The Cabal

by David Hagberg

  She pulled up to the curb and parked, blocking Remington’s driveway. “Okay, I’m here, still no activity.”

  “If he’s heading out, it means he’s probably desperate,” McGarvey said. “So watch your back.”

  “And don’t forget about his driver, Sergeant Randall,” Otto’s voice came through the earpiece. “Ex-Sandhurst and SAS along with Remington. Probably tough as nails.”

  “As far as they’re concerned I’m coming from the CIA to conduct an unofficial briefing on the Baghdad situation for Mr. Remington.”

  “He’ll ask you on whose orders,” McGarvey said.

  “I’m not allowed to give you that information, sir.”

  “If something goes bad it might take me ten or fifteen minutes to get to you, so keep on top of it. Give us a clue.”

  “Will do,” Pete said.

  She took out her CIA identification wallet, got out of her car, and went to the front gate where she pushed the button for the bell, aware that a closed-circuit television camera was pointed at her. A few seconds later an overhead light came on.

  “What is it?” a man’s voice came from the speaker grille. He sounded English.

  Pete held her ID up to the camera. “Pete Boylan. CIA. I’ve been sent to brief Mr. Remington on the situation in Baghdad.”

  “We’re aware of the situation.”

  “Some new facts have just come to light, and it was thought that you should have this information immediately. It’ll only take a couple of minutes, sir.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give you that name. But he said you would know who it was.”

  “Just a moment.”

  If Remington called someone over at Langley the game would be over before it began. But the gate lock buzzed and she went through and up the walk to the red front door with a brass knocker, which opened as she approached.

  A short man, craggy face, definitely not Remington, wide brown eyes, narrowed now with suspicion, looked at her. “Let me see your identification.”

  She held it out for him, but when he reached for it she pulled back. “You may look, Sergeant Randall, but you will not touch.”

  “Are you armed?”

  Pete almost smiled. “Of course.”

  “I’ll have your weapon, then.”

  “Not a chance, Sarge,” Pete said. “Inform Mr. Remington that I’ve returned to the Campus.” She turned and started away, but Remington came to the door.

  “It’s all right. Come back, please, I need to know what you brought for me.”

  Pete turned back. Remington was dressed in a European-cut dark blazer with the family crest on the breast pocket, a white shirt, and club tie. “Are you going out this evening, sir?”

  “To the office. We’re in crisis mode.”

  “It’s why I was sent, sir,” Pete said.

  He stepped aside for her to enter the stair hall, long crystal chandelier, ornate side tables, a pristine white marble floor, and a large painting of a man in formal dress on one wall opposite a mirror in an ornate gold frame. Sergeant Randall had stepped back a few feet, but he was super-alert.

  “This is for your ears only, sir,” Pete said.

  Remington was looking at her breasts. “Give us a minute, Sarge.”

  Randall hesitated for just a moment, but then turned and disappeared down the corridor to the rear of the house.

  “I have to tell you that I’ve never seen a prettier CIA officer,” Remington said. “But were you in an accident recently?”

  Pete reached inside her jacket and withdrew her 9×19 mm compact Glock 19 pistol, fitted with a short barrel silencer and pointed it at Remington, who reared back, and stumbled away a couple of steps. But Pete followed him, keeping just out of his reach. If he lunged she meant to switch aim and shoot him in the kneecap. The whole idea was to get him back to Georgetown alive.

  “I’m not here to assassinate you, Mr. Remington, but if you cry out or in any way try to alert Sergeant Randall, I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

  It took Remington several beats to understand something of what he was facing. “You’re not really from the CIA.”

  “Yes, I am. Housekeeping actually.”

  “Then why are you here pointing a pistol at my head?”

  “Somebody wants to have a chat with you before you leave town.”

  The rest of it came to Remington. “McGarvey,” he said. “I’ll take my chances here.” He started to turn around.

  “One step and I will shoot you,” Pete warned.

  Remington stopped, his back to her. “If I go with you, McGarvey will kill me anyway, so I’m a dead man.”

  “You have one option.”

  “Which is?”

  “Help us prove what Foster and his Friday Club are up to; what Joshua Givens evidently found out about and passed to Todd Van Buren that resulted in their deaths.”

  Remington’s shoulders sagged, and he turned around. “It’s bigger than you can imagine,” he said. “There’d be no place safe for me.”

  “If you don’t cooperate do you think McGarvey will back off? He knows your company was involved in the deaths of his son-in-law and the Post reporter. And he knows your people killed his wife and daughter.”

  “And he killed Roland without hesitation because of it.”

  “Only because your boss chose to take a bullet rather than cooperate,” Pete said.

  Remington’s lips parted slightly at the same moment Pete became aware of the distant sounds of traffic as the front door opened. Sliding to the left and swiveling on one heel she was in time to see Sergeant Randall coming through the door, his gun hand rising. With no time to assume the proper two-handed grip and solid firing stance, she pulled off two snap shots, one smacking into the wall, but the other hitting the sergeant in center mass and he fell back, bouncing off the door frame and crumpling to the floor.

