Dance with the Dragon

by Hagberg, David

  He took a quick shower, got dressed, and packed his hanging bag, placing his pistol and extra magazines in a small diplomatic pouch, which he sealed, then called U.S. Airways to book a seat on the 7:05 p.m. Washington–New York shuttle, using one of his work name credit cards. He also booked a room under the same name at the Grand Hyatt, which was just a couple of blocks from the UN.

  His daughter, Elizabeth, drove up in one of the Hummers as McGarvey was putting his bag and diplomatic pouch in the Chevy Impala he’d rented yesterday. She was dressed in camouflage BDUs and looked as if she had just come from a field exercise that hadn’t gone very well.

  “Were you going to say good-bye, or just drive out the gate?” she asked, jumping out of the Hummer and coming around to him. She was clearly unhappy.

  “What’s the problem, sweetheart?”

  “Todd wanted to know if you’d have dinner with us tonight. We’re going into town.”

  “I have any early plane to catch,” McGarvey said. He went back into the cabin and Liz followed him.

  “Have you finished your homework?” she asked.

  “Just about,” McGarvey said. He put on his jacket, and handed her the burn bag. “Take care of this for me, if you would. It’s fairly sensitive material.”

  Liz boiled over. “Goddamn it, Daddy, you’re getting too old for this kind of shit. We’ve got some capable field officers who can handle whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  McGarvey faced his daughter and smiled indulgently. “That’s the second time you’ve said something like that to me. Have I become that doddering?”

  “Mother’s worried about you.”

  He nodded. “She has every right to be worried.”

  “Well, goddamn it, can’t you at least take the time to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “No. But Dick Adkins might talk to you.”

  She stamped her foot in frustration, and her eyes suddenly filled. She looked away, embarrassed by such a show of emotion. She was a woman, and sometimes, like at this moment, she was just a little bit ashamed of her sex. According to Katy, Liz had been a raging tomboy as a young girl, and more than one boy’s parents had called to complain that Liz had beaten up their son. A glass ceiling existed for women in the CIA, even for the daughter of a former DCI, and Liz meant to break through, by being better than her male counterparts. In her mind that meant not getting emotional and crying.

  McGarvey knew all of this, but she was his daughter. He took her in his arms. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said softly.

  She stiffened and started to pull away, but then melted. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Goddamn it to hell.”

  “You said that already,” McGarvey said. “Now, do you want to tell me what’s really bothering you, other than the fact that you have a father who had the bad grace to turn fifty-plus?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening,” she said into his shoulder.

  “Neither do I, yet. And besides, you don’t have the need to know.”

  She parted and looked into her father’s eyes. “Have you talked to Mother? She called yesterday wondering if I knew where you were. If you were okay. I had to lie to her.”

  “It’s better for now that she doesn’t know. Believe me.”

  “Is it about Gloria Ibenez?” Liz blurted.

  McGarvey had a sudden chill. He didn’t like people, not even friends or co-workers, looking over his shoulder. “What about her?”

  “She called yesterday too, looking for you, and I got the feeling that she knew or guessed that you were here. She says that you and she are working together again.”

  “That’s true,” McGarvey said. “What’d you tell her?”

  “The same thing I told Mother; that I hadn’t seen you and had no idea where you were. Then around ten this morning Otto e-mailed an update on Gloria’s personnel record, asked that I bring it over to you. It’s classified only confidential, so he didn’t think it was necessary to send a courier. Anyway, he thought that you’d be sleeping.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the truck,” Liz said. “I’ve got a right to know what’s going on, you know. She’s in love with you, and I don’t think she’s going to back off unless you force the issue.”

  McGarvey nodded, sad not only for Gloria’s sake, but for that of his daughter, who was worried sick about her father and mother getting another divorce. She’d spent most of her childhood without her father, and now that she had him back she wasn’t about to give up so easily.

