End Game (37 page)

Keeping the pistol at his side, the muzzle pointed away from his leg like Mac had taught him, he slipped out into the empty corridor and hurried down to the elevator. The car was on the basement level, and it took a seeming eternity for it to come up to three.

Otto stepped aside, out of the line of possible fire—again something Mac had taught him—as the door opened. But the car was empty.

His hand was shaking a little as he hit the P1 button.

It seemed to take another eternity for the door to close and the car to start down, and another eternity before it reached the executive parking level 1.

He flattened himself against the wall of the car and raised the pistol.

His Mercedes was parked three rows to the left, nose out from the wall.

The garage was mostly empty of cars. Nothing moved. There were no sounds.

Ducking out of the elevator, Otto swung the pistol left to right as he sprinted to his car. He switched gun hands so he could dig his car keys out of his pocket and jump in behind the wheel.

Mac had told him something else about situations like these. Something important, but his heart was beginning to race and he could think of nothing except getting the hell out and into the open air. The underground parking ramp had become claustrophobic.

As he reached the exit, the security scanner read the bar code on his windshield and raised the gate at the same moment he realized not only about how Mac's wife and daughter had been assassinated with a car bomb but how Fabry had been killed by someone hiding in the backseat of his car.

He skidded to a halt, snatched the pistol from the passenger seat, jumped out of the car, and stepped back.

But if it had been a car bomb, it would have exploded the instant he'd switched on the ignition. And so far as he could tell, no one was in the backseat.

He moved back to the car and, holding his pistol at the ready, yanked open the rear door. For just an instant he didn't know what he was seeing except for shadows cast by the streetlamp, until he realized it was his own shadow cast into the rear of the car, and he lowered the pistol at the same moment he released a pent-up breath.

The couple of times he'd been in a firefight, Mac had been at his side. And at home he would have the electronic security of the place, as well as Louise at his side. He only thanked his lucky stars they had sent Audie down to the Farm, where she would be safe.

*   *   *

Otto breezed through the checkpoint at the main gate, and on the long drive back to McLean, where he and Louise had moved a few days ago, he kept looking in his rearview mirror. There was other traffic on the road, none of it apparently following him. Nevertheless, he passed his normal exit off the Parkway and got off instead at Kirby Road, then took Old Dominion the back way to their main safe house.

He drove through town almost to where the road reached the Beltway, before he turned around and went home, reasonably sure no one had followed him.

Louise was at the kitchen door when Otto came into the garage. As soon as he got out of the car and she could see his face, she hit the button to close the service door. She was holding a compact Glock pistol.

“No one followed me,” he told her.

“How would you know?” she asked sharply.

“Mac taught me what to do.”

As soon as the door was closed, she pulled him inside the house with her free hand and threw her arms around his neck. “Christ, I was worried sick about you.”

“I know,” Otto said. After a moment he reached back, took the pistol out of her hand, and laid it on the kitchen counter. “I'd rather not get shot by my own wife.”

“Oh,” she said, flustered. “I tried to call you, but your phone just rang. So I called Mac, and he said he told you to get the hell out of there. Did you take a gun?”

“It's on the passenger seat.”

“No trouble getting out?” she asked, searching his eyes.

“It was spooky, but no,” Otto said. “We have to button up this place right now.”

“I took care of it as soon as I talked to Mac. When I picked you up on the east camera, I opened the center front portal to let you in. It's closed again. We're good here.”

“For now,” Otto said. He went back to the car and got the Beretta.

Louise had made coffee, and she poured him a cup and got a package of Twinkies from the cabinet. “I couldn't bring myself to buy whipping cream, but I thought you might need a lift.”

“Shit,” he said, and sat down at the counter. “I already had some at work.”

“About what I figured, but none here,” Louise said. “Mac didn't tell me everything that's going on, except that the killer wasn't George but he was probably still on campus. He wants us to stay put until he and Pete get here.”

“And Alex,” Otto said. “He's going to use her, and me, as bait.”

“Peachy,” Louise said without humor. It was an expression she'd picked up from Mac's wife, Katy. “So, who's the killer? What's your best guess?”

“Could be anyone from Walt Page or Fred Atwell all the way down to Marty Bambridge or someone on his staff, or Len Lawrence and his staff.” Lawrence was the deputy director of intelligence.

“You're not serious?”

“I am,” Otto said. Louise had poured a cup of coffee for herself, and Otto handed her one of the Twinkies, which she tried.

“Jesus, this shit tastes like fuel oil.”

He laughed. “And all the time you thought I liked them.”

Her pent-up tension suddenly released, and she laughed so hard, tears streamed from her eyes. She drank some coffee. “I bought another package.”

“They do sorta taste artificial.”

Louise put down her cup, suddenly stricken as if the worst news of her life had just come into her head. Otto got it immediately.

Her cell phone was on the counter. He phoned the duty officer at the Farm. “How's everything down there this morning?”

“Mr. Rencke, just fine. Something I can do for you?”

“Just got back home, and we were missing our daughter.”

“She'll probably sleep till nine or ten. Had a busy day out on the water. We were doing exfiltration drills, and Audie was on the observer boat. Time to bring her home?”

“Soon,” Otto said.

“She misses you guys like the devil, but we're going to be sad to give her up.”

 

SIXTY-FIVE

They were refueled and airborne west over France toward the Atlantic after a two-hour delay at Ramstein, Germany. Once they were at altitude, McGarvey went forward to the cockpit. He was dead tired, his eyes gritty, but he was pumped with adrenaline.

“Thanks for getting us out of there so fast,” he told Roper and the first officer. “But I have an even bigger favor.”

“No need to ask,” Roper said. “I got clearance at thirty-seven thousand, an Air France flight from Paris found a two-hundred-knot tail wind.”

