briefly illuminated the trees as the car slowed and turned down the driveway. It was an RAV4 sport utility vehicle. Grassinger recognized it immediately. “A woman,” Nikolayev said. Grassinger raised his binoculars to make sure, although he knew who it was. Louise Horn’s profile showed up clearly for a moment until her car disappeared into the woods. Of all the suspects down at the house, Otto Rencke, in Grassinger’s mind, was the worst-case scenario. “It’s Louise Horn. Otto Rencke’s friend,”
Grassinger said. He didn’t know how McGarvey was going to take the news. He hit the last number of McGarvey’s cell phone, then started his car and eased it out of the ditch and up toward the highway.
McGarvey’s phone rang once, and then a recorded voice came on. “The number you are trying to reach is busy. If you wish to leave a message please touch star and wait for the tone.”
Grassinger broke the connection and tossed the phone aside. “Tony, we have a problem,” he said into his lapel mic. “We’re moving now,”
Blatnik’s voice came back. “Who is it?” “Rencke.” Two Agency SUVs with Blatnik and three of his people made it to the driveway by the time Grassinger and Nikolayev reached the paved surface. “Tell them to be careful,” Nikolayev cautioned. “Rencke could have contingencies.”
Grassinger immediately understood what the Russian meant. If it was Rencke, he might suspect that someone was up here. Once Louise Horn was safely down the driveway he might switch the defensive measures back on. There were stop sticks out to one hundred yards from the clearing above the house. Inside that line were contact mines that would explode if a vehicle passed over their pressure pads.
Antipersonnel claymore mines were set up in the woods on either side of the road. “Tony, I want you to pull up before Point Alpha,” Grassinger radioed. He hauled the big SUV off the highway and careened down the driveway as fast as he could keep the car on the snow-covered dirt road. “We’re just about there.” “The PDS might be rearmed,”
Grassinger shouted. It was the Perimeter Defense System. “Okay, we’re stopping,” Blatnik radioed back. Grassinger raced around a long curve and saw the taillights of the two SUVs stopped up ahead. They had run without headlights. He shut his off as he swept down into a hollow and back up the other side to stop right behind them. They weren’t far from the house here. Blatnik and his people were gathered on the road.
They had drawn their guns. Grassinger and Nikolayev hurried to join them. “We’ll have to go on foot from here,” he told them. “But stay out of the woods. The claymores might be hot.” “They could have the driveway covered from below,” Blatnik cautioned. “We’d be sitting ducks as soon as we got out in the open.” “It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Grassinger replied. “Have your people move in from the back.”
Blatnik radioed the orders. Grassinger and Nikolayev started down the driveway, Blatnik and the others behind them.
“What exactly is it that we’re waiting for?” Adkins asked. No one wanted to look at the others. But each of them understood McGarvey’s logic in bringing them here like this. At one time or another they had all suggested the same thing; that whoever was gunning for McGarvey had to be someone very close. Like someone in this room. “For someone to blink,” McGarvey answered absently. He thought he’d seen a light up on the hill. “Is someone coming?” Elizabeth asked. Headlights emerged from the woods and started down the hill. “Yes,” McGarvey said. He went out into the stair hall shut off the lights and withdrew his pistol. He watched from the hall window as the car came toward the fountain and paddock, but he couldn’t tell what kind of a car it was.
Why hadn’t Grassinger called? Elizabeth came from the living room.
“Who is it?” she asked. “I don’t know yet. Call Jim and find out what’s going on.” The car moved fast, fishtailing as it came around the curve on the west side of the paddock. “The phone isn’t here. Do you have it?” Elizabeth asked. “Never mind,” McGarvey said. He must have put it in the living room. Then the car came around the sweep of the curve and he could see that it was Louise Horn’s bright yellow RAV4
with an American flag on the radio antenna. Elizabeth was at his side.
She recognized the car, too. “Hell,” she said softly. “Keep everyone where they are,” McGarvey told her. He locked the closet door and slipped the Walther’s safety catch off and stepped outside. He stood in the deeper shadows between the front door and the lights spilling from the living room windows. He was angry that they had gotten to Otto. Mad at Louise Horn for taking advantage of his vulnerabilities.
