The Kill Zone

THIRTY-SEVEN

On the bridge across the Potomac south of the city the sodium vapor lights were a harsh violet, interfering with McGarvey’s view of the White House, the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument. He rode shotgun beside an unhappy Grassinger in an Office of Security Ford Explorer. It was after two-thirty in the morning, and Nikolayev was ready to talk. Despite Security’s sharp warnings to stay put, McGarvey felt that he had no other choice but to go see the man. Find out what they were facing. Whatever was going to happen would go down within the next twenty-four hours or so. McGarvey was certain of it. They would lay out the bait, set the trap and sit back to wait. Nikolayev was the key, as he had been since he’d gone walkabout in August. The Capital Beltway was all but deserted. The weather system that had dumped eleven inches of snow on the Washington area in the last week was gone, leaving behind near-zero temperatures and a crystal clear sky. It was as if the entire city was holding its collective breath, waiting for the next shoe to drop. This was ancient Rome, with her granite buildings, senators and monuments. And the barbarians were massing at the gates. “Pardon me, Mr. Director, but wouldn’t it have been easier to bring this Russian to Cropley,” Grassinger asked. He drove with his eyes constantly scanning his mirrors. A Mac 10 was ready in the rack in front of him, and another was lying on the seat between him and McGarvey. “Someone might be watching,” McGarvey said.

“I don’t want him spotted, and I definitely don’t want to lead anybody back to the safe house yet.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Grassinger said.

“The ‘yet.” ”

“This won’t be easy,” McGarvey said. They took the Beltway exit to Andrews main gate. “Bad police work,” Grassinger murmured. “Maybe. But we’ll do it my way.” The air force cops at the gate stiffened to attention and passed them through when they realized who McGarvey was. The base was as quiet as the highway. The CIA’s Gulfstream had been the last flight of the night, and nothing was leaving until after dawn. Grassinger drove them directly across the base to the VIP quarters housed on the top floor of a three-story building next to base headquarters. The Charge of Quarters was expecting them, and he passed them directly up. Todd met them in the dayroom that looked off toward the runways and rotating beacon atop the control tower. He’d been going for forty-eight hours straight without rest, and he looked haggard, but determined. “He won’t talk to me,”

Todd said. “He keeps repeating that he’ll wait until he sees you.”

“Where’s Otto?” McGarvey asked. “In there with him. They’ve been drinking vodka and talking about old times.” “Which old times are those?” McGarvey asked. “I don’t know. That’s what Otto says every time he comes out to ask for more vodka.” Todd turned to Grassinger.

“You guys shouldn’t have left Mac off the reservation. We could have brought Nikolayev out to the house.” “My call,” McGarvey said. “Wait out here with Jim, I shouldn’t be too long.” “I want to sit in ” Todd started. “No.” McGarvey went down the hall to the west suite, knocked once and went inside. Otto and Nikolayev sat across from each other, a coffee table laden with vodka, glasses and trays of crackers and cheeses and caviar, between them. A stack of file folders was piled up on the floor next to where Nikolayev sat. They looked up, Otto with a startled expression, like a deer caught in headlights, and Nikolayev with an expectant, interested smile, like a scholar ready for a student’s question. “Oh, wow, Mac, I got him,” Otto gushed. He jumped up. “This is Dr. Nikolayev. He promised to help us.” “Good job, Otto,” McGarvey said. His eyes never left NikolayeVs. “Why don’t you give us a few minutes alone to get acquainted?” Otto hopped hesitantly from one foot to the other, but then he nodded. “Sure.” He glanced at the Russian. “Anyway, we’re almost there.” He went out the door, closing it softly behind him. “Dawbm Ootm, Guspadyna Nikolayev,”

McGarvey said. Good morning, Mr. Nikolayev. “Actually it’s Dr.

Nikolayev, Mr. Director. But please, you may call me Anatoli Nikolaevich.” Nikolayev motioned for McGarvey to have a seat.

“Please.” “Why did you leave Moscow?” McGarvey asked. He went to the door and checked the corridor to make sure that no one was there, listening. “Because of something I found out,” Nikolayev said, watching McGarvey’s movements. “What was that, exactly?” McGarvey checked the windows and drew the blinds. He stopped and directed his gaze toward the Russian. “I was doing research for a book, about the KGB during the Cold War years, when I stumbled across references to a General Baranov operation that I thought had been discussed but never implemented. Network Martyrs.” “What next?” McGarvey prompted. He checked the telephone, but the line was dead. Nevertheless, he unplugged it from the wall. “When I began to realize that the operation might be closing down, I made an appointment to see an old Department Viktor chief of staff. Gennadi Zhuralev. But they got to him before we could talk.” McGarvey took out what appeared to be a penlight from a pocket and used it to scan the lights, wall sockets, switches and pictures hanging on the walls. If there was a bug, the penlight’s bulb would flash. But nothing happened. The room was clean. “Who are the they?” “I didn’t know at the time. But now I think they were probably mafiosa hired by someone inside the SVR, or maybe in the Kremlin. Someone possibly in Putin’s office, or very close, who wants to sweep everything under the rug.” Nikolayev shrugged. “It’s happening all over Russia, but especially Moscow.

America’s cooperation is too valuable to jeopardize.” McGarvey motioned Nikolayev to his feet. The old man stiffly complied, and McGarvey quickly frisked him for weapons. But Nikolayev came up clean.

He sat back down. “Whyd you run? Did you think that they would come after you for disturbing the files?” “That’s exactly what I thought,”

Nikolayev said. “So I pulled the file I needed and took the first train to Leningrad and from there Helsinki and then a flight to Paris.”

“How about Vladimir Trofimov?” “He was General Baranov’s chief of staff in the early days. The sixties and seventies. I thought that he might have some of the answers.” “That was going too far back, wasn’t it?” “No. Actually it was the beginning of the project. Baranov’s dream.” McGarvey stood across from the old Russian, but he said nothing. He waited for Nikolayev to continue. “Like your people, we were working on behavior modification techniques using a combination of psychological means, and of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD and derivatives from peyote and some other plants that Banco del Sur supplied us with from Mexico. It was brainwashing. An extension of what the North Koreans and Chinese were doing in the fifties.” The realization of the full measure of Baranov’s scheme began to dawn on McGarvey. “You’re saying that the sleeper agents Baranov sent over here, the assassins, were brainwashed?” “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Gennadi Zhuralev had made a copy of the list of assassins and their targets for insurance. He left a marginal note, apparently by mistake, in one of the files. He was the director of resources, so he certainly had the means.” Nikolayev shook his head. “But they got to him first.” “What about Trofimov?” “He was chief of staff, as I said, so I thought that he would have seen the list and maybe he would remember some of the names. But he only told me one. It was you.

Baranov had placed you at the head of the list.” “How many others were there?” Nikolayev spread his hands. “Maybe as many as a dozen. But it’s highly unlikely that all of those people are still alive.” “Who is my assassin?” McGarvey asked. “I never saw that list. But from what Otto tells me, it has to be someone very close to you. Or at least someone with reliable intelligence about your movements.”

