his control. We’ll arrange it,” Rencke said.
“Nikolayev rubbed his chest. He looked a little pale. “Yes, we will.
You and I, before it’s too late. And when they arrive, we’ll be there.
If we’re careful, they’ll never know that it’s a trap.” “You’ll come back to Washington with me?” “Of course,” Nikolayev said. “It’s why I left Moscow in the first place. To see an end to this.” He pursed his lips. “You were right about something else, too. I am shaking in my boots. I would like to live out the remainder of my life in peace and some comfort.” “That’s all any of us want,” Rencke said, thinking about his father, and especially his mother. It’s all he ever wanted.
Something else occurred to him. “Martyrs suddenly went active.
Something triggered it. What?” “Money,” Nikolayev said. “All these years after Vasha’s death, payments were automatically made from Swiss banks directly to the control officers. They were the ones who had to reinforce the brainwashing every week.”
Nikolayev shrugged. “It was steady money with the promise of even more money when the mission was accomplished.” “So what set it off?” Otto asked. “A team in the SVR has been looking down the old operation tracks for just those kinds of accounts. When they find them, they close the accounts and take the money. Somehow this control officer was warned or found out on his own that his funds were going to be cut off, so he went active, hoping for the big payoff anyway.” “Money,”
Rencke said disparagingly. “Don’t underestimate its power,” Nikolayev said. “Money has always meant even more to a communist than it ever has to a capitalist.”
THIRTY-SIX
(McGARVEY) FELT IMPOTENT TO STOP THE THREAT TO HIS FAMILY, AND WHAT IT WAS DOING TO THEM ALL. YET HE COULD NOT BACK AWAY. HE COULDN’T RUN. NOT THIS TIME.
McGarvey stood at a bulletproof window in a front bedroom looking down at the cul-de-sac as a somber gray dawn arrived. He smoked a cigarette he’d bummed from one of his security people. Kathleen slept in the master bedroom, two female security officers in the room with her. She was up now. He could hear the shower running. One of the security officers came to the door with a cup of coffee for McGarvey. “Thought you could use this, Mr. Director,” she said. McGarvey took it.
“Thanks. How’s my wife doing?” “She had a pretty good night, sir,”
the young woman said. Her name was Gloria Sanchez. She was dressed in blue jeans and a sweater, and she looked like a high school sweetheart.
Actually she was married with two children and was an expert on the firing and hand-to-hand combat ranges. She was an ex-navy SEAL. “How soon do we get out of here?”
“About an hour to finish getting it organized, sir,” Gloria said. “Will you be wanting breakfast?” “No thanks.” McGarvey gave the street a last glance just as an older gray Chevy Suburban stopped at the checkpoint. The remnants of the van and limo had been removed, and a pair of Montgomery County sheriffs cruisers blocked the entrance to the cul-de-sac. They were checking everyone. The Chevy probably belonged to one of the neighbors or their kids, though he didn’t recognize the car. He walked back to the master bedroom, and Chris Bartholomew, the other security officer, left. The shower had stopped. He knocked on the bathroom door. “It’s me.” “You can come in,” Kathleen said. She was drying herself. Her hair was wet and hung in strings. Her skin was red from the hot water. And she had no makeup on. “You look good this morning,” he told her, and he meant it. She was beautiful. She glanced at herself in a full-length mirror and smiled wryly. “You’re prejudiced.” “Yup,” McGarvey said. He took her in his arms and held her close. She relaxed into him. “I want this to be over with now, Kirk,” she said in a small voice. “Soon.” “I want our life back.”
“Me too,” McGarvey said, and they kissed deeply. When they parted Kathleen shivered. “Tell me that it’s Sunday, we’re all alone in the house, and we’ve got the rest of the day together,” she said. He draped the towel around her shoulders and held her close again for a long time. “We’re going out to the safe house in Cropley this morning.
