On the other hand, Yarnell could very well ignore her. Perhaps he had heard this sort of thing before. He wasn’t a stupid man. He or someone else had marked McGarvey’s trail the entire way.
Or he could run to his contact within the CIA and warn him. It is time to get out. Time to cut and run. Baranov is calling.
The plane touched down at Washington’s National Airport, across the Potomac River from Boiling Air Force Base, a few minutes before ten.
In the airport McGarvey was cleared through customs with no delays. Crossing the busy terminal toward the waiting cabs, he got the feeling he was being followed. When he turned, John Trotter was coming his way, a grim, determined look on his face, his eyes large and moist behind his thick glasses.
“It’s gone too far,” Trotter said. “The team is gone. We’ll dismantle the equipment tomorrow. But as of this moment, you’re done.”
It was about what he thought might happen, so he wasn’t surprised, merely a little disappointed in his old friend, who had gotten in over his head after all. Trotter was a cop, not a politician, but he’d known that all along.
“Then you and I will finish it,” he said.
“No, Kirk, it’s truly over. And that is by a direct order from the president.”
“Yarnell has gotten to him,” McGarvey said.
Trotter looked away, as if by not facing his old friend he would not have to face up to his own troubles. “Apparently.”
“Then he’s won.”
“It’s not for me to decide.”
“You’d already decided when you came to me in Lausanne.”
“That was a hundred years ago.”
McGarvey looked at his watch. “And now we’re down to the last forty-five minutes.”
“What do you mean by that?” Trotter said, alarmed. “Exactly what is it you’re talking about?”
“Come on,” McGarvey said. “We can talk on the way into town.”
Trotter’s car was parked across from the departing-passenger ramp. A lot of people had come up from Mexico City on the same flight, and the area was crowded. McGarvey watched for surveillance, a face, an attitude, or a posture out of the ordinary. Mexico was Baranov’s for the moment; it wasn’t impossible that he would know McGarvey had gotten out. But there was no one as far as he could tell. He tossed his bag in the back seat and they headed north up the George Washington Parkway, past the Marriott Twin Bridges Hotel, the Pentagon in the distance across the Boundary Channel and Lagoon.
“I can get you some money, Kirk,” Trotter said. “Not much, but something. For what you’ve done already.”
“Later.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’ve still got work to do.”
“No, goddamnit. It’s over. I’ve already told you. Day has told you. Am I going to have to arrest you?”
“It’s too late, John.”
“I don’t give a damn about Basulto, if that’s what you’re talking about. The little bastard can rot in hell for all anyone cares.”
“Yarnell’s ex-wife is down there, too. They’re going to telephone Yarnell tonight at eleven our time. Less than an hour from now.”
Trotter glanced over. “You’ll just have to stop her. Tell her the deal is off.”
“I’m not going to quit.”
“It’s because of Janos, isn’t it,” Trotter said gently. “We can’t even prove that Yarnell or his people did it. Someone else could have been responsible. Use your head, Kirk.”
“He’s working with someone in the CIA, John. Someone we don’t know about. Someone who Baranov turned in the late fifties. Now he’s active.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You’d better. It’s not going to stop just because we stop. Mexico is just the tip of the iceberg. Baranov has been planning this entire business for a lot of years, and he’ll keep going until someone stops him. Everything he’s worked for is finally coming to a head. If he wins he’ll make even more points at home. The Kremlin is already in love with him. Think what his position will be if he hands them Mexico on a silver platter. Is that the sort of man you want running the Soviet Union? And he’ll get it if he wins here.”
They were approaching the Arlington Bridge, which would take them across the river. Trotter started to pull toward the off ramp. “What hotel are you staying at?”
“The safe house, John.”
“No.”
“I want to listen to that telephone conversation.”
Trotter shook his head, but he didn’t take the ramp.
“It’s all I’m asking.”
“And then what?” Trotter asked.
“See what he does. See how he reacts.”
“What do you think he’ll do? What do you want him to do, Kirk? Go to the president? Is he your inside man?”
“I’m hoping he’ll call his contact. Warn him.”
“And what if it was the president?” Trotter suggested wildly.
“It’s not,” McGarvey said. “He’s from California, not the East Coast.”
“Christ, what’s that supposed to mean?”
He kept going back to Lausanne in his thoughts, and yet at the end there he hadn’t been happy or satisfied. He’d been looking for change, for just this or something like this. The old magic. Now that he was here he wanted out. Be careful what you wish for, he’d heard, you just might get it.
“His contact within the agency has an East Coast accent,” he said, watching Trotter for any sign of recognition.
“How do you know this?”
“Basulto told me. I finally got more of the truth from him. He was lying to you about almost everything.”
“About the East Coast accent, I mean. How did he know?” There was something there, something in Trotter’s myopic eyes. Some hint of a dawning recognition.
“Roger Harris told him. It wasn’t Yarnell, though. It was someone else. Someone who showed up at the party Yarnell and Baranov threw outside of Mexico City. Evita Perez heard his voice that night.”
“Did she say who it was? Did she know?”
“No. She only heard his voice, she was never allowed to see his face.”
