The Kill Zone

by David Hagberg

  “Baranov’s files? Department Viktor people?”

  Otto nodded.

  “Including my involvement?” McGarvey asked.

  Otto nodded again.

  “So what?” McGarvey said, but then he stopped himself. “He found out something that somebody in Moscow doesn’t want found out.”

  Otto watched him but said nothing.

  “It has something to do with what’s happening around here. Where’s the connection, Otto? Where’s the lavender?”

  Rencke flinched as if he had been burned. “I’m not sure, Mac. Honest injun.”

  “It’s some operation that lay dormant for all these years until Nikolayev stumbles on it. He hits a trip wire, and the thing starts.” McGarvey focused on Otto. “What is it?”

  Otto was vibrating again, a look of terror on his face.

  “You found Nikolayev, and you must have made contact with him. Is that right?”

  Otto shook his head.

  “Goddammit, you didn’t come back from France empty-handed. I know you didn’t. What did you find out?”

  Otto’s lips worked as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t.

  “Spotlight is your operation to find out what Nikolayev is up to. And you found out something. What?”

  Yemm came around the corner of the building. McGarvey spotted him and angrily waved him back.

  “Their plane is on final, boss,” Yemm shouted. “You have about five minutes.” He turned and went into the hangar.

  McGarvey turned back to Rencke with a mixture of frustration, pity and anger. “Somebody is trying to kill me. Or at the very least stop me from becoming DCI. A number of our people have pegged you as the chief suspect. They think that you’ve gone around the bend.”

  Otto hung his head. “I know.”

  “You can’t do this alone, Otto. You can’t fight the war by yourself. Let me help. It’s what I do for my friends. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Network Martyrs,” Otto mumbled.

  McGarvey’s eyes narrowed. Something in the sudden mood shift as Otto spoke the words was disturbing. “Was that a Baranov operation?”

  “Like CESTA and Banco del Sur, but a lot more specific.” Otto was desperately afraid of something. “Nikolayev found the file at Lefortovo.”

  “How do you know that?” McGarvey asked. It was a reasonable question under the circumstances. “Did you talk to him when you were in France?”

  “No. He was in Paris, but I didn’t see him. I couldn’t. Somebody tried to kill him in front of the Louvre. They killed another man instead. The one Nikolayev had gone to see. Just like Zhuralev in Moscow.”

  “Was he another Baranov man?”

  “Valdimir Trofimov. He was Baranov’s special assistant for about ten years.” Otto looked off in the distance as the CIA’s Gulfstream approached the end of the field for a landing. “Nikolayev doesn’t have all the answers either.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He wouldn’t be running for his life.”

  “What about Network Martyrs?”

  “He was living in an apartment in Montmartre. I found a scrap of paper with the name.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. We can give this to Tom Lynch. His people can search the apartment. They might find something we can use.” Lynch was chief of the CIA’s Paris station.

  “The Russians have already been there. They were right on my heels.”

  “Did you get the scrap of paper?”

  Otto looked down and shook his head. “No. But I hacked the SVR’s mainframe in Moscow.” He looked up. “Baranov planted a very deep cover agent here in the States almost twenty years ago. When the time was right the agent would be activated and would assassinate the target.” Otto blinked furiously. “The target is you, Mac. Oh, wow, and the agent has been activated.”

  The hairs prickled on the back of McGarvey’s neck. “Who is the assassin?”

  “I don’t know,” Otto said, unable to meet McGarvey’s eyes. He was lying again. He knew, or at the very least he suspected who it might be.

  “It’s someone close,” McGarvey said. “We know that much. Do you have a list?”

  “Not one that has any meaning. Nothing makes any sense.” Otto started to dance from foot to foot again.

  There it was again. The business about trust. If he couldn’t trust his friends, who the hell was left?

  “I have my own list,” McGarvey admitted. “You’re on it. So is Yemm.” Maybe he had suspected all along that Baranov would come back. The look in the general’s eyes when he died wasn’t one of defeat, but rather one of cunning and malevolence. Bravado, as he lay bleeding to death outside East Berlin, or some knowledge that he would get his revenge in the end?

