The Kill Zone

TWENTY-ONE

If it hadn’t been for Elizabeth’s hero worship of her father, Rencke would not have begun his quest, as he thought of it. He stood on one leg just inside his office in the computer center, staring at his monitors. The lavender displayed as wallpaper on the screens had darkened since the last time he’d checked. His programs were chewing on data, and what they were finding was being evaluated as ominous.

The swing shift operators knew that he was here, but no one had stopped by to say hello. He had no friends here. Only the McGarveys. “A friend of mine. His name is Otto Rencke. You haven’t seen him, have you?” Mac had said that to him, and Otto could feel his presence. He wished that Mac were here now. He wished that he could talk to Mac, tell him what was so bothersome. But Otto didn’t know what the problem was himself, except that the walls seemed to be closing in on all of them. It was lavender, and the color was getting stronger. He took off his jacket and sat down at one of his monitors. Louise hadn’t wanted him to leave. But she understood the necessity for him. One step at a time. Ten months ago Elizabeth had begun a biography of her father.

It was obvious even then that he would be named DCI. She and Otto both thought that an accouting was important. She decided to begin with his career in the CIA because it was the definition of his life. She would go back later and find out about his life in Kansas, and about her grandparents, whom she’d never known, and about her aunt and nephews in Utah, whom she hadn’t seen since she was a little girl. If the CIA had defined her father’s career, then KGB general Valentin Illen Baranov had defined her father’s life within the Company. It was at Otto’s suggestion that she had begun there. He had showed her how to enter the CIA’s computerized archives, and then how to get into the underground caverns at Fort A.P. Hill, south of Washington in the Virginia countryside, where the old paper records were stored. He showed her how to read between the lines by paying special attention to the promulgation pages and budget lines in each classified file. The first was a list of everybody who had a need-to-know in the operation, and the second was a detailed summary of where the money to pay for it came. He who holds the purse strings as well as the operational strings is the actual power to be reckoned with. He showed her how to cross-reference personnel files with operational files to look for the anomalies. John Lyman Trotter, Jr.” for instance. He’d become DDO and a friend to Mac. But he turned out to be a traitor, lured into General Baranov’s circle. In hindsight the signs had been there.

Trotter had spent more money than he’d earned. His name was on more promulgation pages than his early positions should have allowed for. As an operations officer this was before he’d become DDO he had personally signed off on too many budgetary requests. But the old KGB general had been a master of the game. Starting in the days after Korea and through the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crises, he had developed and run CESTA and Banco del Sur, the most fabulously successful intellgence networks anywhere at anytime in history. They’d been administered from the Soviet Union’s embassy in Mexico City, which was cover for the largest KGB operational unit in the world outside of Moscow. Through a vast network of field agents and governmental connections, General Baranov knew just about everything that went on in the entire western hemisphere during those years. From Buenos Aires to Toronto, and from Santiago to Washington, he had his ear to the most important doors.

Insiders like Trotter were the frosting on the very rich cake. By feeding Trotter accurate information that sometimes was actually damaging to the Soviet Union, in exchange for even more important details about the inner workings of America’s intelligence establishment, Baranov made his prize mole a hero on the Beltway. By making sure that key operations Trotter had backed succeeded as if they were planned by angels, his mole’s stock rose to astronomical levels.

All that could have been seen, should have been seen, from the almost reckless abandon with which Trotter flitted from one desk to the next; from one super success to another. Never mind the occasional star agent who was burned while a dozen not-so-hot field officers succeeded.

Never mind that Trotter’s rise through the ranks was at the expense of some very capable, even brilliant men and women. If they became disenchanted with a system that seemed to reward ass kissing and apparent legerdemain over good, solid and imaginative intelligence work, then all the better for BaranoVs plans. The general was a great success, until in the end Kirk McGarvey had unraveled the entire house of cards. When it was over, Baranov lay shot to death in a KGB safe house outside of East Berlin, and Trotter lay dead in a CIA safe house in West Berlin. Both assassinations were carried out by McGarvey. And that was the end of the story. A lesson to be learned. The field officer who developed a peripheral awareness, a skill necessary in order to preserve his life, should not lose the skill once he was recalled to a desk assignment. No place was safe. Hadn’t they learned that lesson before? Rencke focused on the monitor in front of him.

Streams of data crossed the screen so fast it was impossible to focus on any one item. They were telephone intercepts that the National Security Agency was supplying him from the Moscow exchange over the past six months. So far his program had come up with a few bits and pieces, each item deepening the lavender. In August Dr. Anatoli Nikolayev disappeared from Moscow after stealing sensitive, though unnamed, files from the KGB’s paper archives at Lefortovo. Nikolayev had worked in the KGB’s Department Viktor during the Baranov years.

Around that same time, retired general Gennadi Zhuralev had been found a suicide in his Moscow apartment. Zhuralev had worked as deputy operations officer for General Baranov.

By October the SVR, with help from Interpol, thought it had found Nikolayev in Paris. But then the leads dried up. Nikolayev knew the city very well. He’d spent a lot of time there working for Baranov.

The fact that one old man could not be found by the combined efforts of the Russian SVR, Interpol and presumably the French intelligence service, or at the very least, the French police, meant that Nikolayev had not simply wandered off. The old spy had gone to ground, using his tradecraft skills. Rencke had become a skeptic under McGarvey’s tutelage. He did not believe in coincidences. McGarvey was hired as interim DCI until his Senate confirmation hearings. His daughter went looking down his history to write his biography, focusing her energies on General Baranov. And things suddenly began to happen. An old Baranov man goes walkabout after snatching some files that make the SVR nervous. Another old Baranov man turns up dead. Now the Senate hearings were dredging up ancient history, opening old wounds, exposing old cesspools, revealing desperate Cold War battles that were best left undisturbed. Rencke had started to look over his shoulder as soon as his programs began to shift to lavender. A dead man was seeking revenge. It was spooky. The accident with his car had been no accident. He’d done no work on his front wheels, as he told Security.