  “I know,” he said. “And what I’m going to do won’t be very pretty, and you might hear some things that’ll be hard to swallow.” He hesitated a moment for her to digest what he was saying. He could see the uncertainty and fear in her eyes. “But no matter what you hear, nothing I’m going to do will hurt your mother.” He smiled. “I love her, too, you know.”

  Liz’s eyes began to fill again. “Oh, Daddy,” she blubbered. “I’m sorry.” She came back into his arms, shivering.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” McGarvey said. “I’m never going away again. You’re going to have me around for the duration.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  EN ROUTE TO DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  McGarvey picked up what at first he figured was a loose tail on I-64 at the entrance ramp just outside Camp Peary’s north gate. Whenever the Farm came under someone’s scrutiny the first thing the opposition put in place, after overflights and satellite views, was a tail on every car heading back to Washington or Langley on the interstate. He figured it was one of those operations. Lately the Russians had been taking a closer look at us.

  It was late afternoon, and McGarvey wanted to get up to Dulles in plenty of time before his seven o’clock flight to turn in the rental car at the Hertz counter, have dinner, and look at the new material on Gloria Ibenez that Rencke had e-mailed. The black Toyota van a couple of cars back wasn’t much more than a nuisance, yet something at the back of McGarvey’s head was thinking coincidence. He was on the hunt, and leaving the Farm someone was following him. Yet there weren’t many people who knew he’d been there, unless he’d been followed from Langley the day before yesterday.

  He reached into the backseat with one hand and grabbed the diplomatic pouch. He opened it on the passenger seat, took out his Walther PPK, loaded a magazine into the handle, and stuck the pistol into his belt beneath his jacket. The black van was still two cars back, and McGarvey concentrated on his driving, switching lanes now and then to pass a car or truck, sometimes speeding up, sometimes slowing down, without being obvious about what he was doing.

  A half hour later on the outskirts of Richmond, I-64 split three ways—straight into the city center, south on I-295 to Petersburg, and north on the bypass highway to Washington. McGarvey waited until the last possible moment to take I-295 North, but the Toyota driver easily kept up. Apparently he had anticipated which direction McGarvey was headed.

  On the north side of Richmond traffic picked up, heavy at times, the interstate rolling through the Virginia hills, the day pleasant and mild. He’d thought about using his cell phone to call his daughter and give her the heads-up that the Farm was being surveilled again, but by now he was reasonably sure that whoever was behind in the Toyota had targeted him specifically. It was an interesting thought, considering how few people knew where he’d gone for the past couple of days, unless he’d been identified by Liu’s people, who’d somehow found out that he’d left Mexico City and returned to Washington. Could be the general had laid on a fishing expedition, stationing people at all the obvious places where a man such as McGarvey might reasonably be expected to go. But that would take a lot of assets and, if nothing else, at least the tacit approval of the Guoanbu chief of the Washington station. If that was the case it meant that Liu had definitely sat up and taken notice. Which was a good thing because it meant that he had something to hide.

  McGarvey bided his time for the next twenty miles, the van never far away, until he came to a rest stop about
halfway to Fredericksburg. He took the exit and headed down to the car parking area in front of a pleasant-looking redbrick colonial building. There were plenty of people coming and going, including several families seated at picnic tables, a couple walking their dog, and three truckers over by their big rigs, the engines idling.

  The van was just pulling into a parking spot twenty yards away when McGarvey got out of his car and walked up to the visitors’ center. A corridor went straight through the building, past the vending machines and the restrooms, and out the back way to a paved path that meandered through the trees to several unoccupied picnic areas with concrete tables and barbecue grills.

  McGarvey slipped out the back door and stepped to one side. Less than a minute later two men emerged from the building, obviously in a big hurry. They were young, probably in their early twenties, and they were Hispanic, probably Mexicans, which for an instant was a surprise. He’d figured they would be Chinese. But Liu had made a mistake; he’d just shown one of his hole cards.

