End Game

by David Hagberg

  The aide turned to leave.

  “Who was with your medical director when he had his heart attack?”

  “Dr. Cooke. In fact, he performed CPR, but it was too late.”

  “They were friends?”

  “Of course. As I said, Dr. Cooke is very well respected.”

  “What was that all about?” Pete asked when the aide was gone.

  “We’re going to find out when Coffin, or whoever is here serving time for him, walks through the door,” McGarvey told them. He’d had a feeling when Moshonas explained about Coffin’s sentencing that the man would never have let himself be sent to a place like this unless he needed to disappear for some reason. Nor could a man of Coffin’s training be kept under lock and key.

  “You think he has escaped?” Moshonas asked.

  “I have a feeling he comes and goes anywhere he pleases, including out the front door.”

  “Then why hasn’t he just disappeared?”

  “I don’t think he’s needed to do it until just now.”

  “He killed the medical director,” Pete said.

  “I think it’s a good bet,” McGarvey said. “Probably because they found out he wasn’t a psychiatrist.”

  “Who is this guy?” Moshonas asked.

  “He was a deep-cover spy for the CIA. Part of a team in Iraq several years ago. Seven operators, two of whom were murdered recently. I have a feeling he knew it was going to happen, and maybe even who would do it, so he committed a crime and got himself sent here, where he figured he’d be safe for at least a year.”

  “But his story started to unravel,” Pete said.

  “If his real identity got out, this place wouldn’t be safe for him. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “You think he’s gone?” Moshonas asked. “Then what are we doing here?”

  “I want to see who comes through that door.”

  “The security officer to admit that Cooke has somehow escaped?”

  “Maybe not,” McGarvey said.

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “I think Cooke walked out the door from time to time to test the waters, or maybe just to have a nice dinner and a couple of drinks somewhere. I don’t know if I could stay here very long without a break.”

  “He would have been reported missing.”

  “Not if he hired a substitute.”

  “Mother of God,” Moshonas said. “The guards would have to be in on it.”

  “Apostoulos said Cooke was generous.”

  A slender man dressed in gray scrubs came to the door. “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Dr. Cooke?” McGarvey asked.

  The substitute nodded. “Yes?”

  “Come in and sit down. I’d like to ask you a couple of things.”

  The substitute did as he was told, but Pete took the chair across from him.

  She smiled. “Are you being treated well here?”

  “As well as can be expected in a place like this.”

  “How did he first contact you?” she asked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do. Your name is not Cooke, but then neither is it the real name of the man who paid you to stand in for him from time to time. But none of that is of any real interest to me. I merely want to know how he first contracted you? How much he paid? What were the arrangements? And how was it that the guards allowed this to go on?”

  The substitute said nothing.

  “Detective, since this guy is a stand-in, could he be charged as an accessory to the murder of the medical director here?”

  “Yes,” Moshonas said.

  She smiled again. “In that case, you would come here for real, and most likely for a very long time.”

  “Wait a minute,” the substitute blurted. “I don’t know anything about a murder. You can’t pin something like that on me.”

  “The man who hired you probably killed the medical director this afternoon, and is gone, leaving you holding the bag. He won’t be coming back. And now we need your help to find him. It’s the only fair deal you’re going to get today.”

  “Shit.”

  “Help us find him, and you’ll walk out of here a free man. And even get to keep the money he’s already paid you.”

  “I have something to say about that,” Moshonas said.

  “No,” McGarvey told him. “Trust me: if we can get to Coffin, you’ll have your murderer.”

  “You’re an American?” the substitute asked.

  “We’re CIA, and so was the man who hired you,” Pete said. “Help us, and we’ll help you.”

  The substitute had no way out, and it was obvious he knew it.

  Pete took a notebook and pen out of her purse and laid them on the table. “Dates and places you met. Money he’s already paid you, and the bank and account number it was paid into, unless it was cash.”

  “In an account he set up for me.”

  “We’re not interested in the money—only the account number. We have someone who can trace it back to him.”

  “Christ, he said he’d kill me if something went wrong.”

  “We’ll see that it doesn’t,” Pete said. “The bank?”

  “Piraeus Bank.”

  “Do you live in Piraeus?”

  The substitute nodded. “I think it’s why he picked me, because I was so close to the prison.”

  “The account number,” Pete said, “and then we’ll see about getting you out of here.”

  “It’s electronic,” the substitute said. He told her the bank’s e-mail address, then his online account name and password. “I don’t want to spend another night here,” he said.

  “You’re coming with us,” McGarvey said. “But if you’ve lied to us, we’ll turn you over to the Greek cops, and you’ll end up back here” He turned to Moshonas. “Can you get him out of here?”

  “Guaranteed.”

  TWELVE

  Coffin sat in the rooftop garden of the Alkistis Hotel in Athens’s market section, nursing a beer and considering his options, which had narrowed considerably. It was early evening, and this section of the city, bustling during the day, was all but deserted now. The hotel was one of the cheapest in the entire metro and reasonably safe for the moment. It was off-season, and no one else was on the roof with him. Nor had he seen anyone except for the clerk in the lobby when he’d checked in.