  McGarvey had never really understood Baranov’s motivation for coming after him. If the Russians had wanted McGarvey dead, they’d had plenty of opportunities to put a bullet in the back of his head. No one could go through life without making a mistake.

  Now he had to wonder again, if indeed this was a Baranov operation that had been put in place more than twenty years ago.

  Was the general’s desire for revenge nothing more than insanity? Some international game of chess played for a grudge? A vengeance game? It was probably something they would never know for sure, because the only man who understood was dead.

  Pride? Ego? Saving face?

  The Gulfstream touched down with a puff of smoke from its tires. “I’ll find Nikolayev, but we gotta keep Paris station out of it,” Otto said. “If the Russians find out that we’re after him, too, there’s no telling what’ll happen. If they get to him first, they’ll kill him, just like they did Zhuralev and Trofimov. They want to bury the mess that Baranov made. We’d never know the whole truth until it was too late.” Otto looked up, pleading. “Don’t you see, Mac, you gotta let me work on it my way.”

  A towing vehicle came across the apron and pulled up where the Gulfstream would stop. The driver glanced over at McGarvey and Otto, then looked away. A gas truck came from the same direction and pulled up as Yemm came out of the hangar.

  “I don’t think we have a lot of time left,” McGarvey said. “Don’t screw around, I can’t give you much more slack.”

  “I’m trying,” Otto said quietly. “I’m trying real hard to keep it together.”

  McGarvey watched as the Gulfstream came toward them, not at all sure what he was going to say to his daughter. What he could say that would help, except that he loved her.

  The tow vehicle driver guided the jet to a halt, then motioned for the pilot to cut the engines. They immediately began to spool down, and Yemm went over to help as the door came open and the stairs were lowered.

  Otto stepped away from the car. “She’ll be okay, Mac. Todd will take care of her.” There was a note of something, desperation maybe, in his voice. But he was not lying.

  “Isn’t he on your list of suspects?” McGarvey asked, even though the question was cruel.

  Otto looked sharply at him, surprise and a little doubt showing in his eyes. “You’re kidding, right?” he said, but McGarvey didn’t know if he was kidding. All he knew was that once you started down the slippery slope of mistrust there oftentimes was no way back. He was trying, but he was sliding again.

  “Boss?”

  The jet’s stairs were down. Yemm stood by at the open door. He was waiting.

  McGarvey fixed a smile on his face and boarded the plane. The pilot on the flight deck gave him a nod.

  “We had a smooth flight, Mr. Director,” he said.

  McGarvey glanced at him. “Thanks,” he said. His eyes slid past the copilot and the young woman who was the flight attendant, to his son-in-law, perched on the arm of Elizabeth’s seat, looking like he would take the head off anyone who so much as twitched near his wife. Then he looked at Liz, and his smile almost died.

  Elizabeth’s face was puffed up and badly bruised. Her eyes were swollen half-shut and bloodshot. She wore one of Todd’s flannel shirts
, her left arm was in a sling. It was obvious from the way she held herself that she was in pain, especially in her lower back. She shivered in anticipation. Her mouth was screwed up in a grimace that made it impossible to tell if she was wincing in a sudden sharp pain, or she was trying to smile. Her skin, where it wasn’t black-and-blue, was pale, almost translucent. Even without the marks, she was obviously a sick woman. The medical report McGarvey had read said that she had lost a significant amount of blood. It would take time for her to recover.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” McGarvey said soothingly. He went to her and gently kissed her forehead.

  She looked up at him just like she had when she was a little girl, before he and Katy had separated, waiting for him to tuck her in for the night and listen to her prayers.

  “You’re back home now, and everything’s going to be fine.” He glanced at Todd, who gave him a very determined look in return. “The doctors say that you’ll come out of this just fine. How do you feel?”

  Her eyes squinted, and a couple of tears rolled down the side of her face. She picked a small, brown stuffed bear off the seat beside her and hugged it close with one arm.

