Blood Pact (McGarvey)

by Hagberg, David

  “How’s the patient?”

  “Bitchy,” Randall said.

  Pat Morris, the other CIA babysitter, was sitting in the darkness in the visitor’s lounge at the end of the hallway from where he had a clear sight line to María’s room.

  McGarvey walked down to him. “If something’s going to happen it’ll probably be after midnight.”

  Morris nodded. “He won’t get past Elias.” He’d been a Navy SEAL and his primary weapon of choice now was the same as then: a Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun with a suppressor, which lay on the coffee table in front of him. He also carried a standard SEAL 9 mm SIG Sauer P226 pistol fitted with a suppressor in a shoulder holster. His jacket was lying over the arm of a chair.

  “Keep frosty, this guy is good.”

  “May I speak plainly, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “This assignment sucks shit, if you know what I mean. I don’t mind putting my life on the line for one of our own, but from what we were told in our briefing this broad is a colonel in Castro’s secret police.”

  “That she is,” McGarvey said from the doorway. “But she’s an important asset for the moment. The guy coming our way to take her out has some answers I need.”

  “She’s bait?”

  McGarvey shrugged. “If that’s how you want to see it. Thing is I want him alive, if possible.”

  “If not?”

  “His life is not worth yours.”

  “I hear you, sir,” Morris said. Like many SEALs he was not a particularly large man, but he had the look in his eyes.

  McGarvey went down the hall to María’s room and knocked on the door frame before he went in. She was watching television with the sound very low. It was the Tchaikovsky violin concerto in D minor live from Avery Fischer Hall at Lincoln Center. At first she was lost in it, a look almost of rapture on her pretty oval face, until suddenly she looked up and scowled.

  “I want to get the hell out of here,” she said, her voice still a little croaky as if she had a bad cold.

  “Not for another day or two. How do you feel?”

  “Like hell, and not just from a hole in my chest. I want to know why pretty boy is sitting there in the dark at the end of the hall. Is he keeping me in, or trying to keep somebody out?”

  “Both.”

  “He’s coming back.” She said it as a statement, not a question.

  “I think so. But if he gets this far, which I don’t think he will, shoot to stop not to kill.”

  María laughed harshly. “Give me my pistol and I can protect myself, or give me a telephone and I can have ten operatives who’ll close up this place tighter than a gnat’s ass.”

  “We saved your life.”

  “After you put me in jeopardy.”

  “You did that by coming back,” McGarvey said, and before she could say anything else he held up a hand, tired of her bullshit. “He probably won’t try to get in until sometime after midnight. By then the lights on this floor, including your room, will be out.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Close.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  The CyberCafe du Monde, a few blocks from the Jardin du Luxembourg, was one of the very few Internet cafés in all of Paris that was open 24/7. Seedy with a dozen old and slow computers, it was the sort of place whose clerks didn’t give a damn why you wanted to go online. They only wanted their 2.80 euros per hour.

  When al-Rashid, who’d found the place listed on his iPhone, showed up a few minutes after three in the morning only four of the machines were in use, three of them displaying kiddy porn.

  He paid for two hours, took a machine near the back door, and when it was connected brought up the website for Agence France-Presse and entered Robert Chatelet, histoire. Every man had a vulnerable spot, an Achilles’ heel, and al-Rashid figured that the vice mayor of Paris and the leading candidate for president of France was no exception.

  For thirty minutes he plowed through two dozen speeches and position papers published on behalf of the Parti socialiste, the PS, when Chatelet had switched from the center-right Union for Popular Movement because of what was being called the growing Muslim problem, which had come to the fore when a law had been passed banning the burqa—the facial covering for women.

  Chatelet’s position had not been unique: France for the French, purity of the language and customs, individuals on the world stage. Second to no people, to no nation.

  Switching to the AFP’s photo archive, he scanned shots of Chatelet as early as December 2004 in one of a group dedicating the opening of the stunning Millau Bridge over the River Tarn in the Massif Central mountains of Southern France, and as late as groundbreaking for the Lavallette Dam in Saint-Etienne in 2012, and La Tour Bois-le-Pretre, which was a public housing project at the edge of Paris later the same year.

  Al-Rashid brought up France 24, the global television news channel owned mostly by TF1—which was akin to CBS in the United States—but its archives yielded little more than what he’d picked up from AFP, except that he saw and heard the man. Chatelet was typically French, more or less undistinguished in stature and looks, but with a lovely wife who’d been a minor movie actress and model. His voice was rough, that of a smoker, and his French, to al-Rashid’s ear, was southern country, not at all refined.

  But neither the politician nor the husband had made even the smallest of missteps, which after more than an hour of searching the Internet was the most interesting conclusion al-Rashid had come to. The man was lily-white. Too pure, too clean. It was as if he was either exceedingly careful, or extraordinarily lucky. No politician was that without sin.

  He scanned the archives of France Diplomatie, which was a site hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Le Monde Diplomatique, which was a left-wing monthly magazine, and even some of the English, ex-pat-oriented news outlets such as Paris Voice, Radio France Inernationale, Expatica.com-France, and the International Herald Tribune.

