“Thank you,” he said. He gave Paterson a nod. “Two o’clock it is. But see if you can find out what’s on the agenda.” “I’ll try,” Paterson said, and he left. McGarvey hit the button for three. “Good morning, Todd. How are you doing?” He tried to keep his tone reasonably upbeat. “Better,” Todd answered. “At least Liz finally got some real sleep last night. Doctor Hanover says he’ll let us get out of here tomorrow morning.” “We’ll send the Gulfstream for you,” McGarvey said.
“It’s early out there, but is she awake yet? Can she talk?” “The doctor came in a couple of hours ago. He’s with her right now. I’m out in the hall. I’ll see how long it’ll be ”
“Wait,” McGarvey stopped him. “How are you doing, son?” Todd took a few moments to answer. “I can’t get the sound out of my head. When she hit the tree.” He was shaky now. “I thought she was dead. But when I saw the blood I knew that we’d lost the baby. Again.” “There’ll be another one.”
McGarvey’s heart was breaking for his son-in-law. But there wasn’t a thing he could do for him. “I don’t know if we can go through that again.” “Don’t give up on each other,” McGarvey flared. “Goddammit, Todd. You’re young. You’re both tough.” “Yeah.” “Have you talked to your folks?” “My dad called. They wanted to come out here, but I told them that we’d be back sometime tomorrow.” “Do they know what really happened?” “No. It was just a stupid skiing accident.” “It’s better to keep them out of it.” “I know,” Todd said. “How is Mrs. M.?” “We put her in the hospital yesterday afternoon. She’s taking this very hard, so they have her on some pretty serious sedatives. And they’re running some tests this morning.” Todd fell silent again for a few seconds. “I didn’t recognize her voice I when she called here. It was like she was a complete stranger. Anyway, how did she find out so soon?” “Apparently Otto told her. Did he call you?” “No,” Todd said.
“But that was stupid of him.” “Yeah. We’re still working on the why.
But he’s disappeared.” “Christ, don’t tell me that they got to him.”
“We don’t think so. At least Louise doesn’t think so. We’ll find out when he turns up.” “Okay, here comes the doctor,” Todd said. “Hang on a minute.” Ms. Swanfeld came to the door. “Mr. Yemm is here. Can you see him now?” McGarvey looked up and nodded. “Send him in.” Yemm came in, and McGarvey motioned him to have a seat. Todd came back on the line. “She’s fine. Unless something develops today, or sometime overnight, she can get out of here first thing in the morning.” “Good.
I’ll get Security on getting you back here. Does she know what happened to her?” “If you mean about the bindings being rigged, no. I haven’t told her yet.” “That’s okay for now. But she’ll have to be debriefed when you get back. She might have heard or seen something.”
“I’ll bring the phone to her,” Todd said. Yemm was grim-lipped, as if he was the bearer of more bad news. There didn’t seem to be any end to it. Elizabeth came on the line. She sounded sleepy, distant; she was drifting. “Hello, Daddy. I want to come home now.” If McGarvey could have reached through the telephone to cradle his baby in his arms and pull her back to him he would have done it. “You’re coming home in the morning, sweetheart. How do you feel?” “Achy,” she said. “And tired,” she added after a longish pause. “Get some rest, Liz. Do what the doctor tells you to do, and you’ll be home in the morning.” The line was dead for a moment or two. “Daddy?” Elizabeth said in a tiny voice. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry ”
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” McGarvey soothed. “Everything will be okay, I promise you. Your mother and I love you very much. Don’t forget that.” “That’s enough,” Todd came back on the line. He sounded matter-of-fact, not angry. “Take care of her, Todd,” McGarvey said. “And yourself. We’ll see you in the morning.” “We’re going to find out who did this.” “Count on it “
“There’ll be no trial, Dad,” Todd said, his voice harsh. “No trial.”
He broke the connection, and McGarvey hung up.
“How are they doing, boss?” Yemm asked. It took a moment for him to come back. “They’ll be coming home in the morning. Send a Gulfstream.” “We’ll get it out there this afternoon so it’ll be standing by when they’re ready,” Yemm said. “I found Otto. Or at least I found out where he got himself off to. He went to France.
