Face Off--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  A waitress, much older than Sophie and the other hostesses, came over for their drink orders. McGarvey laid down two hundred euros. “This’ll do?”

  “Yes, sir,” the woman said, scooping up the bills.

  Sophie ordered a champagne cocktail and McGarvey ordered a Maker’s Mark.

  “Make it a double, and keep ’em coming, would you, darlin’?”

  The waitress and Mac’s hostess exchanged a glance.

  “So, tell me about yourself,” Sophie said.

  “Nothing much to tell.”

  There had to be bouncers in the place, because there would almost always have to be trouble later in the evening, when the tourist realized what kind of prices he was paying. But for the moment the only people in sight were a couple of cocktail waitresses, a lone male bartender off to the right, and the customers and their hostesses.

  “Have you come to Istanbul for business or simply pleasure?” Sophie asked, spreading her legs. She was seated next to him, not across the table, and her panties were as sheer as her blouse. Her pudendum had not been shaved, which meant that she was nothing more than a hostess, not a prostitute.

  “Actually business,” Mac said.

  Their drinks came, and when their waitress was gone he pulled out ten hundred-euro notes. Keeping them out of sight under the table, he offered them to the girl.

  She glanced over at the bartender. “Not here,” she said. “Maybe when I get off. It’s the police regulations.”

  “What’s outside the rear door?”

  She shook her head, confused. “Buildings, apartments, I think. An alley. Garbage.”

  “I want to get thrown out of here, but I don’t want any real trouble. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  “I’m going get up and call you a name and go out the back way.”

  “Security will stop you.”

  “You’re going call me a cheap bastard. No money, no credit card.”

  The girl took the money, and nodded slightly.

  McGarvey jumped up, knocking the chair over. “You fucking whore!” he shouted.

  Sophie got to her feet as two very large men came from somewhere out of the darkness across the room next to the bar. The other customers looked up.

  “The salopard has no fucking money! Just the two hundred! I want him the fuck out of here!”

  McGarvey winked at the girl, who cracked a momentary smile, and he was across the dance floor and out the rear door before the bouncers could reach him.

  He didn’t think they’d be too hard on the girl. They hadn’t served him a drink yet, and they had his two hundred.

  * * *

  McGarvey held up in the shadows at the end of the squalid alley, the three-story buildings leaning over at such extreme angles that the roofs almost touched, nearly forming an arch.

  One of the bouncers had come out, and although it wasn’t likely he could see Mac, he held up a middle finger before he turned and went back inside.

  From here he was just across a narrow street from a block of similar apartment buildings and what appeared to be a small bakery, closed at this hour. A moped, without its tires, was chained to an old-fashioned iron light post—the light on top missing. A delivery van was parked at the corner to the right. Beyond that intersection the street led to the front of the club and, the other way, toward the ruined apartment and abandoned factory.

  Once he was across the street he would be out of any sight line from the roof of the factory.

  His phone vibrated.

  Nothing was coming from behind him, and at the moment the street he faced was empty of traffic.

  “Yes.”

  It was Otto. “Are you clear?”

  “I’m fifty meters from the apartment and factory.

  “Gibson called someone in Istanbul and stopped the military from interfering. If that’s what you still want.”

  “What about Rowe?”

  “That’s the problem. I’ve lost him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a smart bastard. I’ll give him that. He knows we’re on to him and he’s taken the battery and SIM card out of his phone. Could be he’s probably still on your ass. So watch your six.”

  “Have the chief of Istanbul station call him off.”

  “Already tried, but the guy is apparently out of the city. No answer on his cell or at his office or home, just answering machines.”

  “How about the number two?”

  “For the moment Rowe is acting deputy chief of station,” Otto said.

  “Marty hired him.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  It seemed like forever to Pete, hiding in the shadows underneath the cot, her back against the wall, before the guard Miriam had ordered to remain in the room stepped out into the corridor.

  There had been little or no noise since the woman had used her phone to sound the alarm and then raced down the corridor and took the stairs. Down, Pete thought.

  Sooner or later they would realize that she might not have left the room after all and would come back to look for her. In the meantime the son of a bitch in the corridor was the one who had tried to rape her.

  Keeping her eye on the open door, she eased out from beneath the cot, just about every bone and muscle in her body aching because of the several beatings she had endured. But she’d had enough of being the helpless victim. Kirk was coming for her, and she wasn’t going to lie around waiting for him.

  Anyway, it was time for a little payback.

  Taking great care to make absolutely no noise, she picked up the handcuffs and crept to the door. She could smell the goon’s body odor, and garlic on his breath.

  Holding her breath, she took a quick peek around the corner. The big bastard was standing right there, his back to her, his left shoulder up against the wall. He was a good ten inches taller than Pete and outweighed her by at least one hundred fifty pounds. His massive neck was short, and dirty. She could see the grime in the folds of his skin.

  Holding her head against the door frame for just a moment, she took a deep breath, then swiveled around at the same moment the Russian pushed away from the wall and started to turn.

