I’ll get Security on getting you back here. Does she know what happened to her?” “If you mean about the bindings being rigged, no. I haven’t told her yet.” “That’s okay for now. But she’ll have to be debriefed when you get back. She might have heard or seen something.”
“I’ll bring the phone to her,” Todd said. Yemm was grim-lipped, as if he was the bearer of more bad news. There didn’t seem to be any end to it. Elizabeth came on the line. She sounded sleepy, distant; she was drifting. “Hello, Daddy. I want to come home now.” If McGarvey could have reached through the telephone to cradle his baby in his arms and pull her back to him he would have done it. “You’re coming home in the morning, sweetheart. How do you feel?” “Achy,” she said. “And tired,” she added after a longish pause. “Get some rest, Liz. Do what the doctor tells you to do, and you’ll be home in the morning.” The line was dead for a moment or two. “Daddy?” Elizabeth said in a tiny voice. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry ”
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” McGarvey soothed. “Everything will be okay, I promise you. Your mother and I love you very much. Don’t forget that.” “That’s enough,” Todd came back on the line. He sounded matter-of-fact, not angry. “Take care of her, Todd,” McGarvey said. “And yourself. We’ll see you in the morning.” “We’re going to find out who did this.” “Count on it “
“There’ll be no trial, Dad,” Todd said, his voice harsh. “No trial.”
He broke the connection, and McGarvey hung up.
“How are they doing, boss?” Yemm asked. It took a moment for him to come back. “They’ll be coming home in the morning. Send a Gulfstream.” “We’ll get it out there this afternoon so it’ll be standing by when they’re ready,” Yemm said. “I found Otto. Or at least I found out where he got himself off to. He went to France.
Commandeered an Aurora and took off from Andrews yesterday afternoon.
Late. He logged the flight to what he called Special Operation Spotlight. I checked. There is no such operation.” The Aurora was the air force’s new spy plane, replacing the SR71 Blackbird. It flew to the edge of space at Mach 7. Based in New Mexico, it had been a very black project. Damned few people knew that it existed or that it was operational. “Where’d it land?” “Pontoise. The French air force base outside of Paris,” Yemm said. “We’re still trying to unravel how he got the clearances not only from the French, but from our own air force.” “Is he still there?” “The airplane is,” Yemm said. “The French don’t know what to make of it, and I didn’t think that it was such a good idea to make a fuss. It’s better to go along with him for now.” “I’ll have Dave Whittaker call the Paris station to be on the lookout for him. Any idea what he’s doing over there? Specifically?”
“NikolayeVs name comes to mind,” Yemm replied. He was having a hard time of it. Something was bothering him. “Otto got the Colorado search up and running. Chris Walker in the Ops Center logged Otto’s heads-up last night. It looks like Otto initiated his own Ex Comms under both Elizabeth’s and Todd’s work names. And he found them before Ops did. Then he phoned Mrs. M.” McGarvey fought down his fear. It wasn’t Otto who called the house. Nor had it been Otto in the computer center or in Dr. Stenzel’s office. A different personality had taken up residence in Otto’s body, and the implications that followed were nothing short of staggering. “We’ve pulled his files,” Yemm was saying. “Leastways the ones he hasn’t blocked out.” He averted his eyes. He was embarrassed. It was something new. “We’ve also looked at Stenzel’s report. The whole file on Otto, which goes back about twenty years.” “He’s done a lot of good things for the CIA.” “Yes, sir. But we think that he might be losing it. Stenzel agrees.” Yemm chose his words with care. “If that’s the case, then he could be a danger. At the very least he’s got the DO’s mainframe screwed up pretty good. And he’s running some kind of a maverick operation on his own.” “The old KGB. Nikolayev and Department Viktor.” “Yeah,” Yemm said. “The assassination squads.” The whispering was there again.
The nagging little voices at the back of McGarvey’s consciousness.
There was nothing he could put his finger on. Nothing concrete; all the more disturbing because of the vagueness. Was it a monster coming after them? In their midst? Coming to scratch at Katy’s sanity.
Coming to kill them all? “Otto was wearing his seat belt,” Yemm said, before McGarvey could give voice to that one objection. “He never used it before, by his own admission.” “He was worried ”
“I’m sorry, boss, but we gotta keep going on this one. Unless you order me to stop.”
McGarvey turned away and looked out the windows. Otto and Louise had been the only guests at the wedding except for Todd and Elizabeth.
Kathleen had taken him aside and straightened his bow tie, then given him a kiss on a freshly scrubbed cheek. “He cleans up good,” Louise said. She was proud of him. “Indeed he does,” Kathleen had replied.
There was just a moment there, an instant when everything had been absolute perfection. “Do it,” he told Yemm. He turned around. “But walk lightly, Dick. If he’s done nothing wrong, I don’t want him banged up. He’s having a hard enough time as it is. And if he’s guilty, he’ll be watching for someone to come after him. He’s capable of doing a lot of damage to the Agency. A lot of damage.” Yemm shook his head. “I think it stinks, too, boss. Big-time.”
TWENTY-FIVE
HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS FIGHTING NOW. AND FOR WHOM. IT WAS AS IF A VEIL HAD BEEN LIFTED FROM HIS EYES.
The limousine that carried McGarvey into the city from fortress CIA in the woods was a soft gray leather and smoked glass cocoon. As one crossed the river on the Roosevelt Bridge the Lincoln Memorial was off to the right, and the massive granite pile of the State Department was to the left. One hundred fifty years ago Lincoln dealt with a divided nation. Today State dealt with a divided world, and the director of Central Intelligence was supposed to be the one with all the answers.
Since a week ago Sunday his world had been turned upside down. They were under a siege mentality. Nothing was getting done. They were merely reacting to whatever came their way. And he was just as bad as everyone else. In the old days he had picked up his tent and run. In the past week he had surrounded his tent with what he hoped was an impregnable wall and hunkered down.
It was time to fight back. McGarvey straightened up as they worked their way through traffic on Constitution Avenue, and he glanced over at Paterson, who was reading something. Murphy had set great stock by the Agency’s new general counsel, and to this point McGarvey had not been disappointed with the man. But Paterson was an outsider, and that’s how he wanted to keep it. At one point he’d explained to Murphy that defense attorneys work with killers, but didn’t live their lives.
“I’ll help keep the CIA in compliance with the law, but I’ll never be a spy.” It struck McGarvey all at once that with Kathleen hospitalized he had no one to confide in. Larry Danielle, who’d worked his way all the way up from a job as a field officer with the OSS during World War II, to head the Directorate of Operations, and finally ended his long career as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, had been McGarvey’s rudder, a steady hand, an intelligent, sympathetic ear. Almost a father figure since McGarvey’s parents were dead. He’d never once told McGarvey what to do, or even how to do it. But he’d always been there, waiting in the corridor, or getting in his car in the parking lot, or getting a sandwich in the Agency’s cafeteria, to give a word of encouragement or advice. Danielle’s favorite lines were: Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Slow down before and after an operation, but when you find yourself in the middle of the fray, my boy, then go hell-bent for leather. Very often it’ll be the only way you can preserve your life. Develop the ability to surround yourself with friends and lovers, but trust no one. If you can’t juggle that lot without driving yourself insane, then get out of the business.