Authors: David Hagberg

Critical Mass (35 page)

BOOK: Critical Mass

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THE MORNING WAS BEAUTIFUL. MCGARVEY STOOD AT THE window, his body cocked at an odd angle, his neck, right arm and shoulder and his right leg swathed in bandages. He'd gone from night into day; from danger to safety, but the assignment wasn't over.

A CIA psychiatrist who'd examined McGarvey after a particularly harrowing operation early in his career had come to the conclusion that though McGarvey had a low physical threshold of pain response, he had an extremely high psychological threshold. He felt pain easily, but he was able to let it flow through and around him without it affecting his ability to function.

He was in pain now, but he continued to refuse any medication, preferring to keep his head straight. Spranger and the woman with him were gone. Lipton had admitted it before they'd left Santorini. And as long as that monster was still on the loose none of them would be truly safe.

McGarvey's right shoulder had stiffened up and his burns still hurt, but his biggest problem was the flesh wound in his right thigh. Walking was difficult at best. If he found himself in a situation where he had to move quickly to save his life, he might not make it.

But lying in a hospital bed fretting wouldn't help despite what the doctors told him. They'd backed up their warnings by posting a guard at the door. At least he hoped the hospital had ordered the security and that it hadn't been done at the Agency's request.

Someone knocked at the door and he turned around as
Kathleen came in. Her left eyebrow arched when she saw him standing at the window, but she said nothing, closing the door.

“Good morning,” McGarvey said. He decided that she didn't look any the worse for wear, except in her eyes, which seemed to have lost their usual haughtiness. She was dressed in street clothes, a blue scarf on her head.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I'll live. You?”

“I'm all right.”

“Elizabeth?”

“She wants to see you.”

McGarvey tried to read something from his ex-wife's expression, her tone of voice, but he couldn't. He'd never been able to predict her.

“How is she holding up?”

Kathleen shook her head, but she made no move toward him. “I honestly don't know, Kirk. She's definitely your daughter. She stood up to them, and probably saved my life in the doing despite what they â¦ did to her. But she won't talk to me about it. She just sidesteps the questions. Says she'll live, whatever that means.”

“What now?”

“You tell me,” she said. “The FBI is guarding us. They said something about temporarily placing us in the Witness Protection Program. Either that or taking us into protective custody.”

“Not such a bad idea â¦”

“For how long, Kirk?” Kathleen cried. “From the day I met you this has been going on. How much longer must I endure it?”

“I'm sorry â¦”

“We're divorced. Stay away from me and Elizabeth! Please! If you love your daughter, as you profess you do, then leave us alone!”

He felt badly for her, but he knew that there was nothing he could do to alleviate her pain and fear except do as she was
asking: Stay away from her, and in the meantime go after Spranger and what remained of his organization.

“If you think it's for the best.”

“I do,” she replied.

McGarvey nodded. “Will you let me talk to her now, for just a minute?”

Kathleen stared at him for a long second or two, her rigid expression softening a little. “I don't think I could stop her,” she said. “The doctor certainly could not.”

“Get out of Washington, Katy. Let the Bureau take care of you.”

“My name is Kathleen,” she corrected automatically. “And Elizabeth and I are going to do just that. No one will know where we are. No one.”

She turned and left the room, giving McGarvey a brief glimpse of Dr. Singh in the corridor before the door closed again. He hobbled back to the bed and got in. A moment later Elizabeth, wearing faded jeans, a pink V-neck sweater, and a head scarf, came in.

For a long time she stood stock-still, looking at her father, the expression on her face even less readable than her mother's, except that she was frightened.

“Liz?” McGarvey prompted.

“Daddy,” she cried and she came into his arms, a sharp stab of pain hammering his right side.

He grunted involuntarily, and Elizabeth immediately reared back.

“Oh, God, I'm sorry,” she apologized, her hands going to her mouth.

“It's okay, Liz,” he said. “It's okay.” He held out his hand to her.

She hesitated. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“You won't. Now come over here and sit down. I want to hear everything that happened to you and your mother, and then I want you to do me a favor.”

“Anything,” Elizabeth said, gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I'm going to need some clothes.”

She looked sharply at him. “What do you mean?”

“I'm getting out of here.”

“But you can't. You're hurt.”

“It's all right,” he said, patting her hand. “Believe me. But first I want to know about Ernst Spranger and the woman with him.”

A dark cloud passed over Elizabeth's features and she flinched. “Her name is Liese. The others are murderers, but she's worse. Much worse.”

“What happened?”

Elizabeth turned away. “I can't â¦”

“Your mother said you won't tell her.”

“I'm afraid.”

“You're safe here.”

She turned back to her father. “Not for me,” she said. “For you.”

Suddenly McGarvey was cold. He'd been told what condition Kathleen and Elizabeth were in when Lipton's team had found them but he'd not seen either of them until this morning. They both wore wigs beneath their scarves, and although they seemed pale they appeared to be uninjured. Yet he wondered, his mind going down a lot of dark corridors he wanted to avoid.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

Elizabeth's eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No,” she blurted. “That's wrong. Mother's wrong. You're not responsible for the bad people in the world. It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong.”

