The Kill Zone

by David Hagberg

  The request for the go/no go decision tonight meant that Daedo was asking permission for the final action; that of taking Mrs. Martinez to bed.

  McGarvey went into the hall and switched on the outside lights, then went back to the kitchen. Kathleen stood, her hip against the counter, cradling a cup of tea in both hands and staring at the telephone.

  “I’m not sneaking up on you, and I’m not scaring you, so don’t jump out of your skin this time.”

  She turned and smiled. “I was just thinking that after the hearings maybe we should take a few days and get away from here. Does that sound good to you?”

  “Someplace warm.”

  “Absolutely,” Kathleen said enthusiastically. She nodded toward the study. “Are you getting anything done in that mess?”

  “Some reading. Most of it pretty boring. But it’d be easier without the plaster dust.”

  “Just a few days.”

  “Dick Yemm is on his way over with something for me to sign.”

  “Use the family room,” she said automatically. “The two of you can’t get anything done in the study.”

  “How’re the invitations coming?”

  “Pretty good. But the final list is going to depend on whether or not you’re confirmed as DCI.”

  “You don’t want to know which list I’d prefer.”

  She laughed lightly. “I wouldn’t even have to guess. But there are obligations that come with the job.”

  “I know—”

  “Social obligations, my darling husband,” she stressed. “That means a tuxedo and no smart-alecky comments to get a rise out of our guests.”

  “Throw a stick at a pack of dogs, and the one that yelps is the one that got hit.”

  She gave him a sharp look.

  He spread his hands. “I’ll behave myself.” He came around the counter, rinsed his cup in the sink and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Really.”

  “I’m going to hold you to it,” she said sternly.

  The doorbell rang. “Has Liz called yet?”

  Kathleen’s lips compressed. She shook her head. “I’m going to have to call her since she’s obviously too busy to pick up a telephone and call me.”

  “She’s a little shit,” McGarvey said, trying to keep it light. “It runs in the family.”

  “I’m going upstairs. Say hi to Dick,” Katy said, and she took her cup and the guest list and left the kitchen as McGarvey went to answer the door.

  The fact that Kathleen was having her own tough time because of the hearings right in the middle of their daughter’s pregnancy made it difficult all around. But this, too, will pass, he thought. And the sooner the better.

  Dick Yemm, a leather dispatch case in hand, his coat collar hunched up against the cold, his dark hair speckled with snow, was grinning crookedly. “No rest for the wicked,” he said.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” McGarvey asked, letting him in.

  “About as much as anyone else in the business, boss.” He followed McGarvey down the hall into the family room, where McGarvey motioned him to a bar stool.

  “Want a beer?”

  Yemm hesitated.

  “How about a cognac?”

  “That sounds good,” Yemm said. He unlocked the dispatch case and withdrew the thin file folder with the mission authorization form.

  McGarvey gave him his drink and took the folder.

  “Used to be in the old days that everybody was screwing everybody else, and no one took any notice,” Yemm said gloomily. “Now it’s different, and I don’t know if we’re better off for it.”

  “These days we think twice before we do something. That’s a change for the better.”

  “She was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Yeah,” McGarvey said. He took a pen from Yemm, signed the form and handed them back. “Sometimes we’re not very honorable men. Expediency without integrity.”

  “At least we’re fighting on the right side,” Yemm conceded.

  “Sometimes I wonder.”

  Yemm gave him a critical look. “Problems, boss?”

  McGarvey took a drink. “I wasn’t kidding when I asked you this afternoon if you ever thought about getting out of the business.”

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said every day.” Yemm took a pull at his drink. “But it’s too late for us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What else could we do?” Yemm answered morosely. “What else are we trained for except opening other people’s mail, eavesdropping and shooting people who don’t agree with us?”

