pulled up and parked a few yards away.

  “We play it straight. Money’s still good,” Kangas said to Mustapha. “Agreed?”

  “For now,” Mustapha conceded, but he was of the same temperament as Kangas. Neither man liked taking orders, especially orders they thought were stupid, which was one of the many reasons both men were single. Women were for screwing not for living with. And while they both had a great deal of respect for Remington, they also agreed that something was going on with Admin that did not bode well. The center was beginning to fall apart.

  The two men got out of the SUV, Kangas carrying a small canvas bag with Givens’s laptop and BlackBerry from the apartment, and the disk and cell phone Mustapha had taken from Van Buren’s car, plus the recording of the conversation in the George restaurant, and they walked over to the Bentley and got in the backseat.

  S. Gordon Remington, solidly built, rugged shoulders, a refined but bulldog face with thick bushy eyebrows and a Sandhurst drill-sergeant mustache, sat in the far corner of the car, up against the driver’s side rear door, an unreadable expression in his slate gray eyes. The smoked glass partition over the rear of the front seat was closed and nothing could be seen of the driver/bodyguard.

  “Good morning, sir,” Kangas said, laying the things on the floor between them.

  Mustapha closed the door. “Sir,” he said.

  “Tell me,” Remington said without preamble.

  “The situation has been sanitized but at some risk,” Kangas began. “Van Buren is dead and the disk was replaced with the one you supplied us. We took it and his cell phone from the BMW.”

  Remington said nothing, and Kangas held his temper in check. Push came to shove they would go over to Executive Services no matter what confidentiality agreement they’d signed. The money might not be as good, but word in the industry was that Tony Hawkins ran a tight ship and protected his people. Of course they would first have to do a little cleanup work on their background jackets, but that wouldn’t be impossible.

  “The disk wasn’t a problem, sir,” Mustapha said. “But Van Buren’s cell phone might be. He made a call just before our hit. To Casey Key, Florida. To Kirk McGarvey, his father-in-law.”

  “Was there a record device on the phone?” Remington asked, a flicker of interest in his eyes, his voice soft, refined, upper-class British.

  “No, sir,” Mustapha said. “There is no way we can know the substance of their conversation, but considering Mr. McGarvey’s background it’s a safe bet they discussed the meeting with Givens and the fact he’d been given a disk.”

  “Which by now the CIA undoubtedly has, and has read, and pronounced utter nonsense. Exactly as planned.” Remington looked at them. “Is there a problem?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kangas said. “Mr. McGarvey and his freak friend in the Company are likely to suspect the disk is a fake.”

  “You’re referring to Otto Rencke, the Company’s resident odd-duck genius.”

  “They have a formidable history together.”

  “Look, Mr. Remington, if McGarvey gets involved we could be in some deep shit,” Mustapha said, but Kangas held him off.

  “Won’t be easy, but it’s nothing we can’t handle, sir. It’ll just take time and finesse and maybe some force.”

 
Remington looked out the window at the creek for several moments, and when he turned back he smiled. “For the moment Mr. McGarvey is my problem, and no concern of yours. Tell me about Mr. Givens and his family.”

  “They’ve been eliminated,” Kangas said. “We took his laptop and BlackBerry and left behind the trace evidence you suggested. There’ll be no repercussions except for the connection between Givens and Van Buren, which McGarvey will almost certainly look into.”

  “As I said, Mr. McGarvey is not your problem, for the moment,” Remington repeated. “In fact, I’d hoped that Mr. Van Buren would get his father-in-law involved. It makes the next step that much easier.”

  “Sir?” Kangas asked. He was sure that despite Remington’s high-profile American wife, the man had to be a faggot. All the signs were there; the soft, dreamy speech patterns, his dress, his manners.

  “Mr. McGarvey will be taken care of, trust me, gentlemen. You’ve done a fine job, and you will be suitably rewarded. But stay close, there’ll most likely be more to do.”

  “We’d rather be back in the field,” Kangas said. He was uncomfortable with these kinds of assignments. The ethics and especially the freedom of the battlefield, where skill and tactics counted more than finesse, more than screwing around with civilian targets, were more to his liking.

  Remington pursed his lips. “Are we clear on this, gentlemen?” he asked, his voice gentle.

  “Yes, sir,” Kangas said. Bastard.

  “Yes, sir,” Mustapha agreed.

  When they had driven off in their SUV, Remington powered down the divider. “Let’s go to the office, Sarge.”

  “Full day, sir?” Robert Randall replied, his accent Cockney. He’d been a top sergeant at Sandhurst and in fact had been one of Remington’s chief instructors in the old days with the SAS. They had their own history, and Remington had a great deal of respect for the sergeant.

  “Nothing more than the usual,” Remington said, glancing down at the laptop and other things Kangas and Mustapha had collected. They were becoming a problem, just as Roland had predicted they would.

  “Think of them as a disposable tool,” Sandberger had told Remington. “Use them once or twice and then dispose of them.” He had smiled faintly, and now, sitting in the back of his car, Remington had remembered that conversation in full detail.

  “They could give us considerable trouble.”

  “Of course they could, and will,” Sandbergber had agreed. “So we put them where we wouldn’t put anyone else. In the shitholes where the air is bad and the odds are stacked against them. If they succeed, all well and good, we’ll give them a bonus. If they fail . . .” Sandberger had shrugged indifferently. “They’re history.”

  Remington had seen the logic, and just now they were the perfect pair for not only what had already transpired, but for what would probably develop over the coming days.

  The serious problem at hand, the one Roland had assigned to him, because in his words S. Gordon had the finesse to pull it off, was the issue with the Friday Club and Admin’s contract with Foster, vis-à-vis Kirk McGarvey.

