The window powered down, and Otto was there, dressed in a black suit, the tie correctly knotted, his long normally out of control hair neatly brushed. He was gripping the wheel with both hands, tears streaming down his cheeks, and he was trying to talk, but couldn’t.
His wife, Louise, leaned over from the passenger side. “Get in the car, Kirk,” she shouted.
He hesitated for just a second, not sure how he could go on. But then he knew how he was going to do it, and he knew why, and he yanked open the rear door and jumped in.
TWENTY-SEVEN
On Jessup Drive, above the South Gate, Kangas had seen everything, pulling up just after the explosion. He hoped to see McGarvey’s car destroyed, but instead the limo bearing the man’s wife and daughter had gone up in a flash, with no possibility that anyone inside could have survived.
McGarvey had jumped out of the Escalade and had taken down two men, both of them armed, and had even shot one of them in the leg, before he’d commandeered the Toyota SUV.
“Maryland plates,” he shouted, as the Toyota sped away as if the driver had been there just to pick up McGarvey and get him away. But that made no sense.
“Did you get a number?” Mustapha asked.
The few other cars that had been coming down either Clayton, Jessup, or Patton drives had all made hasty U-turns moments after the explosion and were speeding away. No one wanted to be in the middle of what obviously was some sort of terrorist attack.
“Niner-two-peter, two-romeo-peter.”
“Get us the hell out of here,” Mustapha said, writing the number on a scrap of paper.
Kangas headed up Jessup, which would take him to the cemetery’s main exit on Memorial Drive and then across the river back into the city in the opposite direction that the authorities would be coming. But he figured it would be only a matter of a few minutes before somebody wised up and stationed squad cars at all the gates.
“Son of a bitch, that was close,” Mustapha said.
Kangas glanced at him. “You missed.”
“I didn’t have a clear line of sight.”
“Well we’re in some deep shit now. And we’re going to have to clean the mess ourselves before it gets totally out of hand.”
Mustapha was silent for a moment but then he shook his head as if he’d come to some decision. “Either that or we bug out and take our chances somewhere else.”
“We’re going to finish this, Ronni.”
“Did you see that bastard take those two guys down? It was a walk in the park for him.”
“They weren’t expecting him to come at them like that.”
“Bullshit. They drew their pieces.”
“Now we know what to expect,” Kangas said. “We won’t make the same mistake they did. Anyway he didn’t kill them. Which means they’re probably Company security, or maybe Bureau muscle or federal marshals.”
“It looked like he was in custody.”
“But why?” Kangas said.
They reached the exit on Memorial Drive, traffic panicky as it came out of the cemetery, and when they got to the bridge across the river Kangas speed-dialed Remington’s encrypted number. It was a call he didn’t want to make, but if they weren’t going to bug out, as Mustapha had suggested, they’d have to come clean.
Remington answered on the first ring as if he’d had his cell phone in hand and was waiting for the call. “Yes?”
“There’s a problem.”
“Tell me,” Remington said.
“We got hung up behind some traffic on the way out after the funeral and had to guess when to push the button. We got it wrong. McGarvey survived but his wife and daughter were killed outright.”
“What happened next?” Remington asked, and it didn’t sound as if he were the least bit concerned.
“McGarvey was like a crazy man. He took down two armed men — probably CIA security or maybe federal LEs — shot one of them in the leg and then jumped in the backseat of a dark Toyota SUV and took off. We got the Maryland tag number. You can run it.”
“Give it to me.”
Kangas repeated the number.
“Did you manage to get away clean?”
“Yes. There was a lot of confusion. Nobody was paying attention to anything except getting the hell away.”
“Where are you now?”
“Just getting off the Arlington Memorial Bridge,” Kangas said. “I’m going up to Rock Creek Park in case you need to meet up.”
“No,” Remington said. “I want you to go to ground for now, until I can figure out something.”
“Sorry, sir. But if we’d been given more time to plan—”
“I don’t want to hear excuses,” Remington shot back. “This isn’t over, nor is your involvement. McGarvey is still a problem. He’s still
“Mr. Sandberger—” Kangas said, but again Remington cut him off.
“Will not be bothered with this for the moment.”
“Can you tell me if McGarvey was under arrest, because the two guys on his ass sure didn’t act like bodyguards?”
“He’s been charged with treason.”
It wasn’t what Kangas had expected to hear. “Holy shit,” he said half under his breath. “Why not let the FBI do our work for us? At the worst he’ll go to prison, at best he’ll get shot to death trying to escape.”
“There are other considerations,” Remington said. “None of which are any of your business at this juncture. For now keep your heads down, but keep in touch. There’ll be more.”
“Treason for what?” Kangas asked. “If we’re going to continue to put our asses on the line and either get arrested or taken down by the crazy son of a bitch, we ought to know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“What you’re dealing with is a million-dollar bonus. For each of you.”
Kangas’s breath was taken away. “Yes, sir,” he said. “We’re going to ground.”
“Good man.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The house on Whitehaven was quiet, Colleen had gone to a meeting of one of her charity events and the cook and cleaning lady had the afternoon off. Remington had poured himself a large snifter of a good Napoleon brandy after the call from Kangas and he stood now at the window of his study turning over the possibilities in his mind.
He would have to call Roland with this, of course, but before he did so he needed to think things through. Kangas and Mustapha had screwed up, that much was clear, and there was no question now that they had become expendable. In fact, they might even have become liabilities, depending if anyone had seen them near the scene.
But beyond that they would have to deal with a man who couldn’t be more highly motivated to strike back at whoever he suspected had killed his wife and child. He’d come to Frankfurt to confront Roland, whose name he’d told them was on Alexandar Turov’s computer in Tokyo, which meant the former CIA director had at least part of the puzzle, and it meant that he would probably come after Admin, especially Roland.