  McGarvey shrugged. “We do the best we can,” he said. He swirled the liquor around in the snifter and took another drink as if he needed it to buck himself up. “When the Soviet Union packed it in we lost the bad guys. The evil empire. An idea that we could rally around the flag against. They were worse than the Nazis and five times as deadly, because they had the bomb.”

  “You almost sound nostalgic—”

  “They had the bomb, everyone was afraid that they might actually use it. Remember the nuclear countdown clock? Missiles over the pole; Vladivostok to Washington, D.C.; Moscow to Seattle, equidistant. Or, tactical nukes across the Polish plains into Germany. Or missiles in Cuba.”

  “They held our attention there for a while,” Yemm said.

  “That they did. But since 9-11 all bets are off. The bad guys are everywhere.”

  “Like I said, boss, time to get out.”

  McGarvey shook his head. “Not yet, Dick. I’m going to need you for the next two or three years.”

  “You’re taking the job then?”

  “If I can get past the hearings. There’s a lot of truth to what Hammond’s saying.”

  “Bullshit,” Yemm said.

  “I’ll try,” McGarvey promised, his eyes straying to the fireplace. “It’s like road rage; people jumping out of their cars and shooting each other because someone pissed them off by doing something stupid. Minor shit. Only now everybody’s been infected, even entire governments. We’re in a kind of a geopolitical road rage that’s hard to fight, and almost impossible to predict.” He looked back at Yemm. “That’s our job now. Figuring out who’s going to go crazy next.”

  “That include us?” Yemm asked softly.

  McGarvey nodded. “Yes.” How to get that across to Senator Hammond and the others tomorrow, he wondered. He was guilty of a mild form of treason. He had a feeling that he’d always been guilty of that crime. He’d always seen both sides of every issue.

  Yemm pocketed his pen and put the authorization form back into his dispatch case. He finished his drink. “Sorry, boss,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “I came over to cheer you up for tomorrow. Guess I didn’t do such a hot job of it.”

  “It’s the weather. It’s got everybody down.”

  At the door Yemm buttoned his coat. “I used to like the snow when I was a kid. Now I hate it.”

  “Yeah, me too,” McGarvey said.

  “You need a security detail out here around the clock.”

  “I’ll think about it,” McGarvey said.

  Yemm nodded glumly. “See you in the morning, then,” he said. He went down to the driveway, got in his Explorer and drove off.

  McGarvey stood at the open door for a bit, feeling the bite of the cold wind and smelling the snow and the smoke whipping around from a half dozen fireplace chimneys in the neighborhood. When it snowed, city kids went out to play, but ranchers’ sons, like he had been, went out to work. Snow meant feeding and watering animals. Blizzards meant staying out until lost cattle were rounded up before they froze to death.

  When he went back inside he locked the door and reset the alarm. He glanced up to the head of the stairs. Kathleen stood there hugging her arms to her chest. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  His stomach did a flop, and he hurried upstairs to her. “What’s wrong?”

  “She told me to mind my own business.”

  McGarvey took her into hi
s arms, She was shivering and crying, and she clutched the material of his shirt as if she were trying to rip it off his body.

  “You can’t press her. Remember how she was the last time?”

  “But I’m her mother, I just want to help.”

  “I know, but she wants to do this herself. She’s trying to prove that she’s all grown-up now, and not as worried about everything like she was last year.”

  Kathleen looked into his eyes to make sure that he wasn’t patronizing her.

  “When she gets herself figured out she’ll come back to you for help. Especially when she realizes that Todd and I are hopeless.”

  Kathleen smiled hesitantly. “It’s just me,” she said. “I think that I’m more frightened for the baby than she is.”

  “So am I,” McGarvey admitted. “But it’s their turn, their baby. All we can do is stand by if they need us.”

  She lowered her eyes. “It hurts.”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  “But it does,” she said.

  McGarvey held her close again. “I’ll talk to her,” he promised.

  After a moment Kathleen shook her head. “You’re right, Kirk,” she said. “Elizabeth needs her space. Let her be for the moment.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” Kathleen said, and she started to cry again, but this time without any urgency or tension—merely a safety valve for her emotions.

