It was late by the time they got back to Washington and cabbed it to McGarvey’s small third-floor apartment in Georgetown. The front bowed windows of the brownstone looked down on Rock Creek, and last fall the changing leaves had been restful for his nerves, which at that point had still been shattered.
“Nice view,” Gail said putting down her bag.
“When you have the time to look,” he said. “Take the bedroom, I’ll sleep out here.”
She looked at him. “Wouldn’t it be better if I got a hotel room after tonight?”
“No,” McGarvey said, although it was difficult for him to let anyone inside his circle of comfort. But just now it was necessary. “I don’t know how long this will take, so for now we’ll work out of here. At some point we’ll probably go in separate directions. And this place is reasonably safe. My lease, phone, and computer accounts are all under different work names. So just keep your eyes open.”
“Are you expecting someone?”
He shrugged. Not a day had gone by for the last twenty years plus when he hadn’t expected someone to show up. It had been one of the overriding facts of his existence. “It depends on what we turn up and how close we get. They weren’t afraid to attack Hutchinson Island, so it’d be no stretch for them to come after us, especially if we hit a nerve.”
“What’s next?”
“I’m going to talk to some friends about Schlagel. In the meantime, you can get Eric and Otto pointed that way.”
Gail was skeptical. “Do you really think he’s somehow connected?”
“After the attack on Eve’s lab?” he asked rhetorically. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. But he was quick off the mark to take advantage of the Hutchinson Island, and now this. And I don’t think it’s going to end there.”
“More to come?”
McGarvey had been giving that idea a lot of thought. Hutchinson Island could have been much more spectacular than 9/11, and vandalism at the lab was little more than a pinprick, maybe a warning. But if another strike of some sort had been planned it would almost certainly be much stronger. After the trade towers and the Pentagon, al-Quaeda’s next target had most likely been the White House; one-two-three hammer blows at the purveyors of free trade, the planners of war and the leadership of the satan government. If Hutchinson Island and Princeton were indeed just the opening shots, whatever was coming next would depend entirely on who was behind it. “The contractor who walked away, and the engineer inside the control room were first-rate, and that sort of expertise does not come cheap.”
“It wasn’t just another terrorist bombing, nor was Princeton unrelated.”
“No,” McGarvey said. “They have a larger plan. Had it all along.”
“That’s a cheery thought to end the day on,” Gail said. “I’m going to get some sleep.” She picked up her bag and headed to the bedroom, but hesitated, suddenly shy for just a moment. “You don’t have to sleep out here, you know.”
A lot of old wounds — though not all — came back at McGarvey, and he too hesitated for a moment. “No.”
“As in not tonight, not yet, not ever?”
“Not tonight.”
“Okay,” Gail said. “I’ll let you know when I’m out of the shower and it’s safe to come in.” And she went into the bedroom and shut the door.
Gail made breakfast in the morning, and it was just after nine before they were finished and went downstairs to grab separate cabs. Schlagel’s diatribe on Hutchinson Island was getting a lot of airtime on all the major networks, especially
“I expect you’ll be at it all day,” Gail said. “How about dinner somewhere tonight?”
“I’ll let you know,” McGarvey said, and she pecked him on the cheek and then ran out to a cab that had pulled over, leaving him to wonder if it had been such a good idea after all to have her stay with him, knowing how she still felt.
On the way into town McGarvey called Otto on his cell phone and asked him to set up a meeting with Walter Page sometime later this morning, and fending off his friend’s questions, telephoned William Callahan, who right after 9/11 had been appointed as the FBI’s deputy assistant director for counterterrorism. They’d known each other briefly a couple of years ago when McGarvey had been working the operation in Mexico City. The Bureau had helped search for the missing Polonium 210 that had supposedly been smuggled into the U.S. Nothing to date had come of the investigation, but McGarvey had been impressed by Callahan’s intelligence and professionalism. He wasn’t simply a desk jockey, he was the real deal, coming up the ranks as a special agent.
“Mac, it’s good to hear from you,” Callahan said, after his secretary had put the call through. And he sounded genuinely pleased.
“Do you have a few minutes to spare this morning?”
“Absolutely,” Callahan said without an instant’s hesitation. “You’re with the NNSA, so I’m assuming this has something to do with Hutchinson Island.”
“Actually Reverend Schlagel.”
This time Callahan did hesitate. “I see,” he said. “How soon can you be here?”
“Twenty minutes,” McGarvey said, and he told the cabbie to take him to FBI headquarters.
It was a weekday and downtown Washington was as busy as usual. The receptionist in the lobby checked his identification and telephoned Callahan’s office. “Your guest is here, sir,” she said, and she directed McGarvey to wait in the visitors’ lounge. “Mr. Callahan will be with you shortly.”
McGarvey was the only one in the nicely furnished lounge this morning, aware that he was being watched, as all visitors were, by agents behind a two-way mirror. Guests of assistant directors and above were not required to sign in nor were they subjected to the normal security checks.
Callahan, a large, fit-looking man in his midforties with salt-and-pepper hair and broad shoulders, showed up a couple of minutes later. He’d played tight end for the Green Bay Packers for two years right out of college, but had been sidelined with a torn rotator cuff and had gone back to school to get his MA in criminal justice, and from there had been hired by the Bureau. He was a seriously steady man, with a wife and a couple of kids, who nevertheless liked to crack jokes. This morning he wasn’t smiling, though his greeting and handshake were friendly.
“Joan and I were very sad about your loss. I can’t imagine how bad it must have been,” he said.
“It wasn’t a good year.”
Even though Callahan was only in charge of one section of the Bureau’s Division of Counter Terrorism, and technically was only a deputy assistant director, he was senior in line for that promotion when the current division assistant director was bumped farther up the ladder, therefore his ID pass had the gold background of an associate director with all the privileges.
When they were settled in Callahan’s unimpressive office on the ninth floor in the rear part of the building McGarvey came straight to the point about his suspicions.
“I see your point,” Callahan said. “But so far we’ve come up with nothing that would make a possible link between him and Hutchinson Island or Princeton.”
“He’s using Hutchinson Island as his soapbox.”
“I’ll give you that much, but I think it’d be a stretch to believe that he would have funded something like that merely to create an issue that he could use. The man wants to be president, and he’s smart enough to understand that if he did run he would be subject to more scrutiny than anyone could imagine. Every eye in the world would be looking his way. Every investigative reporter worth his or her salt would be taking his background apart. Every move he ever made since childhood would be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. And a lot of that would happen even before he got the nomination. And he certainly wouldn’t have directed an attack on Dr. Larsen’s lab.”
