The Kill Zone

TWENTY-EIGHT

McGarvey was seated in the back of the DCI’s limo headed east on 1-495

across the river, lost in thought, as Dick Yemm expertly maneuvered the armored Cadillac through the lunch hour traffic. Otto Rencke sat in back with McGarvey. Yemm had snagged him at his apartment before coming out to Chevy Chase. “Liz is going to want to see you,” McGarvey had explained to Otto. She’d sounded distant and frightened on the phone last night. He glanced over at Otto, who was staring out the other window, then at Yemm, who was watching in the rearview mirror.

Everyone’s imagination was working at full tilt. All of them were waiting for the next shoe to drop, for the next attack to come. And everyone was looking to him for support, for answers. They passed Temple Hills as an air force transport took off from Andrews a couple of miles away. He felt a spasm of fear for his daughter, for what this latest attack was doing to her spirit. Losing the first baby had been almost more than she could endure. Only Todd had been able to bring her back, to make her laugh again. This time was worse. The loss wasn’t a natural miscarriage. It was murder. He didn’t know how Liz was bearing the pain and the fear. And he didn’t know if Todd, who was suffering his own demons, would be able to be as strong this time as he had been the first. “I’m here, baby,” he mumbled to himself. “This time I won’t leave.” He wanted her to get the message loud and clear. “Mac, oh wow, are you okay?” Otto intruded. McGarvey came out of his thoughts. Otto’s eyes were round, his hair went in every direction. He was frightened. “I’m okay. How about you?” “I shouldn’t have called Mrs. M.” ya know. I’m sorry.”

There. That had been on McGarvey’s mind. Yemm said that Otto told him Katy deserved the truth. But that made no sense under the circumstances. Katy needed protection. There was something else. The scratching, nagging was still there. Coming on even stronger than before. “No. You shouldn’t have. I would have taken care of it,” he said, and Otto quickly looked away. What to make of his behavior?

Whom to trust? Larry Danielle would know. “What’s going on, Otto? I have to know. Talk to me,” Otto refused to turn back. “I don’t know what you mean.” “Yes, you do. It’s why I brought you out here this morning. So we could have a chance to talk.” “Nada” Otto murmured.

He laid his forehead on the window. “Nadu’s no longer an acceptable answer,” McGarvey pressured. “I don’t know…” “Lavender,” McGarvey prompted. “Start there. You’re searching for something, and it’s coming up lavender.” But Otto didn’t answer. They arrived at Andrews main gate, and the air policemen on duty saluted the car and passed them through. Yemm drove directly over to the VIP hangar, where the CIA’s Gulfstream would come after landing. The flight was still at least twenty minutes out, and there was no activity in or around the hangar, though the big doors were open. Yemm parked on the apron in front of the doors. “Take a walk, Dick,” McGarvey told Yemm. “Find out when the flight lands.” Yemm turned and looked at Otto who stared out the window toward the control tower, then at McGarvey. He didn’t think that it was such a good idea leaving the DCI here unprotected, even if he was with a friend. “I can call Operations.” “Get out of here, Dick.” Yemm looked at him questioningly. Under the CIA’s Standard Operating Policies he would be within his rights, as the DCIs bodyguard, to refuse a direct order if he thought that the DCIs life would be jeopardized because of it. It was the same SOP that the Secret Service agents guarding the President of the United States followed. He knew that McGarvey could take care of himself.

Nonetheless, he took his job seriously. But he nodded finally. “I’ll be back in ten.” When Yemm was gone, McGarvey got out of the limo, walked around to the front and leaned against the hood. An old KG-135

tanker came lumbering in for a landing. The Boeing 707 was still majestic after nearly a half century of service. He remembered as a kid riding one out to Saigon on his first assignment. “I don’t know what holds it up, ya know,” Otto said at his side. “Physics?” “Nah.”

“Then it has to be trust,” McGarvey said. “Sometimes that’s not so easy.” “Between friends.” “Yes, especially between friends. Real friends, ya know.” “I’d like to think that I have real friends.” Otto gave a little shuffle. He was becoming agitated. “You do, Mac.

Honest injun.” “Special Operation Spotlight.” “What?” “I want to know what it is. Why it’s lavender. And what it has to do with Nikolayev and your trip to France.” McGarvey gave Otto a penetrating stare. “I want to know what it has to do with me and my family.” “It’s nothing more than a research project. I’m running down a few loose ends that Elizabeth came up with in the archives.” McGarvey shook his head.

“Somebody tried to kill you, me and my wife, and now our daughter. And you tell me that you’re working on a research project? Bullshit, Otto.

Pure, unadulterated bullshit.” “My machines are running the programs while I’m looking for bad guys-” “Okay. What have you come up with?”

“It’s too early to say.”

Otto was backing himself into a corner, and McGarvey was worried that he was losing it. He was hiding something. But he always told the truth no matter how painful or embarrassing it might be.

“Give me one thing, then,” McGarvey said, keeping his patience. “For instance, tell me about Nikolayev. He worked for General Baranov in the old days. Does that have something to do with this?”

“Nothing…”

“That’s not true, goddammit,” McGarvey pressed. “You don’t spend that kind of computer time on a research project when someone is trying to kill you and the people around you. And you don’t come up with some bullshit operational title and go off commandeering a hyper sonic spy plane to take you to France.”

Otto was alarmed, he seemed to be vibrating. “That’s not true…”

“Louise was waiting here to pick you up when the Aurora landed. Dick saw the whole thing. Makes her an accessory. Do you want us to bring her in for questioning?”

Otto put a hand to his mouth.

“It wouldn’t do her air force career much good if the headhunters investigated her for murder and treason. Even if she was cleared, she’d be tainted in the eyes of the promotions board. She might even lose her clearances

“Why are you doing this?” “Because I’m tired of screwing around. I want the truth.” “I don’t have the answers, Mac. I swear to God,”

Otto cried in anguish. “You don’t believe in God, but you do have some of the answers.” Otto started to dance from one foot to the other.

His sneakers were untied again, his shirt was stained with something, maybe mustard, and the welts and scabs on his head punctuated the massive bruising all over the left side of his face. He looked pitiful, even crazy. But there was too much at stake to let him off the hook, friend or not. McGarvey had known that it would come to this with Otto. Just as he knew that he was the only one to confront him; he was the only person on the face of the earth other than Louise Horn to whom Otto would listen. Stenzel had warned him that confronting Otto head-to-head might drive him over the edge. But then he might already be over the edge and looking for a way back. Sometimes behavior like Otto’s signaled a desperate plea for help. “There’s simply no way to know for sure until he falls apart and we can pick up the pieces.” “It’s okay,” McGarvey said. He wanted to put his arm around Otto’s shoulder, friend-to-friend. But he didn’t dare. Otto was simply too fragile now. “It’s okay. Just tell me what you can. I need something to go on.” Otto stopped dancing as if he were a mechanical toy winding down. McGarvey glanced toward the active runway.

Liz’s plane would touch down soon. She was another fragile spirit he would have to find the strength to protect and comfort. But they still had a few minutes. Otto was staring at him. “In August one of my search programs came up with a hit,” Otto said softly, as if he were afraid of being overheard. “An old KGB general was found shot to death in his Moscow apartment. A suicide. But there were questions.” “What search program?” McGarvey asked. “I got the idea last year when I was digging through your old operational files.” Otto was hesitant.

McGarvey nodded reassuringly for him to go on. “You crossed paths with some bad people. I thought that maybe someday one of them might come looking for you. Revenge, ya know. Settle old scores. You pissed off some serious dudes.” McGarvey watched him. Otto was choosing his words with care. With too much care. There were things that he knew that he did not want to reveal. “Who was he?” “Gennadi Zhuralev.

Nobody important, except that he worked for Baranov, and that program was watching for Baranov connections.” “Was he murdered?” Otto shrugged. “Probably. But what got me interested was that another old Baranov hand, Anatoli Nikolayev, went missing the very same day, and within twenty-four hours the SVR launched an all-out search for him.

That was too coincidental for me.” “The Russians traced him to France, and so did you.” “That’s right.” “But why, Otto?” McGarvey asked.

“Why have you gone through all the trouble to find some old Russian?”

“Because the SVR wanted him big-time. So I figured he had to be worth something.” McGarvey shook his head. “I don’t buy it. People disappear from Russia all the time, most of them smuggling something valuable out with them. They’re draining the country, so the SVR wants them back. The FBI usually gets those requests for help, but Fred Rudolph has heard nothing.” “He was a Baranov man,” Otto said lamely.

“Baranov is dead, and Nikolayev is very old. Where’s the interest?”

“He didn’t want to forget,” Otto said with difficulty. “Forget what?

What do you mean?” “He was reading the old files. Interviewing people.” “Baranov’s files? Department Viktor people?” Otto nodded.

“Including my involvement?” McGarvey asked. Otto nodded again. “So what?” McGarvey said, but then he stopped himself. “He found out something that somebody in Moscow doesn’t want found out.” Otto watched him but said nothing. “It has something to do with what’s happening around here. Where’s the connection, Otto? Where’s the lavender?” Rencke flinched as if he had been burned. “I’m not sure, Mac. Honest injun.” “It’s some operation that lay dormant for all these years until Nikolayev stumbles on it. He hits a trip wire, and the thing starts.” McGarvey focused on Otto. “What is it?” Otto was vibrating again, a look of terror on his face. “You found Nikolayev, and you must have made contact with him. Is that right?” Otto shook his head. “Goddammit, you didn’t come back from France empty-handed. I know you didn’t. What did you find out?” Otto’s lips worked as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. “Spotlight is your operation to find out what Nikolayev is up to. And you found out something.

What?” Yemm came around the corner of the building. McGarvey spotted him and angrily waved him back. “Their plane is on final, boss,” Yemm shouted. “You have about five minutes.” He turned and went into the hangar. McGarvey turned back to Rencke with a mixture of frustration, pity and anger. “Somebody is trying to kill me. Or at the very least stop me from becoming DCI. A number of our people have pegged you as the chief suspect. They think that you’ve gone around the bend.” Otto hung his head. “I know.” “You can’t do this alone, Otto. You can’t fight the war by your seE Let me help. It’s what I do for my friends.

It’s the least I can do.” “Network Martyrs,” Otto mumbled. McGarvey’s eyes narrowed. Something in the sudden mood shift as Otto spoke the words was disturbing. “Was that a Baranov operation?” “Like CESTA and Banco del Sur, but a lot more specific.” Otto was desperately afraid of something. “Nikolayev found the file at Lefortovo.” “How do you know that?” McGarvey asked. It was a reasonable question under the circumstances. “Did you talk to him when you were in France?” “No.

He was in Paris, but I didn’t see him. I couldn’t. Somebody tried to kill him in front of the Louvre. They killed another man instead. The one Nikolayev had gone to see. Just like Zhuralev in Moscow.” “Was he another Baranov man?” “Valdimir Trofimov. He was BaranoVs special assistant for about ten years.” Otto looked off in the distance as the CIA’s Gulfstream approached the end of the field for a landing.

“Nikolayev doesn’t have all the answers either.” “How do you know?”

“He wouldn’t be running for his life.” “What about Network Martyrs?”

“He was living in an apartment in Montmartre. I found a scrap of paper with the name.” “Now we’re getting somewhere. We can give this to Tom Lynch. His people can search the apartment. They might find something we can use.” Lynch was chief of the CIA’s Paris station. “The Russians have already been there. They were right on my heels.” “Did you get the scrap of paper?” Otto looked down and shook his head.

“No. But I hacked the SVR’s mainframe in Moscow.” He looked up.

“Baranov planted a very deep cover agent here in the States almost twenty years ago. When the time was right the agent would be activated and would assassinate the target.” Otto blinked furiously. “The target is you, Mac. Oh, wow, and the agent has been activated.” The hairs prickled on the back of McGarvey’s neck. “Who is the assassin?”

“I don’t know,” Otto said, unable to meet McGarvey’s eyes. He was lying again. He knew, or at the very least he suspected who it might be. “It’s someone close,” McGarvey said. “We know that much. Do you have a list?” “Not one that has any meaning. Nothing makes any sense.” Otto started to dance from foot to foot again. There it was again. The business about trust. If he couldn’t trust his friends, who the hell was left?

“I have my own list,” McGarvey admitted. “You’re on it. So is Yemm.”