Nikolayev picked up the stack of file folders and offered it to McGarvey. “These are his suspects.” McGarvey hesitated a moment before he took the files. There were seven of them. He was almost afraid to look at the names. “Did you recognize any of these?” “Not beyond the obvious,” Nikolayev said. “But Otto told me that there might be one more name to add to the list. He wasn’t completely sure yet, but when he was, he would name the person.” The first of the folders was Dick Yemm’s. McGarvey looked up. “This man is dead.” “I know. But Otto said that Mr. Yemm remained a suspect, which in effect would mean that the threat was over.” Nikolayev seemed suddenly very tired. He idly rubbed his chest. “Remember that if the SVR had these names, they would all be targets for assassination themselves.” The second file folder was a dossier on Dmitri Runkov, the Russian SVR rezident at the Washington embassy. He was hiding out in his house, but Fred Rudolph had admitted that if the Russian intelligence officer wanted to get out of there without being seen, it was possible. “I don’t think it would be Runkov himself,” Nikolayev said. “But rather someone who Runkov knows here in the States. A sleeper resource. An agent buried so deep that he’s beyond detection by U.S. authorities, but who could be accessed by a handful of people in an emergency. The Washington rezident being one of them.” The third file folder was marked UNKNOWN.

In it, Otto had laid out the parameters for the assassin. A bulletproof identity, good intelligence, nearness to McGarvey, knowledge of explosives and a dozen other traits. The fourth file folder contained the dossier of Bob Johnson, Jared Kraus’s number two in Technical Services. According to Otto’s notes he was Senator Hammond’s source within the CIA. Otto had learned that from various computer and telephone taps he had conducted of his own accord. He had not blown the whistle on Johnson’s talking to the senator because the man was one of the suspects as McGarvey’s would-be assassin. The fifth folder contained Otto’s own dossier, without notes other than StenzePs psychological profiles on him. “Unique, wouldn’t you say, for a chief investigator to name himself as a suspect,” Nikolayev said. McGarvey made no comment. How much control or self-awareness would a brainwashed person have? Maybe none.

The sixth and seventh file folders contained dossiers on Dick Adkins and on Todd Van Buren. Adkins was old enough to have come under Baranov’s influence while the general was still alive, but Todd had been a young man then. Still in grade school or junior high. Otto’s notes listed him as a “secondary,” but a suspect nonetheless. “A recruit trained by the original agent’s handler,” Nikolayev explained.

“But you need to know something else, Mr. Director. In fact if there is a possibility of identifying and catching the killer, it will be because of the existence of a second group. One even more important than the list of suspects themselves.” “What are you talking about?

What group?” “Their control officers.” Nikolayev became introspective. He looked away momentarily. “When we were doing this work we succeeded brilliantly. The conditioning could be done in a week’s time. But there was always a problem that we could not overcome. The conversions last only seven days, sometimes as long as eight or nine days, but that’s it. After that the subjects slowly began to return to normal, or at least to a near-normal psychological state. In fact within twenty-four hours of the deadline, the subjects became useless for our purposes.” Something else dawned on McGarvey.

“You were in on it from the beginning. That’s why you came out to try to stop Martyrs. Your conscience was killing you.” Nikolayev nodded heavily. “I directed the project.” “Knowing what Baranov was going to use it for?” Again Nikolayev nodded. But he looked up. “I won’t make excuses, except to say that you were our enemy. Americans might have feared that our nuclear weapons would rain down on their heads, and rightly so. But Russians were just as frightened. We wouldn’t have spent billions of rubles building our subway system as bomb shelters.”

“Point taken,” McGarvey conceded. “If we find out who has a control officer, and keep them apart long enough, we’ll have our sleeper.

How?” “You must offer yourself as bait. It will mean shutting down your security measures at the safe house Otto has told me about.

Sending away your security team. And then inviting each person on the list to come out for a chat. One-on-one.” McGarvey put the folders aside. “Did Otto give you any hints who the eighth suspect might be?”

“No.” They were his friends, most of them. Even family. It was monstrous.

Worse than he had feared. But despite himself he could see the logic in Otto’s list of suspects. They were the people who, in the deepest recesses of his heart, he himself had suspected. “What about Runkov and the dossier Otto designated as unknown? How do we get word to them?” “Otto has access to your law enforcement computer systems in the Washington area. He can place your present whereabouts on those Web pages. En claire. The right people will see it soon enough.”

“The assassin won’t come.” “Yes he will, and you know it. Most of those people are your friends. But so will the assassin’s control officer have to make an appearance. To reinforce the conditioning.”

“You’ll be waiting.” Nikolayev nodded. “With help. Someone from the FBI or from your Office of Security. Once the principals show up, whoever comes next will be our link to the assassin.” “I’ll have Jim Grassinger assign someone to you. In the meantime, you’ll remain here.” “I suggest that we get this over with as soon as possible, Mr.

Director.” “Tonight,” McGarvey said. “It gives us the entire day to get ready.” At the door he turned back. “But what did the sonofabitch hope to accomplish by killing me? I’m just one man.” “He’s already done more than that if you stop to think about it,” Nikolayev said.

“Nobody in the intelligence community in Washington completely trusts anyone else. You don’t trust your own friends. I’m sure that the mistrust at Langley is hampering operations. From what I read in the newspapers you and the President are at odds with Congress. You’re so distracted, in fact, by the attacks on your family, that your job is suffering. And were Baranov alive now, I have no doubt that he would have planned for some spectacular event to happen in the midst of all the confusion.” “But he’s not,” McGarvey said, once again seeing Baranov pitch forward dead. Nikolayev nodded. “Good luck, Mr.

Director.” McGarvey returned to the dayroom, where he took Todd aside.

“I want you to stick around here and keep an eye on him for the rest of the night. We’ll send out your relief. Then I want you to go home, get something to eat, grab a shower and get some sleep.” “Did he tell you anything that’ll help?” “Not much. I want you to come out to Cropley tonight. At eight.” “I’ll be there as soon as I’m relieved here ”

“Eight,” McGarvey said. Todd wanted to argue, but he nodded.

“How’s Liz?” “She was finally sleeping when I left.” “Good.”

McGarvey took Otto downstairs, Grassinger right behind them. “I want you to go home and get some sleep now, and that’s an order,” McGarvey told him. “Okay, Mac, whatever you say. But did Nikolayev give us anything?” “He said that you have an eighth suspect.” Otto’s head bobbed up and down as if it were on springs. “But I’m not sure yet.

Honest injun.” “Give me a name.” “No,” Otto said. He was acutely distressed. “I’ll need to know pretty soon,” McGarvey said. “I can’t do this in the dark.” Otto held his silence. He looked guilty of something. “Okay, get some sleep, and then you can work on it this afternoon. I want you to come out to Cropley tonight around eight.

Alone.” “The trap?” “We’ll talk about it then,” McGarvey promised.

“And have Louise fix you something decent to eat. You look like hell, Otto.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

McGarvey stood at the front door in the stair hall looking out the narrow window. Clouds had moved in again, lending the distant woods a forbidding feeling. Creatures were gathering up there in the darkness.

Watching, plotting, waiting for the correct moment to strike. Nothing moved that he could see. Blatnik’s people were well hidden in the trees and brush flanking the long driveway. The rear of the house was covered by motion detectors and infrared sensors. If anything stirred up there, alarms would sound in the house. It was after lunch.