“If I hadn't been involved none of this would have happened to you and your mother.”

“Don't say that,” she cried, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “Don't ever say that.”

“It's okay, Liz,” McGarvey said, reaching for her.

Elizabeth stared at him for a long time, as if she'd never seen him before. “If not you, who can I believe in?” she asked finally.

A battered Volkswagen van with Italian plates pulled up at the Villa Ambrosia overlooking Monaco around five in the
afternoon. So far as Liese could determine the compound was just as they had left it. She'd half-expected to see yellow
Do Not Pass
tapes across the doors, or an Interpol surveillance unit parked nearby. But she'd made three different approaches to the house, and had spotted nothing.

“How does it look?” Spranger asked from the back of the van. His voice was muffled but recognizable, which was, as far as Liese was concerned, enough for the moment.

“Clear,” she answered. “I'm going to release the alarms and open the gate.”

“Watch out for a trap.”

They'd been over this same ground for two and a half days all the way from Athens, across Italy and along the Riviera. Spranger's intense hatred and desperate need for revenge had distorted his perception of everything. He had ranted and raved about striking back, getting even, killing.

More than once Liese had been brought to the brink of putting a gun to the back of his head and pulling the trigger. But each time she'd backed off at the last moment because she needed him. Needed his voice for what remained to be done. Their field officers were in place and ready to go to phase two, but they would only move on Spranger's direct orders. Without him the entire operation would fizzle and die.

Checking the rearview mirror again to make certain no one was coming up the road, Liese got out of the van and cautiously approached the tall wooden gate in the thick concrete wall that surrounded the compound.

None of the three hidden switches that activated the villa's extensive alarm system had been tampered with, and she released each of them, the gate's electric lock cycling open, and the gate swinging inward.

Back in the van she drove into the compound, and parked at the rear of the house. Before she helped Spranger out, she closed and locked the gate, and reset the alarm system.

Spranger was a mess. The Greek doctor on Santorini had been an incompetent fool, his methods and most of his equipment 1940s-vintage war surplus. He'd dug McGarvey's bullet out of Spranger's shoulder successfully, but he'd done
too much cutting and when the wound healed, scar tissue would be bunched up as big as a clenched fist.

He'd set Spranger's broken arm and collarbone poorly, and whatever salve he'd used on the extensive burns had a terrible odor. Within twenty-four hours noisome fluids were freely suppurating from it, horribly staining his clothing and bandages.

His broken nose and cheeks had swollen up and discolored black and blue and yellow.

But he was alive, and coherent, and therefore still useful.

Inside the house, Liese poured him a brandy, then made the first of four telephone calls, this one to a number down in Monaco. It was answered on the first ring by a man speaking French with a Japanese accent.

“
Oui
.”

“Mr. Spranger calling for Mr. Endo, please,” Liese said. Spranger was watching her closely.

A second later their Japanese contact came on. “Yes, you have something to report, Ernst?”

“This is me,” Liese said, and she caught the slight calculating hesitation in Endo's voice.

“Yes, I understand, please proceed.”

“Mr. McGarvey has been eliminated as a problem.”

“I see. And will you now be able to make your deliveries as contracted.”

“Within seventy-two hours,” Liese said, and Spranger nodded, his hand gripping the brandy glass so tightly she thought it would shatter at any moment.

“Very well. We look forward to concluding our business then.”

Liese hung up, got the dial tone again and called the first of their three teams standing by in the field; This one outside of Lausanne, Switzerland, and Spranger put down his drink, ready to do his part.

ELIZABETH WAS BACK A FEW MINUTES BEFORE ONE IN THE afternoon with a change of clothes for her father. This time she was dressed in a sheer blouse and skimpy knit miniskirt. She looked like a healthy, extremely sexual young animal, and the sight of her like that took McGarvey's breath away.

“Mother is waiting downstairs,” she said, laying the straw bag in which she'd brought the clothes on the end of the bed. “We're leaving this afternoon from the Baltimore airport.”

“Did you have any trouble getting back in?” McGarvey asked, getting out of bed, and pulling the clothes out of the bag. “Turn around.”

She turned away as her father got dressed. “No. I think they like my smile out there.”

McGarvey chuckled to himself. She was a little girl playing with fire, he thought. But then something else struck him and he looked up at her. She was only a girl in his mind. In reality she was a vital, intelligent young woman.

“Is the guard still out there?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you get him away from the door for a minute so that I can get out of here?”

“Where are you going?” she asked in a small voice after a moment.

“To finish what I started,” he answered her. There was no use lying now. Not after what she'd been through.

“If something happens â¦ I may never see you again.”

“You will,” McGarvey said, his throat suddenly thick. “Count on it.”

When he was finished dressing, he took his daughter into his arms and held her closely for a long time. “It'll be okay, Liz.”

She looked up into his eyes. “You'll make it, won't you, Daddy?”

“Sure.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Now, go wiggle your tush at the guard and get him to show you the way to the cafeteria.”

She smiled demurely, and left.

