Retribution (9781429922593)

by Hagberg, David

  “Twenty-four hours?”

  “Plenty of time.”

  “I’ll give you my encrypted cell phone number.”

  “I already have it,” Otto said.

  ELEVEN

  Kirk Cullough McGarvey, Mac to his friends, ran along the river in Georgetown’s Rock Creek Park just at sunrise. He was a man of about fifty, in superb physical condition from years of heavy workouts, long swims, weight training, and fencing at épée with the Annapolis navy team when he was in town. A little under six feet, a little under two hundred pounds, he could still move as gracefully as a ballet dancer if the need arose. Which it often had during a long career with the CIA.

  A few other joggers, some walkers, and other folks on bicycles used the park just about every decent morning, and several of them recognizing McGarvey waved or simply nodded, but he was otherwise occupied, thinking about his wife, Katy, and their daughter, Liz, who had been brutally murdered just a couple of years ago.

  He thought about them every day. But lately he was sometimes having trouble seeing Katy’s face, though her scent was still strong in his mind. And every day, just like this morning, he wanted to lash out, hit back at all the darkness in the world that thought taking lives was the right thing to do.

  He’d actually met bin Laden a number of years ago in a cave in Afghanistan, and the man had looked him in the eye and with a straight face lectured that no one was innocent. Infidels—men, women, or children, it made no difference—were all to come to Islam, the one true faith, accept Mohammed into their souls or die.

  Mac had begun years ago as a field officer for the CIA and had risen to special black operations, which was the forerunner of the company’s elite Special Activities Division. He’d worked for a short time as deputy director of operations and had even briefly served as the agency’s director.

  But neither desk job had suited his temperament. He hated bullies; it was as simple as that. In the field he could even the odds, take down the bad guys who preyed on the innocents. Unlike bin Laden he firmly believed that just about everyone who went about their business in a peaceful way, respecting the rights of others, was an innocent.

  His father had instilled only one hard and fast rule in Mac as a child, and that was no hitting. Yet despite that golden rule his father had worked on nuclear weapons development at Los Alamos and Mac had killed bad people.

  The creek and the path crossed under the P Street NW bridge and McGarvey pushed himself. Katy once asked if by running or swimming to just this side of total exhaustion he wasn’t trying to atone for what he thought were his sins, namely, assassinating people?

  He’d had no answer for her then, nor did he think he would have one if she were alive to ask him now.

  A hundred yards later, just at the edge of the Oak Hill Cemetery, Pete Boylan, who’d been doing stretches against a park bench, turned and intercepted him. She wore spandex tights and a white T-shirt that was soaked with sweat, and she looked really good.

  “Want some company?” she asked.

  “If you can keep up.”

  She laughed, the sound husky, all the way from deep inside, and warm. “If it gets too tough, I’ll just knock you down and sit on you.”

  They ran for a half a mile or so in silence all the way up to Massachusetts Avenue, traffic already building, where they stopped and did more stretches. Mac felt good, better than he had for the past several months, and the heat and female sweat smells coming off Pete’s body reminded him of a lot of things out of his past.

  “You didn’t come down here just to get your exercise,” he said.

  “I work out at the gym on campus and sometimes down at the Farm. I’m here because I need your help.”

  It’s about what he’d figured, not only by her unexpected presence but by the expression on her face; she seemed puzzled and a little pissed off. “Where’d you park?”

  “Just off M Street.” It was a little over a mile back the way they had come. “I brought someone with me who I think you might want to talk to.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Otto’s met him. He was involved yesterday with a shooting at the UDT/SEAL museum in Florida.”

  “I suppose that you and Otto took whatever it was up to Marty and he ordered you to back off.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’d better explain,” Mac said, and they started back at a slow jog as she went over everything she’d learned from Weisse and what Otto had come up with. He found that he almost had to agree with Bambridge.

  No one in the administration or inside the U.S. intelligence community trusted Pakistan, and especially not the ISI, its secret intelligence service, any further than they could throw the Washington Monument, but the Pakistanis did provide a launching point for U.S. drone strikes on al-Qaeda leaders. Government spokesmen in Islamabad complained loudly about the U.S. military’s violation of their borders, and especially their airspace, but that was all about keeping their public satisfied. In the meantime the United States continued to subsidize their military—in a delicate balancing act with India—for the right to continue operations.

  He told Pete as much.

  “You’re right, of course,” she said. “But this is different. I think that someone in the ISI—someone high on the food chain—is funneling money to the Schlueter woman to field assassins to kill the key SEAL Team Six guys who took out bin Laden.”

  “Why?” Mac asked, though he knew the answer.

  “Because we embarrassed the hell out of them.”

  “What would killing the shooters—or maybe all twenty-four of them who went on the raid—accomplish? Washington would sure as hell sit up and take notice. So would the Pentagon, so would Walt Page, so would the FBI, so would the State Department. Think of it: killing all those guys—even if it could be done, because they’re damned good at close order battle—would cause a firestorm to fall on Islamabad. Or at least on the ISI.”

