* * *
The flight to Atlanta was uneventful, and once he was through customs with just his one carry-on bag he took the shuttle over to the Hilton, where he checked in under his work name, Tomas Spangler, a Swiss citizen from Bern, paying for it with an American Express gold card.
The room was nice. Upstairs he ordered a roast beef sandwich and a couple of beers from room service, and while he waited he stared indifferently out the window toward downtown several miles away.
While on an op he’d lived for short periods in luxury hotels as well as shit holes. He’d never cared which. He’d also slept in bombed-out buildings, under a tarp in a construction zone, behind a pile of rocks in a battle zone in Afghanistan, and aboard a stinking freighter. That he was in the United States didn’t matter either. The location, that is. He was here to do a job, after which, depending how big his payday was, he would take a couple of years off, though he had no earthly idea where he might hole up or exactly what he might do—nothing except killing interested him much.
When the sandwich and beers came he gave the man a nice tip and went back to the window to stare at essentially nothing, while he mechanically ate his meal and drank the beers.
Afterward he used his encrypted cell phone to call Pam. “I’m here.”
“When will you be in place?”
“Tomorrow. What about the others?”
Pam didn’t answer; she was gone.
* * *
First thing in the morning Volker checked out and took the shuttle back to the airport. He rented a Ford Taurus at the Avis counter, using the Spangler credit card, ID, and international driving license. By eight thirty he was on I-85 heading northeast toward Norfolk.
He tuned to a country-and-western station and matched his speed with most of the other traffic. The morning was bright and sunny, and for the first time since he could remember, he was actually horny. And he smiled.
FIFTY-NINE
Driving through the night, stopping only at rest areas and gas stations, where they refueled the car and got sandwiches and drinks, Pam pulled into the parking lot of an IHOP just off I-66 in Arlington at nine in the morning. The parking lot was nearly full.
Pam was hopped up on adrenaline, and even if they had stopped somewhere for the night she knew that she would never be able to get to sleep. Not now that they were getting so close. And especially because she was going to come face-to-face with Gloria again.
Ayesha, who’d slept most of the way, except when they passed well to the west of New York City before connecting with I-95 south, woke up when they stopped. “Where are we?”
“Outside of Washington.”
“But what is this place?”
“We’re meeting someone here for breakfast,” Pam said.
“Who?”
“A friend.”
Gloria sat in a booth near the back. She was a mousy-looking woman, somewhat dumpy, with short, light brown hair, thin lips, and close-set eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a light top. When she saw them her eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights.
“Hello,” Pam said.
Gloria took a moment to speak. “You didn’t say you were bringing someone.”
They sat down. “Ayesha Naisir.”
“The major’s wife. Jesus Christ, how could you bring her here? Considering the situation.”
“She’s providing the operational funds now. It was she who put money into your account.”
“I thought it was you,” Gloria said. Her voice was reed-thin and high, almost like the upper-register notes in a clarinet, but soft. She leaned forward. “This is not good.”
“I’m sorry, who exactly are you?” Ayesha asked.
“You have my bank numbers, that’s enough.”
“It was a blind account. No name.”
“Yes,” Gloria said sharply. “And it will remain that way even after your silly countrymen blow themselves and India off the map. Have you any comprehension what’s about to happen, unless the Chinese manage to convince President Mamnoon Hussain to stand down?”
“There’ll be no war.”
“I wish my government were as sure as you are, Mrs. Naisir. But here you are, a long way from home, about to finance the mass murder of some American heroes.”
“You’re an American, helping with the murders,” Ayesha shot back. “Where is a logic that Allah would understand?”
“Fuck you and your prophet and all your people.”
Ayesha started to rise, but Pam held her back. “We don’t need this,” she said. “We have a job to do.” She looked pointedly at Gloria. “Including what I promised you.”
“I won’t wait much longer.”
“You won’t have to.”
Gloria hesitated, but then she lowered her eyes. “The money’s under the table in an attaché case. One hundred thousand. I’ve written down the address of a gun shop in Richmond whose owner will cooperate. She’ll supply you with whatever you want, no paperwork. But the price will have to be right.”
Pam reached down and found the handle. “What about Norfolk?”
“A couple of detectives are investigating the murder of the one guy and his family. ONI is on it too, but they’re not making much progress. They’re thinking a home invasion gone bad. Because that’s probably what they’ve been told to think.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know,” Gloria said. She was bitter all of a sudden. “It wasn’t those boys’ fault. They were just following orders. God, duty, honor, country. Hoo-rah.”
“What about McGarvey?”
“He’s back here. A CIA jet picked him and the woman up in London and brought them to Andrews, where they were met by someone from the CIA. Probably the DDO and a couple of his goons.”
“I met the woman,” Pam said. “Any idea who she is?”
“Pete Boylan. She worked as an interrogator until she was transferred to the Clandestine Service. But I haven’t been able to find out much more than that about her.”
“Are she and McGarvey lovers?”
“There’s speculation.”
Pam was sure of it, because of McGarvey’s zeal storming the Rawalpindi safe house to rescue her. All very romantic. “Where’d he go after Andrews?”