  She jumped on his back, looping the handcuff chain around his neck, a bracelet in each hand, and she reared back, her left knee in the small of his back, and pulled with every ounce of her strength.

  The goon reached for the chain as he lurched forward, but he couldn’t get a grip on it.

  Pete continued to hold with everything she had, the side of the man’s face starting to turn beet red as he bucked to the left and then right, trying to dislodge her.

  She pulled even harder.

  He slammed backwards, mashing Pete’s body against the wall, nearly dislocating her knee.

  She started to fuzz out but rode the man down as he slumped to one knee. He reached down with his left hand on the floor to steady himself from falling, his jacket open.

  Pete had lost her grip on the cuffs, but before the Russian could recover she snatched the big pistol—an Austrian-made Steyr 9mm, the thought came to her—leaped to one side, and without hesitation fired a shot at point-blank range into the man’s head.

  Dimitri pitched forward onto to his face, on both knees as if he were a Muslim at prayer.

  The building was suddenly very quiet after the sound of the gunshot. Pete stumbled away, almost falling, the leg she’d jammed against the Russian’s back nearly giving way.

  Shooting the bastard had been the last thing she’d wanted to do, because Najjir and the broad and just about everyone else in the building were going to come up here on the run. But she’d been no match against the Russian’s bulk and she’d lost her grip on the handcuffs.

  Keeping the pistol in both hands, down and away, she sprinted to the stairwell door at the end of the corridor and, switching to a one-handed grip, opened it with her left.

  At least two people, but probably more, were coming up from below, making no effort at stealth. Up was the only way
for her, but as she stepped into the stairwell she heard a door above slamming open and at least one person start down toward her.

  * * *

  McGarvey had pulled up at a back corner of the shattered apartment building. From where he’d been standing in the darkness, he’d made out one sniper on the roof of the factory, and two figures—one of whom had come out of the building minutes earlier—were apparently in deep discussion. The light was uncertain and the distance was too far for a positive identification of the one man, but Mac was almost certain it was Najjir.

  The single pistol shot, when it had come seconds ago, seemed to have been fired from somewhere deep inside the factory complex, and higher up, but not on the roof.

  Whoever had fired, and for whatever reason, it had come as a complete surprise to the two men on the ground.

  The one Mac thought was Najjir turned and hurried back inside, his hand raised to his left ear as if he were talking on a phone.

  The second man rushed up a driveway and disappeared through an open iron gate.

  The sniper on the roof had disappeared as well, and from where Mac stood he could spot no other guard.

  He took out the Walther that Rowe had given him at the airport and started to climb over the remnants of a concrete block wall, but then stepped back. He ejected the magazine, cycled the round out of the firing chamber, and mostly by feel started to disassemble the pistol, finding the problem almost immediately. The gun had no firing pin.

  Marty had set him up, for whatever reason. In the old days he had blamed Martyisms like this one on plain stupidity. But this now was something else. The DDCI wanted Mac and Pete dead.

  The question was, why?

  McGarvey holstered the useless pistol, checked the approaches to the factory for shooters, then climbed over the wall and, keeping low, moving in a zigzag pattern, made his way through the apartment building to the doorway where the two men had been talking.

  * * *

  Pete held up short on the landing just below the door to the roof as whoever was coming down stopped.

  “She’s just below me,” the man from the roof spoke softly.

  “Hold your position, One, we’re on the way up,” a woman replied. It was Miriam and they were on walkie-talkies or cell phones in speaker mode.

  “I’ll take her.”

  “We want her alive.”

  Pete’s heart rate slowed, just as she’d been taught at the Farm that it would. Trust in your training combined with your instincts. Take advantage of your openings. The advantage had shifted to her. They wanted her alive as bait for Mac.

  Moving swiftly and as silently as possible on the balls of her feet, she sprinted up the last half flight of stairs, and when she came into view, the sniper on the landing above started to bring his Heckler & Koch MR7 rifle with infrared scope around, but she fired two shots, hitting him center mass, and he collapsed.

  Shoving the pistol into the waistband of her slacks, Pete went the rest of the way up, snatched the cell phone from the dead man’s hand and the MR7 from where it lay at his side, and went to the roof door, where she held up.

  She eased the rusty metal door open just a crack, in time to see one of the snipers with the same weapon in hand racing her way.

  Shoving the muzzle of the rifle through the opening with her right hand, she fired a sort burst, the sniper going down.

  “What the fuck is going on up there?” Miriam demanded.

  Pete raised the phone and hit the Send button. “Why don’t you come up and take a look for yourself, bitch?”

  The woman didn’t respond for a full three seconds. When she did, she sounded unconcerned. “You’re only delaying the inevitable, sweetheart.”

  “Three down,” Pete said. “The odds are getting better for me.”

  “But not for Mr. McGarvey. We have him covered from this side as well as behind.”

  Pete glanced out the door. The sniper she’d downed wasn’t moving, nor had anyone else shown up.

  “Where there’s life, there’s hope, isn’t that what you people are fond of saying?” Miriam radioed.

  “You might think about that for yourself.”

