Assassin

by David Hagberg

The Deputy Director of Operations’ secretary, a dowdy old woman, her silver gray hair up in a bun, looked up when Elizabeth came in.

  “I’m Elizabeth McGarvey, Mr. Ryan sent for me?”

  “Yes, dear, just a moment please,” the older woman said, pleasantly. She got up and went into Ryan’s office. A moment later she came back. “You may go in now.”

  Elizabeth nodded and as she passed, Ryan’s secretary whispered something to her that sounded like, “His bark is worse than his bite,” and then she was inside.

  Howard Ryan and another older, more serious looking man got to their feet, and Ryan came around his desk, a phony smile on his face.

  “Ms. McGarvey, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Howard Ryan, Deputy Director of Operations.” They shook hands. “I’d like you to meet my assistant DDO, Tom Moore.”

  “Sir,” Elizabeth said, shaking Moore’s hand. His grasp was like Ryan’s, limp and damp. Just like her father had told her.

  Ryan motioned for them to have a seat, and he went back behind his desk. “I was absolutely delighted when I learned that we had a second generation McGarvey working for us,” he said. “What made you decide on the Agency as a career? It was your father’s doing I’ll bet. He must be very proud of you.”

  “I’ve admired my father for as long as I can remember,” she said, careful to keep her tongue in check.

  “Then you and he must have had long talks about his work for us.”

  “Only in the most general of terms, Mr. Ryan. He believed very strongly in what he was doing. So do I.”

  Ryan chuckled. “I guess we can skip the brainwashing sessions on this one, Tom,” he said to Moore. “She’s already been well indoctrinated.”

  “How is your father these days?” Moore asked. “We understand that he’s back in Paris.”

  “He’s doing fine,” Elizabeth said. She hadn’t talked to him in more than six months, in part because she didn’t want to let slip about her new job. But in part because she’d all but begged him to stay in the States eighteen months ago after all the air crashes. He’d had something to do with the investigation, she was certain of it, though he’d told her nothing about it. At the time she’d felt vulnerable, and wanted him nearby. When he left she’d been angry.

  “Have you talked to him recently?” Ryan asked. “Has he come here to Washington to see you and your mother?”

  “Nor.”

  Again Ryan exchanged a look with Moore. “Good heavens, you haven’t had a falling out with your father, have you? That would be terrible. He isn’t upset that you’re working for us is he?” Ryan spread his hands. “I don’t mind telling you, since you’re one of us now, that your father and I have had differences of opinion. Some of that unfortunately came to an ugly head about a year and a half ago. But that in no way negates my sincerest admiration for the man and what he’s done for this agency. For his country. Even the President speaks of him fondly.”

  “No, sir, there’s been nothing like that,” Elizabeth said, wondering where he was taking this. “We’re still pals.”

  “Still pals,” Ryan said to Moore, who chuckled and looked approvingly at her.

  She wanted to ask them if their parents had any children who’d lived, but she bit her tongue. Politics, Mr. B. called it. Bullshit, she thought.

  “Well, we’d like to talk to him, and we thought that you might help us.”

  “Call him at his apartment in Paris.”

  “We tried,” Moore said. “He’s gone. We thought maybe he’d contacted you in the past few days.”

  Elizabeth’s stomach was hollow. Something was going on that had driven her father to ground, and it was important enough for the CIA to resort to this tactic.

  “Mr. Ryan, my father did mention your name once or twice over the past few years, but like I said only in the most general of terms. But I know my father well enough, and I’ve worked for the CIA long enough, to understand that something is going on that you need his help for.” Elizabeth tried to read something from their expressions, but she couldn’t. Moore seemed vapid, and Ryan seemed calculating.

  “That’s not quite the truth … .”

  “He’s gone to ground, you want to talk to him, but you can’t find him,” Elizabeth said. “And I suspect even if you did get a message to him there’s a good chance he’d ignore it. Especially if he’s working on something that he considers important.”

