“Who else is involved with Foster?”
“Everyone, Mac, honest injun. Their fingers are in just about every pie — Treasury, Justice, DoD, Interior, Homeland Security, you name it. Not only that, but some of those guys have been accused of illegal shit, like fund- raising, influence peddling, even tampering with elections all the way down to the county and local levels in some of the key states.”
“Garden variety Beltway white-collar crooks,” McGarvey said, even more bothered than before Rencke had called. “But not terrorists. Not assassins. Which leaves us with Administrative Solutions and Roland Sandberger. Where is he right now?”
“Baghdad, I think. Admin has a big contract bid coming up, personal security for our embassy people and other civilians, Halliburton and the like, and I suspect he’d want to be on the ground over there.”
“Find out,” McGarvey said, unable to keep a hard edge from his voice. “Who’s running the offices stateside?”
“His VP and chief of operations. A Brit by the name of S. Gordon Remington. I’ve dug out a few basic facts on him, and so far he comes up clean. I’ll keep digging, but something curious is going on with everyone in the company — contractors in the field as well as the front-office people. I’ve had no problem getting names and addresses, dates and places of birth, marriages, kids, that kind of stuff. Even social security and passport numbers, but if I had to write a resume for Sandberger or Remington I’d draw a blank. Both of them served in the military — Sandberger in our Delta Forces; Remington in the British SAS — but I can’t come up with their service records.”
“Encrypted?”
“No, just blank,” Rencke said. “I mean, SAS has a record that Remington served for fourteen years, and was honorably discharged as a lieutenant colonel two years ago, but there’s nothing on where he served, or even what he did for them. And it’s the same with Sandberger. Someone erased their pasts.”
“Convenient,” McGarvey said. “But you’re talking about computer records, right?”
“Right.”
“Find somebody they served with and see if they can tell us anything.”
“That’s my next step. And I’m also looking a little closer at Admin’s personnel. There has to be somebody who’s got a grudge about something. A pissed-off contractor who quit or got fired, who might be willing to talk.”
“How’re you going to find them?”
“Tax records. One year’s return shows an income from Administrative Solutions, and the next year it doesn’t. Easy.”
“Let me know if you come up with something,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime, have there been any rumbles from the seventh floor?”
“Not a word,” Rencke said. “I think they’re waiting to see how it goes with the debriefers, and what you’ll do next.”
“Who are they sending?”
“Dan Green and Pete Boylan.”
McGarvey knew them both. “Good people,” he said.
“They’ll be fair.”
NINE
Rock Creek Park cut a broad diagonal across the northwestern section of Washington, separating Georgetown from the rest of the capital city. Joggers, hikers, Rollerbladers, and bicyclers were almost always present, lending the area an anonymity. It was Washington’s Central Park, with trails, a golf course, an amphitheater, a nature center, and picnic areas with tables and grills dotted here and there, a lot of them along Beach Drive, which more or less followed the winding course of the creek until it emptied into the Potomac.
The dark blue Toyota SUV pulled off to the side of the road just after it crossed to the east bank of the creek above the golf course and Kangas cut the engine. It was seven and still fairly early, but the park was unusually empty, though two young women in jogging outfits passed by; a few moments later, a deep blue Bentley Arnage pulled up and parked a few yards away.
“We play it straight. Money’s still good,” Kangas said to Mustapha. “Agreed?”
“For now,” Mustapha conceded, but he was of the same temperament as Kangas. Neither man liked taking orders, especially orders they thought were stupid, which was one of the many reasons both men were single. Women were for screwing not for living with. And while they both had a great deal of respect for Remington, they also agreed that something was going on with Admin that did not bode well. The center was beginning to fall apart.
The two men got out of the SUV, Kangas carrying a small canvas bag with Givens’s laptop and BlackBerry from the apartment, and the disk and cell phone Mustapha had taken from Van Buren’s car, plus the recording of the conversation in the George restaurant, and they walked over to the Bentley and got in the backseat.
S. Gordon Remington, solidly built, rugged shoulders, a refined but bulldog face with thick bushy eyebrows and a Sandhurst drill-sergeant mustache, sat in the far corner of the car, up against the driver’s side rear door, an unreadable expression in his slate gray eyes. The smoked glass partition over the rear of the front seat was closed and nothing could be seen of the driver/bodyguard.
“Good morning, sir,” Kangas said, laying the things on the floor between them.
Mustapha closed the door. “Sir,” he said.
“Tell me,” Remington said without preamble.
“The situation has been sanitized but at some risk,” Kangas began. “Van Buren is dead and the disk was replaced with the one you supplied us. We took it and his cell phone from the BMW.”
Remington said nothing, and Kangas held his temper in check. Push came to shove they would go over to Executive Services no matter what confidentiality agreement they’d signed. The money might not be as good, but word in the industry was that Tony Hawkins ran a tight ship and protected his people. Of course they would first have to do a little cleanup work on their background jackets, but that wouldn’t be impossible.
“The disk wasn’t a problem, sir,” Mustapha said. “But Van Buren’s cell phone might be. He made a call just before our hit. To Casey Key, Florida. To Kirk McGarvey, his father-in-law.”
“Was there a record device on the phone?” Remington asked, a flicker of interest in his eyes, his voice soft, refined, upper-class British.
“No, sir,” Mustapha said. “There is no way we can know the substance of their conversation, but considering Mr. McGarvey’s background it’s a safe bet they discussed the meeting with Givens and the fact he’d been given a disk.”
“Which by now the CIA undoubtedly has, and has read, and pronounced utter nonsense. Exactly as planned.” Remington looked at them. “Is there a problem?”
“Yes, sir,” Kangas said. “Mr. McGarvey and his freak friend in the Company are likely to suspect the disk is a fake.”
“You’re referring to Otto Rencke, the Company’s resident odd-duck genius.”
“They have a formidable history together.”
“Look, Mr. Remington, if McGarvey gets involved we could be in some deep shit,” Mustapha said, but Kangas held him off.
“Won’t be easy, but it’s nothing we can’t handle, sir. It’ll just take time and finesse and maybe some force.”
Remington looked out the window at the creek for several moments, and when he turned back he smiled. “For the moment Mr. McGarvey is my problem, and no concern of yours. Tell me about Mr. Givens and his family.”
“They’ve been eliminated,” Kangas said. “We took his laptop and BlackBerry and left behind the trace evidence you suggested. There’ll be no repercussions except for the connection between Givens and Van Buren, which McGarvey will almost certainly look into.”