Someone had tried to kill him, and he wanted to give them room to try again. Neither had the helicopter explosion in the VI been an accident. Rencke drew a triangle on a sheet of paper. McGarvey’s name was at one of the points, Baranov’s at the second and NikolayeVs at the third. Mac was on his way back from the Virgin Islands with Mrs. M.

and Dick Yemm. Baranov was long dead. Which left Nikolayev. Rencke felt a sudden stab of fear. He dialed up the CIA’s Office of Security’s locator service and found out where Todd and Liz were staying at in Vail. He got an outside line and called the number. It was a little after five o’clock there. “The Lodge at Vail, how may I direct your call?” “I want to talk to one of your guests. Todd Van Buren.” “One moment, please,” the operator said. She was back a minute later. “I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Van Buren does not answer.” “This is an emergency.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Would you care to leave a message on his voice mail?”

Rencke broke the connection. He was starting to sweat. He composed himself, then called the ODin Operations. This evening it was Chris Walker. Rencke vaguely knew the young man; his impression was that Walker was earnest. “Operations.” “This is Rencke in the DCI’s office. I want to talk to Todd Van Buren.” “We have a team en route, sir. Have you tried their hotel? They’re staying at the Lodge at Vail.” “I tried their room, but the hotel operator said there was no answer.” Flashes were going off inside Rencke’s head. It was like the Fourth of July, only more intense. “Call hotel security, I want someone to check their room right now. And where the hell is our team, and where’s the FBI?” Walker hesitated. “Is there a problem, sir?” “I don’t know,” Rencke said, calming himself. Nothing happened to them.

They were still on the slopes or in the ski lodge having a drink.

“Have them paged if they’re not in their room. Then call me back.”

“Yes, sir.” Otto stared at his computer monitor. Nikolayev was the key, of course. It was possible that he had murdered General Zhuralev in Moscow, then disappeared. It was also possible that Nikolayev had arranged for the assassination attempt on Mac. But why, after all these years? General Baranov was long dead. Surely there weren’t any vendettas after all this time. Something like that would be beyond all reason. It would be … insane. It was equally obvious that someone did not want Mac to become the DCI and was out to stop him. But could a dead man be behind it? Chris Walker called back ten minutes later.

“They’re not there, Mr. Rencke. It looks like they weren’t there all day. And they don’t answer their page.” Rencke’s fear solidified as if his heart had been flash-frozen. “I want them found within the hour. Whatever it takes, find them.” “Yes, sir,” the OD responded.

“We’re on it.”

TWENTY-TWO

As soon as the Gulfstream jet stopped in the Andrews VIP hangar it was surrounded by a dozen Air Force Special Forces troops armed and dressed in BDUs. Watching from a window, McGarvey spotted Dick Adkins climbing out of a CIA car. He was flanked by a couple of bulky men in civilian clothes. Everyone looked grim, expectant. It was the middle of the night. Kathleen had refused anything to eat or drink during the four-hour flight from San Juan, and McGarvey was worried about her. She held his hand in a death grip, her knuckles turning white when she saw the armed guards. “It’s okay, Katy,” he assured her. “We’re home safe now.” “What about Elizabeth and the baby?” Her voice was strident, her mood brittle despite the sedatives the doctors in San Juan had given her. “Somebody is with them.”

Yemm went to the hatch and popped it open. He gave a nod to his people standing next to Adkins, assuring himself that the situation in the hangar was under control. He turned back. “Mr. Director.” McGarvey helped Kathleen out of her seat, and with Yemm’s help got her out of the airplane. Adkins came over, a look of deep concern on his face when he saw what kind of condition Kathleen was in. “Welcome home,” he said. “Do you want an ambulance?” “No, we’re going straight home,”

McGarvey said. “Are Todd and my daughter on the way back?” “Security is with them. They haven’t been told anything yet.” Kathleen clutched his arm. “They’re okay, Dick?” “They’ll be okay,” Adkins promised her. There was a wildness in her eyes that was disturbing, as if she were seeing things that were invisible to the rest of them. “We’ll have them back by noon,” Adkins said. She suddenly became aware of her surroundings. She straightened up and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. “We weren’t expecting this sort of a reception,” she said. “None of this has been in the news, has it?” The question caught Adkins by surprise. “No, we have it contained so far. But it won’t hold forever.” She patted his arm maternally. “Nothing ever does, didn’t you know?” She managed a weak smile. “How’s Ruth?”

“She’s back from the hospital. We’re going to work it out.” “Good,”

Kathleen said. “Good for you.” She turned to her husband. “It’s time to go home now. I’m sleepy.” “Housekeeping has the Cropley safe house ready ”

“We’re going home, Dick,” McGarvey said. Adkins seemed embarrassed. “Who do you want to handle the debriefing “I’ll come in around noon. We’ll decide then,” McGarvey said. He helped Kathleen into the back of the limo, then turned back to Adkins. “Ask Dr.

Stenzel if he would come out to the house this morning. The earlier the better.” “Will do,” Adkins said. “I’m glad that you’re back in one piece.” Kathleen said nothing on the way home, leaning back in her seat and looking out the window. The snow had finally stopped, the weather had cleared and the temperature had plunged into the single digits, unusual for Washington.

Yemm, riding shotgun in the front seat, issued a steady stream of orders and instructions on the encrypted radio link with headquarters to make sure that there were no holes in the security arrangements.

