First Kill--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

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First Kill--A Kirk McGarvey Novel Page 16

by David Hagberg


  “I swear to God we didn’t come here to kill anyone; our orders were to kidnap them.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  McGarvey took two steps forward and jammed the muzzle of his Walther into the man’s forehead. “Who sent you?”

  “It’d mean my life.”

  McGarvey laughed but there was no humor in it, and the intruder knew exactly what was going to happen.

  “Russell Williams.”

  McGarvey was shaken, but not really surprised. First it was Dobbs at Union Station and now Dobbs’s partner had sent these two guys here. It was possible that Williams was the one calling the shots, but the man had been nothing more than a contractor, according to Trotter. There was someone else higher up the food chain.

  “Do you know the name Dobbs?”

  The man’s eyes tightened. “He’s disappeared.”

  “I want to talk to Williams. How do I get in touch with him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  McGarvey jammed the gun harder, shoving the man’s head backward and breaking the skin.

  “I think he was a contractor like us, and there’s an old-boys network of guys who do some work on the side for anyone with a little money. It’s like an employment agency, called Madison Travel, over in Georgetown by the university.”

  “What makes you think he was a contractor?”

  “He knows the jargon, and he knows about Madison. He left the information and a credit of five thousand on completion for each of us.”

  “Where were you going to take my wife and daughter?”

  The man was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  McGarvey’s anger spiked and he almost pulled the trigger. “You son of a bitch. You didn’t come here to kidnap them; you were ordered to kill them. Did you think it would stop me?”

  “Christ.”

  McGarvey pulled the trigger. The man crumpled to the floor.

  For several long seconds McGarvey just stared at the body but then emptied his pistol into the man’s chest.

  Reloading he went back into the kitchen and phoned Trotter at home.

  “I was waiting for your call. Where do you want to meet with them? I think coming here might not be such a good idea.”

  “Where did my wife go?”

  “It was obvious that she wasn’t home when my team showed up. We checked with the airlines. Kathleen took a flight to Salt Lake City this morning.”

  McGarvey’s sister and her husband and two kids lived just outside Salt Lake. Katy had gone there for support because she was so frightened about her husband being a spy, and to be with Liz. For the moment it was the best place for her.

  “How about Janos and Pat and the kids?”

  “They’re just fine.”

  “I’m at my house. Two men were here looking for my wife and daughter, and their orders were to kill them.”

  “Good Lord in heaven.”

  “Send a cleanup crew for the bodies, John. And bring Campos and Munoz over to Georgetown in a surveillance van. Make it one o’clock. I’ll call with the address.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Baranov came instantly awake, aware of Spanish classical guitar music, soft and mournful, coming from the stereo in the living room. Karina lay nestled against his side, naked like him. But Mati was gone.

  He listened to the music for a long time, in part because it was sad and beautiful—reminding him in some ways of Russian folk music—but in larger measure because it was in stark contrast to the reality of the Vargas’ lives here. The butchery at Valparaíso, the home movies, her artwork—all were points of immense pride for both of them.

  The sex was interesting and at times even surprising and exciting, but now in the aftermath, the bedroom had a funky, fishy smell, and an unpleasant odor came from Karina’s body.

  Coming here around six in the evening he had stopped on the gravel road at the crest of the hill that overlooked the compound and got out of his car with a pair of Russian military binoculars. He glassed the walls, especially the coils of razor wire on top, starting at the far west corner and working slowly east to the gate, and then to the far corner beyond it. Spotlights were placed every fifteen or twenty meters along the perimeter. They would automatically come on at night when the intrusion detectors sensed movement out here.

  It was irritating at first, Mati had explained. “There were so damned many animals, goats, and sheep and even the occasional wild horse wandering by, that the lights came on a half-dozen times every night.”

  “What did you do about it?” Baranov had asked, even though he figured he knew the answer.

  “I had my guards slaughter every animal that came near enough to set off the detectors. After a month or so nothing came near.”

  Baranov had been about to ask if the animals they’d killed had been processed into roasts and steaks or other cuts for the local peasants out in the country, but he hadn’t bothered, because he knew the answer to that question as well.

  The gate opened and an American-made jeep came out of the compound, two men in army fatigues in front, and a third standing up in back at a mounted machine gun. It headed up the hill directly toward Baranov.

  He stepped aside, laid the binoculars on the hood of his car and held his hands out in plain sight.

  They pulled up a couple of meters away, the machine gun trained on him, and the driver got out and walked over. He was a young man with slick hair, lieutenant’s bars on his uniform. He sketched a salute.

  “Señor Baranov. We were expecting you, but why did you stop here?”

  “I wanted to take a look at your security measures. You know, of course, that the Americans are sending an assassin to kill General Varga.”

  “He will not get within one hundred meters of the compound, and certainly not over the wall.”

  “I believe that you are right, Lieutenant. I just wanted to take a look for myself from the outside. But my compliments, your people are doing a fine job.”