  Until the Metropole Paris—which was a weekly that included pictures, cartoons, and the occasional bit of gossip. In a brief photo spread Chatelet was dedicating some Paris street project, and beside him was a tall, slender woman, beautiful, with luxurious hair, high delicate cheekbones, and full sensuous lips. She was identified merely as Mme. Laurent, an engineer in the city planning department.

  They were holding a golden shovel, their hands touching, and Chatelet was smiling as if he were the cat who’d got the cream.

  Al-Rashid brought up more photo spreads in the Metropole from 2009 until just a couple of months ago showing the two of them together dedicating various city public works projects. In one photo their hips were actually touching, and in still another she was standing slightly behind him to his left, an arrondissement manager just forward, and Chatelet was actually touching her ass. In this photo she was identified as Mme. Adeline Laurent, City Works Special Projects Manager.

  Five minutes later, he was inside the public area of the City Public Works Department, where he verified that a woman of that name did indeed work there, with an office in the Hotel de Ville, which was city hall. It was a prestigious location for the office of a simple city engineer, but then French politicians tended to keep their mistresses close at hand.

  He ran into some difficulty when he went looking for her address in the city directory. Seven women by the same name were listed, but within five minutes he’d narrowed his choice to only one of them who had a place in the northwest corner of the Eighth Arrondissement a few blocks above the Boulevard Haussmann and across from the Parc Monceau, where even very small apartments listed for more than one million euros.

  Al-Rashid backed out of the program, erasing his steps, and left the café walking all the way up to the Boulevard St. Germain where he was able to find a cab to take him over to the Gare d’Austerlitz, and from there another cab to within a block of the woman’s apartment.

  The streets were starting to come alive with service traffic—street cleaners, delivery vans and trucks, garbag
e collectors, road maintenance crews making minor repairs overnight before rush hour began.

  A bakery was just opening when al-Rashid walked through the park and stopped a moment to light a cigarette. The street was fashionable without being overly ostentatious as many Paris addresses could be, the building was four stories and well maintained with her apartment on the ground floor at the rear, in all likelihood opening on a rear courtyard garden.

  Crossing the street he passed the front entrance, which was flanked by tall windows made up of small square panes of lightly colored glass, and inside he spotted the night doorman seated behind a small desk just within the entry hall. The image was distorted, but he was certain the man was asleep. The doormen in places such as these were mostly for decoration and not for security.

  Crossing the street again he bought the early edition of Figaro from a newsstand that had just opened and walked down to the bakery where he ordered a café au lait and a warm croissant with a small container of raspberry confit. He sat by a window from which he had an oblique view of Mme. Laurent’s apartment.

  Chatelet was a member of the Voltaire Society, which made it likely that he either had the key to translate the diary or he knew the person or persons who did. Mme. Laurent was in turn the key to the mayor.

  Which was the next problem. Vice mayors of large cities, and Paris was no exception, usually did not travel alone. They were almost always accompanied by aides and very often bodyguards. In Chatelet’s case al-Rashid had spotted at least one bodyguard in nearly every photo taken of him at a public gathering.

  The two exceptions, of course, would be when he arrived home, or when he showed up at the apartment of his mistress—especially if Mme. Laurent told him that it was important he come to her immediately. That they had a problem needing his attention.

  Madame Chatelet herself would be the problem.

  FORTY

  Parking the blue Tahoe on Thirty-eighth Street a couple of blocks north of the sprawling Georgetown University grounds, Dorestos, dressed in a jacket, jeans, and a dark green dress shirt walked down to T Street and headed east. The neighborhood here was almost completely residential. It was a little after 11:30 P.M., and the bars down on M Street were still busy, though here only the occasional car passed.

  He hesitated at the corner of Thirty-seventh, which was also NW Wisconsin Avenue, All Saint’s Hospital a block and a half away on a narrow side street that connected with Whitehaven Parkway NW. Traffic was heavier here, and he had to wait for the light before he could cross.

  Colonel León had been taken to the hospital by ambulance with no siren or escort, which could have meant she was dead and they were merely transporting her body, or she was wounded but still alive and there’d been no siren because they wanted to bring no attention to themselves.

  “The thing is you have to make certain,” Msgr. Franelli had told him.

  “There is the chance that they may be expecting me. The risks would be great.”

  “Yes, I know this. But the woman is very important to Mr. McGarvey.”

  “Then I do not understand. If she is so important to his search, then why don’t we allow her to help—if she is still alive? Won’t he find the diary much sooner?”

  “Perhaps, but we do not want the Cuban intelligence apparatus to become involved. Just as we do not want the CNI butting their noses into Church business. The only outsider’s help we need or want is McGarvey’s.”

  “What if I am captured?”

  “See that you’re not. But at all costs you must find out if Colonel León is dead, and if she still lives you must kill her.”

  “I don’t see how—”

  “You are our finest soldier, my son, you will seek God’s help and He will show you the way.”

  God’s help, Dorestos allowed himself a bitter thought. God had never once been mentioned during his actual training exercises. Prayers were said before a mission for its success, and afterward for the souls of those who had lost their lives, but never during a battle.