  “They killed the baby, Daddy,” she said, her voice impossibly young. McGarvey almost lost it. She looked over her father’s shoulder. “Where’s Mom? Why isn’t she here?”

  “She wasn’t getting any rest, so the doctor put her in the hospital. Just for a couple of days. She’ll be home tomorrow.”

  “Was it because of me?” Elizabeth demanded. She looked up at Todd for support. He didn’t avoid her eyes.

  “Partly,” McGarvey admitted. “But whoever tried to get you, has tried to eliminate us, too. Which is why all of us are going to play it by the book and let Security do its job.”

  “Is she okay?” Elizabeth insisted.

  “She’ll be fine in a day or two. She just needs the rest, that’s all.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded.

  She looked over her father’s shoulder again. Otto and Yemm had boarded the airplane and stood hunched over in the aisle.

  “Oh, wow, Liz, are you really okay?” Otto asked.

  “I’ll live,” Elizabeth replied. “Are you back at work?”

  “Yeah.”

  She brushed at a tear and faced her father. “Okay, it’s over. Todd and I are back, and we’re going to find the bastards who are doing this to us.” Gone was the little girl. She had become the strong, determined young woman she prided herself on being. A McGarvey.

  “You’re not going anywhere except to the hospital,” McGarvey told her.

  “Yes, to see Mom—”

  “And then the doctors. You’re not going anywhere until they give you a clean bill of health.”

  “I’m not going to lie around a hospital while someone tries to kill you. I don’t have a concussion, and I didn’t break any bones. I lost some blood and I lost the … baby.” Her breath caught in her throat. “It’s happened to other women, and it’s happened to me before. But I’m not an invalid.”

  “No. But you’re my daughter,” said McGarvey, “and before you do anything you’re going to heal. They’ll probably want to hold you overnight, and if that’s what they want, that’s what they’ll get.” McGarvey looked up. “Right, Todd?”

  Elizabeth started to protest, but Todd shook his head. “Just listen for once, Liz. Please. The rest of us can’t do our jobs if we have to ride herd on you.”

  “I’m okay,” she shot back crossly. She started to rise, but she winced in pain and slumped back.

  “Dick, call an ambulance,” McGarvey said.

  “No,” Elizabeth protested. “I’ll go to the hospital, and I’ll stay there until they say I can go back to work.” She looked up defiantly. “But no ambulance.”

  “Okay, sweetheart, no ambulance. But I’ll hold you to your promise.”

  BETHESDA

  Otto rode in the front with Yemm, the bulletproof divider up, while McGarvey rode with his battered daughter and son-in-law in the back. He wanted to get the story, the whole story, from her.

  He wasn’t going to bring up what Todd had told him before the weekend, that she and Otto had put their heads together and were working on something in secrecy. He wanted it to come from her without pressure. She was too brittle now; the right push could send her over the edge. All of them were on the brink, but especially Katy and Otto and now Liz.

  She remembered skiing, but not the accident. “Todd was behind me. He was shouting for me to slow down.” She still held the teddy bear. She smoothed its pink bow. “I have to thank Ms. Swanfeld.”

  “The bear came from everybody upstairs,” McGarvey said.

  She nodded. “Somebody was holding my hand and calling my name. It was Doris, my work name, but I knew that I was supposed to respond, say something, anything.” She shook her head in vexation. “But it was like I was having a nightmare. I knew that I had to keep running, but it was impossible because I was up to my knees in glue.” She looked up at her father. “I knew that you were going to be mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad at you, Liz. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “If I hadn’t gone skiing—”

  “Then they would have tried something else. And maybe you wouldn’t have been so lucky.”

  She shuddered and looked away. “Some luck,” she muttered bitterly.

  “Why you?” McGarvey asked. He glanced at Otto, who was looking straight ahead, giving no indication that he knew what was being discussed in the back.

