First Kill--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  On the Paseo de la Reforma he headed back toward the U.S. embassy, stopping every fifty feet or so to cross through openings in the trees and look into a shop window. Once, he snapped his fingers as if he had forgotten something, and he suddenly turned around and walked back to the last shop he’d stopped at, from where he had a sight line on the street.

  An old Mercedes diesel sedan pulled out of traffic and double parked. McGarvey didn’t turn around but he could see the reflection in the window of the car and three men inside. It wasn’t a taxi but the two passengers sat in the backseat, leaving the driver alone in front.

  The light at the corner changed and traffic surged through the intersection. As a bus belching black smoke lumbered past, McGarvey turned and walked away.

  The next time he caught a glimpse of the Mercedes the backseat was empty. He crossed in front of several food vendors, and climbed into the backseat of the car before the driver could react.

  He pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the man’s head. “Drive,” he said.

  The man hesitated.

  “I will kill you.”

  The driver pulled out into traffic. “You are making a very large mistake, Señor McGarvey.”

  “So are you. Drop me off at Chapultepec Park then go back for your friends and bring them to me. I have a few questions I’d like to ask.”

  The entrance to the park was near the U.S. embassy. The driver headed in and McGarvey directed him to pull up just off a path lined with park benches. A lot of people were out and about, some of them jogging or bicycling despite the poor air, others seated on blankets, lovers embracing under a tree. Fifty yards through the trees and down a long sward, people were sitting on blankets along the shore of a small lake.

  “I’ll be waiting,” McGarvey said. Holstering his pistol he got out of the car and went to one of the concrete benches and sat down.

  The driver, an older man with a deeply lined dark face, stared at him for a moment or two before he drove off.

  It was a little cooler here, but not much, though a slight breeze off the lake helped. A police car, a cop behind the wheel and another riding shotgun, cruised slowly by, but neither of them paid him any attention.

  Baranov had spotted him coming out of the hotel, and had hired the three guys in the Mercedes to watch for him. The driver had been older and slightly built, but the impression McGarvey had got of the two in the backseat was of much younger, much larger men.

  Several minutes later the car came around a long curve in the distance. McGarvey got up and walked to one of the trees behind the bench and leaned against it so that he was still visible from the road but mostly protected. A simple drive-by shooting would be next to impossible.

  Moments later the Mercedes pulled up, with the same two men, one in the backseat, one in the front passenger seat, the windows rolled down so they could take the shot. They were about twenty feet away.

  McGarvey pulled out his gun and held it out of sight at his side. “I just want to talk for a couple of minutes, and then you guys can go crawl back into the hole you came out of,” he called to them.

  The man in the back turned to the driver and apparently said something. Then he and the man in the front seat got out and came over. They were both Hispanic and very large, bursting out of their suit jackets. McGarvey got the impression they might have been rugby players, though he had no idea if the sport was even played in Mexico.

  At that moment no one else was in the near vicinity. As they passed the bench, one of them held back while the other one started to pull a pistol.

  McGarvey raised his gun and shot the man in the chest, just above his sternum, the shot barely audible beyond ten feet.

  The man seemed surprised, one hand rising to the wound, and his other reaching for the edge of the park bench so he could steady himself.

  “If you reach for your gun, I will kill you,” McGarvey warned the other man.

  The wounded man’s legs were wobbly. He said something in Spanish.

  “Get out of here,” McGarvey said. “And take your friend to a doctor before he bleeds out.”

  “How do I know you won’t shoot me too?”

  “No reason to, if you don’t try to pull out your gun, and if you tell me who sent you.”

  The first man said something else in Spanish, more urgent now. Blood covered the front of his shirt.

  “Luis hired us, and it was nothing personal. Just a job.”

  “Where do I find Luis?”

  “Anteno Español. I think he would very much like to meet you.”

  McGarvey motioned with his pistol. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Before returning to his hotel McGarvey stopped at a bar a couple of blocks away, where he ordered another Heineken and went to the pay phone at the rear. The place was nearly three-quarters full, mostly couples, but the noise level wasn’t too bad.

  He got the number for Aerolíneas Argentinas and booked a business-class flight to Buenos Aires using his Larson identity. He had to give his passport and credit card, but he’d memorized all the numbers from all the documents for his work names. It was another bit of tradecraft drummed into the head of every field officer in training.

  The flight left at quarter to twelve this evening, stopping for six hours at Bogotá, Colombia, and didn’t get to Buenos Aires until eleven in the morning. But it was perfect. After what he was planning to do later today, he would need to drop out of sight for a few days, maybe longer. Give the opposition the thought that perhaps he’d backed off from the op.

  Next he called American Airlines and booked a direct flight to Miami for first thing in the morning, using his Whiteside passport and credit card.

  He went back to the front and sat at the end of the long L-shaped bar where he could watch the window and the front door. It was possible that he had been followed here. Despite what had gone down at the park, he didn’t think whoever Baranov had hired through a man named Luis at someplace called the Ateno Español were the kind to give up easily. For every operator who got shot up, there would be dozens more ready to take his place.

