“Just what’s that supposed to mean… Ryan said, but Murphy cut him off.
“Even if he was working for us, would you expect me to pass such a message to him?”
Murphy asked.
“Yes,” Kathleen said. “And in exactly those words. Shall I repeat them?”
Murphy stared at her for a long second, but then shook his head. “It’s not necessary.”
“Well?” she asked.
“I’ll do what I can. But let me ask you something. Do you believe that you are in some danger?”
Kathleen was startled. It was exactly what she believed because of the warning she’d received, but hearing it here was disquieting. “Am I in some danger, General?” she asked, keeping her true feelings out of her voice.
“No,” Murphy said. “No more than any of us are who live in Washington.”
“Somehow that’s no comfort,” Kathleen said rising. “See that Kirk gets that message.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Murphy said.
“That was some cryptic message,” Murphy said when Carrara returned from escorting Kathleen downstairs. “Any thoughts on it, Phil?”
“Well, besides his ex-wife, he’s got a daughter attending school in Switzerland, and a sister, her husband and a couple of kids out west somewhere. Utah, I think.
Mother and father are dead. And so far as I know there’s no one else.”
“What’d she say to you on the way downstairs?” Ryan asked.
“Nothing. Not a word.”
“What about this daughter in Switzerland?” Murphy asked. “Could there be any connection between her and Lausanne? Do you think Spranger’s people might go after her?”
Carrara shook his head. “There’s no reason for them to believe at this moment that McGarvey is investigating them. And of course after what’s happened in Tokyo, he might have his hands full over there for the foreseeable future.”
“Any word from him yet?”
“Nothing,” Carrara said. “But what about his ex-wife’s request? We’re not going to send that sort of a message to him, are we?”
“Of course not,” the DCI replied. “But what was the hidden message?”
“Maybe there wasn’t one. From what I understand McGarvey was on his way here in any event to try to get back together with her.”
Ryan sniggered.
“You believe she wants him back?”
“It may be nothing more than that.”
“Why did she come out here then?” Murphy asked.
“She’s a bright woman, General. We showed up at her house looking for Kirk, and he suddenly disappears. We either arrested him, or sent him off on assignment. She’s seen the precedents.”
“Have her followed,” Ryan suggested.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Carrara said. “As I say, she’s an intelligent woman. If she were to get wind that we were watching her, she could raise a stink.
She knows half of Washington.”
“For the moment I’m going to go along with Phil,” Murphy said. “But I think I’ll have the Bureau put a tap on her telephone. Just for the next few days or so. If she makes any kind of a move, we’ll step in.”
“We shouldn’t have any problems with that,” Ryan said. “I can make a decent case of the request, considering what McGarvey is doing. Might take twenty-four hours though.”
“See to it, Howard. But I want to come back to my original question. Her message was cryptic. Does she know something? Did Kirk tell her some of his little secrets?
Or is it possible after all that someone has gotten to her?”
“Do you mean the East Germans?” Carrara asked.
“Or the Japanese.”
“It’s possible.”
“A soft kidnapping,” Murphy said. “Get a message to your husband, Mrs. McGarvey.
Tell him to back off or we’ll come after you.”
“As I say, General, it’s possible,” Carrara answered.
“I’m not asking that, Phil. Anything is possible. What I am asking you, is it probable?”
Carrara shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“She would have screamed bloody murder.”
Murphy looked away. “Maybe she did, and we didn’t listen.”
Chapter 33
Elizabeth McGarvey emerged from the Bern Design Polytechnic’s Residence Hall Picasso a few minutes after five in the afternoon and unlocked her twelve-speed mountain bike from its rack. The lake air was pleasantly cool and fresh on her bare arms.
At nineteen, Elizabeth was a slender, long-legged young woman with what a former boyfriend had called an “interesting” face of pleasant angles, high cheekbones, a delicately formed nose, a full, almost pouty lower lip and large, brilliantly green eyes that looked at the world with keen intelligence and a hint of amusement. She had her mother’s beauty, and her father’s spirit. A devastating combination of which she was inwardly proud.
In high school in the States she had done poorly, partly because she was bored, and partly because she’d come from a broken home. When her father had showed up last year, and her mother had not rejected him out of hand, she had blossomed. Life had become important. There was so much to be learned in the world; so much to be grasped, so much to see and do and be, that at times she could barely control her enthusiasms.
She was learning design, everything from fine arts to ergonomics, here outside of Bern near Lac de Neuchatel, and loving every second of it.
“Going into town again?” someone asked behind her.
She turned around as Armand Armonde, one of her fine arts instructors, came up. He’d had a thing for her since January when she’d started in his oil and acrylics class.
“Get your bicycle and join me,” she said. “It’s barely five klicks.”
“I’d prefer to drive, ma cherie. May I give you a lift?”
“I need the exercise. But you can buy me a cognac at the Hansa Haus.”
Armonde was a devastatingly good-looking Parisian, who at thirty still hadn’t lost his boyish charm. “And then what?” he asked, pleasantly.
Elizabeth grinned. “I go to the boutique to buy a pair of nylons, then get back on my bicycle and return here. I have a ton of homework, remember?”
“Better yet, we could have dinner together, and afterward return to my studio where I would help you with your work.”
“My daddy taught me never to mix pleasure with business, especially if your business is important to you. My studies are.”
“A wise man?”
“The wisest,” she said. All her life she’d made up quotes which she attributed to her father whenever she figured the situation warranted it. After so many years she’d come to believe them.
“But then you cannot continue your studies, as you have been, twelve months of the year. Sooner or later you will take a holiday and I will be there.”
“I might take you up on it,” Elizabeth said. “In the meantime, a simple cognac?”
Armonde nodded. “Of course.”
“See you in town then,” she said, mounting her bike, and she took off down the hill, her long hair streaming behind her in the wind.
Past the tall iron gates guarding the school property, the narrow driveway ran down to a macadam country lane into the small town of Estavayer-le-lac. Now, in the summer, the town was busy with tourists, but in the winter the entire countryside became almost monastic. The changes in season and population suited Elizabeth. In the past few years she’d lived with her mother’s constant striving for recognition, which in Washington meant a steady stream of cocktail parties and dinners, with hardly a normal evening. If her mother was home, the house was filled with guests. If the house was quiet, her mother was gone.
Elizabeth craved normalcy, craved routine. And, she supposed, she craved acceptance.