The Cabal

by David Hagberg

  McGarvey leaned back against the counter and took a drink. Too soon, he wanted to say. Time to run, this time for good. Maybe back to Greece. Bury himself so that he could start to heal.

  He didn’t know if he could stay here now and yet he knew damned well it was too late for him to turn away. It had been too late after the polonium thing in Mexico, and far too late when he had killed Turov in Tokyo and when Todd had put a bullet in McCann’s head at the safe house up near Cabin John. All that had happened over the past year, and yet it seemed like a century ago.

  And here he was, and it still wasn’t over.

  His grip tightened on the brandy snifter and he looked down at what he was doing, his knuckles white, and with the most supreme effort of his life, he loosened up, took another drink, and put the glass down with a steady hand.

  “What is this place?” he asked.

  Otto exchanged a relieved glance with his wife. “We bought it about six months ago, just after the incident with Turov and Howard. I wasn’t picking up anything solid about what had been going on, but I thought there was a possibility that more would be coming down the pike. So I figured one of these days we might need a safe house off the Company’s books. Totally untraceable as are the utilities and taxes and the car. Sort of a hideout but right in the middle of things, you know what I mean?”

  “Why weren’t you at the funeral?” McGarvey asked. “Liz asked about both of you.”

  “Otto had a hunch that if something were to happen, Arlington would have been a good place for it,” Louise said. “I’ve learned to trust his instincts.”

  “Why not more security officers?” McGarvey asked.

  “I don’t know who to trust, Mac,” Otto said. “Honest injun, I can’t find anything, but I know something’s there. Anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered. We didn’t know about the IED.”

  “Someone had to be within a sightline to push the button. Did you see anything, did anyone see something?”

  “There were lots of cars, and all of them got out of there in a big hurry after the blast. The shooters would have probably been among them.” Otto spread his hands. “I don’t know yet if any security cameras picked up something, but I’ll check on it this afternoon.”

  “I’m not turning myself in,” McGarvey said. “Not until this is resolved.”

  Otto nodded. “What do you want to do?”

  “I’m going after Roland Sandberger, this time for real.”

  “That’s wrong, Kirk,” Louise said. “There’s no proof he ordered this thing. You’ve killed people, like a soldier on the battlefield. But not this. Not execution style.”

  McGarvey ignored her, his grief changing into a black rage he was having trouble controlling. “I want to know where he is right now.”

  “After Frankfurt he went back to Baghdad, and Remington came home,” Rencke said. “But Louise is right, we have no proof that Admin was involved.”

  “I’ll get the proof just before I kill him.”

  Again Rencke exchanged a look with his wife, and spread his hands. “He always travels with two bodyguards. Tough guys. Well trained and highly motivated to keep the guy who signs their paychecks alive. They won’t be easy. And Baghdad’s still a dangerous place. Accidents happen all the time.”

  “Works both ways,” McGarvey said, his bitterness barely below the surface.

  “What happened to Dan Green and Pete Boylan?” Louise asked, trying to defuse McGarvey’s anger.

  “Dan is dead, but I’m not sure about Pete. I think her airbag might have deployed in time to save here. I don’t know.”

  “We should check on her,” Louise told her husband.

  “I’ll need a weapon, whatever air marshals are carrying these days, probably Glock twenty-threes, and a Galco shoulder holster, some clothes, an ID, and a couple hundred dollars cash. And a sat phone. Encrypted.”

  “You’re not getting to Baghdad like that,” Rencke said.

  “Orlando, and I’ll need a rental car there.”

  “You’re going home,” Rencke said. “But you don’t have to do anything like that. I can get everything you need from here.”

  “I don’t want you and Louise involved more than you already are.”

  “No shit, Mac, don’t do that to me—to us. You can’t just turn your back.”

  “Goddamnit, I don’t want anyone else to get hurt!” McGarvey shouted coming away from the counter. “It’s enough. It’s . . . enough.”

  Rencke nodded. “Okay, kemo sabe. I’ll get you to Orlando, but you gotta know that the federal marshals or at least the Bureau probably have someone watching your house.”

  “I’ll deal with it.”

  “You’re not going to hurt our own people,” Louise said, angrily.

  “No,” McGarvey said. “Not badly.”

  “When do you want to leave?” Rencke asked after a beat.

  “Tomorrow afternoon. First I have to get some rest.”

  “In the meantime what about me?”

  “Find a connection between Sandberger, McCann, and the Friday Club. Someone funded the polonium-210 in Mexico and the hit in Pyongyang. Find the money trail, and maybe we’ll find out the why.”

  THIRTY

  The director of Central Intelligence Dick Adkins sat in the backseat of his armored Cadillac limousine heading up 17th Street to the White House wondering what the hell he was going to tell the new president that made any sense. Except for the fact he’d once worked with and then for McGarvey before becoming DCI himself, this briefing would have landed in the lap of Madeline Bible the director of National Intelligence.

  But President Joseph Langdon had asked specifically for Adkins, and although he’d been in office six months no one in Washington had really taken his measure yet. Everyone, including the media, was still being cautious, and Adkins wasn’t looking forward to the meeting.