  There are old warriors and there are bold warriors. The Order wishes for boldness. Go with God, but remember what you have learned.

  The hospital fronted on Thirty-fifth Place, but Thirty-sixth Street dead-ended at an expanse of trees that grew to within a few yards of the rear iron fence that was twelve feet tall, the tops of each rung ending in spikes. Climbing over it would not be impossible, though almost certainly security cameras would be trained on the entire perimeter.

  Earlier in the evening, after making sure where the ambulance had taken the woman, he’d raced back out to the jet parked at Reagan National where he’d talked to the monsignor, and afterward studied the layout of the hospital on one of his databases. The fact of its existence wasn’t a secret, only the fact that its patients were exclusively operators from the U.S. intelligence community was.

  He’d come up with a plan to create a diversion that would hopefully last long enough for him to get inside, find the woman, make certain that she was dead, and get out. Only he knew that it couldn’t work if it included his escape with his own life intact.

  He packed a small overnight bag with a couple of shirts, and several magazines of ammunition for his pistol, and drove back to Washington where he checked in at the Georgetown Suites under his work name of Albert Thomas.

  A half hour ago, he’d written a note on hotel stationery to Kirk McGarvey apologizing for the incident in the woods behind the Renckes’ house, but that the death of Colonel León was necessary. He sealed it in a hotel envelope on which he wrote the All Saints address, and taking only his handgun and spare magazines, leaving the overnight bag behind, slipped out of the hotel, and found a taxi in a queue on M Street waiting for customers from the bars.

  “I would like you to deliver this letter for me,” he told the driver who was skeptical.

  “Get in, I’ll take you wherever you want to go, and you can deliver it in person.”

  “That isn’t possible,” Dorestos said. He held out a hundred-dollar bill. “It’s not far from here. Should only take you a few minutes.”

  “Whatever you say, pal,” the driver said. He took the money and the envelope.

  “One other thing, though. I don’t want you to take it up there until midnight.”

  “What the hell is this supposed to be, some kind of a gag?”

  “Exactly that,” Dorestos said. “But the money is real.”

  “I can’t guarantee I won’t be taking a fare somewhere across town. So I’ll either deliver it right now, or you’ll have to take your chances that I’ll be on time.”

  Dorestos pulled another hundred-dollar bill from his pocket. “Midnight.”

  The driver only hesitated for a moment, before he took the money. “Midnight,” he said.

  Dorestos glanced at the driver’s taxi license. “I sincerely hope that I have not wasted my money, Mr. Singh, three-two-eight P-L-sixteen. I believe it’s called double-dipping.”

  * * *

  Lights illuminated the rear parking lot and emergency entrance, and standing in the darkness behind a tree a few yards from the fence Dorestos spotted three cameras—one at each corner covering the fence line and one in the middle trained on the entrance. Even if someone did make it over or through the fence they would be spotted in the parking lot and tracked to the door.

  If someone were watching the monitors.

  The tree limbs had been cleared so that the lowest one was at least ten or fifteen feet overhead, good enough to stop someone from climbing up unless they’d brought a ladder, or a grappling hook and line. But something like that would almost certainly attract attention.

  Keeping the trunk between him and the fence line, Dorestos stepped back ten yards and sprinted forward, leaping off the ground at the last moment, his big hands outstretched above his head. He easily caught the lowest branch and hauled himself up into the deep foliage of what he thought was probably an oak tree.

  He remained absolutely still for a full thirty seconds, wat
ching for any sign that someone in the hospital had spotted him, and would sound the alarm or come running. But nothing changed. The only noise was from a garbage truck on Whitehaven Parkway just to the north.

  It was ten minutes before midnight and Dorestos worked his way up to a stout limb that stretched almost to the fence line, about five feet higher than the tops of the spikes where it had been trimmed back.

  He waited another thirty seconds to make certain he hadn’t been detected and then eased into a position from where he could see the east quarter of the front gate where the taxi driver would show up to deliver the letter. If he didn’t, Dorestos hoped that the man was at peace with his god.

  Early in his small-arms training, he was on the two-hundred-inch pistol range, firing a variety of semiautos, among them the SIG Sauer, a variety of Glocks, and a few other more exotic weapons of Russian and Chinese manufacture. The stress was on learning what weapons were currently in use in the field, so that if chance found him needing to scavenge a pistol he would understand not only how to shoot it, but how to fieldstrip it.

  The man at the position next to his right was a veteran of a number of SMOM missions. Out of the corner of his eye Dorestos noticed that the man had turned left, carelessly holding his weapon in such a way that if it were to fire it could injure someone.

  “Watch it,” Dorestos said.

  The priest grinned. “What’s your problem? It’s on safe.” He raised the pistol.

  Dorestos reached over with lightning speed and grabbed the pistol, yanking it up and to the right. It discharged into the air.

  “Bastard,” the priest said, and he came at Dorestos, who stepped to the side and laid both pistols on the stand.

  He didn’t remember what he said, or exactly what he did next, but in an instant the range supervisor and a couple of instructors were running his way, the priest lying on the ground, his chest caved in.