“Why?” McGarvey said.
“It has something to do with the Japanese, that’s a pretty safe assumption,” Rencke said. “And it takes no leap of faith to figure out the nuclear explosion at Kimch’aek means something. A lot of other people think so too, because Lindsay has sent the Seventh Fleet into the fray.”
McGarvey looked at him with a mixture of pride and pity. Rencke was too smart for normal society. He saw things differently than everyone else. Left on his own he would eventually self-destruct, and that would be a terrible waste of a very good man.
“You don’t do anything by halves,” McGarvey said.
Rencke grinned. “I never thought you wanted me to.”
“Let’s find your shoes, then clean up this mess. You’re coming back to Langley with me. For the time being you’re going to bunk out there.”
Rencke clutched McGarvey’s sleeve. “Something else is going on, Mac. Something very big. Deeper than lavender.” He shook his head. “I just can’t see it yet.” He was frustrated.
“We’ll work it out together, my friend. You and me. One step at a time.”
Otto’s grin spread into a smile, and he hopped from one foot to the other. “Oh, boy.”
“What the hell are you doing out here?” Todd Van Buren said.
Elizabeth, who had been going stir crazy, had slipped out to the front veranda to have a cigarette while no one was looking. She didn’t bother turning. “Smoking, what does it look like?”
“Well, you’re coming back inside.”
“When I’m finished.”
“Now,” Van Buren insisted.
Elizabeth turned languidly to him, and took a deep drag on her cigarette. Her pistol was stuffed in the waistband of her jeans, and she felt in control except for the look of exasperation and worry on Van Buren’s face. She realized all at once that he was frightened, and he was using anger to hide it. She softened.
“Sorry,” she said. She tossed her cigarette away. “It’s just that I’m going crazy being cooped up. It’s not what I was trained for.”
Van Buren softened too. “I know,” he said. “It’s getting to all of us. But you just got out of the hospital, and you’ve got to take it easy.” He grinned. “Besides, I don’t want to cross your dad.”
She smiled back. “Not a good idea.” He really did have a nice smile, she thought. And she loved his butt. She let her eyes take a last sweep of the lawn that led to the woods lining the driveway, then went back inside with him.
The forty-five-foot Bertram fly-bridge trawler, Just-N-Time, with its large afterdeck, pulled up at the public dock at precisely 5:00 P.M. Kondo, who’d parked the government sedan out of the way behind the marina, stepped aboard and went below as the commando up on the bridge pulled away. Only two other men were on deck handling the lines, the others were out of sight in the crowded main cabin.
Kajiyama was seated at the table in the main saloon, a chart of the Potomac River spared out in front of him. “Any last-minute changes, Kondo-san?”
“McGarvey was out there, but he left,” Kondo said.
“He might come back tonight.”
“That’s what I thought,” Kondo said. Barton was only four miles downriver from Cropley. “Let’s head upriver, to about White’s Ferry, and then take our time coming back. We’ll hit them sometime after ten.”
“Did you see anything else interesting up there?” Kajiyama asked.
“They’ve secured the storm shutters on the windows.”
“Then they’re expecting trouble.”
“So it would seem,” Kondo said, and he searched Kajiyama’s eyes for any sign of apprehension, but he found nothing other than anticipation. It was the same with all of them. Good men, he thought.
“Did you kill the woman?”
Kondo shook his head. “No. We might need her. We’ll see.”
McGarvey walked into his office a few minutes before five-thirty. They’d left Rencke’s car at Archives after retrieving his knapsack with a change of clothes and a few personal items. For the time being he would be staying here, where he could continue working and still remain out of harm’s way.
Ms. Swanfeld looked up from a letter she was typing, then did a double take when she saw who McGarvey had brought with him.
“I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Otto Rencke,” McGarvey said. “Otto, this is my secretary, Ms. Swanfeld.”
“Oh, boy,” Rencke said wiping his hands on his trousers. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Mr. Rencke,” she said. “Your reputation has preceded you.”
“Otto’s going to be bunking here for the next couple of days. If you’re up for some overtime, we need to get him cleaned up and fed, then set up with an office on this floor and a place to get some sleep.”
“Very well,” Ms. Swanfeld said. “In the meantime Mr. Murphy wanted to see you the moment you came back. But Mr. Adkins would like to have a word with you first.”
“Okay, tell Dick to come right over. And as soon as you get Otto settled in, I have some work for you. Might be an all-nighter.”
She smiled faintly. “If you’re going back out, you’ll be needing a shave and a fresh shirt,” she said. “I’ve laid your things out for you.” She phoned Adkins’s office then got up and motioned for Rencke to come with her. “Actually I’ve been expecting you for some time now, Mr. Rencke,” she said. “In fact I think we may even be able to find you some Twinkies in the executive dining room, though how anyone could subsist on such things is beyond me.”
“Oh, boy,” Otto said, grinning on the way out the door.
Elizabeth stood at the open window, the security shutters partially ajar, looking out toward the woods across the long lawn. She was jumpy, and she didn’t know why. It was more than boredom or claustrophobia, but she was unreasonably bitchy and she knew it.
“Todd will go through the roof if he sees you like that,” Kathleen said.
Liz held back a sharp retort. “I’ll close it when it gets dark,” she said instead. “Right now the fresh air feels good.”
Kathleen came over and placed the back of her hand on her daughter’s cheek. “You’re a little warm. Do you feel sick?”
“I’m fine, Mother.”
Kathleen looked critically at her. “No, you’re not. I’ve seen that same expression on your father’s face just before something was about to happen.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Elizabeth said, glancing out the window.
“Your period?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m so nervous I’m shaking.”
“Maybe we should say something to Paul.”
Again Elizabeth shook her head. She turned back to her mother. “What Daddy said this afternoon just got me thinking, that’s all. It’s my overactive imagination.”
“Maybe,” Kathleen said after a beat. “But I think we’ll mention it to Paul at dinner tonight. After all, you are your father’s daughter.”
SEVENTEEN
McGarvey had finished shaving and was putting on a fresh shirt in the bathroom when Dick Adkins walked into his office with a thick bundle of files and a sour expression on his square face.
“You missed the intelligence board meeting this afternoon and Murphy wanted to know where you were,” Adkins said, laying the files on his desk.
McGarvey was sorry Adkins had to take the heat for him, but it couldn’t have been helped. “What’d you tell him?” he asked, knotting his tie in front of the mirror. The worry lines around his eyes and mouth were pronounced, and he felt like shit mentally.