Everyone had gotten at least a few hours’ rest, and over a large lunch of fried chicken and potato salad that Elizabeth made, the mood was light. Even Jim Grassinger, who refused to have a beer but instead drank warm Coke straight from the can, had eased up and cracked a joke or two. Liz and her mother were outside behind the house making a snow man or something under the watchful eyes of Gloria Sanchez and one of Blatnik’s people. McGarvey was unsettled. Running away to choose the time and place for his battles had always minimized the risk to his family but did nothing to protect them from harm. Bringing them out here did the opposite: It actually maximized the risk to them. But he would be here at their side when the bad guys came calling. There was no mistake in his or anyone else’s mind that he wasn’t the only target.

Kathleen and Elizabeth were targets, too. Their deaths at the hands of an assassin would almost as effectively destroy his usefulness as a DCI as would his own death. No one talked about it, but he’d heard the apprehension in Whirtaker’s voice, and seen it on the faces of his staff this morning during the teleconference. Stenzel came down the hall from somewhere in the back, and McGarvey turned away from the window. Now it would begin, he thought. “They said that you wanted to see me, Mr. Director,” Stenzel said. “I’m sending you back to Langley this afternoon,” McGarvey told the psychiatrist. Stenzel was startled.

“What’s up? Is something wrong? I mean it’d be a lot better if I stuck around to monitor your wife’s condition.” “It’s just for overnight,” McGarvey explained. Grassinger appeared in the doorway from the dining room, which they continued to use as their operations center. “Dr. Stenzel is leaving. Get somebody to take him back to Langley, would you?” “Sure thing. When?” “Now,” McGarvey said.

“Well, let me have a word with her first ”

“No. I want you to leave right now.” Stenzel glanced up the stairs. “What about my things?”

“You can come back out first thing in the morning,” McGarvey said.

“This is only for tonight.” Grassinger was surprised, but he said nothing. He stepped back into the dining room, issued an order into his lapel mic, then returned with StenzePs coat. A minute later one of Blatnik’s people drove up. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Stenzel asked. He was vexed. “Your wife could have another breakdown at any moment.” “It’s a risk we have to take,” McGarvey said. “Until morning.” Stenzel appealed mutely to Grassinger, who didn’t blink. He pulled on his coat, gave McGarvey another look, then left without a word.

“What’s going on tonight, Mr. Director?” Grassinger asked. “Does it have something to do with the Russian?” “I have a couple of phone calls to make, and then we’ll talk. I’m going to force the issue, and I’ll need your cooperation, your full cooperation. Do you understand?”

“No, sir. But we’ll do whatever it takes. We can’t go on like this forever.” “No we can’t,” McGarvey agreed. He crossed the living room and went into the study in the opposite wing of the house from the dining room and kitchen. He kept the door open so that he could see anyone coming, and telephoned the Agency locator at Langley, who rang through to Bob Johnson in Technical Services. “Good afternoon, Bob, this is Kirk McGarvey, I need a favor sometime tonight, if you guys aren’t too busy.” “No, sir. Let me get Jared ”

“No, I don’t want to bother him. He’s got his hands full with the VI and Vail investigations, and I just need someone who understands alarm systems.

But I don’t want just anyone. I need someone I can trust.” “Yes, sir,” Johnson replied cautiously. “What can I do for you?”

“Something’s not right with the system here. Could be that someone’s tampered with it. I just don’t know. Can you come out here tonight.

Say around eight to take a look?” “I could come right now.” “No, later. I don’t want to make a production out of this, in case someone has sabotaged the system. Do you understand?” “Yes, sir. Perfectly.

I’ll be there at eight.” “Good man. See you then.” “Let your security people know that I’m coming.” “Oh, don’t worry about them.

That’s why I want the alarm system checked.” Next he called Fred Rudolph at his office in FBI headquarters. “I need a favor, no questions asked.” “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Rudolph said. He was straitlaced. He did everything by the book. Or at least he tried to do it that way. He and McGarvey were opposites, but they respected each other. “What can I do for you, Mac?” “Put me on your medium security website,” McGarvey told him. “I want it to look as if someone released a confidential memo by mistake.” “What memo?” “You’re concerned that the DCI is out here with little or no security because he’s pigheaded. The Bureau needs some direction.” “Who am I supposedly sending this memo to?” “Senator Hammond. But you’re not really going to send it. It’s a draft memo. But I want it on the website.” “So the Russians can see it,” Rudolph said. “If it’s them, they’ll come out guns blazing. Shootout at the OK Corral. That’s your style.”

“Post it a few minutes after six tonight. It’ll look like a shift change error.” “Tell me that you’re not really sending your security away,” Rudolph said. “No questions, Fred, remember?” “All right. I can do that for you. Against my better judgment. But in the meantime, I’m going to double the surveillance on the Russians, and on Senator Hammond’s office because there’s a good chance he’ll see it, too.”

“Your call. But if someone heads out this way I don’t want your people to interfere with them.” “Can we at least give you a heads-up?” “I’d appreciate it.” Rudolph was silent for a moment. “Do you think it’ll go down tonight?” “I hope so.” “Did your people find Nikolayev?”

“He’s here in Washington.” “Okay then, good luck,” Rudolph said.

“Just watch your ass, will you?” “Sure thing,” McGarvey promised. He went down the hall through the garden room so that he could look out a back window. Katy and Liz had built five small snowmen and were working on a sixth. The figures’ heads were larger than their bodies, and they seemed to be leaning backward, looking up at the sky. They all faced the same direction, toward the east, McGarvey realized, and the scene was somehow disturbing. Gloria Sanchez and one of the outside security people stood by watching. McGarvey returned to the study, where he telephoned Adkins’s house. A young woman answered.

Her voice was soft. Barely a whisper. “Hello.” “This is Kirk McGarvey. I’d like to speak with Dick Adkins.” “Yes,” she said. Her voice was innectionless, like a zombie’s. “Father,” she called away from the phone. “It’s Mr. McGarvey.” Adkins came on almost immediately. “Hi, Mac.” He had already talked to Whittaker twice about coming back to work. McGarvey could only imagine what was going on at his house with his daughters.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t call sooner,” McGarvey said. “I couldn’t believe the news when David told me. I’m really sorry, Dick.”

“She hid it the whole time. She was driving up to a cancer clinic in Baltimore for the past year. Sometimes the girls took her. I never knew.”

McGarvey didn’t know what to say that was appropriate. Katy would know, but he hadn’t told her. “Ruth was a strong woman.”

“That she was.”

“Will there be a memorial service?”

“On Saturday at Grace Lutheran. But of course we don’t expect you or Kathleen to be there, under the circumstances.”

“We’ll be there, Dick. This other business will be settled by then.”

“Oh?”

“I hate to ask this, but can you come out here tonight?”

“Cropley? Sure. What time?”

“Eight,” McGarvey said. Adkins had practically jumped at the invitation. Whatever was going on at the house could not be pleasant for him.

“Let security know I’m coming.”

“That won’t be a problem. Just drive up to the house. I’ll see you then.”

Adkins wanted to say something else. McGarvey could hear it in his hesitation. “Okay,” he said at last. “See you then.”