He’d spent a good deal of time on the radio aboard the Gulfstream setting up their arrival. Washington seemed like a strange, alien place to McGarvey now. He felt like a boxer who was backed against the ropes. He had the necessary skills to defend himself, but he didn’t have the room, not with Kathleen and Elizabeth and the baby to worry about. But he had turned some kind of a corner. He no longer wanted to run. He wanted to stay and meet the enemy head-on; in fact, he looked forward to it. Yet there was the same nagging, scratchy feeling at the back of his head, warning him that this time the situation was different. This was something that he’d never faced before. The downstairs lights were on when they pulled into the driveway. Security had gone over the house and grounds, including all eighteen holes of the golf course, with infrared and electronics emissions equipment.

Motion detectors had been installed, and rapid response monitors had been placed in every room of the house. If anything, no matter how slight, seemed to be out of the ordinary, night or day, a rapid response team would be on-site within minutes. Noises, power surges, unexplained heat or electronic sources, even airborne chemical odors of explosives would trigger the devices. Yemm got out first and spoke with the watch commander parked in a van at the end of the driveway, then went up to the house. The front door opened as he reached the porch, and a young woman in blue jeans and a GO NAVY sweatshirt was standing there. Yemm said something to her, then came back to the limo. “We’ve arranged for you to have a couple of houseguests,” he told McGarvey. “They’ll act as internal security, and they’ll help with the cooking and housework until we get through this.” Kathleen was an intensely private person, and McGarvey didn’t know how she was going to react. But it would be useless to argue because Yemm was right. This was part and parcel of being DCI. He didn’t think that a lot of DCIs before him much cared for the lack of privacy either. But the help would be welcome. There was no possible way that a housekeeper was going to be vetted before the situation was resolved. And Kathleen was not up to keeping the house running. Not now. She was indifferent toward the two Office of Security agents, both women about Elizabeth’s age. They introduced themselves as Peggy Vaccaro and Janis Westlake.

Vaccaro was short, voluptuous and homely, but she had an incandescent smile. Westlake was tall, thin and boyishly attractive. They seemed competent and sympathetic.

They gave McGarvey a reassuring smile and took Kathleen in hand, clucking and cooing over her as they led her upstairs for a nice soak, a cup of tea and fresh sheets on the bed.

Yemm had an earpiece comms unit that picked up his voice from the vibrations in his jawbone. He was speaking softly as he followed McGarvey into the study.

“Security would like to know if you’ll make your scheduled appearance on the Hill tomorrow morning.”

McGarvey shook his head. “Not tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday. They can put out the word that we’re handling the India-Pakistan problem.”

Yemm relayed the instructions as McGarvey poured a couple of brandies.

The workmen had finished over the weekend, and the soft woods of the desk, bookcases and manuscript cabinet gleamed in the soft light from the front hall. McGarvey handed one of the brandies to Yemm. They drank in silence; watching each other for the effects of what they’d gone through on the island.

“That one was close, Dick,” McGarvey said after a long moment.

Yemm nodded. “Mrs. M. saved our lives.” He looked at his drink.

“They’re not going to give up.”

“No, sir, not even if you withdraw your nomination,” Yemm agreed.

“Somebody wants you.”

“Somebody on the inside,” McGarvey said, fully aware of where such an idea would take him. When you start suspecting your own people, you might as well give up the fight from the git-go. Jim Angleton had finally figured that out; after practically emasculating the CIA with his paranoia. “Somebody who knew about the VI trip.”

This time around the list was way too short for comfort. And giving up wasn’t an option, if it had ever been.

McGarvey got a couple hours of troubled sleep on the couch in the den, while Yemm, a pistol in his lap, dozed in a chair across the room. They couldn’t settle down. The andrenaline from the near miss was still pumping.

McGarvey opened his eyes when Peggy Vaccaro touched his shoulder.

Somebody had thrown a blanket over him. Light streamed in the windows; the morning sky was a brilliant blue.

“Mr. Director, it’s eight o’clock, and Dr. Stenzel is here.” He shoved the blanket aside and sat up. Peggy Vaccaro handed him a cup of coffee. “Is my wife awake yet?” “Yes, sir. The doctor would like to have a word with you before he goes up to see her.” “Where is he?”

“In your study.” “Where’s Dick?” “He couldn’t sleep. He’s in the kitchen making breakfast. Oh, and we’ve laid out some clothes and your shower things in the spare bedroom upstairs. Actually it was Mrs.

M.“s idea. She’s worried about you.” I’ll go up and see her-” “No, sir. Mrs. M. asked if we would take care of you until she’s seen the doctor.” McGarvey mustered a smile and nodded. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had several women fussing over me at the same time.” Peggy Vaccaro lit up like a sunrise. “Our pleasure, Mr. Director.”

McGarvey took his coffee across to his study, where Dr. Stenzel, dressed in corduroys, a battered bulky knit sweater and a scarf around his neck, was studying the spines of the books on the shelves. “Thanks for coming out on a Sunday,” McGarvey said. “Coffee?” Stenzel turned and gave McGarvey a critical once-over. He shook his head. “No. Is someone making a run on the Agency?” “Otto was an accident, I’m the target,” he told the psychiatrist. “But my wife isn’t holding up very well.” “I know. I talked to the navy doctors in San Juan this morning. They faxed me their preliminaries, and frankly I’m just as surprised as they are that your wife didn’t suffer a total nervous breakdown. She must be a remarkably strong woman.” “That she is.”

Stenzel held his silence for a few moments. “I may have to hospitalize her.” McGarvey was afraid of this. But he was resigned. “Whatever it takes. But give us a little lead time, would you. We have some security considerations.” Stenzel nodded. “I understand.” “She’s had some difficult times because of my job.” “I’ll bet she has,” the Company psychiatrist said. “Does she want you to quit?”

McGarvey shook his head. “No. At least I don’t think she does.”