  “Are you okay?” he asked after a bit.

  “Just a little tired. It was a tough day. Maybe I’ll take a bath.”

  “I’m done for the night, too. How about a cup of tea or a glass of wine?”

  “Some wine.” She brushed her fingers across his lips. “I do so love you.”

  McGarvey smiled. “I’m glad.”

  She turned and went down the hall to their bedroom, McGarvey went downstairs, rechecked the alarm setting and the front door, then shut off the lights in his study after locking up the DI reports.

  He stood in the dark for a few minutes listening again, as he had been doing for the past several days, for something—the sounds of the house, the sounds of the wind, the sounds of his own heart, the sounds that the gavel would make tomorrow.

  “Fuck it,” he said. He went back to the kitchen, where he checked the patio doors. He opened a bottle of pinot grigio from the cooler, got a couple of glasses and went upstairs.

  The big tub on a raised step was only one-third full and the water was still running, but Kathleen had already disrobed and gotten in. She was lying back, her eyes closed, a look of contentment on her finely defined oval face.

  McGarvey sat down on the toilet lid, careful not to clink the glasses or make any noise to disturb her, but she opened her eyes and smiled at him.

  “If you only knew how good this feels,” she murmured luxuriously.

  He poured her a glass of wine and set it on the broad, flat edge of the tub. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, starting to get up.

  “Don’t go.”

  “Don’t you want some peace and quiet?”

  “I had twenty years of that; now I want you.” She ran a hand across the top of her chest, letting droplets of water run down between her breasts. “Even if we were in the same room for the next twenty, it wouldn’t make up for what we lost.” She shook her head thinking back. “Such a stupid waste, actually. My fault.”

  “Our fault,” McGarvey corrected. “I had a habit of running away, remember?”

  “At least you had a reason,” she flared mildly. “I was just … arrogant. Young, dumb, ambitious. I wanted to be a perfect mother, I really did. I loved Elizabeth with everything in my soul, but I wanted my freedom, too.” She absently touched the base of her neck, her collarbones and shoulders. “I tried Valium, because I felt guilty, but it didn’t work for me. Made me sick at my stomach.” She laughed. “The doctor said that I was tense.”

  “It wasn’t much better for anyone else. It’s time to stop beating yourself up. You were hiding out in the open, and I was hiding underground. You had the tougher assignment.”

  “Everybody hated the CIA. My friends used to tell me that kicking you out was the best decision that I’d ever made. But they were jerks. The kind of people you and I always hated. I would look at our daughter and wonder why they weren’t seeing what I was seeing; a perfect little girl who was half you.” She closed her eyes and laid the cool wineglass against her forehead. “I wanted to tell them, but I didn’t.”

  “We spent a lot of time being mad at each other,” McGarvey said sadly. “We both made some dumb decisions.”

  “When you came back to Washington out of the clear blue sky I thought that you’d come for me. When I found out that the CIA had hired you to dig out Darby and his crowd, I was mad at you all over again.” She was looking inward, regret all over her face. “I threatened to sue you for money, I flaunted myself all over Washington and New York, and I even got word to you that I was thinking about getting married, but nothing worked. Then the CIA comes to see you in Switzerland to offer you a job, and you come running. It wasn’t fair.”

  McGarvey didn’t know what to say. It was a time for going back, and the memories were just as painful for him as they were for her. But maybe necessary, he thought.

  She opened her eyes wide to look at him. “Do you know the worst part?” she asked. “When I saw you walking down the street it was like someone had driven a stake into my heart. I made a mistake, pushing you away, and here you were back in Georgetown even more inaccessible to me than ever. I had become the kind of person we hated; I had become one of my friends, a pretentious bore.”

  “But here we are, Katy,” he said softly.

