Grassinger nodded, tight-lipped. “There always is, isn’t there.”
“All of those people are suspects,” McGarvey said. It took a moment for the implications to set in and Grassinger reared back, but he recovered. “Dear Lord,” he said. “Does Nikolayev know who it is?
Will he recognize this person?” “The assassin has been brainwashed.
Sometime in the past. By the Russians. Nikolayev was one of the designers of the program, and according to him the conditioning doesn’t last very long. So the killer needs a control officer. Someone to reinforce the training on a regular basis. He thinks that the assassin’s control officer will try to come out here tonight, too.”
Grassinger worked to grasp the enormity of what McGarvey was telling him. “Why would they expose themselves like that?”
“I don’t know,” McGarvey said. But he had his guess. If the killer was one of his friends, they would need to be reinforced in order to pull off such an act.
“Whoever comes out in the end will be the control officer,” Grassinger said. “All we have to do is match that person with one of the people in the house.”
“You can deploy your officers along the highway, out of sight.”
“But they’re your friends, Mr. Director. Your own son-in-law.”
“I know,” McGarvey said. “I’m going to shut down the alarm system and forward defensive measures. But I’ll leave the detectors in the woods behind the house active in case someone tries to sneak through the back door.”
“I’ll put a couple of people up there.”
“Okay. But nobody moves until Nikolayev or I give the word. We’re going to do this once, and only once.”
An almost infallible means of saving yourself from the desire of self-destruction, is always to have something to do, Voltaire wrote a couple of hundred years ago. It was just as true now as it was then.
Grassinger got on the radio to summon Blatnik as McGarvey walked back to the garden room and stepped outside.
On the snow-covered back patio McGarvey watched Kathleen and Elizabeth together. It was like the early days, before the split, mother and daughter together and happy. They were close again after years of distance: For Katy because she saw so much of her estranged husband in her daughter’s actions and mannerisims. And for Liz because her mother refused to consider allowing Kirk back into her life, even though it was clear that she’d never stopped loving him. But that was the disagreeable then. This was the hopeful now, because even though they had this trouble hanging over them, they were together. That’s all that really mattered. “Very impressive, but what’s it supposed to mean?” McGarvey asked, starting across the backyard to them. They had finished with the sixth figure. Kathleen spun around so fast at the sound of his voice that she slipped and fell on her rear. For a moment no one moved, but then Elizabeth shrieked with laughter and helped her mother up. “Why it’s Aku-Aku, dear,” Kathleen said, taking a sideways glance at their handiwork. She and Elizabeth exchanged a knowing look.
“Easter Island, Daddy,” Elizabeth explained. “You know, the statues.”
Gloria Sanchez shook her head. She had no idea what it meant. “Okay, so you’re tired of the cold and snow and you’re pining for a South Seas cruise? Is that it?” McGarvey asked. Something was odd here.
Something off. But he felt as if he were the only one sensing it.
“It’s Mom’s idea,” Elizabeth said. “They’re waiting for the dawn, Kirk,” Kathleen told him. “You know, it comes up in the east. Morning.
The new day and all that.” She got the pensive look that had been so common lately. “Todd and Elizabeth are going to adopt, so we’ll be grandparents after all. Ruth is no longer suffering, the poor dear.
And tonight you’re going to catch the killer. I just know it.” She glanced again at the snow figures. “So all we have to do is survive until morning.” There was nothing McGarvey could say. Kathleen smiled. “Close your mouth, dear,” she told him.
THIRTY-NINE
SHE MAKES US BLINDLY PLAY HER TERRIBLE GAME, AND WE NEVER SEE BENEATH THE CARDS. FATE. LUCK. CHANCE. DESTINY. VOLTAIRE HAD BELIEVED IN ALL OF THAT, BUT McGARVEY WASN’T SURE THAT HE DID.
From the windows in several upstairs rooms McGarvey checked the front and back areas around the house. It was 7:30 P.M. and already dark.
Lights from the downstairs windows spilled yellow patches on the snow.
Blatnik’s and Grassinger’s people had withdrawn to the highway and behind the house in the woods. The only ones left in the house besides McGarvey were his wife and daughter. A radio played downstairs in the kitchen, but the silence in the house was oppressive. Nothing he could see moved out there, so he went downstairs. At the keypad in the front stair hall he switched off the house alarms. The sensors in the woods behind the house would remain on, but the defensive measures between the house and the highway had been disabled. If Nikolayev was right, the assassin would arrive in the first batch, the assassin’s control officer later. They couldn’t be sure until then.
McGarvey took out his pistol, checked the action and returned it to the holster at the small of his back. The question that had been pressing him all day intruded again. If it came to it, could he pull the trigger on a friend? Presumably the assassin had been brainwashed. He was sick. Shooting him would be like killing a cancer patient when the cure was readily available. Yet the assassin would be dangerous.
Elizabeth came down the hall from the kitchen, rolling down her sweater sleeves. “Almost time?” she asked. Her face was badly bruised.
McGarvey nodded. “You’re supposed to be taking it easy, remember?”
She shrugged. “I’ll live, Dad. Honestly.” She smiled wanly.
“Anyway, I’m becoming quite the domestic. But I was raised by a neat freak, remember?” She glanced up the stairs. “Where’s Mom?” “She’s taking a hot bath. Stenzel left her something to help her get to sleep afterward.” “Good idea,” Elizabeth agreed. Unsaid between them, but understood nevertheless, was that it would be better if Kathleen remained upstairs, out of the way until the issue was resolved. She would be safe. “Are you armed?” McGarvey asked. Elizabeth nodded.
“But I don’t know if I could shoot Dick Adkins, or, God forbid, Otto.”
She was deeply troubled. “How couldn’t we have known, being around them all the time?” “They might not even know themselves,” McGarvey told her. She hadn’t mentioned her own husband’s name, though when McGarvey had told her that he was coming out here tonight with the others she had reacted as if stung. “The ice bucket in the living room is full, I laid out some snacks, and there’s beer and wine in the fridge.” She grinned despite herself. “I even brought some Twinkies for Otto.” “Did you get some cream for him, too?” “Two percent milk.
Somebody’s got to start slowing him down. Louise won’t.” “Jim, are you set up there?” McGarvey spoke into his lapel mic. There was no answer. “Jim?” Elizabeth watched him. He shook his head, so she tried. “Jim, do you copy?” After a moment she shook her head.
“Nothing.” McGarvey called Grassinger’s cell phone. The security chief answered on the first ring.
“Yes.”
“Is your earpiece working?” McGarvey asked.
“I just talked to Tony,” Grassinger said. “Are you having trouble?”
“Liz and I can’t get through.”
“It’s the base unit at the house, Mr. Director. I’ll send someone down to look at it.”
“Are you and Nikolayev in position?”
“Yes.”
“Then sit tight. We’ll use the phone.”
“Yes, sir.”