  Before she could recover her balance Remington was on her, his superior weight bulling her to her knees. Instead of resisting, she went with his forward momentum, ducking down so that he came over the top of her back, and she grabbed the material of his jacket with her left hand and helped him the rest of the way over.

  She scrambled away on her butt and heels, and got to her feet as Remington turned over and tried to reach Randall’s pistol. But he was too old, and too slow, and Pete was on him before he got two feet, and jammed her pistol in the back of his neck at the base of his skull.

  “Now that the situation is stabilized and your sergeant is dead, give me one good reason not to pull the trigger,” she said. McGarvey and Otto were listening, and she’d just told them that she was okay.

  “We want him alive,” McGarvey said.

  “We have a safe house for you,” Pete said.

  “What about afterward?” Remington asked, looking over his shoulder from where he was sprawled on the marble floor.

  “If you mean your house in France and your secret bank accounts in Switzerland, Guernsey, and the Caymans, that will depend on how well you cooperate. We can take the house and drain your accounts easier than you think.”

  “Flash drive,” Remington said.

  “What about a flash drive?”

  “The Friday Club. All of Admin’s records. Names, financial dealings. Everything. You can’t imagine.”

  “Everything on the Friday Club?” Pete asked, for McGarvey’s benefit.

  “Anyone else in the house?” McGarvey asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Make sure you have the flash drive and then get him out of there, right now. His sergeant might have called for backup,” McGarvey said. “I cheated. I’m five minutes away.”

  SIXTY

  The Toyota SUV moved quickly in the night up the Rock Creek Parkway, and past the spot where Louise had dropped McGarvey off early that morning. Now, except for the streetlights, the park was mostly in darkness and all but deserted.

  “Do you really think his sergeant called for help?�
� she asked.

  “I think that it’s likely if they got suspicious,” McGarvey said.

  Otto had fitted him with the same earpiece comms unit that Pete was using, except his had a lapel switch that in one position was a party line connecting him with Otto and Pete, while in the other only he and Otto could talk.

  He flipped the switch that excluded Pete. “Were you able to intercept any calls to or from Admin’s offices?” he asked.

  “Several since this afternoon, but just about everything in or out is heavily encrypted with some really good shit. My darlings are working on it, but it might take more time than we have.”

  “No calls to Metro D.C. police?”

  “Not to Remington’s address.”

  McGarvey flipped the switch. “You don’t have to answer unless you’re in trouble. I want you to get out of there as fast as possible and head up to Massachusetts Avenue, take the first right, and then the next into Rock Creek Park. We’ll run interference from there. If that’s a roger, cough.”

  Pete’s cough came out clearly.

  “Have you got the flash drive yet? One cough yes.”

  “Okay so it’s encrypted,” Pete said. “We’ll need the key.” She was talking to Remington.

  “The key will save time, but Otto can crack it,” McGarvey told her.

  “Which makes you our next best bet,” Pete said. “Now, nice and easy, we’re going out to my car and take a little drive. Do as I tell you, and you just might survive to make it to France.”

  “Make sure the street is clear before you leave the house,” McGarvey told her.

  They came around the last long sweeping curve before Massachusetts Avenue and Louise pulled over to the side of the road, and switched off the headlights. “Do you want me to turn the car around?”

  “No, don’t turn the car around yet,” he told Louise, but for Pete’s benefit. “Not until we’re sure she’s clear and on her way.”

  “Hold up,” Pete said.

  McGarvey could visualize her at the front door, using Remington’s much larger bulk as her cover. She wasn’t a field officer, but she was a smart woman and well trained. She knew what she was doing, but McGarvey was anxious. If something were to go wrong, it would happen within the next sixty seconds.

  “We’re clear,” Pete said into his earpiece.

  McGarvey flipped the transmit switch back to Otto-only. “Anything from Admin, or D.C. Metro?”

  “Nada,” Otto said.

  “Son of a bitch,” Pete swore, and McGarvey flipped the transmit switch.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “Dark blue or black Ford, maybe a Taurus, coming on fast. Halfway to my car. No other cover.” She was out of breath.

  It was Kangas and Mustapha, back for revenge. They wouldn’t give a damn about Pete. They wanted to take Remington down. “We’re on our way right now, Pete. Get down! Get down!”

  Louise flipped on the lights and rocketed to the red light on Massachusetts. There was a break in traffic so she blew through it and accelerated across the bridge to Whitehaven a little more than a block away.

  “Shit, I’m hit!” Pete shouted. “Remington’s down. Two guys with silenced automatic weapons just jumped out of the Taurus. I’m returning fire. Get here now, Mac!”

  They had to wait for several precious seconds for traffic until Louise could turn onto Whitehaven.

  “Kill your lights,” McGarvey told Louise. He had his pistol out.

  As soon as the Toyota’s headlights were out, they could see muzzle flashes a hundred yards away.

  “Pull over here,” he told her. He didn’t want her in the line of fire. She wasn’t a field officer.

  “No time,” Louise said and she headed directly for the blue Taurus.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Hunched down behind her Mustang, Pete ejected the empty magazine from the handle of her pistol, slammed another in its place, and charged the weapon. Remington was down, and definitely dead. He had taken several rounds to his torso and at least two to his head.

