The Cabal

by David Hagberg

  “Call him, set up a meeting and tell him what you know—”

  “I don’t know shit,” Townsend shouted.

  “Calm down, and let me finish,” Remington said. Colleen was watching him, hanging on every word. “Tell Stu that we think it was Kirk McGarvey. The man’s gone over the edge, and he had some sort of a personal vendetta with Roland.”

  “Holy shit,” Townsend said.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Pete. Until I get there you’re Admin in Baghdad. Work with Marston. Work the problem, don’t let it work you.”

  Townsend was silent for several beats, and when he came back he sounded as if he was coming down. “Do I mention McGarvey’s name? I mean the guy was the DCI at one time.”

  “The FBI is looking for him, and Justice is considering bringing him up for treason,” Remington said. “So definitely mention his name. It’s something that guys like Marston understand.”

  “It’s late here, I’ll call him in the morning.”

  “Call him now. He needs to hear about this from us, not the Iraqi police.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can. But keep in touch.”

  “Will do,” Townsend said and he rang off.

  Remington broke the connection and lowered the phone.

  “Talk to me, Gordo,” Colleen said, keeping her voice low.

  “Bit of a muckup over in B-town,” Remington said. “Roland and a couple of his people have been shot to death.”

  “Good Lord,” Colleen said, but then he could see in her eyes that she understood the consequences as well as he did. “Do you actually have to go over there?”

  “We’ll see,” Remington said, and he dialed Robert Foster’s private number, which would be rolled over to wherever the man was. Anywhere in the world.

  On the third ring it was answered by a voice mail message. “Leave your name and number after the tone.” But before Remington could leave a message, Foster came on.

  “Good afternoon, Gordon. Is something bothering you that you called this number?”

  The waiter came over to take their order, but Remington waved him off and waited until he was out of earshot.

  “I just received word that Roland was assassinated in Baghdad about an hour ago. His bodyguards were taken out, as was Baghdad’s chief of police.”

  “That’s certainly a stunning development. Do you know who was behind this and why?”

  “It was McGarvey,” Remington said. “Our operations over there are facing a potential meltdown. I’m flying over tonight to straighten it out.”

  Foster’s reply was immediate. “No. I want you to remain here in Washington. Business as usual. Do you have any idea where Mr. McGarvey is at this moment? Certainly not still in Baghdad?”

  “I’m not sure, but I believe he’ll try to get out of the country, probably either through Kuwait, the way he got in, or perhaps across the border into Turkey.”

  “Is he receiving help from the CIA?”

  “Unknown, but I’d say it’s fairly unlikely considering the charges Justice is preparing to file against him.”

  “I was under the impression that you had arranged for some of your people to take him out.”

  “Apparently they failed.”

  “Are they dead?”

  “I don’t know, they haven’t surfaced yet. Last I heard they had reached Baghdad.”

  Foster was silent for a moment. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to arrange for your contract over there to go to Decision Infinity. They can use the money. I need all of your attention devoted to the McGarvey problem.”

  “That would put Admin in a bind,” Remington protested, even though he had to agree with what was coming next. “We’re carrying a large salary and training budget.”

  “We’ll take care of your company,” Foster said. “Your main objective now is to kill Mr. McGarvey as soon as possible. I don’t care where or how, just get the job done, Gordon, and you will be a busy man, because we have the main issue to contend with.”

  “I wasn’t in on that loop,” Remington said. “Roland never discussed it with me.”

  “Conclude the McGarvey business, and you will be brought into the loop, as you call it.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Remington said, but he was talking to a broken connection.

  FIFTY

  The sky to the east was just beginning to lighten when Hadid slowed down and pulled off the highway a few miles outside of Az Zubayr, a small city just north of the border with Kuwait and barely twenty miles from Basra.

  “It’s too dangerous to cross the border now,” Hadid said. “It’s what the authorities will expect Mr. Tony to do. We’ll stay here until nightfall, when Mr. James will spring into existence.”

  The battery in McGarvey’s sat phone had worn down, and the Range Rover’s cigarette lighter receptacle didn’t work, but Hadid had promised that when they finally stopped, the phone’s charger could be directly connected to the battery under the hood.

  They followed a dirt track for a few miles out into the desert until they came to what at one time in the past might have been a farm or more likely a small sheep station. A main stone building in absolutely horrible condition, a gaping hole in one of the walls, and half the roof missing, sat at the edge of a small dried-up stream. Several other, much smaller buildings in even worse condition made up what would have been a small compound, sections of a stone wall visible here and there.

  “This belonged to one of my uncles, but during the first war the U.S. Army based three tanks here. They didn’t leave much.”

  “Who owns it now?”

  “The family, so this in some respects belongs to me,” Hadid said. “But no one cares. There is no oil just here.” He drove around to the back of the main structure and backed the Range Rover inside, where most of the roof was intact, then shut off the ignition.

