daughter. What he could say that would help, except that he loved her. The tow vehicle driver guided the jet to a halt, then motioned for the pilot to cut the engines. They immediately began to spool down, and Yemm went over to help as the door came open and the stairs were lowered.
Otto stepped away from the car. “She’ll be okay, Mac, Todd will take care of her.” There was a note of something, desperation maybe, in his voice. But he was not lying. “Isn’t he on your list of suspects?”
McGarvey asked, even though the question was cruel. Otto looked sharply at him, surprise and a little doubt showing in his eyes.
“You’re kidding, right?” he said, but McGarvey didn’t know if he was kidding. All he knew was that once you started down the slippery slope of mistrust there oftentimes was no way back. He was trying, but he was sliding again. “Boss?” The jet’s stairs were down. Yemm stood by at the open door. He was waiting. McGarvey fixed a smile on his face and boarded the plane. The pilot on the flight deck gave him a nod.
“We had a smooth flight, Mr. Director,” he said. McGarvey glanced at him. “Thanks,” he said. His eyes slid past the copilot and the young woman who was the flight attendant, to his son-in-law, perched on the arm of Elizabeth’s seat, looking like he would take the head off anyone who so much as twitched near his wife. Then he looked at Liz, and his smile almost died. Elizabeth’s face was puffed up and badly bruised.
Her eyes were swollen half-shut and bloodshot. She wore one of Todd’s flannel shirts, her left arm was in a sling. It was obvious from the way she held herself that she was in pain, especially in her lower back. She shivered in anticipation. Her mouth was screwed up in a grimace that made it impossible to tell if she was wincing in a sudden sharp pain, or she was trying to smile. Her skin, where it wasn’t black-and-blue, was pale, almost translucent. Even without the marks, she was obviously a sick woman. The medical report McGarvey had read said that she had lost a significant amount of blood. It would take time for her to recover. “Hello, sweetheart,” McGarvey said soothingly. He went to her and gently kissed her forehead. She looked up at him just like she had when she was a little girl, before he and Katy had separated, waiting for him to tuck her in for the night and listen to her prayers. “You’re back home now, and everything’s going to be fine.” He glanced at Todd, who gave him a very determined look in return. “The doctors say that you’ll come out of this just fine. How do you feel?”
Her eyes squinted, and a couple of tears rolled down the side of her face. She picked a small, brown stuffed bear off the seat beside her and hugged it close with one arm. “They killed the baby, Daddy,” she said, her voice impossibly young. McGarvey almost lost it. She looked over her father’s shoulder. “Where’s Mom? Why isn’t she here?” “She wasn’t getting any rest, so the doctor put her in the hospital. Just for a couple of days. She’ll be home tomorrow.” “Was it because of me?” Elizabeth demanded. She looked up at Todd for support. He didn’t avoid her eyes. “Partly,” McGarvey admitted. “But whoever tried to get you, has tried to eliminate us, too. Which is why all of us are going to play it by the book and let Security do its job.” “Is she okay?” Elizabeth insisted. “She’ll be fine in a day or two. She just needs the rest, that’s all.” “Are you sure?” He nodded. She looked over her father’s shoulder again. Otto and Yemm had boarded the airplane and stood hunched over in the aisle. “Oh, wow, Liz, are you really okay?” Otto asked. “I’ll live,” Elizabeth replied. “Are you back at work?” “Yeah.” She brushed at a tear and faced her father.
“Okay, it’s over. Todd and I are back, and we’re going to find the bastards who are doing this to us.” Gone was the little girl. She had become the strong, determined young woman she prided herself on being.
A McGarvey. “You’re not going anywhere except to the hospital,”
McGarvey told her. “Yes, to see Mom ”
“And then the doctors. You’re not going anywhere until they give you a clean bill of health.” “I’m not going to lie around a hospital while someone tries to kill you. I don’t have a concussion, and I didn’t break any bones. I lost some blood and I lost the… baby.” Her breath caught in her throat.
“It’s happened to other women, and it’s happened to me before. But I’m not an invalid.” “No. But you’re my daughter,” said McGarvey, “and before you do anything you’re going to heal. They’ll probably want to hold you overnight, and if that’s what they want, that’s what they’ll get.” McGarvey looked up. “Right, Todd?” Elizabeth started to protest, but Todd shook his head. “Just listen for once, Liz. Please.