Trotter thought about it. “We can come up with the embassy staff directories for those years. Shouldn’t be too hard to put together who was around then and now, and who has an East Coast accent.”
“He might not have been stationed in Mexico City. He might have been visiting. Or he might have been down there on special assignment.”
“He could have erased the records by now in any event,” Trotter said. He was getting caught up in it. “All these years,” he mused.
“How has Leonard Day been taking it?”
“I don’t know,” Trotter said. “I haven’t seen him all day. He won’t return my calls.” He glanced again at McGarvey. “It’s the missile thing, isn’t it? That was Baranov’s plan from the start.”
“That’s part of it, but there’s more.”
“They won’t get away with it,” Trotter continued. “They didn’t get away with it in Cuba, and they certainly won’t succeed this time either. The situation must be very bad in Mexico City. Did you run into any trouble?”
“Jules and Asher, the CIA field officers killed in Havana last fall. Why were they going to Mexico City?”
Trotter blinked. “Replacements. Reinforcements. I don’t know.”
“One of our spy planes was shot down yesterday.”
“Yes …”
“What else have we done to confirm those missile installations? Have we sent anyone down there?”
“How in God’s name would I know, Kirk? I don’t have any contacts over at the agency except for Larry Danielle, and he certainly wouldn’t say anything. What is it?”
McGarvey looked at his watch. They had barely twenty minutes before Evita was due to place her call. But there was something else, always something else. He could feel it. He could practically taste it. Baranov never did anything by halves. At least McGarve
y had got that impression listening to Evita. It was the timing that had bothered him all along. The murders of Jules and Asher, Basulto’s coming out, and Baranov’s visit to Evita in New York (the trip itself very risky for the Russian); all had occurred in too narrow a time span for McGarvey’s liking. Too coincidental not to be carefully orchestrated.
They merged with the traffic crossing the Key Bridge. Washington was a city bright and alive and vibrant. But beneath the surface it was a metropolis, like Mexico City, under siege, holding its collective breath, waiting for the outcome.
“I just want you to listen to the telephone call, John. After that it’ll be up to you.”
They crossed the canal and turned right on M Street past the City Tavern, and then the Rive Gauche Restaurant. People lined up around the block to get in.
“How sure are you about this, Kirk?” Trotter asked. He was looking for guarantees. He was a drowning man and he needed a lifeline. But there wasn’t one within reach.
“I’m just guessing.”
The Boynton Towers apartment was in darkness when Trotter let them in. McGarvey wouldn’t allow him to switch on the lights. All the equipment had been turned off, but it was still in place, ready for the cleanup crew to come along in the morning and remove it. Trotter stood in the middle of the living room, while McGarvey went to the window and looked down across 31st Street toward Yarnell’s fortress. Only a few of the windows were lit. No party tonight.
“If he calls his contact,” Trotter asked softly, “then what, Kirk? I mean, how are we going to handle it? The same as before?”
McGarvey was thinking about his ex-wife over there in Yarnell’s arms. It was going to come as a very large shock for her. He didn’t know how well she would handle it, but he sincerely wished her well.
“Are you going to kill him? Nothing has changed, you know. He is still friends with the president and with Powers. The scandal would wreck our government. Christ, we can’t let that happen, especially not now. We need our strength. Solidarity. This could ruin everything.”
Trotter was truly frightened. “There’s no proof of any of this. You were correct. Good Lord, it never was anything more than circumstantial. There could be a dozen different explanations, some of which might possibly be quite innocent.”
No, McGarvey thought. Evita had been correct. No one was truly innocent.
“Once we step over that line, there’ll be no going back, Kirk. Not for any of us. Not ever.”
McGarvey turned away from the window. “It’s time, John. Turn on the tape machine, would you?”
31
In the mews behind Scott Place, the streetlights cast a violet glow on the brick walls and buildings, and from where McGarvey stood in the safe house he imagined he could see eyes watching him from the attic windows of Yarnell’s citadel. It was well after eleven, the recorder on the telephone tap was on and ready. Trotter stood poised, though the equipment was automatic. He hadn’t said a thing in the last fifteen minutes. McGarvey could feel his fear and his impatience. Evita hadn’t called. She couldn’t go through with it; she was in trouble; Basulto had stopped her; she was lying dead in a pool of blood. All of it ran through McGarvey’s mind as he brooded like an anxious father waiting for his daughter to come in out of the night after her first date. He’d erred in thinking she could actually betray Baranov and her ex-husband. He’d erred in trusting Basulto, he’d erred in listening to Trotter and Day in the first place. He’d erred all of his life because he had never found a place in which he felt that he belonged. Not Kansas, not Washington, not South America nor Europe; not the service, nor the agency, nor the bookstore. He supposed he might be considered a loner, and yet he could not stand being alone.
He could not see the actual driveway into Yarnell’s place, but he could see where the mews opened south on Q Street and fifty yards north on Reservoir Road. Anything or anyone coming or going then, would be visible at either end of the lane. Of course there could be a back way for a man on foot, or even a front way across the mews into a fronting building, then through its rear door onto 32nd Street. Somehow McGarvey didn’t think it would be necessary this evening to go down onto the street. At least not until Evita called. When she called. If she called. The night had deepened. Black clouds had rolled in from across the river, and a mist hung over Georgetown.
