The Cabal

by David Hagberg

  “Shit,” Pete said, turning away for a moment. She felt overwhelmed. It had become a nightmare at Arlington when her partner had been killed in the blast and McGarvey had gone on the run. Bodies had piled up all over the place, and now with a possible shooting war between China and Taiwan, which made absolutely no sense, the numbers could rise astronomically.

  “He knew that he was going to get arrested,” Otto said, and Pete turned back to them. “By walking in there and confronting Foster he gave us the last pieces of the puzzle.”

  “He solved it for us,” Adkins said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t see any of it,” said. “Solved what?”

  “What Foster was trying to do,” Adkins said.

  “Push China into starting a war, but how’s knowing that going to help Mac?”

  “There’s going to be no war,” Louise said. “Never was.”

  Pete’s head was buzzing. “You’re making no sense.”

  “Mac saw it before I did,” Otto said, smiling. “Think about who Foster is. What he is. What he’s always been.”

  Pete spread her hands. “I don’t know. A lobbyist?”

  “Right,” Otto said. “So instead of trying to find out how he was trying to spark a war, I looked for how he was making his money. Starting with the polonium thing. A Chinese intelligence officer, supposedly under orders from Beijing, used Mexico as a staging ground for what looked like a series of terrorist attacks against the United States. Made Mexico look as if Beijing had played it for the fool.”

  “Foster’s a lobbyist for Mexico?” Pete asked.

  “Definitely not,” Otto said. “Pemex, which is the Mexican government–owned oil and gas monopoly, was on the verge of signing a trillion-dollar oil deal with the Chinese. Oil that we needed. But Foster had enough of his people in the White House and Congress and State—all over Washington—so he could pull this off for the Department of Energy and a few key congresmen who didn’t want to see Mexico sell its oil to China.”

  “We never found that any polonium crossed the border,” Adkins said. “It was his first major scam. And except for the people who lost their lives over it, the U.S. came out on top. Pemex canceled its contract with China and the oil came to us instead.”

  “The guy really is nuts,” Pete said. “So who paid him?”

  “I don’t know that part yet,” Otto said. “But it was someone on this side of the border.”

  “What about Pyongyang? How did he make money by nearly starting a nuclear war between China and North Korea?”

  “Think of who would have had the most to gain by getting rid of Kim Jong Il, and possibly even reunifying the Koreas.”

  “Us, I suppose,” Pete said. “Certainly would have helped reduce tensions over there if the nuclear issue had been solved.”

  “There wouldn’t have been a war,” Louise said. “Nobody, not even Kim Jong Il, and especially not the Chinese, are that crazy. That never was the real issue. But by driving a wedge between North Korea’s only ally it strengthened South Korea’s bargaining position to build automobile factories in the north, something the Chinese wanted to do.”

  “Beijing is rushing full tilt into the twentieth-first century, and the only way they can keep up the pace is to find new markets for their products,” Adkins said. “They’re approaching saturation level here, and each time we have an economic downturn the U.S. debt China holds looks less and less promising. So they create new markets in places where workers earn enough income to afford the cars and televisions and stereos.”

  “North Korea is poor,” Pete said.

  “Build factories for them and the workers will earn the money to buy Chinese products,” Adkins said. “Simple economics.”

  “China was stopped again, so who paid Foster?”

  “At this point it looks like a consortium of South Korean car makers to the tune of fifty million dollars,” Otto said.

  “They were willing to risk nuclear war for the sake of money?” Pete asked. “Or am I being too naïve?”

  Louise smiled. “Naïve, and that’s not such a bad thing.”

  “And Taiwan?”

  “Haven’t got that one totally figured out yet,” Otto said. “Except that the B-252 didn’t have an actual emergency landing, they were on a training mission to deliver spare parts, not missiles—although a Chinese sleeper agent was fed that info, and China began rattling its sabers. Something it’s been doing for a long time.”

  “Who paid Foster?”

  “Probably a cabal in Taiwan very similar to the one Foster ran here: Taiwan for the Taiwanese. It’s too dangerous to go head-to-head with Beijing on a political level, so Foster was able to engineer something like this to give China another black eye.”

  Pete was amazed. “People died for this nonsense. Money. Position. And if things had gotten out of hand in Mexico City, or Pyongyang or Taipei, we might have gotten embroiled in some sort of a nuclear exchange.”

  “Wars have started for less,” Adkins said.

  “Still leaves Mac in jail, and Foster’s people on the loose to figure out their next scam,” Pete said. “What can we do about it?”

  Otto and Adkins exchanged a glance, and Otto touched a finger to the send box in the header of what looked like an e-mail message. “Just did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “We wrote an e-mail detailing everything we just told you, and sent it to every name from Remington’s flash drive and Whittaker’s laptop.”

