“Bloody hell” McGarvey swore, but he dug out the driver’s license and handed it out. The guard studied it for several seconds. One of the other guards walked over and looked at the passport and driver’s license and then studied McGarvey’s face. “Shake a leg, would you be so kind, chaps?
I’m thirsty” McGarvey said. He feigned a little drunkenness.
“Where are you going at this hour” the one guard demanded.
“The Palast Hotel, where the hell else would I be going”
“Let me see your reservations” the guard asked. He looked I on the seat beside McGarvey. “Where is your luggage”
“I’ve got no reservations, you silly bugger. Wn’t you understand? I want a drink. A drink! When I’m done I’ll be returning”
The West Berlin cabbie had turned in his seat. He didn’t look happy.
“Please, sir, I wish no trouble. Perhaps you should go back now”
“Where did you pick him up” the guard asked the cabbie. “The Ku’damm, where else”
The guard nodded, hesitated just a moment longer, then handed the papers back to McGarvey. “See that you stay out of trouble, Hell Gutherie. You wouldn’t find our jails pleasant”
McGarvey slouched down in his seat as they were waved through and the cab headed into the east zone. It was a matter of hard Western currencies, of course. The East Germans were allowing practically anything to attract American dollars, British pounds, or especially West German marks into the country. And who knew, maybe a strong-arm bandit would mug him. At least the money thus gained would find its way into the economy.
This side of the city was much darker than the West, though traffic was about the same. A few minutes later the cabbie dropped him off in front of the modern Swedish-built hotel. McGarvey paid his fare and stumbled into the hotel, crossing the lobby and entering the relatively crowded bar. He ordered a cognac, drank it down, then left the hotel, walking away without looking back.
It was possible that the border guards might have called the hotel, and that the security people there would be watching for him. They had been suspicious of the poor photographs in his passport and driver’s license, and of his attitude. A police car, its blue lights flashing, raced past as McGarvey ducked into the darkness of a doorway. He watched until it turned a corner two blocks away, and then he hurried east, away from the Unter den Linden and the other well-lit main streets. Four blocks away he found what he was looking for in a neighborhood of apartment buildings. The streetlights here were out at both ends of the tree-lined block and very few lights shone from any of the apartment windows. A lot of cars and small trucks were parked on both sides of the street, all of them in the shadows beneath the thick trees. The doors of the fifth car he tried were unlocked. It was a small Renault, fairly new and in reasonable condition. In under sixty seconds he had the ignition lock out of its slot in the steering column, thus releasing the locking pin, and had scraped three wires bare, twisting two of them together. When he touched the third against the pair, the motor came to life. For just a second before he pulled away from the curb and drove off he had the feeling that he had somehow slipped into the edge of a powerful whirlpool, and that he was being inexorably sucked down toward the center in ever-accelerating spirals. But it was too late for second thoughts. It had been too late for a long time now.
The night was pitch-black beneath a deepening overcast. A cool wind had sprung up from the northwest, bringing with it the odors of dampness, decaying wood, rotting vegetation. McGarvey had hidden the car a quarter of a mile away from the boathouse on the lake’s south shore. He stood now in the dark Woods looking down at the driveway and the house, and beyond it the boathouse on the water’s edge. Nothing moved except the tree branches in the wind and the wavelets lapping against the shoreline. Nor were there any sounds, or any hints that someone was here waiting for him.
Yet he sensed danger all around him. On the way out of the city he had intended to write this place off. The penetration agent had told Baranov that he would be coming. He would also have told the man about the equipment that had been left here.
all But of the five men on the Mossad’s list of suspects, did any of them know every operational detail? Did all of them know about this place, and what had been left here for him? He had to find out, and yet he was sick with apprehension about what he would discover here. His pistol in hand, McGarvey moved quietly from tree to tree, working his way through the woods parallel to the driveway until he came to the final clearing up from the lake and the boathouse.
Again he stopped for a few seconds, his every sense straining to detect the presence of someone else. But there was nothing.
Keeping low, he stepped out from behind the hole of a tree and raced across to the boathouse. He hurriedly unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The boat was still there. Outwardly it seemed as if nothing had been disturbed since the last time he had been here. Holstering his gun, he stepped down into the boat and pulled out the packages containing the rebreathing equipment and the assault rifle. Had someone been here? Did Baranov know about this place, these things?
Who to trust? Always in the end it came down to that. Trust no one and your job becomes impossible. Trust the wrong person and you’re dead.
Holding the tiny penlight in his mouth, he unwrapped the AK74 and quickly field-stripped it, finding his answer in less than twenty seconds. “Christ” he swore softly. The firing pin had been removed from the rifle. Maybe it had come like that. Maybe someone in LIGHTHOUSE had been tricked. Maybe someone else had an ax to grind. He shook his head.
He knew who it was, just as he supposed he had known for a long time. It was no easier seeing it confirmed here and now. Laying the gun back in the boat, he climbed up on the dock and let himself out of the boathouse. There were a few lights across the lake. Perhaps the answers, or more accurately the reasons, were there.
Perhaps there would be nothing for him. Perhaps there never had been.
The President sat in his study waiting for Roland Murphy to arrive from CIA headquarters. It was the McGarvey thing, and he was glad that Jim Baldwin wouldn’t be here to listen in. He glanced at the clock on his desk. It was just about 8:00 PM., which meant it was coming up on midnight in Germany. By now, if everything was going right, McGarvey would be across the border. But Murphy had sounded shaky on the telephone. “Time is of the essence, Mr. President. “I’ll have Don Acheson standing by”
“No, Sir. I think this is something you should consider on your own. Or at least hear me out, and then afterward … well, Sir, you’re the president.