  “You’re a very astute young woman,” Ryan said after a few moments of silence. “Actually it’s the French SDECE who would like to speak with your father.”

  “About what, Mr. Ryan?”

  “That’s not relevant to your purposes at the moment.”

  “Bullshit,” Elizabeth said, unable to contain herself any longer. “You didn’t call me up here to chat about my health. You want me to find my father for you.”

  Ryan closed his eyes. “Christ,” he said half under his breath. When he opened his eyes again his expression and body language were flatly neutral, as if he’d pulled on a new skin. “We want you to tell him that the French intelligence service wish to speak with him. He can meet them at our embassy. But he’s broken no French laws, nor is he a fugitive from French justice. No warrant has been issued. They just want some information from him. Nothing more.”

  “About what?” Elizabeth shot back.

  “Don’t play hardball with us, young lady,” Moore said. “You’ll find yourself on the outside looking in.”

  “If you want to fire me, go ahead and do it. But if you want my help, don’t tell me lies. It’s the thing my father hates the most. And I inherited the trait.”

  “Tom spoke out of turn, Ms. McGarvey. We don’t want to fire you. As a matter of fact I called you up here this afternoon to offer you a job in Operations. We’ve got a class starting at the Farm the first of June. If you’re interested.”

  “First I bring you my father.”

  “Good heavens, I don’t know what you think we are. Fools, perhaps. Opportunists, maybe. But we’re not the enemy, Elizabeth. I’m offering you a job in Operations. You can take it or leave it. Frankly I think you’ll turn out to be a bigger pain in the ass than your father, but I think you have the potential of being almost as good as he was.”

  “Don’t try to tell me—”

  “Please hear me out,” Ryan cut her off. “I can show you your personnel file, if you want to see it. When you were evaluated for employment all three of your interviewers recommended Operations. In part because of your abilities, and in part, I have to admit, because of what your father has done for us.” Ryan studied her for a moment. “Now that is a fact, believe it or not. In the meantime we want to get a message to your father for the French. Nobody can find him, and I think you’re well aware that when your father wants to hide himself he’s very good. Possibly the best there ever was. At this moment we and the French have exhausted every means at our disposal short of an all out manhunt. Now that’s something very dangerous. People could get hurt. So we turned to you because you know your father probably better than anyone else, and if you should happen to show up on his doorstep his first reaction won’t be to escape out the back door, or shoot. We want your help.”

  “What do the French want to speak to him about?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Will you help us?” Moore asked.

  “Not until you tell me why the French are interested in my father.”

  “Under the circumstances her request is reasonable, Howard,” Moore said.

  Ryan seemed to consider it for a moment, and Elizabeth had the feeling she was being set up.

  “Will you accept an immediate transfer to Operations?” Ryan asked. “Independent of whether you help us out with this assignment?”

  “What would my job be?”

  “Special field officer in training,” Ryan answered, vexed. “But if you work for me it won’t be so easy as translating. I’m not an easy man to work for.”

  She wanted to tell him that sudden flash of truth was refre
shing, but she held her tongue. “Okay.”

  “Welcome aboard,” Moore said.

  “My boss will have to be told.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Moore promised.

  Ryan selected a file folder from a pile on his desk. “You’re to consider this matter highly confidential. You’ll speak about it with no one outside of this room without prior permission, or face prosecution under the National Secrets Act. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Elizabeth said. Don’t sell your soul for expediency, her father had cautioned her once. But don’t turn your back on whatever works. She was in!

  “Does the name Viktor Yemlin mean anything to you?”

  “He’s head of the Russian SVR’s North American Directorate.”

  Ryan’s eyes lit up. “How do you know this?”

  “We’re running programs for the DI on the current situation in Russia, his name came up. Until a few years ago he was the KGB’s rezident here in Washington.”

  “Your father never mentioned his name?”

  Elizabeth searched her memory. She shook her head. “Not that I can remember.”

