this with Otto. Just as he knew that he was the only one to confront him; he was the only person on the face of the earth other than Louise Horn to whom Otto would listen. Stenzel had warned him that confronting Otto head-to- head might drive him over the edge. But then he might already be over the edge and looking for a way back. Sometimes behavior like Otto’s signaled a desperate plea for help. “There’s simply no way to know for sure until he falls apart and we can pick up the pieces.” “It’s okay,” McGarvey said. He wanted to put his arm around Otto’s shoulder, friend-to-friend. But he didn’t dare. Otto was simply too fragile now. “It’s okay. Just tell me what you can. I need something to go on.” Otto stopped dancing as if he were a mechanical toy winding down. McGarvey glanced toward the active runway.
Liz’s plane would touch down soon. She was another fragile spirit he would have to find the strength to protect and comfort. But they still had a few minutes. Otto was staring at him. “In August one of my search programs came up with a hit,” Otto said softly, as if he were afraid of being overheard. “An old KGB general was found shot to death in his Moscow apartment. A suicide. But there were questions.” “What search program?” McGarvey asked. “I got the idea last year when I was digging through your old operational files.” Otto was hesitant.
McGarvey nodded reassuringly for him to go on. “You crossed paths with some bad people. I thought that maybe someday one of them might come looking for you. Revenge, ya know. Settle old scores. You pissed off some serious dudes.” McGarvey watched him. Otto was choosing his words with care. With too much care. There were things that he knew that he did not want to reveal. “Who was he?” “Gennadi Zhuralev.
Nobody important, except that he worked for Baranov, and that program was watching for Baranov connections.” “Was he murdered?” Otto shrugged. “Probably. But what got me interested was that another old Baranov hand, Anatoli Nikolayev, went missing the very same day, and within twenty-four hours the SVR launched an all-out search for him.
That was too coincidental for me.” “The Russians traced him to France, and so did you.” “That’s right.” “But why, Otto?” McGarvey asked.
“Why have you gone through all the trouble to find some old Russian?”
“Because the SVR wanted him big-time. So I figured he had to be worth something.” McGarvey shook his head. “I don’t buy it. People disappear from Russia all the time, most of them smuggling something valuable out with them. They’re draining the country, so the SVR wants them back. The FBI usually gets those requests for help, but Fred Rudolph has heard nothing.” “He was a Baranov man,” Otto said lamely.
“Baranov is dead, and Nikolayev is very old. Where’s the interest?”
“He didn’t want to forget,” Otto said with difficulty. “Forget what?
What do you mean?” “He was reading the old files. Interviewing people.” “Baranov’s files? Department Viktor people?” Otto nodded.
“Including my involvement?” McGarvey asked. Otto nodded again. “So what?” McGarvey said, but then he stopped himself. “He found out something that somebody in Moscow doesn’t want found out.” Otto watched him but said nothing. “It has something to do with what’s happening around here. Where’s the connection, Otto? Where’s the lavender?” Rencke flinched as if he had been burned. “I’m not sure, Mac. Honest injun.” “It’s some operation that lay dormant for all these years until Nikolayev stumbles on it. He hits a trip wire, and the thing starts.” McGarvey focused on Otto. “What is it?” Otto was vibrating again, a look of terror on his face. “You found Nikolayev, and you must have made contact with him. Is that right?” Otto shook his head. “Goddammit, you didn’t come back from France empty-handed. I know you didn’t. What did you find out?” Otto’s lips worked as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. “Spotlight is your operation to find out what Nikolayev is up to. And you found out something.
What?” Yemm came around the corner of the building. McGarvey spotted him and angrily waved him back. “Their plane is on final, boss,” Yemm shouted. “You have about five minutes.” He turned and went into the hangar. McGarvey turned back to Rencke with a mixture of frustration, pity and anger. “Somebody is trying to kill me. Or at the very least stop me from becoming DCI. A number of our people have pegged you as the chief suspect. They think that you’ve gone around the bend.” Otto hung his head. “I know.” “You can’t do this alone, Otto. You can’t fight the war by your seE Let me help. It’s what I do for my friends.
