“In fact,” he told his flock, “it was members of my flotilla who actually saved lives, at great risk to their own. In fact some of my faithful lost their lives. Let us use the power of prayer but never, never forget the power of action to do the work God has set before us.”
The argument was the same among antiabortionists: killing abortion doctors saved lives!
Lieutenant Craig Moon, the cutter’s skipper, came to the doorway and knocked on the frame. “Are you finished, sir?”
McGarvey looked up. “Just about, thank you. Have your people finished bagging the bodies?”
“No, sir, the FBI is still doing forensics, could be another six hours or longer. But they’ve asked that you stick around a bit longer, they have a few more questions.”
“They can catch up with me in Washington. What’re the chances of getting me ashore?”
The lieutenant had his orders, but Marc Morgan was only the special agent in charge of the Bureau’s on site team while Kirk McGarvey was a former director of the CIA. And it was he who had almost single-handedly put down the attack and killed most of the bad guys. “I can have a helo out here within the hour. Where do you want to go?”
“Tampa International.”
“Will do,” the lieutenant said.
“And I need to make a couple more calls. Can I connect to ordinary phones ashore from here? A landline as well as cell?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll have someone come down to show you.”
“No need, I’ll figure it out,” McGarvey said, and after the lieutenant left he found a phone tab on the laptop’s screen and entered Gail’s cell phone number. After twenty seconds or so, it rang and Gail answered.
“My number’s blocked, so this has to be Kirk, Eric, or Otto.”
“It’s me, where are you?”
“We just landed at Dulles. How’s it going?”
“The Bureau is working the issue. How about you and Eve?”
Gail chuckled. “Not bad for a couple of women who’ve been through what we’ve been through. Especially Eve and her high-dive act.” She got serious. “What’s next?”
McGarvey quickly explained his conversation with the president. “Officially Otto and I are looking for our contractor, and we’re going to make a good show of it.”
“Unofficially?”
“You and Eve are going to draw Schlagel down from his podium while I keep watch from the sidelines.”
“DeCamp’s not coming back?” Gail asked.
“I think he’s going to ground.”
“Revenge?”
“He’s a pro, and Hutchinson Island and Vanessa were nothing more than assignments that didn’t go quite the way he’d planned them. No revenge motive there. Neither operation was personal enough.”
“I meant on the part of his paymasters. From their standpoint he botched Hutchinson Island, and now this.”
McGarvey had already thought about it. “They’ll probably withhold a final payment, but Hutchinson Island was enough of a partial success that they gave him another chance.”
“And you were the monkey wrench in both operations. Might make you their next best target.”
“It’s a possibility,” McGarvey conceded because he had thought of that, too. “Otto’s keeping track of Marinaccio and Octavio, but they’d have to hire someone to come after me, so I’ll watch my back. In the meantime my bet’s on Schlagel because I’m about one hundred percent convinced that he and Marinaccio are connected through the IBC in Dubai. If Schlagel were to make it to the White House he’d be the perfect president for big oil. Be in her best interest to support him.”
“Okay, what’s the next step? What do you want me to do?”
“Is Eve sitting next to you?”
“We’re scattered all over the plane. She’s about six rows back.”
“How is she?”
“Awed by the violence, by all the people killed. A little confused, I think, about Don Price, and saddened by Lisa’s death. She was one of the bright sparks on the team.”
“Intimidated?”
“Angry, but so far as I can tell all the more determined to get on with it.”
“The White House is going to support her project. Publicly. Which means the Coast Guard will provide around-the-clock security.”
“So Lord is finally taking Schlagel seriously.”
“Something like that. Which makes Eve the primary target. If she can’t be bullied into backing away, or if NOAA can’t be convinced by public opposition, or if InterOil continues to support her, she could be in some physical danger again. Probably worse than Oslo.”
“I don’t think that she’s going to run and hide,” Gail said. “She’s pretty tough.”
“How was her reception in Tampa?”
“She was mobbed, and it’ll probably be the same here.”
“I want you to stick with her, even if she objects. And I want you to convince her to return to Hutchinson Island to talk with the SSP and L people about the power connection with her platform. I want it to be business as usual for her, as if what happened in the Gulf was only a little speed bump.”
“That should be an irresistible draw for Schlagel and his people. How soon do you want her there?”
“Within the next day or two, I want to give Schlagel as little time as possible to capitalize on what happened in the Gulf.”
“Where will you be during all of this?”
“Right behind you,” McGarvey said. “But don’t try to spot me. And, Gail?”
“Yes?”
“Carry a weapon and stay sharp.”
McGarvey broke the connection and phoned Otto, telling him essentially the same thing he’d told Gail, and repeating the conversation he’d had with the president.
“How are you planning on going about it, kemo sabe? Schlagel’s people were willing to put their lives on the line out in the Gulf, and they sure as hell wouldn’t hesitate to run over you if they thought you were a threat to him.
And McGarvey told him.
Otto laughed. “Devious, but I think I can put something together that’ll get his attention. May I share this with Yablonski?”