  “You’ve followed me this far, so what do you want?” McGarvey asked. He leaned nonchalantly up against the building.

  The two Mexicans pulled up short and turned. The shorter of them reached inside his leather jacket, but the taller kid motioned him off. Both were neatly groomed, clean-shaven, and well dressed. They looked like professionals, unlike the ones McGarvey had encountered at Liu’s compound and again at the sidewalk café near the Chinese embassy. Possibly ex-cops or military; they had the bearing.

  “What makes you think that we were following you?” the tall kid asked. He spoke with a heavy Mexican accent.

  “Just a guess,” McGarvey said.

  “Well, you’re right, you stupid bastard,” the kid said. “You should have kept your nose out of other people’s business.” He glanced down toward the picnic areas and the thick woods just beyond. “Down there,” he said.

  “The general must be getting nervous if he sent you guys after me,” McGarvey said pleasantly, without moving away from where he was leaning.

  “Move,” the Mexican said.

  “Or what?”

  “You don’t want a shoot-out up here, an innocent bystander might get hurt.”

  “Anyway, old man, don’t you want to have a chance to take us down?” the short one asked. He was built like a fireplug, but his expression was bland, as if he had little interest in whatever would happen next.

  “Okay,” McGarvey agreed. He pushed away from the building and started down the path toward the last picnic area before the woods.

  The two Mexicans were right behind him, and so far no one else had come out the back door. “Are you carrying?” the tall one asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m going to enjoy seeing you beg for your life before I put a bullet in the back of your head.”

  “Like you guys did to Louis up in Chihuahua?”

  “At least he was man enough in the end to try for his gun.”

  They reached the last picnic table, and McGarvey suddenly stopped and turned back to them. “Can you at least tell me what Louis was doing up there? He was a friend of mine, and I’d like to know what happened, before this goes too far.” The short Mexican had taken out his pistol. It was a Glock with a silencer threaded to the end of the barrel.

  “Keep going,” the tall one ordered.

  They were only a few yards from the woods, and no one else had come back here so far, but McGarvey didn’t think it would last. “Okay,” he said, and he turned and walked the rest of the way to the woods. “The next time I see the general, I’m going to recommend that he use Chinese intel officers,” he said conversationally. “Not some stupid wetbacks like you guys.”

  “Fuck you,” the short one said angrily.

  McGarvey stepped down off the grass into the woods and suddenly slid to the left as he turned around. The short Mexican was pissed off and not thinking straight. He was shoving his partner aside so that he could bring his pistol to bear, but McGarvey was faster, grabbing the front of the tall Mexican’s jacket and manhandling him into the muzzle.

  The short Mexican fired on reflex, the 9 mm Parabellum round smashing into his partner’s spine between his shoulder blades, dropping the man where he stood.

  McGarvey stepped back, this time to the right, pulled out his pistol, and jammed it into the side of the short Mexican’s head. “Move and I’ll kill you.”

  For an instant it seemed as if the man would comply, but he suddenly lurched back and brought his pistol up. McGarvey fired one shot, hitting the Mexican in the forehead just above his right eye, and he crumpled in a heap, dead by the time he hit the ground.

  “Goddamn it,” McGarvey muttered. He’d wanted at least one of them alive to answer some questions. He shoved the pistol into his belt and glanced up at the visitors’ center. Still no one had come out the back.

  He dragged both bodies a few yards deeper into the woods so that they could not easily be spotted from the building or any of the picnic areas, then went through their pockets. Besides spare magazines for their pistols, they carried Mexican passports, a couple of credit cards and driver’s licenses in the same names as the passports, and a few hundred dollars in American currency and about the same in pesos.

  Unless the documents were fakes, the men had come into the U.S. quite openly, and possibly for just the one operation. But their wallets also contained photos of young smiling women, either sweethearts or wives, Mexican health system cards, car insurance IDs, and other bits and pieces, which made it likely the IDs were legitimate. Which also meant they probably weren’t on any U.S. red lists.

