I’m going upstairs to change.” True to form, Kathleen had laid out his clothes; boat shoes, white slacks and a colorful Hawaiian print shirt.
She’d also laid out a jacket for the trip to the airport. He felt faintly foolish putting on summer clothes while snow was falling, but when he was dressed his mood was lighter than it had been all week. He found that he was looking forward to the weekend for his own sake. He transferred his Walther to an ankle holster strapped to his right leg under his slacks. When he put his foot down and turned around, Kathleen, snow still clinging to her Hermes scarf, was at the door, looking at him, an intense expression on her face. “Is that necessary?” she asked. She sounded winded, as if she had just finished jogging a couple of miles. “Considering what I am, yes, it is, Katy.”
“Kathleen,” she corrected. But then she smiled and shook her head.
“There I go again.” She came to him and they embraced. “Sorry, darling,” she said. “It’s all right. Old habits die hard. For both of us.” She shivered. “Come on, Katy,” McGarvey said. “We’re going to have a great weekend.” She looked up and squared her shoulders.
“You’re right,” she said. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll be ready.”
“I’ll check to make sure that we’re locked up.” “Does Dick have to come with us?” “It’d be tough trying to get rid of him,” McGarvey told her. “Having a bodyguard is part of the job.” “I suppose,” she said.
McGarvey stopped at the door. “Did you get your errands done?” “I went to church,” Katy muttered. “What?” “I didn’t think that I’d be so late. Father Vietski heard my confession. No big deal.” McGarvey came back to her. “Are you afraid to fly? We don’t have to go to St.
John. We can take the train to Florida and have just as relaxed a time.” “No, it’s all right. I’ve never been to the islands.” “Are you sure?” he asked. She nodded. “One hundred percent,” she said. She gave him a reassuring smile. “Now, get out of here so I can change.”
The moment they lifted off from Andrews Air Force Base and broke out into the bright sunlight on top of the low deck of snow clouds, Kathleen’s mood took a dramatic swing. She became bright and animated, as if she were onstage even though she was playing to a very small audience. The Gulfstream VIP jet, one of several that the CIA used, was a navy aircraft, maintained and operated by naval personnel. Their captain was Lt. Cmdr. Frank White, a veteran of the Gulf War and the Bosnian peacekeeping operation. He was only forty-seven but looked much older because his hair was perfectly white. He smiled with his eyes and handled the airplane as if it were a toy in his capable hands.
His copilot, Lt. Rody Johnson, was a short-timer. He was going to work for Delta Airlines in the spring. Their flight attendant was Ens.
Judy Dietrich, a blond German from Milwaukee, who looked fifteen but was in fact in her thirties, married and the mother of three boys. As soon as they were at cruising altitude and heading southeast out over the Atlantic, Ensign Dietrich offered them drinks. Yemm stuck with Pepsi, but Kathleen asked for Dom Perignon. “We’re on vacation, and the government is paying for it, so why not live a little,” she said.
The remark was uncharacteristic. McGarvey could see a sharp edge of tension at the corners of her eyes and mouth. “Maybe you should wait until we get on the ground,” he suggested. She waved him off airily.
“Nonsense. It’s going to be a lovely weekend. You said so yourself.”
“Are you a little nervous about flying, Mrs. McGarvey?” Ensign Dietrich asked under her breath as she poured the champagne.
“Absolutely petrified.” “Would you like something ”
“The champagne is fine, thank you,” Kathleen said. “But tell the captain to get us there posthaste if he would.” McGarvey took a glass of champagne and sat back. “We’ll be in the islands in time for dinner.” “Let’s eat out.
I feel like I’ve been in jail for the past month.” McGarvey glanced at Yemm, who shrugged. “There’s a nice place in Frenchtown on St. Thomas.
We can have dinner there before we take the ferry over.”
“Do we have to dress?” “Not in the islands,” McGarvey told his wife.
“That’s the whole point.” “Because if we have to dress, we’re in trouble,” Kathleen said as if she hadn’t heard him. “I didn’t bring any good clothes. Just shorts and swimming suits and summer clothes.”
She sounded almost manic. “That’s fine, Katy,” McGarvey said. “I thought that if the restaurant in Frenchtown is nice, we might feel out of place dressed like this.” She wore a soft yellow maillot over which she had put on a linen skirt, sandals and a scarf around her neck. She looked like a model in a Club Med commercial. “You look great, Mrs.
M.,” Yemm said. Kathleen dismissed him with a gesture. “You know that we have to be careful. Because of the hearings. Everybody in Washington is watching us.” “Not where we’re going,” McGarvey said.
“And even if they are, it doesn’t matter.” Kathleen shook her head.
“It might not matter to you, Kirk. But appearances matter to just about everyone else in Washington.” She smiled at Ensign Dietrich, who stood in the galley separating the main cabin from the cockpit. “Women know more about these things than men do.” She was verging on the edge of hysteria. “Bill Clinton and his two-hundred-dollar haircut.” She laughed. “Jimmy Carter and the killer rabbit, or his ridiculous Playboy interview. Lust in his heart, indeed.” She laughed again and turned to her husband. “Do you remember Darby Yarnell, darling?” It was a name out of the clear blue sky, and there was a clutch at his heart. He nodded. “That was the old days.” Yarnell, who had worked for the CIA in the fifties and sixties, had been a two-term senator from New York. He had been one of the people responsible for getting McGarvey burned after Santiago. He had been brought down during the Donald Powers investigation, and had been shot to death in front of the DCIs residence a million years ago. McGarvey could feel the pistol in his hands. Feel the recoil as he fired three shots at the man he thought was a traitor. Killing him. He closed his eyes for a moment, and he could see the image in the surveillance camera trained on Yarnell’s Georgetown house. The third-story bedroom window. Kathleen was there in YarneU’s arms. It was an image that was etched in his brain. Of course the final blow came when they realized that Yarnell wasn’t a traitor after all. But the man had caused a lot of damage.
Ruined a lot of people because of his arrogance, his cocksure attitude that his was the only vision. “It was before you came back from Switzerland the first time,” she said. “Darby was part of the in crowd, and I was trying to storm the gates, as my father would say.”
“He hurt a lot of people,” McGarvey said. “That’s my point,” Kathleen countered, and McGarvey had no earthly idea where she was going with the story, or why she had brought YarnelTs name up. “I don’t understand.” “He was the one man at the time in Washington for whom appearances meant everything. And yet he was the only man I ever met who apparently didn’t need to care. Everything he did was perfect. His house was perfectly decorated. The clothes he wore were perfect; his shoes were always shined, his cologne wasn’t overpowering and his parties were the best in the city. He spoke a half-dozen languages, he could quote Shakespeare, and there wasn’t a restaurant or private collection in Washington that had a better wine cellar than his.” “I still don’t understand.” “Why, appearances mean everything,” she said, as if she were telling him a universal truth that everyone instinctively knew. “He was a spy, after all. And a bastard. Yet everyone in Washington, including me, thought that he was perfect. We were drawn to him like moths to a flame.” She gave her husband a wistful smile. “That’s what’s important in Washington, don’t you see, my darling? It doesn’t matter if you’re the best DCI ever to sit on the seventh floor if Washington doesn’t accept your appearance. It doesn’t matter if you’re good; the only thing that matters is if you look like you’re right for the job.” McGarvey forced a smile. “I don’t really care ”