McGarvey waited for a half minute then carefully opened the door a crack. Elizabeth and the guard were gone, and for the moment no one else was in sight. He slipped out into the corridor and headed toward the stairwell door in the opposite direction from the nurses' station.

At any moment he expected someone to shout for him to stop, and then come running. But no one did, and a few minutes later he had made his way painfully down three flights of stairs to the ground floor, then along the main corridor to the entry lobby and information desk.

Otto Rencke, his long hair flying, his sleeveless sweatshirt dirty, and his sneakers untied, came through the front doors and started toward the information desk when he spotted McGarvey. He came over, his expression falling as he got closer.

“Holy cow, Mac. Do you know that you really look like shit?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you, but wow, I didn't think you'd be ambulatory, you know. The hotshots across the river have got you half dead.”

“Did you bring your car?”

“Sure.”

“Then get me out of here.”

“Where to?”

“I'll tell you on the way, and in the meantime you can fill me in.”

Rencke's face brightened again. “Kiyoshi Fukai.”

They were on their way out and McGarvey stumbled and nearly fell on his face. “What?”

“The bad guy. His name is Kiyoshi Fukai. As in Fukai Semiconductor. Fourth richest man in the world. Worth in excess of twelve billion U.S. But I don't think that's his real name.”

Kathleen was waiting in a cab in front of the hospital, and when McGarvey emerged with Rencke she sat forward in the back seat, her eyes wide. McGarvey nodded to her, but hobbled after Rencke to the parking lot across the driveway. As long as Elizabeth joined her soon she wouldn't make any noise. And within a few hours they'd be out of the Washington area and relatively safe for the time being.

Rencke's “car” was a beat-up green pickup truck, the U.S. Forest Service logo faded but still legible on the doors. Heading away from the hospital, McGarvey caught another glimpse of Kathleen waiting in the taxi, Elizabeth just coming out to her, and he allowed himself to relax a little.

“Where are we heading?” Rencke asked.

“You can take me to the Marriott across the river. I'll catch a cab from there.”

“Are you going out to Langley?”

McGarvey nodded. “Now, what makes you think that Kiyoshi Fukai is our bad guy?”

“Well, it's actually quite simple once you get on the correct side and look back. But you've got to think about all the elements. Sorta like a big jigsaw puzzle, only in four dimensions. We've got to add time, you know.”

McGarvey said nothing.

“Start out with the man who says he's Kiyoshi Fukai right now. If you talk about Japanese electronics and research his name will come up every time. For the past few years, he's been buying up American and British electronics companies â¦ or at least he's been trying to do it. The fedsâour feds who art here in Washingtonâhave been putting the kibosh on his efforts to take over TSI Industries on the West Coast. Silicon Valley. Guess they're doing too much research in sensitive areas. Word is that it won't be long
before they'reâTSI that isâthe number one chip producers worldwide.”

“If Fukai owns TSI, then he'll maintain his dominance of the world market.”

“Owns or destroys,” Rencke said. “So, we've got a possible motive, and a man with the money to do something about it. On top of that, Fukai hates America and Americans, and he doesn't care who he tells it to. Tokyo has tried to shut him up on more than one occasion. And it was probably him, or someone he controls, who is writing anti-American books and distributing them to all the top Japanese businessmen and government honchos. See where I'm going with this?”

“So far,” McGarvey replied.

“Of course that profile also fit a number of other fat cats, but Fukai caught my interest because of the background he claims. He says that before and during the war he was nothing more than a humble chauffeur. His is sort of a rags-to-riches story. Only it doesn't wash.”

Rencke concentrated on his driving for a minute or two as they entered the District of Columbia at Chevy Chase, the traffic heavy.

“First of all, humble chauffeurs do not rise to become industrial giants. At least they didn't in the Japan of the late forties and fifties. But if Fukai had actually done just that he would have crowed about his achievement. But there's never been a peep out of him.”

“Then how'd you find out?”

“Army records. Fukai surfaced at a verification center in Matsuyama in December of 1945, claiming he was Kiyoshi Fukai, the chauffeur. He was friendly and cooperative with the occupying forces, and no one thought to question his identification.”

“Whose chauffeur was he?”

Rencke grinned. “Ah, that's the point, isn't it? His boss was a man by the name of Isawa Nakamura. A designer and manufacturer of electronic equipment. A black marketeer. A staunch supporter of the Rising Sun's military complex. A regular user of Korean and Chinese slave labor.”

“There's more?” McGarvey asked, knowing there was.

“You bet,” Rencke said. “Guess where Nakamura's wife and kiddies were killed?”

McGarvey shook his head.

“Nagasaki.”

McGarvey telephoned Phil Carrara from the Marriott Hotel.

“I'm coming out by cab. Meet me at the gate.”

“Where the hell are you?” the DDO demanded. “Your doctors are screaming bloody murder, claiming we've kidnapped you, and the FBI wants to know what's going on.”

“I'm going to need my gun, my passport, and some clothes and shaving gear.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I'm going back to Tokyo. I know who's behind all of this.”

BOOK: Critical Mass

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