Too many coincidences.
Something was floating around at the back of his head, some memory, some connection, something he should know that would give a reason for this afternoon’s attack. Something to make sense of. Something he could understand. If it was there, it would come, he thought.
When he looked up the doctor was gone, and two men in rumpled suits were coming toward him. Cops, he mentally catalogued them. They had the look. Probably federal.
“Mr. Kirk McGarvey?” the taller of the two asked. He was very tall and fit, in his thirties with short hair and wire-rimmed glasses. His partner, who was almost as tall, but with gray hair and wise eyes, was probably in his fifties and looked like an aging street thug or Teamsters boss. He stood back and to the left.
“Who are you?”
The cop took out his ID. “I’m Special Agent Bob Salmon. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
The other cop held out his ID, a dangerous look on his face. He held himself like a boxer. “Thomas Kosiak,” he said. “You McGarvey?”
“What can I do for you?”
“We asked if your name is McGarvey,” Kosiak said.
“Yes, it is. What do you want?”
“You’re coming with us.”
“My daughter just came off the operating table, and I still haven’t got in contact with her mother,” McGarvey said. He knew what they wanted.
Kosiak unbuttoned his suit coat.
“We’d like to ask you about the bombing this afternoon,” Salmon said. “Several witnesses place you at the scene.”
“I was there.”
“It doesn’t look as if you took a hit,” Kosiak said. “You were lucky.” His eyes tightened. “Get to your feet.”
“Am I being charged with something?”
“Not yet,” Salmon said. “Let’s go.”
“Give me your card, and I’ll call you in the morning after my daughter wakes up,” McGarvey said. The situation was accelerating, and he didn’t want it to happen. But he wanted to stay at the hospital until he talked to Katy. He didn’t want Liz to be alone.
“Mr. McGarvey, believe me when I say that we do not want to use force unless we have to,” Salmon said, his voice level. “But you are coming with us one way or the other.” Salmon was respectful, and Kosiak was wary.
“What’s it going to be?” Kosiak asked.
McGarvey finished his coffee and got to his feet. There was no doubt that they had placed him on the Canal Bridge, and there were going to be a lot of questions he was going to have to answer. He withdrew his gun, ejected the magazine, cycled the live round out of the chamber, reloaded it in the magazine and handed the gun and clip to Salmon who sniffed the barrel.
“This gun has been fired recently.”
“Yes, it has.”
They arrived at 10:45 P.M. McGarvey was taken directly upstairs to a small fourth-floor conference room, with space enough for only ten people around a mahogany table. There were no windows in the solemn, no-nonsense room. The drive over had been in silence, giving McGarvey time to work out his options. Foremost among them was that he needed his freedom if he was going to find out who tossed the bomb, and why. He was going to be tied up here answering questions, and there would be a CIA Internal Affairs investigation into why the man they’d proposed as DDO had killed three men in broad daylight in front of a dozen witnesses. They weren’t going to buy a father’s rage. He was a trained intelligence officer who should have been in better control of himself and the situation. But time was critical, and whatever it took he had to get out of here.
He closed his eyes and he could see the bright flash, feel the concussion, smell the burned Semtex, hear the screams, the jingle of falling glass, and see the look of agony on his daughter’s face. Christ, it was happening all over again. He was unable to protect the people he loved, and now it was another link in the heavy chain that he had to drag with him.
They’d parked in the underground garage, and after they signed in, rode up in an elevator, the building very quiet. Salmon brought in a carafe of coffee and several mugs, then laid out several ruled pads and a small tape recorder.
They were joined by a third man, well dressed, perhaps in his early forties, whom McGarvey took to be a senior agent or division head. Salmon and Kosiak were deferent toward him.
He sat across the table from McGarvey, laid a file folder down and switched on the tape recorder.
“I’m Fred Rudolph, assistant director of the Bureau’s Special Investigative Division. Has it been explained why you’ve been brought here for questioning?”
“No,” McGarvey said.
“Have your rights been read to you?”
“I’ll waive them.”
“State your name and current address for the record.”
He’d rented a small apartment in Georgetown a dozen blocks from the sidewalk cafe. He gave them that address.
“Are you aware that charges may be brought against you depending on the outcome of our investigation and this interview?”
“What charges?”
“Three counts of murder,” Rudolph said, looking directly at McGarvey.
He nodded. “They tossed the bomb.”
Rudolph’s lips pursed. “You admit it?”
“They were trying to get away,” McGarvey said. “I had to take out the driver, and after that it was self-defense. Believe me, I didn’t want it to happen that way.”
“The last one was quite a mess,” Rudolph said dryly. “Witnesses said you went berserk.”
“I shouted for everybody to get down.”
“They said that too.” Rudolph glanced at the other two agents.
“How’d you know they’d be coming up Wisconsin Avenue?” Kosiak asked.
“It was the only way out. After they tossed the bomb they went the wrong way on Thirty-first. It was a dead end, so they had to double back.”
“Let me get this straight. You witnessed the bombing?” Rudolph asked.
“I was in the restaurant, and I saw the car coming.”
“That’s what we figured. But how is it that you managed to get out of there without an injury?”
“I saw what was about to happen, shoved over a table and pulled my daughter to the floor.”
“Saved yourself and your daughter, but no one else,” Kosiak said with a smirk. It was all McGarvey could do to keep from going across the table after him.
“There wasn’t much time to do anything else,” McGarvey said, holding his temper in check. His nerves were rubbed raw.
“But you did look up in time to see which direction the terrorists took,” Kosiak said. “Then you ran out, leaving your daughter and a lot of other seriously injured people to bleed to death on their own.”
“A doctor and a couple of cops came from across the street. They were more qualified than me to help the wounded,” McGarvey said.
Rudolph and the others exchanged glances, and he checked something in his file. “Where are you working now, Mr. McGarvey?”
“I’m a teacher. Milford College, in Delaware.”
“That must be quite a school,” Rudolph said. “Are all the teachers down there armed and dangerous like you?”
McGarvey didn’t answer.
“Did you know those men?” Salmon asked. “The guys you took out on the bridge?”
“Never saw them before.”
“The car was rented yesterday in Baltimore, on a valid D.C. driver’s license with a gold Visa. But there’s no such name or address. Same with the ID on the other two men, valid but nonexistent names and addresses. Does that ring a bell?”