“Where are you?”
McGarvey put it on speakerphone so Pete could hear. “We’re headed up to Ramstein to refuel. Just cleared Israeli airspace. You?”
“In my office. Tom Calder dropped over for an update. Hang on a sec.”
McGarvey could hear the sounds of a printer in the background, and maybe some music but extremely faint, as if it were coming from another room. Otto’s voice was over it.
“I’ll have something on your desk before noon, but besides what Mac found out in Israel, I’m in the middle of running down a couple of other leads I think might make some sense of what’s been happening.”
“Any hint?” Calder asked. “Even just the tiniest?”
“Well, we think we know who the killer isn’t.”
“That’s progress of a sort,” Calder said. “I’ll just let myself out. Good luck, and good morning to you, Mr. Director.”
The music faded to nothing, and McGarvey could hear the door from Otto’s outer office closing and gently latching.
“He’s gone,” Otto said.
“What was that all about?”
“Someone at State called Walt, wanted to know what we knew about the death of one of their employees last night. She was hit by an SUV. Cops said an unidentified CIA employee witnessed the hit and run. It was me.”
“Did Calder make the connection?”
“Yeah, that’s why he came over to talk to me. Her name was Jean Fegan. She was on Bob Benning’s staff when he was an assistant ambassador to the UN. I met with her to see if she knew anything about the Alpha Seven team, and something they might have found in Iraq.”
“Did she give you anything?” McGarvey asked.
“Not much. She was frightened out of her mind. She admitted she knew what was buried out there, and left it to me to figure out. I read her Schermerhorn’s message on panel four, especially the last line: And there was peace. Said it was about what they were working for — a reason to take Saddam out so we could rebuild Iraq.”
“How’d she leave it?” Pete asked.
“Oh, hi, Pete. She said things didn’t work out that way, and now we were stuck with one hell of a big problem no one knows how to fix.”
“And?” McGarvey prompted.
“She got up and walked out. By the time I caught up with her, she was already outside and running across the street when the SUV knocked her into the path of a taxi.”
“No tag number?”
“The license plate light was out.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, I got a firm ID on the contract killer in Paris, but not who hired him to take out Alex. She’s with you on the plane? She got out okay?”
“She’s here.”
“He did work for his own government as well as the Germans and for Mossad. I was able to track down most of his money in a couple of offshore banks — nothing matched with Paris. But I came up with one thing that at first seemed really far-fetched. It’s possible he has an account at a credit union in Venice, just ten miles from your place on Casey Key.”
McGarvey sat up. “At first?”
“Yeah. A guy’s body was found in an apartment in Georgetown, not far from your place. The ID he was carrying didn’t match anything the cops had, but when they ran his fingerprints, they came up with the name Norman Bogen, a former Army Ranger. No known address, or criminal record. But, kemo sabe, he has an account at the same credit union in Venice. And that’s fringe. Not only that, but a bartender in a place on M Street about two blocks from the apartment said he saw the guy leaving with a slender, attractive woman. Same time Alex was on the loose.”
“Don’t tell us his face was chewed off,” Pete said.
“No, his neck was broken. But it’s my guess he was another contract killer targeting Alex. She just beat him to the punch.”
“Whoever knew she would be in Georgetown on the loose had some damned good intel,” Mac said.
“Narrows the field,” Otto said. “What about you guys? How’d it go?”
“Alex’s George was a Mossad agent. He was a nut case. Died in prison years ago. When Alex’s message from Paris showed up, the general answered it.”
“There’s no longer any George, and Alex isn’t the serial killer. Leaves someone on campus,” Otto said. “What we figured all along.”
“What’s buried in the hills above Kirkuk is a nuclear demolitions device,” McGarvey said. “In a duffel bag without the aluminum case.”
“That’s also just about what we figured. The suitcase doesn’t matter. Did they give you a serial number?”
“No, but I don’t think the Israelis buried it. I think they knew about it, which is why they sent George out to find it. Alex’s story that George showed them where it was buried was a lie.”
“Alpha Seven buried it?”
“I don’t know,” McGarvey said. “But it’s only us and the Soviet Union that ever made the things.”
“That doesn’t help much. About that time, maybe a little earlier, some Russian official admitted they may have lost a hundred of the things. Could be anybody who buried it.”
“I hear a but in there, Otto,” McGarvey said.
Otto took a moment to answer. “It almost has to be us,” he said. “I don’t think it was the president or his cabinet who authorized it — I don’t think I want to go that far. But I think we were so sure Saddam had WMDs we might never find, someone took it upon themselves to somehow get a device and somehow transport it to Iraq and somehow bury it in the hills. Alpha Seven would find it and blow the whistle — let the whole world know we were right.”
“Lots of somehows in there.”
Again Otto hesitated. “I checked, Mac. No demolition devices missing from our inventory. At least not in the records. So if it was one of ours, whoever got it had to be very high up on the food chain. Someone with lots of pull.”
“Civilian or military?” Pete asked.
“Could be either.”
“Whoever it was, they’re willing to kill the entire Alpha Seven team,” she said.
“But the way it’s been done?” McGarvey said. “Makes no sense.”
“Only if you’re thinking through the lens of normalcy. They hired a lunatic to do the job. Afterward they could claim insanity. Conspiracy theory. That kind of shit.”
“We’ll be home by nine or ten,” McGarvey said. “I want you to listen real carefully to me, my friend. I want you to go home now. Trust no one. Not Walt Page or Carleton Patterson or Marty or anyone else. Lock up tight. Don’t order a pizza or Chinese delivery. Don’t even ask Blankenship for help, or anyone from the Farm.”
“I have a couple of things to look into—” Otto said, but McGarvey cut him off.
“Do you have a pistol in your office?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t bother shutting off your programs. No one can get to them anyway. Just take your gun and leave right now. Otto: I mean right this instant. Hang up, take the SIM card out of your phone so no one can track you, and go. You’re the next target.”
SIXTY-FOUR
Otto’s pistol was a standard U.S. military — issue 9-mm Beretta 92F that McGarvey had taught him how to use years ago. He checked the magazine and then made sure a round was in the chamber.
He left his darlings running but added a self-destruct code that would wipe everything out should anyone try to tamper. Rather than take the SIM card out of his phone, he left the phone on his desk. Somebody wanting to find him would think he was still in his office.
He checked the monitors in the corridor outside his office to the elevator, the elevator itself, and finally the parking garage.
No one was coming or going. Security was still extremely tight; Blankenship had placed the entire campus on all but a full-scale lockdown. Everyone’s comings or goings would be noticed and recorded.