  It had been Kirk McGarvey at the prison. He’d caught a glimpse of the bastard as the taxi was pulling away, and it was one of the biggest shocks of his life. He’d been with some old guy and a broad, but the point was, he’d been looking at the taxi. The son of a bitch knew where to show up, as impossible as it seemed.

  Coffin had actually met the man once, a number of years ago in Afghanistan, when a meeting had been arranged with bin Laden. It was impossible for McGarvey to have remembered him, because he was just one of a group in the middle of a deployment into the Kandahar region, and they didn’t speak.

  Yet McGarvey was here.

  He’d had the cabby drop him off a few blocks from his house, and went the rest of the way on foot, very careful with his tradecraft. McGarvey knew about the prison; he almost certainly knew about the house.

  But no one had been there. No cars, no one lingering at the corner, no one on the roofs across the street or in any of the windows. At least nothing he could see was out of the ordinary. But there could have been a drone circling overhead, quiet and completely out of sight. Or perhaps McGarvey had contacted the NIS and they had set up an electronic surveillance operation.

  McGarvey himself wasn’t a threat to his life, but by coming this far, the former DCI could very well have led the only man Coffin feared to him. And the woman with him was a mystery, as was the older man. McGarvey’s rep was as a loner.

  Coffin had gone around the back and gotten into his house through a rear door. He wasn’t armed, but that really didn’t matter. If it came to a fight, he could take care of himself with his bare hands. Everyone in Al
pha Seven, plus their control man who’d shown up only at the last moment with surprising new orders, had the background and training to do so. It was one of the mission’s requirements.

  No one had been there, and he was in and out in less than ten minutes with a small bag, a few items of clothing and toiletries, and a 9-mm SIG, a suppressor, two magazines, and a box of twenty-five bullets he had hung in a satchel on a hook in the basement wine cellar. The cops hadn’t been very thorough in their search. He’d been an art thief not a killer, and they had the evidence he’d led them to. Show them what they wanted to see, and hide everything else right under their noses.

  He’d walked a few blocks away before he’d taken a cab out to the airport, and from there, twenty minutes later, a cab into the city, and a third to this hotel.

  The question now was what to do with the situation that had landed in his lap. Run, or stay and fight back? He didn’t want to go up against McGarvey, but he had to consider it as one of his options. The other would be going to him for help.

  For the first time in his professional life, Coffin didn’t know what to do. He had plenty of money stashed under different names in a half dozen banks around the world, so he could run and live in reasonable comfort just about anywhere. Plastic surgery, new papers. The trouble was, he’d eventually be tracked down. Either by McGarvey or the other one. A man whose real name none of them had ever known.

  Assuming Wager and Fabry had been murdered, the others would probably be next, and the only reason he could think why was because one of them had cracked the last puzzle. It was the one thing he’d feared from the beginning. The main reason he had run.

  He finished his beer, got his iPad from his room, and walked up toward the Acropolis. The Parthenon, the museum, and all the grounds were closed at this hour, the gates locked, guards and closed-circuit television cameras everywhere. But tourists still flocked to the place, because even from outside the fence, they could get great photographs.

  A table at a sidewalk café was open, and he sat down and ordered an espresso. When it came, he powered up his tablet and went online. For just a moment he hesitated, but then went to the Alpha Seven reunion address in the newsletter and logged on with one of his old Internet names: G. Washington.

  His only real option, he decided, was finesse.

  When the site came up he wrote: When? Where? Why?

  It took nearly two minutes for the reply to come. You’re a difficult man to find, Mr. C.

  Who wants to find me?

  The man getting out of the taxi behind you this afternoon.

  I’m a fugitive. Is that why he came?

  You were a suspect until this afternoon.

  Then what does he want?

  Answers.

  Coffin looked up as a police car cruised slowly past. The cop behind the wheel glanced over indifferently for just an instant, but he didn’t linger.

  What’s the question?

  Why the murders? Why the two from Alpha Seven?

  This is a hackable connection, Coffin wrote back, and he was about to power down and get away when the reply came.

  No, it’s not.

  Still Coffin hesitated, his finger on the power off button.

  Backscatter encryption in both directions.

  Who are you?

  Otto Rencke. I’m in my third-floor office at the OHB. You may have heard of me, Mr. Coffin; we’ve heard of you. We know you are probably still in Athens, and we know that for the past five months, you have been in hiding. We would like to know why.

  The same police car cruised past, and Coffin was about to get up and find the back door, but the cop never looked over.

  Will the police be looking for me?

  Do you think the killer will come after you?

  It’s possible, but it depends on a set of circumstances.

  What circumstances?

  The translation of the last Kryptos tablet, Coffin wrote.

  Could be something new. It needs to be found and recognized for what it is. Evidently, it hasn’t been yet.

  Someone must think so.

  Yes.

  An attractive woman came around the corner and stopped at his table. “May I join you, Mr. Coffin?” she said.