“Only if he promises to keep it between the two of you. No leaks.”
SEVENTY-THREE
It was late, nearly midnight, when DeCamp stopped his rental Peugeot along the side of the narrow D2204 corniche highway above Nice, shut off the lights, and got out. It was a moonless night, but the sky was bright enough with the glow from the city below for him to see the blackened remains of his house.
He’d arrived in Nice late this afternoon, but instead of taking a taxi straight to his house he had rented the car at the airport and driven up to the L’auberge de Col de Braus, a small country inn of six rooms and a good kitchen near the village of L’Escarene ten kilometers up in the hills. He’d been spooked ever since the German had shown up on his doorstep, knowing his real name. And after his encounter with McGarvey on the platform, he was taking nothing for granted.
But this now, what he was seeing, was far worse than he’d feared, and he had to pace back and forth to somehow put a cap on his rage. He expected maybe to see the house dark, and Martine gone to Paris as she’d told him she often did when he was away. But not this. Anything but this, his house destroyed and Martine almost certainly dead, her body in the morgue.
Hutchinson Island had only been a partial success, but the business in the Gulf had ended in disaster. The edition of the International Herald Tribune he’d picked up during his layover in Paris had a two-page photo spread of “ Le terroisme dans le Golfe de Mexique. ” Loss of life was minimal, thanks in part to the efforts of Kirk McGarvey, a former director of the CIA, and most important the life of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Evelyn Larsen was saved as was her project aboard the oil exploration platform Vanessa Explorer. Photos of the badly listing platform with U.S. Coast Guard gunships standing by were in full color. So far the terrorist leader remained unnamed and no group had come forward claiming responsi
bility.
He had failed, and this was Wolfhardt’s demonstration of the client’s displeasure.
DeCamp stopped pacing, and stared at the burned-out ruins. This act was much more than a simple message passed to him; he’d stopped at an Internet café in DeGaulle Airport to check his bank balance. The ten million euros had been deposited during the night. The money was meaningless to them, completely trivial.
Go away, hide under a rock, enjoy your money if you can. Or find us and try to take your revenge. Either way Mr. DeCamp you are totally out of the business, superfluous, ineffective, nothing more than a swatted bug whose very existence is nothing more than a minor offense to the larger scheme of things.
And DeCamp had always thought that tales of revenge were stupid, but until this moment he hadn’t realized just how much he’d loved Martine and had come to depend on her presence at his side. He’d always planned on retiring, but with her, not by himself.
He heard her laughter and he suddenly turned and tried to find out where it had come from, but then he realized the sound was nothing more than a siren or car horn in the very far distance, distorted by the light breeze.
Wolfhardt had done this in retaliation for Hutchinson Island and the Gulf, and the man was a professional. He would have made certain that Martine was dead before he’d set fire to the place.
But Colonel Frazer had taught him from the beginning to always go into a battle with dispassion. “Let the other soldier shout his war cries, while you approach from behind and silently slit his throat.”
Be prepared.
Be fearless.
Life without honor is possible, but honor without life is fruitless.
Remembering four thousand days of lessons with the colonel and nearly ten thousand days of experience in the field finally calmed DeCamp down enough so that he could go back to the car and drive away.
In the morning he would take the train to Zurich where he could access one of his bank accounts, and where he could contact his friend in the SADF who had warned him about Wolfhardt and who presumably knew where the man operated from.
Then once he had the information he needed, he would change his appearance, gather his weapons, and make his strike. Clean, surgical, decisive. You have given me your message, now I will give you mine.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Eve had said a few words about her postdoc Lisa Harkness in the stone chapel at the Swan Point Cemetery along the Seekonk River in Providence, Rhode Island, but standing now at the graveside, in the midst of her other postdocs and techs, Gail standing just behind, she wanted to shout what a terrible waste it had been.
She couldn’t, of course. Lisa had been an only child and her parents, who’d sent her off to Princeton to become a famous scientist, someone who would do good in a world that needed mending, were devastated and had hung on every word Eve had said about their daughter.
“Lisa taught us how to text so that she could send us messages many times every day,” her mother, a local high school math teacher, had told Eve before the service. “Once she got into your graduate program, and then began working with you, she couldn’t talk about anything or anyone else.”
“She was a wonderful girl,” Eve said, choking back tears. “Everyone loved her. You couldn’t help not to.”
The funeral was large. More than one hundred of Lisa’s family and friends had shown up, including aunts and uncles and both sets of her grandparents, which brought home hard just how alone Eve had always been. This was the family she’d dreamed about having all of her life.
“Everyone felt that way, Dr. Larsen. So who would want to kill her and why?”
“It wasn’t her, it was me and my project they wanted to stop,” Eve said, not knowing what she could say to offer Lisa’s parents any sort of comfort.
“We know that,” Lisa’s father said, squinting. He taught history of philosophy at Brown University and Lisa had once described him as a gentle bear with clothing. “But what are they so afraid of that would drive them to commit murder — mass murder?”