Stenzel smiled reassuringly. “I’ll go up and talk to her now. We’ll decide what to do afterward.” One of the girls took the doctor up to see Kathleen. McGarvey checked with Yemm in the kitchen, refilled his coffee cup and went up to the spare bedroom, where he showered, shaved and dressed in the slacks, sweater and tweed sport coat laid out for him. The assassins had made a big mistake by trying but missing. If there was a next time, and he suspected there would be, he would nail them. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. He’d been down this path before, a lot of times in his twenty-five-year career. He knew the moves and counter moves the feelings, the impatience, the anxiousness and sometimes the fear. And his family had been involved before too. This time he was sticking it out. He would make his stand here on his home ground. He wasn’t going to run in an attempt to lead them away. But now that he had what he really wanted, now that he was exactly where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to be doing, and loving and being loved by the woman he’d always admired, he was truly afraid of losing it all. The muscles in his jaw tightened. One last fight. One last confrontation. One last time. God help the bastards when he caught up with them. Stenzel was already finished when McGarvey went downstairs. He was in the kitchen with Yemm. “How is she?” McGarvey asked. “Better,” Stenzel said. He seemed perplexed.

“But she’s at her limit, I can tell you that much. If something else happens, I think she’ll break.” McGarvey glanced at Yemm, who pursed his lips. The fight was just starting. Stenzel caught the exchange.

“Either send her away or keep her isolated. I’m telling you that her brain is working overtime right now. Probably has been for a while.

And from what I can gather, reading all the reports from San Juan and talking to her just now, the helicopter explosion was a damned close thing.” “She saved our lives,” McGarvey said. He explained what had happened on the island. “She probably noticed something, maybe even smelled something wrong,” Stenzel said. He shook his head. “We used to call it women’s in tuition. But that’s nothing more than a heightened sense of awareness. Her mind, as I said, is working super fast “She won’t leave,” McGarvey said. “And trying to keep her isolated might be impossible.” He was trying to work out the logistics of keeping Katy safe. But sending her away would not work. It’d be nothing more than another form of his own running away. “Nevertheless, it’ll have to be done,” Stenzel insisted. “She’ll disintegrate unless she’s removed from the source of her stress; removed either physically or through drugs.” “We’ll do the best we can,” McGarvey said. It seemed whatever direction he turned there were emotional roadblocks.

“Are you going to hospitalize her?” “Not now. Are you going to continue the confirmation hearings?” “I don’t have any choice.” “Then keep the details from your wife.” “She hasn’t paid any real attention ”

“She knows all about them. Especially the attacks on you by Senator Madden.” McGarvey winced. Stenzel glanced again at Yemm. “Is she in any physical danger?” “Possibly,” Yemm replied. “Is she aware of it?”

“She is now.” McGarvey said. “I’ve instructed your security people to call me if there’s any change in her behavior. I’ve left some Librium; we’ll see if that takes the edge off her anxiety. In the meantime she needs to get some rest. If she was in the hospital, I could take care of it, but keep her off the telephone and away from the radio, television, computer, newspapers, whatever.” McGarvey showed Stenzel to the front door, then went upstairs to the master bedroom. Kathleen was up and dressed in jeans and one of his old flannel shirts. She’d just finished with her makeup when he came in. She managed a timid smile for him. “Good morning, sweetheart,” McGarvey said, going to her. They embraced. “How are you feeling?” “A little tired. A little keyed up. But much better.” She brushed a speck of lint off his jacket lapel. “I thought that you might be going into the office this morning, so I had the girls put this out for you.” She looked up at him. “They’re going to be a big help for a few days.”

“The doctor says that you need to get some rest.”

“I’ll take a nap this afternoon. I’ve got work to do on the Beaux Arts invitations. And if I’m not going anywhere for the next few days, I’ll have some phone calls to make. Will this be resolved by then?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“Katy, this isn’t going to be that easy “

“C’mon, darling, we have a life to get on with. We’re right in the middle of season. The baby is due in five months. And you have to wind up your Senate battle.” She shook her head. “We can’t go on like this, with something like this hanging over our heads.”

McGarvey was at a loss for words. It wasn’t Kathleen talking to him.

It was someone else; someone who wasn’t dealing with reality. “We’ll do the best we can.”

“I know,” Kathleen replied. She gave him a pat. “Now get out of here.

I have work to do, including soothing our neighbors, who have to be wondering what’s going on over here.”

“Dr. Stenzel doesn’t want you using the phone.”

“Piffle,” she said with a dimissive gesture.

“Are you going to be okay, Katy?”

“I’ve been better. Just get it done, would you?”

“I’ll be home early,” McGarvey said.

He gave her another kiss, then went downstairs. Yemm was waiting in the stair hall his coat on. He had McGarvey’s coat in hand. He looked grim.

“What now, Dick?”

“We have to get to work, boss. Elizabeth was hurt on the slopes. They took her to Denver General.”

The security people inside and outside of the house were informed, but the news was kept from Kathleen. As soon as Yemm pulled out of the driveway and radioed headquarters with the “Hammerhead en route” message, a pair of Maryland Highway Patrol unmarked cruisers moved in front and back as escorts. McGarvey was beside himself, angry, frustrated, fearful, made all the more worse because he was completely helpless to do anything for them.

What could be done was being done by the Office of Security. He had to trust his own people for now. Adkins was keeping the recall as low-key as possible under the difficult circumstances, but it was impossible to hide the fact that something out of the ordinary was happening. Too many people were showing up at headquarters at odd hours. By four the telephones had begun to ring, and by 9:00 A.M.” when McGarvey walked into his office, the landslide was at full speed. Every newspaper, wire service, television and radio network in the country, it seemed, wanted to know what was going on. The rumor was that the DCI and his wife were in the USVI for the weekend. The fact was that a helicopter exploded on the beach of a deserted island down there, and within hours the CIA had issued a heads-up to all of its people worldwide. Yemm went down to Security to pitch in, and Adkins walked in from his office with a stack of file folders, e-mails and faxes from their field people and law enforcement agencies between Washington and the islands. Ms.