When McGarvey came into the dining room Grassinger was looking out the bow windows toward the horse barn and riding arena. His hands were clasped behind his back and he rocked on his heels as if he was thinking about something in time with a beat. He was alone. “I’ve been asking myself what does it mean by ‘forcing the issue.” I can think of a dozen different possibilities, not one of them with a shred of common sense to it. And needing my cooperation, my ‘full cooperation,” is something even more worrisome to me. I’m saying to myself that since we can’t go back to business as usual until the operator or operators are bagged we need to do something really creative to get the job done. Offer them bait. I think that’s what the director is suggesting. The bait being himself, of course. Now, that’s not acceptable, not within my charter. So what to do? Maybe reason and logic?” “They have all the time in the world, Jim,”

McGarvey said. “But that’s a luxury we don’t have. As long as I stay in the bunker they’ll bide their time.” Grassinger turned around. He wasn’t a happy man. “So we just open the doors to the keep for them, Mr. Director? Is that what you’re asking me to do?” “Something like that.” “Then they’ll waltz in here and kill you and your family. They will have won.” McGarvey smiled faintly. “It might not be all that easy for them.” “No offense intended, sir,” Grassinger apologized.

“None taken. I’m not suggesting that we lower our guards and turn our backs. But it has to look that way, and it has to be convincing.”

Grassinger was somewhat mollified. He nodded. “Well, sir, what do you have in mind?” “Who’s with Nikolayev at Andrews?” “I sent young Chris Bartholomew. She knows what she’s doing.” “I want him brought out here tonight around seven. Find a place along the highway so that he can see someone coming from the city. He’ll have to be hidden, but near enough so that he can identify whoever is in the car coming down the driveway.” Grassinger nodded. “I know a couple of spots that might work. Is Chris to stay with him?” “No, I want you there. You might have to move your people in a big hurry.” “Who are you expecting, sir?” Grassinger asked. He had a sour look on his broad face, as if he knew that he was going to hear something disagreeable.

“Dick Adkins, Otto Rencke, my son-in-law and Bob Johnson from Technical Services.” “I know them all.” “They’ll be the ones coming in the open, but there might be someone else in the first batch who won’t want to be seen.” “Russians, maybe? That’s why we have our own Russian watchdog?” “That, but there’s more,” McGarvey said. This wasn’t easy.

Grassinger nodded, tight-lipped. “There always is, isn’t there.”

“All of those people are suspects,” McGarvey said. It took a moment for the implications to set in and Grassinger reared back, but he recovered. “Dear Lord,” he said. “Does Nikolayev know who it is?

Will he recognize this person?” “The assassin has been brainwashed.

Sometime in the past. By the Russians. Nikolayev was one of the designers of the program, and according to him the conditioning doesn’t last very long. So the killer needs a control officer. Someone to reinforce the training on a regular basis. He thinks that the assassin’s control officer will try to come out here tonight, too.”

Grassinger worked to grasp the enormity of what McGarvey was telling him. “Why would they expose themselves like that?”

“I don’t know,” McGarvey said. But he had his guess. If the killer was one of his friends, they would need to be reinforced in order to pull off such an act.

“Whoever comes out in the end will be the control officer,” Grassinger said. “All we have to do is match that person with one of the people in the house.”

“You can deploy your officers along the highway, out of sight.”

“But they’re your friends, Mr. Director. Your own son-in-law.”

“I know,” McGarvey said. “I’m going to shut down the alarm system and forward defensive measures. But I’ll leave the detectors in the woods behind the house active in case someone tries to sneak through the back door.”

“I’ll put a couple of people up there.”

“Okay. But nobody moves until Nikolayev or I give the word. We’re going to do this once, and only once.”

An almost infallible means of saving yourself from the desire of self-destruction, is always to have something to do, Voltaire wrote a couple of hundred years ago. It was just as true now as it was then.

Grassinger got on the radio to summon Blatnik as McGarvey walked back to the garden room and stepped outside.

On the snow-covered back patio McGarvey watched Kathleen and Elizabeth together. It was like the early days, before the split, mother and daughter together and happy. They were close again after years of distance: For Katy because she saw so much of her estranged husband in her daughter’s actions and mannerisims. And for Liz because her mother refused to consider allowing Kirk back into her life, even though it was clear that she’d never stopped loving him. But that was the disagreeable then. This was the hopeful now, because even though they had this trouble hanging over them, they were together. That’s all that really mattered. “Very impressive, but what’s it supposed to mean?” McGarvey asked, starting across the backyard to them. They had finished with the sixth figure. Kathleen spun around so fast at the sound of his voice that she slipped and fell on her rear. For a moment no one moved, but then Elizabeth shrieked with laughter and helped her mother up. “Why it’s Aku-Aku, dear,” Kathleen said, taking a sideways glance at their handiwork. She and Elizabeth exchanged a knowing look.

“Easter Island, Daddy,” Elizabeth explained. “You know, the statues.”

Gloria Sanchez shook her head. She had no idea what it meant. “Okay, so you’re tired of the cold and snow and you’re pining for a South Seas cruise? Is that it?” McGarvey asked. Something was odd here.

Something off. But he felt as if he were the only one sensing it.

“It’s Mom’s idea,” Elizabeth said. “They’re waiting for the dawn, Kirk,” Kathleen told him. “You know, it comes up in the east. Morning.

The new day and all that.” She got the pensive look that had been so common lately. “Todd and Elizabeth are going to adopt, so we’ll be grandparents after all. Ruth is no longer suffering, the poor dear.

And tonight you’re going to catch the killer. I just know it.” She glanced again at the snow figures. “So all we have to do is survive until morning.” There was nothing McGarvey could say. Kathleen smiled. “Close your mouth, dear,” she told him.

THIRTY-NINE

From the windows in several upstairs rooms McGarvey checked the front and back areas around the house. It was 7:30 P.M. and already dark.

Lights from the downstairs windows spilled yellow patches on the snow.

Blatnik’s and Grassinger’s people had withdrawn to the highway and behind the house in the woods. The only ones left in the house besides McGarvey were his wife and daughter. A radio played downstairs in the kitchen, but the silence in the house was oppressive. Nothing he could see moved out there, so he went downstairs. At the keypad in the front stair hall he switched off the house alarms. The sensors in the woods behind the house would remain on, but the defensive measures between the house and the highway had been disabled. If Nikolayev was right, the assassin would arrive in the first batch, the assassin’s control officer later. They couldn’t be sure until then.

McGarvey took out his pistol, checked the action and returned it to the holster at the small of his back. The question that had been pressing him all day intruded again. If it came to it, could he pull the trigger on a friend? Presumably the assassin had been brainwashed. He was sick. Shooting him would be like killing a cancer patient when the cure was readily available. Yet the assassin would be dangerous.

Elizabeth came down the hall from the kitchen, rolling down her sweater sleeves. “Almost time?” she asked. Her face was badly bruised.

McGarvey nodded. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy, remember?”

She shrugged. “I’ll live, Dad. Honestly.” She smiled wanly.

