Last week he’d started shooting again at an indoor pistol range off University Parkway up in Sarasota. One of the instructors had tried to convince him to take shooting lessons and to retire the Walther in favor of something with greater stopping power, but after watching McGarvey empty one clip at rapid fire, all the shots hitting within a one-inch circle, he’d walked away, shaking his head.
His physical wounds were healing, but to this point he’d been unable to get the vision of Toni Talarico’s face out of his head, when she and her children came face-to-face with the terrorist McGarvey had pulled out of the van.
He had regained consciousness and was sitting in the backseat of a police cruiser, his hands cuffed behind him.
McGarvey was being given first aid by an EMT ten feet away, when Toni and the kids had been escorted up the hill by Adkins. She’d broken away and walked over to the police cruiser to get a closer look at the man. The expression on her tiny face was of pure hatred: raw, intense, and very personal. There was no doubt in McGarvey’s mind that if someone had handed her a gun at that moment she would have emptied it into the man’s head.
Her children were watching her, and when she turned back to them, they both stepped away and burst into tears. They’d been frightened not by the terrorist, but by the look in their mother’s eyes.
The island was very narrow here, the single road less than one hundred feet from the beach. Across the road, houses were nestled in lush tropical growth: palms, bougainvillea, sea grapes, and dozens of different flowering trees and bushes. The McGarveys’ was a two-story Florida-style, with tall ceilings, large overhangs, and a veranda that wrapped completely around the second floor. When the weather was right the house could be completely opened to catch the slightest breeze off the gulf or off the Intracoastal Waterway.
Kathleen loved the place, and that was enough for him, though they had paid what he considered an obscene price.
Reaching the path up to the road, McGarvey headed to his house, his thoughts still on the attack at Arlington. There was no doubt that he had been the target, but the only reason he could come up with was that bin Laden was afraid that McGarvey might interfere with the submarine mission.
Six of the terrorists had managed to escape clean; the one driving the van McGarvey had attacked, two in the second van, and apparently the drivers of three cars they’d managed to use as escape vehicles out the south gate. The FBI forensics people had come up with plenty of physical evidence from the abandoned vans, as well as from the bodies of the seven dead terrorists and the only survivor.
So far they’d identified nine of the attackers, all of whom were on Homeland Security watch lists. No one had any idea how they’d gotten into the United States, but according to the media, which had given the attack a lot of play, the lapse was just another example of how poor a job Washington was doing to protect the country.
McGarvey had taken only one call from Adkins last week with that information, but he had stayed out of it, for Kathleen’s sake, certain that if and when something important came up, Otto would let him know.
The house was set twenty yards from the entrance, and in the back, a lawn sloped gently down to a boat dock and screened gazebo that overlooked the waterway. In the evenings they sometimes sat in the gazebo, listening to the quiet.
Inside, McGarvey passed through the large, airy entrance hall and went directly back to the huge open kitchen that looked directly out on the swimming pool and beyond to the Intracoastal Waterway.
Kathleen, barefoot in a colorful sarong and white bikini top, was at the counter slicing fruit for their breakfast. She looked up, a radiant smile on her face. “How’d it go this morning?”
“Every day it’s better,” he said, flexing his shoulder. He came over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “What’s on the schedule for today?”
“How would you feel about driving up to Largo this morning?” Katy asked, pouring him a cup of coffee.
The business wasn’t over with, not until they found Graham and the submarine, and until bin Laden was dead. But for now there was nothing for him to do. For now it was in Otto’s hands. “Sure. What’ve you got in mind?”
“The Island Packet boatyard is up there. I was thinking we might buy a sailboat. Or at least talk to somebody about it.”
McGarvey had to smile. “You’ve got our retirement all planned, have you?”
Kathleen shrugged. “This fall you’re going back to teaching, and probably working on your Voltaire book, and I’ve been talking to some of the charities about going on their boards. We’re going to be busy, and we’ll be needing some sort of a diversion. What’s wrong with sailing? We both like it. The weather here is great.”
“Do I have time to take a shower and have some breakfast?”
“We have all the time in the world,” she replied brightly.
McGarvey’s mood instantly darkened. “For now,” he said, and her face fell, but for just a moment.
“Then we’ll make the best of it while we can,” she told him.
“It won’t last forever, Katy,” he said.
She managed a weak smile. “That’s what you said last time.”
“It has to be done.”
“I know,” she said.
McGarvey went upstairs and took a shower, the water drumming against the back of his neck soothing. Since Arlington he’d concentrated on healing his body as quickly as he could because he knew that his call to action could come at any moment, and when it did he wanted to be ready. He desperately wanted the semiretirement that Katy had planned for them, but he just as desperately wanted to see an end to bin Laden’s reign of terror. The United States certainly couldn’t depend on the Pakistanis to do the job; they were beset with so many internal problems that President Musharraf ’s hands were tied. Much of his military and a significant portion of his intelligence service personnel were sympathetic to al-Quaida’s cause. There’d even been attempts on his life by bin Laden’s supporters.
Taking the man out had always been a one-on-one mission.
When he was drying off, the telephone in the bedroom rang. Kathleen answered it in the kitchen on the first ring. He was dressing when she came to the door.
“It’s Otto,” she said, and she looked resigned.
McGarvey wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but she’d always been able to see through that particular lie of his. He picked up the phone. “Good morning. Have you found the Kilo?”
“Oh wow, not yet, Mac,” Rencke gushed. “How are ya feeling? Okay? Louise wants to know.”
“I’ll live,” McGarvey said. He glanced up, but Kathleen was gone. “What about the sub?”
“There’s none missing. Honest injun, if he had grabbed a boat we’d know about it by now.”
“Then he’s got help from somebody,” McGarvey said crossly. “Goddammit, Otto, bin Laden didn’t hire a submarine captain for no reason.”
“I know, and we haven’t stopped looking.”
McGarvey closed his eyes for a moment. He had some serious visions about nuclear weapons being lobbed at the United States from a few miles offshore, giving absolutely no response time. “Sorry,” he said.
“No sweat, Mac. If he gets his hands on a Kilo boat — from no matter where — we’ll bag him.”
“That’s not why you called.”
“No. We got lucky with the guy you pulled out of the van at Arlington. The Bureau finally figured out who he is. Kamal al-Turabi, one of bin Laden’s top enforcers. They lost track of him last year, but it looks as if he was right here under their noses for at least eleven months. He was posing as a dentist up in Laurel. Neighbors said he was a great guy, about as American as they come.”