“She’s only seven; she doesn’t understand these things,” the princess said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you have children, Sergeant?”
The question was like a sharp dagger in an open, festering wound. Liese’s breath momentarily caught in her throat. She shook her head again. “I’m not married.”
The princess laughed disdainfully. “Of course you’re not. You’re Swiss, and you’re too efficient to understand about having a husband who gives you children.”
At least the man I’m in love with is not an assassin, Liese wanted to say. But even that wasn’t true. Was hers a life wasted? she often asked herself. At this particular moment she was more confused than she’d ever been, and she had no idea what the answer was, or if she knew how to find it.
“Can she go alone?” Liese asked.
“Yes, of course,” Princes Sofia said. “Anyway you’ll still have me and the other three under the barrel of your gun.” She said something in Arabic to the little girl, who hesitated for a moment, then climbed off the couch, and keeping a wary eye on Liese, left the room.
“She is a very pretty child,” Liese said, in an effort to be pleasant.
Princess Sofia flared. “You have no right to say that to me. Keep your stupid, meaningless compliments to yourself. Better yet, put away that ridiculous gun and get out of my house.”
“Your Highness, no one believes that you are involved in any way. And I have not come here to offer you any harm. You have my word as a Swiss officer of the law on that.”
The princess was about to say something, when she looked beyond Liese to the left in the direction her daughter had gone and her eyes widened slightly.
“What—” Liese said, turning. A man stood on the other side of the stairs, some sort of a short-barreled rifle in his hand. Liese thought it might be an M 16, she wasn’t sure. But the laser sight targeted her left eye.
Oh, Kirk, the fleeting thought crossed her mind. It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
She managed to turn her head and start to move left, when a tremendous thunderclap burst inside her skull and the lights went out.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Khalil waited in the second-floor operations center directly across the corridor from the stairs, watching a bank of television monitors, an overwhelming fury threatening to blot out his self-control. The stupid, arrogant bastard coming here, now of all times and completely out in the open, was beyond belief.
Most of the twenty-two intelligence staffers were gathered here on al-Kaseem’s orders, to stay out of the way until the situation resolved itself. This was one of the few rooms in the building without a closed-circuit television camera. They sat around the big table, at desks and on chairs pulled from other offices.
From the moment they’d heard the explosion at the rear gate until now, McGarvey had done exactly what Khalil had wanted him to do. He’d made his way to the ground-floor security post, had figured out the monitoring system from the floor plan that had been left for him, and had located his wife in her cell. Next he should have gone to her, which would have been his death sentence.
The downstairs corridor was narrow, ill lit, and very confined. When Darby Yarnell owned the house, that basement corridor had led back to his extensive wine cellar. It would have been a perfect place to corner the man. There was nowhere for him to run and hide, no room in which to maneuver.
Al-Kaseem walked over to where Khalil was standing, just out of earshot from most of the others. “This tears everything,” he said, seething with anger. “Did you know he was coming here?”
“No, of course not,” Khalil said, taking care to keep his voice even. He switched one of the monitors to Kathleen McGarvey’s cell. She sat huddled on the cot, hugging her knees to her chest. Then he switched to the basement corridor.
“What are you going to do, damn you?” al-Kaseem demanded. “Your coming here like this will likely shut down our entire North American operation. All because you wanted revenge for your botched operation in Alaska.”
“What are you talking about?”
“McGarvey, you fool. He didn’t break in here without a plan for getting back out.”
Khalil’s eyes were on the monitors showing the view outside and the view inside the stair hall; he was fascinated despite the problem the man’s presence created. McGarvey was good, but he was only one man, and he would now have the handicap not only of his wife, but also of the prince.
Prince Salman had gotten through the gate and was marching up to the front door. McGarvey had come back over the counter, and stood in the shadows beside the stairs, his pistol still in hand.
“I expect I will have to kill all three of them,” Khalil said. “You can make the arrangements to dispose of their bodies. In two days they’ll simply become additional casualties in the attack.”
None of the staff could hear their conversation, but a number of them watched the outside monitor and took furtive glances toward Khalil.
“What about my people?” al-Kaseem whispered, urgently. “They’ve seen you. They’re making the connection.”
Prince Salman had reached the front door and was coming into the building.
Khalil turned his hooded eyes to al-Kaseem. “If you cannot control your officers, I can.”
Al-Kaseem stepped back, struck dumb for the moment. He glanced at the monitor. “This has to end, or we’re all dead,” he said.
The prince had entered the vestibule, and he was opening the inner door.
SIXTY-NINE
As Prince Salman came through the door, McGarvey stood well back beside the soaring stairs so that he was hidden from anyone upstairs. It took everything within his power not to immediately shoot the man dead.
The arrogant bastard had been driving around Washington as if he were immune from the consequences of his actions.
Salman stopped at the counter and looked at the television monitors. He looked up toward the head of the stairs, but then he spotted McGarvey standing in the shadows, and he reared back. “You.”
“You should not have come back here,” McGarvey said. His gun hand was shaking with the effort not to pull the trigger. A small bead of sweat appeared on his forehead.
“What do you mean, come back here?” Salman demanded. “I’ve never been to this place in my life.” He glanced toward the head of the stairs again. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You kidnapped my wife, you son of a bitch,” McGarvey said. It was becoming increasingly difficult to stay on track. They had stripped Katy, making her change into pajamas. And they had hurt her. “You wanted me to come here.”
Salman was shaking his head. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You put your hands on her, like you did in Alaska, and I warned you then that I would kill you.”
Sudden understanding dawned in the prince’s eyes. “It’s your people in front of our embassy.” He stepped back. “You’re crazy; do you know that? I think you deserve another 9/11.”
It was the same voice that McGarvey had heard in Alaska. Or was it? After hearing Salman’s voice in Monaco, his exact memory of how Khalil had sounded on the cruise liner was blurred. But Otto’s evidence was nearly overwhelming. Whenever a terrorist attack had taken place in the past ten years in which Khalil could be placed in the vicinity, Salman was there as well. That was more than mere coincidence.