Maybe he had suspected all along that Baranov would come back. The look in the general’s eyes when he died wasn’t one of defeat, but rather one of cunning and malevolence. Bravado, as he lay bleeding to death outside East Berlin, or some knowledge that he would get his revenge in the end?

McGarvey had never really understood Baranov’s motivation for coming after him. If the Russians had wanted McGarvey dead, they’d had plenty of opportunities to put a bullet in the back of his head. No one could go through life without making a mistake.

Now he had to wonder again, if indeed this was a Baranov operation that had been put in place more than twenty years ago.

Was the general’s desire for revenge nothing more than insanity? Some international game of chess played for a grudge? A vengeance game? It was probably something they would never know for sure, because the only man who understood was dead.

Pride? Ego? Saving face?

The Gulfstream touched down with a puff of smoke from its tires. “I’ll find Nikolayev, but we gotta keep Paris station out of it,” Otto said.

“If the Russians find out that we’re after him, too, there’s no telling what’ll happen. If they get to him first, they’ll kill him, just like they did Zhuralev and Trofimov. They want to bury the mess that Baranov made. We’d never know the whole truth until it was too late.”

Otto looked up, pleading. “Don’t you see, Mac, you gotta let me work on it my way.”

A towing vehicle came across the apron and pulled up where the Gulfstream would stop. The driver glanced over at McGarvey and Otto, then looked away. A gas truck came from the same direction and pulled up as Yemm came out of the hangar.

“I don’t think we have a lot of time left,” McGarvey said. “Don’t screw around, I can’t give you much more slack.”

“I’m trying,” Otto said quietly. “I’m trying real hard to keep it together.”

McGarvey watched as the Gulfstream came toward them, not at all sure what he was going to say to his daughter. What he could say that would help, except that he loved her. The tow vehicle driver guided the jet to a halt, then motioned for the pilot to cut the engines. They immediately began to spool down, and Yemm went over to help as the door came open and the stairs were lowered.

Otto stepped away from the car. “She’ll be okay, Mac, Todd will take care of her.” There was a note of something, desperation maybe, in his voice. But he was not lying. “Isn’t he on your list of suspects?”

McGarvey asked, even though the question was cruel. Otto looked sharply at him, surprise and a little doubt showing in his eyes.

“You’re kidding, right?” he said, but McGarvey didn’t know if he was kidding. All he knew was that once you started down the slippery slope of mistrust there oftentimes was no way back. He was trying, but he was sliding again. “Boss?” The jet’s stairs were down. Yemm stood by at the open door. He was waiting. McGarvey fixed a smile on his face and boarded the plane. The pilot on the flight deck gave him a nod.

“We had a smooth flight, Mr. Director,” he said. McGarvey glanced at him. “Thanks,” he said. His eyes slid past the copilot and the young woman who was the flight attendant, to his son-in-law, perched on the arm of Elizabeth’s seat, looking like he would take the head off anyone who so much as twitched near his wife. Then he looked at Liz, and his smile almost died. Elizabeth’s face was puffed up and badly bruised.

Her eyes were swollen half-shut and bloodshot. She wore one of Todd’s flannel shirts, her left arm was in a sling. It was obvious from the way she held herself that she was in pain, especially in her lower back. She shivered in anticipation. Her mouth was screwed up in a grimace that made it impossible to tell if she was wincing in a sudden sharp pain, or she was trying to smile. Her skin, where it wasn’t black-and-blue, was pale, almost translucent. Even without the marks, she was obviously a sick woman. The medical report McGarvey had read said that she had lost a significant amount of blood. It would take time for her to recover. “Hello, sweetheart,” McGarvey said soothingly. He went to her and gently kissed her forehead. She looked up at him just like she had when she was a little girl, before he and Katy had separated, waiting for him to tuck her in for the night and listen to her prayers. “You’re back home now, and everything’s going to be fine.” He glanced at Todd, who gave him a very determined look in return. “The doctors say that you’ll come out of this just fine. How do you feel?”

Her eyes squinted, and a couple of tears rolled down the side of her face. She picked a small, brown stuffed bear off the seat beside her and hugged it close with one arm. “They killed the baby, Daddy,” she said, her voice impossibly young. McGarvey almost lost it. She looked over her father’s shoulder. “Where’s Mom? Why isn’t she here?” “She wasn’t getting any rest, so the doctor put her in the hospital. Just for a couple of days. She’ll be home tomorrow.” “Was it because of me?” Elizabeth demanded. She looked up at Todd for support. He didn’t avoid her eyes. “Partly,” McGarvey admitted. “But whoever tried to get you, has tried to eliminate us, too. Which is why all of us are going to play it by the book and let Security do its job.” “Is she okay?” Elizabeth insisted. “She’ll be fine in a day or two. She just needs the rest, that’s all.” “Are you sure?” He nodded. She looked over her father’s shoulder again. Otto and Yemm had boarded the airplane and stood hunched over in the aisle. “Oh, wow, Liz, are you really okay?” Otto asked. “I’ll live,” Elizabeth replied. “Are you back at work?” “Yeah.” She brushed at a tear and faced her father.

“Okay, it’s over. Todd and I are back, and we’re going to find the bastards who are doing this to us.” Gone was the little girl. She had become the strong, determined young woman she prided herself on being.

A McGarvey. “You’re not going anywhere except to the hospital,”

McGarvey told her. “Yes, to see Mom ”

“And then the doctors. You’re not going anywhere until they give you a clean bill of health.” “I’m not going to lie around a hospital while someone tries to kill you. I don’t have a concussion, and I didn’t break any bones. I lost some blood and I lost the… baby.” Her breath caught in her throat.

“It’s happened to other women, and it’s happened to me before. But I’m not an invalid.” “No. But you’re my daughter,” said McGarvey, “and before you do anything you’re going to heal. They’ll probably want to hold you overnight, and if that’s what they want, that’s what they’ll get.” McGarvey looked up. “Right, Todd?” Elizabeth started to protest, but Todd shook his head. “Just listen for once, Liz. Please.

The rest of us can’t do our jobs if we have to ride herd on you.”

“I’m okay,” she shot back crossly. She started to rise, but she winced in pain and slumped back.

“Dick, call an ambulance,” McGarvey said.

“No,” Elizabeth protested. “I’ll go to the hospital, and I’ll stay there until they say I can go back to work.” She looked up defiantly.

“But no ambulance.”

“Okay, sweetheart, no ambulance. But I’ll hold you to your promise.”

Otto rode in the front with Yemm, the bulletproof divider up, while McGarvey rode with his battered daughter and son-in-law in the back. He wanted to get the story, the whole story, from her. He wasn’t going to bring up what Todd had told him before the weekend, that she and Otto had put their heads together and were working on something in secrecy.

He wanted it to come from her without pressure. She was too brittle now; the right push could send her over the edge. All of them were on the brink, but especially Katy and Otto and now Liz. She remembered skiing, but not the accident. “Todd was behind me. He was shouting for me to slow down.” She still held the teddy bear. She smoothed its pink bow. “I have to thank Ms. Swanfeld.” “The bear came from everybody upstairs,” McGarvey said. She nodded. “Somebody was holding my hand and calling my name. It was Doris, my work name, but I knew that I was supposed to respond, say something, anything.” She shook her head in vexation. “But it was like I was having a nightmare. I knew that I had to keep running, but it was impossible because I was up to my knees in glue.” She looked up at her father. “I knew that you were going to be mad at me.” “I’m not mad at you, Liz. It wasn’t your fault.” “If I hadn’t gone skiing-” “Then they would have tried something else. And maybe you wouldn’t have been so lucky.” She shuddered and looked away. “Some luck,” she muttered bitterly. “Why you?” McGarvey asked. He glanced at Otto, who was looking straight ahead, giving no indication that he knew what was being discussed in the back.

“I don’t know, Daddy,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t figure it out. If someone is trying to kill you, why come after me or Otto? And if they’re just trying to get you to quit, then they’ve got to start realizing that they’re going about it exactly the wrong way.” “Have you been working on anything that might make you a target?” “Do you mean that the attack on me might have been coincidental?” Liz shook her head. “It’s not likely. The Semtex they used in my bindings came from the same batch they used on your helicopter.” Lips pursed, McGarvey counted to five before he responded. “How do you know that?”

“Jerry Kraus’s people came up with a match.” “But how did you find out, sweetheart?” “I don’t know. I think maybe Todd mentioned it.”

Todd shook his head, and Elizabeth caught it. “Maybe Otto told me, then.” “When did you talk to him? Was it yesterday?” “It must have been,” she said, her anger rising. She hated to be put on the spot.

“We left early this morning, so it was probably yesterday afternoon. I don’t remember.” “I shouldn’t think so,” McGarvey said, sympathetically. “Not with all you’ve been through. But I’ll talk to Otto when we get to the office and clear it up.” “Clear up what?” Liz demanded. “Where’s the mystery?” “It’s a Russian thing. Something out of my past that we’re trying to get a handle on,” McGarvey told her with a measured nonchalance. “Could be that it’s them gunning for me.

Otto has probably come up with something, too, but you know how he is.

Unless he’s got it nailed down cold, he keeps whatever he’s working on to himself.” McGarvey shrugged. “I thought that if you had talked to him, he might have said something.” “Oh, that,” she said. “It has something to do with General Baranov, you’re right. And with a Department Viktor shrink who’s supposed to be on the run from the SVR.

But I don’t know a lot more than that.” “Is that what you two have been working on so mysteriously?” “I’ve been working on your bio,”

Elizabeth responded too quickly. “I would never have guessed one-tenth of what you did.” “Does Otto think that Nikolayev is gunning for me?”

“He’s too old. But it might have something to do with whatever he took out of Moscow with him.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know, Daddy. Honestly. I wish “

“You wish what, sweetheart?”

She looked a little embarrassed. “I wish sometimes that we could just all go away someplace and just be together.”

“Maybe in a time machine?” McGarvey suggested.

She smiled and reached for her husband’s hand. “Only if I could take Todd with me.”

Peggy Vaccaro was sitting across from a sleeping Kathleen in the darkened hospital room when McGarvey and Elizabeth showed up. Otto and Yemm went to the waiting room. Todd went downstairs to speak with Dr.

Mattice, who was on his way over on McGarvey’s call to see about admitting Elizabeth at least overnight. “Good heavens, Liz, we were all so worried about you,” Peggy Vaccaro said in a soft voice, getting up. They hugged lightly. “How are you?” “I’ve been better,” Elizabeth said. “How’s my mother?” “A lot better.” Vaccaro looked over at McGarvey. “Dr. Love was in again this morning, and they did another test downstairs. An EKG, I think, and something else. We didn’t know exactly what time Liz was coming in, and the doctor wanted Mrs. M. to get some rest, so he gave her a light sedative.” “Did he say anything about her condition?” Elizabeth asked. Peggy Vaccaro smiled. “That’s the good news. She’s going to be okay.” Again she looked at McGarvey.

“She can go home tomorrow morning at the latest, Mr. Director. That’s really good news.” “Yes, it is,” McGarvey agreed. He watched the play of emotions across his daughter’s face. When he and Katy separated, Elizabeth had blamed herself for the divorce. She felt as if she hadn’t been a good enough daughter to keep them together. It was because of her that her parents no longer wanted to live together. The same expression of guilt creased her face now with lines of worry and doubt. It was because of her that her mother was here like this.

Elizabeth brushed a wisp of her mother’s hair off her forehead, then bent down and kissed her cheek. “She’s going to be really happy to see you,” Peggy Vaccaro said. “I’m not going anywhere, Peg,” Elizabeth said. She turned to her father. “I’ll stay here with Mom until she wakes up. Take Otto back to work.” “I’ll leave Todd here,” McGarvey said. “Yeah,” Elizabeth replied absently. She looked at her mother.

“He and I have some things to work out.”

McGarvey’s heart went out to his daughter. He wanted to cradle her in his arms for the rest of her life, to protect her from the demons and gremlins. But he couldn’t do it. Leastways not like that. “It’ll be okay, baby.” “I know it will, Daddy, because we’ll make it so.” She looked at him. She was crying again. “You’ll make it so.”