Commandeered an Aurora and took off from Andrews yesterday afternoon.
Late. He logged the flight to what he called Special Operation Spotlight. I checked. There is no such operation.” The Aurora was the air force’s new spy plane, replacing the SR71 Blackbird. It flew to the edge of space at Mach 7. Based in New Mexico, it had been a very black project. Damned few people knew that it existed or that it was operational. “Where’d it land?” “Pontoise. The French air force base outside of Paris,” Yemm said. “We’re still trying to unravel how he got the clearances not only from the French, but from our own air force.” “Is he still there?” “The airplane is,” Yemm said. “The French don’t know what to make of it, and I didn’t think that it was such a good idea to make a fuss. It’s better to go along with him for now.” “I’ll have Dave Whittaker call the Paris station to be on the lookout for him. Any idea what he’s doing over there? Specifically?”
“NikolayeVs name comes to mind,” Yemm replied. He was having a hard time of it. Something was bothering him. “Otto got the Colorado search up and running. Chris Walker in the Ops Center logged Otto’s heads-up last night. It looks like Otto initiated his own Ex Comms under both Elizabeth’s and Todd’s work names. And he found them before Ops did. Then he phoned Mrs. M.” McGarvey fought down his fear. It wasn’t Otto who called the house. Nor had it been Otto in the computer center or in Dr. Stenzel’s office. A different personality had taken up residence in Otto’s body, and the implications that followed were nothing short of staggering. “We’ve pulled his files,” Yemm was saying. “Leastways the ones he hasn’t blocked out.” He averted his eyes. He was embarrassed. It was something new. “We’ve also looked at Stenzel’s report. The whole file on Otto, which goes back about twenty years.” “He’s done a lot of good things for the CIA.” “Yes, sir. But we think that he might be losing it. Stenzel agrees.” Yemm chose his words with care. “If that’s the case, then he could be a danger. At the very least he’s got the DO’s mainframe screwed up pretty good. And he’s running some kind of a maverick operation on his own.” “The old KGB. Nikolayev and Department Viktor.” “Yeah,” Yemm said. “The assassination squads.” The whispering was there again.
The nagging little voices at the back of McGarvey’s consciousness.
There was nothing he could put his finger on. Nothing concrete; all the more disturbing because of the vagueness. Was it a monster coming after them? In their midst? Coming to scratch at Katy’s sanity.
Coming to kill them all? “Otto was wearing his seat belt,” Yemm said, before McGarvey could give voice to that one objection. “He never used it before, by his own admission.” “He was worried ”
“I’m sorry, boss, but we gotta keep going on this one. Unless you order me to stop.”
McGarvey turned away and looked out the windows. Otto and Louise had been the only guests at the wedding except for Todd and Elizabeth.
Kathleen had taken him aside and straightened his bow tie, then given him a kiss on a freshly scrubbed cheek. “He cleans up good,” Louise said. She was proud of him. “Indeed he does,” Kathleen had replied.
There was just a moment there, an instant when everything had been absolute perfection. “Do it,” he told Yemm. He turned around. “But walk lightly, Dick. If he’s done nothing wrong, I don’t want him banged up. He’s having a hard enough time as it is. And if he’s guilty, he’ll be watching for someone to come after him. He’s capable of doing a lot of damage to the Agency. A lot of damage.” Yemm shook his head. “I think it stinks, too, boss. Big- time.”
TWENTY-FIVE
HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS FIGHTING NOW. AND FOR WHOM. IT WAS AS IF A VEIL HAD BEEN LIFTED FROM HIS EYES.
The limousine that carried McGarvey into the city from fortress CIA in the woods was a soft gray leather and smoked glass cocoon. As one crossed the river on the Roosevelt Bridge the Lincoln Memorial was off to the right, and the massive granite pile of the State Department was to the left. One hundred fifty years ago Lincoln dealt with a divided nation. Today State dealt with a divided world, and the director of Central Intelligence was supposed to be the one with all the answers.
Since a week ago Sunday his world had been turned upside down. They were under a siege mentality. Nothing was getting done. They were merely reacting to whatever came their way. And he was just as bad as