Swanfeld had also come in. She brought McGarvey his coffee as he took off his jacket and pushed up his sleeves. “No calls, unless it’s someone I have to talk to,” he told her. “Yes, sir,” she said. “How is Mrs. McGarvey?” “She’ll be okay. Thanks for asking.” “Of course she will be,” Ms. Swanfeld replied as if any other idea were unthinkable. She went out to her desk. “We couldn’t reach either of them because they left their cell phones in the hotel room,” Adkins said. He laid the files and messages on McGarvey’s desk. “What happened? How is she?” “She’s going to be fine,” Adkins said. “I spoke with the emergency room doctor who said that she was lucky she was wearing a helmet.” Adkins looked terrible. He was taking this personally. “They were skiing off pi ste and she ran into a tree. The fact she was wearing her helmet, and that she’s young, probably saved her life. That, and Todd was carrying an avalanche locator, which he keyed as soon as the accident happened. The ski patrol got to them in minutes. They stabilized her and choppered her down to Denver.”

McGarvey reached for the phone, but Adkins stopped him. “It’s not such a good idea if you call them just yet, Mac.” “What else?” McGarvey demanded.

“We have people out there with them. They’ll be okay. The problem is that they haven’t been told about what happened to you. I don’t think they need that kind of news right now.” “Is my daughter going to be all right, Dick. No bullshit now.” Adkins nodded. “The docs say she’ll come out of this just fine. But she lost some blood, and there was the truama to her head, even though she was wearing a helmet.”

McGarvey forced himself to calm down, take this latest round of trouble one step at a time. He nodded for Adkins to continue. “Jared called about ten minutes ago,” Adkins said. Jared Rraus was the director of the CIA’s Technical Services Division. “He’s on the ground at Hans Lollick. He said the explosion was definitely Semtex. No doubt whatsoever. And a lot of it, by the looks of the damage.” “Someone’s after me,” McGarvey said, distracted. “Yeah,” Adkins agreed. “But who?” Ms. Swanfeld came to the door. “Mr. McGarvey, the President is on Secure One for you.” “I want a staff meeting in my conference room at ten o’clock,” McGarvey said, reaching for the phone. “We’ll know more about Colorado by then ”

“A full staff meeting, Dick.

Somebody with an old grudge is gunning for me, but we still have an intelligence agency to run.” Adkins did a double take. “How about first things first?” “We don’t have the luxury.” “Then go out to Cropley and let us handle the situation without having to duck every time someone comes near you,” Adkins blurted angrily. “Staff meeting at ten, Dick,” McGarvey said. He picked up the phone and turned away.

“Good morning, Mr. President. You know what happened to us in the VI?”

“Your security people sent us the heads-up last night. How are you doing “It was a close call, but no one got hurt except for the civilian helicopter pilot. We’re working to see if he was in on the plot.” “It wasn’t an accident then?” “No. It was an attempted hit.” The President was silent for a moment. “Any idea who it might be?” “We’re working on it. We’ll get them.” “Will they try again?” “Probably.”

Again the President was silent for a beat. “Do you want to withdraw your name, Mac? Get out of there? No one would blame you if you did.

You’ve given your share.” McGarvey took his time before he answered.

The morning sun was very bright. It looked cold outside. The air was super clear “A few days ago I might have considered it, Mr. President.

But not now. I won’t leave like this because someone is gunning for me.” “I know the feeling,” President Haynes said. Last year McGarvey had broken up an assassination attempt on the President and his family.

It had been a very close thing. “The media is starting to make noises. How do you want to play it?” “As a nonevent for now. I don’t think it would do my chances in the Senate much good if they thought that I was a lightning rod for the crazies.” “Okay, if there’s anything you need, let me know. And say hello to your wife and daughter for me. They’re all right, aren’t they?” “So far.” “Well, good luck then.” “Thank you, Mr. President.” He didn’t like to leave it at that, with lies. Once you started down that path there was almost never a redemption. People remembered lies much longer than they remembered the truth. But he wasn’t sure of anything, or anyone, now. Whoever pushed the button in the VI was no stranger, because if they were, it meant there was a mole somewhere here, within earshot of the director’s office. Neither possibility was comforting. Adkins came to the door. “Staff is set for ten. All but Otto.” “Why?” “No one knows where he is. He’s not here, but Louise swears that so far as she knows he’s at his desk.” McGarvey closed his eyes for a moment.

“Is she lying?” “I think so. Whenever Otto wanders off she gets hyper. She sounded okay this time.” “Have Security find him.” “Why bother?” Adkins asked with a trace of bitterness. Looking for Otto had become an almost full-time job. “Because he probably has the key to finding out who’s gunning for me,” McGarvey explained. “And because he’s one of us. And because I said so.”

Ms. Swanfeld walked into his office ten minutes later. She looked pale. “Mr. Director, it’s your son-in-law on three. He’s calling from Denver General Hospital.” McGarvey had been trying without much luck to concentrate on the India-Pakistan NIE updates that Otto had prepared two days ago. He looked up, a vise around his heart. “Thank you.” He picked up the telephone after Ms. Swanfeld withdrew. “What happened, Todd?” “Elizabeth has been hurt. She’ll be okay, but it wasn’t an accident, that’s why we’re using our work names.” “Someone is with you?” “We’re secure,” Todd said. He sounded shook-up, but steady. “Okay. From the top. What happened out there?” McGarvey asked. “We were skiing off pi ste when Liz’s bindings came apart and she hit a tree head-on. But they were set to blow. Somebody packed them with Sem-tex. She never had a chance.” The whispering was loud now, like a waterfall just around a bend in the path. “But I don’t know about the detonator. Probably an acid fuse, anything else would have been too big. Technical Services can retrieve her skis and check it out.” “That means somebody out there at Vail must have set them.”