“Anyway, I’m becoming quite the domestic. But I was raised by a neat freak, remember?” She glanced up the stairs. “Where’s Mom?” “She’s taking a hot bath. Stenzel left her something to help her get to sleep afterward.” “Good idea,” Elizabeth agreed. Unsaid between them, but understood nevertheless, was that it would be better if Kathleen remained upstairs, out of the way until the issue was resolved. She would be safe. “Are you armed?” McGarvey asked. Elizabeth nodded.

“But I don’t know if I could shoot Dick Adkins, or, God forbid, Otto.”

She was deeply troubled. “How couldn’t we have known, being around them all the time?” “They might not even know themselves,” McGarvey told her. She hadn’t mentioned her own husband’s name, though when McGarvey had told her that he was coming out here tonight with the others she had reacted as if stung. “The ice bucket in the living room is full, I laid out some snacks, and there’s beer and wine in the fridge.” She grinned despite herself. “I even brought some Twinkies for Otto.” “Did you get some cream for him, too?” “Two percent milk.

Somebody’s got to start slowing him down. Louise won’t.” “Jim, are you set up there?” McGarvey spoke into his lapel mic. There was no answer. “Jim?” Elizabeth watched him. He shook his head, so she tried. “Jim, do you copy?” After a moment she shook her head.

“Nothing.” McGarvey called Grassinger’s cell phone. The security chief answered on the first ring.

“Yes.”

“Is your earpiece working?” McGarvey asked.

“I just talked to Tony,” Grassinger said. “Are you having trouble?”

“Liz and I can’t get through.”

“It’s the base unit at the house, Mr. Director. I’ll send someone down to look at it.”

“Are you and Nikolayev in position?”

“Yes.”

“Then sit tight. We’ll use the phone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your people know what to do,” McGarvey said as a statement not a question.

“Yes, sir,” Grassinger replied, and McGarvey could hear an edge of impatience in the man’s voice. He’d been insulted. But it couldn’t be helped. McGarvey needed his people to be sharp.

Nikolayev and Grassinger waited in an Agency SUV parked off the highway. The vehicle’s lights were off, and they were well hidden in the trees and brush. From their position they could see a couple of hundred feet of highway and the first fifty feet of the driveway. But sitting in the car was uncomfortable because it rested at an uneven angle to the left. Nikolayev didn’t complain. His life had taught him to endure. “Will it be somebody you know?” Grassinger asked. He was behind the wheel. Nikolayev was in the passenger seat at an angle above him. “Everyone I know is too old for this sort of thing,” the Russian replied mildly. He had night-vision binoculars, which he raised to his eyes. “Rencke gave me a list of names and photographs, but there are blanks, you know.” “What good is waiting out here, then?

What are we supposed to do?” Nikolayev lowered the binoculars and gave Grassinger a hard stare. “You can only hope to protect them in hiding for so long. So we do this tonight to end the waiting.” He glanced toward the highway. “In the first arrivals, anyone who shows up who has not been invited will probably be our man,” he explained. “After that, after everyone is here, we wait. Whoever comes next will be the control officer. We will have to match that person to someone already in the house and warn McGarvey.” “Whoever comes in from the woods behind the house will be our man,” Grassinger suggested. “Let’s not forget that avenue.” “They won’t come that way,” Nikolayev disagreed.

He raised the bin oculars again as headlights flashed on the highway.

Moments later a dark-colored Ford Taurus station wagon slowed and turned onto the driveway. “Adkins,” he said. “Number one.”

Grassinger called McGarvey. “Adkins is coming your way.”

“Right,” McGarvey replied, and broke the connection.

McGarvey met Adkins at the front door as his DDCI came across the broad porch with a look that was a study in contrasts between despair and eagerness. “Thanks for coming out tonight,” McGarvey said. “The timing couldn’t have been worse for you. I’m sorry.” “Duty calls,”

Adkins offered. “I couldn’t stay there. At the house. It’s crazy with all the relatives in from out of town. Not what Ruth would have wanted.” Elizabeth had put a fresh log on the fire in the living room.

As McGarvey helped Adkins off with his coat she came out. “Hello, Dick,” she said. She offered her cheek for a kiss. “You have Todd’s and my condolences for Ruth. It was terrible. I couldn’t believe it when my dad told me.” “Thanks, Elizabeth. I appreciate your concern.

I really do. Especially right now when you’re recovering from your own accident.” Adkins’s lips compressed. “Ruth would have said that better than I did.” She touched his arm. “It doesn’t matter how it’s said.” “Are you armed?” McGarvey asked. Adkins’s mouth opened. He looked from McGarvey to Elizabeth and back. He nodded. “Considering what’s been going on, yes, I’m carrying a weapon.” “You’d better give it to me. I’ll put it in the closet with your coat.” Adkins complied, handing his 9mm Beretta to McGarvey. “I don’t usually carry a gun, you know,” he apologized. McGarvey put it in the closet, and they moved into the living room, where Elizabeth poured Adkins and her father a brandy. She got herself a Perrier with a twist. Adkins stood with his back to the fireplace as if he was trying to get warm. But a thin sheen of perspiration covered his forehead. He wore an old burgundy sweater and jeans. His eyes darted from McGarvey to Elizabeth. He was waiting for something. Expecting to be told something. And he was nervous about it. His attitude and dress made him appear boyish.

“What’s this all about, anyway, Mac?” he asked. He glanced toward the hall. “And where’s Kathleen tonight? She’s okay now, isn’t she?”

“She’s fine, Dick. She’s upstairs. I’ve called a few people to come out tonight because I have something to tell everybody.” “Any hints for your number two? Maybe I could offer a suggestion or two.” “We’ll wait for the others,” McGarvey said. The cell phone rang out on the hall table, where he’d left it. “Excuse me.” “Do you want some ice, Dick?” Elizabeth asked. The call was from Grassinger. “Your son-in-law is on his way.” “Thank you.” “Wait,” Grassinger said.

“Wait a second. Another car is coming.” McGarvey looked out the hall window, but he couldn’t see any headlights in the woods yet. The highway was almost a mile away. “It’s Bob Johnson. He’s on his way to you.” “Okay. The last one should be Otto.” “In this batch,”

Grassinger said. Laying the phone down, McGarvey went back into the living room, where Elizabeth was refreshing Adkins’s drink. “That was Todd. He’s coming down the driveway,” he told them. Elizabeth smiled with pleasure. “Oh good.” Headlights flashed in the living room windows and moved out to the stair hall McGarvey went to get the door at the same time a second pair of headlights appeared up on the driveway in the woods. Todd got out of his car and looked back.

“Someone is right behind me,” he said. “Did you get a look at who it was?” McGarvey asked from the doorway. He wanted to maintain as much of the fiction for as long as he could. At least until they were all in place. But he hated it; the lying. His stomach was sour. “No,” Todd said. His right hand was in his jacket pocket. Presumably he had his gun there. It was one of the things McGarvey needed to know. A light-colored car came down the long, circular driveway, past the frozen fountain and horse paddock, its headlights illuminating the front of the house. “It’s Bob Johnson,” McGarvey said. Todd had no reaction. Johnson parked his car behind Todd’s and Adkins’s cars and got out. He hesitated for just a moment, then came around to where Todd waited. He carried a small leather case. They shook hands.

“Hello, Todd. How’re you doing tonight?”

“I’ve been better. You?” Johnson shrugged. He looked at McGarvey in the doorway. “Good evening, Mr. Director. I brought my tool kit.”