  At five-eight with a slender build, thinning sand-colored hair, and a pleasant if anonymous face, Adkins had never aspired to run the CIA. Unlike McGarvey he was more of an administrator than a spy, and unlike most of his other predecessors he’d never been politically connected. He’d just inherited a job that no one seemed to want when McGarvey left the Agency. He’d been stuck with it through the previous administration, though he had the feeling his tenure was about to come to an abrupt end.

  They went up West Executive Avenue and stopped at the guardhouse, but were immediately waved through; Adkins’s face was a familiar one. The president’s national security adviser Frank Shapiro, a hawk-nosed ultra-liberal, met him at the West Entrance, a sour expression on his narrow face.

  “You’re late, Mr. Director.”

  “Unavoidable,” Adkins said, not rising to the bait. Within ten days after the new administration was in place, he and Shapiro had gone head-to-head over a National Intelligence Estimate in which Adkins had argued for the retention of the prisoner and interrogation facility at Guantánamo Bay.

  “Over my dead body,” Shapiro had said flatly, and Adkins remembered wishing for just that.

  They headed to the Oval Office, the West Wing bustling with activity this afternoon, and Adkins girded himself for what he knew was coming.

  “You didn’t bring any briefing materials with you?” Shapiro asked. “The president has a number of serious issues he wants to discuss.”

  “No, I brought nothing.”

  “Top of the list is Kirk McGarvey. The man has become a menace, and the president wants him brought in.”

  “Not such an easy job.”

  “The CIA won’t be asked to handle it, we’re leaving it to the Bureau. But the president will want to have your advice. You know the man better than I do.”

  Adkins almost called him a prick. “I wasn’t aware that you’d met him.”

  “I never did,” Shapiro said. “But you know what I mean.”

  Maybe asshole would have been a better word, Adkins decided.

  President Joseph Langdon, a tall, ruggedly built man with features and m
annerisms reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson, was seated at his desk in shirtsleeves, his tie loose, the directors of the FBI Benjamin Caffery and the National Security Agency Air Force Major General Warren E. Reed across from him. He looked up, a stern set to his mouth.

  “I’m glad you’re here, finally. Now we can get started.” He nodded for Shapiro to join the meeting and to close the door.

  No other chair had been set in front of the president’s desk, so Adkins was forced to remain standing. It was an insult.

  “I want to know why better control wasn’t kept of McGarvey?”

  “That was up to the Federal Marshals Service, Mr. President.”

  “But he was in the custody of the CIA at Langley for debriefing. And prisoners accused of high crimes against the nation are generally not permitted to attend funerals. Especially uncuffed.”

  “It was his son-in-law’s funeral.”

  “It’s unfortunate. I’m told that Mr. Van Buren was an outstanding officer. But it changes nothing.”

  “McGarvey is not guilty of treason.”

  “Justice informs me otherwise,” the president said. “He will be brought in, and he will be prosecuted. Which is why you’re here. We want your input. You’ve worked for and with him for a number of years. Where has he gone? What will he do next?”

  “I don’t know,” Adkins said. And he didn’t, though he had a fair idea that wherever he’d gone to ground it involved Otto Rencke, who’d also disappeared.

  “Who killed his wife and daughter?” Caffery asked. He was a large man, with a round face and a WWII haircut, who in his six short months as the FBI’s director had already begun to develop the reputation of a man you never wanted to cross. A modern-day J. Edgar Hoover.

  “Muslim extremists,” Shapiro answered for Adkins. “Roadside bombings have finally come to America. Although I don’t think anyone believes the target at Arlington was anyone other than McGarvey himself.”

  “I agree, Frank,” Adkins said. “But it brings up the interesting question of just why your Muslim extremists wanted Kirk McGarvey dead?”

  “Any number of reasons,” Shapiro shot back. “But the CIA would know more about that than I do. What’s the man been up to lately? I’ve seen no reports on his recent activities.”

  “He was retired.”

  Shapiro wanted to press the argument but Langdon held him off. “I’m sorry for Mr. McGarvey’s loss, but he’s brought many of his problems onto himself by his reckless actions.”

  “In service of his country, Mr. President,” Adkins said, his voice rising. “Have you read his record, sir? His entire record?”

  “You forget yourself,” Shapiro practically shouted.

  “Do you people understand what sacrifices he’s made for his country?”

  The president eyed him coldly then turned to Caffery. “How soon will you have McGarvey in custody?”

  “It’s hard to give you an exact time table, Mr. President, but it will be soon. We believe he’s still in the Washington area. All public transportation venues are being watched twenty-four/seven, as are car rental companies. His photograph has been sent to every law enforcement agency within a one-hundred-mile radius of Arlington, and all of his known friends and associates are being tailed. We’ve requested wiretaps for a few of his acquaintances here and in Florida, which we should have within a few hours. We’ll bring him in.”

  “Someone is bound to get hurt,” the president said.

  “That’s a possibility we’ve considered, but when we have him located, we’ll go in with an overwhelming force.”

  Adkins couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “His wife and daughter were killed in front of his eyes, for Christ’s sake. But he didn’t kill the marshals who wanted to take him in.”