“That’s what I figured.” “Let me talk to her,” McGarvey said. “She’s in the recovery room,” said Todd, his voice deflated. “She’ll be out of it for a while.” “You said that she’ll be okay ”

“Yeah. But we lost the baby.” Todd choked up. “She never had a chance, the doctor said. They tried to save her. But they couldn’t.” Again Todd was overcome, and he had to stop. All the air had left McGarvey’s office.

He looked up. Adkins was there listening in on the extension. He was slowly shaking his head. “It was our daughter, and they killed her,”

Todd said. “There was no reason for it, Mac. They could have come after me, one-on-one. I would have fought them any time, anyplace under any conditions they wanted. Christ.

“Stick with her, Todd,” McGarvey said. He had to force the words out of his throat, force his lips to move. “I’m sorry, Dad. God help me, I should have made her stay home. I should have been more responsible.”

TWENTY-THREE

No one was safe now, McGarvey thought. Word about the attack on the director’s daughter spread through the building like wildfire. Or at least McGarvey supposed it had. Bad news always traveled faster than good. It had been a girl. An innocent baby, lost for no reason. Who would be next? he had to ask himself as he sat at his desk once again trying without much success to concentrate on the NIE and Watch Report.

How he was going to break the news about the baby to Kathleen he couldn’t even guess. But he had a fair idea what it would do to her when she found out. No one was safe, he thought, staring at the open folder on his desk. But that wasn’t quite true. The run wasn’t on the Company; it was on him and his family. Otto was almost like a son to them. There weren’t many people who knew that fact, but it wasn’t unknown in some circles. And now Otto had gone missing again.

McGarvey had to hope he was safe. Security had its hands full, but they were looking for him, just as they were in Denver protecting Todd and Elizabeth, and just as they were working the puzzle on Hans Lollick Island. But McGarvey wasn’t sure of himself, of how he fit here, what kind of a job he was supposed to be doing, or even what kind of a job he was capable of. The closer people got to him, the more they depended on his good judgment and his strength. That was their common mistake, because the fact was he wasn’t any stronger than anybody else.

He didn’t have all the answers. When it came right down to it, he’d abandoned his wife and daughter when they were young and needed him the most. He’d had his pride; no one was going to tell him how he would conduct his life. So he had run, and no one near him had ever been safe again. In the end now he had come full circle. Was it one last go-around? he asked himself. Or was this just another operation in a string of operations that stretched forever into the future? Ms.

Swanfeld came to the door. “Your staff is in the conference room,” she told him. She looked tired and frightened. It was the first time he’d ever seen the combination of expressions on her face. She held a crumpled handkerchief in her left hand. McGarvey recognized that like the others she was looking for reassurance that everything would turn out fine. “They’ll be okay,” McGarvey told her. He was in charge.

His blanket of protection covered them all. “What’s happening to us, Mr. Director?” “I don’t know, but I have a feeling that we’ll find out pretty soon and put a stop to it.” He gathered his notes and the NIE and Watch Report and went across to the conference room. Adkins, along with the deputy directors of Operations, Dave Whittaker, and Intelligence, Tommy Doyle, and a few of their key staff were gathered.

Missing were Jared Kraus, who was heading up the investigation in the USVI, and the deputy director of Management and Services, whose departments, except for Security, had little to do with these kinds of operations. Dick Yemm sat in for Security and Bob Johnson for Technical Services. Also still missing was Otto Rencke. “No word yet on Otto?” McGarvey asked, taking his seat at the head of the long table. The conference room was windowless. It was mechanically and electronically isolated from the rest of the building, and from the outside. Anything said or done here would leave the room only in the minds and the notes of the people present. “He’s not on the grounds, and he’s not at his apartment,” Yemm said. “Major Horn isn’t screaming for help, so I don’t think that he’s in any trouble. But I do have people out looking for him although we’re starting to get spread out pretty thin, Mr. Director.” “Keep on it,” McGarvey ordered. He opened his NIE briefing book, which outlined all the problems worldwide that the CIA was tasked to gather intelligence on. But before he began he looked at his people. Old friends, some of them. They had histories in the CIA. Just like Aldrich Ames, he supposed. But he wouldn’t become another witch-hunter. The CIA could not withstand another full-scale mole hunt. “We have to assume that there’s a purpose to these attacks,” he said. “Some sort of an ultimate goal, other than my death.” “We can’t know that,” Adkins replied, as if he had expected McGarvey to say something like that. “The first attack was against Otto ”

“He admitted working on the brakes himself, Mr. Director,” Johnson reminded. “Yes, but I want his car checked again.

Front to back, including fingerprints and any material containing DNA that you can find.” “I’ll send a forensics unit over first thing Monday morning.” “Today,” McGarvey countered. “This morning, please.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnson said. “The second attack was against me, my wife and Dick. We can’t assume that the bomb was meant solely for me. The Semtex had probably been placed inside a beach bag that was the exact twin of the one my wife was carrying. Maybe she was the target.” “I’m sorry, boss, but if it was anyone except for Mrs. M.” she would be the prime suspect,” Yemm said. He didn’t turn away from McGarvey’s sudden flare of anger. “What are you suggesting, Dick?” McGarvey asked coolly. “We have to keep an open mind. Just because the bomb was in a look-alike beach bag doesn’t mean you weren’t the target.”

“What about my daughter? Where does she fit into the pattern? Her ski bindings were packed with Semtex. No mistaking who they were after.”

“Let’s take the opposite argument then,” Adkins said. “Otto was a target. Your wife and now your daughter were targets.” Adkins shook his head.

