The Cabal

Dick.”

“Has he made it out of there?”

“He hasn’t called me back so I don’t know. But I’ve got everything from David’s laptop.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Pretty much the same info from Remington’s flash drive. A few more names, some dates, and banking stuff. We can use it.”

“Mac,” Louise broke in. “I can’t see your heat signature. Where are you?”

“On the east side of the house, right up against the wall.”

“Is Pete with you?” Louise asked. She sounded strained.

“No, she’s on the other side of the house,” McGarvey said. “Where’s Boberg?”

“I had to switch back to the ship for a minute or two, and when I got back just now he was gone. The only place he could be is somewhere inside the heat signature of the building. But I’m painting the remnant heat of his footprints leading up to the house. To the west side of the house.”

Pete didn’t have a comms unit so there was no way for Louise to contact her.

McGarvey turned and sprinted toward the rear of the house. “I’m on my way,” he whispered.

“I have to get back to the ship,” Louise said.

“Do it, and then get out of the program. Security’s been alerted and the Campus will probably go into lockdown. Every system out there is going to come under scrutiny any minute now.”

“I can slow it down,” Otto said.

McGarvey held up at the back wall and took a quick peek. The rear of the house was lit up, but no one was in sight, so he eased around the corner and, keeping below the level of the windows, hurried toward the west side of the building.

“Too dangerous,” he whispered. “It could interfere with ongoing operations.”

“Let’s hope Dick managed to get out of there,” Otto said, but McGarvey had reached the west side of the house and he didn’t reply.

Pete had shot out the cameras and lights on this side of the house, so it took a full minute for McGarvey’s eyes to adjust to the darkness before he saw her shoved up against the wall near the front veranda. Boberg was in front of her, his pistol less than two feet from her face.

McGarvey switched his pistol to his left hand, and pulled a spare magazine out of his pocket with his right. Hiding the pistol behind the back of his leg, he stepped around the corner. “I think it’s me you want,” he said.

Boberg turned and looked at McGarvey, his pistol never wavering from Pete’s head. “You’re damn right I do. Throw your gun down.”

McGarvey tossed the magazine to the ground. It was dark and the distance was great enough that the Admin contractor could not have gotten a very good look.

“I said throw your gun away.”

“I just did, you stupid bastard,” McGarvey said. “Do you want me to pick it up and bring it to you?”

Boberg glanced at Pete and then back. “Come closer, I don’t want to miss.”

“Sure,” McGarvey said, starting toward the two of them. Pete was looking at him, trying to signal something. “But you should know something before you decide to shoot either of us.”

“I’ve already decided.”

“We have your name. We know everything about you and Administrative Solutions. About your work in Iraq, but mostly about the company’s assignments for the Friday Club. Payoffs. Bribery. Assassinations. The jobs are pretty impressive, and so are the names. Sandberger is at the top of the list, next is Remington, and third is Calvin Boberg. What are you, the company’s operations manager? Or should I have said were?”

“Bullshit,” Boberg said, but it was obvious even in the dark from fifteen feet away that he was agitated. He kept glancing at Pete.

“We have a KH-fifteen satellite watching us in real time. We saw where you parked your car just to the west of the driveway. Infrared sensors picked up your footprints through the woods where you stopped just before the clearing. We watched you coming up behind us as we sent the chopper away. The satellite caught everything. Kill us now and you’re screwed.”

Boberg was smart enough to know or at least guess that the NRO had put up a new version of the Key Hole system.

“Lower your weapon, turn around, and get out of here,” McGarvey said, and he stopped about ten feet away.

“How do I know you won’t shoot me in the back?”

“No need. It was Tim Kangas and Ronni Mustapha who killed my son-in-law and my wife and daughter. Not you.”

“They’re dead.”

“A lot of people are dead, Cal. And now I’m going to take Foster and his Friday Club down. If you want to take the fall with them, stick around. I don’t give a damn one way or the other.”

“You’re lying,” Boberg said, his gun hand shaking. He looked at Pete.

McGarvey winked at her and raised his pistol as Boberg was starting to turn back. She jerked her head a few inches to the left, and McGarvey fired one shot, catching the Admin contractor in the temple. Boberg’s pistol discharged as he was shoved sideways, the shot smacking harmlessly into the clapboard siding.

“You’re right, I lied,” McGarvey said.

Pete kicked the pistol away from Boberg’s reach, but the man was dead.

“Your timing was perfect,” she said, her chest heaving. “I never heard him.”

“We’re good here,” McGarvey said softly. “Boberg is down and Pete’s good to go.”

“You’ve about run out of time, Mac,” Otto said. “Foster called his friends at the Bureau and the Marshal’s Service. Both of their names are on Remington’s list. They’ll have SWAT teams heading your way by chopper within a few minutes.”

“I’m sending Pete back to you, and then I’m going inside to finish this once and for all.”

“I’m staying with you,” Pete objected.

“I’m going to get arrested tonight by Foster’s people, so I’m going to need you with Otto for backup. This is going to get ugly real fast.”

“Shit.”

“No matter what happens, no matter what you have to do, get back to Otto’s.”

“Tell her to call me on her cell phone,” Otto said into his ear. “Louise is still on the KH-fifteen, and we can relay a safe route for her if need be.”

McGarvey told her that, and she shook her head again, but she got her pistol from Boberg’s jacket pocket, and walked over to McGarvey and kissed him on the cheek.

“That’s twice tonight you’ve saved my butt.”

McGarvey smiled. “And a nice butt it is.”

“Sexist,” Louise said in his ear.

“Go now,” McGarvey said, and Pete turned and sprinted back to the woods.

SEVENTY-TWO

Adkins reached the main gate down the long driveway from the OHB, his hands shaking on the steering wheel. Administration was his thing, not running around stealing secrets, telling lies. And yet he felt just a little sense of exhilaration for pulling it off, and dread about what was happening between China and Taiwan.

The possibility that somehow Foster, who had never been anything more than a well-connected, high-priced lobbyist, and his group could have fomented trouble over there was unbelievable, even monstrous.

If the missiles started to fly a lot of people would die. And for what?

The same linebacker security guard who’d signed him in, came out of the Reception Center and ran into the road, frantically waving his hands for Adkins to stop.