“That won’t be necessary,” McGarvey told him. “There’s nothing wrong with the alarm system.” “Sir?” “Come on in, and I’ll explain everything,” McGarvey told him. “Leave your tool kit in the car.” The Technical Services deputy did as he was told, and he followed Todd onto the porch and into the house. “Is Dick here?” Todd asked. “He’s in the living room. Otto should be showing up at any minute.” McGarvey had them hang their coats in the hall closet. “Are you carrying a weapon?” he asked Johnson. Johnson shook his head. He was a few years older than Todd, but his hair was cut short in a butch and his narrow face, with its freckled red cast, made him look like a kid. He was startled by the question. “We carry multi-testers in my shop. Not guns.” “Would you mind?” McGarvey asked. He made an even more startled Johnson spread his legs and stick out his arms. McGarvey quickly frisked him. “Can you tell me what’s going on, sir?” “Aside from the fact that you’ve been pumping classified information to someone on Senator Hammond’s staff, I don’t know,” McGarvey said coolly. “But that’s what we’ll find out tonight.” Johnson was taken aback, but he didn’t protest; nor did he seem defiant. He was a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Leave your gun in the closet, would you, Todd?” McGarvey asked his son-in-law. Todd’s left eyebrow rose, but he did as he was asked without a word, and they all went into the living room. He gave his wife a kiss. “Hi, sweetheart, how’re you doing?” “Just peachy,” she said. She gave Johnson, who wasn’t sure what to do, a nod. “Why don’t we all just have a seat,” McGarvey told them. “Otto is on his way out. He said that he would give me a call from the highway so we can shut down the security system for him.”

“Who else is coming?” Todd asked. He knew that something was going down, but not exactly what.

“Just Otto for now,” McGarvey told him. The phone rang in the hall.

“That’s him.” McGarvey went to answer it. “Who is it?” he asked softly. “Otto Rencke,” Grassinger replied. “Okay, keep your eyes open. I don’t know who else might show up, or how long it might take, but just keep your eyes open.” “Will do, sir,” Grassinger said.

“Watch yourself down there. Give a whistle, and we’ll come running.”

“There’s been no movement behind the house yet?” McGarvey asked.

“Nothing. Not even a deer or a rabbit.” McGarvey put the phone down on the hall table and stood stock-still for a long moment. He could hear the murmur of low conversation in the living room, but he couldn’t make out what was being said. Headlights flashed in the woods, and McGarvey went to the door as Otto came down the hill in an Agency Ford Bronco. He parked behind the line of cars in the driveway. He jumped out and rushed up the walk, slipping and sliding in the snow. His frizzy hair flew in every direction, his coat was unbuttoned, his sweatshirt was dirty and his jeans hung loosely on his hips. In the glare of the porch light his face was sallow. “Oh, wow, Mac, am I late?” he gushed, scuttling across the covered porch. “You’re just in time,” McGarvey told him. “I’m glad to see you.” He gave Otto a warm embrace. “Did you bring a gun with you tonight?” he whispered into Otto’s ear. “I don’t have a gun, Mac. Honest injun.” He swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I had it. Probably shoot myself in the foot or something, ya know?” “Okay,” McGarvey said, and he brought Otto into the house, where they hung his coat in the closet and joined the others in the living room. Otto stopped in his tracks. “Oh, wow,” he murmured. He hopped from one foot to the other a couple of times, looking at each of them, his mouth opening and closing as if he were a fish out of water. These people were on his list; all of them except for Runkov, the one unknown, and the eighth name, which he wouldn’t tell anybody. And Yemm, of course, who was dead. McGarvey watched the play of emotions on Otto’s face, trying to judge what it was his old friend was thinking. But with Otto that was almost always impossible. Sometimes Otto admitted he didn’t know what he was thinking. No one knew what to say or do. McGarvey motioned for Otto to have a seat in front of the fireplace, but no one else moved.

They were waiting, like lovers just before the climax: breathless, unfocused, thinking only of themselves at this exact moment, wondering how it was they were here, and exactly what would happen next. McGarvey walked over to the sideboard. He poured a small brandy and drank it. These were friends.

Longtime friends, some of them. Loves. Acquaintances. But McGarvey had no questions about how he had gotten here. He’d built this prison for himself brick by painful brick over a twenty-five-year career with the CIA. Overzealousness. Not staying within the strict letter of the law. Taking matters into his own hands. Straying from the fold.

Running with the wolves in the night; or rather not running with the wolves. His entire career he had been guilty of the sin of individualism. Working under his own charter. Operating by his own set of rules. His own personal code of honor, if an assassin could be said to have such a code. He’d been called an anachronism, finally, by a deputy director of Operations in the Company a few years ago. The West had won the Cold War. The bad guys had all packed up and gone home. McGarvey’s brand of justice was no longer required. Thanks, but now it’s time for you to go. But that was before Osama bin Laden and his ilk. Besides that he could not go. Because he’d never found the answers to the questions that were at the core of his existence. He had a sense of honor, but it never seemed to square with the real world. He thought he knew what a hero was, but the older he got the less certain he became of that. Duty. Responsibility. Passion. The nineteen men who died striking the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and those heading for the Capitol Building who crashed in a field in Pennsylvania all felt that they had duties. They certainly had passion. And they accepted a warped sense of honor and responsibility. For a time they’d even been heroes to some people; to a lot of people actually. And not just Afghanis or Islamic fundamentalists, but some Americans and French and Germans. People who believed that the U.S. was evil and needed to be struck down. Did he understand any of that yet? McGarvey didn’t think he did. In fact he felt that he had never been further away from understanding anything than he was at this moment. He turned to face them. “Somebody is trying to kill me. And one of you may know who it is.” “It could be somebody else,” Otto cried. “Honest to God, I’ve tried to find out.

I’ve done everything I could.” He lowered his head. “Honest injun, kimo sabe. Honest, honest.” He began to cry, his shoulders shaking.

But no one reached out to him.

She makes us blindly play her terrible game, and we never see beneath the cards. Fate. Luck. Chance. Destiny. Voltaire had believed in all of that, but McGarvey wasn’t sure that he did.

In the SUV beside the highway, Grassinger’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel. If all the principals were already in the house, and the only one they were waiting for now was the assassin’s control officer, then didn’t it make sense to reactivate the defenses along the driveway? He had a mind to call McGarvey and suggest just that. But the director would be having a busy time of it right now, sorting out the who’s whos. He had wanted to station a couple of Blatnik’s people in the house, or at the very least outside nearby, but McGarvey had been very specific on that point. It was dead cold in the car with the engine off. He glanced at Nikolayev, who was hunched down in his overcoat and appeared to be dozing. Not as cold as Moscow gets. Or Siberia. “There’s a car coming your way,” Tony Blatnik radioed.