“To Langley overnight, but then he disappeared.”
“Where?”
“Unknown, but almost certainly he’s with his friend Otto Rencke, who’s the reigning computer geek at the company. You might want to take care with McGarvey’s violence, but you’d better take special care with Mr. Rencke’s computer expertise. The man is a black-magic witch.”
“If he moves I want to hear about it immediately.”
“There’s something else,” Gloria said. “But we’re not sure what it means.”
“Yes?”
“Petty Officer Greg Rautanen, he’s one of the SEAL Team Six guys. Lives alone, a drunk, screwed up. Anyway, the ONI opened a new file on him. Some inquiries we apparently made, and it put up a red flag. Whoever hacked his file didn’t do a good enough job of it to hide their tracks.”
“Doesn’t sound like this Rencke character.”
“That’s just it; my sources said it looked as if the hacker came in with a sledgehammer on purpose. He wanted to be burned. Maybe he wanted to let someone know that Rautanen had been singled out for some reason. It maybe was a message.”
Pam saw it. “The son of a bitch,” she said softly.
“What?” Ayesha asked.
“He knows I’m coming,” Pam said. “He doesn’t know when or exactly where, except that it’ll be in Norfolk. So he opened the door for me with this Rautanen guy. ‘Here I’ll be,’ he’s told me. ‘Come get me.’”
“If he’s expecting us, we need to come up with another plan,” Ayesha said.
“On the contrary. We’re going to do exactly what he wants us to do,” Pam said. “What he thinks we were going to do all along.”
SIXTY
Greg Rautanen’s tiny bungalow was across L
ake Edwards from where Steffen Engel had been taken down, and just down the block from a large apartment complex. The entire neighborhood was run-down, trash everywhere, most of the buildings in disrepair. And despite the fact it was just ten in the morning, knots of desperate-looking black kids, most of them in their teens, were hanging out on just about every corner.
McGarvey and Pete had flown down to Landmark Aviation at the Norfolk Airport where Otto had a new rental Hummer waiting for them. “Tough neighborhood,” he’d told them. “The car might impress the kids, but I don’t know how Rautanen will react, seeing the same kind of vehicle he used in the service.”
“He might freak out?” Pete asked.
“The guy’s screwed up, but there’s no knowing how bad he is. A lot of them come out so hyperaware that a car turning the corner down the block could trigger the memory of someone coming at them in a car loaded with explosives. He could react pretty violently to defend himself. A lot of them come out of the service as gun nuts, but some don’t want anything to do with any kind of weapon. They even barricade themselves inside their houses on the Fourth of July. Most of them have nightmares—even waking nightmares. Somebody happens to walk in on them during an episode like that and it could get hairy. Chronic detachment, lack of sleep, depression, of course, fear of any kind of a crowd, like in a mall or a movie theater. It’s why a lot of them end up getting divorces or going on the streets and living alone under a bridge or in the woods in a cardboard box.”
“And this Rautanen is like that?” Pete had asked.
“Probably,” Otto said.
“We’re going to use this poor guy?” Pete asked. “Put him on the firing line as bait?”
“He’s already on the firing line,” McGarvey told them. “Schlueter and whoever she’s hired are coming after me, but they also mean to kill as many of the twenty-two SEALs who are left—and that includes Greg Rautanen.”
They passed Rautanen’s house and at the end of the block turned around and came back. The lawn had not been tended in a very long time. An old kitchen range was lying on its side next to the short dirt driveway. A ratty old pickup truck with plates that were two years out of date was parked in the carport. The yard was filled with full trash bags.
McGarvey drove up and parked in the street, but left the engine running.
“We can’t use this guy, Mac,” Pete said. “It isn’t right.”
“I don’t know how long this is going to take, but if something starts to go down, beep the horn.”
They were a block away from the apartment buildings where a half-dozen kids were watching them.
“Don’t use your weapon unless there’s no other choice,” McGarvey said. “I don’t want to get into a shootout with a bunch of kids. End up as a race riot.”
Pete was looking at them. “This could go south in a New York minute,” she said.
“In more than one way,” Mac agreed.
He got out of the Hummer and went up to the house. The front door was slightly ajar. The curtains were drawn and no lights were on inside. The place smelled of rotting garbage, and maybe pot.
McGarvey eased the door a little farther with the toe of his shoe. “Greg,” he called softly.
No one answered.
“My name’s Kirk McGarvey. I used to work for the CIA, and right now I’m here to help you.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“Two of the operators on Neptune Spear have already been taken down. The bad guys want the rest of them. Makes you a target.”
Mac heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun being racked. It was an attention getter, and Mac’s gut tightened. No telling how far over the edge the guy was.
“You have exactly two mikes to make a one-eighty,” Rautanen said.
“I’ll wait in the truck with my friend if you want to call someone and verify who I am. You might want to try Captain Cole.”
“He’s a prick.”
“You’ve got no argument from me. But I shit you not, Ratman, your ass is seriously on the line here. There’s a world of hurt coming this way, and I’m here to watch your back.”
Rautanen was silent for a long time.
“Ratman?”
