Gloria lowered her eyes, but she refused to cry. “It hurts.”
“I know,” Rencke replied gently. “But Mrs. M is the sun and the moon to him, and you’d better come to terms with it or you’re going to be miserable for the rest of your life.” He smiled. “You’re a pretty girl. You could probably get just about any guy you wanted.”
“I want him.”
“I know,” Rencke said. He glanced up at a small black-and-white closed-circuit monitor that showed a half-dozen pictures-in-picture from various cameras in the building. McGarvey was just getting on an elevator in the executive parking garage. “He’s on his way up, so you’re going to have to make up your mind now. You’re going to love him and try to seduce him away from his wife, or you’re going to love him and help him.”
There was no real choice, of course, but it hurt all the more knowing she could never have him. She nodded. “Whatever he wants.”
A couple of minutes later, Rencke buzzed McGarvey in.
“I’m going after bin Laden again, and I’m going to need your help.”
“Me too?” Gloria asked.
McGarvey nodded. “Especially you.”
On the way back to the safe house McGarvey played over in his mind the instructions he had given to Rencke and Gloria, which were going to put them in harm’s way no matter if he were right or wrong. Otto had agreed that his plan gave them the best shot at finding bin Laden and eliminating him. Gloria, on the other hand, would have agreed to anything.
They both were relying on his judgment, and he had based his plan on one very narrow — and on the surface, unlikely — possibility, which depended on Graham making his escape from the United States.
Traffic was heavy on the Beltway as he got off at Connecticut Avenue and headed south. But the summer afternoon was warm and beautiful, and Washington was in its quiet mode. Yet McGarvey couldn’t shake the feeling of impending disaster.
Some rough beast was slinking its way toward us, and would strike again unless it could be stopped soon.
It was exactly what he had to explain to Katy. He needed to make her understand that it would be impossible for them to go to Florida until this challenge was met once and for all. Even though he had promised time and again to finally get out of the business, he couldn’t walk away now even if his marriage depended on it.
He was going to kill bin Laden and nothing on earth was going to stop him.
He parked in the driveway and Katy came from the kitchen as he walked through the front door. He’d called early this morning to tell her that he was okay, but she pulled up short the moment she saw his face. She raised a hand to her mouth.
“It’s still not finished, is it?” she said, her voice small.
“One last thing, sweetheart.”
She turned away and made to go back into the kitchen, but he caught up with her and took her in his arms.
“One last thing, I promise,” he told her. “But it has to be done.”
She looked into his eyes. “Bin Laden?”
He nodded.
“When?”
“In the morning,” McGarvey said. Katy wanted to pull away in anger, but he held her all the tighter until she calmed down a little. “I can’t walk away from it, no matter how much I’d like to.”
She considered what he was telling her, but then shook her head. “You like it. You always have.”
“It’s my job—”
“No, goddammit, you love it!” she screeched. “You did when you went to Chile, that time just before you walked out, and nothing has changed.” She slapped his chest with the flat of her hand. “You love it, goddammit.”
“It’s something that needs doing, and I’ve always been the one to do it,” McGarvey told his wife. “But I’ve never loved it.”
“Yes—”
“I’ve killed people, Katy.”
“I’ve seen you in action,” she said bitterly.
He released his hold on her and let her step back, a heavy bitterness descending upon him like a death shroud. “I’m sorry, Katy. But you’re wrong, I’ve never enjoyed it.” He turned to go, but this time it was she who stopped him, and she fell weeping into his arms.
“Oh, Kirk, I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He held her, his heart still impossibly heavy for this and for all the other times he had driven her half-crazy with fear and anger. It had never been her fault, it had always been his.
“You should never have married her in the first place,” his sister had told him years ago after he’d sold their parents’ ranch in Kansas. She’d despised him for doing it, and every chance she had of hurting him, she took it. “You’ll end up destroying the poor girl.”
There’d been no answer to his sister’s charge then, nor was there one now. Except that he loved his wife with every fiber of his being, and he always had.
“I know, Katy,” he said softly. “It’ll turn out okay. Promise.”
SEVENTY
It was nearly noon by the time McGarvey and Gloria cleared customs and walked out of the terminal to find a cab. This time they had flown commercial, Delta from Washington and Emirates from Dubai, and with layovers it had taken the better part of two days to get here.
Rencke had assured them that neither Karachi police nor Pakistani ISI had warrants for their arrests following their last trip here, even though both Mac and Gloria had been involved in incidents in which blood had been shed.
McGarvey wanted their arrival to be as transparent as possible. He wanted anyone who was the least bit interested in his movements to know he was here.
And the two-day travel delay getting here had given Rencke extra time to make all the necessary arrangements.
There would be only one very narrow window of opportunity between the time that Graham made contact and when the Pakistani government sat up and took notice that something was going down. They wouldn’t have a second chance.
Joe Bernstein, the CIA’s contract cabbie, was waiting for them. He took their bags without a word and hustled them back to his taxi. Five minutes later, they had cleared the airport and were heading into the city on Shahrah-e-Faisal Road, the weekday traffic very heavy.
“I did not expect to see you back so soon,” he said, glancing at them in the rearview mirror. “I don’t think this is a very safe place for you right now.”
“It won’t be safe for anyone seen with me,” McGarvey said. “Maybe you shouldn’t have picked us up.”
“Your son-in-law is a friend,” Bernstein replied. He chuckled. “Anyway you’re an open secret now. Best show in town. I wouldn’t miss it for all the poppies in Afghanistan.”
“Did you talk to Todd?”
“No, but Otto and I had a long and fruitful conversation,” Bernstein said. “I’m to be the bagman.” He chuckled again. “I’ll admit that all that money will be a real temptation.”
“That’s what we’re hoping,” McGarvey said.
On the long flight over, McGarvey had gone over all the details of the operation with Gloria, so that she knew exactly what she would have to do.
The details had also been worked out with a reluctant Dave Coddington, who was the Company’s Karachi chief of station. There was a lot at stake this time, not the least of which was five million U.S. in cash, as a down payment on the twenty-five-million-dollar reward for the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. In the five years the reward had been offered, there’d been no authentic takers.
This time, however, McGarvey was betting that someone would finally come forward with information that would lead to bin Laden. It would be a trap, of course, to lure McGarvey to a place where he could be killed. Bin Laden would be nowhere near, but his mujahideen would be.