  “They know each other,” Ryan said.

  “Considering the work my father did, I’m not surprised.”

  “What work is that?” Ryan asked, a flinty look in his eyes.

  “He never discussed assignments, Mr. Ryan, if that’s what you mean. But my father was employed by the Company for a number of years. He would have been of great interest to Yemlin. I’m just saying that the connection between them wouldn’t be unusual.”

  “Comrade Yemlin showed up in France last week. He was followed to a meeting with your father at the Eiffel Tower. The French managed to overhear a part of their conversation and it worried them sufficiently to contact our Paris Chief of Station for help. Specifically they wanted to know if your father was currently on assignment for us. We told them no.”

  Ryan was in his formal mode, speaking like a New York attorney. It bugged Elizabeth. She wanted him to quit beating around the bush and tell it straight. But again she held her tongue.

  “Were you aware that your father is seeing a woman in Paris?” Moore asked.

  Elizabeth smiled despite herself. “I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.”

  “Her name is Jacqueline Belleau and she works for the French secret service.”

  “To spy on him,” Elizabeth flared.

  “Frankly, yes,” Ryan admitted. “Your father met with Yemlin on Saturday. On Monday he kicked Ms. Belleau out of his apartment and disappeared.”

  “Maybe he found out what she was, and he just got rid of her. I would have in his shoes.”

  “It’s the timing that has the French most worried,” Ryan said. He slid the file folder across to Elizabeth. “That’s a transcript of what the French were able to monitor.”

  Elizabeth reached for the file folder.

  “Before you read that, I have to ask you something, Ms. McGarvey,” Ryan said, his tone suddenly gentle. “Did you know your grandparents, on your father’s side.”

  The question took her by surprise. “No. They were killed in a car accident in Kansas before I was born. But I saw photographs, and my father used to talk about them. He was very close to them.”

  “I don’t know of any other way to put this, except to tell you the way it was. Until recently this agency believed that your grandparents were spies for the Soviet Union.”

  “Crap,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes, indeed, it was crap, as you put it,” Ryan said. “An internal audit team is working to clear their names, but it’s something your father might not know yet.”

  Elizabeth’s throat was tight, and her eyes smarted. “My father believed that grandma and grandpa were spies? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Moore said. “It was apparently some kind of a Soviet disinformation plot to discredit him.”

  Sudden understanding dawned on Elizabeth. “Around the time of Santiago?”

  Ryan stiffened, but said nothing.

  “It would seem so,” Moore said. “Amends will be made, believe me. But it’s a burden that your father has carried for a long time. Too long a time.”

  Elizabeth was confused. She didn’t know how she felt, or even how she should feel, except that she was so terribly sorry for her father that she wanted to cry.

  “It’s made your father, shall we say, vulnerable in certain situations,” Moore continued in his patronizing tone.

  “Angry would be closer to the truth,” Elizabeth shot back.

  “Yes, angry.”

  Elizabeth opened the file folder and read the single page of transcript. She could hear her father’s voice, almost feel his presence in the few lines, and the ache in her heart deepened. She looked up finally, squaring her shoulders, stiffening her resolve. She was a McGarvey. Strong. Resolute. “Sometimes it’s all we have, Liz,” her father told her a few years ago in Greece. They were in trouble, and he wanted to comfort her, and yet make her aware of the truth.

  “We have no idea what Yemlin wants your father to do for the SVR,” Moore said. “But the French are worried that—”

  Ryan interrupted. “The French are concerned that whatever Yemlin wants will involve a French citizen, or possibly someone on French soil.”

  Elizabeth’s head was spinning again. She’d seen her father in action, and she’d heard enough dropped hints downstairs over the past few months, to figure out what his job had been. Or at least a part of it. Her father killed people. Bad people. Horrible people. But he had been a shooter for the CIA in the days when the Company denied such hired guns existed. Her mother would be aghast if she knew, although Elizabeth thought her mother probably had an idea at the back of her head. But they never talked about it. Never.