TWENTY-NINE

McGarvey rode alone in the backseat out to Langley, Otto once again up front with Yemm, content to be alone for a little while with his thoughts. Idly he watched the traffic. In a way Washington was like Los Angeles. People were on the go, moving, always in a hurry. Nothing stayed the same. Everything was in a constant state of change.

Focusing on any one thing or person for very long was more difficult than ever. Cell phones and the Internet had not isolated people as many critics had predicted. The new technologies brought people together. But only superficially. These days you were far less likely to talk to a neighbor three houses away than you were to an anonymous chat room personality halfway around the world. And now there was terrorism. It was an issue of trust. McGarvey understood the concept at the gut level. But it was a forgotten muscle in his body, a gene that somehow had not been switched on at birth. And the harder he tried to trust people, the more he wanted it, the more he wanted to rely on someone, to go back-to-back with them for protection against the world, the more difficult it became. After Santiago he had run to Switzerland to lick his wounds. It was the most neutral place on earth that he could think of. The CIA had abandoned him, the Senate over site committee, one of whose key members was Darby Yarnell, had thrown him to the wolves, and even Katy had given him an ultimatum: “Me or the CIA.” So he had bailed out. The Swiss Federal Police knew who he was, of course, and his presence in Lausanne made them nervous. Not enough to kick him out of the country, but enough to send three cops to watch over him. One was Dortmund Fiielm, who became his partner in a bookstore. The second was a young woman who passed herself off as Fiielm’s daughter. She kept trying to get McGarvey to sleep with her.

And the third was Marta Fredricks, who shared his apartment, his bed and his life until the end, when he was recalled to Washington. She had fallen in love with him, and their parting had been difficult for both of them. “But I love you, Kirk. Doesn’t that mean something to you?” McGarvey lowered his head. Marta said that to him the day he walked out on her in Lausanne. And she said it to him again in Paris, where she had come looking for him. He rejected her both times because he was not able to trust her, not even a little. The first time her heart had been broken, and the second time in Paris, when he had sent her away, she was killed in the crash of a Swissair flight. He could never forget her last words, or the look on her face. They crossed the river and went down the Parkway to the CIA. The afternoon was clouding over. It looked like snow again. They were passed through the gate, and Yemm pulled up at the executive entrance. McGarvey let himself out and went inside. Otto and Yemm came right behind him. “I’ve got work to do,” Otto mumbled, and, head down, he hurried off to the computer center. “Are you going to need me, boss?” Yemm asked. “No.” Yemm hesitated just a moment. “Liz is going to be okay, and so is Mrs. M.

now that we know what’s going on.” McGarvey looked at his bodyguard curiously. “What’s going on?” “Somebody’s after you, and they’re not above going after your family to get to you.” Yemm shrugged pragmatically. “Except for the chopper pilot on Hans Lollick, nobody’s been killed.”

Scratching, nagging, worrying at the back of his head. He wanted to run. “Except for the baby,” McGarvey said, and he took the elevator upstairs leaving Dick Yemm standing flat-footed in the corridor. Ms.

Swanfeld was waiting for him when he barged through the outer office and into his office. She took his coat, hung it up, then got him a cup of coffee, into which she poured a healthy measure of brandy. “I thought that you could use this,” she said, setting it down on the desk. He smiled tiredly. “The boss isn’t supposed to be a drunk.”

She smiled faintly. “President Lincoln had the same problem with Grant.” “I wish it was that simple,” he said. “What’s on the schedule?” “You’re supposed to be on the Hill at two.” “Not today.”

“Very well. Mr. Paterson thought that might be the case. He would like a few minutes of your time this afternoon.” “Whenever he’s free.”

“Barry Willis of the New York Times is coming at five-thirty for a backgrounder on the Havana incident. But I suspect that he will actually ask you questions about the Virgin Islands.” “Reschedule him for sometime next week.” “Yes, sir,” she said. “In that case, except for Mr. Paterson, you are free for the remainder of the day.” “I want a staff meeting at five. I’d like to see the preliminary NIE and Watch Reports. I’d like to speak with Fred Rudolph at some point, and then the President.” McGarvey glanced at the door to Adkins’s office. “Is Dick here this afternoon?” “Yes, sir. But he had a terrible night of it. Mrs. Adkins is back in the hospital.” McGarvey felt terrible for him. “I’ve tried to force him to take a leave of absence. But he won’t do it.” “Neither would you, Mr. Director,” Ms. Swanfeld countered sternly. “But I’m-” “Indispensable?” she asked. He was going to say under fire, but he just shook his head. “Point well taken.” “How is Elizabeth?” “She won’t let go of the teddy bear. She says to tell everybody thanks.” Ms. Swanfeld smiled warmly.

“She’s black-and-blue, and her back hurts, but she wanted to come back to work this afternoon.”

“Good heavens. Pardon me, sir, but you are not going to allow that child to resume her duties this soon, are you?”

“No, they’re keeping her overnight at the hospital, and she’ll be out on sick leave for at least a week. Maybe longer. My wife will be returning home, probably tomorrow morning. I’ll see if I can’t convince Elizabeth to come home to help out. Her mother could use her.”

“Indeed,” Ms. Swanfeld said. Her manner brightened, as if a burden had been lifted. “I’ll go make your calls.”

“Give me a half hour.”

“Yes, Mr. Director.” Ms. Swanfeld went to the door. “I’m glad Elizabeth is back safe and sound.”

“So am I.”

McGarvey stared out the windows at the deepening gloom as he finished his coffee. Then he went next door to his DDCI’s office. Adkins, in shirtsleeves, was just sitting down at his desk as the outer door from his office closed. “Who was that?” McGarvey asked. Adkins looked up, startled. “Oh, hello, Mac. Elizabeth got back okay?” McGarvey nodded. “She’s going to spend the night in the hospital. We’ll see tomorrow. But it’s good to have her back.” He glanced at the door.

“That was Bob Johnson, he had a final report on Otto’s accident.

Somebody did tamper with the wheel bearing. Curious though, whoever did it wasn’t a mechanic. They just jacked up the car, took the wheel off and dug around in the wheel bearing well with a screwdriver, or something.” “So it could have been Otto himself.” Adkins nodded glumly. “But whoever did it wasn’t trying to fix anything. They were trying to sabotage the wheel so that it would come off.” “I was told that Ruth’s back in the hospital. What happened, Dick?” “She had another relapse,” Adkins said, looking down at his hands. “This time she was puking up a lot of blood. But there are no bleeders. Nothing they can fix.” “Ulcers-” “She’s riddled with cancer. It’s everywhere in her body. She’s disintegrating from the inside out.” McGarvey was disturbed. “I can’t believe that you came in today. Get the hell out of here. You need to be with your family.”

“The girls arrived last night, they’re with their mother.” He shook his head again. “There’s nothing I can do for her that makes any sense. She’s in intensive care, and ”

“And nothing, Dick.” McGarvey softened his tone. “I mean it, you have to get back to the hospital, if for no other reason than your daughters.” “They don’t want me.”

“Bullshit, and you know it. I’m placing you on sick leave right now.

Dave Whittaker can help take up the slack for the time being.”

Adkins’s mood, which seemed terribly matter-of-fact, did not match the situation. It was denial. This wasn’t happening to him. By throwing himself into work he could forget for a few hours what was really going on around him. And yet there was something else. Another layer of meaning in Adkins’s gestures and words. As if he were hiding something so terrible that he had to watch his every movement lest he give himself away. “I’m ordering you out of here,” McGarvey said. He gestured to the pile of folders on the desk. “Are those the NIE and Watch Report?” Adkins nodded. “Give them to me, then put on your coat, tell your secretary that you’ll be gone until further notice, get in your car and drive over to the hospital.” Adkins reluctantly handed the thick file folders to McGarvey. “There’ve been no substantive developments in the past five days.” “Call me when you can. Let me know what’s happening,” McGarvey said. “Tell Ruth that… we’re thinking of her.” McGarvey went to the door. “I hate to leave like this, Mac.” “I know,” McGarvey said, and he walked back into his own office. He sat down at his desk and forced himself to flip through the reports. No matter what else happened to them individually, the business of the world and therefore the CIA, continued. Adkins came to the door a few minutes later, his coat on. “I’m gone then,” he said.

“If you need us, we’re here for you, Dick,” McGarvey said. Adkins nodded. “I know,” he said. “Good luck.” He turned and walked out.

McGarvey was about to call after him, to tell him that no matter how long it took he would be welcomed back with open arms, when his secretary buzzed. “What is it?” “It hasn’t been a half hour, but Fred Rudolph is on one for you. Do you want to take it, or should I ask him to call back?”

“I’ll take it,” McGarvey said. He punched one. “Fred, what do you have for me?” “We’re having no luck tracking down Nikolayev in France, and now Dmitri Runkov has disappeared.” “What are you talking about, disappeared? Did he return to Moscow?” “Not on any flight out of Washington or New York,” the FBI supervisor said. “He’s apparently not at home, and he’s not available at the embassy.” “What about his family? Are they still in Washington?” “His wife and kids are at the house, living like they normally have. Grocery store, the dry cleaners, the bank, gas station, liquor store, little league hockey.

But no Dmitri.” “Has this happened before? Has he disappeared like this, I mean?” “He’s played games with us, but never like this. Never for so long. Hours usually, never days.” Mysteries within mysteries.

Nothing was as it seemed to be. The one idea that would solidify everything danced at the edges of McGarvey’s understanding. It was as if he were being teased by some truth, some sudden insight that would make everything clear to him. “If he hasn’t managed to slip out of the country under our noses, then it means he’s gone to ground for some reason,” Rudolph suggested. “That doesn’t make him guilty of anything,” McGarvey countered, working it out. “Maybe he’s just a cautious man.” “You might be right, Mac. But if that’s the case, if he’s just ducked into the nearest bunker, it means that he’s expecting an explosion. Soon.” “It would seem so,” McGarvey said. “Dmitri knows something that we don’t.” “We’ll keep trying to dig him out,” Rudolph promised. “In the meantime, maybe you should take his example and keep your head down, too.” “The thought has occurred to me,” McGarvey said.

“Keep in touch.” “You too.” McGarvey had Ms. Swanfeld call the White House. They got Anthony Lang, the President’s chief of staff.

“He’s on an extremely tight schedule today, Mr. Director,” Lang told McGarvey. “I need a minute of his time,” McGarvey insisted, “He’ll call you from Ottawa. His helicopter is here ” Lang was interrupted.

“Just a minute.” The President came on. “You’ve certainly put a burr under Hammond’s saddle. If he could arrange for a firing squad, you’d be against the wall before sundown.” “He has an inside source here at the Agency,” McGarvey told the President. “When we run him down, I’m going to nail Hammond publicly.” “Not such a good idea,” the President disagreed. “You and I are in a tough spot right now. I have a vote on my armed forces modernization bill coming up that Hammond and Madden are going to pull out all the stops to oppose. And some nut with a grudge is out there gunning for you and your family. “Now, I’m not willing to kiss Hammond’s ass, just like you’re not going to surround yourself with the National Guard. When you find your leak, you can hang him or her. They’ll deserve it. But not publicly. We’re going to give Hammond that round. In return he’s going to give us your nomination, and he’s going to roll over and play at least neutral if not dead on my bill. It’s two for one. Not a bad return.” “Until the next time ”

“Tom Hammond is an elected representative of the people.

He’s not going away anytime soon, and I wouldn’t want him to. He serves a very useful purpose. He’s part of the system, and we’ll live with him. In the meantime, give me what I want, and Hammond will give us what we want, which should clear the way for you to find out who’s after you.” “No further hearings.” “Not until you’re in the clear.”

McGarvey could hear the deal maker in the President. Haynes was famous for it. Someone trying to harm the director of the Central Intelligence Agency was a big deal. But not as big a deal as arms limitation talks, or world trade agreements, or terrorist attacks in Washington and New York. Every event had its own perspective against the backdrop of the world’s problems. One man, even one as important as a DCI, could not swing the balance of millions of lives in jeopardy.

It was a fact of life. Reality. “Have a good trip, Mr. President,”

McGarvey said. “You’ll find out what’s happening. You always do,” the President said. “But stay safe.” Lawrence Haynes was the most popular president since Reagan because he was an honorable man with a squeaky clean past and a picture-perfect wife and daughter whom the American public had adopted from the beginning of his campaign in New Hampshire.