Otto had never had any sort of a real life. From what McGarvey knew of his background, Otto’s childhood had been a living hell a mother who didn’t want him and a drunken stepfather who belittled and beat him, mentally as well as physically. He was upset with himself that he hadn’t seen and recognized the signs in Otto in time to help. McGarvey wanted to lash out at someone, at anyone for what had been done to his friend. Otto was his friend; in actuality his only friend, and McGarvey had let him down. There was no clear path out of this dark morass. Not for any of them. There was no solution that would make it all better. There was no going back.
McGarvey wanted to think that he had suspected Otto all along. Because Otto as the assassin could do the CIA the most harm. But even in the last few days when the circle of suspects had diminished to a handful, McGarvey had refused to believe in his heart that it could be his old friend. Anyone but Otto.
The RAV4 slid to a stop behind the line of cars. Not bothering to switch off the engine or the headlights, Louise Horn scrambled out of the car and headed up the driveway in a dead run, her civilian jacket open. As she came up the walk, McGarvey saw that she carried something small and black in her right hand.
“That’s far enough, Louise,” McGarvey said from the darkness.
Louise reacted as if she had been shot. She stopped dead in her tracks. “The killer is here,” she whispered breathlessly. “They used your cell phone, Mr. Director.”
“I used my cell phone “
“I’m not talking about the calls that you made to your security people.
Someone called a blind number in Chevy Chase just a few minutes ago. I was waiting on the highway monitoring the calls. Otto gave me the intercept equipment.” She held up the special cell phone she carried in her right hand. She talked in a rush, words tumbling on top of each other.
“What was the number?” It was a trick, though he didn’t want it to be.
“I don’t know, Mr. M.” it was blocked from the intercept program, and it was encrypted,” Louise said. “Did you call someone in town?”
“No ” McGarvey said, when all the lights in the house went out.
Grassinger and the others ran as fast as they could, finally reaching the spot where the driveway emerged from the woods. He stopped and raised his binoculars in time to see McGarvey and Louise Horn facing each other on the porch when the lights in the house went out.
“Rencke’s spotted her and shut off the lights,” he said. Nikolayev stepped off to the side and held on to a tree for support, while he massaged his chest with his other hand. Even in the darkness they could see that he was in trouble. “Go,” he croaked. “No time. Go.”
Grassinger looked again at the porch. McGarvey and Louise Horn were gone. The front door was open.
He and the others headed down the driveway at a dead run, leaving the Russian to look after himself. If McGarvey had allowed them to station a couple of their people near the house, they wouldn’t be in this situation right now. When they wrote the after ops reports, Grassinger would make sure that that part got included.
McGarvey stood in the darkness of the stair hall listening with all of his senses for something; anything. Louise Horn stood behind him and to his right. The house was deathly still except for the crackling of the fire on the hearth. “Liz?” he called softly. “Here.” Her voice drifted out from the living room. The flickering light from the fireplace cast shadows on the ceilings and walls. “Where’s Otto?”
“He’s here,” Elizabeth said. “Who’s missing?” “No one.” That made no sense. Unless someone had gotten through Blatnik’s people in back, no one was here to cut the power. It could have been done from the highway, but Grassinger and his people were on the lookout up there.
They would have spotted something. “Someone is coming down the driveway,” Louise said softly. “Four… no, five of them on foot.
Running.” McGarvey heard the noise. Soft, like a small animal mewling in pain. It came from the darkness at the end of the corridor that led back to the kitchen. “Somebody find a flashlight,” he said. He transferred his pistol to his left hand and moved past the entry to the living room. Liz and Todd and the others were silhouetted by the flames in the fireplace. The whimpering was louder now. It wasn’t coming from the kitchen. It was coming from the basement door under the stairs. Someone or something was just on the other side; perhaps crouched at the head of the stairs; frightened, in pain. The main breaker panel, where the electricity could have been turned off, was downstairs. But everyone was still in the living room, Louise had just arrived and no one could have come from the