  “We don’t give a damn about you, but we really don’t want to kill your boyfriend. So why not help us save his life, like a good little mum.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Najjir reached the landing between the second and third floors, where Miriam and two of the operators where hunched down. Mistakes he could abide, but not gross negligence, and especially not incompetence. But everything that had happened in Paris, and now here, reeked of an amateur operation.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded, keeping his voice low.

  “I’m not sure, but she took out two of your lookouts topsides and probably got the drop on Dimitri.”

  “You had her handcuffed to the bed.”

  “So she got loose,” Miriam practically shouted. “If you still want McGarvey, get over it.”

  Najjir got on his phone. “Unit One, Base. What’s your situation?”

  “The woman is just inside the doorway,” Turkin responded.

  “Casualties?”

  “Yevgenni was in the stairwell, and I’m assuming she took him out, because she has his weapon and she used it to hit Arkadi.”

  “Are they dead?” Miriam asked.

  Turkin laughed. “Arkadi isn’t moving,” he said. “Why don’t you come take a look for yourself?”

  “Who’s covering the southwest approach from the park?” Najjir demanded.

  “No one.”

  * * *

  “Oops,” Pete said.

  “What are your orders?” Turkin asked.

  “Shove the rifle up your ass and pull off a round,” Pete radioed. “Even a tough Spetsnaz operator isn’t likely to miss.”

  “I need that approach covered,” Najjir said. “Take her out now.”

  “Stun grenade?”

  “Do it.”

  Pete had to figure her chances. She couldn’t go back downstairs. Najjir would no longer hesitate to kill her. But if she did nothing and the Russian on the roof tossed a stun grenade through the door, she would go down. But first he had to get the grenade, probably off a utility belt, and he would have to pull the pin.

  All that went through her head at the speed of light.

  She brought the rifle up as she swiveled through the doorway.

  Turkin was ten feet away, a stun grenade in his left hand, the rifle in the crook of his arm. He looked up, realizing his mistake, the instant before Pete fired one short burst, hitting him center mass, and he went down hard.

  Two seconds later the grenade went off with a tremendous flash and a bang.

  “Four down, and counting,” Pete radioed.

  * * *

  McGarvey was halfway through the ruins of the apartment building when the second burst of gunfire erupted from the roof, followed by the noise and light of a flashbang grenade, and he pulled up short.

  Some sort of a battle was going on inside the factory—possibly a faction fight. But he wanted to think that Pete was still alive somehow and had taken the initiative.

  He raced to the crumbling outer wall, which faced an empty lot strewn with bricks, boulder-size pieces of concrete, some with rebar sticking out at all angles, and held up as something or someone behind him made a noise that sounded like a cough.

  Whipping out the useless Walther, he slid to the left and dropped into a shooter’s stance.

  “By now you have to know that the pistol I gave you has no firing pin,” Rowe said from deep in the shadows, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet away. “I followed you on Mr. Bambridge’s orders.”

  Just to Mac’s left was a section of brick wall about four feet tall. To reach it he would have to expose himself to fire from anyone in the factory, and to Rowe. At the moment a practically no-win situation.

  “I picked up a new gun at the club.”

  “No,” Rowe said. “But I’m here to warn you that something is going
down in Washington. Bambridge is involved, though to what extent I’m not sure. But I do know that if you somehow survive this mess you’ll be a marked man when you return to Washington.”

  “Why tell me this?”

  “Because it’s wrong, and because I’d rather have you as a friend.”

  “Makes you a marked man.”

  “I’ll disappear tonight,” Rowe said. He stepped out of the shadows and carefully set a pistol on the ground. “I didn’t think I’d be at this point, so unfortunately I didn’t bring an extra mag or two. But it’s a ten-millimeter Glock, fifteen rounds in the handle, one in the receiver, and an intact firing pin.”

  McGarvey glanced over his shoulder at the factory, and when he turned back, Rowe was gone. “I’ll look you up when this is over.”

  “Do that,” the CIA officer said from the dark.

  McGarvey stuffed the Walther into the belt at the small of his back, then retrieved the pistol, checked that a round was in the firing chamber, and went back to the wall. He held up for a second, to make sure nothing moved, then sprinted across the open field.

  * * *

  Pete ducked inside the freight elevator equipment room just a few meters from the open stairwell door. From where she crouched she had a sight line through some rusty louvers on the doorway to the left and the downed Russian’s legs on the right. But she had no clear view of the other positions on the roof, where she was pretty sure snipers had been placed.

  But they would have to come into view if they wanted to get to her.

  Propping the rifle against the tin wall, she took a closer look at the phone. It was a Russian-made YotaPhone that used the Rostelcom network. It was old, and slow, but very sturdy and reliable. They’d been introduced to a variety of cell phones and services around the world at a five-day technology seminar taught by Otto.

  She switched it from the walkie-talkie mode and entered Otto’s number. He answered in Russian on the second ring.

  “Da.”

  “It’s me,” Pete said. “I took down four of their people and I’m armed and hiding on the roof of what I think was a factory. Where’s Mac?”