  “No,” Caffery said. “But he knocked one of the men to the ground and stole his weapon and used it to shoot the other marshal in the leg.”

  “But not in the head, Benjamin,” Adkins said. “And believe me a head shot would have been easier for him than you can possibly imagine.”

  Langdon gazed at Adkins as if he were seeing his DCI for the first time. He nodded. “Mr. Adkins, you’re fired. Your deputy director will take over on an interim basis.”

  This hadn’t come as a surprise to any of them, but of the men in the room, Shapiro seemed to be the most smug.

  “Leave us now. Clean out your personal items from your office, return your laptop and secure telephone and security badges and any files or other documents you might have in your possession.”

  “It’s already been taken care of, Mr. President.”

  “A release document under the Secrets Act is ready for your signature. Mr. Whittaker has it for you,” Langdon said. He got to his feet and extended his hand. “On behalf of a grateful nation—”

  But Adkins just looked at him. “I’m truly sorry, Mr. President, but you have no idea who you’re dealing with or the serious nature of the problem he’s been trying to work out for his country.”

  “If it’s found that you’ve withheld information, you will be prosecuted,” Shapiro told him.

  “You haven’t a clue, do you,” Adkins said. “Well, neither do I. But I think if you press him people will get hurt.”

  “If he contacts you we want to know,” Caffery said.

  “I’m sure you’ll be monitoring my phone lines.”

  “Of course,” General Reed said.

  “God help you all,” Adkins said, and he turned and walked out of the Oval Office.

  PART

  TWO

  The Following Days

  THIRTY-ONE

  McGarvey flew a U.S. Airways flight out of Baltimore’s Thurgood Marshall Airport a few minutes after five in the afternoon as a U.S. Marshal, touching down in Orlando at eleven-thirty. Rencke had arranged everything and the captain and crew thanked him.

  “Makes us feel a lot better having you guys aboard,” one of the flight attendants said, flashing him a smile.

  But he was focused and had simply nodded, and went inside where he took the train to the main terminal and the rental car counters where Rencke had arranged for a car under the same work name—Joshua Taylor—but with no reference to him as anyone other than a private citizen.

  He was out of there by midnight heading down I-4 to Tampa and the Gulf Coast, where he would take I-75 south to his home on Casey Key. But it didn’t seem like coming home to him. All of Florida was empty now, devoid of any life, or any purpose of any happiness. It was just another place he was traveling through, because when this business was finally over and done he would never come back.

  Traffic was light at this hour and he made good time. Once he reached the outskirts of Sarasota he called Rencke on the sat phone.

  “Any trouble?” Rencke asked.

  “None so far. Have you heard anything from the seventh floor?”

  “Dick Adkins was fired. Apparently he and Langdon had it out, and on Shapiro’s strong recommendation, Dick was given the boot.”

  “Has anyone been appointed interim DCI?”

  “Dave Whittaker. The White House doesn’t want to put someone new in place until you’re brought in.”

  “Is anyone looking for you and Louise?” McGarvey asked. It was the only thing left he had to worry about, except for his granddaughter. But whatever happened she was safe at the Farm.

  “Not officially, but Tommy Doyle has sent out a number of posts on a couple blogs I check out from time to time.”

  Doyle had been the deputy director of intelligence when McGarvey was DCI. He retired a few years ago, so it was tough to figure if he was trying to make contact with Otto on his own in order to find McGarvey, or if Whittaker or someone at Langley had put him up to it. Either way it would be too dangerous to respond to his queries and Otto agreed.

  “The Bureau has two guys at your house, three teams rotating every eight hours. The off-duty guys are staying at a Holiday Inn up in Venice. I didn’t get any names, but their shifts start at oh six hundred
, so if you mean to get in sometime this morning the guys on the twenty-two hundred shift should be getting bored and tired around four in the morning. It’d give you two hours to get in and get back out.”

  “The timing’s right,” McGarvey said, thinking ahead. The closer he got the odder it seemed to him that he was going to break into his own house. It wasn’t real. When it was over he would go back to Greece, at least for the interim, until he healed. If ever.

  “Honest injun, Mac, these are the good guys. Louise is right, you can’t go in there and do something . . . stupid.”

  “Don’t worry,” McGarvey said. “I won’t hurt anything but their pride.”

  “That’s bad enough.”

  The village section of Siesta Key with its restaurants, bars, and nightspots, one barrier island north of Casey Key, was lit up and busy as normal on an evening, but the residential areas, especially south of the village, were dark and quiet as was also usual for this time of night.

  It was past the tourist season, and many of the houses on the Gulf side of the island as well as the Intracoastal Waterway side were closed down, no one in residence until sometime around Thanksgiving. McGarvey had no trouble finding a stretch of half a dozen such houses on the ICW that were dark, and he shut off his headlights and pulled into one of the driveways.

  The house next door had a small inboard/outboard powerboat on a lift out of the water. McGarvey jimmied the lock on the back door of the house, first making sure there wasn’t an alarm system, and in the kitchen found the boat’s keys, and in the garage found a couple of jerry cans of gas and after a couple of minutes searching a roll of duct tape.