The girls have packed up most of the things you’ll need. You’ll have to figure out what else you want to take.” She looked up and gave her husband a hard expression, her left eyebrow arched. She did not like people handling her things. “Nobody said anything to me.” “Last night was difficult, Katy.” Her attitude softened. She glanced away. “I’m sorry, I’m being selfish. Those poor people. Dick was a friend.” She looked back. “It has to end sometime, Kirk. We can’t go on like this indefinitely. I can’t breathe half the time. First the helicopter, then the hospital and now this. And Elizabeth and the baby.” She closed her eyes tightly. “Why? What do they want?” “They don’t want me to take the job.” “Then quit,” she shot back. “Not now, Katy. I can’t. Not like this.” “Men,” she said. She started to hum, as if she had been plugged into an electric circuit. Her muscles bunched up.
McGarvey held her tighter. “Easy, Katy,” he soothed. “Security,” he called over his shoulder. “Here,” Gloria Sanchez said a couple of seconds later at the door. “Get Stenzel up here on the double.” He heard her talking into her lapel mic, but he couldn’t make out the words. Kathleen’s strength was increasing. She seemed to be on the verge of an epileptic seizure. Her face was that of a stranger. Her eyes were dilated. Unfocused. Foamy spittle flecked the corners of her mouth. “Stick with me, sweetheart,” McGarvey told her. “Come on, it’s okay. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.” “Kirk… what’s happening to me?” “You’re having a reaction,” McGarvey said. “Honest to God, Katy, it’ll be okay. I promise you. Please. Come on, Katy, stay with me.” “Help me, for God’s sake, help me,” she shrieked. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, her entire body went rigid, and her grip on McGarvey’s arms was as strong as a weight lifter’s. Suddenly she went limp and urinated down her legs in a soft stream that puddled on the tile floor. The mask of agony and terror melted from her face, and she blinked as if she were coming out of a daze. McGarvey picked her up and took her into the shower. He turned on the warm water with one hand, and gently soaped her body, cleaning her. She could only hold on to his arm for support, almost completely incapable of helping herself. When he was finished, Gloria was there with a towel.
Together they got Kathleen dried off. McGarvey picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, where Gloria threw back the covers. He got her into the bed and pulled the covers up. Kathleen was shivering again, but she wasn’t convulsing. Stenzel appeared in the doorway, took one look, then came over and brushed them aside. He checked Kathleen’s pupils and took her pulse. “What the hell is happening to her?” McGarvey demanded. “It’s a delayed reaction from last night,”
the psychiatrist said. “She’s gone into overload.” He prepared a syringe with twenty-five milligrams of Librium, swabbed Kathleen’s right arm, and administered the drug. She watched everything he did, but she didn’t fight him. “We can’t take her back to Bethesda,” McGarvey said. “No, but I’m going with her,”
Stenzel replied. He checked her pupils and pulse again, and grunted in satisfaction. “How are you doing, Kathleen?” She smiled wanly.
“Better now,” she answered. She looked over at her husband and at Gloria Sanchez, and gave them a smile. “Sorry. I’m not as strong yet as I thought I was.” “You’ll be okay now,” Stenzel told her. He tucked her bare arm under the covers. “I want you to relax for a little while.” “But I’m not tired,” she objected. “I know. But I want you to take it easy. Just for a half hour or so. Will you do that for me?” She nodded. “Sure.” She closed her eyes. She was asleep almost immediately. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep her on track,” Stenzel told McGarvey out in the hall. “She needs to be hospitalized. In a clinic somewhere where she can get some proper rest.” Chris Bartholomew got a towel from the guest bathroom down the hall and gave it to McGarvey. “Thanks,” he told her. She nodded and went into the bedroom to help with Kathleen and help clean up. “We have to get past this first,” McGarvey said. He felt impotent to stop the threat to his family and what it was doing to them all. Yet he could not back away. He couldn’t run. Not this time. “I know. But the sooner that’s done, the sooner I can start to help your wife.”
“What’s wrong with her, Doc?” A troubled, pensive expression came over the psychiatrist’s face. “She’s ” He shook his head. “I don’t know.
