Dance with the Dragon
Page 40
“No, he was working the drug trade then,” Rencke said. “This shit didn’t start until six months ago, when he turned up down there again.”
“Tell me,” McGarvey prompted.
“There were two guys in the shadows at the compound the night you took the pictures, and Liu wasn’t lying, one of them was an ex-KGB officer by the name of Viktor Sheshtakov. The other one was Iranian intel, just like we thought, by the name of Mohammed Nuri.”
“Wait a second,” Whittaker broke in. “Wasn’t Sheshtakov one of the guys involved with the hit on the Russian in London last year?”
“Bingo,” Rencke said. “Alexander Litvinenko. They poisoned him with polonium-210, which they put in his drink.”
McGarvey had a bad feeling that he knew what was coming next, and if Rencke’s programs were correct, it was far worse than lavender.
“The KGB has been using that stuff for years,” McCann said. “Are you saying that Liu was being supplied with it by this Sheshtakov?”
“Exacto mundo, Howie,” Rencke said.
“Who was he planning to kill in Mexico?”
“No one,” Rencke said. “You see, the nifty thing about this shit is its versatility. You can use it to lace a cigarette. You can put it in an aerosol can of underarm deodorant or room freshener. You can put it in someone’s lunch or in his drink. You can spray it from an airplane, let’s say over Los Angeles. Put it in a reservoir of drinking water. Hell, you could even put a couple ounces of it into someone’s gas tank, and as he drove around town he’d be killing a lot of people, or at least making a bunch of them sick. And once it’s in your system, it’s all over but the dying.”
“Odorless, colorless, tasteless,” Whittaker said. “We worked with MI6 on the Litvinenko thing. It scared the hell out of them. They found radiation traces on at least two commercial jets that flew in from Moscow, but worse than that, they found traces all across London.”
“If not a Mexican, who was General Liu planning on killing, and how was that going to make all this fabulous money for him, as you claim?” McCann asked.
Adkins waved him off. It was obvious from the worry in his expression that he had figured it out, too. “Let him finish.”
“Iran was supplying the money not only to buy a lot of the stuff from Sheshtakov, but to pay Liu millions for his part in the Hezbollah scheme,” Rencke explained.
“Hezbollah in Mexico?” McCann asked. “Give me a break—” But then he too understood. “Son of a bitch.”
“Liu arranged for Hezbollah to get into the country, and from there up to Chihuahua, which was the staging area for the rest of the trip north.”
All the air seemed to leave the DCI’s office.
“Was?” Adkins asked.
“Liu’s part in the operation is a done deal,” Rencke said.
“How can you be sure?” Patterson asked.
“His Swiss account was credited with one hundred million dollars seven days ago,” Rencke said.
“How much of the material got into Hezbollah’s hands?” McGarvey asked.
“More than one hundred pounds,” Rencke said. “And it took just a trace to kill Litvinenko.”
“Well, then we can work with the Mexican Seguridad and close Chihuahua down,” McCann suggested.
“Too late,” McGarvey said, sick at heart. “It’s already here.”
Rencke was nodding. “As of last week, it had already been brought across our border. All one hundred pounds of it.”
“I need to brief the president,” Adkins said, his voice soft.
“And we need to pass this along to Homeland Security and the FBI,” Whittaker added.
“We’ll need to generate a National Intelligence Estimate immediately,” Adkins said. “Otto, can you help?”
“I’m here for the duration, boss,” Rencke promised.
Adkins turned to McGarvey. “Mac?”
“You can handle it from here,” McGarvey said, getting to his feet. “I’m going home.” He headed for the door.
“Hold on just a moment,” McCann called after him. “What about Ms. Ibenez?”
“She deserves a star on the wall downstairs.” Stars, not names, were inscribed on a wall in the lobby for field officers who’d fallen in the line of duty.
“I thought she was a traitor.”
“She saved my ass last year in Karachi, and she saved it again last night in Mexico,” McGarvey said. “Give her the star.”
“Say hi to Mrs. M.,” Rencke said at the door.
“Good luck,” McGarvey said. “To all of us.”
EIGHTY-EIGHT
CASEY KEY
It was early evening when the cab dropped McGarvey off at his home. The Florida air was soft, a light breeze off the Gulf pleasant. It was good to be home, except he felt dirty, and he didn’t think a hot shower would ever take care of it.
He’d phoned from the Sarasota airport that he was home but that he would cab it, and she understood. Now that he was back on the ground, back to his life, he needed the extra time to come down, to return from the place where his tradecraft was all that mattered, the only thing that could preserve his life, and his sanity.
He dropped his bag in the front hall, took off his jacket and pistol and laid them on the bench, and went back to the kitchen. It was a full moon, and he could see Kathleen’s silhouette in the gazebo down by the water, where she was waiting for him.
For a long time he just stared at her, and it began to dawn on him that he wasn’t some freak of nature after all. He wasn’t some psychopath whose mission in life was murder. He was a soldier, and what he did was for her, always and forever for her.
When he came down the lawn, she turned around, a huge smile on her pretty oval face, her eyes lit up like a billion stars.
“Hello,” he said.
“This is the part I like best,” she said, the words coming from the back of her throat. “When the boy finally comes home and gets the girl.”
WRITING AS DAVID HAGBERG
Twister
The Capsule
Last Come the Children
Heartland
Heroes
Without Honor
Countdown
Crossfire
Critical Mass
Desert Fire
High Flight
Assassin
White House
Joshua’s Hammer
Eden’s Gate
The Kill Zone
By Dawn’s Early Light
Soldier of God
Allah’s Scorpion
WRITING AS SEAN FLANNERY
The Kremlin Conspiracy
Eagles Fly
The Trinity Factor
The Hollow Men
False Prophets
Broken Idols
Gulag
Moscow Crossing
The Zebra Network
Crossed Swords
Counterstrike
Moving Targets
Winner Take All
Achilles’ Heel
WRITING NONFICTION WITH BORIS GINDIN
Mutiny! the story that inspired Tom Clancy’s blockbuster novel The Hunt for Red October
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DANCE WITH THE DRAGON
Copyright © 2007 by David Hagberg
All rights reserved.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
First Edition: September 2007
eISBN 9781466864542
First eBook edition: December 2013
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