  What he hadn’t discussed with the lieutenant or the general was the American cleverness with gadgets. Every surveillance system had its weakness. Every invention had a counterinvention, just like matter and anti-matter—one could defeat the other.

  His real concern was the laser detection equipment that Henry said had been requested by the Santiago station chief. His people in Moscow had told him that such a device would shoot out a beam of coherent light, invisible to the naked eye. The beam could be trained on the glass in a window, or on a door or even a wall, and it was theoretically possible that minute vibrations caused by human voices could be detected and deciphered.

  The question in Baranov’s mind was who the device would be aimed at.

  * * *

  Baranov disengaged himself from Karina and got out of bed. The suite was in semidarkness, illuminated only by the lights from the bathroom. Mati wanted to see what was happening. He liked looking at his wife’s body, and he especially liked to watch when she was having sex with other men.

  He pulled on his trousers and went out to the pool deck where Varga, dressed in a silk kimono, sat at a table drinking brandy. He drank every day, he’d explained, but never to excess. Becoming mellow and staying there was fine with el Presidente, but drunkenness was not. The keys to his rise within the regime were his work at Valparaíso, his golf game—he always let Pinochet win, of course—and Karina.

  Baranov did not ask if she shared her bed with the president, but he suspected that she did.

  Varga looked up. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Vodka.”

  “It’s on the sideboard. Karina got it for you.”

  At the drink cart Baranov poured a stiff measure of vodka, drank it down, then poured another and joined Varga.

  “This evening was enjoyable,” he said. “The movies were an eye-opener. The capacity for human pain never ceases to amaze me.”

  “The Nazis quantified it for us. They did the pioneering work. Without them we’d be groping
in the dark.”

  “I understand.”

  Varga looked at him. “Do you, Captain? Do you really? Because as a Russian with your bloody history I would think that your comment was unnecessary.”

  “It was a pleasantry, General, nothing more. A thank-you for this evening’s … activities.”

  “We’ll wake my wife in a little bit. There’ll be more. In fact, she would be disappointed if we didn’t wake her.”

  Wanting to shift the subject Baranov said, “Our efforts to have the assassin taken down have been unsuccessful so far.”

  Varga shrugged. “Is he still in Washington, or is he on his way?”

  “He’s looking for a mole at Langley.”

  Varga’s eyebrows rose. “Will he find him?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s young with a lot of energy, but he hasn’t learned patience yet, nor has he developed any finesse or panache.”

  “You admire this man.”

  Baranov looked away for a moment to wonder if it was a valid question. He nodded. “I think I do. His wife and daughter were to be killed, but the contractors missed them, and when he showed up, he killed both of the men.”

  “Did you send them?” Varga asked sharply.

  “No.”

  “Good. A man’s wife and especially his children, if he has any—Karina unfortunately cannot conceive—should be sacrosanct.”

  The comment was so insane Baranov almost laughed out loud, but he kept himself in check. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  For a long time they sat in silence. Varga poured another brandy and Baranov went to the drink cart for another vodka.

  The night was soft, ten billion stars filled the sky, and in the distance the whistle of a large ship echoed off the hills from the harbor below.

  “It would be easy for him to get here aboard a cargo ship,” Varga said.

  “It’s a strong possibility,” Baranov said, and he explained about the mock-up at the Farm.

  “Then I’ll order security measures to be reinforced. Perhaps when he sees what he’s facing, he’ll run away.”

  “We want him to come here, General. In fact, we want him to at least reach the walls of this compound and perhaps even come over them.”

  “You want to make a political statement out of his attack on me and, finally, his death.”

  “Exactly.”

  “With my life as your bargaining chip.” Varga laughed. “You have cojones, Valentin.”

  “So do you, Mati.”

  Karina, still naked, came to the sliding door. “Good, now would you gentlemen like to share them with me?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Madison Travel was on the ground floor of a three-story brownstone on Dent Place NW just east of the Georgetown University campus. McGarvey parked his car across the street down the block, powered down the window, and switched off the engine and lights a couple of minutes before one. He was directly under a streetlight. If there was any surveillance in place, he wanted to make it perfectly clear that he was here.

  Trotter agreed to the meeting place, and if there was any hesitation, McGarvey hadn’t heard it, except that Trotter had insisted on bringing a minder along, just to keep things tidy.

  “I’m not one hundred percent about them yet, and I don’t want to have a pair of runners on my hand. It’d be hard to explain it to Danielle.”

  Driving back to the Marriott, McGarvey had thought about phoning Katy at his sister’s in Utah, but he decided against it. That she was well away from Washington for now was something of a comfort. And yet the opposition would have little or no trouble finding her.

  He’d considered taking the time to fly out there himself and stash her and Liz in a safe house somewhere. But he knew damned well that Katy would never sit still for it. It was brittle between them now, and whatever he tried to do would go against her grain.

  A plain gray windowless Chevy van pulled up and parked just down the street. The headlights went out, but the engine remained running.

  After a minute Trotter got out and walked back to McGarvey’s car. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, even at this late hour, the tie still correctly knotted.

