enriched uranium, for instance.
You need an initiator, which is nothing more than a tiny source of high energy particles to get the chain reaction going. Sort of like the lighted match tossed into a pile of firewood. And you need a number of electronic triggering devices to ignite the dynamite or whatever other explosive you use to force the plutonium together. ModTec builds the triggers, and DuVerlie was one of the trigger engineers.”
“Spranger’s group went after the triggers, is that what you’re telling me?”
“Evidently. Which our Deputy Director of Intelligence Tommy Doyle believes is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s his theory that K-1 is after the whole enchilada. A working nuclear weapon … or the parts to build one.”
“Did they get the triggers?”
“Unknown.”
“How about the other components… the initiator and the fuel?”
“Unknown.”
“What else?”
“There were two new entries in the file, generated in the Paris Station. Tom Lynch was the signatory, and his source was your Action Service Colonel Marquand.”
“About finances. Marquand told me that the SDECE believed the STASI group maintained bank accounts in at least two Swiss cities, Bern and Zurich.”
Rencke nodded. “The currency paid into at least one of those accounts was in yen.”
“Japan?” McGarvey said, stunned.
“The source was unknown, but the currency was Japanese. Makes for some interesting speculation, doesn’t it.”
“Jesus, I guess,” McGarvey said sitting back. “What else?”
“That’s it except for one little item concerning you. Seems as if you knew Karl Boorsch.”
McGarvey nodded. “We had a run-in a few years ago.”
“Did you recognize him at the airport?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t report it. That may have generated some suspicion. You have some enemies at Langley, among them the Company’s general counsel.”
“Ryan.”
“Right,” Rencke said. “Listen, Mac, I may be reading between the lines, but I think they might be on a witch-hunt out there, and you may be one of their primary targets.”
“I can take care of myself. But I want you to destroy your enter and search program.
If someone gets wind of the fact that you’ve been…?
“Dallying in the valley they’ll put me in jail and throw away the key.” Rencke smiled.
“Before they did that I’d unleash Ralph.”
“Ralph?”
“He’s a super-virus. Wouldn’t be a computer program or memory load in the entire defense-intelligence community left intact. And I don’t even need my computer to activate it. I only need access to a telephone.” Rencke was grinning maliciously.
“They won’t fuck with me and get away with it.”
It was after one in the afternoon when McGarvey showed up at the main gate to the CIA’s headquarters at Langley. He’d rented a car from Hertz, and he waited behind the wheel while one of the civilian contract guards notified Phil Carrara that he had a guest. The reaction was almost immediate.
The guard came back out, a tense expression on his face. “Do you have any identification, Mr. McGarvey?”
McGarvey handed out his passport, and the guard took it back inside. Two other guards came out, but they remained across the road, watching him.
A half minute later the first guard came out and returned McGarvey’s passport, as well as a visitor’s pass for the car and a plastic lapel pass.
“Drive straight up under the entry canopy, sir. Mr. Carrara is coming down.”
“Thanks,” McGarvey said, and he drove the quarter mile up through the woods and out into the broad clearing where the headquarters building stood.
It’d been a while since he’d been here last, and the old wounds, both mental as well as physical, gave him a twinge. He’d given a lot of himself to this place, or to its ideal, yet he never had been able to clearly answer his own question: Why?
In the old days he’d convinced himself that it was a matter of honor, but in the last days he’d come to realize that he had no real idea what that word meant.
Carrara was waiting at the main entrance when McGarvey parked his car in the visitors spot. “Do you pull this crap just to thumb your nose at the establishment?” the DDO
asked angrily.
McGarvey had to smile. “Somebody has to do it, Phil. Otherwise you people would begin to take yourselves too seriously.”
Chapter 22
McGarvey had to sign in at the main desk and be searched with a metal detector before he was allowed to go up on the elevator with Carrara. He’d disassembled his Walther and hidden it among his toiletries back at the hotel. He didn’t think the pistol would be confiscated today, but he hadn’t wanted to take any chances. He figured he’d be needing it soon.
“Your ex-wife is upset with us, and you,” Carrara said on the way up.
“Can you blame her? It was a dumb move, sending your people out there like that.”
Carrara looked at him. “Were you so sure that they were ours?”
“The only people in the world who wear plaid sport coats and have short haircuts are your Technical Services legmen. And maybe the odd used-car salesman.”
“Tom Lynch said he was quite explicit when he passed the general’s orders along to you.”
“I’m not on the payroll, Phil. I don’t take orders from Murphy. Besides, I had a few things to do in Europe first. And I did come here under my own power.”
“Whered you go in such a hurry this morning?”
McGarvey ignored the question, and moments later the elevator opened on the seventh floor. McGarvey had to sign in again with security people, and this time he was subjected to a hands-on search as well as a metal detector walkthrough. Murphy’s personal bodyguard waited in the outer office, and he carefully scrutinized both McGarvey and Carrara when they were passed through by the general’s secretary.
Murphy’s office was huge, and very well appointed, with a large desk, bookcases, a leather couch and chairs, and a bank of television monitors and communications equipment. Large windows looked out over the beautiful rolling hills to the south.
Lawrence Danielle and Tom Doyle were seated across from Murphy, who was talking to someone on the phone. When Carrara came in with McGarvey he hung up.
“Welcome home,” he said.
“Thank you, General, but I don’t know yet if it’s good to be back. Or, how long I’ll be here.”
“There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you, and then we’ll offer you another assignment. If you’re willing, and if you’re up to it.”
“I thought as much,” McGarvey said.
Murphy motioned him and Carrara to take seats and he picked up his telephone and buzzed his secretary. “Ask Howard to step in for a moment, would you?” He hung up.
“I’m sorry about your two people aboard one-four-five,” McGarvey said.
Murphy nodded. “I understand your friend from Switzerland was also aboard. Quite an unhappy coincidence.”