“Shut the fuck up, only my friends have the right to call me that. Who’s the broad?”
“She’s a CIA Clandestine Service officer who’s going to watch both of our backs.”
“I don’t need you.”
“Like Pete Barnes and Brian Ridder and their familes?”
“It’s just me,” Rautanen said, and McGarvey could hear the desperation in the man’s voice. “And no one gives a shit, because I can take care of myself.”
“If they can find you here, which they will, they’ll find your wife in Seattle.”
Rautanen didn’t reply.
“Hiding won’t help. It’s why I’m here. I want to use you as bait.”
The house was silent.
McGarvey pushed the door all the way open, at the same time Pete hit the horn. He turned around, the barrel of the 12-bore Ithaca Stakeout shotgun inches from his face.
“She opens fire it’d be a reflex reaction—my finger on the trigger,” Rautanen said, a crazy look in his eyes. “You’d be one dead motherfucker.”
“We’d both be dead, and your problem would be solved,” McGarvey said. “Your problem. It’d still leave the other guys.”
Pete had gotten out of the Hummer, her .45-caliber Wilson conceal-and-carry pistol in a two-handed grip.
“Your Ithaca is starting to attract some attention,” McGarvey said.
Pete started to come forward, but McGarvey waved her off. “So either shoot me or let’s get inside and I’ll tell you what I have in mind.”
Rautanen glanced at the kids down the block. “They won’t come anywhere near my place. They think I’m crazy. And you know what, McGarvey, I am outta my fucking skull.”
“My friends call me Mac. Lower your weapon and we can talk. But we need to get some shit straight ASAP, because I think whatever is coming your way will probably happen tonight.”
Rautanen’s hand steadied and he moved close enough so that the muzzle of the shotgun touched the bridge of McGarvey’s nose.
“Mac?” Pete said urgently. She moved forward so that she was only a couple of feet away, her pistol aimed at the side of Rautanen’s head.
“It’s Greg’s call,” McGarvey told her. He shrugged. “So shit or get off the pot, Mr. Rautanen.”
After a moment, Rautanen grinned and lowered the shotgun. “Friends call me Ratman,” he said. “You want a beer?”
SIXTY-ONE
Felix Volker got off I-95 at Kenly, North Carolina, a town of around one thousand people a few miles southeast of Raleigh. He turned off not so much that he was hungry, although it was just before noon, but because he was tired of driving and he wanted a drink. Tonight, when he got to Norfolk and hooked up with Schlueter and the others, there’d be no alcohol. He was too thirsty and too keyed up to wait until after the op.
He took the narrow county road under the interstate northwest and followed his nose to a small redneck country bar. A few pickups were parked in front—gun racks in the rear windows, a hunting dog in one chained to a ring. The dog put up a baying when he pulled up and got out of his rental car.
Tobacco and corn fields stretched out in either direction across the relatively flat coastal plain that ran one hundred miles all the way down to Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean where the tourists went.
The day was already beginning to heat up, and by this afternoon he figured the lowlands would be unbearably humid. It was something he didn’t like. Germany’s climate was mild, especially south around Munich, and even farther north in Franconia around Nürnberg where he’d lived for a couple of short stretches. Snow in the winter, but nothing extreme. Warm in the summer, but not hot. Schon.
He was dressed this morning in dark jeans, a dark polo shirt, and thick-soled walking sandals. He left his black jacket in the car and headed toward
the front door, when a couple of thickly built young men—maybe in their early twenties and farmers by the look of them—came out.
“Well, son of a bitch,” one of the kids said as Volker passed them and went inside.
The bar ran across one-third of the room. To the right there was a pool table, a dartboard against the rear wall, and an old-fashioned jukebox in the corner. The men’s room was to the right, the women’s to the left. Two older men in bib overalls were seated at the bar, behind which was an older woman with long gray hair.
Volker took a stool away from the two men, who turned and looked at him as if he were someone from a different planet.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked. Her accent was very southern, difficult for Volker to understand.
“A beer, please. Dark, not so cold.”
“Sam Adams,” the woman said. She poured it from a tap and set it down. “Two dollars.”
Volker paid her, and took a deep drink. It was too cold and weak, almost like water to him, but it was okay. “Danke,” he said.
“You’re German,” she said.
He nodded. “Just passing through. I was thirsty.”
“Are you hungry? We have burgers and pizza. Frozen, but not so bad.”
“No. Just time for one beer and then I have to be on the highway to Atlanta.”
The two farm boys came in, big grins on their faces, and came to the bar. “Better give us a beer, Maudie,” the taller, stockier one said. His massive head sat on a thick neck and broad shoulders.
“Thought you boys had to get back to work,” the bartender said, but she poured them a couple of beers.
“Wanted to say hi to the gentleman with the girly footwear,” the other one said. His face was round and filled with freckles. “Hadn’t seen him around here before.”
“I don’t want any trouble in here, like Friday.”
Volker sipped his beer but didn’t look at them. They wanted trouble, of course, and he was of a mind to give it to them. But it would be foolish on his part, as well as theirs.
Retribution (9781429922593) Page 26