Stormy at the end, though, in those days when he was gone more than he was at home.
She’d guessed, in an offhanded way, that he actually worked for the CIA, that he was, in her words, a macho James Bond spy. But she’d fortunately never guessed the true extent of what he did, the fact that he had killed people in the line of his assignments.
But she’d always maintained a lovely, proper home (she had come into their marriage not wealthy, but certainly independent), and in public she presented a self-assured, dignified image. Not aloof, or snobbish, simply well put together.
It had come to a showdown: He’d had to choose either her, or his career. He’d just returned from Santiago where’d he’d taken out a Chilean general who would have probably taken over the country by coup. But his orders had been changed in midstream. The general was not to be killed. Even though the change in orders reached McGarvey too late, he’d been fired from the CIA.
On that night, not knowing what had happened, Kathleen had issued him the ultimatum.
Even though her demand that he quit the business had been a moot point at that moment, he’d turned her down.
“We cannot have a marriage in which one of us dictates the other’s life,” he told her.
“You’re right,” she said, and he’d turned around and walked out, not even bothering to unpack his bag from his trip.
He’d been younger then, more sure of himself, more arrogant, and yet in some respects more frightened that something out of his past would be coming after him now that he no longer had
the backing of the Agency.
What he hadn’t counted on was the loneliness, and the missing his daughter, who when he had left was eleven years old.
Kathleen answered the door almost immediately. She was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt, her feet bare, her hair pinned up in back, and no makeup, yet she looked like a model out of a fashion magazine. Her neck was long and delicate, her features precise yet not hard. But it was her eyes that most people noticed first.
They were large beneath highly arched eyebrows, and were a startling, almost unreal shade of green.
She smiled. “Hello, Kirk. When did you get back?”
“Last night. But it was too late to call.”
She stepped back. “Come in,” she said.
He followed her through the house to the large kitchen overlooking the swimming pool.
The sliding glass doors were open, the odor of chlorine sharp.
“Sorry about the awful smell, but the poolman was just here,” she said. “Coffee?”
“Sure,” McGarvey said, sitting at the counter. “What have you heard from Liz lately?”
“Elizabeth,” Kathleen corrected automatically. “Everything is fine. She loves school, but she misses home a little. That I got between the lines.”
“Does she need anything?”
“No,” Kathleen said, bringing their coffee over. “She called Saturday. Said everyone at school was talking about the Swissair flight that was shot down…? She stopped in mid-sentence.
“Everybody in Paris was talking about it too,” McGarvey said, sidestepping Kathleen’s next question. “There’ll always be crazies out there.”
“The news said that the terrorist had been cornered by an unidentified American.”
“So I heard.”
Kathleen was staring at him. “Are you home for good this time?” she asked stiffly.
“Almost.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Almost?” she asked. “Almost, as in, not yet?”
“There’s something I have to take care of first…?
“No,” Kathleen said simply.
“I’m sorry, Katy, but it’s important.”
Kathleen reared back. “My name is Kathleen,” she screeched. “Not Katy.”
The doorbell rang.
“I want you to leave,” she said. “Now! I want you out of my house, and I don’t ever want to see you back here!”
The doorbell rang again.
“All right,” she screamed. She spun on her heel and stormed back out to the stairhall.
McGarvey got up and went to the kitchen door as Kathleen opened the front door, and he just caught a glimpse of two men dressed in light slacks and sportcoats standing on the veranda.
Kathleen said something that he couldn’t quite catch.
McGarvey ducked back. They definitely were Company. The Agency would have to know that he would show up here sooner or later. They’d merely misjudged their timing, but not by very much. Whatever Murphy wanted, it had to be important to go to these lengths.
In the old days, Kathleen had always kept the car keys on a hook by the garage door.
It was tidy, she said, and the keys would never be misplaced.
He hurried silently across the kitchen and into the laundry room. A set of car keys was hanging on a hook next to the door into the garage. Snatching them, he slipped into the garage and got behind the wheel of Kathleen’s 460 SL. With one hand he started the car, while with the other he hit the garage door opener.
As the service door slowly rumbled open, he watched the door from the laundry room.
It was snatched open a couple of seconds later, and McGarvey got a brief glimpse of a man in a sport coat. He dropped the gearshift into drive and slammed the gas pedal to the floor, the low-slung car shooting out of the garage, just clearing the still-opening main door by no more than two inches.
At the bottom of the driveway, he turned east, the opposite direction that the plain gray government Chevrolet was facing, and was around the corner at the end of the block before the two men who’d come after him even had a chance to cross the street.
The Agency knew for sure now that he was in Washington, and that he was on the run from them. They would be pulling out all the stops to find him. Nobody said no to the general.
McGarvey parked the Mercedes near Union Station, leaving the keys under the floor mat, then walked a half-dozen blocks down to Constitution Avenue where he caught a cab, ordering the driver to take him back to Georgetown. The police would find the car and would return it to Kathleen.
“I want you to stop at a grocery store, or corner market on the way,” McGarvey said.
“Sir?” “I need to pick up some Twinkies.”
Chapter 21
McGarvey had a fairly high degree of confidence that Rencke’s intrusion into the CIA’s computer system would not be detected. Nevertheless he approached the house in Holy Rood Cemetery with precautions, passing twice from different directions to make certain the place wasn’t being watched.
There were a few people visiting graves, and a grounds-keeper was mowing the lawn near the Whitehaven Parkway entrance, but no one seemed interested in the house.
Nor had there been anyone stationed at the entrance so far as McGarvey had been able to determine.
He crossed the gravel driveway, mounted the three steps to the porch and knocked on the front door. Without waiting for Rencke to answer it, he let himself in.
The house was very still. The odors of Rencke’s cats mingled in the air with the odors of electronics equipment. But nothing moved. It was as if the place had been abandoned.
He’d brought a bag of Twinkies for Rencke. Laying them on the hall table, he took out his Walther, eased the safety catch on the off position, and moved silently to the archway into the living room.
Nothing seemed out of place except that only one computer monitor seemed to be working.
Everything else had apparently been shut off. The one screen that was lit showed nothing but the color