But he had retained his popularity because he kept his administration simple. Simplicity had become the White House watchword. The most complex and perplexing problems were broken into their constituent parts, each much simpler and easier to deal with than the whole. His staff found the new way of thinking a breeze. And so did the public.

McGarvey got up and went to the windows that looked over the Virginia countryside toward the Potomac River. Snow was falling in delicate, almost weightless flakes. The whispering nagging was there at the back of his head, but he was beginning to understand the why of someone coming after him, and he felt that Nikolayev might have the answers to the how. It was something psychological. Keep it simple. Always simple. When he had the answers to the first two elements the why and the how he would have two legs of an isosceles triangle, and the third would be a fait accompli.

THIRTY

Norman Stenzel tapped a Marlboro out of his pack and lit it, tossing the match in the ashtray on the long conference table. His neurologist friend, Dr. Robert Love, sat across from him. They’d been going over Kathleen McGarvey’s medical file and the results of her tests or rather, the lack of results for the past hour. As far as Stenzel was concerned he was no closer to understanding what was happening to the woman than he had been in the beginning. The joke among psychiatrists when they didn’t know what was wrong with a patient was to simply say that they were nuts. “There’s nothing wrong with her, Norm,” Dr. Love said. He and Stenzel were opposites. Love was a precise man, in his manner, in his impeccable suits and hand-tailored shoes and two-hundred-dollar haircuts, in the twelve-cylinder Mercedes that he drove. Stenzel, on the other hand, was a dreamer, a speculator. He looked and acted shoddy; his hair was too long, his corduroy trousers were baggy and his eleven year-old Chevy Blazer was pockmarked by rust and dents as if it had been in a war zone. But they respected each other’s professional abilities, and they were friends. “Except that she’s nuts,” Stenzel replied. “There’s nothing wrong inside her head.

No lesions, normal EEC, nothing from the MRI, no tumors, no bleeders, no asymmetries. Nothing showed up from the lumbar tap, her sugar level was normal. Nothing obviously wrong with her blood chemistry. She has a slightly higher than optimal B/P, her cholesterol is at 190, her lipids and tryglicerides are just about what you’d expect for a woman of her age and lifestyle.” Dr. Love spread his hands. “She’s as healthy as you or I.” “Puts the ball back in my court,” Stenzel said.

Which was about what he figured would be the case. Though it would have been easier had they found a small lesion or even a benign tumor somewhere on her temporal lobe. It would have made understanding and then treating her symptoms a lot simpler. “Schizophrenia?” “That was my first thought, but I’ve gotten a lot of contradictory test results.”

Stenzel frowned. “Something else is happening. It’s as if something’s pushing at her. Something that she’s terrified of.” Dr. Love closed the folders he’d been reading from. They’d met at the hospital rather than at their offices for convenience sake. “Well, from what you’ve told me about her situation, it’s a wonder she’s not a raving lunatic.”

“That’s precisely the problem, Bob. She isn’t raving. At least she’s only lost control the one time, so far as we know. But the life she’s had, and especially what’s been going on over the past week or so, should have forced her into nervous collapse.” “She’s tough. She’d have to be, to be married to someone in her husband’s position.”

Stenzel shook his head. “That’s the other part of the problem. Her position. She’s carrying around a load of guilt issues, just like the rest of us. Most of them are crap. But she’s taken on the problems of a half-dozen charities, including her church, as if they were her own.

The things they’re saying in her husband’s Senate confirmation hearings are depressing her. And she’s gone through her daughter’s pregnancy and miscarriage as if she had been carrying the baby herself.” “She sounds like the typical Beltway wife. But, look, I’ll run the tests again. Maybe we missed something.” “No, I don’t think so. If you thought it was necessary to redo the tests, you would go ahead and do it.” Stenzel looked away for a moment, resigned. Dr. Love got up. “We’ll see you and Marie Saturday night, then?” Stenzel nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for your help, Bob.” When Dr.

Love left, Stenzel remained seated at the table to finish his cigarette. He was down to a half a pack a day now. But it was hard.

He’d seen other cases like Kathleen’s before. The CIA was tough on its employees and their families. The sometimes long absences, the constant pressure to “get it right,” because lives were on the line, the almost constant harping and criticism of the CIA in the media. In polite company admitting that you worked for the CIA was worse than admitting that you worked for the National Enquirer. You got no respect. It took its toll. And yet Kathleen McGarvey’s case was different. One day she seemed fine, and the next her test scores were off the charts. Nothing made sense. There was a deepening of all of her emotions. She was madly, almost maniacally, in love with her husband, wanting to lash out and crush whoever was trying to do him the slightest harm. Yet a few hours later, sometimes only a few minutes later, she talked with complete candor about why she had left him twenty years ago, and how the pressures of his position since his return were driving her to distraction again. One day she talked about raising even more millions for the Red Cross and for Good Shepherd Church. Twist a few arms, dress the President down, if need be. Hell, pick pockets, if it came to that. She’d do it gladly. The next day she wondered aloud why anyone would give her so much as a dime. She was a nudge; pushy, brassy, always with her hand out. She claimed to have no friends except those who could help her causes. Some of her tests, including the Rorschach, indicated a suicidal tendency one morning, but by that afternoon her reaction to the inkblots was completely normal. At times she was so irritable that the slightest noise in the corridor would set her off; she would scream obscenities and threats to “kill the next cocksucker” who walked through the door.

At times she was deeply paranoid, yet minutes later she was normal. But her mood swings did not seem to be getting worse, as if her disease were progressing. Instead, they were steady. They followed the beat of some metronome inside her brain. There was an underlying hate there, too. One that was concealed much of the time. It was the pattern of guilt-hate that she was going through that Stenzel was having a tough time unraveling. The simple answer was that she hated the CIA for what it had done to her and her family. But there was something else going on inside her head; something deeper that she was not consciously aware of. Maybe something out of her past. Some guilty secret, just like the ones every one of us carried around in our heads. But it was a secret that bubbled to the surface whenever she was under extreme stress.

Stenzel bundled up his files and stopped off at Kathleen’s room. He wanted to talk to her for a few minutes to see if it was feasible to release her in the morning as he had promised McGarvey. But she was sleeping, and he didn’t want to wake her, so he headed down to the cafeteria, his stomach rumbling. He had forgotten to eat lunch.

Otto Rencke stood in the stair hall looking out the narrow window in the fire door as Dr. Stenzel disappeared down the corridor. Janis Westlake sat on a folding chair outside Mrs. M.‘s door. She was dressed in a stylish dark suit, and she was armed. Her job was to protect Mrs. M. and limit visitors to those on the list. Otto had learned this afternoon that his name had been removed. He used his cell phone to connect with one of his computer programs, which searched for and dialed the direct number to the nurses’ station on this floor.

It rang twice. “Gale Moulton.” “This is Dick Yemm. I need to talk to Ms. Westlake on guard duty at six-eleven. Something’s wrong with her phone. Could you get her for me?” “Does she know you, sir?” “Yes, she does.” “Just a moment, please.” Otto watched from the stair hall as the nurse came down the hall. She said something to Janis Westlake, who got up and followed her back down the corridor. He broke the connection, pocketed his cell phone, stepped out into the corridor, and, keeping his eye on the backs of the retreating women, hurried down the corridor and slipped into Mrs. M.“s room. She was sleeping, but the IV drip of sedatives had been removed from her arm. The room was in semidarkness. Otto jammed the chair under the door handle so that it could not be opened from the outside, then approached the head of the bed. His eyes welled with tears, and it became difficult for him to catch his breath. His heart felt as if it were fibrillating in his chest, and his knees threatened to buckle at any second. “Oh, wow,” he muttered under his breath. God forgive him for what he was about to do. He knew no other way to get the information he needed to save their lives. But it was like raping your own mother. He took out a mesh-covered ampule about the size of a cigarette filter, broke it in two, and held it under Kathleen’s nose. She reared back, as if she had received an electric shock, but then the combination of amyl nitrate and sodium pentothal hit her bloodstream, and she opened her eyes.

“Hello, Otto,” she said sweetly. “What are you doing here?” She looked as if she had awakened from a very good dream. “Hiya, Mrs. M.

I thought I would stop by to see how you were doing.” “My mouth’s a little dry.” She smacked her lips. Otto got the glass of water from the tray and held it for her. When she had taken a drink he put it back. She smiled. Her eyes seemed a little wild. “Thanks, that was peachy.” “I have to ask you something,” Otto started. “Can I go home now?” “Pretty soon. But I want to know if you remember Darby Yarnell?” “Oh, sure. He was a peachy guy. My husband killed him, you know. Shot him right through the old eyeball.” She made a pistol of her fingers and fired off a shot. “Bang, bang, el dedo. That’s Spanish for verrrry dead.” Otto was sick at his stomach. “Did Darby ever mention the general to you?” Kathleen’s face darkened for a moment, but then she grinned. “Oh, sure. He said that Illen had gone too far this time.” “Was he talking about General Baranov?” Kathleen held a finger to her lips. “Shhh. We’re not supposed to mention that name. Never. Never.” “About Dr. Nikolayev? Did you ever hear that name?” Her face screwed up in concentration. At any other time she would have looked comical. She shook her head. “Nope.” She suddenly looked sly. “Darby and I had sex, you know. He was pretty good, but not as good as my husband.” Otto felt terrible. He didn’t want to hear this. But it was important. “Did you ever go to Mexico with Darby?”

“Nope.” “How about Russia? Did you ever go to Moscow?” “Nope.” “Did you ever leave Washington with him?” “Nope. I’m practically a hometown girl. I’ve never been anywhere except with my husband.” She glanced at the door. “I want to go home now. I’m fucking well tired of this shithole.”

Otto closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, Kathleen was staring at him. “Did you ever meet General Baranov?” For several seconds it didn’t seem as if she was going to answer the question. But she nodded. “He came to Darby’s house one night.” “Did you talk to him?” “He said that I was beautiful.” Kathleen drifted off, her eyes losing their focus for a little bit. “What else did he tell you?” “I don’t remember,” she mumbled. “Please, Mrs. M.” I have to know.”

She whimpered. “He told me to go away. I didn’t belong there.” “What else?” “He told me to stop playing games and go back to my husband.

My husband needed me.” It wasn’t what Otto had expected to hear. Yet coming into this he didn’t think that he had a real idea what she would tell him. He was on a mission of exploration. “Did you stay the rest of the night anyway?” “Nope. I went home, and Darby got shot in the eyeball. Poor, beautiful Darby.” She closed her eyes. “He had everything. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly… enough.” Otto watched her face for a minute or two, his heart breaking. She’d had an indiscretion. She was human after all, not the flawless woman he’d imagined she was. In the end he’d been disappointed in, or at the very least angered by, every woman he’d ever known, especially his mother.

But he wasn’t angry with Mrs. M. He was sad for her, and he wished that he had the magical power to erase some of her past. She was sleeping now. He turned away from the bed and removed the chair from the latch. Liz was cool. And he still had Louise. He girded himself, then opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. A startled Janis Westlake jumped up. “Where were you?” Otto demanded before she could say anything. “This room was left unguarded. Thank God nothing happened to Mrs. M. Where were you?” “I was taking a phone call,” she said. “Sir, you’re not supposed to be here.” “Since when?” Otto demanded. “Since this afternoon, on Mr. Yemm’s orders, sir.” “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, where is Dr. Stenzel?”

“He said that he was going downstairs to the cafeteria,” Janis Westlake said.

“Don’t leave your post again,” Otto ordered, and he headed for the elevators. At the corner he looked back. Janis Westlake was gone, and the door to Mrs. M.“s room was open.

Dr. Stenzel was seated alone in the nearly empty cafeteria, eating a cheeseburger and fries with a large Coke. Otto got a couple of cartons of milk and went over to him, “Mind if I join you?” Stenzel looked up and frowned. “As a matter of fact I do mind. I’d like to eat my lunch in peace.” Otto sat down anyway. “Listen, Doc, I’m sorry about being such an asshole the other day. It’s just that I’ve got a lot of shit going on.” He bobbed his head. “You know what’s been happening.

Sooner or later they’re going to get really lucky, and it’ll be more than Liz’s baby that gets hurt.” Stenzel said nothing. He studied Rencke’s eyes. “Look, they’re like family to me, ya know. The only family I ever had. I’d do anything to protect them.” Otto shook his head. “Even if it means pissing you off.” Otto flashed his most charming, sincere smile. After a beat Stenzel’s expression softened.