“Stand by.” Grassinger spoke into his lapel micHe reached over and nudged the Russian, whose eyes opened. “Someone’s coming.” Nikolayev sat up and brought the binoculars to his eyes as there was a flash of headlights up on the highway. Grassinger entered all but the last number of McGarvey’s cell phone. The headlights briefly illuminated the trees as the car slowed and turned down the driveway. It was an RAV4 sport utility vehicle. Grassinger recognized it immediately. “A woman,” Nikolayev said. Grassinger raised his binoculars to make sure, although he knew who it was. Louise Horn’s profile showed up clearly for a moment until her car disappeared into the woods. Of all the suspects down at the house, Otto Rencke, in Grassinger’s mind, was the worst-case scenario. “It’s Louise Horn. Otto Rencke’s friend,”

Grassinger said. He didn’t know how McGarvey was going to take the news. He hit the last number of McGarvey’s cell phone, then started his car and eased it out of the ditch and up toward the highway.

McGarvey’s phone rang once, and then a recorded voice came on. “The number you are trying to reach is busy. If you wish to leave a message please touch star and wait for the tone.”

Grassinger broke the connection and tossed the phone aside. “Tony, we have a problem,” he said into his lapel mic. “We’re moving now,”

Blatnik’s voice came back. “Who is it?” “Rencke.” Two Agency SUVs with Blatnik and three of his people made it to the driveway by the time Grassinger and Nikolayev reached the paved surface. “Tell them to be careful,” Nikolayev cautioned. “Rencke could have contingencies.”

Grassinger immediately understood what the Russian meant. If it was Rencke, he might suspect that someone was up here. Once Louise Horn was safely down the driveway he might switch the defensive measures back on. There were stop sticks out to one hundred yards from the clearing above the house. Inside that line were contact mines that would explode if a vehicle passed over their pressure pads.

Antipersonnel claymore mines were set up in the woods on either side of the road. “Tony, I want you to pull up before Point Alpha,” Grassinger radioed. He hauled the big SUV off the highway and careened down the driveway as fast as he could keep the car on the snow-covered dirt road. “We’re just about there.” “The PDS might be rearmed,”

Grassinger shouted. It was the Perimeter Defense System. “Okay, we’re stopping,” Blatnik radioed back. Grassinger raced around a long curve and saw the taillights of the two SUVs stopped up ahead. They had run without headlights. He shut his off as he swept down into a hollow and back up the other side to stop right behind them. They weren’t far from the house here. Blatnik and his people were gathered on the road.

They had drawn their guns. Grassinger and Nikolayev hurried to join them. “We’ll have to go on foot from here,” he told them. “But stay out of the woods. The claymores might be hot.” “They could have the driveway covered from below,” Blatnik cautioned. “We’d be sitting ducks as soon as we got out in the open.” “It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Grassinger replied. “Have your people move in from the back.”

Blatnik radioed the orders. Grassinger and Nikolayev started down the driveway, Blatnik and the others behind them.

“What exactly is it that we’re waiting for?” Adkins asked. No one wanted to look at the others. But each of them understood McGarvey’s logic in bringing them here like this. At one time or another they had all suggested the same thing; that whoever was gunning for McGarvey had to be someone very close. Like someone in this room. “For someone to blink,” McGarvey answered absently. He thought he’d seen a light up on the hill. “Is someone coming?” Elizabeth asked. Headlights emerged from the woods and started down the hill. “Yes,” McGarvey said. He went out into the stair hall shut off the lights and withdrew his pistol. He watched from the hall window as the car came toward the fountain and paddock, but he couldn’t tell what kind of a car it was.

Why hadn’t Grassinger called? Elizabeth came from the living room.

“Who is it?” she asked. “I don’t know yet. Call Jim and find out what’s going on.” The car moved fast, fishtailing as it came around the curve on the west side of the paddock. “The phone isn’t here. Do you have it?” Elizabeth asked. “Never mind,” McGarvey said. He must have put it in the living room. Then the car came around the sweep of the curve and he could see that it was Louise Horn’s bright yellow RAV4

with an American flag on the radio antenna. Elizabeth was at his side.

She recognized the car, too. “Hell,” she said softly. “Keep everyone where they are,” McGarvey told her. He locked the closet door and slipped the Walther’s safety catch off and stepped outside. He stood in the deeper shadows between the front door and the lights spilling from the living room windows. He was angry that they had gotten to Otto. Mad at Louise Horn for taking advantage of his vulnerabilities.

Otto had never had any sort of a real life. From what McGarvey knew of his background, Otto’s childhood had been a living hell a mother who didn’t want him and a drunken stepfather who belittled and beat him, mentally as well as physically. He was upset with himself that he hadn’t seen and recognized the signs in Otto in time to help. McGarvey wanted to lash out at someone, at anyone for what had been done to his friend. Otto was his friend; in actuality his only friend, and McGarvey had let him down. There was no clear path out of this dark morass. Not for any of them. There was no solution that would make it all better. There was no going back.

McGarvey wanted to think that he had suspected Otto all along. Because Otto as the assassin could do the CIA the most harm. But even in the last few days when the circle of suspects had diminished to a handful, McGarvey had refused to believe in his heart that it could be his old friend. Anyone but Otto.

The RAV4 slid to a stop behind the line of cars. Not bothering to switch off the engine or the headlights, Louise Horn scrambled out of the car and headed up the driveway in a dead run, her civilian jacket open. As she came up the walk, McGarvey saw that she carried something small and black in her right hand.

“That’s far enough, Louise,” McGarvey said from the darkness.

Louise reacted as if she had been shot. She stopped dead in her tracks. “The killer is here,” she whispered breathlessly. “They used your cell phone, Mr. Director.”

“I used my cell phone “

“I’m not talking about the calls that you made to your security people.

Someone called a blind number in Chevy Chase just a few minutes ago. I was waiting on the highway monitoring the calls. Otto gave me the intercept equipment.” She held up the special cell phone she carried in her right hand. She talked in a rush, words tumbling on top of each other.

“What was the number?” It was a trick, though he didn’t want it to be.

“I don’t know, Mr. M.” it was blocked from the intercept program, and it was encrypted,” Louise said. “Did you call someone in town?”

“No ” McGarvey said, when all the lights in the house went out.

Grassinger and the others ran as fast as they could, finally reaching the spot where the driveway emerged from the woods. He stopped and raised his binoculars in time to see McGarvey and Louise Horn facing each other on the porch when the lights in the house went out.

“Rencke’s spotted her and shut off the lights,” he said. Nikolayev stepped off to the side and held on to a tree for support, while he massaged his chest with his other hand. Even in the darkness they could see that he was in trouble. “Go,” he croaked. “No time. Go.”

Grassinger looked again at the porch. McGarvey and Louise Horn were gone. The front door was open.

He and the others headed down the driveway at a dead run, leaving the Russian to look after himself. If McGarvey had allowed them to station a couple of their people near the house, they wouldn’t be in this situation right now. When they wrote the after ops reports, Grassinger would make sure that that part got included.

McGarvey stood in the darkness of the stair hall listening with all of his senses for something; anything. Louise Horn stood behind him and to his right. The house was deathly still except for the crackling of the fire on the hearth. “Liz?” he called softly. “Here.” Her voice drifted out from the living room. The flickering light from the fireplace cast shadows on the ceilings and walls. “Where’s Otto?”

“He’s here,” Elizabeth said. “Who’s missing?” “No one.” That made no sense. Unless someone had gotten through Blatnik’s people in back, no one was here to cut the power. It could have been done from the highway, but Grassinger and his people were on the lookout up there.