  She smiled, some of the trouble melting from her face. “It’s going to be okay, isn’t it, Kirk?”

  “Guaranteed.”

  TUESDAY

  SIX

  IF KIRK MCGARVEY WERE CONFIRMED AS DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE HE WOULD BE ASSASSINATED.

  MONTOIRE-SUR-LE-LOIR, FRANCE

  Nikolayev walked along the country road into town as the sun reached over the distant line of poplars marking the edge of the wheatfield. He encountered no one this morning. Loneliness, he decided, was a subject on which he could write a very long book. Now there wasn’t even a routine to look forward to as he grew older. He could not return to Moscow, nor would he be able to remain here much longer.

  Sunday’s edition of the New York Times, Washington Post and Le Monde, carried the same story. Each newspaper had given the facts its own spin: the liberal press was against McGarvey’s appointment; the conservative was for it; and the French press was confused but angry. It was always anger that seemed to fuel the public debate; especially the international dialogue.

  Nikolayev could have refused to read the newspapers. Not listen to the radio, or watch television, especially not CNN. But the facts would have been there all the same, and he would know it. Like the feral cat crouched in front of the rabbit; the predator did not need to read a book to smell the fear. The ability to sense the real world was built in, and perfected by years of experience.

  Nikolayev heard the church bell tolling the hour in town.

  Turn away. Now, before it’s too late.

  In the night he felt them at his back. Coming for him. There would be no arrest for him, though; no cell at Lefortovo, no torture, no drugs, no sewing his eyelids open, rubber hoses up his anus, glass rods shattered inside his penis. They were coming with Russian insurance—his nine ounces—a nine-millimeter bullet to the base of his skull.

  “Comrade Nikolayev?”

  He stopped and turned, but no one was there. Only the farm fields, the trees, the white clouds in the blue sky, the empty road and the church bell. The voice had been Baranov’s. He recognized it. But the general was long dead. Killed by Kirk McGarvey outside East Berlin.

  He walked the rest of the way into town where he stopped first at the boulangerie for his baguette and his morning raisin buns, then around the corner in the square to the
little shop selling tobacco, chewing gum, stamps, magazines and newspapers. The old woman had his three newspapers waiting for him.

  “Bonjour, monsieur,” she said pleasantly. “Ça va?”

  “Bonjour, madame. Ça va, et nous?” Nikolayev responded with a genuine smile.

  “Je vais bien,” she said brightly, inclining her head coquettishly. It took him a second to realize that the old woman was flirting with him. He paid her, accepted his change, got his newspapers and fled the dark shop into the bright morning sun. He thought he could hear her laughing as he hurried down the street.

  He folded the newspapers under his arm, refusing the temptation to look at the headlines, and after twenty minutes he was back at the small farmhouse he’d rented at the agency in Paris. It had become a familiar haven for him. He put on the water for his tea, put the baguette away and brought the newspapers and buns to the table at the edge of his small vegetable garden in back. From here he could look across the wheatfield, stubble now, to the intersection of the farm road and the main highway D917 across the narrow Loir River. It was the only way here from the outside. The tiny window in his bedroom under the eaves also faced the river and the highway. Basic tradecraft. Habit is Heaven’s own redress, Alexander Pushkin had written in Eugene Onegin. It takes the place of happiness.

  There was the occasional car and a few trucks on the highway. The bus from Le Mans passed a few minutes after nine in the morning, and returned from Orleans in the afternoon around two. Six weeks ago a police car passed by, its blue lights flashing, its siren shrieking. Nikolayev had leaped up from the table and had nearly headed off across the fields in a dead run until he realized that they were not coming for him. If Moscow was searching for him, they were not looking here.

  When his tea was ready he took the pot and a cup out to the table, put on his reading glasses and settled down with the newspapers. He started with Le Monde to see if the French were reporting anything new and because it was today’s newspaper. The Times and the Post were Monday’s and probably contained only rewritten versions of Sunday’s accounts.