“What’s the objective? Get you to quit?” He glanced at the others around the table. “It wouldn’t make me want to give up. Just the opposite. I’d be a hundred times more motivated to nail the bastards.”

“I agree,” Yemm said. “You were the target on Hans Lollick. Nothing else makes much sense. And Otto, if that was an attempted hit, was misdirection to make us look elsewhere. Same with your daughter.”

“Hell, they could be thumbing their noses at you,” Adkins said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. It’s someone very close to you. Someone who knows your schedules, your habits, your tradecraft. Someone you’ve crossed paths with before. Someone who’s made a complete study of you.

Like a stalker would.” Another word, other than stalker, came unbidden to McGarvey, but he pushed it aside. “And that includes most of us,”

Yemm said. “Maybe Otto, too. And Todd Van Buren.” A silence descended over them because of the enormity of what Adkins and Yemm were suggesting. Was it better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one, McGarvey wondered, as Voltaire had. Or was he required now to trust no one? He had retired from field operations because he was sick and tired of constantly looking over his shoulder; forever wondering from which direction the bullet would come; forever looking for hidden meanings in what everyone said or did. He wanted a normal life. One in which he was finally free to love and be loved.

Yet he’d wanted to make a difference. To prove himself worthy of his friends, his family, his sister in Utah, with whom he had not spoken in years. Ever since Santiago, however, he’d had trouble trusting his own judgment, his own worth. Now he was being asked to mistrust everybody else. Everybody. Get out. Run, run, while you still can. The monster was coming. Even now it was gaining on him, and he was afraid to look over his shoulder for fear of what he might see. “That’s one possibility, Dick,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “But not the only one. We need to reexamine Otto’s car, and we need to cross-match the Semtex in Hans Lollick with what they used in Vail. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” No one responded. They were waiting for him to make a point. Even now they wanted his protection. “We need a motive,” he finished lamely. “Someone doesn’t want you confirmed as DCI,” Adkins said. “That’s simple.”

“Beyond that,” McGarvey said. “I can’t buy someone thumbing his nose at me, as you suggest. It would be a stupid risk for him to take if he wanted me out or dead.” He shook his head. “Something else is going on that we don’t know about.”

“Relieve yourself of duty, Mac,” Adkins suggested earnestly. “Postpone the Senate hearings. Take your wife and daughter to Cropley. Let us work it out.”

McGarvey wanted to be angry, but he couldn’t be. Not with Adkins or the others. Elizabeth and the baby weighed too heavily on his mind. He looked down at the open NIE briefing book.

The telephone at his elbow chimed softly. He picked it up. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Director,” Ms. Swanfeld said. “But there is trouble at your home.”

It was another hammer blow to his system. “What is it?” he asked mechanically.

“Security didn’t say, except that Dr. Stenzel is en route, and that they would like you to come home immediately.”

“Tell them that I’m on my way,” McGarvey said. “But my wife is not to be moved from the house until I get there.”

“I understand.”

Yemm was already at the door.

McGarvey got to his feet. It was hard to keep his head on straight.

“You might be right about Cropley after all,” he told Adkins. “In the meantime, I want you to call Fred Rudolph over at the Bureau. I’d like a twenty-four seven surveillance operation placed on the Russian embassy, specifically on their known or suspected SVR people.”

“Do you think the Russians are behind this?” Adkins asked. He seemed startled.

“I don’t know. But we need to get some answers. Something that makes sense.”

McGarvey was always glad to get home. But this morning the house did not seem warm or inviting. The windows were dark and somehow forbidding, as if they contained horrible secrets within. A neighbor, whom he didn’t know, was in his driveway across the cul-de-sac. He wore a bright plaid robe. He’d come out to get the Sunday paper. He raised his hand and waved. McGarvey waved back.

“Brian Conners,” Yemm said at his shoulder. “His wife is Janet. They check out.” McGarvey could only guess what the Connerses thought about the goings-on over here. If they knew the extent of the trouble, there would probably be a moving truck in their driveway right now. The two officers in the van at the foot of the driveway had the windows down.

They looked cold but very alert. Yemm gave them a curt nod, then hustled McGarvey up the walk to the house. Peggy Vaccaro let them in.

She wasn’t smiling. She looked determined and a little frightened. A bruise was forming on the side of her face. The house was quiet. “Mrs. M. has finally settled down.” “Where is she?” McGarvey asked.

“Upstairs in her bedroom. Janis is with her.” She helped McGarvey off with his coat. “Dr. Stenzel hasn’t been here yet?” “Not yet,” the security officer said. She seemed to be on the verge of collapse. She looked exhausted. McGarvey glanced toward the head of the stairs. The Russian Typhoon clock had stopped. He supposed he hadn’t wound it, but he couldn’t remember. “What happened?” he asked. Yemm had cocked his head to listen to something, and he stared at the alarm system keypad on the wall next to the closet door. The lights were out. “She started making phone calls as soon as you left,” Peggy Vaccaro said.

“She was working on some fund-raising event, because she told us that the best time to catch them with their checkbooks open was on Sunday mornings, when they were still home in their pajamas.” “Did she come downstairs?” Peggy shook her head. “She never left the bedroom. We brought her some coffee, and Janis and I took turns out in the hall by her door until she lost it.” Janis Westlake came to the head of the stairs. She looked distraught. “She’s okay now, Mr. Director,” she called down softly. “It just happened? Out of the blue?” McGarvey asked. His gut was jumping all over the place. He didn’t know where to land. “One minute she was raising money and the next she was hanging from the rafters?” “She got one phone call ”

“From who?”

“I don’t know,” Peggy said. “Check it out,” McGarvey told Yemm. “Then what?” he asked the girl. Peggy looked down, girding herself. “She made another call. It must have been Denver General, because she asked for room five-seventeen.” Peggy looked up. “She was too fast for us.”