  A thought flashed in her head like a bright flare, and she had all she could do to keep it from showing on her face. Yemlin had come to ask her father to assassinate someone. Someone not in France, but in Russia. Someone who was tearing the country apart. Someone who could conceivably embroil all of eastern Europe in a war. Someone who had the complete attention of the CIA.

  Yemlin had asked her father to assassinate Yevgenni Tarankov, and her father had probably accepted the assignment otherwise he would not have gone to ground.

  “All right,” she said.

  “Ms. McGarvey?” Ryan asked.

  “I’ll find my father and get the message to him, but I’ll do it completely on my own. If my father gets the slightest hint that the agency is following me, or that he’s being set up, nobody will find him. And if I find out that I’m being followed I’ll tell my father everything, which will make him mad.” She flashed Ryan and Moore a sweet look. “You probably already know that when my father is angry you don’t want to be around him. He sometimes tends to take things to the extreme.”

  “We’ll stay out of your way, Ms. McGarvey, you have my word on it,” Ryan said. “As of this moment you are operational. Tom will set you up with a codename, contact procedures, travel documents and money, everything you’ll need.” He sat forward. “Time is of the essence. Because if your father takes the Russians up on their offer, he’ll either be arrested and jailed, or killed. Something I most sincerely assure you, young lady, that no one in the Agency wants to happen.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Nizhny Novgorod

  McGarvey’s train arrived at the main railway station on the west bank of the Volga River a few minutes after seven in the morning, and he walked across the street to a small workmen’s cafe crowded with roughly dressed factory workers and a few shabbily attired soldiers. The snowstorm had ended sometime in the middle of the night, and the sun shone brightly. A blanket of snow made the city of 1.5 million seem almost pretty. The upbeat mood of passengers aboard the train was matched by the festival atmosphere of the town. No one seemed to be working today, everybody seemed exuberant, expectant. Banners with Tarankov’s name and likeness, or plain banners with a stylized design of a tara
ntula spider, hung from the front of the railway station, and from utility poles on the broad avenue leading across the river toward the Kremlin whose walls rose from the hill overlooking the city center. They fluttered and snapped in the fresh breeze that carried with it odors of river sewage and factory smoke. Like most Russian cities, Nizhny Novgorod stank, but it was better than some places.

  His hard class car had been so packed with bodies last night that there’d been no room to sit down, not even on the drafty connecting platform. What little sleep he’d managed to get had been done standing up. Combined with the effects of stale air, too many cigarettes, and too much vodka—everybody on the train was drunk even before they’d left Moscow—McGarvey felt like he’d been on a seven-day binge. Catching a glance at his reflection in the dirty window of the cafe, he looked as if he hadn’t bathed or slept in a week. It was exactly the effect he wanted to achieve, because now he fit in. Now he was part of the scenery. No one to give a second notice to. No one threatening. Just another corporal too old for his rank, with obviously nowhere to go, and no hope, except for Tarankov.

  He bought a plate of goulash and black bread for a few roubles, and found a place in the corner at the end of a long table, where he sank down gratefully on the hard bench. Keeping his eyes downcast he ate the surprisingly good food, while he listened to what the men around the table were talking about. They all worked the night shift at the MiG factory on the eastern outskirts of the city, and they’d come down here after work to catch what they were calling “the Tarantula’s act.” They were all cynical, as only Russians could be, nonetheless their oftentimes heated discussion about Tarankov was tinged with a little awe, and even hope. It was about time somebody came along to get them out of the mess that Gorbachev started, and that the drunken buffoon Yeltsin had worsened. They’d lost the southern republics and the Baltics, and they’d also lost their dignity as a nation. Russians were taking handouts from foreigners just so they could have a hamburger at the McDonald’s in Moscow. AIDS, crack cocaine and the Mafia were direct imports from the west.