The Cabal

by David Hagberg

  For the moment he was reasonably safe here, but he was chafing at the bit to get started. And it was next to impossible for him to erase the vision of Katy’s limousine exploding in front of him. He couldn’t put out of his head the last touch, the last kiss, the last words, and it was driving him nearly insane; his rage was a barely controlled thing just beneath the surface.

  He’d gotten up before dawn, and waited until the gift shops along Ocean Drive opened. He bought a pair of swim trunks and a beach jacket, and went across to the ocean where an attendant brought him a beach chair. He’d left the jacket behind and went into the water, warm at this time of the year, and began swimming straight out to sea. His stroke was strong, even, measured and he let a slight rip current help carry him farther.

  At one point he thought he’d heard a lifeguard’s whistle, but then it faded and he put more effort into his stroke until looking over his shoulder he could see the buildings, but not the beach itself, and he rolled over on his back and floated on the long, gentle swells.

  Otto would get him to Baghdad in such a way that Sandberger and his people wouldn’t know about it until it was too late. There was a connection between Admin and the Friday Club and he was going to find out about it, whatever it took. Afterward he would take whatever leads he could extract and go after them until he reached the end.

  It didn’t matter, now, who he brought down. But someone was going to pay for Katy and Liz and for Todd, and pay dearly.

  Forty minutes later he was back on the beach, where he dried off, got his beach jacket, gave the attendant a twenty-dollar bill, and walked back across to his hotel and up to his room.

  He’d left a couple of obvious fail safes, including a hair across the door seam, and the carpet scuffed in a certain way just inside the door, that would have easily caught even an amateur’s notice, but the smudge on the inside door handle was hidden, and might have been missed. But nothing had been disturbed. So far he’d attracted no notice.

  He stripped and took a long hot shower, followed by a cold one, then shaved and got dressed in a pair of jeans, a khaki sport fisherman’s shirt, untucked, and a pair of deck shoes. When he came out the missed call light on his encrypted sat phone was blinking.

  It was Otto and he answered as usual on the first ring. “Are you okay?”

  “I went out for a swim.”

  Otto was silent for a beat. “Oh, that’s good,” he said. “But now you need to keep a lower profile. A federal judge signed a warrant for your arrest and the Bureau has issued an APB, with emphasis on central and southern Florida. They figure you’re still in the state, because they know what you were looking for in your house, and probably why. So they’re backtracking to find out what ID you used to get down there and when they get that they’ll have you.”

  “I’ll need to get out of here sometime tonight.”

  “Sooner than that. Martinez will get your package in a few hours, and he’ll come over to the hotel for the delivery. I’m still working on some of it, but I’m taking my time. This has got to be right the first time, because after your deal in Frankfurt they’ve gotta expect you’ll go up against Sandberger again. This time in Baghdad. So they’ll be looking for you.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “First off you’ll have to change your appearance, but nothing drastic. Martinez will have everything you need. I’ve lifted two of your ID photos from your Company file and altered them. You’ll see from what I’ve done what you’ll have to change. Hair dye, skin tone, that sort of thing.”

  “We’ve been through it before.”

  “Yes,” Otto said. “I thought about getting you out under a diplomatic passport, but I think that’s just what the Bureau might be expecting. Homeland Security has probably been notified, which means the TSA guys at every airport in the country will be on the lookout for someone with your general build traveling under the ID of a State Department FSO.”

  “No weapons.”

  “That would compound the troubles, and it’s also something they expect. I’m working on getting you two sets of legitimate passports and IDs. Maybe one as a contractor and the other as a journalist. I’m working on that part.”

  “What about out of Kuwait?”

  “You’ll need a guide.”

  “I don’t want to involve anyone else,” McGarvey said. People close to him tended to get themselves killed. He didn’t know if he could handle much more of that.

  “You don’t have much of a choice, kemo sabe. The situation out there is too fluid for you not to rely on local knowledge. Hell, just getting from Kuwait City to Baghdad is a tough nut to crack even for a convoy. You gotta listen to me, Mac.”

  But it was hard. He wanted revenge, and yet he knew that he wasn’t thinking straight.

  “Pull your head out, Mac. Honest injun. This is too important to screw up. You and I both know that Mexico City and Pyongyang were connected and there’s more to come.”

  “How’s Audie,” McGarvey asked, changing tack. Otto was correct, there was no getting around it. He’d always considered himself a loner, but almost from the beginning he’d had Otto’s help. Only it wasn’t until now that he really understood just how much help his friend had given him.

  “She’s fine, and she’s going to stay put until we get this shit settled. Are you with me?”

  “Yeah,” McGarvey said. “I’ll need to know who Sandberger’s surrounding himself with, the layout of where he’s staying, and my chances of getting to him when he’s least protected.”

  “What I can’t come up with before you head out this afternoon I’ll have waiting for you in Kuwait,” Otto said. “Question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What if Sandberger and Administrative Solutions are nothing more than they advertise themselves?”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Goddamnit, Mac, isn’t there anything Louise or I can say to make you back off just for a little while until I come up with something concrete?”

  “No,” McGarvey said, a coldness closing over his heart. “It’s too late for that now.”