  Guys like them, especially the young ones—many from the police or military special forces—thought that they were invincible. The ones who got themselves taken down were the dumb ones, and deserved to die.

  He nursed a second beer and after a half hour, he paid his tab and walked back to his hotel, where he stopped at the bell captain’s desk. A sharply uniformed man in his mid to late thirties looked up. His gold name tag read ALBERTO.

  “How may I help you, sir?”

  “I need some information, but confidentially, do you understand?” McGarvey said. He took out a hundred-dollar bill and handed it to the man. “I need to know about a place called the Ateno Español.”

  The bellman hesitated for a moment before pocketing the money. “It is a club, but a very bad place, señor. Very dangerous. Even the police don’t go there.”

  “Who does?”

  “Criminals. Communists. Whores.”

  “And?”

  “Sometimes a businessman needing a certain type of service.”

  It was about what McGarvey thought. Mexico City was a wide-open place for lots of endeavors. Murders-for-hire, drugs, information. “Where is it located?”

  “On the Avenida Moreles, near the Plaza de la Constitución y Parroquia de San Agustín de las Cuevas. Any cab driver will know it. But they will want to charge you extra. Pay it.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said and he started to turn away, but the bellman stopped him.

  “Go now, señor. Do not wait until after dark. And when you are finished, walk over to the plaza. There will be people there.”

  Outside he had the doorman hail him a cab, and when it came and he told the driver the place, he had to give the man a hundred-dollar bill.

  “I will not wait for you, sir,” the driver said.

  “No,” McGarvey said.

  Rush hour was just getting into full swing s
o it took a full half hour to get down to the south side of the city. Baranov had pushed and he was going to push back. But the bellman was right: showing up at the club after dark wasn’t such a good idea. Or even waiting for another day wouldn’t be so smart. The muscle who had tried to kill him at the park just a few hours ago would be backing off for now. But if the one he’d shot died, the other two would want their revenge. He wasn’t going to give them the time.

  The club was about what he’d expected, tucked away out of the main stream of traffic. The front door of the place was open, and getting out of the cab McGarvey could hear guitar music coming from inside.

  Before he could cross the sidewalk the cab was already around the corner.

  A couple of men were at one end of the bar, and a few couples—men with their whores—sat at tables drinking champagne and listening to the guitar player seated up on a small stage. The place stank of stale booze, cigarette and cigar smoke, cheap perfume and something else that smelled like an overflowing toilet.

  An older, muscle-bound woman behind the bar came over when he sat down. Her makeup was thick, her hair bright red and her large breasts practically spilled out of a man’s white shirt, the first three buttons undone.

  “What’re you drinkin’, sweetheart?”

  “A Heineken.”

  She got one for him from a cooler and smiled. “Glass?”

  “This’ll do,” McGarvey said.

  “Would have taken you for a Kentucky bourbon man—that’s what most of the Americans who come here drink.”

  “Has Luis come in yet?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Tell him Kirk McGarvey came down to say thanks.”

  Her smile died. “For what?”

  “He’ll know.”

  She hesitated for just a beat. “I’ll leave him the message,” she said. She walked down to the other end of the bar and used the phone.

  The guitar player ended his set and left the stage. One of the couples at the tables went upstairs, arm in arm.

  Luis Alvarez came through a door from the back at the other side of the club’s main floor. He spotted McGarvey and walked over. Despite his size he was very light on his feet. McGarvey figured that he had been an athlete at some point in the past. Most likely a boxer. His face was banged up and lumpy, his nose obviously broken more than once.

  The woman said something to him as he stepped behind the bar, and he came the rest of the way to where McGarvey was sitting.

  “Thank me for what, Señor McGarvey?” he asked, his manner pleasant, his English very good.

  “For sending amateurs to kill me. Did the one I shot survive? I hope so, because if he died it would mean that my aim was off.”

  Luis said nothing for a long second or two. Still, the pleasant expression on his face didn’t change. “How did you hear about my place?”

  “The one I didn’t shoot because he was at least smart enough not to try to pull his gun told me about the club and gave me your name as well. I had to give the cabbie who brought me down here a big tip. He was apparently afraid of your reputation. Apparently, so are the cops.”

  “Didn’t you think that coming here would put you in danger?”

  “I don’t think you do that kind of work here. This is a place for drinking, and whoring, and making plans for revolution, or drug drops, and hiring murderers. Pretty much all the same sort of business, wouldn’t you say?”

  “As you say, señor, even the cops don’t come here. So if I were to kill you, no one would take any notice.”

  “But before you could do that I would have taken out my pistol and shot you in the middle of your forehead,” McGarvey said. “And believe me, Luis, I am a very good shot.”

  Luis’s control was perfect. He smiled slightly. “Then your business is finished here for the day? Or do you have other insults for me?”

  “Not for you. You’re just an expediter, a businessman. But the next time you talk to Comrade Baranov, tell him if he wants me dead to come do it himself. If he has the balls for it.”

  McGarvey finished his beer and started to lay a ten-dollar bill on the bar, but Luis shook his head.