McGarvey’s heart was ripped in two. He resisted the urge to shove Peggy aside and race up the stairs. He needed more. Peggy touched his sleeve, her face twisted in an expression of anguish and pity. “She lost it. She started throwing things around. Breaking stuff. By the time both of us got in there, she was trying to bust out one of the Lexan windows with a chair. The big chair in the bedroom. The chaise longue. She was using it like a battering ram.” Peggy shook her head in amazement. “Janis and I had a hard enough time getting it away from her and putting it down, it was so heavy. But she was swinging it around like a toy.” She glanced at Yemm, who had stepped aside and was speaking softly over his headset. “Then she started screaming at us.

Swearing. Calling us all sorts of names.” “Like what?” McGarvey asked. Peggy was embarrassed. “Motherfucking lesbian dykes. Nonsense like that.” She passed a hand across her eyes. “It stopped as fast as it started. One minute she was wigging out, and the next minute she was sitting on the floor crying her eyes out. That’s when we called your office.” “And then you called Dr. Stenzel?” Peggy shook her head. “No. He called us and said that he was on his way.” “The phone call originated here in the Washington area,” Yemrn said. “But it was a block-trace. Possibly a cell phone.” “No way of pinning it down closer than that?” Yemm shook his head. “It could have been from anyone. And anywhere, if they used a re mailer “The Russian embassy?”

“It’s possible,” Yemm said. Peggy paid close attention to the exchange. “Is there something going on here that we should know about, Mr. Director?” “I don’t know,” McGarvey said. “Maybe. But my wife will probably be hospitalized this afternoon, so your operation will move to Bethesda. And afterward probably to Cropley.” “Yes, sir.”

McGarvey went upstairs, gave Janis a pat on the shoulder, then went back to the master bedroom overlooking the fifteenth fairway.

Kathleen stood at the window, her arms clasped across her chest as if she were cold. The room was a shambles. The night lamps were broken into pieces, the lampshades battered out of shape. The bed covers and sheets had been pulled off and tossed aside. Drawers were lying amidst piles of clothing. Her closet mirror was smashed, some of her clothes and shoes pulled out and scattered. Pictures had been snatched from the walls and destroyed. The curtains had been pulled from the windows. And the heavy chaise lounge was shoved up against the bed.

McGarvey couldn’t assimilate what he was seeing. He had stepped into an alien world, a place that bore no relationship to his wife and their home. This wasn’t Kathleen’s doing. Not this. The scratching, nagging was back. The waterfall hurling itself down a million feet to crash madly on the jagged rocks drowned out rational thought. “Katy,”

he said softly. Her back was to him. She didn’t turn around, but her shoulders stiffened a little. “That’s it,” she said in a perfectly normal voice. “They’ve finally beat us.” McGarvey went to her, and she looked up into his face. “Elizabeth won’t want to have children now.

Not after this,” she said. She shrugged. “So, they win.” McGarvey felt as if he was looking into the eyes of a total stranger. “Who are they?” “I don’t know, Kirk. But you’ll have to stop them, you know.

They’ll never give up until we’re all dead. Elizabeth, Todd, Otto, you, me.” She spoke in a conversational tone of voice; very matter-of-fact, as if she were discussing the weather or what’s for supper. The effect was chilling. It wasn’t that he was looking into the eyes of a stranger, he suddenly thought. He was seeing nothing there. No one was at home. Katy’s emotions were gone, disappeared, or whatever. Burned out. “We have to stop them for good this time,” she said. “Because I don’t think that I can stand much more.” “We will,”

McGarvey said, holding her. She was shivering. There was a little blood on the side of her neck, where she had cut herself with flying glass or something. Her hair was mussed up, and her makeup was smeared. “How did you know about the accident?” “Oh, Otto called. He didn’t want me to worry.” It was another blow. McGarvey wasn’t surprised that Otto knew, only that he had called to break the news to Kathleen. It was callous. Thoughtless, even for Otto. More than that, it was cruel.

Someone came in downstairs. McGarvey heard the front door, then the murmur of conversation in the stair hall He supposed that it was Dr.

Stenzel. The future that had seemed so bright just a few weeks ago, was now dark and empty. Perhaps even meaningless. Dr. Stenzel knocked softly on the doorframe. Kathleen stiffened in McGarvey’s arms. She straightened up and stepped back. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Her left eyebrow arched. “I’m going to give you a sedative, then take you to the hospital,” Stenzel told her as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to say. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” Stenzel surveyed the damage in the room. “Who did all of this?” Kathleen refused to look. “I received some bad news,” she said. “I know. But it’s not your fault.” “It’s someone’s fault.”

“Yes, but not yours,” Stenzel said. He motioned for McGarvey to leave.

“No,” Kathleen blurted, clutching her husband’s arm. “It’ll be just a couple of days, Katy,” McGarvey assured her. “You’re overloaded.

You’re burning out. You can’t keep going like this. You have to get some rest.” “That’s stupid,” she said. “I’m not a fucking invalid, or something.” She shot Stenzel a vicious look. “Strap me in some goddamn bed, shoot me full of shit. I can’t go through that, Kirk. Not that.” She was losing it again. McGarvey gathered her in his arms and held her tight. Stenzel opened an alcohol towelette and swabbed a spot on her bare arm above the elbow. He took a hypodermic syringe from a small case in his pocket. “Jesus Christ, don’t let them do this to me, Kirk!” she shouted. She tried to struggle away from him, but Stenzel quickly gave her the shot. “Goddammit,” she said. She continued to struggle for several seconds, but then she started to sag. She looked up into her husband’s face, her anger gone. “Fuck it,” she said.

“Just fuck it.”