the master suite, which was even worse for him than the kitchen. Katy was everywhere here. Her clothes, the bed, the bathroom, photographs of her on the walls, on the bureau were almost overwhelming even in the dark. He could almost expect to hear her voice telling him to stop brooding and come to bed.
Taking a small, red-lensed pen light from the dresser drawer on his side of the bed, he was about to turn and get his things from the secret floor safe in the walk-in closet when the small, framed photograph of him and Katy on the top deck of the Eiffel Tower, taken when they were very young, before Liz was born, caught his eye. Another tourist had agreed to take it, and looking at the image now McGarvey was brought back to that simpler, happier time. Nothing had ever been the same again.
He pocketed the photograph and went into his closet where he switched on the pen light. The floor safe was open and empty.
Rearing back he switched off the light, and went to the windows that looked down on the pool, the gazebo, and the dock. They had expected him to come here to retrieve his things; money in different currencies, passports and ID sets under four different work names.
But they’d gotten sloppy, waiting.
He hurried downstairs, mindful of the corners, expecting an armed man to materialize out of the darkness, yet he didn’t pull his gun. These were Bureau agents. He wasn’t going to be placed under arrest, nor was he going to hurt anyone beyond what was necessary.
Outside, he hurried across the yard to the next-door neighbor’, keeping in the deeper shadows as much as possible and well away from the gazebo.
A few minutes later he was aboard the boat, had untied the dock lines, and using the emergency oar poled himself on an angle to the north out to the ICW before he switched on the engine, and idled a half-mile farther, before he switched on the nav lights and increased his speed.
No one else was out here on the water this early in the morning, and most of the houses along the shore were in darkness, but it wasn’t until he reached the dock on Siesta Key, had replaced the boat on to lift and had re-covered it, and was in his car heading off the island did he take a deep breath.
When he reached I-75 on the mainland he turned south and merged with the very light traffic before he called Rencke.
“I’m away,” he said.
“Nobody got hurt?”
“No. But they knew I was coming. They searched the house and cleaned out my safe. I don’t have anything now except for what you got for me.”
“You’re heading south,” Rencke said. “Good. I want you to go to Miami. I’ll book you a room in the Park Central under your Taylor work name; it’s still safe and so’s the car.”
“I didn’t want this.”
“None of us did, Mac. But it landed in our laps and now we’ll deal with it,” Rencke said. “Do you remember Raul Martinez?”
“Your contact in Little Havana. He arranged for me to see General Marti last year.”
“Right. He’ll be showing up at your hotel within the next thirty-six hours. Just sit tight until then.”
THIRTY-TWO
Robert Foster’s sprawling eighteenth-century home on a sloping hill above the Potomac River between Fort Hunt and Mount Vernon, about fifteen miles south of the White House, was aglow the next evening as S. Gordon Remington and his wife, Colleen, arrived in their Bentley.
Remington had preferred to drive himself, rather than be chauffeured. Some outings were better left away from prying eyes, even sympathetic ones. And he had remained sober all day, a fact Colleen had noted and appreciated, because she, too, was aware of just how much actual power Foster and his Friday Club wielded in Washington. This was no group to be trifled with. And the fact that she and her husband had been invited for cocktails and dinner topped even the A list, the only invitation better was to the White House.
They were admitted by a large, stern-looking man in a broadly cut suit, which Remington figured concealed a pistol in a shoulder holster, and were directed to the pool area in the backyard. Soft jazz was piped from several speakers as a dozen well-dressed couples circulated between a self-service bar and a table laden with hors d’oeuvres centered by an elaborate ice sculpture. Notably missing were the musicians, a bartender, and servers.
“He likes his parties lean and mean,” Colleen said as they headed to the bar.
“I would have been disappointed if his house staff had been on hand tonight.”
Colleen gave her husband a sharp look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
And he smiled at her. “This is the inner circle, sweetheart. All of us can discuss anything we want without fear of being overheard and misunderstood. Keep your ears open and your mouth shut.”
Colleen started to bridle when a stern man who could have passed for a minister, a plain, almost mousy woman at his side, came over and stuck out his hand.
“David Whittaker, acting DCI,” he said. “I’m pleased to meet you finally. Bob has told me about you and your work for the club. We appreciate your efforts.”
They shook hands and introduced their wives.
“I wasn’t aware you were a member,” Remington said. Sandberger had warned him about sticking to a fine line between familiarity and awe. These were Washington’s true power brokers, but Admin, in Roland’s words, was “covering their asses.”
Whittaker smiled faintly. “Charter member, actually. Bob’s an old friend; he and I go way back together.”
“He’s not here yet?”
“He’ll be down in a bit,” Whittaker said. “Likes to make his entrances. His only fault, I suspect, but he’s a bit of a showman, if you know what I mean.” He spotted someone just coming in. “Please, enjoy yourselves,” he said. He nodded to Colleen and he and his wife went to greet the new arrivals, Dennis Tressel, the assistant adviser to the president on national security affairs, and his wife.
“You never told me about this,” Colleen said, reprovingly yet with a bit of admiration.
Remington got two glasses of champagne and they stepped aside. “Actually, the Club is a new client. Roland knows more about them than I do. We’re just stand-ins tonight.”
“I approve, Gordo,” Colleen said. “These people need to be our group, if you know what I mean.”
“Perfectly—” Remington said, but his wife had spotted someone she evidently knew, and she waved and walked off, just as the armed man from the front hall who’d directed them back here approached.
“Mr. Foster would like to have a word, sir,” the bodyguard said. His accent was Cockney and it grated in Remington’s ears.
“My wife?”
“You won’t be long, sir.”
Remington noticed Whittaker and a couple of other men, including Tressel, disappearing through the pool doors back inside the house. “Of course.”
“Just this way, then, sir,” the bodyguard said, and Remington followed the man back into the house behind the others, who’d obviously been here before and knew the way.
Upstairs and down a short hall, the bodyguard stopped at double doors and stepped aside. “Mr. Foster is expecting you, sir.”
“Royal Marines?” Remington asked.
“No, sir,” the bodyguard said. “United States Marines, Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Schilling.” He turned lightly on his heel and walked back past the stairs and went through a door at the end of the hall.
Remington hesitated for just a moment. This was his initiation, something Roland had mentioned. “Tell it like you see it. Don’t be an asshole, but remember Foster hired Admin because of our track record. They need us more than we need them.”
Remington knocked once, and went in.