  Otto was silent for a long moment, when he was back he sounded resigned. “Your call, kemo sabe. I’ll do everything I can from this end to get you the intel you need.”

  “As you always have.”

  “But I need you to listen to me—really listen to me, no shit. I’ll give you the truth. I’ll never blow smoke up your ass. My promise. And you’ll have to promise me that you’ll listen back.”

  McGarvey looked out the window. The morning sky over the Atlantic was perfectly clear. When the sun is shining anything is possible. It was one of Katy’s favorite sayings. She hated dark, cloudy, rainy days.

  “Promise,” McGarvey told his old friend.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Dick Adkins had never been much for confrontations, nor had he ever been much of a spy, in the sense of a field agent, or a special operative like McGarvey. But he was a good administrator and while under his watch morale at the CIA hadn’t been given much of a boost, yet it had not sagged with the economy and political tides as other agencies, in particular FEMA and Homeland Security, had.

  But pulling up at the security gate at CIA Headquarters he wondered if coming back to confront Dave Whittaker made any sense, or would make any difference. He was certain that the only man who had any real inkling of what Mexico City and Pyongyang meant, and what was still coming after them, was McGarvey. And the Company needed to cut him some slack.

  The guard recognized Adkins, but for just a moment he seemed unsure of what to do. He glanced at something to his right, then looked back, smiled and nodded. “Good afternoon, Mr. Director,” he said, and he waved Adkins through.

  Evidently word had not filtered down to the security personnel that Adkins no longer had access. It was something he’d counted on.

  He drove up the curving road to the Old Headquarters Building, past the visitors’ parking lot around to the gated entrance to the executive undergro
und parking garage. He’d neglected to turn in his security pass and it still worked to raise the barrier. Down on the third level he pulled up beside the DCI’s slot, occupied now by Dave Whittaker’s dark green Chevy Impala.

  His pass also worked in the private elevator to the seventh floor, and stepping off the car he was taken aback for just a moment. A longstanding tradition had been for all the doors on the seventh floor to be left open. Everyone up here was cleared for just about everything that went on. And every DCI, back as far as Adkins could remember, had liked to come out of their offices and wander up and down the corridors to see what was going on. The only doors left closed were the ones to the director’s office and to his private dining room.

  But this afternoon every door on the seventh floor was closed. That fact seemed somehow ominous to Adkins as he walked down the hall to the DCI’s office and went in.

  Dahlia Swanson, the secretary Adkins had inherited from McGarvey, had already been replaced by a much younger woman with her dark hair up in a bun, reading glasses on a gold chain perched on the end of her nose. She looked up in momentary surprise, but recovered nicely.

  “Mr. Adkins,” she said pleasantly. “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Whittaker?”

  “Is he in?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” Adkins said, and he went around to the door to the DCI’s office and let himself in before the secretary could pick up her phone.

  Whittaker was seated at his desk, his back to the door. He was staring out the windows at the softly wooded, gentle West Virginia hills, and it was a second or two before he swiveled around, and his right eyebrow twitched.

  “Thought I’d come by for a chat,” Adkins said, dropping into a chair in front of the desk.

  “You’re a surprise, Dick. How did you manage to get in?”

  “My security passes have not been invalidated yet. You might want to have a word with Housekeeping, they tend to drag their feet unless given a nudge now and then.”

  “What do you want?”

  “That’s the rub, then, isn’t it? You have your hands full trying to satisfy a president who, like most presidents before him, doesn’t want to listen to the truth, while at the same time you’re trying to rein McGarvey in without forcing a bloodbath.”

  “Trying to save your friend?”

  “Save him from what, Dave?” Adkins asked. “The Bureau has been given a warrant for his arrest. Are they really expecting casualties?”

  “I’m sure it’s something they’re considering. He took down the two marshals at Arlington.”

  “He didn’t kill them.”

  Whittaker hesitated a moment, a disagreeable expression on his long face. “What’s your point? What are you doing here?”

  “You no more believe Mac is a traitor than I do. It means you have to find him before the Bureau does, and definitely before the marshals do, because if someone makes a mistake—and it won’t be Mac—someone could get hurt.”

  “You came here to help me?”

  “To advise you, unless you still think Van Buren’s death was a random act, and that Mac’s wife and daughter were blown up by terrorists with no specific target in mind. Just mayhem at Arlington.”

  “We have no other supporting evidence, Dick. You know that. Christ, I wish it were different.”

  Adkins had wished his coming here wasn’t an exercise in futility, but he was beginning to seriously wonder. “IED’s have moved from Iraq and Afghanistan to America. A lot of people are asking why the hell the government isn’t doing something about it.”

  “Homeland Security—”

  “Bullshit. These weren’t homegrown terrorists, and everyone knows it. Puts the pressure square in your lap. Or are you still blaming McGarvey for the deaths of his wife, daughter, and son-in-law?”

  “I’ll ask again, what’s your point?”

  “Connections.”

  Whittaker shrugged. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow you.”