  “Not if it were an arms-length operation. It would give the government plausible deniability. Could be someone they intend to throw under the bus if something goes wrong.”

  “They’d have more ways to lose than gain,” Mac said. He was playing devil’s advocate and they both knew it. But the first rule of operational planning was to poke holes in every detail and keep filling them until they all disappeared. And even then it was the unknown that always seemed to jump up and bite you in the ass—like the crash of the SEAL’s Chalk One helicopter.

  “They want to save face,” Pete said. “They want retribution.”

  * * *

  Wolf was sitting at a picnic table smoking a cigarette. When Mac and Pete showed up he got to his feet and tossed the cigarette into the creek. Pete introduced them, and after they shook hands they sat down.

  “I understand that you’ve been ordered home,” Mac said.

  “I’m supposed to be on the way to Reagan.”

  “I’m driving him over,” Pete said. “But we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “We can dig out what we need to know about the Black October Revolution, and Pete tells me that Otto’s already started a file on the Schlueter woman, but it’s not completely clear to me why you followed the shooter out of Germany.”

  “We think that Schlueter has hired a team of five men and one woman—most of them ex–special services—to work as assassins for hire.”

  “KSK,” Mac said. They had a good reputation.

  Wolf nodded. “We think we can connect the team to at least four killings, all of them off German soil. One of them in Atlanta. Plus the SEAL in Florida, who I was assigned to follow, his wife and the docents.”

  “Do you have minders on the others as well?”

  “We didn’t think that it was necessary. But this hit came as a total surprise to us. To this point the team has targeted only high-profile people. Barnes hardly fit that description. And his wife definitely did not.”

  “She was collateral damage, as were the docents in the museum,” Mac said. “Pete th
inks the group might have a contract from the ISI to take out the SEAL Team Six guys who brought bin Laden down.”

  “That’s what she and Otto came up with, but I don’t know if I can sell it to my colonel. We have our own operations in Pakistan. Certainly much more limited than yours, of course, but Berlin would be put in the same position as your government if we actively went after them.”

  “It’s either that or they take out those guys one by one,” Pete said. “The least we can do is warn them.”

  “I can just hear what the navy would say, and what the White House would do,” Mac said.

  “We can’t turn our backs on this thing,” Pete said.

  “Of course not. One of Schlueter’s people is dead. Can we get the files on anyone else associated with her? Without making noise?”

  Wolf nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “But maybe you should come to Berlin to speak with the director.”

  Mac glanced at Pete, who shrugged. “Marty has closed us down, so we’re not going to get any help from the agency. Not unless we come up with something concrete.”

  “Will your colonel agree to talk to me?”

  “As long as it’s not official,” Wolf said. “I can arrange the meeting.”

  TWELVE

  Warsaw’s Zoological Garden was situated on the Vistula River almost directly across from the Royal Castle, the old Market Square, and other attractions including churches and museums in the ancient part of the sprawling city. The early summer evening was lovely; a lot of people were out and about. The zoo was anonymous.

  Pam Schlueter was a somewhat husky woman in her late thirties, with a pleasant round face, a short no-nonsense pixie haircut, and expressive eyes that, like the set of her mouth, showed her anger and impatience. She was dressed plainly in a short-sleeved yellow shirt, jeans, and Nikes, a brown leather bag over her left shoulder, leaving her right hand free to withdraw her subcompact Glock 26 pistol, the same weapon as everyone on her team carried.

  She’d left Berlin this morning before lunch for the four-hundred-mile drive, taking a great deal of care to make certain that she wasn’t being followed. Twice she’d gotten off the E30, once to fill up the tank of her Volvo and the second to have a beer at a small Gasthaus and look over her shoulder. But if she had a tail they were very good. Coming into the city she made several abrupt turns, but each time she came back on her original track she’d detected no one following her. Which in itself was disturbing after the mess Zimmer had made in Florida.

  She made her way directly back to the Hippopotamus House where ISI Major Ali Naisir was standing in front of the glass wall, watching two of the big animals swimming underwater. He was a short, slightly built man of about forty, dark with a thick mustache, dressed in khaki slacks, a white shirt buttoned at the collar, and a dark jacket. As she walked up to him she could see that he was watching her reflection in the glass.

  That he had come here to Warsaw and had asked for the meeting in public was extraordinary in itself, but when he turned, gave her a big smile, and pecked her on the cheek before offering his arm, she was blown away. In the months Naisir had been her handler, he’d never smiled at her, nor had he ever made any physical contact, not even a handshake.

  “Congratulations in Florida,” he said as he led her out of the house and down the broad walkway in the general direction of the elephant exhibit.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It was a disaster. My operator was shot to death.”

  “Yes, but he managed to achieve his objective.”

  “At a very high cost.”

  “The cost doesn’t matter,” Naisir said, looking at her. “It’s the same with collateral damage. If he had used a bomb to wipe out the entire museum and every living soul within a half-mile radius, still the price would not have been too high.”

