McGarvey couldn’t assimilate what he was seeing. He had stepped into an alien world, a place that bore no relationship to his wife and their home. This wasn’t Kathleen’s doing. Not this. The scratching, nagging was back. The waterfall hurling itself down a million feet to crash madly on the jagged rocks drowned out rational thought. “Katy,”
he said softly. Her back was to him. She didn’t turn around, but her shoulders stiffened a little. “That’s it,” she said in a perfectly normal voice. “They’ve finally beat us.” McGarvey went to her, and she looked up into his face. “Elizabeth won’t want to have children now.
Not after this,” she said. She shrugged. “So, they win.” McGarvey felt as if he was looking into the eyes of a total stranger. “Who are they?” “I don’t know, Kirk. But you’ll have to stop them, you know.
They’ll never give up until we’re all dead. Elizabeth, Todd, Otto, you, me.” She spoke in a conversational tone of voice; very matter-of-fact, as if she were discussing the weather or what’s for supper. The effect was chilling. It wasn’t that he was looking into the eyes of a stranger, he suddenly thought. He was seeing nothing there. No one was at home. Katy’s emotions were gone, disappeared, or whatever. Burned out. “We have to stop them for good this time,” she said. “Because I don’t think that I can stand much more.” “We will,”
McGarvey said, holding her. She was shivering. There was a little blood on the side of her neck, where she had cut herself with flying glass or something. Her hair was mussed up, and her makeup was smeared. “How did you know about the accident?” “Oh, Otto called. He didn’t want me to worry.” It was another blow. McGarvey wasn’t surprised that Otto knew, only that he had called to break the news to Kathleen. It was callous. Thoughtless, even for Otto. More than that, it was cruel.
Someone came in downstairs. McGarvey heard the front door, then the murmur of conversation in the stair hall He supposed that it was Dr.
Stenzel. The future that had seemed so bright just a few weeks ago, was now dark and empty. Perhaps even meaningless. Dr. Stenzel knocked softly on the doorframe. Kathleen stiffened in McGarvey’s arms. She straightened up and stepped back. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Her left eyebrow arched. “I’m going to give you a sedative, then take you to the hospital,” Stenzel told her as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to say. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” Stenzel surveyed the damage in the room. “Who did all of this?” Kathleen refused to look. “I received some bad news,” she said. “I know. But it’s not your fault.” “It’s someone’s fault.”
“Yes, but not yours,” Stenzel said. He motioned for McGarvey to leave.
“No,” Kathleen blurted, clutching her husband’s arm. “It’ll be just a couple of days, Katy,” McGarvey assured her. “You’re overloaded.
You’re burning out. You can’t keep going like this. You have to get some rest.” “That’s stupid,” she said. “I’m not a fucking invalid, or something.” She shot Stenzel a vicious look. “Strap me in some goddamn bed, shoot me full of shit. I can’t go through that, Kirk. Not that.” She was losing it again. McGarvey gathered her in his arms and held her tight. Stenzel opened an alcohol towelette and swabbed a spot on her bare arm above the elbow. He took a hypodermic syringe from a small case in his pocket. “Jesus Christ, don’t let them do this to me, Kirk!” she shouted. She tried to struggle away from him, but Stenzel quickly gave her the shot. “Goddammit,” she said. She continued to struggle for several seconds, but then she started to sag. She looked up into her husband’s face, her anger gone. “Fuck it,” she said.
“Just fuck it.”
MONDAY
TWENTY-FOUR
WAS IT A MONSTER COMING AFTER THEM? IN THEIR MIDST? COMING TO SCRATCH AT KATY’S SANITY? COMING TO KILL THEM ALL?
McGarvey spent a tense night with Kathleen at the hospital. Even though she was sedated, she had a troubled sleep. He went home long enough to grab a quick shower and change clothes, then got back to the hospital a few minutes after eight. Katy was still asleep. Peggy Vaccaro and Janis Westlake were on station in the hall along with a couple of men Yemm had brought over from Security. Dr. Stenzel was just coming out of her room. “How is she?” McGarvey asked. “She’s still sleeping, and I want to keep her groggy all day,” Stenzel said.
He took McGarvey down the hall to the doctors’ lounge, where he got them coffee. The hospital was busy this morning. What’s wrong with her?” McGarvey asked. “Well, she’s exhausted, for one, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Stenzel said. He was careful with his words. “She could have had a nervous breakdown. Her mind simply shut down. But I rather doubt that.” “Did they tell you what she did?”
Stenzel nodded. “I’ve called Bob Love, a neurologist friend of mind, to look at her. The Company has used him from time to time. He’s about the best in the business. He said that he’d stop by around nine this morning. I expect he’ll order some pictures, probably a CAT scan, an MRI, an EEC, then some blood work and possibly a lumbar tap.” “What are you looking for?” “Physical causes first,” Stenzel said. “Maybe a lesion in her brain. Maybe unbalanced sugar in her spinal fluid, something going haywire with her blood chemistry.” He shook his head.
“Maybe even temporal-lobe epilepsy. We’re not ruling anything out.”
“Did they tell you everything she said and did?” Stenzel nodded. “Are there any drugs in the house?” “If you mean marijuana or speed and shit like that, no. We’re both pretty conservative people.” “Right,”
Stenzel replied dryly. “Did you ever see the movie The Exorcist)”
“What, do you think she’s possessed?” McGarvey asked. He wasn’t amused. “No. But I think your wife’s problem is in her head, not in her physical brain or in her blood. But we have to eliminate all the obvious things first, which Bob Love is going to do for us.” “Assuming it is in her head, then what?” Stenzel shrugged. “Then I give her some tests.” “Like the ones you gave Otto?” “More or less. We’ll try to find out what’s bothering her in a general way, then narrow it down step-by-step until we get to the specific problem or problems. Sorta like a jigsaw puzzle. We’re looking for the one piece that makes some kind of sense out of the rest.” “What’s your gut reaction?” McGarvey asked. “You talked to the doctors in San Juan, and you talked to her when we got back. Now this.” Stenzel frowned. “I don’t know. I mean someone is trying to kill her husband and now her daughter. Any woman would pitch a fit under the same circumstances,” he told McGarvey. “But it’d be just that. She’d raise holy hell and demand that the people she loved were pulled off the firing line right now. Nothing would stand in her way. You know, like the mama bear and her cubs. Threaten her babies and watch out.”
“But that’s not what she’s done,” McGarvey said. He was tired, mentally as well as physically.
“No. Which leads me to suspect that something else is going on.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry about your daughter. But from what I’m told she’ll mend.”
“Physically,” McGarvey replied. Another stab of pain tore at his heart. Liz’s baby had been a girl.
“This will pass, Mr. Director,” Stenzel said with sympathy. “Bob Love will check out your wife, and by this time tomorrow we’ll have a much better idea what we’re dealing with and we can go on from there.”
McGarvey rose to go. “I can’t walk away from the CIA with this hanging over our heads.”
Stenzel shook his head. “It wouldn’t do your wife any good if you did.
Right now she needs stability. Change, any sort of change, would be bad for her.” He gave McGarvey a critical look. “Any idea who’s gunning for you and your family? Or why?”
“A couple,” McGarvey said. “We’re working on it.”
“Then go do your job and let me do mine. You can’t help your wife by staying here. She wouldn’t have any idea that you were in the room even if you were holding her hand.”
McGarvey knew better. “Take care of her, Doctor.”
“Count on it.”
