back. They wouldn’t have gotten past Blatnik’s people let alone defeat the sensors strung along the property line. Just as he knew in his heart that the assassin was not Otto, he finally accepted who it was. Accepted the fact that he had known, or at least felt at some visceral level, who it was.
Baranov’s creation. The brainwashing had occurred over fifteen years ago. So long a time ago that it seemed to be in a completely different era; a time when we were naive as compared to now; a time in which the battles were simple: It was us or them. Each side had its generals, and each side had its handmaidens. The crying increased in intensity to a low growl; an animal warning its prey that it was on the verge of striking. McGarvey knew exactly when and where the psychological conditioning had taken place. He knew why. And he knew the assassin’s control officer. The call had been made to him on the cell phone in the stair hall All the other phones in the house had been switched off. An intense, deep sickness spread through his body. All of his life he had been afraid to trust anyone for fear of what their betrayal would do to him. He had blocked almost everyone he’d ever come in contact with from knowing who he really was. In time he’d even forgotten how to trust himself so that like everyone else he didn’t know who he was. A part of him held itself aloof from his own inner thoughts and feelings. He had been living two separate existences.
One in which he functioned on a day-to-day level; with friends and acquaintances, with lovers and family. And another in which he existed like a bear holed up in its den for the winter. Run. Run. Run.
Hide. Don’t let anyone get too close. Despite all of that, people admired him. Respected him. Trusted his judgment. Trusted him to take care of them. They even loved him, some of them. Or at least they loved as much of him as they were allowed to access. He couldn’t say why he was that way; perhaps it was because his parents were too old to have children when they did. His sister in Utah was cold and aloof.
There’d been love in the family, growing up, but no closeness. He knew that his father loved him, but his father never once told him so. And neither had his mother. It had left an empty spot in his soul, one that for most people was filled with the emotion of belonging. That’s what he had missed all of his life. A feeling that people could love him for who he was, not for what he was. McGarvey flattened himself against the wall next to the basement door and reached over with his free hand to turn the knob. The flickering reflection of the firelight was surreal. The growling stopped. McGarvey closed his eyes for a moment, trying to blot out the horror of this, then pulled the door open and stepped back. Kathleen, her narrow, pretty face screwed up in a mask of rage and hate and venom, her lips curled back from her teeth in a feral snarl, her eyes wide and insane burst through the doorway.
She raised a big Clock 17 nine millimeter pistol and fired four shots as fast as she could pull the trigger, straight ahead into the wall, blasting big chunks of plaster everywhere. “Mother!” Elizabeth screamed from the living room entry. Kathleen swiveled toward Elizabeth’s voice, bringing the pistol around in a tight arc, the muzzle ending up a few feet from her husband’s face. “Hello, Katy,”
McGarvey said. His gun hand was at his side, the pistol pointed toward the floor. Kathleen started to shake the way she had at the house when she’d gone into convulsions. She tried to speak, but it came out as a low- throated growl. She was obviously going through an internal struggle that threatened to blow her into a million jagged pieces.
McGarvey could sense that there were people behind him, but he didn’t take his eyes off Kathleen’s. He raised his free hand to her. “Give me your gun, sweetheart. Please.” Kathleen flinched. She took a half step forward, the pistol never wavering from the middle of her husband’s face. “No one’s going to hurt you, Katy,” McGarvey said gently. “We’re all here. All of your friends. Liz and Todd, too.
We’ve come to help you, darling.” He tried to smile, but he could see Darby Yarnell using her. Baranov arranging for her training; holding her hand, telling her that she should go back to her husband, that she didn’t belong with them. All the while they were battering down her defenses; tearing apart the very attributes that made her human, that made her who she was. Once again he wanted to lash out at them. But they were both dead. And that they had died at his hands, even though the events had occurred more than a decade ago, gave him just the tiniest amount of satisfaction at this moment. They had gotten to his wife and damaged her, for no other reason than some insane plot to arrange for the murder of someone at some distant time and place. Now they were dead. Kathleen had been programmed to kill her husband if and when he was ever put up for Director of Central Intelligence. All these years her control officer had been Father Vietski; every week he had reinforced her training; built upon the artificial hate and fear and blind passion that they had mercilessly conditioned into her. He’d done it for nothing more than money. It must have been difficult, McGarvey thought, because by nature she was not a violent woman.
Anything but. Stenzel would say that she fell apart mentally because she had an impossible time dealing with the contradictions that were tearing apart her soul. On the one hand she was programmed to assassinate her husband. And on the other, she loved her husband, and killing him was unthinkable. It’s why she had sabotaged Otto’s car, to force her husband into stepping down from the appointment. She’d also talked Otto into wearing his seat belt so that he wouldn’t be seriously injured. She couldn’t have sabotaged Liz’s skis. McGarvey was pretty sure that they would find out it was Father Vietski on one of his trips to the house. Vietski had supplied the Semtex and the fuses. The fact that her daughter had been so terribly hurt that she had lost the baby had sent Kathleen into an even deeper spiral toward insanity. It was exactly what Vietski wanted because it made her more pliable. He’d also supplied the Semtex and extra beach bag for the helicopter. The bomb was supposed to kill them. End it once and for all. But Kathleen had subconsciously worked it out so that she could warn them away at the last minute. All of the misdirections, even the symptoms of her illness were an effort by her subconscious to remove the reason for her programming. If her husband stepped down she would not have to kill him. It had come down to that simple choice in her mind. But McGarvey loved her as much as she loved him. He would give her another choice.
“You don’t have to kill me, Katy,” he said. She flinched again. Her gun hand shook. At this distance it would be impossible for her to miss if she pulled the trigger. “Yes,” she said, the single word strangled in her throat. “No, Kathleen,” McGarvey said. He raised his pistol to his temple. “I won’t let you do this. You don’t have to kill me. I’ll do it.” “No!” Elizabeth screamed in anguish.
Kathleen’s eyes were wild. A tic developed in her right cheek.
Spittle drooled from a corner of her mouth. She had been given a new, terrible choice. She didn’t know what to do. She was overloading.
McGarvey cocked the pistol. “It’s okay, Katy,” he said. He began to pull the trigger. “Kirk!” Kathleen screamed. “My God, what have I done?” She lowered her hand and let the big gun drop to the carpet runner. “No,” she said softly. “No.” She stepped toward, tentatively, and then as McGarvey uncocked his pistol and lowered it, she came into his arms and began to cry. “Hello, Katy,” McGarvey said. “Welcome home.”
EPILOGUE
AFTERMATH
Tell me not here, it needs not saying.
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching Mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, YOU MIGHT GET IT.