  “Don’t you think they’ll fight back?”

  “With what?” Otto asked. “We have the proof, and Mac got it for us.”

  “Now we wait,” Adkins said.

  PART

  FIVE

  Thirty-six Hours Later

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  At the Central Detention Facility, known as the D.C. jail, McGarvey sat on his cot, his back against the dirty concrete wall. His clothing had been taken from him when he’d been admitted thirty-six hours ago, and he was dressed now in jeans, a light blue denim shirt, and black shoes, no laces.

  He was in a special holding cell away from the general population used for prisoners on suicide watch, prisoners who were in danger from the other inmates, and occasionally a special case like McGarveys ordered held by the Bureau or the U.S. Marshal Service.

  So far no one had come to talk to him, and the jailer who delivered his meals had said nothing, merely sliding the metal plate, tin cup of Kool-Aid, and the spoon through the slot in the metal door, and returning in twenty minutes to retrieve the dirty dishes.

  The single light set behind a grille in the ceiling never went out, and there was no window.

  Everything hinged on Otto, as operations in the past so often had, but he hoped that Dick Adkins and Pete had managed to make it to safety and keep their heads down until the dust settled.

  There were going to be repercussions, and it was almost certain that Foster would fight back using whatever connections were left in place and still loyal to the cause. But it was anyone’s guess how it would turn out.

  During the first night, and all yesterday, he’d had plenty of time to think about Katy and Liz and Todd, and what his life was going to be without them. But he’d come to no conclusions. Too soon, he supposed. And he was numb, a feeling he’d never really known to this depth. It was as if a very large part of his body and his mind had been cut out and disposed of. No ceremony. No time to prepare. No time to mount some sort of defense or counterattack. They were there in his life, and then they were gone.

  He’d also thought about the day Katy had given him the ultimatum, her or the CIA, and he’d been so stupid that he’d walked out the door and had taken up an existence in Switzerland. But even that separation, that distance had never been final in his mind. There’d always been at least a glimmer of hope, a possibility for reconciliation that was missing now. And he was still angry. Almost shaking with anger.

  The door locking mechanism was thrown back, the door swung open, and Ansel was ther
e, holding what looked like a clear plastic dry cleaner’s bag over his shoulder, his thumb hooked in the curve of the hanger.

  McGarvey sat up. “Where’s your partner?”

  “He didn’t show up for work this morning,” Ansel said.

  “No one knows where he is?”

  Ansel’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right,” he said. “Anyway, all charges against you have been dropped, but there’ll be a coroner’s hearing. A lot of dead bodies scattered around that need answering for.” He came in, laid the bag at the foot of the cot, and stepped back out of the cell as if he were wary of getting too close. “Your clothes have been cleaned and pressed. Soon as you’re dressed I’ll get you out of here.”

  “What about my shoes?”

  “With your other things up front.”

  McGarvey got up and began changing out of the prison garb. “Anything else been going on around town overnight? Disappearances? Resignations? Suicides?”

  “You knew all along that something like this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

  “Not at first. But the deeper I got into the mess the more likely I thought Foster and his people would fold if they were given a nudge. Like a house of cards.”

  “Well, Foster’s car was run off the road early this morning and he was shot to death. No witnesses.”

  “Anyone with him?”

  “No. He was driving. As it is we’ll probably never find the killer. It was professional.”

  “It’ll turn out to be an Administrative Solutions shooter. They’ve got a grudge.”

  “Against you,” Ansel said.

  “Foster owed them a lot of money. I didn’t,” McGarvey said. “Who else?”

  Ansel shook his head. “I don’t know, I don’t think anybody does yet, but the media is all over it. One of Langdon’s advisers resigned, along with a couple of guys from the State Department, one at Justice, and maybe someone at the Department of Energy. A general who was an adviser to the Joint Chiefs was found shot to death in his office last night. A suicide.”

  “All Foster’s people,” McGarvey said. “Just like your partner probably was.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ansel said. “And I don’t think I want to know. But I expect that’s exactly what the president is going to ask you.”

  McGarvey shook his head. “I don’t have anything to tell him that he doesn’t already know by now.”

  “No choice, Mr. Director. Technically you’re still under arrest until I drop you off at the White House.”

  The D.C. jail was way out by RFK Stadium, and during the long drive over to the White House Ansel didn’t say a thing, but he let McGarvey use his cell phone to call Otto.

  “I’m on my way to the White House, the president wants to talk to me. Did our friends make it okay?”

  “It’s not your cell phone. You can’t talk.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll take care of it. But yeah, they made it just fine. Have you been told what’s been happening around town?”

  “Some of it. How many from the lists?”