“Losing money, I’m told.”
“Money,” Mrs. Harkness said, but not as a question.
And after the funeral and the reception on the big back lawn of the Harknesses’ home, during which just about everyone had stared at Eve and her team, but especially Eve as if she were some mysterious goddess who’d stepped down from Mount Olympus, it was a bittersweet relief for all of them to be on their flights home — to Princeton for most, and to Washington for Eve and Gail.
“They’d never met someone who’d won a Nobel Prize,” Gail said. “And for a person like you to come all the way to Rhode Island for the funeral of one of your students was a big honor.”
“I was afraid that I’d say something that would hurt them ever more.”
“But you didn’t, and they loved having you there.”
Eve felt a nearly overwhelming sense of bleakness, as if it were the black of night now and would always stay the black of night for her. “At times like this I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” she said. “I mean I believe the science is on track, but maybe there are other issues, larger issues, social issues that I just don’t get.” She wanted Gail to reassure her.
“I think the social issues are exactly what your project is all about.”
Eve turned away, a little embarrassed by revealing an inner portion of herself. She’d never become comfortable with such things. British reserve and all that, but mostly what she considered to have been a crappy upbringing. Don had told her once that she should stop blaming her past for what she had become: “For better or worse you are who you made yourself to be. Your parents gave you life. The rest is your doing, so get on with it, and stop complaining.” Good advice, even from a bad man.
“You’re right,” she said after a while. “We just have to make it work, and screw the bastards who want to stop me.”
Gail smiled. “You scared me there for a minute. If you’ve lost confidence I don’t know what the rest of us are supposed to do. After all, you’re the Nobel doc.”
Her boss, Brian Landsberg, had told her essentially the same thing in his office at Princeton the day before. “I can’t speak for Bob Krantz and the other NOAA people the day before in Washington, but despite what happened in the Gulf the science has not changed. The Nobel Prize committees are not composed of idiots — or at least not entirely composed — and like the rest of us they saw that you were right.”
“Somebody doesn’t think so,” she’d replied, still thinking mostly about Lisa’s death and Don’s perfidy.
“If they didn’t they wouldn’t be so desperate to stop you,” Landsberg said. “Think about it.”
And next for her was convincing Krantz that she had to be allowed to continue despite the deaths. And he was the last hurdle because her team was raring to go now, ready to meet Vanessa off Hutchinson Island as soon as she was repaired and towed the rest of the way. This time the Coast Guard was providing the security, and that fact alone gave them all the assurance they needed to get back aboard the platform and finish their work. The real beginning.
“We can be on Hutchinson Island the day after tomorrow,” she told Gail.
“I’ll let Kirk know,” Gail said.
“Where is he?”
Gail spread her hands. “Around somewhere. Watching us.”
And Eve felt a warm sense of comfort. They were not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but McGarvey was close and it was enough for her.
SEVENTY-FIVE
At Abu Dhabi’s International Airport, DeCamp, dressed in a plain light business suit and traveling under the work name Howard Beckwith, presented his passport to the immigration official who compared the photograph to his face. “The purpose of your visit to the United Arab Emirates?”
“Business.”
The officer looked up. “What business would that be, sir?”
“Oil futures trading.”
“Ah,” the officer said, smiling as he stam
ped the passport and handed it back. Oil was something everyone in the UAE understood and approved of. “I hope that your stay will be a profitable one.”
In the customs hall he retrieved his single bag, and brought it to one of the officers serving the Etihad flight that had just arrived from Geneva. The man checked the passport and declarations slip DeCamp had filled out just before landing, placed an invisible check mark on the leather bag that would show up on scanners on the way out to the departure area, and waved him on.
It was a little after eight in the evening, and heading across to the exits he thought how nice it would be to finish here and then return home to have a dinner and a good bottle of wine on the veranda with Martine. A simple pleasure he’d enjoyed for a number of years that had been taken from him.
For no reason. It was merely business, and could have been handled equitably between them. He would even have been willing to return all the money, less expenses, if Wolfhardt had talked to him.
But even that sort of a possibility had been made impossible on the day Wolfhardt had shown up in Nice. They had known where he lived, and they had known Martine made him vulnerable.
“If we should have to leave our bleached bones on the desert sands in vain, then beware the anger of the legions!”
Outside, George Marks, one of his top sergeants from the Buffalo Battalion, was waiting for him with a Land Rover, and he had to do a double take before he recognized DeCamp. Short and stocky, with arms like a gorilla’s and the speed of a gazelle, Marks had ended his career in the Batallion as the chief hand-to-hand combat instructor. Afterwards he’d moved to Capetown where he opened a mercenary consulting business with his nineteen-year-old son Kevin, who was a computer whiz. Together they helped clients find contractors and do the logistical planning for operations, something DeCamp had preferred to do on his own until now.
“You’re looking fit, Colonel,” he said.
“You, too, Sergeant,” DeCamp said. “When did you get here?”
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