  And the ultimate solution was mostly Sandberger’s, but partly Remington’s, who understood true British virtue, that truth was far less important than perception, something they’d perfected in their colonial days.

  Certainly not Foster himself, but Admin would suggest that certain members of the Friday Club begin a quiet campaign to accuse Kirk McGarvey of treason. The charge had been made in the past but had never managed to stick for reasons unknown, except that the man had the reputation of being physically dangerous. But that was exactly the quality in a man that Admin most understood, and admired, and that the firm knew how to manipulate.

  President Langdon had been elected on a platform of trust—the revitalization of American values—and chief among his goals was the transformation of U.S. intelligence gathering methods. Places like Guantánamo and the old Abu Ghraib—now Baghdad Central Prison—were to be dismantled, and dinosaurs like McGarvey were to be finally retired for the good of the nation. Torture and interrogation under drugs were to be eliminated, and terrorists and religious fanatics were to be given the civilian rights of private citizens under the aegis of a recognized national governments.

  So much bullshit, Remington thought. In his estimation only a complete idiot would stick to methods of honor when his enemy was sending airliners into buildings or children into the streets with explosives strapped to their frail bodies. Washington did not have the stomach to fight the real war; it’s why companies such as Administrative Solutions were hired to do the tough bits, the morally ambiguous actions. And it was for that very reason that the Friday Club was not only necessary but owed its existence.

  Kirk McGarvey had been marginally useful to the nation for a portion of his career, but he could no longer be trusted. He was a madman who had to be eliminated or at the very least be kept behind bars for the remainder of his life.

  The death of his son-in-law had unhinged him. Made him mentally unstable. Made him extremely dangerous.

  TEN

  McGarvey was housed in the visiting VIP wing of the BOQ across the yard from the two-story brick-fronted headquarters building. It was assumed that his debriefing would run through the afternoon, perhaps longer, and he would stay at the Farm overnight at the very least to keep him out of harm’s way until the situation could be stabilized. No one knew what might be coming next.

  Tomlinson and Bob Dingle, the other security officer who’d driven down here with him from Washington, had been assigned as his bodyguards. They waited at the Charge of Quarters station in the front hall while Mac splashed some water on his face, and joined them. It was a few minutes before noon.

  “They’re waiting for us, Mr. Director,” Tomlinson said. He was cool; everyone had a great deal of respect for McGarvey, but the Company was under siege. A CIA officer had been gunned down in broad daylight and his father-in-law knew something about it.

  “How about my wife and daughter?” McGarvey asked.

  “Mrs. McGarvey was given a sedative, and she’s resting now in the infirmary. Mrs. Van Buren is in the conference room. She won’t start without you.”

  “I see,” McGarvey said, his heart torn between wanting to go to Katy to make sure she was okay, and being with Liz to get the debriefing over with as soon as possible, and with as little additional emotional damage to his daughter as was possible under the circumstances.

  The Farm was in lockdown for the remainder of the day and all of tomorrow until a new sitrep was prepared; no one was in the Yard when McGarvey and his bodyguards walked across past the center circle, the flag at half-staff, over to headquarters and upstairs to the camp commandant’s briefing room on the third floor.

  Double-paned windows, with electronic white noise continuously transmitted in the gap between the glass panels, looked down the hill through the woods toward the York River, the firing range, and the starting block of the confidence course, deserted now.

  Elizabeth sat hunched in a chair on one side of the conference table that had places for fourteen people, her head down, her hands clasped between her knees. She was still dressed in the same jeans and plain sweatshirt she’d worn to the hospital and the mop of short blond hair on her head was a mess.

  The debriefers, Dan Green, a little person shorter than four-six, with a broad head, hawklike nose, wide, soft brown understanding eyes, and oddly shaped hands and distorted fingers sat across from her, next to his partner Pete Boylan, who was a vivacious woman in her early thirties, short dark hair, vividly blue eyes, and a voluptuous figure that could have landed her a place in Hollywood. Everyone back at Langley was afraid to approach her; the men because she was beautiful and they figured they wouldn’t have a chance, the women because they felt they would appear frumpy next to her, and the clients whom she debriefed because they instinctively felt she would know when they were lying. But she had a reputation of being friendly not aloof, and kind not harsh. She and her partner were p
eople who understood things, and were sympathetic.

  “Mr. Director,” she said, looking up when McGarvey came into the room.

  Green simply smiled sadly, an expression of near absolute devastation on his face. Their method was simple: Pete was the interrogator and Dan was, in the end, the priest to whom you confessed.

  Liz looked up at her father and managed a weak smile. She’d finished crying, and now she seemed determined, the beginning of anger and raw hate starting to show up in the set of her mouth and eyes.

  McGarvey sat down next to her. “I don’t think my daughter knows anything that might be of use at this point.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pete agreed. “But she asked if she could remain.”

  “I want to know what’s going on,” Liz said. “No one’s told me why he went to Washington, except to see a friend who you told me had been killed. But why?”

  “We don’t know yet, sweetheart,” McGarvey said.

  “Have you had a chance to take a look at the material on the disk that was found in Mr. Van Buren’s car?” Pete asked.

  “His name was Todd,” Liz said sharply. “Let’s just start there, okay?”

  Pete nodded, her eyes not leaving McGarvey’s.

  “I’ve not seen it, but Otto Rencke filled me in.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Nonsense, of course.”

  “Of course,” Pete said. “Not worth killing a CIA officer for. But your son-in-law, Todd, telephoned you from his car apparently less than a minute before the incident. What did he say to you?”

  “That he had a meeting with Josh Givens in Washington, a friend of his from college, about some sort of conspiracy involving the Friday Club.”

  “Did he say how he felt about the information he’d been given?”

  “He thought it was unlikely, but he told me that Givens apparently believed it.”