“Jet stream?”

“No, just winds aloft. Don't know how far it'll last, but we're in it right now. ETA Andrews at 0800 local.”

“Good enough,” McGarvey said, patting Roper on the shoulder.

He got a cognac from the galley before he went aft and took his seat. It was pitch-black outside, only the stars, no moon, and a cloud deck below them, obscuring the lights of Paris, but they were chasing the sun.

Pete was in the head and Alex was still asleep, leaving him alone with his thoughts. From near the beginning, he'd thought that the killer had to be someone on campus. But everyone connected with Alpha Seven, except for Alex, was dead, so it wasn't one of them.

The weapon was almost certainly American made and had been buried in Iraq, so when it was found, it would prove our case that Saddam did indeed have WMDs. At least the one nuke.

But Alex had told them the bomb had been meant to be detonated. Probably blamed as a last-ditch stand by the Iraqi military unit still hiding in the oil fields.

Evidently, the Mossad had somehow found out about it, and had sent George to find it and perhaps neutralize the thing. But the Alpha Seven team had come up with a better plan. They had reburied it, where it apparently was still hidden. The only one left now who knew the location was Alex.

Still, it left them with the final problem of the killer's identity. Whoever it was had known about the plot—or had even been a part of it—and was now trying to cover up their tracks by killing just about everyone who had any knowledge of the incident. The Alpha Seven team members first, because they were loose cannons.

Then Jean Fegan because she had talked to Otto—and Otto himself because someone knew if he knew enough to seek out the woman, it meant he had to be getting close.

Pete came forward and sat down across from him. She took the glass from his hand and had a sip. “You need to get some sleep,” she said.

“It's hard to shut down now that we're close.”

“I know, but we have another five or six hours, and you won't do anybody any good like this.”

“You're right, of course,” McGarvey said. “But I was wondering what's the worst that could happen, and what could we do to prevent it?”

Pete thought about it for a second. “You sent Otto home. And their place in McLean is like a fortress, so even if someone does go after him—maybe another hit man sent by the killer—it wouldn't do much good. Louise would push the panic button, and the cops would be all over the place within minutes.”

“He's the target, but as long as he stays put, he'll be okay.”

“You're a target. So am I and so is Alex. And in six hours we'll be on the ground and outgun the bastard.”

“We'll find him,” McGarvey said. “But Alex said the device was meant to be exploded.”

“Before we started the war, or shortly thereafter, to prove our case. That's if you believe we put it there.”

“I think it was us. A rogue operation. But what happens to us in the region if someone sets the damned thing off?”

“No reason for it,” Pete said. “Who would gain?”

“The Chinese, for one. If they could prove it was our bomb—and that's fairly easy to do from the signature radiation after a detonation—they could make a case for kicking us out of the entire region. They'd take over, and that would include oil.”

“Not to mention the Iranians, who'd love to thumb their noses at us,” Alex said, coming forward. She perched on the arm of the leather chair across the aisle from them. “We've been holier-than-thou over their nuclear program. It would make us look like the biggest hypocrites on the block.”

Maggie came back. “Would any of you like something?”

Pete finished Mac's drink and handed her the glass. “Another one of these, please.”

“Water,” Alex said.

“Syria, Egypt, especially North Korea, because we've tried to keep a lid on their nuclear weapons,” McGarvey said. “We need to find the weapon and get it out of there.”

“That's the problem,” Alex said. “Someone moved it again after we did. The guy who took out Walt and Isty and the others has been wasting his time. None of us knew where it had been reburied. It's the part that's been driving me crazy.”

“We have to find the killer, and Mac thinks he's still on campus,” Pete said. “But if he doesn't know where the device is buried, we're on the edge of an even steeper cliff.”

Maggie brought their drinks back. “Will anyone be wanting anything to eat before we land?”

“No,” McGarvey said. “But if we do, we can manage. Why'd don't you get a few hours' sleep?”

She smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Director. I think I'll do just that.”

“We have to find him first,” Alex said, and something occurred to her. “You say Otto went home?”

“Yeah. He's next on the list.”

“Did you talk to him just now? I was half awake, and I thought I heard voices.”

“A half hour ago.”

“Was he alone?”

“Tom Calder was with him. Walt Page took a call from State about one of its employees who'd been hit by a car and killed. Otto was there when it happened.”

“Did you record the call?”

“No reason to,” McGarvey said.

“How about Otto? Would he have recorded it?” Alex pressed.

“Probably.”

Alex was excited. “Call him. Tell him to play it back for us.”

“His calls could be monitored. I had him take the SIM card out of the sat phone he usually uses.”

“God damn it, call him at home,” Alex insisted. “Do it right now.”

“You need to give us a reason,” Pete said.

Alex was practically jumping out of her skin. “I think I might have heard something. Maybe I was dreaming, I don't know. Christ, McGarvey, just do it!”

McGarvey brought up Otto's home phone. The call went through, and Louise answered on the first ring.

“It's Kirk. Is everything okay there?”

“Otto and I are eating Twinkies, if that gives you any indication.”

“I need to talk to him for just a minute.”

Otto came on. “What's up?”

“Did you record our phone call when Calder was with you?”

“I record everything.”

“Send it to me. Alex thinks she might have heard something that could be significant.”

“Let me get my tablet powered up.”

McGarvey's phone was on speaker mode. Alex seemed as if she wanted to snatch it from where it was lying on the table between the seats, and Pete looked as if she were on the verge of slapping her down.

Otto came back. “Okay, here it is.”

They heard the door lock buzz and then Calder's voice:
I thought my eyes were bad, but yours are worse. The hours we keep to make sure our country stays safe.

You promised to make it only one minute
.

Alex leaned in and cocked an ear.

Marty got a call from upstairs that he asked me to check out with you.