“You are an asshole,” he said. “But you’re a fascinating asshole.” He glanced at the cartons of milk. “Milk?” “They didn’t have any cream, and no Twinkies. This’ll have to do.” “What are you doing here?”

Stenzel asked. “Your name has been taken off the visitor’s list, and Elizabeth already checked herself out and went home with her husband.”

“Is she okay?” Otto asked, alarmed. “She was supposed to spend the night.” “She’ll be fine.” Otto searched Stenzel’s face for any sign that he was lying. But the psychiatrist was telling the truth. “I’ve got a question about Mrs. M.“s visitors.” “I don’t know why your name was taken off. You’ll have to talk to Security.” “No, I meant who’s been here to see her, besides us, and Mac and Liz. Has there been anyone else?” “Her doctors-” “No, I mean someone else. Someone not connected with the hospital or with the Company.”

Stenzel thought for a moment, then started to shake his head, but stopped. “The priest.”

“What priest?”

“Vietski, or something like that. He’s the parish priest at Good Shepherd, where Kathleen attends. Mr. McGarvey said that he stopped by.”

“Is his name on the list?”

“According to the nurses he’s practically one of the staff. A lot of military and government employees go to Good Shepherd.”

“Mac knows that he was here?” Otto asked. He wanted to make sure.

Stenzel nodded.

“Who else has been to see her?” Otto pressed. “Friends? Someone from one of her charities? Maybe the Red Cross? One of their neighbors?”

“Nobody,” Stenzel said. “Security is keeping a tight watch on her.

Nobody who isn’t supposed to be here has seen her.”

Otto got up to leave, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “You’re wrong, Doc. I got in to see her.”

Dick Yemm got off the elevator on the sixth floor and hurried past the nurses’ station to Janis Westlake, who jumped to her feet when she spotted him. “How is she?” he demanded. “Fine.” “Okay, what the hell is going on?” “One of the nurses said that there was a call from you. But there was nobody on the line.” “I didn’t call-” “No, sir. I think that it was Mr. Rencke. When I got back to my station he was coming out of Mrs. McGarvey’s room. I think that he made the call to get me away from the door.” Yemm was angry. This shouldn’t have happened. “You checked on her? Nothing’s wrong?” “She’s fine,” Janis Westlake assured him. “Did he say where he was going?” “He asked where Dr. Stenzel was, and I told him the cafeteria.” Dr. Stenzel came up the corridor, stopped in the nurses’ station for a moment, and emerged with a patient clipboard and chart. He looked up, seeing Yemm and Janis Westlake with concerned expressions on their faces. “Is something wrong?” he asked. “Have you seen Otto Rencke?” Yemm demanded.

“In the cafeteria. He left just before I did.” “Did he tell you where he was going?” Stenzel shook his head. “No, but he told me that he managed to see Mrs. McGarvey.” Yemm shot Janis Westlake a dark look, then turned back to the psychiatrist. “What’d he talk to you about?”

“He wanted to know who’d been here to see Mrs. McGarvey, other than us and the hospital staff. I told him that so far as I knew the only other person up here was the priest from her church.” “Yeah, he checks out, and there’s been no one else,” Yemm said. “What else did he want to know? Did he ask you why his name had been pulled from the list?”

“No, but like I said, he admitted that he was able to see her anyway.”

“I’m doubling the guard,” Yemm said. “Might be a moot point. I’m going to be discharging her soon.” “I’m still doubling the guard, no matter where she is,” Yemm insisted. “Is she ready to go home?”

“Probably not. But I can’t keep her here against her will. It’s just that going back to the house might not be the best thing for her so soon.” “We’re trying to get them to go to a safe house where they’d be easier to watch. Her and Elizabeth. But they’re stubborn.” Stenzel managed a faint smile. “Runs in the family,” he said. He pushed open the door and went into Kathleen’s room. The television was on and tuned to an episode of ER. She was propped up in bed, smiling. She had fixed her hair and put on a little makeup. She looked up. “Dr.

Stenzel,” she said. “When can I go home?” “How are you feeling, Kathleen?” “Bored ” she said, and the door closed. “I’m sorry about the screw up, sir,” Janis Westlake said. “Don’t worry about it,” Yemm told her. “Rencke is a lot smarter than the rest of us. That’s why I’m calling for backup.” She was startled. “Sir, do you think that it’s him?” Yemm shrugged. “I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know anything now.”

THIRTY-ONE

Rencke crossed the river on 1-495, but instead of taking the George Washington Memorial Parkway back to the CIA, he continued to 1-95 and headed the fifty miles south to the Agency’s records storage facility outside of Fredericksburg. He wasn’t exactly a welcome figure at the underground installation, but his presence was tolerated because everyone there knew what he could do to the place with the proper computer virus. The records at A.P. Hill were old files, going all the way back to 1946, when the CIA was formed, and some even farther back to the WWII days of the OSS. They were paper documents, stored in file folders, classified by era, and cross-referenced by department, operation or finance track, and tucked away in bins stored on shelves stacked eighteen feet high, that ran row and tier for miles. All of it was eight hundred feet underground in what had been an old salt mine.

Lighting had been installed, along with plumbing, tile floors, in some places walls and doors, and offices and conference rooms, along with a sophisticated air-handling system that kept the place at a dust-free constant temperature and humidity. But all of it was run by computer, using, almost exclusively, programs that Otto Rencke had designed and installed some years ago when he had done the freelance work of reorganizing the CIA’s computer system. No one knew more about A.P.

Hill than Otto did. So he was never turned away when he came knocking at the door. He set up his laptop in one of the conference rooms, plugging into the system’s mainframe. He was assigned an electric golf cart so that he could get around the stacks. But he was not offered any assistance. The file clerks and computer custodians knew better.

If Rencke needed something, he would find them. But when he had the bit in his teeth he wanted to be left alone. Rencke stopped in midstride and looked out the windows. They faced the broad main aisle that ran the entire length of the facility. The overhead lights disappeared in the distance. The last time he was here about two years ago he had looked down McGarvey’s past because of another difficult operation. Those had been sad days when he’d seen the Kansas Highway Patrol’s graphic accident scene photographs of Kirk’s parents. They’d been killed by the Russians, maybe even at General Baranov’s behest.

Even then it was obvious in some circles what McGarvey would become.

He’d shown his mettle in Vietnam. And he’d shown his nature at the CIA’s training facility, acing all of his courses, and in every case showing up even his instructors. Was that it after all? General Valentin Illen Baranov come back from the grave to carry out his revenge for not only what McGarvey had done, but for what he was about to become? Nikolayev’s initial message from Paris had hinted at as much. But then he disappeared. He was not answering Rencke’s queries.

Maybe he had gotten frightened off. Or maybe the SVR had gotten to him and either taken him back to Moscow or killed him. But so far the death of a Russian man, other than Trofimov, in Paris or elsewhere in France, had not shown up on any of Rencke’s search engines. But that didn’t mean much. Maybe Nikolayev’s body had been hidden. Rencke focused on the aisle through the stacks. Nothing moved out there. But the answers, if they were anywhere on earth, were here. And he had a starting point; or rather he had two out of three legs of a triangle, with McGarvey at one point and Baranov at the second. The third was the assassin who had gone active under Network Martyrs. The three names were bound by the most intimate of relationships, that of the killers and their victim. He went back to his laptop, pulled up a search engine, and found and printed out a surprisingly short list of Baranov references. When the computer was finished, he took the cart out into the stacks, stopped at the address for each of the Baranov files, retrieved them from their bins, and moved on to the next. He was finished in less than twenty minutes and he took the eight files back to the conference room, where he spread them in chronological order on the long table. He began to read. Valentin Illen Baranov was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, a true Cossack he was fond of telling his staff, during the Second World War, though his exact birth date and parents’ names were not known. He was not a particularly outstanding student, except that unlike the other boys he never fought or got into trouble. His talent had been to get the other boys to fight for him, even though they didn’t want to. Even then he was perfecting his leadership talent. The secret is easy, he confided to an intended victim whom McGarvey rescued, you simply have to believe in people.

Make them believe in you. Make them believe in their heart of hearts that they can do absolutely anything so long as someone believes in them. In a way it was exactly like love, he said. After four years at the University of Moscow, where he studied international law and four languages English, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic he enlisted in the Missile Service where he was assigned to the GRU, Military Intelligence unit. This was during the era when the missile defense ring around Moscow was being constructed. Security on the massive project was so tight that the CIA files (see cross ref CKBANNER through CKOTIS) contained very little information of any real strategic value.

Following four years in the service he was discharged as a major, when he went immediately to work for the NKGB, where his rise was even more spectacular than it had been in the military. He had the Midas touch.

Every operation he became involved with turned out to be a gold seam, providing the Soviet Union with a wealth of information. He was rewarded with limos and drivers. He was given a brand-new, one-thousand-square-meter luxury apartment on Kusnetzki Prospekt in leadership row. He was given a dacha on the Istra River outside the city. He was given not only a free rein over the KGB’s Department Viktor, but he was awarded with a highly prized diplomatic passport. He had money and power and the freedom to travel anywhere in the world at any time he wanted to for any purpose that he desired. Presidents and prime ministers didn’t have that kind of power.

Rencke tried to read between the lines. Had Baranov been seeking the ultimate challenge? A lot of men in his position couldn’t be satisfied with routine assignments. Had McGarvey become his Everest? Darby Yarnell had probably been one of Baranov’s unwitting pawns from the very beginning of Yarnell’s CIA career in Moscow. Darby was a man who had an overabundance of belief and confidence in himself. And his attitude manifested itself in the way he dressed, in the gourmet style he preferred to dine in, in the Jaguars and Aston-Martins he drove, and in the way he treated people. Yarnell had convinced himself that Staff Sergeant Barry Innes, a young crypto operator at the Moscow embassy was on the KGB’s payroll. He never explained how he knew this, he just did. Rather than simply find the proof, arrest the kid and send him home for trial, Yarnell came up with Operation Hellgate. The Russians had snatched one of our people, and Yarnell wanted to cause them as much grief as possible. He wanted to stick it to them. Quid pro quo.

But it depended on pretending that we didn’t know Sergeant Innes had been turned. Innes was promoted to technical sergeant, placed in charge of CIA encrypted communications and was practically force-fed information that was so fantastic that the Russians slavered at the bit for more. But the most clever part of Hellgate was the specific information given to Innes. Most of it was false, but not all of it.

Yarnell argued that the Russians would have to be given something legitimate, from time to time. Something that they could verify as true, so that they would swallow the lies. And that’s exactly how headquarters approved it. In that way actual intelligence information was passed to the Russians. It had been the most perfect of Baranov’s schemes to that date. No one knew who was pulling the strings, not poor, dumb Sergeant Innes, who was spying for the money so that he could support his young wife and child living back home in San Diego.

Not anyone from the embassy, or back in Langley. And most especially not Darby Yarnell himself, who in the very end was proven to be nothing but a dupe. Sergeant Innes got himself shot to death by Yarnell’s manipulations, the spy of ours whom the Russians had snatched was given back, and Hellgate was deemed a success. Yarnell was a rising star.

McGarvey was not a part of that Moscow operation, but Darby Yarnell became the bridge that linked him to Baranov. After Moscow, and after a brief stint in Langley, first on the Russian — —desk and then, at Yarnell’s own request, on the Latin America desk, Yarnell was assigned to the U.S. embassy in Mexico City. He was the logical man for the job. He had taught himself Spanish in eight months flat, he had worked the CIA’s Latin America desk, and with his Moscow background he could counter what was the largest KGB operations center out of Moscow, in the Soviet’s Mexico City embassy. Baranov was the star there as he had been in Moscow, running a pair of intelligence networks called CESTA and Banco del Sur, which collected information throughout Latin and South America. The game in those days, before the Bay of Pigs, was to infiltrate as many governments and government agencies as possible. The Soviets, and the Americans, did this by befriending various government employees in a variety i of ways. The seductions very often involved honey traps, with beautiful | young women imported from Moscow or Siberia, or from Atlanta or California Exotic women to Latin Americans. Most often the schemes involved a lot of money: nice houses, luxury cars, televisions and stereos; anything that the average low-paid government employee could scarcely dream of, let alone possess. The Russians were winning the game because they were more ruthless than the Americans, until Darby Yarnell showed up.