  It was a good spot, covered from the air and from the highway or anyone coming up the dirt track. Getting out of the car McGarvey felt a sense of sadness for the people who had lived here, their shattered lives. Maybe they had dreamed of cashing in on the oil revenues that had never materialized. All that had shown up on their doorstep were Iraqi tanks and American ordnance.

  Hadid had opened the hood. He took the sat phone charger, cut the wires from the plug with a penknife, and peeled them back so they were long enough to be wrapped around the battery terminals. He plugged the other end into the phone, and a second later the charge indicator lit up, and he grinned. “Now we will spend the day here—you and I plus the battery—recharging.”

  They sat on the open tailgate and ate their breakfast of flat bread, figs, goat cheese and American vinegar, and sea salt potato chips. Hadid had brought several bottles of sweet tea for himself, along with several liters of water and two cans of Heinekin for McGarvey.

  “After the last twenty-four hours you’ve had I thought beer would be better than tea.”

  “No worse than yours,” McGarvey said, opening one of the warm beers. “What’s next for you?”

  Hadid smiled wistfully. “The sadness is leaving, Mr. James. They are waiting for me in Paradise. This I truly believe and it gives me comfort.”

  There was nothing to be said in reply.

  “After you are safely back at the Crowne under your new identity, I’ll return to my duties in Baghdad. And for you, did you accomplish what you came here for?”

  “A part of it.”

  “But there is more back in Washington?”

  “A lot more,” McGarvey said looking away.

  “Revenge is never the just thing,” Hadid said. “But very often it is the only thing for the soul. I hope you finally find what you are looking for.”

  McGarvey was dead on his feet, and bunked out in the rear of the Range Rover he managed to sleep through most of the day, although he continued to have dreams about the explosion that had killed Katy and Liz, and about Todd’s battered body covered by the sheet at All Saints.
And on waking around four in the afternoon the images didn’t want to fade.

  Hadid was already up, and he was in the front room of the house, looking through a pair of binoculars up toward the highway. “I thought we might be having some visitors,” he said, not looking over his shoulder.

  “Civilian?” McGarvey asked. He thought it was a good possibility that either the Baghdad police or more likely Admin would have sent someone after them.

  “American military. But why they got off the highway is a mystery.”

  “They’re gone?”

  “Yes,” Hadid said, lowering the binoculars. “We have a few more hours to wait. There’s more food and water, but no beer.”

  McGarvey went back to the car, got the things Hadid had brought for him, and using the door mirror on the passenger side dyed his hair dark brown, darkened his complexion with one of the chemicals Martinez had supplied him with in Miami, and finally placed contact lenses in his eyes to change their color from gray green to blue. When he was finished he exchanged the passport and other documents that identified him as Tony Watkins a freelance journalist, with the papers of James Hopkins, a contractor with Decision Infinity.

  He got dressed in khaki slacks, a black short-sleeved polo shirt, and a bush jacket with a lot of pockets. A nylon sports bag contained a few toiletry items, a week-old New York Times with an article about DI, and a fresh shirt, underwear, and socks. Hopkins was nothing more than a tired contractor going home on leave.

  Hadid had disconnected the sat phone from the battery and laid it on the seat. When McGarvey was finished he switched it on. It showed a full charge but no missed calls. By now Otto would have heard about Sandberger and the others at the Ritz, but he was holding back, knowing what else had probably happened overnight.

  Hadid was looking at him. “You look the same, but different. I would never have picked you out in a crowd as the same man who was Mr. Tony. Whoever arranged this disguise for you was very good. It’s subtle.”

  “Let’s hope the people at the hotel, and especially the customs and passport people at Dulles, think the same thing.”

  “They’ll be watching for you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  It was nearly nine in the evening in Washington, which put it around five in the morning in Iraq, when Remington, calling from his office just inside the Beltway in Alexandria, finally managed to reach Tim Kangas at the Baghdad airport hotel.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded.

  “The son of a bitch got the drop on us, which means he must have spotters here on the ground.”

  “We have big problems coming our way, tell me everything,” Remington said, and Kangas did.

  “You wanted us to keep a low profile here, arm’s length from any Admin personnel other than Harry Weiss. He told us to come back here and fly out on the first available flight. Which we’re planning on doing. Leaves at six local.”

  “I still want you back here as soon as possible, but everything’s changed,” Remington said. Admin was in crisis mode, and he’d required that the five office staff remain until he could fully brief them and give them orders that would make sense. First he had to gather the facts.

  “What’s happened?” Kangas demanded, his voice suddenly guarded.

  “Weiss is dead, shot to death by McGarvey because you failed to do your job.”

  “Bastard. He’s gotta have help here on the ground.”

  “That’s not all. There was a shoot-out at the Ritz last night. Alphonse and Hanson are dead, and so is Mr. Sandberger.”

  The connection was silent for a long time, and when Kangas finally came back he sounded shook. “We don’t need this shit. With all due respect, Mr. Remington, we’re bailing. You can take this job and shove it.”

  It was about what Remington had expected. “The contract still stands. Two million for each of you when you take McGarvey down.”

  The hesitation was shorter this time. “Do you want it done here?”