  Checking again to make sure that no one had come back to one of the picnic areas, McGarvey walked back up to the visitors’ center and went to his car, where he used his cell phone to call Rencke.

  “I have a job for housekeeping,” McGarvey said, and he explained where he was and what had happened.

  “Do you think Liu sent them?” Rencke asked.

  “If he didn’t, I don’t know who else would have or why. But if it was him, he’s made a mistake.”

  “Oh, boy, has he ever,” Rencke agreed. “I’ll get someone down there right away. But what about you?”

  “I’m catching a flight to New York, see if I can get anything from that French woman the Bureau interviewed a couple years ago. In the meantime you might want to send someone down to Longboat Key to give Toni a hand. If Liu is sending people after me, it’s possible he’ll try to find Shahrzad.”

  “And anyone else connected with you,” Rencke said. “I’ve got a couple of good people hanging around Casey Key, and they’ll stay there for the duration.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said.

  “Oh, and I came up with some information on the French woman you’re going to see. She was married when she first started working for Liu at the UN, but evidently her hubby didn’t take kindly to her extracurricular activities so he dumped her and decamped to California. I can find him if you want, but I don’t think he’d be much help.”

  “Don’t bother,” McGarvey said. “Does she still work at the UN?”

  “No. She’s translating novels for St. Martin’s and a couple other publishers. Not much money. I’ll send your phone a download of what I found out about her.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  NEW YORK

  The cabbie dropped McGarvey on Broadway near West Eightieth, a couple blocks from the address Rencke had given him for the French woman. It was a warm early afternoon and the neighborhood just a couple of blocks up from the Hudson River was busy, though the pace was nowhere near as frenetic as it was in Midtown. Here were mostly apartments and co-ops for families, and the small grocery stores and businesses that served them.

  He headed up to Eighty-third on foot, taking his time, stopping every now and then to look into a shop window while studying the reflections in the glass of what was coming up behind him. Twice he crossed to the east side of the avenue, walked back a block, and crossed again.
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br />   In twenty minutes he was reasonably certain that he wasn’t being followed. The number Rencke had come up with was a shabby entrance next to a dry cleaner in a three-story building. Four buzzers for the apartments on the second and third floors were marked with the names of tenants, Monique Thibault on the third floor rear.

  Born on a farm outside Lyon, Monique, whose maiden name had been Forcier, had attended the Sorbonne, specializing in languages. After graduation she worked for a number of French firms, including Michelin, where she met her husband, Pierre. After they were married he was transferred to Michelin’s New York office, and within a few months of their arrival she went to work as a translator for the UN. According to what Rencke had been able to dig up, which was quite a bit more than what had found its way into the FBI’s report, the Thibaults led very hectic, and most likely separate, lives. He traveled a lot, and her job entailed many night and weekend assignments.

  McGarvey pressed the buzzer beside her name, then stepped back and glanced over his shoulder at the passersby. No one paid him the slightest attention.

  He was about to ring again when a woman answered, her voice badly distorted in the tiny speaker. “Yes, who is there?”

  “C’est moi, Monique.”

  “Qui?”

  “Pierre, naturellement. Ouvrez la porte.”

  The door lock buzzed and McGarvey went inside to a dimly lit narrow hallway. Trash was piled in a corner, a narrow flight of steps was to the left, and a short dark corridor led to a door at the rear. The place stank of mold, dry rot, and plaster dust.

  The FBI’s file had identified Monique as thirty-one, which would make her thirty-three now. But the woman waiting for McGarvey at the third-floor landing looked twenty years older. Her narrow shoulders were hunched; her face, which had probably been pretty at one time, was bloated and splotched with red; and her long dark hair, shot through with gray, had obviously not been washed or brushed for at least a week. She was dressed in a dirty pair of painter’s bib overalls and a T-shirt, her feet bare. A pair of reading glasses was perched on the end of her nose.