  “The beer is on me.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said. He got up and, keeping an eye toward Luis, sidled out of the bar and headed up to the plaza.

  FIFTY-SIX

  It was around six in the evening and Trotter still hadn’t been able to reach McGarvey, though he did talk to Watson in Mexico City two hours ago, who told him to try the Four Seasons.

  He’d tried but the hotel refused to give out any information on its guest. Anyway, Mac would have registered under a work name.

  “He came here to talk to a Russian who is of great interest to us. I told him that it was out of the question and ordered him out of the country on the first available flight. The son of a bitch all but laughed in my face, so I took him upstairs to have a chat with the ambassador, who told him the same thing.”

  “I can just imagine how he reacted to that.”

  “Right. In the meantime your man showed up at a club on the south side that caters to the Russians and just about every revolutionary, drug runner and gun-for-hire in the city.”

  “The Ateno Español,” Trotter said. “Did he actually come face-to-face with Baranov?”

  “He had a beer at the bar and talked with the manager for a couple of minutes, then left. How the hell do you know about the place?”

  “I’m on the CESTA del Sur product committee. It’s my job to know about it.”

  “Did you send him down here to interfere in my operation?” Watson demanded. “Because if you did, I’ll personally take it up with Mr. Danielle.”

  “He’s on an operation, but not anywhere inside Mexico, and most definitely not Mexico City. His showing up there was not in the game plan.”

  “Does your op have anything to do with Baranov?”

  “Only insofar as Baranov is trying to expand the network into Chile,” Trotter said. “Is McGarvey still in the city?”

  “I don’t know. I had a tail on him, but he ditched them. They said that he didn’t even seem to be trying. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. But he’d damned well better be out of the city, if not already, then soon. There was an incident in one of the city parks. A man was apparently wounded in a gun battle. Witnesses said that a man more or less fitting McGarvey’s description was the shooter. But by the time the police showed up, the shooter and the victim were gone. All they found was some blood.”

  “Did they ask for your help?”

  “No reason for it,” Watson said. “None of the men were identified as American. But if you can contact your man, tell him to get out of here right now.”

  “I suspect that he got what he came for and is already gone or on his way.”

  “And what did he come here for, exactly?”

  “To get word to Baranov.”

  After the call Trotter sat at his desk for a full fifteen minutes, trying to work out all of the ramifications of McGarvey’s showing up in Mexico City. It was very possible that the shooter in the park was McGarvey defending himself against someone Baranov had sent.

  Beyond that he had no earthly idea where Mac had gotten himself off to, but there was no doubt he would show up in Chile sooner or later, and Baranov would come after him to protect his network.

  He snugged up his tie, got his jacket and was turning out his office lights when Danielle phoned him.

  “I’m glad I got you before you left,” Trotter said.

  “Just on my way out the door. Do you have something for me?”

  “Come up to the director’s office; there’ve been a couple of developments.”

  It was just Morton and Danielle when Trotter got up to the DCI’s seventh-floor office.

  “Care for a drink?” the director asked. Neither he nor Danielle was smiling.

  “I’ll wait till I get home, sir. I have a feeling I’m going to need one by then.”

  They sat
across from each other.

  “I got a call from Shirley Hamilton,” Morton said. Hamilton was the president’s adviser on national security affairs. A Harvard PhD graduate in international affairs, she was about the sharpest person in the White House. “She sat in on the meeting with Ambassador Aguilera.”

  Trotter held his silence.

  “It was good news, not so good news,” the DCI said. “The ambassador said that with the death of General Varga the enhanced interrogation techniques used at Valparaíso—his exact words, according to Shirley—would come to an immediate halt.”

  “Halt as in shut down permanently, or halt as in for the moment?”

  “That part was left unsaid. But the president felt it gave us some wiggle room.”

  “And the not-so-good news?” Trotter asked.

  “Two parts, actually. They know McGarvey’s name and knew he had been sent to Chile to assassinate the general.”

  “How can that be possible?”

  “The ambassador didn’t say, but one likelihood is a leak somewhere here in the building, or possibly at the Farm. Someone tried to kill him out there.”

  “The operational need-to-know list is pretty short,” Trotter said. “I know all of those people personally. But I agree with you, sir. It’s my op, and they’re my people, so I’ll get on it immediately. But I’m at the head of that list.”

  “We’ve checked your bank and credit card statements for the past three years, along with your travel itineraries going back five,” Danielle said. “Sorry, but we had to make sure our lead investigator was clean.”

  Trotter nodded. “I would have done the same thing if I had been in your shoes. But I think you’ve discovered that I’m an unrepentant clothes horse. Can’t help myself.”

  Danielle grinned. “Everyone in this building who’s ever had any contact with you knows that much.”

  “Your primary job at this point is to find the mole or moles,” the DCI said.

  “But with a delicate touch,” Trotter said. “We may be able either to turn them, or at the very least use them as conduits for disinformation.”

  “Does any name come to mind?” Danielle asked. “Something that pops out at you, or at least has been a niggling suspicion at the back of your head? Just the slightest of notions that a thing or two haven’t added up?”