Within a couple of months he was throwing his own lavish parties all over Mexico City, and at a CIA-run house on the Pacific Coast. His target was Evita Perez, twenty and beautiful. Her mother was the third daughter of the governor of the state of Hidaglo, and her father was the assistant secretary of finance for the federal government. They were an old, prestigious Mexican family, with important contacts throughout the country. After their wedding and honeymoon, Yarnell surrounded himself with a crowd at their palatial home outside Mexico City and at other times at their mountain home, or at the seaside CIA house. Darby’s mob, as he called them, were mostly Mexican and Latin American high government officials, and the product he was sending back to Langley was nothing short of stellar. But Baranov’s, and therefore Yarnell’s, chief target (an operation that ruined the poor young Evita) was another rising star within the CIA. Donald Suthland Powers, who would later become the Director of Central Intelligence. Yarnell, under Baranov’s expert direction, set up a series of sophisticated honey traps for Powers, in which Powers would appear to be in Yarnell’s debt. The operation was a lengthy one, and extremely delicate.

Powers, who trusted Yarnell until the very end, never suspected that he was being manipulated. But step by step he was placed in incriminating circumstances showing up at a nightclub known to be a communist hangout; driving through a communist neighborhood at the young hours of the day, and too often, being photographed time and again in the vicinity of known KGB agents. All of it was staged, of course, and to Powers’s discredit, he never once bothered to take a good look around him. That operation did not come to fruition until years later, well after Yarnell quit the CIA, and even after he’d given up his Senate seat to become a lobbyist for a number of powerful multinational corporations and adviser to the President of the United States. The other shoe fell when Powers was appointed to run the CIA by a president who, like everyone else, had been dazzled by Yarnell. McGarvey was called out of retirement in Lausanne, Switzerland by a fantastic tale of betrayal supposedly leaked by Artime Basulto, a Cuban who had supported Batista until the revolution. Basulto, by then living in the States as a drug dealer, was, like everyone in the charade, being manipulated indirectly by Baranov. The target was Powers, of course, as well as the credibility of the entire Central Intelligence Agency.

An incompetent president and an out-of-control Congress had hired Powers, supposedly a traitor to run the CIA. The weapons were Powers’s indiscretions in Mexico City and the dogged determination that McGarvey had shown in Vietnam and later in Chile and Germany. McGarvey was sent to investigate Yarnell, and in so doing unwittingly forced Yarnell into killing Powers, which in turned forced McGarvey to put a bullet into Yarnell’s brain. Neat and tidy. Except that in the end, Donald Powers, who was an innocent man and an outstanding DCI, was dead. Poor Evita, who had learned to believe in Baranov, shot herself to death.

And as a bit of insurance, as a backstop against future events, Baranov arranged to make McGarvey witness Darby Yarnell’s seduction of McGarvey’s ex-wife. Was it happening again, Rencke wondered, sitting back and closing his eyes. Baranov had guessed that someday Powers would rise to head the CIA, so he had sown the seeds of the man’s destruction years earlier. Had he also seen McGarvey’s rise and sown the seeds of his destruction? All the clues were there. Everything that he needed to know in order to unravel the problem was in front of him, and yet he was blind. He got up and began hopping from foot to foot, the rhythmic motion keeping time with his thoughts.

Putting a bullet into Powers’s head in Mexico City in the early days would not have been the Baranov style. The Russian had never been interested in merely bringing down a single individual, because he understood that when one man fell there was usually another to take his place. Instead, Baranov chose to bring down as many people as possible with one stroke, even bring down entire organizations. Not only kill the man, but kill the idea, kill the confidence in the institution.

That would help explain all the targets this time: Kathleen and Yemm in the USVI, Elizabeth in Vail, and even himself on the Parkway. But he couldn’t see it. He could not see the whole picture. Something was missing. Something vastly important. Something that he should know.

Otto stopped. Christ. Goddamn hell. Most of the people Baranov manipulated did not know that they were being managed. They had no idea. They were never allowed to see the whole picture. Network Martyrs was at least twenty years old. Its trigger point was probably the same kind of trigger that had led to Donald Powers’s downfall.

McGarvey had been appointed to head the CIA, that was the opening bell.

It was something that Baranov could not allow, and he would stop, even from the grave. Still, that was only a part of the structure. Who was the Darby Yarnell this time? Who was the catalyst? Who would actually hold the gun to McGarvey’s head and fire the shot? Nikolayev? An old Russian Department Viktor psychiatrist? Possibly. He went back to his laptop and restarted his search, this time widening the base to include all of Baranov’s Department Viktor personnel and activities.

THIRTY-TWO

McGarvey walked back to his office after the five o’clock staff meeting, the tall, ascetic DDO David Whittaker beside him. Since Adkins’s forced leave of absence, Whittaker had agreed to temporarily fill in as acting Deputy DCI. He had shown his abilities at the meeting. His was a steady hand, and being number two wasn’t such a huge leap from being boss of Operations, which was the CIA’s largest directorate. But he wasn’t happy with the promotion. Adkins was a friend. “I didn’t know that Ruth was that sick. It’s got to be hitting him pretty hard.” “He didn’t call you?” McGarvey asked, walking into his office. Ms. Swanfeld handed him several phone messages. “No. When did he leave?” “Earlier this afternoon. I had to practically call Security to drag him out of his office.” McGarvey took a critical look at Whittaker. “His wife’s in the hospital, but he didn’t want to be with her. Does that make any sense to you, Dave?”

“The girls are here.” “That’s what he said.” They went into McGarvey’s private office and Whittaker closed the door. He seemed sheepish. “You probably don’t know Dick’s situation. At home. He loves Ruth, there’s no doubt about that. And she loves him. But they’re not really friends, like Sandy and me. Since the girls were old enough to go shopping it was Ruth and them in one camp, and Dick in the other. They treat him like gold when he’s home. But to them he’s more like a … guest in his own house.” “I see,” McGarvey said. It explained Adkins’s reluctance to leave. He had more friends here than at home. And his wife would find more comfort with her daughters than with her husband. “Sometimes the world’s a bitch.” “The arrangement worked for him,” Whittaker said. “Until now.” McGarvey felt sorry for Adkins. It was one more bit of bleak news. “Does Security know about his home life?” “No, and it’s none of their business.” “Bullshit,”

McGarvey shot back. “Does he have a girlfriend, David? An outside interest? If his home life is so cold, who could blame him? You know the drill. It happens all the time.” “It’s not like that, Mr.

Director.” McGarvey studied his new DDCI for a beat. “It’s not like that because you don’t want it to be, or because you don’t know?”

“Dick is an honorable man.” McGarvey had heard that term before. He was no closer now to believing that such a noble passion existed than he had been as a young man before Vietnam. “I’m sure he is,” he said.

“But he’s out.” “What do you mean?” “I mean he’s not coming back until Security and the FBI can run another full background check on him.” “You can’t do that to him, not now,” Whittaker argued. “Yes, now,” McGarvey replied. “For the good of the CIA.” “You sonofabitch,”

Whittaker blurted. McGarvey nodded. “I am indeed,” he replied mildly.

“But we have a job to do, and as long as I’m sitting behind this desk I won’t allow anyone to get in my way.” Who to trust? He had asked that question all of his adult life without a satisfactory answer. But Adkins was out there alone, on an emotional limb. It made him vulnerable. And vulnerable men were almost always the first to fall.

Rick Ames was a drunk, and he liked to spend more money than he earned.

On top of that he had a raging ego that allowed him to believe that he was truly smarter than everyone else. So he had sold out to the Russians. He was no different than most other spies, including Robert Hanssen, who traded his secrets for money. He, too, had had a huge ego, thinking that he was better than everyone else. And he, too, had had his point of weakness in the stripper whom he had befriended and supported. Of course for every spy who turned out to have his vulnerabilities, there were ten thousand really vulnerable men who were not spies. McGarvey simply could not be certain about Adkins. Not now, not with so much going on around him. Even if it meant pushing away the very people who could help him the most, he had to have people he could trust. Whittaker saw the struggle in McGarvey’s face.

“Sorry, Mac. I shouldn’t have run off at the mouth like that.” “Yeah, I know the feeling,” McGarvey said. “Are you still interested in the job? Because I need somebody up here who knows the drill.” Whittaker nodded. “Am I going to have to move into Dick’s office?” “It’d make life easier.” Whittaker nodded again. “I have a few things to square away with my people first, but I’ll be in place by noon tomorrow.”

“Fair enough. You’ll be briefed then.” “Right,” Whittaker said. He headed for the door, but McGarvey stopped him. “One thing, Dave. I don’t want you talking to Dick until he’s cleared.” Whittaker wanted to object, but he realized the necessity of keeping his distance. “Okay,”

he said. When Whittaker was gone, McGarvey flipped through the phone messages his secretary had handed him. Fred Rudolph had called a couple of minutes after five, followed by his son-in-law Todd, and then Stenzel. It was after six, so he told Ms. Swanfeld that she could leave for the day, and gave Yemm the heads-up that there would be no swim today, and that they were going over to the hospital as soon as he cleared up a few things on his desk. Rudolph was still at his desk in the J. Edgar Hoover Building when McGarvey’s call went through.

“Whoever says government servants don’t earn their pay is nuts,”

McGarvey said. “What else would I be doing if I wasn’t here? Having a drink in front of the fireplace at home while my wife made dinner and my adoring children brought me my slippers and pipe?” “You don’t smoke. And anyway you’d be shoveling off your driveway. Have you looked outside lately?” “No, and I don’t want to. That’s where all the bad guys are lurking,” Rudolph said. “The Russians are hunkering down. Not just Runkov, but all the Russians.” “What about the ambassador?” “Except for Korolev. He’s skiing with his family in Aspen. All that’s left at the embassy is a skeleton staff. And it’s the same in New York. The entire Russian delegation to the UN went on recess.” “When?” “Over the past few days,” the FBI’s Special Investigative Division director said. “But not one of them has returned to Moscow.” “Have you found Runkov yet?” “Yeah, he’s been home all along. Just keeping his head down like all the others. We got a good picture of him through an upstairs bedroom window. But he hasn’t been outside even to pick up his newspaper.” “Korolev is skiing, and everyone else is hiding.” “Whatever is going to happen will go down soon,” Rudolph said. “Maybe it’s time that you duck for cover yourself.” “I’m considering it.” “I think you should do more than that.” “Right, Fred. Keep me posted, would you?” McGarvey said.

“Okay. But let me know what you decide.” “Will do,” McGarvey promised, and he hung up. Rudolph was wrong. The Russians had been lying low for more than the past few days. Runkov’s absence last week at the hearings had sent a clear enough message. Something that they did not want to get blamed for was about to happen. In the meantime, he would have Internal Affairs start Adkins’s background investigation before they got the FBI involved. He got an outside line. The number Todd had left was for his cell phone. His son-in-law answered on the second ring. “Hello.” “Where are you?”

“Hi, Mac. We’re home. But you better get over to the hospital before it’s too late. Mrs. M. was agitating to get out of there.” That was what Stenzel’s call was probably about. “I’ll head over there right now. But what’s going on, Todd? Why’d you take Liz home? She was supposed to stay the night.” “I couldn’t stop her. She and her mother had a long talk, and when Liz came out she was pissed. She insisted that we were going home.” “What’d they talk about?” “I can’t get a thing out of her, except that she wants to get back to work.” “It’s out of the question.” “That’s what I told her. But she thinks that something’s going to happen any minute now.” “So do I,” McGarvey said, making his decision. “I’m taking Liz and her mother out to the safe house first thing in the morning.” “That’s a good idea. I can get back to work and help stop this guy, whoever the hell he is.” “Do you have a security detail out there with you?” McGarvey asked. He was having strong premonitions of disaster now. Especially because Todd and Rudolph were telling him practically the same things. “Parked out front.” “Okay, stay tight for tonight, and I’ll see you in the morning.” “All right,” Todd said. “But I meant what I said before.

