Just standing in the same room with him gave you a confidence you never had before. And when Mac patted you on the shoulder and told you that you did good, it was like a frosty pitcher of cream and a plate of Twinkies. It didn’t get any better. But Mac was drawn again and again back to Washington. So Washington had become Rencke’s magnet because Mac was a friend and because Mac believed in him. Mac had given him the legitimacy that he had searched for all of his life. Rencke had a place.
The helicopter touched down at the far end of the cul-de-sac just long enough to drop Rencke off. He turned away as it rose into the blowing snow and peeled off to the south. There were police cars, fire rescue units, two ambulances and a dozen civilian vehicles choking the street.
All of them had their red or blue lights flashing. The effect was surreal in the snow. Police tactical radios were blaring, and there had to be at least fifty uniformed cops along with FBI agents in blue-stenciled parkas and a lot of civilians, most of whom were CIA security officers. Rencke made his way over to the remains of the van and the burned-out shell of the DCI’s limo. The Bureau’s forensics people were sifting through the wreckage, finding and removing bodies and body parts. Flash cameras were going off all over the place. A Montgomery County sheriffs deputy intercepted Rencke. “Let me see some ID.” Rencke held up his CIA card, and the cop shined a flashlight on it, comparing Rencke’s face to the photograph. “Mr. McGarvey’s over in his driveway,” the cop said. Rencke mumbled his thanks and skirted the people and equipment gathered around the remains of the van. It was probably one of the onstation vehicles they’d used to stand watches in front of the house. The explosive device that had destroyed it had been very powerful. There was debris all across the cul-de-sac and up in people’s front yards. The force of the blast had been enough to partially destroy the limo parked several yards away. Looking at the wreckage of the scene reminded him of what the aftermath pictures of the chopper explosion in the Virgin Islands looked like. McGarvey stood at the end of his driveway with a group of CIA security people, a MHP captain and the FBI’s Fred Rudolph. They looked up as Rencke approached. “Where’s Mrs. M.?” Otto asked, unable to contain himself any longer. McGarvey smiled tiredly and laid a comforting hand on Rencke’s arm. “She’s okay. She’s inside, and there’s somebody with her.” “Oh, wow, I was really scared, ya know.” Rencke glanced over his shoulder at the technicians and security people working around the van. “Where’s Dick?”
“He didn’t make it. He’s dead,” McGarvey said. “He got caught in the explosion.” “Who else?” Rencke asked. His throat was constricting.
“Janis and Peggy, and a couple of guys from Security. Looks like they had been shot to death before we arrived. Then the van was booby-trapped. Whoever it was drove a dark blue Mercedes.” Rencke closed his eyes. He was sick at his stomach. He felt like a traitor.
Dick Yemm had been on his short list of suspects. He and his Beltway computer friend, who was ex-KGB.” “We’re heading to the safe house in the morning,” McGarvey said. “Why not now?” Rudolph interjected.
“Not in the dark,” McGarvey told him. “And not until we can get everybody calmed down.” “We’ll set a trap,” Rencke said. “You and I, Mac, wherever it leads. We’ll set a trap. Cause I know…” “You know what?” McGarvey asked sharply. He was concerned, troubled, even a little apprehensive. Rencke had never seen that kind of a look on Mac’s face before. It frightened him badly. He stumbled back a pace, confused now by all the lights and movement. He felt like a moth that was fatally caught in the light of a very powerful flame. A seductive flame. He was being drawn to his destruction. “We’ll do it, Mac,” he cried in anguish. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his long, frizzy red hair whipped wildly in the wind, and his jacket was open, revealing his dirty MIT sweatshirt. He began hopping from one foot to the other The cops and security people watched him in open amazement. He was a spectacle. He looked up and spotted a pale, round face in an upstairs window for just a moment before it disappeared. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he muttered.
THIRTY-FOUR. THE 23RD PSALM
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways I to die and you to live. Which is better God only knows.
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away … A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.
WEDNESDAY
THIRTY-FIVE
“VAS HA WAS FAMOUS FOR SPREADING LIES AND DISUNITY LIKE ROSE PETALS ON FRESH GRAVES. HE ALWAYS MANAGED TO INCLUDE THE THORNS.”
Six miles above the unforgiving winter ocean, Otto Rencke tried to put a cap on his fear. The cabin aboard the Company’s VIP Gulfstream was luxurious compared to the cramped cockpit of the Aurora. But the jet was slow, and Rencke was impatient. The only light came from the open cockpit door. It was four in the morning, and the crew thought that he was sleeping. They left him alone, which is what he wanted, what he needed, so that he could put his thoughts in order. Nikolayev was the key to the puzzle. Otto had known it almost from the very beginning, in August, when the KGB psychiatrist had walked away from Moscow. Some premonition, some inner voice, something inside of his gut started telling him that there was an operation brewing. Sometimes they started that way. A spy drops out of sight. Classified records turn up missing. The authorities in the host country pick up their heads and the hunt begins.
But he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure, so he brought Elizabeth into his confidence. She was in the middle of researching her father’s old files for his CIA biography, so she had become something of an expert on the subject. Nikolayev was an old man, a name out of the Baranov past. He had been a Department Viktor man, which meant that he knew about ruthlessness. And he was suddenly a loose cannon. But he had not dropped out of sight inside Russia, something that was apparently quite easy to do these days. He had come to the West, first to establish a safe haven for himself, then to make contact with the CIA. He had used a supposedly anonymous re mailer to send a sample of his information to the address that Rencke had provided. But it was just a sample. Tantalizing. A glimpse into Baranov’s mind, a mad genius from the past. But useless in terms of finding out who was gunning for McGarvey. Rencke looked at his hands, which were shaking.
He had gone without sleep for a couple of days now, living mostly on Cokes and on black beauties. Another day or so, and he would crash. It was inevitable. Baranov, according to Nikolayev, had set up Network Martyrs, which was a group of sleeper agents in the States. That had been more than twenty years ago. When the time was right for a particular unit of the network to accomplish its task, he would be awakened. One of Network Martyrs sleepers had been reactivated. The target was McGarvey. But after that brief message, Nikolayev no longer responded. He didn’t answer his e-mails. Nor did he reply to Rencke’s queries at the letter drops in Paris that he had established to initiate the first contact. It could be something so simple as Nikolayev’s own death. Perhaps the SVR had found him after all and put a bullet in his brain. Or perhaps he had died of a heart attack; he was an old man. The real mystery were the misdirections, if that’s what they were. If McGarvey was the target of Network Martyrs, and if the sleeper assassin had been awakened, by whatever means, then why hadn’t a simple, straightforward attempt been made on the DCI’s life?