  “McGarvey’s probably already on his way back here, either through Kuwait or possibly across the border into Turkey. Either way you’re too late to catch him. But if you’re on the next flight back, you’ll beat him here. You know what he looks like and unless you don’t know it yet, he’s traveling under the work name Tony Watkins, as a freelance journalist. Once you’re on the ground call me, and I’ll tell you what flight he took and when to expect him.”

  “We’re supposed to take him down at the airport?”

  “Only if he’s not taken into custody, which is a possibility. If the FBI picks him up, you can back off. If not, you can take him just like you did his son-in-law.”

  “What about equipment?”

  “Something will be arranged.”

  “Wait one,” Kangas said and the connection went quiet. He came back ten seconds later. “All right, we’re in. But we want our backs covered, so make damn sure he won’t have help at Dulles.”

  “Don’t worry, Admin takes care of its own,” Remington said, and he broke the connection and sat back. The beauty of the situation was that neither Kangas nor Mustapha could prove that they’d been ordered to assassinate McGarvey. Their orders had been verbal. Nothing written and neither of them had been wearing a wire. And they would never allow themselves to be taken into custody. Their backgrounds were too dirty, and by the time the FBI came looking, Admin’s records would show they’d been terminated months ago.

  He got up and went out to the operations room where the five office staff were waiting. They looked up with interest because they knew that something important was happening.

  “I need to make one more call, and then I’ll brief you in the boardroom and you can go home and get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “What’s going on Mr. R.,” Calvin Boberg, the operations manager, asked. He’d been with Admin from the beginning, and was irritated that he’d been told nothing.

  Remington held up a hand. “Five minutes, please.”

  Boberg wanted to argue, but he shrugged. He was tired and he and the others wanted to go home.

  Remington telephoned Ivan Miller, his contact at the FBI, who worked as the acting assistant director of the Bureau’s Domestic Intelligence Division. Remington didn’t know for sure, but he was convinced the man had a connection with the Friday Club, because he had landed in Admin’s lap within one week of the Friday Club contract.

  His wife called him to the phone, and he sounded guarded. “Good evening, Gordon. Not a social call, I suspect?”

  “You may have heard that we ran into a spot of trouble in Baghdad.”

  “Just found out about it before I left the office. Could it have involved McGarvey?”

  “We have that as fact,” Remington said. “He gunned down Roland and at least three of our people. Now he’s on his way back here.”

  “I’m told that a Baghdad police captain may have been involved as well?”

  “I just learned about that myself, and there’s very little doubt that McGarvey was the triggerman. The captain was Admin’s liaison for security measures.”

  Miller hesitated for a moment, and Remington could hear music playing in the background, and maybe the sound of young voices. Miller had two teenaged children at home. “What can I do for you, Gordon?”

  “This time it’s what Admin can do for the Bureau.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “McGarvey is definitely coming home. But you might not know he’s traveling on false papers and with a pretty fair disguise. It’s possible he could walk right past your Homeland Security TSA people.”

  “Tell me,” Miller said.

  “He’s traveling as a freelance journalist under a U.S. passport in the name of Tony Watkins.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Two of our people had contact with him but managed to get away undamaged.”

  “Lucky.”

  Remington gave him the Tony Watkins description. “I think Admin can give the Bureau conv
incing evidence of McGarvey’s involvement with the shootings.”

  “Roland was more than a partner, he was a personal friend from what I understand,” Miller said. “You must be shocked.”

  “Devastated,” Remington said. “Do us a favor and pick him up. Or, better yet, shoot the man as he tries to escape.”

  “You’d like that.”

  “We all would,” Remington replied.

  Boberg, Admin’s secretary Sigurd Larsen, the firm’s equipment specialist Roger Lewis, their computer expert David Thoms, and their in-house travel agent Gina Ballinger sat around the table in the conference room. They looked up with interest and a certain amount of concern when Remington walked in.

  “Mr. Sandberger along with two of his bodyguards and Harry Weiss were shot to death last night in Baghdad.”

  “My God,” Sigurd gasped. “Insurgents?”

  “No. It was a man named Kirk McGarvey.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Boberg said. He was a short, narrow-hipped man who was hard as bar steel. Remington had personally recruited him from the British SAS. “Have we got someone on the ground to take him down?”

  “He’s on his way back here, and I have two angles covered,” Remington said. He explained about Kangas and Mustapha and about the FBI that would have agents in place to grab McGarvey traveling as Watkins the moment he stepped off the jetway. “But there still could be a mistake, so I’ll need a spotter out there.”

  “Harry was a good friend,” Boberg said. “I’ll take care of it myself. Just in case.”

  “If he’s taken into custody he’ll likely face treason charges. But he mustn’t be allowed to make it away from the airport and go to ground. At all costs.”

  “Understood,” Boberg said, softly.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Despite the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the end of organized fighting in the north, the Kuwaiti military maintained a strong presence on the border with Iraq, mostly to intercept insurgents who might want to send suicide bombers across.