It’s the least I can do.” “Network Martyrs,” Otto mumbled. McGarvey’s eyes narrowed. Something in the sudden mood shift as Otto spoke the words was disturbing. “Was that a Baranov operation?” “Like CESTA and Banco del Sur, but a lot more specific.” Otto was desperately afraid of something. “Nikolayev found the file at Lefortovo.” “How do you know that?” McGarvey asked. It was a reasonable question under the circumstances. “Did you talk to him when you were in France?” “No.
He was in Paris, but I didn’t see him. I couldn’t. Somebody tried to kill him in front of the Louvre. They killed another man instead. The one Nikolayev had gone to see. Just like Zhuralev in Moscow.” “Was he another Baranov man?” “Valdimir Trofimov. He was BaranoVs special assistant for about ten years.” Otto looked off in the distance as the CIA’s Gulfstream approached the end of the field for a landing.
“Nikolayev doesn’t have all the answers either.” “How do you know?”
“He wouldn’t be running for his life.” “What about Network Martyrs?”
“He was living in an apartment in Montmartre. I found a scrap of paper with the name.” “Now we’re getting somewhere. We can give this to Tom Lynch. His people can search the apartment. They might find something we can use.” Lynch was chief of the CIA’s Paris station. “The Russians have already been there. They were right on my heels.” “Did you get the scrap of paper?” Otto looked down and shook his head.
“No. But I hacked the SVR’s mainframe in Moscow.” He looked up.
“Baranov planted a very deep cover agent here in the States almost twenty years ago. When the time was right the agent would be activated and would assassinate the target.” Otto blinked furiously. “The target is you, Mac. Oh, wow, and the agent has been activated.” The hairs prickled on the back of McGarvey’s neck. “Who is the assassin?”
“I don’t know,” Otto said, unable to meet McGarvey’s eyes. He was lying again. He knew, or at the very least he suspected who it might be. “It’s someone close,” McGarvey said. “We know that much. Do you have a list?” “Not one that has any meaning. Nothing makes any sense.” Otto started to dance from foot to foot again. There it was again. The business about trust. If he couldn’t trust his friends, who the hell was left?
“I have my own list,” McGarvey admitted. “You’re on it. So is Yemm.”
Maybe he had suspected all along that Baranov would come back. The look in the general’s eyes when he died wasn’t one of defeat, but rather one of cunning and malevolence. Bravado, as he lay bleeding to death outside East Berlin, or some knowledge that he would get his revenge in the end?
McGarvey had never really understood Baranov’s motivation for coming after him. If the Russians had wanted McGarvey dead, they’d had plenty of opportunities to put a bullet in the back of his head. No one could go through life without making a mistake.
Now he had to wonder again, if indeed this was a Baranov operation that had been put in place more than twenty years ago.
Was the general’s desire for revenge nothing more than insanity? Some international game of chess played for a grudge? A vengeance game? It was probably something they would never know for sure, because the only man who understood was dead.
Pride? Ego? Saving face?
The Gulfstream touched down with a puff of smoke from its tires. “I’ll find Nikolayev, but we gotta keep Paris station out of it,” Otto said.
“If the Russians find out that we’re after him, too, there’s no telling what’ll happen. If they get to him first, they’ll kill him, just like they did Zhuralev and Trofimov. They want to bury the mess that Baranov made. We’d never know the whole truth until it was too late.”
Otto looked up, pleading. “Don’t you see, Mac, you gotta let me work on it my way.”
A towing vehicle came across the apron and pulled up where the Gulfstream would stop. The driver glanced over at McGarvey and Otto, then looked away. A gas truck came from the same direction and pulled up as Yemm came out of the hangar.
“I don’t think we have a lot of time left,” McGarvey said. “Don’t screw around, I can’t give you much more slack.”
“I’m trying,” Otto said quietly. “I’m trying real hard to keep it together.”
McGarvey watched as the Gulfstream came toward them, not at all sure what he was going to say to his
