worked for the DI. With her new operational designation it only took fifteen minutes to get into the archival section for former personnel where she called up her father’s extensive file. Within the first five minutes of reading, her mouth had dropped open and stayed there until she was called back upstairs around ten.
Her father was James Bond personified. He’d been everywhere, done everything, and had accomplished in spades every single assignment he’d ever been given. Four presidents had given him secret citations, and every DCI and DDO, except for Ryan, gave him glowing marks. If she’d read correctly between the lines, her father had literally saved the country from war in the Pacific eighteen months ago. Before that he’d saved Los Angeles and San Francisco from a nuclear attack by a Japanese terrorist. Although he’d not been on the Company’s payroll for years, it seemed that each time the CIA got itself into a jam, they called on her father to help them out.
He’d been wounded numerous times, had lost a kidney in one operation, and Phil Carrara, a former boss who had himself been killed in the line of duty, had written that more than any other person in the CIA, McGarvey had done the most to help win the Cold War, a sentiment even President Lindsay wholeheartedly endorsed.
Several times during her reading, she had to choke back tears. Her father had given his entire life to his country, but in public he was a nothing, and in private Howard Ryan, the third most powerful man in America’s intelligence community, despised him. On top of that he thought that his parents had been spies. A shame that he’d carried with him for all of his adult life.
There was so much that she wanted to say to him, so many things she wanted to tell him, so much she wanted to know, but none of it mattered one whit to her. The only thing that mattered was that she loved him with all of her soul. More now than when she was a little girl and fantasized about him and her mother getting back together. So much that she could hardly “contain herself from bubbling over.
Her mother, wearing a white bathrobe, her hair bundled up in a towel, opened the front door of the house and beckoned to her.
Elizabeth got out of her car and hurried up the walk to her mother, and pecked her on the cheek. “Hi, Mother.”.
“What are you doing here in Washington, and why didn’t you come right in? Why were you sitting there like a lump on a log?” Kathleen McGarvey demanded. She was almost as tall as her daughter, and even more beautiful in a classic sense. Her neck was long, her features sharply denned, her lips full, her high cheekbones delicately arched, and her eyes brilliantly green. Although she was nearly fifty, she could have passed for a haute couture fashion model anywhere in the world. Her beauty was timeless, like Audrey Hepburn’s and Jackie Kennedy’s had been.
“I was trying to figure out the best way of telling you what I have to tell you. There’s so much of it, I don’t know where to start.”
They went inside, and Kathleen gave her daughter a sharply appraising look. “Good heavens you’re not pregnant, are you, dear?”
“No, Mother, I’m not pregnant. But if I were I’d be at an abortion clinic, not here. I’m not ready to have kids.”
Kathleen patted down a strand of her daughter’s hair. “No, I don’t expect you are ready,” she said wistfully. “Nor am I quite ready to become a grandmother. Now, when did you get into Washington?” she asked as they went into the kitchen.
The coffee was ready, and Elizabeth got them a couple of cups. “About six months ago.”
“Oh?” Kathleen said, pouring the coffee.
Elizabeth perched on one of the stools at the counter across from her mother, and sipped her coffee. She could have used a cigarette, but that was something she definitely wasn’t ready to tell her mother. “I got a job here in town, but I wanted to wait until I was sure it was going to work out before I told you about it.”
Kathleen sipped delicately at her coffee. “Would you care for something to eat, Elizabeth? I could warm up some cinnamon rolls, you like those.”
“Just coffee, Mom.”
“Mother,” Kathleen corrected automatically. She didn’t like abbreviations or diminutives. Elizabeth, not Liz. And Kathleen, not Katy. It was a habit she’d never been able to break her husband of.
“Sorry,” Elizabeth mumbled, lowering her eyes.
“I see,” Kathleen said. “Look at me please.”
Elizabeth looked up.
“I’m not going to like what you’re going to tell me very much, am I?”
“Probably not. I’m working for the Central Intelligence Agency. In the Directorate of Operations, just like Daddy.”.
Kathleen’s composure slipped a little, but she brought it back. “Your father has done very good, even great things for his country. I’m sure you know that. But do you know exactly what his job was?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then I only hope for your sake that you don’t exactly follow in his footsteps, Elizabeth. But I’m sure that you will do very well at whatever it is they want you to do.” It was a brave speech, but Kathleen had to turn away, her eyes glistening.
“I’m sorry, Mother. But it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
“I would have thought that after Greece you would have changed your mind.”
Four years ago Elizabeth and her mother had been kidnapped by an organization of former East German intelligence officers who wanted to force McGarvey into a trap and kill him. But her father had beat them all. The experience had nearly destroyed her mother.
“Greece made me want it even more.”
“I see,” Kathleen said, once again facing her daughter. “So you came this morning to break the news to me, is that it? Or is there more?”
“I came to ask for your help. I’m trying to find Daddy.”
“He’s in Paris at his old apartment.”
“He’s gone. We think he’s in hiding.”
Kathleen’s face turned white. It wasn’t the reaction Elizabeth had expected. “Howard Ryan wants to find him, and that miserable, fucking son of a bitch is using you to do it.”
Elizabeth was shocked to the bottom of her soul. Never in her life had she heard her mother utter a swearword, let alone a combination like that. Her mouth dropped open for the second time in the past twelve hours.
“Close your mouth, dear,” Kathleen said, and she picked up the telephone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Roland Murphy. And if I don’t get satisfaction from him, I’ll call Jim Lindsay.”
“Mother, you can’t call the DCI and you can’t call the President. I volunteered for this assignment, and I’ll do it with or without you. But Daddy needs my help and I’m going to give it to him. His life could depend on it.”
Kathleen put the telephone down. “Listen to me, darling. I know Howard Ryan. He’s a pompous ass, but he’s a powerful pompous ass who is an expert at manipulating people. He has a grudge against your father, and he means to use you to get back at him.”
“I didn’t think you knew that much about Daddy’s career.”
“I’m not stupid, Elizabeth. I hear things and I see things. But just because I cannot live with your father, doesn’t mean I stopped loving him.”
Elizabeth’s throat was tight, and her stomach hollow. “Why,” she asked softly.
“I cannot live with an … assassin.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you still loved Daddy.”
“You weren’t ready,” Kathleen said. She studied her daughter’s face. “I’m not certain you’re ready yet. But Howard Ryan is a dangerous man, darling.”
“All the more reason for me to find my father as soon as I can. I have to warn him.”
Again Kathleen studied her daughter’s face. “You are your father’s daughter. Stubborn.”
“You dig your heels in too, Mother.”
Kathleen smiled wanly. “If he’s gone into hiding he won’t be out of touch. He always arranges for a contact who can keep him informed with what’s happening on the outside. He told me that one of his worst fears was dying alone and being buried in an unmarked grave somewhere.”
“What did you say to him, Mother?”