  “Mac went to Mexico City to figure out what a Chinese intelligence officer was doing down there, and he found out a lot of polonium-210 was being smuggled across our border. And it disappeared. Less than one year later a Chinese intelligence officer is assassinated in Pyongyang and when Mac unravels that mess—averting an exchange of nuclear weapons in the region—we find out that our deputy director of operations was involved in both operations. And when all was said and done, Mac was accused of being a traitor to his country. Now you tell me what’s bullshit and what’s not. Because there’re damn well some connections there that need the light of day.”

  Whittaker got very still.

  “You know that I still have some political capital left,” Adkins said. “How about if I hold a news conference and lay out what I know and suspect about Mexico City, Pyongyang, and Arlington? You’d have the media crawling all over this place, but more importantly all over the White House. I wonder what Langdon’s reaction would be, considering his energy bill is falling apart, and we’ve had the first serious terrorist attack on our soil since nine/eleven?”

  “One call and you’d be stopped.”

  “I didn’t get the word until it was too late. Anyway, once the cat’s out of the bag it’s too late.”

  “One last time, Dick. What’s your point? What do you want?”

  “Has anyone seen Otto Rencke lately?”

  Whittaker was startled. “No,” he said. “Is that significant?”

  “I’d think so,” Adkins said. “Instead of trying to find Mac and corner him, look for Otto. If Mac fights back someone will get hurt.”

  “If Rencke fights back the son of a bitch could do us a lot of harm.”

  “At least no one would get physically injured,” Adkins said. “Find him and you’ll find Mac.”

  “And then what?” Whitttaker asked.

  Adkins got to his feet. “Maybe you’ll find the connections. Mexico City to Pyongyang and to whatever else Mac is looking for.” At the door Adkins looked back. “It’s important.”

  Whittaker nodded. “I’ll do what I can. No promises.”

  “Good enough.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  McGarvey’s sat phone rang. It was Otto. “He just pulled up in front of your hotel.”

  “Did he come in clean?” McGarvey asked. He’d been here, in one place far too long to trust anything.

  “I haven’t picked up traces of anyone interested. But you might want to take a look down his track.”

  McGarvey broke the connection, slipped out of his room, and as one of the elevators started up from the lobby, he ducked into the alcove containing the ice and vending machines, pressing back into the corner.

  At this hour of the early afternoon the hotel was not very busy, and the car came directly to the eighth floor. Moments later a slender man, with a narrow, clean-shaven, olive-complected face, dressed in a European-cut suit, carrying an attaché case in his left hand walked by. McGarvey didn’t think he’d ever met the man, and he pulled out his pistol and chanced a quick look out into the corridor.

  The man stopped at the door to McGarvey’s room, and knocked. In the meantime the elevator continued up.

  McGarvey stepped out of the alcove and keeping the pistol at his side moved toward the man, who suddenly stopped knocking, but did not turn away from the door.

  “It’s me,” the man said as McGarvey reached him, and his voice was vaguely familiar.

  “Who are you?” McGarvey said, as he patted the man down for a weapon.

  “Raul Martinez. We met a couple of years ago, here in Miami. You were here to see General Marti about his daughter.”

  “You look different.”

  “Everyone needs a little change every now and then,” Martinez said. “Otto asked me to tell you that Audie is just fine. She’s safe at the Farm.” He turned finally to look McGarvey in the eye.

  The last time McGarvey had seen Martinez, the CIA operative could have been out of central casting for a Miami Vice episode; peg-legged slacks, emb
roidered Guayabara shirt, pencil-thin mustache, and slicked-down shining black hair. He looked like a lawyer or businessman now. But the eyes were the same: cool, assured, haughty, on guard. McGarvey relaxed.

  “You ought to think about becoming a spy.”

  “Too dangerous,” Martinez said.

  “I’ve heard,” McGarvey said, holstering his pistol. He let them into his room, relocking the safety bar.

  “With all the heat out there, I made sure I came in clean,” Martinez said, laying the attaché case on the bed.

  “Have I been traced here to Miami?”

  “No, but the federales are beating the bushes across the entire Southeast, but mostly here in south Florida. The U.S. Marshal and Bureau guys are practically tripping over one another. But they’ll get their shit together soon enough, and then it’ll become a little rough for you to stick around.”

  “I want to get out of here this afternoon.”

  “You’ll just make it if we work fast,” Martinez said, and he opened the attaché case and started pulling stuff out. “United leaves MIA at ten after five, gives you about three hours.”

  He took out an eight-by-ten photograph of a McGarvey with short, gray hair, glasses, and a ruddy complexion, and laid it on the bed. “Tony Watkins, a freelance journalist accredited with the U.S. Army.” He handed McGarvey a pair of barber shears, and a bottle of hair dye and a couple of brushes, one of them small, and nodded toward the bathroom. “Better get started. We’ll talk while you work.”

  McGarvey pulled off his shirt, tossed it aside, and went into the bathroom, where he propped the photo on the counter, and started to work on his hair.

  “The small brush is for your eyebrows,” Martinez said from the bedroom. “I have lotion for your face and the backs of your hands that will age you a few years. We don’t want to overdo it.”

  McGarvey had gone through these kinds of routines before, it was all standard tradecraft that even the kids at the Farm were taught from the get-go.