When we get this guy he will not stand trial.” McGarvey closed his eyes for a second. That was the old way. His old way. “I hear you,”

he said, and he hung up. He called for Yemm, but the night officer of Security said that Yemm was on his way up. Next he called Stenzel, catching him in his car about a mile from the hospital. He was on his way back to the CIA. He sounded out of breath, as if he was sprinting down the highway and not driving. “Your wife checked herself out of the hospital about fifteen minutes ago, Mr. Director.” A cold fist clutched at McGarvey’s heart. “Why didn’t you stop her?” “I’m her doctor, not her jailer,” Stenzel shot back angrily. “Besides, I was going to release her in the morning anyway. She’s not cured. She’s a long way from that. But she is much better.” “Are her security people with her?” McGarvey demanded at the same moment Yemm walked into his office. His bodyguard nodded that they were.

“They weren’t very happy, but there wasn’t much that they could do except go along with her.” “Okay, I’m heading for home now. Is there anything else I need to know? Anything that I can do to help?” “Get her out of town, Mr. Director,” Stenzel offered. “I don’t give a damn where you take her, just make sure that it’s someplace safe.” “First thing in the morning.” “About time. Let me know where you wind up, because I want to keep seeing her. I think that I might be able to get a handle on her problem if I have just a little more time. I’m almost there.” “I know the feeling,” McGarvey said for the second time in less than ten minutes. Yemm got McGarvey’s coat from the closet. He was agitated. “I just found out about it myself a few minutes ago,” he said. “Janis called me and said that they were headed back to the house.” “Who else is with her?” McGarvey asked, as they headed out of his office and down the corridor to the executive elevator. “Peggy Vaccaro is with them. They got one of the surveillance vans that Tony Parker and John Hernandez were using. They all went together.” “Did you call for backup?” “We’ll get to your house first,” Yemm said.

“And at this point there’s nothing wrong, boss. Mrs. M. checked herself out of the hospital, and she agreed to do what her security team told her to do.” “Where are they right now?” “When I talked to Tony they were just leaving the hospital parking lot. It’ll take them fifteen minutes to get to your house. It’ll take us thirty.”

Downstairs they got into the DCI’s limo. As soon as they cleared the building, McGarvey tried his home phone number. On the second ring it rolled over to his own cell phone. Katy wasn’t home yet. He lowered the bulletproof partition to the front seat. “There’s no answer at the house. Try the security detail.” Yemm had the car phone in his hand.

“They’re coming up on the Connecticut Avenue exit. Do you want me to call the MHP for backup? They might have a unit in the vicinity.” “Do you think it’s necessary?” “We’d have to give them an explanation,”

Yemm said. “Do you want to talk to your wife?” McGarvey looked out the window as they merged onto the George Washington Memorial Parkway. There was a lot of traffic tonight, slowed by a heavy, wind-whipped snow that was already piling into drifts. “No,” he said. “Just get me home as quickly as you can, Dick.

It’s a bad night.” “That it is,” Yemm replied. Who to trust? Who to trust? He kept coming back to the same conundrum: Who can a spy trust?

Who can he believe in? His circle of friends and close acquaintances, people he surrounded himself with, people who meant the most to him, was very small. And it was dwindling even more every day. Otto had gone off the deep end again. Yemm was acting strangely. Adkins was under extreme pressure. And even Todd wasn’t himself. Everybody had gone crazy all of a sudden. McGarvey sat back in his seat and unconsciously reached inside the coat for a cigarette, remembering that he had quit. Dr. Anatoli Nikolayev had apparently stirred up a hornet’s nest in Moscow six months ago. The SVR was looking for him, but either they weren’t looking very hard, or he was better than they were. Knowing Baranov and the people who worked for him in the old Department Viktor days, he had a pretty fair idea that it was Nikolayev leading the SVR investigators around in circles. This whole bizarre situation had a Baranov stench to it. But the general was dead. Long dead. McGarvey could feel the recoil of his pistol when he put a bullet in the Russian’s brain. But if it was Baranov after all, if it was some long-range scheme that he had placed on automatic before his death, there would have to be people around with strong ties to that past. Someone like poor Evita Perez and Darby Yarnell and that crowd.

All of them were dead, too. But there were undoubtedly others.

Sleepers, the Russians used to call them. Deep-penetration agents who worked in ordinary jobs in their host countries. Barbers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, even intelligence officers. People who lay low, sometimes for years, until one day they were called into action. People whose loyalty was assured because they were paid well, and because of the promise that when their missions fully developed they would hit the jackpot a big payoff. They crossed the river on 1-495 and a few miles later merged with 1-270, which formed the northern curve of the Beltway around Washington. McGarvey looked up. Yemm was speaking on the phone. He had sped up considerably despite the heavy traffic and the increasingly slippery road. Something was wrong. “What’s going on, Dick?”

“Parker’s not answering. Neither is Janis. I’m trying Peggy’s cell phone now.” Yemm’s replied were curt. McGarvey speed dialed his home number. Kathleen answered on the first ring. “Hello?” McGarvey forced himself to calm down, to keep an upbeat tone in his voice. “Hi, sweetheart. I’m on the way home. What’re the girls fixing for dinner?” “Don’t be mad, Kirk. I just couldn’t stay another night in that hospital. The place was driving me crazy.” “I’m glad you’re home. I missed you,” McGarvey assured her. “You must have just got there. Anyway let me talk to Peggy for just a minute, would you?”

“They’re still out talking to the guys in the van and the chase car,”

Kathleen said lightly. “What chase car’s that?” McGarvey asked. All the gravity suddenly leaked out of the limo. It felt as if the elevator cables had snapped. “It’s a Mercedes. Dark blue.” “Are you sure?” “I’m standing at the front window looking at it.” “Listen to me, Kathleen. I want you to lock the front door, then go upstairs to our bedroom. There’s a pistol in my nightstand. I’ve shown you how to operate the safety.” “Kirk?” Kathleen’s voice was small. “Do it right now, Katy.” “What’s wrong?” “Maybe nothing, but just in case there is, I want you to do that for me right now. Lock the door, then go upstairs and get the gun.” “All right, if you say so,” Kathleen said. McGarvey held his hand over the phone. “My wife’s alone in the house. She says that Janis and Peggy are talking to the guys in the van and in a chase car. Dark blue Mercedes.” “No chase car, boss,”

Yemm said grimly. “I’m alerting Maryland Highway Patrol and our people. Tell her to sit tight, we’ll be there in a flash.” “Okay, Kirk, the front door is locked,” Kathleen said. “Are the girls still out by the van?” “Just a minute,” she said. “Yes, they’re still there.” “Can you see inside the car? How many people there are?

Maybe just the driver?” “I can’t see a thing. I think the windows are tinted or something.”

“Go upstairs now and get the gun. I don’t want you to let anybody in the house. Nobody, do you have that?” “Nobody except for you, Kirk?”

she asked in a tiny voice. McGarvey wanted to reach through the phone and hold her. “Just me, Katy. I’m coming to you as fast as I can.”

“Please hurry, darling.” “Go upstairs, but stay on the phone with me,”

McGarvey said. They came to the Connecticut Avenue exit, and the limo’s rear started to drift out as Yemm took the ramp too fast. But he was an expert driver, and after the car fishtailed twice he had it back under control, blasting through an orange light and heading south, through traffic. “MHP has a unit about ten minutes out,” Yemm said.

“Are you upstairs yet, Katy?” McGarvey asked. He cradled the phone between his cheek and shoulder. “Yes.” McGarvey took out his pistol and checked to make sure that it was ready to fire, then laid it on his lap. “Get the gun.” “I’m getting it.” “I want you to switch the safety off,” McGarvey said, as Yemm raced through a red light. Several cars slid off the side of the street into parked cars. “It’s off.”

“Now I want you to turn off the bedroom lights, and sit down in the corner so you can see the bedroom door.” “I don’t understand ”

“Just do it, Kathleen,” McGarvey ordered. “Then stay there until I get home.

If anyone comes through the door, I don’t care who, besides me, I want you to point the gun at them and pull the trigger. And keep pulling the trigger.” “Hurry,” she said. “I’m frightened.” “We’re only a few blocks away,” McGarvey said. Yemm took the Mac 10 submachine gun from its holder on the transmission hump, took his left hand off the steering wheel long enough to yank back the cocking handle on top of the receiver, then powered down the passenger-side window. “I’ll make one quick pass,” he said. “Concentrate on the Mercedes, I’ll watch the van,” McGarvey said, powering down his window. “Kirk, are you talking to me?” Kathleen asked. “No, sweetheart, I’m talking to Dick. Hang on.”

Yemm slowed down as they passed the golf course, and he turned down Country Club Drive. The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac. The van was parked in front, but there was no sign of the Mercedes. Nor was there any sign of the girls or of Parker or Hernandez. “We must have just missed them,” Yemm said. “Katy, are you okay? No one has tried to come into the house?” “I’m okay, Kirk. All the doors are locked.”

“Sit tight, we’re right outside.” Yemm raised the Mac 10 as he drove slowly past the van. There was no movement. The van’s windows were all closed, and they couldn’t see anyone inside. It simply looked like a vehicle parked on the side of the street. They drove around the circle and stopped in the middle of the street just behind and to the left of the van. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the neighborhood. The snowfall was heavier than it had been at Langley, and already whatever tire marks or footprints there might have been had completely filled in. “Stay here, Mr. Director,” Yemm said, getting out of the car. “Yeah, right,” McGarvey replied. He climbed out of the limo on the opposite side from the van, behind Yemm. “Goddammit-“

“I’ll cover your back, Dick,” McGarvey said. “But take it nice and easy.” Yemm decided not to argue. He moved around the front of the limo. McGarvey slid into place behind him so that he had a clear sight line over the long hood. Keeping the Mac 10 trained on the driver’s side window, Yemm gingerly approached the van. He bent down and looked under the vehicle, then studied the area around it before he cautiously looked through the window. For several long seconds he just stood there, but then he lowered his gun and looked over his shoulder.

“They’re all in the back.” The hairs prickled on McGarvey’s neck. He knew what Yemm was going to say next. “There’s a lot of blood. I think they’re all dead.” “Christ.” McGarvey turned and looked at the house. “Wait for the backup,” he shouted, and he sprinted across the street and up the driveway to his house. On the porch he fumbled his keys out of his pocket, hurriedly unlocked the front door and shoved it open with his foot. He slid left, out of the firing line from anyone in the stair hall

There was nothing. No movement. No sound. Not even the alarm.

Kathleen had forgotten to turn it back on. “Katy?” he shouted. He’d left his phone in the car. “Kirk?” she called from upstairs. “It’s me. Are you okay?” “Oh, Kirk, thank God,” Kathleen cried. She appeared at the head of the stairs, the pistol still in her hand, pointed toward the open front door. “Put the gun down, Katy.

Everything’s fine now ” A tremendous explosion shattered the night air, flashing like a strobe light off the thickly blowing snow, the noise hammering off the fronts of the houses in the cul-de-sac. McGarvey fell through the doorway and turned in time to see a huge fireball, blown ragged by the wind, rising into the sky from where the van and Yemm had been.

THIRTY-THREE

Arkady Aleksandrovich Kurshin was the only man ever to have nearly bested McGarvey. Looking up from the covering file for Operation Countdown, Rencke wondered how he could have forgotten the Russian assassin’s name. Baranov had been the manipulator behind Kurshin’s delicate, even balletic, but deadly moves. And yet it was Kurshin who had stolen a nuclear missile from a U.S. storage bunker in what was then West Germany. It was Kurshin who had managed to hijack a U.S. Los Angeles class nuclear submarine and kill its entire crew. It was Kurshin who had nearly embroiled the entire Middle East, including most of the oil-producing nations, in a nuclear confrontation with Israel.

And it had been Kurshin who had finally led McGarvey to his face-to-face confrontation with Baranov. McGarvey had been maneuvered to the meeting with the KGB spymaster in a Soviet safe house outside of East Berlin. But the purpose of the meeting was never made clear. It was possible that Baranov simply wanted to kill McGarvey. It was equally possible, maybe even likely, that Baranov thought he could somehow turn McGarvey as he had turned Yarnell and Evita Perez and Artime Basulto and even John Lyman Trotter, Jr.” McGarvey’s friend in the CIA. It would have been a coup. A triumph of epic proportions.

Like turning Luke Skywalker to the dark side in the Star Wars movies.