The rest of us can’t do our jobs if we have to ride herd on you.”
“I’m okay,” she shot back crossly. She started to rise, but she winced in pain and slumped back.
“Dick, call an ambulance,” McGarvey said.
“No,” Elizabeth protested. “I’ll go to the hospital, and I’ll stay there until they say I can go back to work.” She looked up defiantly.
“But no ambulance.”
“Okay, sweetheart, no ambulance. But I’ll hold you to your promise.”
Otto rode in the front with Yemm, the bulletproof divider up, while McGarvey rode with his battered daughter and son-in-law in the back. He wanted to get the story, the whole story, from her. He wasn’t going to bring up what Todd had told him before the weekend, that she and Otto had put their heads together and were working on something in secrecy.
He wanted it to come from her without pressure. She was too brittle now; the right push could send her over the edge. All of them were on the brink, but especially Katy and Otto and now Liz. She remembered skiing, but not the accident. “Todd was behind me. He was shouting for me to slow down.” She still held the teddy bear. She smoothed its pink bow. “I have to thank Ms. Swanfeld.” “The bear came from everybody upstairs,” McGarvey said. She nodded. “Somebody was holding my hand and calling my name. It was Doris, my work name, but I knew that I was supposed to respond, say something, anything.” She shook her head in vexation. “But it was like I was having a nightmare. I knew that I had to keep running, but it was impossible because I was up to my knees in glue.” She looked up at her father. “I knew that you were going to be mad at me.” “I’m not mad at you, Liz. It wasn’t your fault.” “If I hadn’t gone skiing-” “Then they would have tried something else. And maybe you wouldn’t have been so lucky.” She shuddered and looked away. “Some luck,” she muttered bitterly. “Why you?” McGarvey asked. He glanced at Otto, who was looking straight ahead, giving no indication that he knew what was being discussed in the back.
“I don’t know, Daddy,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t figure it out. If someone is trying to kill you, why come after me or Otto? And if they’re just trying to get you to quit, then they’ve got to start realizing that they’re going about it exactly the wrong way.” “Have you been working on anything that might make you a target?” “Do you mean that the attack on me might have been coincidental?” Liz shook her head. “It’s not likely. The Semtex they used in my bindings came from the same batch they used on your helicopter.” Lips pursed, McGarvey counted to five before he responded. “How do you know that?”
“Jerry Kraus’s people came up with a match.” “But how did you find out, sweetheart?” “I don’t know. I think maybe Todd mentioned it.”
Todd shook his head, and Elizabeth caught it. “Maybe Otto told me, then.” “When did you talk to him? Was it yesterday?” “It must have been,” she said, her anger rising. She hated to be put on the spot.
“We left early this morning, so it was probably yesterday afternoon. I don’t remember.” “I shouldn’t think so,” McGarvey said, sympathetically. “Not with all you’ve been through. But I’ll talk to Otto when we get to the office and clear it up.” “Clear up what?” Liz demanded. “Where’s the mystery?” “It’s a Russian thing. Something out of my past that we’re trying to get a handle on,” McGarvey told her with a measured nonchalance. “Could be that it’s them gunning for me.
Otto has probably come up with something, too, but you know how he is.
Unless he’s got it nailed down cold, he keeps whatever he’s working on to himself.” McGarvey shrugged. “I thought that if you had talked to him, he might have said something.” “Oh, that,” she said. “It has something to do with General Baranov, you’re right. And with a Department Viktor shrink who’s supposed to be on the run from the SVR.
But I don’t know a lot more than that.” “Is that what you two have been working on so mysteriously?” “I’ve been working on your bio,”
Elizabeth responded too quickly. “I would never have guessed one-tenth of what you did.” “Does Otto think that Nikolayev is gunning for me?”
“He’s too old. But it might have something to do with whatever he took out of Moscow with him.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know, Daddy. Honestly. I wish “
“You wish what, sweetheart?”
She looked a little embarrassed. “I wish sometimes that we could just all go away someplace and just be