  Her name is Pete Boylan, the message appeared on his screen. She is a CIA case officer and came with Kirk McGarvey to find you. Help us, and we’ll help you.

  Coffin’s iPad powered down by itself, and he managed a smile. Like McGarvey, Otto Rencke was a legend in the CIA. A wizard. “Would you like a coffee?”

  She sat down. “Actually, Mr. McGarvey would like to talk to you.”

  “Where?”

  “We have a safe house not far from here.”

  “An NIS safe house?”

  “Yes, they’re cooperating.”

  “I’m armed.”

  “Yes, we know this.”

  “Am I wanted by the police?”

  Pete laughed softly. “On a number of counts, the least of which is escaping from prison.”

  “The doctor had a heart attack. I was trying to save his life. Let’s just get that off the table before I agree to anything.”

  “Most likely you killed him, but the police aren’t all that concerned. Dr. Lampros was not a doctor; in fact, he himself was a murderer. Killed a female prisoner last night and made it look like she hung herself. Apparently, she wasn’t his first.”

  THIRTEEN

  Coffin followed Pete around the corner, where the same old man who’d been with her and McGarvey outside the prison this afternoon was waiting by a battered Volvo station wagon that was painted green.

  “You took a pistol from your house, and when we searched your hotel room a few minutes ago, it wasn’t there,” Moshonas said. “Give it to me, Mr. Coffin.”

  “I think he’ll feel safer for the moment with it, Detective,” Pete said.

  “Actually, it’s Special Agent Moshonas. I work for the NIS.”

  “Yes, we know. But I don’t think Mr. Coffin will shoot us.”

  “He murdered Dr. Lampros.”

  “Almost certainly, but we’ve come here to save Mr. Coffin’s life. And I think he understands that in order for us to do our job, he needs to do his. One hand washes the other.”

  Moshonas muttered something but then got in behind the wheel, Pete in front and Coffin in the back, and they headed away from the Acropolis and southwest for the short drive out of the city to the commercial waterfront at Piraeus.

  McGarvey had sent Pete to soften the blow, and Moshonas for his authority, rather than approach Coffin himself. “He’ll be on a hair trigger. If I show up, he might want to shoot first and listen later.”

  And it had worked, along with allowing him to keep his weapon. But Pete realized she resented Mac’s attitude just a little, even though he was right. If Coffin had pulled his weapon, she was sure she would have been able to handle herself.

  She turned and looked back at him. “You could have shot me and simply walked away. Why not?”

  “Wouldn’t have been very sporting. In any event, I’m sure you would have responded in kind, and both of us would be on our way to the hospital or the morgue.”

  “So, what’s the point? Why’d you set yourself up for the fall? Who’d you think was coming after you? Not us. Your record was clean when you walked away from the Company.”

  “It’s more complicated than that, as Walt and Istvan found out.”

  Pete understood. “Almost everything usually is.”

  “What about the other Alpha Seven operators? Are they okay? Have you managed to make contact?”

  “You were our first. We’re still working on the others.”

  “Rencke is?”

  “Yes. Wager and Fabry were the only ones left still working for us.”

  “They’re dead now. So might the others be.”

  “We found you,” Pete said, and faced forward as the lights around the harbor came into view. Her skin crawled, having an armed man—especially one of Coffin’
s character—sitting behind her.

  She’d only ever met a few NOCs in her career, and all of them had been singularly egotistical liars, cheats, and con men—she’d not met a woman NOC field officer. But those traits were the prime requirements for the job of going into badland to spy and not get caught. They had to screw over people on a regular basis in order to fulfill their assignments.

  Mac had told her about the one couple who’d moved in next door to an Egyptian major who worked in logistics and supply for the air force. The man was married and had four children, and as a major he was barely making ends meet.

  The U.S. wanted to know what aircraft spare parts were most in demand, so Boeing and Northrop and other U.S. suppliers would not only have a leg up in their business dealings with the Egyptians, but so Washington would have a better handle on the actual workload the air force was under.

  It started easy. The NOC and his wife, who had two children of their own, invited the major and his family over for an old-fashioned American backyard barbecue, complete with beer and tapes of a couple of Packers football games.

  A couple of weeks later the NOC’s oldest son, who was ten, taught the major’s son, who was eight years old, how to ride his bike. The lessons went on for a week, until the major’s son demanded a bike like their neighbor’s boy had.

  It was an impossible demand on a major’s pay, so the NOC bought a bike from the BX at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, had it shipped to Cairo. And within two days the major’s son was riding around the neighborhood.

  The major had been unable to resist the pressure from his son and his wife to allow the boy to keep the bike, and that had been the beginning of his conversion to a spy for the U.S. against his own government.

  The NOC had targeted the major, figured out his weakness, and had homed in on it. Mission accomplished. Two years later, after the NOC and his family transferred out, the major came under suspicion so he killed his wife and children and then put the pistol into his own mouth and pulled the trigger. It was an easier way out for him than military prison.

  “Thing is,” McGarvey had told Pete, “we never really needed the information. The parts were all made in the U.S. and the suppliers had all those records.”

  * * *