  His body lay a few feet back on the sidewalk.

  But she had managed to get off fifteen rounds on the run over the top of her car, and nearly made it to cover when she’d been hit in the left hip. The initial shock had stung like hell and knocked her to her knees. But she was sure it was just superficial, though her butt and upper leg were numb.

  The two men from the Taurus who’d opened fire were somewhere in the road, maybe behind their own car. Evidently they’d been taken by surprise when she had returned fire. But a Glock 19 compact pistol was no match for a pair of automatic weapons. She didn’t recognize the sound, but the guns were effective.

  She ducked down so she could see the street from beneath her undercarriage, but nothing was there except for the ford. No feet on ankles.

  “They’ve gotta be close, so watch yourself,” she said softly.

  “Keep down, I’m right on top of you,” McGarvey told her.

  Suddenly she heard a car coming up the street at a high rate of speed, and someone firing what had to be a nine-millimeter pistol.

  She pulled herself up to a crouch so she could see over the hood of her car. One of the shooters hidden behind the Taurus was aiming his weapon at the oncoming car when Pete fired one shot catching him in the side, knocking him down.

  To her left the Toyota screeched rubber, braking to a halt, and she had just a split second to see a dark figure jump out of the passenger side and disappear behind a line of parked cars ten yards away, when the shooter down behind the Taurus opened fire.

  She turned and fired two shots, the first ricocheting off the pavement, the second catching him in the side of the head or throat, and he fell back and was motionless.

  “One down—” she said, when a figure came running out of the darkness to her right.

  “Bitch,” he shouted, practically on top of her.

  “Damn,” she said, turning, trying to bring her pistol to bear, but she was too late and she knew it.

  Her hip gave out and she lurched against the hood of her car and began to fall as someone behind her fired three shots, all of them connecting with the man who fell backward, almost in slow motion, his silenced weapon discharging a volley of shots in an arc up in the air.

  All of a sudden she was sitting on her butt on the curb, the night silent, her head buzzing, a pool of blood slowly gathering under her.

  McGarvey loomed above her. “You’re hit,” he said, and she could hear his voice coming from his lips as well as in her earpiece.

  “Not bad, I think,” she mumbled.

  McGarvey holstered his pistol then rolled over on her side. He undid her jeans and pulled them down around her hips then yanked off his jacket, balled it up and pressed it against the wound in her hip. “Hold this in place,” he said, guiding her hand to it.

  He opened the door of the Mustang, then picked her up and gently put her in the passenger seat.

  “I’m taking Pete to All Saints. Tell them we’re coming in. I’m driving Pete’s car.”

  “How bad is she?”

  “She’s losing a fair bit of blood.”

  “They might tip off the Bureau that you’re on the way,” Otto said.

  “I’ll take the chance,” McGarvey said. “Have Louise follow us.”

  Pete was hearing all of this and when McGarvey got behind the wheel she wanted to tell him that she would get there herself, but her focus went soft gray and nothing was making sense.

  At All Saints Hospital the gate opened for them and they drove inside and around back where a pair of nurses waited with a gurney. As soon as McGarvey pulled up, they eased a semiconscious Pete out of the car and helped her up onto the gurney.

  “Are you hurt, Mr. Director?” one of them asked.

  He had a lot of Pete’s blood on him. “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Dr. Franklin’s standing by upstairs for her. He says that you were never here. So go.”

  “What about her?”

  “S
he was never here either. So just go. And leave her car.”

  They wheeled Pete inside the hospital, and McGarvey hesitated a few moments before he walked back to Louise waiting in the Toyota. So much history here, he thought. Some of it with good outcomes, but other bits not so good. He could see Todd’s shot-to-hell body lying on the stainless-steel table. Nothing he could have done to prevent it. Nothing.

  PART

  FOUR

  That Night

  SIXTY-TWO

  Louise was shaking and subdued when they got back to the brownstone and Otto gave her a hug, and then held her until her shivers subsided. “You did good,” he told her.

  “I’m sorry I put you through something like that,” McGarvey told her.

  They were standing in the stair hall, and Louise looked at him. “Pete will be okay, won’t she?”

  “She lost a bit of blood, but she’ll be fine by morning. It was nothing serious.”

  Louise shook her head and then looked from McGarvey to her husband. “You two have been doing this for a lot of years.”

  Otto just shrugged.

  She shook her head again. “I never imagined what it was like for real, until tonight,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” Otto asked.

  “I just need to clean up,” she said, and she went upstairs.

  “It was Kangas and Mustapha, the guys from Baghdad and early this morning in the park,” McGarvey said. “They’re both down, and so is Remington and his driver.”

  “Metro D.C. cops are all over it, and so is the Bureau,” Otto said. He was excited. “But you got Remington’s flash drive from Pete?”

  She had handed it to him before she passed out. McGarvey gave it to Otto and they went upstairs to his computers, where Otto plugged it into one of the machines and brought up the drive. It was encrypted as Remington had said it would be, but Otto brought up one of the decryption programs he’d devised for the CIA and National Security Agency about nine months ago and set it to work on the drive. The sensitive program had never been meant to leave either agency, but Otto backed up everything he did. Always.