“Chicago,” she said, taking a small cassette recorder out of her purse and laying it on the table. “Please sit down, Mr. McGarvey. I want you to give us your statement, and afterwards we’ll see just what we’ll want you to tell the French authorities when they question you on Monday.”
“Who will it be, the Surete National?”
“No,” Lillian Tyson said. “The SDECE wants to interview you at Mortier.”
The compound just off the Boulevard Mortier on the northeast side of Paris housed the SDECE’s Service 5, known simply as Action.
It was the counterespionage branch of the agency.
“The bully boys,” Lillian Tyson said. “They’re particularly interested in you.” She turned to Lynch. “What was it Colonel Marquand asked? Why is it this bastard’s name keeps cropping up? She turned back. “Pay attention and you’ll come out of this in one piece.”
“Why are they involved?” McGarvey directed his question to the station chief.
“The attackers weren’t French.”
“Do they have an ID already?”
“I only know what was waiting on my desk for me, and what Lillian told me.”
“They went directly to the ambassador about you, Mr. McGarvey, which is why I’m here.”
“You said attackers, Tom. Plural.”
“They apparently found a walkie-talkie.”
“May we get started now?” Lillian Tyson asked.
McGarvey ignored her. “What were they after? Who did we have on that plane?”
“I can’t tell you, but I’m sure you’ll be told something in Washington. The message was on my desk. You’re wanted as soon as the French are finished with you.”
“Sit down,” Lillian Tyson said sharply.
“I don’t think so, counselor,” McGarvey replied. “Not unless you and Tom would like to answer some questions as well. I had a friend on that flight.”
“Yes, we know, and we’d like to ask you about her, as well.”
“Tell Murphy, not this time,” McGarvey said to Lynch, and he started for the door.
“Hold it right there, mister,” Lillian Tyson shouted.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Not yet,” Lynch said. “But I’m sure the general will order it if you refuse to help out.”
“Step out that door, McGarvey, and I’ll turn you over to the French authorities,” Lillian Tyson warned.
“Then I’d have to tell them everything I know, counselor. Everything. I’d suggest you talk that over with your boss.”
McGarvey opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.
“Goddamn you… Lillian Tyson swore.
“I’ll be in touch, Tom,” McGarvey said, and he left.
“Who in the hell does that son of a bitch think he is?” Lillian Tyson asked.
Lynch was shaking his head. What little he personally knew, plus what he’d been told and had read about the man, all added up to the same thing. He looked at the woman.
“I don’t believe you’d really want to know that.”
McGarvey’s apartment was in a pleasantly quiet neighborhood just off the rue Lafayette a few blocks from the Gare du Nord. He paid off his taxi at the corner and out of old habit, went the rest of the way on foot, watching for the out-of-place car or van, the odd man or woman lingering in a doorway, the telltale flash of sunlight off a camera lens in an upper-story window.
There was nothing this time, though the feeling that the business was starting all over again for him was strong. No doubt Murphy was convinced that McGarvey’s presence at Orly this morning had been no coincidence. And the fact that the general had taken a personal interest meant the presence of the CIA officers aboard that flight had been very important.
But the Cold War was over. It was a line he’d told himself over and over for the past seven months since he’d killed the Russian, Kurshin, in Portugal. He’d been a soldier, but all the battles were done. He was retired.
It was time now for him to return to his ex-wife Kathleen in Washington and try to pick up the threads of his former life before he’d joined the Company. Before he’d become… what?
He stopped across the narrow street from his building. He had killed, therefore he’d become a killer. He’d killed silently, and from a distance, on occasion, which meant he’d become an assassin. Ugly, but the business had been necessary.
No night went by without the memories of the people he’d killed parading through his sleep, like macabre sheep to be counted before he could rest. Those memories would never stop haunting him until he was dead. It was one of the prices he’d paid for becoming what he’d become.
The other price he’d paid, and continued to pay besides the estrangement of his wife and daughter, was the enmity of his own government. The general had called him a “necessary evil” and despised him. Yet when there’d been trouble, of a nature that the CIA couldn’t or wouldn’t handle itself, McGarvey was pushed into the corner in such a way that he could not refuse to help.
Complicated, he thought. His life had never been easy, on the contrary, it had been complicated.
Waiting for a small Renault to pass, McGarvey crossed the street and entered his building. The concierge’s window was closed, so he went directly up to his third-floor apartment. If there was mail he would get it later.
For now he wanted to finish packing. Most of his things would go into temporary storage here in Paris until he knew for certain where he was going to end up, while the rest, except for an overnight bag, he was sending ahead to Washington.
His apartment door was wide open. Two uniformed French policemen were in the corridor talking with a broad-shouldered man in civilian clothes. There seemed to be a lot of activity inside.
The civilian turned around as McGarvey came up. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“My name is McGarvey, this is my apartment. Now who the hell are you and what do you think you’re doing?”
A short, very dark, extremely dangerous-looking man, also dressed in civilian clothes, appeared in the doorway. “Searching your apartment, Monsieur McGarvey. Do you have any objections?”
“You’re damned right I do.”
“Then come in please, and we will discuss them. I’m sure something can be worked out.”
“First of all, who are you?”
“Phillipe Marquand,” the swarthy man said. He was built like a Sherman tank. “Are you presently carrying a weapon?”
“No,” McGarvey said. Marquand was with the SDECE.
“Then it is only the one automatic pistol which we have found in your apartment-for which you apparently have no French permit to carry-that you own. Is that correct?”
“I would like to speak to Tom Lynch at my embassy.”
“In due time, Monsieur. First you and I will have a little chat.”
“Monday…
“Now. By Monday you will be out of France in good health, I assure you. That is, if you cooperate.”
“There’s nothing I can tell you, Colonel. If you know who Tom Lynch is, and what I was, then you will understand.”
“Ah, but you have it wrong,” the SDECE colonel said. “I don’t have many questions for you, rather it is I who am going to answer your questions.”
McGarvey’s eyes narrowed, and Marquand smiled.
“The man’s name was Karl Boorsch, and he had been a field officer for the East German Secret Service. Both facts you know, of course.
But what you may not know is that Boorsch had help, a great deal of help, and a great deal of money.”
“What do you want from me?” McGarvey asked.
“Your help in tracking them down and eliminating them, of course.”
BOOK TWO
Chapter 14