It was possible, of course, that Yarnell wasn’t at home this evening. In fact, considering the Mexican crisis, he might already have cut and run. But for some reason McGarvey didn’t believe it. Yarnell was there. He could feel the man’s presence out ahead of him in the darkness, just as iron filings can feel the effect of a hidden magnet. The power was there.
Yarnell’s telephone rang. The reels of the tape machine began to turn. McGarvey looked away from the window. Trotter’s eyes were wide. The telephone rang again, the sound from the speaker soft, muted. “Have you got a gun with you?” McGarvey asked. Trotter nodded. The telephone rang a third time. “Maybe he’s not home—” Trotter started to say.
“Hello,” Darby Yarnell’s calm, cultured, self-assured voice came from the machine. They could hear the hollow hiss of the long-distance connection.
“Darby?” Evita said. She sounded very far away. Frightened and very much alone. “Is that you? Can you hear me?”
“You just missed Juanita. She’s off with her friends.”
“I didn’t call to speak to her.”
“Oh?” Yarnell said without missing a beat. McGarvey could understand already, at least in a small measure, what they’d said about him. “Are you in New York, darling? The connection is awful.”
Evita didn’t answer. Come on, McGarvey said to himself.
“Evita?”
“I’m in Mexico City. We have trouble. You and I, you know.”
“What in heaven’s name are you doing down there, especially now? Are you at your sister’s?”
“The Del Prado. Downtown. You remember it?”
“I think you should go to Maria. If you want I’ll telephone her for you. Or at the very least get yourself over to our embassy and stay there.”
“Darby, you’re not listening to me,” she said, and McGarvey could hear that she was trying to be strong, trying to hold on, but he could hear the fragility in her voice. She was on the verge of breaking.
“What is it?”
“You’re going to have to come down here.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Do you, darling?” McGarvey could almost hear him smiling. “Whatever it is you’re doing down there in Mexico City, I’m sure that I can’t help you by joining you. Why don’t you take the first plane out in the morning. You can spend the weekend up here with us. Your daughter would love to see you.”
“Goddamnit, you’re still not listening,” Evita shrieked. “You never listened. Just like Valentin. The two of you were quite the pair.”
“I’m going to hang up now,” Yarnell said patiently. “I’ll telephone our embassy and tell them that you need assistance. Take care of yourself—”
“Don’t you dare hang up, you bastard,” Evita interrupted. “Because I’m not down here to see my sister. McGarvey brought me here.”
“What are you talking about? McGarvey who? Is he someone from your club? What?”
“Ex-Company. He was hired to assassinate you.”
“Good God almighty,” Trotter said. “What did you tell her?”
McGarvey motioned for him to be quiet.
“Are you drinking?” Yarnell asked, and McGarvey could hear genuine concern in his voice. “Or are you taking something else?”
“He knows everything, Darby. I swear to God. I’m not here alone. He brought someone else with him. Someone from the old days.”
“I think you should go to bed and get some rest.”
“Don’t you want to know his name? He was the one who blew the whistle on you.”
“For God’s sake, Evita.”
“That is, before I told McGarvey everything I knew.” She laughed
, the sound was brittle. “All about you and Valentin in the old days. And now you’re in big trouble. You won’t be able to talk your way out of this one so easily.”
“You need help. Let me call someone.”
“His name is Artime Basulto. Remember him? The little scumbag. Says you killed a man named Roger Harris. Shot him dead. And now he wants to get back at you. He told someone in the Justice Department, who told someone in the FBI, who hired McGarvey to kill you. Just like the old days, Darby, lots of helpers.”
Trotter had stepped away from the tape machine as if it were about ready to explode. “On an open line,” he said in amazement.
Again McGarvey motioned him to keep quiet.
“Honestly I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yarnell said, not so much as a waver in his voice. McGarvey had to admire the man’s presence of mind and control.
Except for the hiss and pop of the imperfect connection, the line was silent for a pregnant second or two.
“Evita?” Yarnell prompted again.
“Valentin came to New York nine months ago. Said McGarvey or someone like him would be coming asking questions, snooping around.”
“Valentin who?”
“Come off it, Darby. I know everything now. I mean everything.”
“Good-bye.”
“I saw you and him that night,” she said. Her voice was shaking badly now. “You didn’t know it, but I walked in on the middle of your … lovemaking with Valentin. Oh, God.”
For the first time Yarnell was at a loss for words. McGarvey turned and looked toward the man’s house. He could imagine him holding the telephone to his ear, his mind racing to all the possibilities that he was suddenly faced with.
“They know it all, Darby,” she cried. “I’m sorry. They know about Valentin and they even know about the one from the party that night in Ixtayopan. They know he’s still with the Company and that you’re working together. I swear to God, they know it all. You’ve got to get out of there. You can come down here. McGarvey will make a deal. Valentin will help us. It’ll be just like the old days. Oh, God, please, Darby. You have to listen.”
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