It didn’t happen, of course. In fact, Baranov’s wild gamble had turned against him. McGarvey assassinated him, and then back in West Berlin, where Trotter had been waiting for word from Baranov, McGarvey killed his old friend. Trotter had been a Baranov man. Seduced by the Georgian’s delicate touch; by the sheer brilliance of his personality.

Rencke closed his eyes. Baranov’s had been a siren song to just about every one of his targets. Those he could not convert, like Powers and McGarvey, he marked for elimination; Powers when he had become DCI, and McGarvey once in East Germany and again now. On a separate level, McGarvey’s confrontation with Arkady Kurshin came about a year after East Berlin, in the tunnels beneath the ruins of a castle in Portugal.

Rencke had read that chilling report. The two assassins, McGarvey and Kurshin, each at the height of their powers, had come head-to-head in a tunnel filled with Nazi gold and the bodies of some dead Jews. There was an explosion, darkness, the tunnel filling with water. Rencke shook his head. He felt claustrophobic each time he thought about it.

That had been a close call; one that by McGarvey’s own admission, could have gone either way. He’d been lucky. There had been other operations. Baranov was at least fifteen years older than McGarvey.

He’d had fifteen years more experience. Fifteen more years to develop his tradecraft. But it should have been all over in the East Berlin safe house. And in the tunnel in Portugal. Rencke got up and went out to the central corridor. There were forty men and women working here, and yet the vast cavern seemed to be deserted. The answers, if there were any after all these years, were here somewhere. But he still could not make sense of what he knew. There were common threads.

Points of similarity and even contact between all of Baranov’s players.

Between Yarnell and Powers. Between Kurshin and McGarvey. Even between Evita and Basulto. Bridges that linked them together, with Baranov as their center span.

Someone was trying to assassinate McGarvey because he had become boss of the CIA. It was a Baranov operation that had been put in place as long as twenty years ago. One that had recently been triggered.

Nikolayev was one of the keys. One of BaranoVs players. Who else?

Where were the bridges? Someone came out of the main office by the elevators and headed toward him. He caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, and he turned his head. He knew. It came to him all at once. Suddenly he saw everything. Or at least most of it. All the clues had been in front of him since August, but he had never looked directly at them like he was looking now directly at the clerk.

Delicate. Simple. Even beautiful. And frightening beyond anything that Rencke had ever imagined. A young air force staff sergeant whose name tag read FEDER MAN came down the corridor in a rush. He was agitated. “Mr. Rencke, the operations officer is trying to reach you, sir. It’s urgent.” Rencke looked at the young man, still amazed at what had been hidden in plain sight in front of him all this time.

“Sir, this has to do with the director.” Rencke slowly focused. “What did you say?” “The OD said that there’s been another attempt.” “Shit.

Shit.” Rencke turned and hurried back into the conference room, where he phoned Langley. “Operations.” “This is Rencke. What’s going on?”

“There’s been an explosion in front of Mr. McGarvey’s home in Chevy Chase. Security is on the way, and the Maryland Highway Patrol is already there.” “Was anyone hurt?” Rencke tried with everything he possessed to stay on track. Not to go crazy. But it wasn’t easy. “We don’t have all the details yet, sir. The director was not hurt, but the security detail might have been involved.” “That’d be Dick Yemm.”

“Yes, sir. He does not respond to his pages. Mr. Whittaker has been informed, and he’s issued the recall for all his officers.” “Send a chopper down here for me. I’ll be waiting by the main parking lot.”

“Sir, that won’t be necessary “

“Do it now,” Rencke said menacingly. “Right now.” He hung up, but sat in front of the phone for a full minute as he came to grips with his emotions, which were jumping all over the place. He knew the why, he had a fair idea of the how and a very short list of the who. But he needed the proof, because nobody, not even Mac, would believe him without it. First, he had to make sure that Mac and Mrs. M. were okay. And Liz. He couldn’t forget about Liz. Rencke bundled up his computer, not bothering to shut it down or log off the repository’s mainframe, and took the elevator to the surface. He was stopped at the security checkpoint in the arrivals hall, and his bag was quickly searched before he was allowed to pass through. The snow had tapered off somewhat, but there were halos around the lights. Rencke ran across the driveway, past the flagpole and the bronze Civil War cannon on the median, and stopped at the edge of the nearly empty parking lot.

He started to hop from one foot to the other. The helicopter wasn’t here yet. He cocked an ear, but he could not hear it approaching.

“Goddammit.” If his ride wasn’t here in five minutes, they’d pay.

Someone would pay with their balls. He took out his cell phone and speed dialed McGarvey’s number. It rang four times, then rolled over to the locator at Langley. Rencke broke the connection. Mac had his hands full right now dealing with the mess. He telephoned the hospital and asked for Kathleen McGarvey’s room. “I’m sorry, sir, Mrs.

McGarvey was discharged from the hospital this afternoon,” the operator informed him. “On whose orders?” “I don’t have that information, sir.

You have to talk with the patient’s doctor.” “Okay. Okay. Connect me with Elizabeth Van Buren’s room, please.” “One moment, sir,” the operator said. She came back. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Van Buren was also discharged this afternoon.” Rencke cut the connection and speed dialed Liz and Todd’s home phone. Todd answered on the first ring. “Hello.”

“Is Elizabeth with you?” Rencke blurted. “She checked out of the hospital.” “She’s here, in the tub,” Todd replied. “Is something wrong, Otto?”

Rencke closed his eyes, the cold air suddenly felt good on his hot face. He was relieved. At least Elizabeth was safe for the moment.

“They made another attempt on Mac. There was an explosion in front of his house. But the OD said he was okay.” “What about Mrs. M?” “She checked out of the hospital, and now I can’t reach her.” He heard the helicopter in the distance. It was another cause for relief. “I’m heading over to their house now. Whittaker might recall you, but don’t do it, Todd. Stay there with Liz until we can figure out what we’re going to do next.” “Mac told me that he was opening the safe house in the morning. Told me to stick it out here until then.” “Good idea.”

“Okay, there’s a call on my other line. It’s the Company.” “Take care of Liz.” “Hey, I love her, too, remember?” Rencke speed dialed his own apartment, but there was no answer. He and Louise had agreed that she should return to work at the NRO. She was doing nobody any good by staying home. She wanted to be with him 24/7, but that wasn’t possible. But he had hoped that she might have come home a little early today. He desperately wanted to talk to her. To hear her voice.

He needed comforting. A navy Seasprite Lamps-I, three-man, multipurpose helicopter came in low from the northeast and touched down in the parking lot in a flurry of blowing snow. The copilot helped Rencke into the empty crew seat, and handed him a crash helmet, which he donned and plugged into the ship’s communications system. “I need to get to the director of Central Intelligence’s house,” Rencke spoke into the mic. “It’s up in Chevy Chase. If you don’t know the way, your operations officer can get it from Langley.” “We know the way, sir,” the pilot said, and the machine lifted into the air with a sickening lurch. Rencke hated all helicopters. In fact he didn’t care much for any kind of transportation except the World Wide Web. He hunched down in his seat and pulled his seat harness a little tighter. His shoulder was hurting him, and for the first time today he realized that he was hungry. It was time to go home, where Louise would have something good waiting for him. She claimed that she was a horrible cook, but he knew better.

The view out the cockpit windows was nothing but swirling snow, with a kaleidoscope of meaningless lights somewhere below. Air pockets caused the helicopter to jump all over the place. But the pilot and copilot seemed unconcerned. Washington was like a powerful magnet from which Rencke could not escape. He’d been lonely as hell in Rio, but happy as a clam in France. Until Mac came calling with his problems. He told himself that he had no choice. Mac was his friend. Mrs. M. and Liz were like family. He had to help them. He had to be here in Washington near them, to keep them out of trouble, to keep them safe from harm. But the truth of the matter was that he’d searched for legitimacy all of his life. When he was fourteen his father started beating him and calling him a queer boy. And that same year his mother, in a drunken rage, told him that she wished that she’d had an abortion rather than giving birth to him. In college he’d been treated with some respect because he was bright, but he’d been kicked out when they found him screwing the dean’s secretary on the dean’s desk. That was at a Jesuit university. They didn’t even ask him to leave. He just packed up that afternoon and got out. And in the air force he’d been treated okay, that is after he’d made it through basic training, because he had a handle on mathematics. But that job had lasted only a couple of years, when he was caught having sex with a supply sergeant.

A male supply sergeant. In the CIA, after he’d doctored his records, he thought that he’d found a home. Though he didn’t have a lot of friends in those days, at least he had some respect, even though he knew that they called him names behind his back. Then Mac came along.

Right off the bat Rencke knew that McGarvey was his kind of a person.

Just standing in the same room with him gave you a confidence you never had before. And when Mac patted you on the shoulder and told you that you did good, it was like a frosty pitcher of cream and a plate of Twinkies. It didn’t get any better. But Mac was drawn again and again back to Washington. So Washington had become Rencke’s magnet because Mac was a friend and because Mac believed in him. Mac had given him the legitimacy that he had searched for all of his life. Rencke had a place.

The helicopter touched down at the far end of the cul-de-sac just long enough to drop Rencke off. He turned away as it rose into the blowing snow and peeled off to the south. There were police cars, fire rescue units, two ambulances and a dozen civilian vehicles choking the street.

All of them had their red or blue lights flashing. The effect was surreal in the snow. Police tactical radios were blaring, and there had to be at least fifty uniformed cops along with FBI agents in blue-stenciled parkas and a lot of civilians, most of whom were CIA security officers. Rencke made his way over to the remains of the van and the burned-out shell of the DCI’s limo. The Bureau’s forensics people were sifting through the wreckage, finding and removing bodies and body parts. Flash cameras were going off all over the place. A Montgomery County sheriffs deputy intercepted Rencke. “Let me see some ID.” Rencke held up his CIA card, and the cop shined a flashlight on it, comparing Rencke’s face to the photograph. “Mr. McGarvey’s over in his driveway,” the cop said. Rencke mumbled his thanks and skirted the people and equipment gathered around the remains of the van. It was probably one of the onstation vehicles they’d used to stand watches in front of the house. The explosive device that had destroyed it had been very powerful. There was debris all across the cul-de-sac and up in people’s front yards. The force of the blast had been enough to partially destroy the limo parked several yards away. Looking at the wreckage of the scene reminded him of what the aftermath pictures of the chopper explosion in the Virgin Islands looked like. McGarvey stood at the end of his driveway with a group of CIA security people, a MHP captain and the FBI’s Fred Rudolph. They looked up as Rencke approached. “Where’s Mrs. M.?” Otto asked, unable to contain himself any longer. McGarvey smiled tiredly and laid a comforting hand on Rencke’s arm. “She’s okay. She’s inside, and there’s somebody with her.” “Oh, wow, I was really scared, ya know.” Rencke glanced over his shoulder at the technicians and security people working around the van. “Where’s Dick?”

“He didn’t make it. He’s dead,” McGarvey said. “He got caught in the explosion.” “Who else?” Rencke asked. His throat was constricting.

“Janis and Peggy, and a couple of guys from Security. Looks like they had been shot to death before we arrived. Then the van was booby-trapped. Whoever it was drove a dark blue Mercedes.” Rencke closed his eyes. He was sick at his stomach. He felt like a traitor.

Dick Yemm had been on his short list of suspects. He and his Beltway computer friend, who was ex-KGB.” “We’re heading to the safe house in the morning,” McGarvey said. “Why not now?” Rudolph interjected.

“Not in the dark,” McGarvey told him. “And not until we can get everybody calmed down.” “We’ll set a trap,” Rencke said. “You and I, Mac, wherever it leads. We’ll set a trap. Cause I know…” “You know what?” McGarvey asked sharply. He was concerned, troubled, even a little apprehensive. Rencke had never seen that kind of a look on Mac’s face before. It frightened him badly. He stumbled back a pace, confused now by all the lights and movement. He felt like a moth that was fatally caught in the light of a very powerful flame. A seductive flame. He was being drawn to his destruction. “We’ll do it, Mac,” he cried in anguish. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his long, frizzy red hair whipped wildly in the wind, and his jacket was open, revealing his dirty MIT sweatshirt. He began hopping from one foot to the other The cops and security people watched him in open amazement. He was a spectacle. He looked up and spotted a pale, round face in an upstairs window for just a moment before it disappeared. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he muttered.

THIRTY-FOUR. THE 23RD PSALM