  “I don’t know, Daddy,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t figure it out. If someone is trying to kill you, why come after me or Otto? And if they’re just trying to get you to quit, then they’ve got to start realizing that they’re going about it exactly the wrong way.”

  “Have you been working on anything that might make you a target?”

  “Do you mean that the attack on me might have been coincidental?” Liz shook her head. “It’s not likely. The Semtex they used in my bindings came from the same batch they used on your helicopter.”

  Lips pursed, McGarvey counted to five before he responded. “How do you know that?”

  “Jerry Kraus’s people came up with a match.”

  “But how did you find out, sweetheart?”

  “I don’t know. I think maybe Todd mentioned it.”

  Todd shook his head, and Elizabeth caught it.

  “Maybe Otto told me, then.”

  “When did you talk to him? Was it yesterday?”

  “It must have been,” she said, her anger rising. She hated to be put on the spot. “We left early this morning, so it was probably yesterday afternoon. I don’t remember.”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” McGarvey said, sympathetically. “Not with all you’ve been through. But I’ll talk to Otto when we get to the office and clear it up.”

  “Clear up what?” Liz demanded. “Where’s the mystery?”

  “It’s a Russian thing. Something out of my past that we’re trying to get a handle on,” McGarvey told her with a measured nonchalance. “Could be that it’s them gunning for me. Otto has probably come up with something, too, but you know how he is. Unless he’s got it nailed down cold, he keeps whatever he’s working on to himself.” McGarvey shrugged. “I thought that if you had talked to him, he might have said something.”

  “Oh, that,” she said. “It has something to do with General Baranov, you’re right. And with a Department Viktor shrink who’s supposed to be on the run from the SVR. But I don’t know a lot more than that.”

  “Is that what you two have been working on so mysteriously?”

  “I’ve been working on your bio,” Elizabeth responded too quickly. “I would never have guessed one-tenth of what you did.”

  “Does Otto think that Nikolayev is gunning for me?”

  “He’s too old. But it might have something to do with whatever he took out of Moscow with him.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know, Daddy. Honestly. I wish—”

&n
bsp; “You wish what, sweetheart?”

  She looked a little embarrassed. “I wish sometimes that we could just all go away someplace and just be together.”

  “Maybe in a time machine?” McGarvey suggested.

  She smiled and reached for her husband’s hand. “Only if I could take Todd with me.”

  Peggy Vaccaro was sitting across from a sleeping Kathleen in the darkened hospital room when McGarvey and Elizabeth showed up. Otto and Yemm went to the waiting room. Todd went downstairs to speak with Dr. Mattice, who was on his way over on McGarvey’s call to see about admitting Elizabeth at least overnight.

  “Good heavens, Liz, we were all so worried about you,” Peggy Vaccaro said in a soft voice, getting up. They hugged lightly. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been better,” Elizabeth said. “How’s my mother?”

  “A lot better.” Vaccaro looked over at McGarvey. “Dr. Love was in again this morning, and they did another test downstairs. An EKG, I think, and something else. We didn’t know exactly what time Liz was coming in, and the doctor wanted Mrs. M. to get some rest, so he gave her a light sedative.”

  “Did he say anything about her condition?” Elizabeth asked.

  Peggy Vaccaro smiled. “That’s the good news. She’s going to be okay.” Again she looked at McGarvey. “She can go home tomorrow morning at the latest, Mr. Director. That’s really good news.”

  “Yes, it is,” McGarvey agreed. He watched the play of emotions across his daughter’s face. When he and Katy separated, Elizabeth had blamed herself for the divorce. She felt as if she hadn’t been a good enough daughter to keep them together. It was because of her that her parents no longer wanted to live together. The same expression of guilt creased her face now with lines of worry and doubt. It was because of her that her mother was here like this.

  Elizabeth brushed a wisp of her mother’s hair off her forehead, then bent down and kissed her cheek.

  “She’s going to be really happy to see you,” Peggy Vaccaro said.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Peg,” Elizabeth said. She turned to her father. “I’ll stay here with Mom until she wakes up. Take Otto back to work.”