there looking for a place to happen, so he’d pushed the people he cared about away from him; out of harm’s way, he’d always hoped. But it had never worked, and it certainly hadn’t worked with Jacqueline.
They’d been sitting here almost at this exact spot, having drinks, when he told her that it was no good. That she might as well return to Paris, because it was never going to work out for them. She’d started to cry, and McGarvey clearly remembered holding himself back with everything in his power from reaching out for her hand, and apologizing for being such a bastard. It was for the best, her going home. There was no future here for her. She was a French intelligence officer who’d been sent to keep an eye on McGarvey while he lived in Paris, and she’d fallen in love with him. Too bad for her, too bad for all of them, because she’d followed him back to the States and had gotten herself killed.
McGarvey glanced out at the street. Jacqueline had been on the way out of the restaurant when the black Mercedes came barreling around the corner. Something, some sixth sense, had warned him just in time to hit the deck when the bomb had been tossed out the back window of the car, landing right at Jacqueline’s feet. He closed his eyes.
Kathleen reached out and laid a hand on his, her touch gentle.
“There was nothing left of her, Katy. Not a god dammed thing. Nothing even remotely recognizable as human.” Elizabeth had come up from the Farm with him, and they were all supposed to go out to dinner somewhere that night. She’d been returning from the bathroom when the bomb was tossed, and McGarvey had managed to pull her behind a table where she escaped the. brunt of the massive explosion. Two dozen people had been killed, and twice that many hurt. The visions would not go away.
Kathleen was watching the play of emotions on his face. “You saved our daughter’s life, my darling. And you got the people who did that horrible thing, and in the process you saved a lot of other lives. That counts for something, even if you don’t want to take the credit.”
McGarvey couldn’t trust himself to speak. She hadn’t insisted on coming here for herself, she’d pushed him into coming back so that he could deal with it for himself.
Kathleen straightened up. “Time to put it behind you. It’s over now.” She picked up her wine glass. “To us,” she said.
McGarvey wanted to say that the fight was never over; that there would always be some sonofabitch out there with a score to settle, political or religious, or sometimes both, but he raised his glass anyway, and smiled. “To us.”
They touched glasses and drank. Her expression darkened for a moment. “I’m sorry I brought it all back for you.”
“Don’t be. Not tonight,” McGarvey said. This time his smile was genuine because he’d managed to push the demons back one more time, and because he had his own reason for coming here tonight.
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
McGarvey opened his menu. “If we’re going to make the curtain we’d better order something now.”
“Something’s going on, I can see it in your face.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” McGarvey said innocently. Her father had told him once that keeping a secret from his daughter was impossible.
“You do,” she said sternly. She had the / demand look on her face.
The waiter came and refilled their glasses. “Would you care to order now?”
“Not yet,” Kathleen said sharply. “Give us a few minutes.”
“Of course, madame.”
“What’s going on, Kirk?” she asked.
“This may be the wrong place for this. I was going to wait until after the symphony. I thought we’d go someplace for champagne afterward.” He was suddenly enjoying himself, but he kept a straight face.
“Is this about work?”
No, It’s about us.” He took a ring box from his pocket and set it in front of her.
She smiled uncertainly, almost afraid to touch it.
“I can’t do anything about the past, Katy,” he said seriously. “Neither of us can. It’s time now to get on with it.” He looked at the little velvet box. “It was my mother’s.” His heart was in his throat.
She slowly opened the box, and her eyes immediately misted over. She looked up, questioningly, and when he nodded, she took the ring out. It was a small diamond in an inexpensive old-fashioned setting. It was all his father had been able to afford on the salary of an engineer working at Los Alamos on the bomb in the forties. But it had meant everything to his mother, and it meant everything to him now.
“Let’s start over again, Katy. Do it right this time. Will you marry me?”
A tender look came over her. “I’ve always loved you, you know. I never stopped,” she said. “But I don’t think that I ever loved you more than I do right now.” She reached again for his hand. “Yes, my darling, I’ll marry you, and this time we’ll make it work … together.”
On the way back to Kathleen’s home after the concert, they rode very close together like young lovers in the back of the taxi. McGarvey had dismissed his car and bodyguard for the remainder of the evening, and he was glad he had done it. Tonight was personal, anonymous.
At the house she went up the — walk to open the door as McGarvey paid the cabby, and when he joined her, she’d already started up the stairs.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Just you.”
He locked up, turned off the hall light, and started up the stairs when the telephone rang. Kathleen answered it in the bedroom on the second ring. He could hear her muffled voice, and when he got to the head of the stairs she came to the bedroom door, a vexed look on her face.
“They’re sending your car for you.”
“What’s happened?”
“It was Otto. He didn’t say, except that it was worse than lavender this time.”
His heart stopped. Rencke never exaggerated. Lavender was his code word for something very bad. Worst- case scenario.
“I’m sorry, Katy.”
“Kathleen,” she corrected automatically. “Be careful.”
He took her in his arms, and kissed her deeply. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”
Headlights flashed in the driveway. She shook her head sadly. “You’ll never change,” she said, and when she saw the look of pain in his eyes it took her breath away. “But I will,” she told him.
He climbed in the back seat of the Cadillac limousine, and his driver, Dick Yemm, immediately pulled out and headed off at a high speed. “Sorry to bust in on you like this, boss. Mr. Adkins held down the fort for as long as he could until we could get a better handle on the situation.”
“Okay, Dick what’s the story?”
“Alien Trumble was shot to death about six hours ago down in Orlando.” Yemm was a very small, compact man, as rigid and as tough as bar steel, but he was shaking.
It was like a ton of bricks had fallen on McGarvey’s head, but he held himself in check. “Do we have somebody with Gloria and the kids?”
“They got them too, along with a couple of innocent bystanders.” Yemm viciously cut a driver off and ran a stop sign. “Sonofabitch, boss. Sonofabitch.”
The news was simply unbelievable, impossible to digest; it was a random act of violence, like a lightning bolt. Except he knew that it hadn’t been random. “What took us so long?” he demanded.
“The Bureau didn’t find out that Alien worked for us until after eight, and by the time the duty office made contact with Mr. Adkins it was late. Nobody could believe it. We thought it was some stupid mistake.”
Already they were out of Chevy Chase on Western Avenue, their speed topping one hundred miles per hour. Luckily traffic was light. Yemm radioed his position to the duty dispatcher. “Hammerhead is enroute. ETA about twenty.”
Although Yemm was only a driver bodyguard he was the DDO’s bodyguard and he kept his ears open. It didn’t hurt that he was smart in addition to being tough. He was an ex-SEAL, and he and McGarvey had a lot of
