Face Off--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  “An abandoned factory next door.”

  Bambridge was disturbed, and he took a moment to respond. When he did he was angry. “What the hell do you want from me? You’ve already turned down my help. Or am I suddenly supposed to go back to General Gibson and tell him to ask for assistance from the Turkish Army after all?”

  “Not yet. But I wanted to keep you informed. You might want to give Mark a recommendation. Maybe a commendation.”

  Again Bambridge took his time answering. “I’ll consider it.”

  “Thanks,” Otto said, and he turned to leave, but Bambridge stopped him.

  “So what’s the bottom line over there? What the hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know, Marty. Mac says he’s on top of it.”

  “But he wants no help from us?”

  “No, nothing else. He says something else is going on that he needs to get a handle on.”

  “This is fucking crazy, do you know that? You’re all certifiable. McGarvey is finally going to get himself and his girlfriend killed, and I’ll be here to say I told you so.”

  “That, and the Company will deny any responsibility for what he tried to do.”

  “You’re goddamn right!” Bambridge said. “Now get the fuck out of my office.”

  “With more pleasure than you can imagine.”

  * * *

  McGarvey held up in the stairwell, one landing below the roof. Everything above was silent, but he thought he could hear someone coming up behind him.

  No one was using the phones now, not even Pete, and that was the most bothersome to him. But there’d been no sounds of gunfire in the past few minutes, nor had she tossed a flashbang through. The best-case scenario was that she’d understood his ruse and was waiting for him to show up, or at least to tell her what to do next. The worst-case scenario was that she had been denied the use of the phone, possibly even killed.

  * * *

  A half mile away Rowe phoned Bambridge’s encrypted cell phone. The deputy director answered on the first ring, as if he had been expecting the call.

  “Yes.”

  “I followed him over to the apartment building and made the weapons exchange as you suggested. But it’s only a fifteen-round mag, so there’s no way in hell he’ll survive. The odds are too great, even for him.”

  “Are you nearby?”

  “No, but I stuck around long enough to hear one hell of a gunfight.”

  “Don’t write him off just yet,” Bambridge said.

  “The man’s fifty years old and he’s got a peg leg. Christ, he’s not Superman.”

  “Tell me, Mark, when you had the chance, did you have the possibility of a clean shot?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you take it?”

  “Wasn’t in my brief.”

  “If he finds out that you’ve been working with me, I think you’ll regret that decision.”

  “I brought him the pistol. He thinks I’m his friend.”

  “He doesn’t have any real friends. Men like him can’t afford them.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Start on a text, sending your regrets that the former DCI was involved in a shoot-out with as yet unidentified criminal elements in Tarlabasi that resulted in a number of casualties—including his death and that of his fiancée, who was an employee of this agency but was, at the time of her death, on vacation.”

  “What if he survives?”

  “You’d best hope that he doesn’t,” Bambridge said.

  * * *

  Pete was on her knees, her hands laced behind her head, and she felt incredibly stupid. She’d been in this position for what seemed like an eternity to her, but she figured it couldn’t have been much more than five minutes. An eternity for fluid situations like these.

  After what sounded like an intense firefight, somewhere below, the building had fallen silent. No one, not even Mac, had used the phones in all that time, and her heart was hurting. She thought that there was a very real possibility that he was dead.

  They’d discussed that very thing one night six months ago. They’d been walking along the beach at his house on Casey Key on the Gulf south of Tampa. It was early evening, the stars out, the night air soft.

  “Have you ever thought that it was game over?” she’d asked.

  He’d chuckled. “Damned near every time.”

  She’d stopped and looked at his face. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  “Then, why?”

  He’d shrugged. “It’s who I am—or maybe what I am.”

  A car went by on the narrow island’s only road, behind them. Someone heading somewhere. Maybe dinner, Pete thought. But not into a situation that could very possibly lead to their deaths by violent means.

  She was at his side at that moment, but she thought that it was perhaps the loneliest and most frightened she’d ever been in her life. Until now.

  THIRTY-SIX

  McGarvey slipped into the third-floor corridor, where he paused for a moment, holding the door open and listening with all of his senses to the sounds of the building.

  There was nothing from above, but at least one person, maybe two, was moving on the stairs below, very quietly, making almost no noise.

  Easing the door shut, Mac raced down the corridor to the freight elevator, where he hit the call button. Moments later the car, which was somewhere below, started up with a clatter.

  He took the phone out of his pocket. “Otto, are you still with me?”

  “Here,” Rencke came back immediately.

  “I haven’t heard anything from Pete in at least five minutes. They may have taken her phone.”

  “I can’t pinpoint it closer than a couple of feet, but it’s still active.”

  “Then she’s either unconscious or someone is holding a gun to her head, threatening to kill her if she opens her mouth. I’m going to give them some room, try to defuse the situation long enough to let everyone cool down.”

  “What’s the plan, kemo sabe?”

  “I’m going to take the freight elevator to the ground floor. There’s a car and a couple of vans parked just outside. Soon as I get to them I’m going to try for a trade again. But if Pete’s down, you can go ahead with the general’s suggestion.”

