Kathleen’s nostrils flared in anger. “I suppose it would be futile of me to try and talk you out of whatever you’re going to do this morning.”
“They tried twice, Katy. And both times a lot of good people got hurt. It’s not going to happen a third time.”
Kathleen touched his weather-beaten cheek. “Now that you’ve started to come back into my life, I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” McGarvey said, and they embraced. Mixed with his rage was a sense of wonder that he had allowed all these years to pass without her. Empty, senseless years.
“Take care of yourself, my darling,” Kathleen whispered in his ear.
He gave her an extra hug, kissed his daughter again, then walked down the hall to where Rencke was working on the computer.
“I’m going out to Morningside.”
“They might not be there,” Rencke said. He looked terrible, his eyes red and puffy.
“You’re probably right,” McGarvey said. He sincerely hoped that Rencke was wrong.
“I’m only giving you a couple hours, Mac. If I haven’t heard anything by then I’m telling Fred Rudolph about Kmart. I don’t care what you say.”
McGarvey had to smile. “Fair enough. Did you load the disk?”
“Yeah. I’ll bring it over to Liz as soon as I’m finished here. I set up a search program for Joseph Lee. Guys like him just don’t disappear. Sooner or later he’ll make contact with someone and I’ll find out about it.”
McGarvey nodded. “You know the score, Otto. Cover your tracks.”
Rencke grinned like a kid at Christmas. “They won’t even know I’ve been there.” He got serious. “It’s payback time, and I can’t blame you. But watch your ass, will ya?”
“Count on it.”
Kajiyama came back to the van in a big hurry and climbed in the front passenger seat. “Get us out of here,” he told the commando behind the wheel.
“What’s wrong?” Kondo demanded, though he’d half expected that something else would go wrong tonight. He sat in the back with the other commando, all that was left of his team.
“Somebody’s watching the airplane, that’s what.” Kajiyama was practically jumping out of his skin.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. Kondo nodded for him to do as Kajiyama asked, and they headed out.
“Calm down. Who is watching the airplane?”
“I don’t bloody well know,” Kajiyama blurted. “They’re parked on the apron just across from the Gulfstream. Government plates.” Kajiyama turned and looked back. “The woman knew your name. No wonder they know about the plane. They have you connected with Mr. Lee, so now there’s no way out for you. No way out for any of us, because of some stupid blunder you made. Someone probably saw you hanging around with Croft at the Hay Adams and made the ID.”
“We weren’t going to fly out until morning in any event.” Kondo needed time to think out their next moves. “We’ll go back to Morningside just as we planned—”
“You knew that something like this was going to happen,” Kajiyama shouted. “It’s why you wanted to come out here first, to see if they’d already made the connection.”
“That’s correct, Kajiyama-san,” Kondo said patiently. “That’s also why I didn’t kill Sandy Patterson when you wanted me to do it. The Gulfstream may no longer be an option for us. But she will provide us with another.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll work it out if you don’t lose your head like a stupid gai-jin.”
“It is you who are stupid. We failed, hasn’t that sunk in? Or have you already worked out who you will blame when you talk to Joseph Lee? If you have the chance to talk to him.”
Only a supreme effort of willpower and self-discipline stopped Kondo from pulling out his pistol and killing the man then and there. There was still an outside chance that they might get to the Gulfstream, and Kajiyama was their only remaining pilot. “We will work it out. And when we return home, both of us will make our reports to Mr. Lee. It is I who will take the blame, not you.”
“What’s your situation out there?” FBI Director Pierone demanded.
“The CIA got chewed up pretty badly this time,” Rudolph replied. “But they’ve agreed to let us take over the investigation.”
“Considering the circumstances, they don’t have much of a choice.”
“They’re blaming us because of the Web site screwup. But they had some of their best people out here, and still they missed guarding against the one thing that would have saved them. Frankly I don’t know if we would have done any better, but it’s in our lap now. And there’s a connection between this attack and the Georgetown bombing through the Far East Trade Association. Looks like one of their people arranged for the helicopter the State boys found on the other side of the river. And I’m pretty sure that we’ll come up with IDs on some of the terrorists tying them to Joseph Lee or one of his companies.”
“What’s the point, Fred?” Pierone asked. “Are you any closer to finding out why they want Kirk McGarvey dead? I’ve got to tell the President something. Presumably the CIA has kept him up to speed on its investigation. But I’ve got nothing to report. In the meantime the media is flooding our switchboard.”
“I don’t think McGarvey knows much more than we do,” Rudolph said. “At least he’s not saying anything to me, if he does. I guess the key is finding Joseph Lee and interviewing him. But as long as he remains in hiding in Japan there isn’t much we can do except run down every lead we come across. We might get lucky and find the rest of the terrorists before they get out of the country.”
“If they’re Lee’s people they might use his private jet.”
“It’s being watched,” Rudolph said.
“Okay. I want to see you in my office at nine o’clock, along with Jack Hailey and Tom Moulton. Maybe we can start making some sense of this.” Hailey was SAC for the District of Columbia, and Moulton was chief of the Bureau’s Anti-Terrorism Unit. Both good men.
“See you then, Mr. Director,” Rudolph said, and he broke the connection. Almost immediately he got another call, this one from Otto Rencke at CIA headquarters.
“Do you have a pencil and paper?”
“Just a minute.” Rudolph cradled the cell phone and took out a notebook and pen. “Go ahead.”
“Have you traced the helicopter yet?”
“The helicopter was leased by someone at Far East Trade, but we’re still working on the boat. Did McGarvey ask you to call me?”
“Do you know about the car and two vans they’re using?”
“No.”
Rencke rattled off the makes and models of the car and vans, and the three license numbers. “Get that over to the Maryland Highway Patrol, maybe they’ll get lucky.”
“Where are they going? They must have a base of operations somewhere close. Do you know where it is?”
“Do you still have your pencil out?” Rencke asked.
“Yes, go ahead.”
Rencke gave him three names, one of whom Rudolph recognized as a Bureau computer programmer. “They’re all pals of Sandy Patterson’s. They all knew about the Cropley safe house. And they all had access to the Bureau’s Web site.”
“How the hell did you find that, Rencke?”
“There’ll be a few other names of Bureau people who fed information to Tony Croft. When this is over you should probably think about cleaning house.”
“I want to talk to McGarvey—” Rudolph said, but he was talking to no one. Rencke had broken the connection.
For a moment he stood there vexed, but then he tore off the slip with the three license numbers, walked over to one of the Maryland Highway Patrol officers and gave it to him.