They would have spotted something. “Someone is coming down the driveway,” Louise said softly. “Four… no, five of them on foot.

Running.” McGarvey heard the noise. Soft, like a small animal mewling in pain. It came from the darkness at the end of the corridor that led back to the kitchen. “Somebody find a flashlight,” he said. He transferred his pistol to his left hand and moved past the entry to the living room. Liz and Todd and the others were silhouetted by the flames in the fireplace. The whimpering was louder now. It wasn’t coming from the kitchen. It was coming from the basement door under the stairs. Someone or something was just on the other side; perhaps crouched at the head of the stairs; frightened, in pain. The main breaker panel, where the electricity could have been turned off, was downstairs. But everyone was still in the living room, Louise had just arrived and no one could have come from the back. They wouldn’t have gotten past Blatnik’s people let alone defeat the sensors strung along the property line. Just as he knew in his heart that the assassin was not Otto, he finally accepted who it was. Accepted the fact that he had known, or at least felt at some visceral level, who it was.

Baranov’s creation. The brainwashing had occurred over fifteen years ago. So long a time ago that it seemed to be in a completely different era; a time when we were naive as compared to now; a time in which the battles were simple: It was us or them. Each side had its generals, and each side had its handmaidens. The crying increased in intensity to a low growl; an animal warning its prey that it was on the verge of striking. McGarvey knew exactly when and where the psychological conditioning had taken place. He knew why. And he knew the assassin’s control officer. The call had been made to him on the cell phone in the stair hall All the other phones in the house had been switched off. An intense, deep sickness spread through his body. All of his life he had been afraid to trust anyone for fear of what their betrayal would do to him. He had blocked almost everyone he’d ever come in contact with from knowing who he really was. In time he’d even forgotten how to trust himself so that like everyone else he didn’t know who he was. A part of him held itself aloof from his own inner thoughts and feelings. He had been living two separate existences.

One in which he functioned on a day-to-day level; with friends and acquaintances, with lovers and family. And another in which he existed like a bear holed up in its den for the winter. Run. Run. Run.

Hide. Don’t let anyone get too close. Despite all of that, people admired him. Respected him. Trusted his judgment. Trusted him to take care of them. They even loved him, some of them. Or at least they loved as much of him as they were allowed to access. He couldn’t say why he was that way; perhaps it was because his parents were too old to have children when they did. His sister in Utah was cold and aloof.

There’d been love in the family, growing up, but no closeness. He knew that his father loved him, but his father never once told him so. And neither had his mother. It had left an empty spot in his soul, one that for most people was filled with the emotion of belonging. That’s what he had missed all of his life. A feeling that people could love him for who he was, not for what he was. McGarvey flattened himself against the wall next to the basement door and reached over with his free hand to turn the knob. The flickering reflection of the firelight was surreal. The growling stopped. McGarvey closed his eyes for a moment, trying to blot out the horror of this, then pulled the door open and stepped back. Kathleen, her narrow, pretty face screwed up in a mask of rage and hate and venom, her lips curled back from her teeth in a feral snarl, her eyes wide and insane burst through the doorway.

She raised a big Clock 17 nine millimeter pistol and fired four shots as fast as she could pull the trigger, straight ahead into the wall, blasting big chunks of plaster everywhere. “Mother!” Elizabeth screamed from the living room entry. Kathleen swiveled toward Elizabeth’s voice, bringing the pistol around in a tight arc, the muzzle ending up a few feet from her husband’s face. “Hello, Katy,”

McGarvey said. His gun hand was at his side, the pistol pointed toward the floor. Kathleen started to shake the way she had at the house when she’d gone into convulsions. She tried to speak, but it came out as a low-throated growl. She was obviously going through an internal struggle that threatened to blow her into a million jagged pieces.

McGarvey could sense that there were people behind him, but he didn’t take his eyes off Kathleen’s. He raised his free hand to her. “Give me your gun, sweetheart. Please.” Kathleen flinched. She took a half step forward, the pistol never wavering from the middle of her husband’s face. “No one’s going to hurt you, Katy,” McGarvey said gently. “We’re all here. All of your friends. Liz and Todd, too.

We’ve come to help you, darling.” He tried to smile, but he could see Darby Yarnell using her. Baranov arranging for her training; holding her hand, telling her that she should go back to her husband, that she didn’t belong with them. All the while they were battering down her defenses; tearing apart the very attributes that made her human, that made her who she was. Once again he wanted to lash out at them. But they were both dead. And that they had died at his hands, even though the events had occurred more than a decade ago, gave him just the tiniest amount of satisfaction at this moment. They had gotten to his wife and damaged her, for no other reason than some insane plot to arrange for the murder of someone at some distant time and place. Now they were dead. Kathleen had been programmed to kill her husband if and when he was ever put up for Director of Central Intelligence. All these years her control officer had been Father Vietski; every week he had reinforced her training; built upon the artificial hate and fear and blind passion that they had mercilessly conditioned into her. He’d done it for nothing more than money. It must have been difficult, McGarvey thought, because by nature she was not a violent woman.

Anything but. Stenzel would say that she fell apart mentally because she had an impossible time dealing with the contradictions that were tearing apart her soul. On the one hand she was programmed to assassinate her husband. And on the other, she loved her husband, and killing him was unthinkable. It’s why she had sabotaged Otto’s car, to force her husband into stepping down from the appointment. She’d also talked Otto into wearing his seat belt so that he wouldn’t be seriously injured. She couldn’t have sabotaged Liz’s skis. McGarvey was pretty sure that they would find out it was Father Vietski on one of his trips to the house. Vietski had supplied the Semtex and the fuses. The fact that her daughter had been so terribly hurt that she had lost the baby had sent Kathleen into an even deeper spiral toward insanity. It was exactly what Vietski wanted because it made her more pliable. He’d also supplied the Semtex and extra beach bag for the helicopter. The bomb was supposed to kill them. End it once and for all. But Kathleen had subconsciously worked it out so that she could warn them away at the last minute. All of the misdirections, even the symptoms of her illness were an effort by her subconscious to remove the reason for her programming. If her husband stepped down she would not have to kill him. It had come down to that simple choice in her mind. But McGarvey loved her as much as she loved him. He would give her another choice.

“You don’t have to kill me, Katy,” he said. She flinched again. Her gun hand shook. At this distance it would be impossible for her to miss if she pulled the trigger. “Yes,” she said, the single word strangled in her throat. “No, Kathleen,” McGarvey said. He raised his pistol to his temple. “I won’t let you do this. You don’t have to kill me. I’ll do it.” “No!” Elizabeth screamed in anguish.

Kathleen’s eyes were wild. A tic developed in her right cheek.

Spittle drooled from a corner of her mouth. She had been given a new, terrible choice. She didn’t know what to do. She was overloading.

McGarvey cocked the pistol. “It’s okay, Katy,” he said. He began to pull the trigger. “Kirk!” Kathleen screamed. “My God, what have I done?” She lowered her hand and let the big gun drop to the carpet runner. “No,” she said softly. “No.” She stepped toward, tentatively, and then as McGarvey uncocked his pistol and lowered it, she came into his arms and began to cry. “Hello, Katy,” McGarvey said. “Welcome home.”