  There was nothing to say in reply. It was one of the many things she did not understand about the Pakistani males, especially those who could trace their lineage back to the Pashtuns, primarily from Afghanistan. They were an ancient people who loved poetry and dance above everything else. But they were short of temper, never forgave a sin against them, and would go to the ends of the earth for retribution. Their potential for cruelty was all out of any normal proportion. A perceived slight at a wedding ceremony could result in the deaths of the entire party.

  “Negotiating terms was not the reason I called you here,” he said. “You must hurry with the rest of the assignment. The timetable must be moved up.”

  “Mistakes are bound to be made.”

  “We’re aware of that possibility.”

  “Likelihood.”

  They stopped. “Are you saying that you cannot do this for us?” he asked.

  “No. What I’m trying to tell you, Major, is that when the U.S. Navy realizes that a coordinated attack is being made against the Neptune Spear people, our chances for success will drop like a rock.” Neptune Spear was the SEAL Team Six code name for the bin Laden raid.

  “That may already be the case, Ms. Schlueter. We believe that Captain Weisse, who is a field officer for the BND officer, was the man who shot Mr. Zimmer to death. He was released by the police and flown to Washington, where we think he was debriefed by the CIA. But that’s not all.”

  The news was nothing short of stunning to her. She’d known, of course, that the BND had been snooping around her organization, but to have sent a field officer on a specific assignment—this specific assignment—was stellar. It put the entire operation in extreme jeopardy.

  She managed to focus on Naisir. “What else?” she asked.

  “He met this morning with Kirk McGarvey, who at one time was the director of the agency.”

  “Former DCI. It would make him an old man now. Old and soft.”

  “Anything but,” Naisir said. “We’ve dealt with the man and we know something about him. What we don’t know is why he met with Captain Weisse and why the meeting was held at a public park. But shortly afterward, a woman who we’re certain works for the CIA, drove the captain to the airport, where he flew back to Berlin.”

  Pam tried to work it out, to make some sense out of what Naisir was telling her. The BND was snooping around, but if she was being warned now that the German spy agency knew about her and the shooters she had hired, then it was probably time to make a one-eighty and close down the operation.

  But even as she had that thought she knew damned well it was simply impossible for her to do so. Like the Pashtuns, she had been done wrong, and nothing on earth would stop her from getting revenge.

  The abuse her husband had thrown at her had begun within months after they’d gotten married, and years later she had to wonder what had possessed her to stay with him when he was rotated back to the States for duty at the Pentagon. It was in a pleasant ranch-style house in Temple Hills just across the river from Washington where his abuse had turned from emotional to physical.

  At first it was watching porn with him, much of it S & M, and he would make her reenact it while he videotaped the “action,” as he called it. When his promotions slowed to a crawl he began seriously beating her with sopping wet bath towels and lengths of rubber hose. But it was always on her body and upper thighs so that no marks were visible when she was dressed.

  The abuse had progressed so slowly, and with what she thought was even some innocence on his part—he said he loved her and that he wanted only pleasure for both of them—that she’d gone along with it.

  But then there were water hoses up her vagina and rectum, and broom handles, and electric shocks to her nipples, and she’d finally had enough. After an entire weekend of abuse that seemed as if it would never end. She got a knife from a kitchen drawer and tried to stab him to death. But he was a lot bigger than her, and quicker and stronger, and she was weak from her injuries. He took the knife away and calmly beat her into unconsciousness even though she’d managed to break his arm.

  The final straw came on Monday afternoon when he telephoned from his o
ffice and asked if she wanted to go out for a bite somewhere and then a movie. It was as if nothing had happened. Within a couple of hours she was packed and checked into a motel near Dulles Airport. Two days later she was on a plane back to Munich, and he never looked for her, never tried to contact her, never even bothered with a divorce. And her deep-seated anger began to grow, first against him and then against the navy and finally everyone and everything American.

  The last she’d heard he was with DEVGRU. She’d hatched the plan to kill the SEAL Team Six members who’d taken part in Neptune Spear and approached Pakistan’s intelligence for the funds to get retribution for both herself and them.

  But at arm’s length. After her first meeting in Islamabad, Major Naisir had been her only contact.

  They had reached the elephant exhibit, where two of the females were standing near one of the pools. Two children had purchased elephant food from a dispenser and were throwing the pellets over the fence, but the animals were ignoring them.

  “I’m going to need some spot-on intelligence if there’s any hope of pulling this off,” Pam told her handler. “The exact locations of every one of those guys.”

  “For now we want you to limit your efforts to the other ten operators who actually entered the main house where Usama was living with his family. Most of them are retired, and we think that at least two of them are currently on some form of federal assistance.”

  “They’re still well-trained killers.”

  “You will send overwhelming force where it is needed,” Naisir said. “In the meantime I will personally see to silencing Captain Weisse.”

  “If you assassinate him it’ll prove to the BND that something is actually going on and they’ll come after us with everything they’ve got.”

  “He’ll be beaten to death by hoodlums on the street. Another act of random violence that Berlin has always been so famous for.”

  Pam nodded. The killing would be senseless, and she said as much.

  “This goes back to the captain’s meeting with McGarvey. Depending upon what was said McGarvey could very well become a major problem.”