  McGarvey reached over and opened the passenger-side door.

  “This is a damned odd place for a meeting,” Trotter said, getting in. “And I thought you wanted to talk to Campos and Munoz.”

  “First you,” McGarvey said. “Do you know what that place is down the street?”

  “From here I’d guess a travel agency, just like the sign in the window says. Closed now.”

  “Do you remember the Mossad operation to kidnap Eichmann and bring him back to Israel for trial? They had to move agents in and out of Rio without bringing any attention to themselves.”

  “So they opened a series of travel agencies in Europe to mask their movements from Tel Aviv. I know my history too. Are you saying this place is something like that?”

  “It’s an employment agency for contractors,” McGarvey said. He let it sink in for a beat. “The two guys who came to my house to kill my wife and child were hired from here.”

  “The mess is being dealt with, Kirk. And I have to say that I feel personally responsible for the near miss. And absolutely no one will blame you for their deaths, though it would have been a real bonus if we could have interrogated at least one of them.”

  McGarvey let Trotter work it out.

  “My people say the body in the corridor was first, the one in the dining room with the close-range shot to the forehead was second,” Trotter said. He looked down the street toward the travel agency. “You got something from him. He was hired from here.”

  “By Russell Williams.”

  “Good Lord almighty. That’s nothing short of fantastic. But did you believe him, Kirk? Did you see the truth of it in his eyes before you pulled the trigger?”

  “There wasn’t any need. He came up with the right name.”

  Trotter saw the logic of it. “So what are we doing here?”

  “Do you have a television monitor in the van?”

  “The full suite.”

  “Did either of them have any reaction when they saw the travel agency?”

  “Not that I could see. In any event the connection, if there is one, would have to be very thin. Certainly artificial. Their job was to keep track of Baranov.”

  “Bullshit, John, and you know it,” McGarvey said. “They were set up to overhear the American in the foreign minister’s office, just as they were ordered to make their way to us with their story. The questions are: Why, and who’s calling the shots?”

  “The Russians?” Trotter asked. “It’s a typical KGB op.”

  “By someone here in Washington, at Langley.”

  “Your mole,” Trotter said. “Which still leads back to the Russians. They’d have the most to gain in Chile, and Baranov is their point man.”

  McGarvey looked away. It didn’t seem that simple to him, but he didn’t know the why of it—why he was leaning toward some deeper conspiracy.

  “What are you thinking?” Trotter prompted.

  “Why not simply let me go to San Antonio—apparently everyone knows I’m coming—set a trap and either kill me or capture me, and put me on trial as an American assassin?”

  “A trial wouldn’t happen, because questions would be raised about General Varga and why we wanted him dead.”

  “What would killing me accomplish?”

  “It’d be Pinochet’s way of telling us that he understood that we wanted Varga out of the way, but that we should have left it up to him to take care of the situation.”

  “Then why not cancel the op? I’d just as soon stay here and find out who’s the mole at Langley.”

  “Your orders don’t come from me. And looking for a supposed mole inside the Company is not in your brief.”

  “It’s become mine ever since they tried to kill my wife and daughter,” McGarvey said, hot under the collar. “Whether I go to Chile or not, I’ll find out what’s going on here
. Starting with Williams.”

  “I thought you wanted to talk to Munoz and Campos.”

  “I wanted to find out if they had any reaction to this place.”

  “I’m telling you as a friend, you need to back off from anything that doesn’t involve your primary operation.”

  That made no sense to McGarvey. None of it did. Why send someone like him into what everyone agreed was a trap, and on the other side of the coin, why try to stop him? Two opposing factions were at work here. His worry was that both of them lived under the same roof, but with separate goals. And it was possible neither of them knew about the other.

  * * *

  Paul Reubens sat at the rear of the van, while Munoz and Campos were seated behind a surveillance technician who was working the equipment. Everyone’s attention was focused on the travel agency.

  Climbing in with Trotter from the front, McGarvey was struck by the fact that they were looking at the agency. He’d only given Trotter an address where to meet him.

  “I was curious about the specific address you gave me,” Trotter said as if he were a mind reader. “On paper it’s a legitimate business that, so far as I could find, has never been on our radar.”

  “What is this place?” Munoz asked, looking up. He was wary, but neither he nor Campos seemed overly nervous, as if they were hiding something.

  “I’d hoped that you could tell me,” McGarvey said.

  “It’s a travel agency; are you sending us somewhere?”

  “Does the name Jim Dobbs mean anything to either of you?”

  Munoz and Campos exchanged a look. “No,” Munoz said.

  “Russell Williams?”

  Munoz’s eyes tightened slightly, but he shook his head. “Is this where they work?”

  “I don’t know,” McGarvey said. He motioned for Trotter to get out.

  They walked back toward McGarvey’s car.

  “They’re lying,” Trotter said. “They know Williams.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I’ll keep them isolated until it’s all over.”

  “No,” McGarvey said. “Give them access to a phone, but make it look as if you’ve made a mistake.”

 

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