  “The army?”

  “I’ll cover the front. Najjir and his people will have to get past me, and it won’t be easy.”

  “Pete’s not dead,” Otto said. “I’d feel it.”

  “I hope so. I just want this to be over with.”

  “You’re not actually going to turn yourself over to them, Mac. Think it out.”

  “If Pete is still alive and they let her walk free, I’ll keep my word.”

  The elevator arrived and Mac sent it back down to the first floor.

  A minute and a half later gunfire erupted from below.

  McGarvey went back to the stairway and headed down to the next landing, where he crouched low on the stairs, from where he would have a clear shot on anyone coming up or down.

  * * *

  “He wasn’t on the elevator,” one of the operators from below radioed.

  “I think that he’s one floor below us, so watch yourselves,” Najjir said.

  “Roger.”

  Najjir stood at the open door to the roof, Pete on her knees glaring at him. He held the phone in his right hand, blocking the microphone, and turned to Miriam. “He’s on the floor just below us,” he said softly. “Go down and talk to him, but leave your pistol here.”

  Miriam caught what he was doing, so she whispered,”Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  “As soon as whoever’s left downstairs gets up here we’ll have him in a cross fire.”

  “With me as a fucking hostage.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it, my dear. The man wants to trade, so let’s do it.”

  “We’re not bargaining with my life.”

  “How does it feel, bitch?” Pete shouted.

/>   The operator holding the rifle on her slammed the butt of the weapon into the side of her head and she went down on her face.

  “I’m not fucking around,” Najjir said. “We need him alive. Whatever the cost.”

  “No.”

  “As long as he knows that his girlfriend is still alive, and there’s a possibility we’ll trade for her, he won’t kill you,” Najjir said. “Look, she’s our hostage; you’ll give yourself up as his. The longer we can keep him occupied, the more the advantage will swing our way.”

  “We underestimated the man, didn’t we,” she said.

  “Yes,” Najjir said, but just to appease her. His people had been sloppy at the tower and church in Paris and here. But this op, with McGarvey, was an unexpected bonus. Actually a lifeline, worth even more than the Paris–Washington thing.

  The only thing that bothered him was the man’s being there at the Jules Verne at the very moment the attack was starting up. It was an improbable coincidence, a thing he’d never trusted.

  “Your choice,” Najjir said.

  Miriam shook her head. “I’m probably facing my nine ounces no matter what I do.”

  “I’m in just about the same boat.”

  “Unless we bring the former CIA director back with us.”

  “Alive,” Najjir said.

  Miriam handed over her pistol. She turned and started down, but then looked back. “Something else is going on, isn’t it? Him and the broad at the tower just then.”

  Najjir nodded. “It’s one of the things I’d like to ask him about.”

  “Me too,” Miriam said. She headed down, the operator who’d been holding Pete at gunpoint on the roof just behind her.

  * * *

  McGarvey, crouched on the landing between the third and second floors, had heard only some of Najjir’s conversations. The man had apparently done something to his phone to mute out most of his transmissions.

  Whoever was coming from below had held up, but they were close. Someone else started down.

  “Mr. McGarvey, I want to talk to you,” Miriam said. “I’m unarmed.”

  “Someone is in the stairwell below me. Send them away.”

  “I can’t do that, but I just want to talk, that’s all.”

  “Send Pete down to me.”

  “I can’t do that either.”

  Making as little noise as possible, Mac went back up to the third floor, holding up at the open doorway.

  “May I come down?” Miriam asked. She’d stopped on the next landing up.

  “All I want is a trade. Send Pete down, and once she’s away I’ll turn myself over to you.”

  “What guarantee do we have?”

  “None.”

  “Goddamnit, we want you alive, not dead.”

  “Then why did your operators opened fire on the freight elevator when they thought I was on board?”

  “When you have a chance to take a look for yourself you’ll find that they didn’t actually fire into the car.”

  “Then come,” McGarvey said. “But if someone is tagging along, I’ll shoot you first. Are you clear on that?”

  “One operator is on the stairs behind me, and two are below you. They won’t come any closer.”

  “Your life depends on it.”

  * * *

  Miriam turned the corner on the midfloor landing and, her hands in plain sight, moved down the last few steps, but then stopped, confused. McGarvey wasn’t there.

  “Mr. McGarvey?” she called softly.

  McGarvey appeared at the open doorway, the room broom pointed in her general direction. “That’s close enough.”

  “I’ve come to offer myself as a hostage.”

  “I don’t take hostages.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Bambridge had driven over to Turkey Run Park just north of the CIA’s main entrance on the GW Parkway, which followed the Potomac River, and parked at the start of one of the footpaths. It was a weekday, and just enough people were present to make his arrival nearly anonymous. Another visitor taking a break from a busy day.

  The man he knew as William Rodak, a midlevel aide to President Weaver, had been friends with an old college buddy of Marty’s. He’d been introduced a couple of years ago, in the middle of Weaver’s incendiary presidential campaign, as a man who might prove useful to the agency if the impossible happened and Weaver won.

