How?” “You must offer yourself as bait. It will mean shutting down your security measures at the safe house Otto has told me about.
Sending away your security team. And then inviting each person on the list to come out for a chat. One-on-one.” McGarvey put the folders aside. “Did Otto give you any hints who the eighth suspect might be?”
“No.” They were his friends, most of them. Even family. It was monstrous.
Worse than he had feared. But despite himself he could see the logic in Otto’s list of suspects. They were the people who, in the deepest recesses of his heart, he himself had suspected. “What about Runkov and the dossier Otto designated as unknown? How do we get word to them?” “Otto has access to your law enforcement computer systems in the Washington area. He can place your present whereabouts on those Web pages. En claire. The right people will see it soon enough.”
“The assassin won’t come.” “Yes he will, and you know it. Most of those people are your friends. But so will the assassin’s control officer have to make an appearance. To reinforce the conditioning.”
“You’ll be waiting.” Nikolayev nodded. “With help. Someone from the FBI or from your Office of Security. Once the principals show up, whoever comes next will be our link to the assassin.” “I’ll have Jim Grassinger assign someone to you. In the meantime, you’ll remain here.” “I suggest that we get this over with as soon as possible, Mr.
Director.” “Tonight,” McGarvey said. “It gives us the entire day to get ready.” At the door he turned back. “But what did the sonofabitch hope to accomplish by killing me? I’m just one man.” “He’s already done more than that if you stop to think about it,” Nikolayev said.
“Nobody in the intelligence community in Washington completely trusts anyone else. You don’t trust your own friends. I’m sure that the mistrust at Langley is hampering operations. From what I read in the newspapers you and the President are at odds with Congress. You’re so distracted, in fact, by the attacks on your family, that your job is suffering. And were Baranov alive now, I have no doubt that he would have planned for some spectacular event to happen in the midst of all the confusion.” “But he’s not,” McGarvey said, once again seeing Baranov pitch forward dead. Nikolayev nodded. “Good luck, Mr.
Director.” McGarvey returned to the dayroom, where he took Todd aside.
“I want you to stick around here and keep an eye on him for the rest of the night. We’ll send out your relief. Then I want you to go home, get something to eat, grab a shower and get some sleep.” “Did he tell you anything that’ll help?” “Not much. I want you to come out to Cropley tonight. At eight.” “I’ll be there as soon as I’m relieved here ”
“Eight,” McGarvey said. Todd wanted to argue, but he nodded.
“How’s Liz?” “She was finally sleeping when I left.” “Good.”
McGarvey took Otto downstairs, Grassinger right behind them. “I want you to go home and get some sleep now, and that’s an order,” McGarvey told him. “Okay, Mac, whatever you say. But did Nikolayev give us anything?” “He said that you have an eighth suspect.” Otto’s head bobbed up and down as if it were on springs. “But I’m not sure yet.
Honest injun.” “Give me a name.” “No,” Otto said. He was acutely distressed. “I’ll need to know pretty soon,” McGarvey said. “I can’t do this in the dark.” Otto held his silence. He looked guilty of something. “Okay, get some sleep, and then you can work on it this afternoon. I want you to come out to Cropley tonight around eight.
Alone.” “The trap?” “We’ll talk about it then,” McGarvey promised.
“And have Louise fix you something decent to eat. You look like hell, Otto.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
AN ALMOST INFALLIBLE MEANS OF SAVING YOURSELF FROM THE DESIRE OF SELF-DESTRUCTION, IS ALWAYS TO HAVE SOMETHING TO DO, VOLTAIRE WROTE A COUPLE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. IT WAS JUST AS TRUE NOW AS IT WAS THEN.
McGarvey stood at the front door in the stair hall looking out the narrow window. Clouds had moved in again, lending the distant woods a forbidding feeling. Creatures were gathering up there in the darkness.
Watching, plotting, waiting for the correct moment to strike. Nothing moved that he could see. Blatnik’s people were well hidden in the trees and brush flanking the long driveway. The rear of the house was covered by motion detectors and infrared sensors. If anything stirred up there, alarms would sound in the house. It was after lunch.
Everyone had gotten at least a few hours’ rest, and over a large lunch of fried chicken and potato salad that Elizabeth made, the mood was light. Even Jim Grassinger, who refused to have a beer but instead drank warm Coke straight from the can, had eased up and cracked a joke or two. Liz and her mother were outside behind the house making a snow man or something under the watchful eyes of Gloria Sanchez and one of Blatnik’s people. McGarvey was unsettled. Running away to choose the time and place for his battles had always minimized the risk to his family but did nothing to protect them from harm. Bringing them out here did the opposite: It actually maximized the risk to them. But he would be here at their side when the bad guys came calling. There was no mistake in his or anyone else’s mind that he wasn’t the only target.
Kathleen and Elizabeth were targets, too. Their deaths at the hands of an assassin would almost as effectively destroy his usefulness as a DCI as would his own death. No one talked about it, but he’d heard the apprehension in Whirtaker’s voice, and seen it on the faces of his staff this morning during the teleconference. Stenzel came down the hall from somewhere in the back, and McGarvey turned away from the window. Now it would begin, he thought. “They said that you wanted to see me, Mr. Director,” Stenzel said. “I’m sending you back to Langley this afternoon,” McGarvey told the psychiatrist. Stenzel was startled.
“What’s up? Is something wrong? I mean it’d be a lot better if I stuck around to monitor your wife’s condition.” “It’s just for overnight,” McGarvey explained. Grassinger appeared in the doorway from the dining room, which they continued to use as their operations center. “Dr. Stenzel is leaving. Get somebody to take him back to Langley, would you?” “Sure thing. When?” “Now,” McGarvey said.
“Well, let me have a word with her first ”
“No. I want you to leave right now.” Stenzel glanced up the stairs. “What about my things?”
“You can come back out first thing in the morning,” McGarvey said.
“This is only for tonight.” Grassinger was surprised, but he said nothing. He stepped back into the dining room, issued an order into his lapel mic, then returned with StenzePs coat. A minute later one of Blatnik’s people drove up. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Stenzel asked. He was vexed. “Your wife could have another breakdown at any moment.” “It’s a risk we have to take,” McGarvey said. “Until morning.” Stenzel appealed mutely to Grassinger, who didn’t blink. He pulled on his coat, gave McGarvey another look, then left without a word.
“What’s going on tonight, Mr. Director?” Grassinger asked. “Does it have something to do with the Russian?” “I have a couple of phone calls to make, and then we’ll talk. I’m going to force the issue, and I’ll need your cooperation, your full cooperation. Do you understand?”
“No, sir. But we’ll do whatever it takes. We can’t go on like this forever.” “No we can’t,” McGarvey agreed. He crossed the living room and went into the study in the opposite wing of the house from the dining room and kitchen. He kept the door open so that he could see anyone coming, and telephoned the Agency locator at Langley, who rang through to Bob Johnson in Technical Services. “Good afternoon, Bob, this is Kirk McGarvey, I need a favor sometime tonight, if you guys aren’t too busy.” “No, sir. Let me get Jared ”