Maybe back to Pakistan as the Messiah. It would be dangerous but exciting. Revenge came in many different guises.
Perhaps he would go to ground instead. Fight back in a different way, just as Snowden had done. Could be he would become someone else’s hero.
He’d never had any belief in fate, though he understood the concept. What happened was of your own making.
Haaris came through the doors, the cell phone in his left hand.
McGarvey stepped forward and batted the phone out of his hand, sending it skittering across the floor facedown. “It’s over now, David.”
“Fuck you,” Haaris shouted. He rolled forward, shoving McGarvey against the concrete wall.
McGarvey’s damaged hip went numb, but leaning into Haaris for balance, he slammed a knee into the man’s groin.
Falling back, Haaris managed to grab Mac’s pistol, but before he could bring it to bear, McGarvey fell forward with him, twisting the pistol away and sending it sliding across the floor.
Their bodies intertwined, they fell down hard, Haaris banging the back of his head on the floor, and McGarvey further damaging his hip, a very sharp, nearly incapacitating pain shooting up his spine.
Haaris managed to get himself free, roll away and get to his feet. He reached inside his still-buttoned suit coat as McGarvey got up and lurched forward, landing a roundhouse punch to the man’s face.
Blood suddenly gushed from Haaris’s nose. Dazed, he stumbled backward just out of McGarvey’sreach as he pulled the Glock out of its shoulder holster.
“It’s not over until I say so,” he shouted, a wild smile on his face.
He started to raise his pistol when he was suddenly flung forward, the pistol dropping to the floor the moment before he felt his face bouncing off the concrete, a small hole at the back of his skull oozing blood and brain matter.
Pete stood in the doorway, in the classic shooter’s stance, half squatting, the pistol in a two-handed grip, a crazy look in her eyes.
McGarvey turned without a word and went to Haaris’s phone. He stared at the display for a long beat, not wanting to comprehend what he was seeing. The number was ringing. Either Haaris had pushed the speed dial before he’d dropped the phone, or when it had hit the floor, facedown, the button had been pushed.
“It’s ringing,” Pete said just behind him. “But the bombs didn’t go off.”
McGarvey looked up at the coffins, with their radiological warnings. “He out-thought himself,” he said. “In case the bombs leaked. The coffins were lined with lead. The phone signal couldn’t get through.”
EPILOGUE
At the Blessed Savior Anglican Church Cemetery outside London, Charlie Wilde and Manley Stroud used a small front-end loader to guide the aluminum coffin into the grave. It had been shipped here from Pakistan and was marked with the radiological caution symbol and warnings.
The military hadn’t wanted a thing to do with it, nor had any family come to claim the body.
“Bloody heavy thing,” Wilde said as he picked up a shovel and began filling the grave.
“Lined with lead, I suppose,” Stroud agreed, pitching in with the shoveling. “Even if it was my aunt Myrtle I don’t think I would have wanted to come here to claim her. Rest in peace, I always said. Rest in peace.”
At the kitchen counter in the Rencke’s safe house, four-year-old Audi, sitting between her grampyfather Kirk and Miss Petey, was beside herself with happiness. “My boys at the Farm were fun and all,” she said. “But this is infinite better.”
They all laughed, but Otto and Louise were beaming so hard they could scarcely contain themselves. “Something, isn’t she?” Otto said.
“You two are doing good,” McGarvey said.
“Okay, Miss Rencke, time for bed,” Louise said, taking the girl by the hand. “Say good night.”
After hugs and kisses all around Louise took her upstairs and when she got back, she opened a second bottle of Valpolicella as Otto was taking the baby lamb chops out of the marinade, ready to put them on the grill.
“I’ve been meaning to bring something up,” Pete said.
“Things are finally settling down between Pakistan and India,” McGarvey said. “So hopefully this has nothing to do with work.”
“No, but related. Has to do with a promise made to me.”
McGarvey didn’t have a clue, but Otto and Louise knew.
“Quote: ‘If there’s going to be any future for us, you’ll’—meaning me—‘will have to start listening to me’—meaning you. ‘At least every now and then.’”
“I was under duress,” McGarvey said, remembering every word.
“I don’t know,” Otto said. “We’ve been friends for a long time now, and I’ve never seen you rat out on a promise.”
“This is different,” McGarvey said.
“Coward,” Louise told him.
“Damned right.”
“How about a Rémy?” she asked. “Will that help?”
“A little, I suppose,” McGarvey said, and despite the complications he knew damned well would follow, and despite the fear that would ride with him like a tremendous weight on his shoulders, he figured that he hadn’t been this happy in a very, very long time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Hagberg is a former U.S. Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than seventy novels of suspense, including Blood Pact, Retribution, and the bestselling Allah’s Scorpion, Dance with the Dragon, and The Expediter. He makes his home in Sarasota, Florida.