  “So far twenty-three out of thirty-seven, and without Foster the rest of them won’t get very far,” Otto said. “You heard that he was murdered?”

  “Yes. Where was he going?”

  “Looks like he was headed to Dulles. He keeps a corporate jet out there.”

  “Flight plan?”

  “Zurich.”

  And so it was over and done with, or very nearly so. “What about you guys?” McGarvey asked. “Are all of you in the clear?”

  “Pete’s going back to work tomorrow, debriefings probably for at least a week. Louise and I will do the same, but not until Monday, gives us a few days to clear out of here, pick up Audie, and get back to our old apartment.”

  “And Dick?”

  “DCIs serve at the president’s pleasure, with congressional consent,” Otto said. “What about you?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” McGarvey said. “I suppose I’ll bunk with you and Louise for a day or two and then go to Casey Key and start closing down the house and getting rid of the sailboat.”

  “You’re not going to move back?”

  “No,” McGarvey said.

  “The phone you’re using is a U.S. Marshal Service issue. Soon as you hang up, I’m going to fry it. Might be a recording device inside, memory, something, ya know. Can’t be too careful.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Louise and I have a few things to do yet, but Pete’s coming over to pick you up. She’ll be waiting at the West Gate. We’re all going to have pizza and red wine. Lots of red wine.”

  Ansel dropped him off at the White House west portico. “I’m sorry that things worked out the way they did for you, Mr. Director,” he said. “Your wife and daughter and son-in-law. This stuff should never involve families.”

  “Not in an ideal world,” McGarvey said, and he got out of the car and didn’t look back as Ansel left.

  He was met by a presidential aide who escorted him down to the Oval Office without a word. President Langdon was seated in an easy chair facing his National Security Adviser Frank Shapiro, seated on the couch.

  “Good, you’re here at last,” the president said. “We have to clear up a number of things before your news conference. I’m appointing you as interim director of the CIA, just until this mess is straightened out.”

  “No.”

  “No, what?” Shapiro asked sharply. He was angry, and looked a little like a frightened man.

  “No, sir, I’m not going back to work for the CIA, nor am I going to hold a news conference.”

  “I understand how you must feel,” Langdon said. “But your country needs you. I need you, because we’re facing a set of very serious problems, and the Chinese government is demanding some answers. Immediate answers.”

  “No, sir,” McGarvey said.

  “Well at least sit down and hear me out,” the president said, his voice rising in anger.

  “I’m not staying, Mr. President,” McGarvey said. “I came here because I was ordered to, and because I wanted to tell you that I don’t like you, I never have. I don’t believe in most of your policies or most of the people you picked for your advisers.”

  Shapiro got to his feet, but Langdon waved him back.

  “Mr. McGarvey is exercising his right as a citizen. And as it turns out I don’t like him, never have, never have agreed with how he did things.” He looked McGarvey in the eye. “But I believe that there is no man alive who loves his country more than you do.”

  “No, sir,” McGarvey said. “That man had better be you, or we’re all in trouble.”

  EPILOGUE

  Several Months Later

  It was noon, and, shirtless, McGarvey was running along the rocky path above the Aegean Sea on the Greek island of Serifos, pushing himself as he had since coming back to the same island, the same converted lighthouse he’d run to a number of years ago.

  That time John Lyman Trotter, a close friend, had turned out to be a mole within the CIA, and in the end McGarvey had been forced to kill him, getting seriously wounded himself. He’d found this island, this refuge in the middle of nowhere, and started the healing process.

  Only now he wasn’t bouncing back quite as fast, and this time he was alone, truly alone except for his granddaughter, who Otto and Louise had brought here six weeks ago for a visit.

  And seeing her, being with her, was wonderful and sad all at the same time because Audie was the spitting image of Liz, who’d been the spitting image of Katy. A lot of memories had come to the surface making it next to impossible to keep smiling and keep it light.

  Already she was forgetting her parents. It was something Otto and Louise wanted to correct. They wanted to show her the pictures, a few videos that Todd had made and tell her about them.

  “Later, when she’s older,” McGarvey had told them after they’d put her to bed. The night had been soft, the kind Katy had always loved. “She wouldn’t u
nderstand. And you’re her parents now. Just love her, it’s all she needs.”

  Reaching the west side of the island, he came in sight of the white-tiled patio at the base of the lighthouse one hundred yards below, and pulled up short. The figure of a man was leaning on the railing looking down at the sea, one hundred feet below.

  Apparently he’d walked up from town, not an easy task.

  McGarvey had switched back to his Walther PPK, more out of sentimental reasons than any other, and it was holstered at the small of his back. He never went anywhere without it these days.

  So he started down the path toward the lighthouse wondering who the man was, because he wasn’t familiar, and why he had come.

  And McGarvey was curious, so his step quickened just a little.