  Rodak’s specialty was Russia. He’d actually lived and studied for his Ph.D. in Moscow and Vladivostok and had gone back to do a couple of research papers for the State Department. The media had viewed him as the most likely link between the White House and the Kremlin.

  Marty had always considered him a valuable resource.

  He was a powerfully built man with broad shoulders, a sturdy frame, and a no-nonsense, all-business demeanor. It was said that he never smiled, because he felt that he carried the fate of American–Russian relationship on his shoulders.

  “Rapprochement is our only viable option,” President Weaver was fond of saying. They were Rodak’s words.

  Marty had three favorite soft-porn sites that he visited on his personal tablet from time to time. Rodak had the means to hack all three sites. One meant Marty wanted to set up a meeting at the Lincoln Memorial at noon in two days. Another meant Marty wanted to meet at the bar in the Watergate the same evening at ten. And the third was the most urgent: Marty wanted a meeting immediately, this time at Turkey Run Park. Wherever they met, they would agree on the next meeting place, never using the same places twice.

  Rodak was sitting on a park bench, smoking one of his ever-present unfiltered Camel cigarettes.

  Marty sat down next to him, and for a minute or so neither of them spoke, until Rodak broke the silence.

  “What has you bothered, my friend?”

  “The Paris thing may be spinning out of control.”

  “Because of the possible connection with Moscow? If that’s the case, you needn’t worry. From what I’ve learned, the entire business was directed from the lowest possible level.”

  “Deniable?”

  Rodak looked at him. “Of course. Your hands remain clean, Martin. In that you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

  Some of the man’s mannerisms and occasional turns of phrase sounded almost Russian. The media had picked up on it during Weaver’s campaign and Rodak had merely laughed it off.

  “I suppose that too much of my formative youth and zeal was spent over there in my studies.”

  “A girlfriend?” a Washington Post reporter had asked.

  Rodak had smiled good-naturedly. “Maybe more than one.”

  Marty was startled. “What do you mean my hands will remain clean? I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing contrary to my charter.”

  “No one, least of all me, is saying anything to the contrary. But you did ask for an emergency meeting.”

  “It’s possible that Kirk McGarvey has gotten himself into a situation that I never foresaw.”

  “He has that history. But he did save the Eiffel Tower, which was in your original plan. What has gone wrong?”

  “They captured his girlfriend.”

  “Ms. Boylan, one of your employees.”

  “They took her to Istanbul, and McGarvey followed them.”

  A squirrel came across the grass and began digging in the dirt. Rodak watched for a moment or two. “Inventive animals. When the time to harvest acorns is in full swing, they bury them just an inch or two deep. Shallow enough so that when they want to dig them up they can smell where they are.”

  Marty was irritated. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Have you ever eaten a squirrel?”

  “No.”

  “Neither have I, nor would I care to do so. They’re nothing more than rats with bushy tails, after all. I think they would taste very bitter. Like your Mr. McGarvey. He can sense where the acorns are buried, and has the habit of digging them up. But I think that killing him would be a very bitter experience.”

  �
��Well it just may be worse than that,” Marty said. “There’s a decent chance that he’s going to trade his freedom for that of Ms. Boylan.”

  Rodak was visibly startled. “Trade with whom?”

  “The more important question is, why? And the answer is, to appease their failure in Paris.”

  “If they have him, then what?”

  “Take him to Russia and trade with the SVR,” Marty said. “You have to admit that his intelligence value would be considerable.”

  Rodak said nothing.

  “Maybe you should give Weaver the heads-up.”

  “No,” Rodak said. “You should have had him killed.”

  “I tried. It didn’t work.”

  “Try again, Martin. Believe me, it wouldn’t be in your best interest if Kirk McGarvey survived long enough to actually make it into the hands of the SVR.”

  “Nor in your best interest, William. Or the nation’s.”

  * * *

  The chameleon drone, about the size of a package of cigarettes, had turned green just before it landed in the tree just above where Marty and Rodak were seated. Its speed was much slower than an automobile’s, but at altitude it could overlook a very large area.

  Sitting in his office, watching a monitor, Otto had landed the drone in time to catch the last of the conversation.

  He got on the phone with Mac, switching off the common channel and speaker functions. “What’s your situation?”

  “I’ve been offered a hostage.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “We haven’t established that yet. But I think she’s about to tell me.”

  “How’s Pete?”

  “So far as I know she’s alive, but they recaptured her on the roof,” McGarvey said. “Do you have something I can use?”

  “Could be, but you have more trouble coming your way, and Marty is in the middle of it.”

  “Rowe is on his way back?”

  “I don’t know. But Marty is working some sort of a deal with Bill Rodak, who suggested that you be killed before the SVR got its hands on you.”

  “Weaver’s Russian expert?” McGarvey asked.

  “The same. So if you’re going to pull something off to get out of there, do it right now.”

  “Before I’m surrounded.”

  “That’s the idea.”