pass that allowed him to drive up to the Old Headquarters Building and drop off his passenger. But he had to return immediately and hand in the pass, which was date and time stamped.
Each time McGarvey came back like this, he was sharply reminded of his history there, some of it extremely painful, but most of what he had done in the name of his country had been necessary. Or at least it’d always been so in his mind. And now he was in the middle of it again, something he’d been expecting for months. He’d been getting the old sensations at the nape of his neck and somewhere deep in his head that something was heading his way. Something out of the darkness, something that he would have to deal with. And it was at times like these over the past few years when he’d become a little tired of the game. Yet that’s who he was; it’s who he’d always been.
Marty Bambridge met McGarvey in the main hall to escort him up to the director’s office on the seventh floor. He was an odd-looking man with a hawk nose that hung over a large mouth, and thinning black hair that he combed straight back, held in place by a lot of hair spray. He was dressed in a sloppy suit and tie, and although he didn’t seem to take any care with his appearance he was reputed to be an outstanding DDO with a lot of imagination and a great deal of empathy for his people, both on campus and out in the field, including his NOCs.
“Welcome back, Mr. Director,” he said, giving McGarvey a VIP visitor’s pass. “Mr. Page is expecting you.” They shook hands.
“My friends call me Mac.”
“Yes, sir,” Bambridge said.
Page was waiting for them in his office along with Carleton Patterson, now in his early seventies, who had been the Company’s general counsel during McGarvey’s days, a post he still held. Where Page seemed nondescript, Patterson was tall, slender, and patrician-looking. Before he’d taken the temporary post with the CIA, he’d been a top-flight corporate attorney in New York.
They all shook hands and sat down on the couch and a couple of easy chairs grouped around a large coffee table. The room hadn’t changed much since McGarvey had sat behind the desk.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” McGarvey said.
“I was going to ask you to come over in any event,” Page said. “And may I assume you want to discuss the Hutchinson Island event? I’m told that Mr. Rencke has been providing you with some assistance, and I approve.”
McGarvey couldn’t decide if he liked or trusted the man. But according to Otto, morale at the Agency had picked up since his appointment; among the reasons were Page’s ability to handle Congress, where he’d developed some real bipartisan support. He’d built a reputation as a straight shooter by freely admitting, when it was necessary, that certain of the CIA’s operations had to be withheld from the public for security reasons, delicately sidestepping the fact that Congress, especially the House, sometimes ran a little fast and loose with classified information that had some political benefit.
“Ultimately yes,” McGarvey said. “The DOE has asked me to help find out who was behind the attack.”
A look of satisfaction passed between Page and Bambridge. “The president ordered me to do exactly the same thing, and I promised that I would have someone in the field who’d be our point man.”
“Me?”
“Sounds as if you’re already in the middle of it,” Bambridge said. “I’m assuming that you’ll share product with us?”
“Through Rencke.”
Bambridge wanted to object but Page held him off. “Fair enough,” the DCI said. “But you asked for this meeting. What do you have on your mind?”
“What was Lorraine Fritch working on in Caracas that got her killed?”
“She was investigating a connection between Miguel Octavio and a derivative fund manager in Dubai.”
“The Marinaccio Group.”
Page showed no surprise. “Yes.”
“Not enough motivation for her assassination,” McGarvey said. “There had to be something else.”
Bambridge spread his hands. “She was on her way up with something she told me was too important to trust even through encrypted channels. Had to be done in person.”
“Hutchinson Island,” McGarvey said, dropping the bombshell, and he saw by a quickening expression on Page’s face that he had hit the mark. “You had the same thought?”
“The timing was coincidental,” the DCI said. “She’d been working on this connection between Octavio and Marinaccio for some time, but within hours after she’d gotten word through the usual channels about the attack, she called and said she was on her way here.”
“My dear boy, what makes you think a connection exists?” Patterson asked.
“Too many leads go back to Marinaccio, including the Reverend Schlagel, who’s using the attack to lash out at nuclear power plants.”
“He’s looking for a campaign issue,” Patterson said.
“That’s right,” McGarvey said. “But doesn’t it strike you that Marinaccio’s prime interest is in oil derivatives?”
“If that’s his motivation then he’ll be against a hell of a lot more than just nukes,” Bambridge said.
“Something like that,” McGarvey said. “I think that Hutchinson Island was just the opening move. There’s more to come. Coal-fired plants — and we have some big ones — for a start. Schlagel could just as well go on his soapbox about carbon dioxide emissions killing us.”
“But oil — diesel, gasoline, or jet fuel — is bad too,” Bambridge pointed out.
“People will give up nuclear and coal-produced electricity, but not their cars,” Patterson suggested.
“If you’re right, and I think you are, they’ll go after whatever would hurt us the most,” Page said. “Coal, because it won’t be wind farms or solar centers. At least not yet.”
McGarvey had come to the same conclusion. A big coal-fired plant would be a likely target. A lot of environmental damage could be done depending on how sophisticated the attack was. But he’d been thinking about something else. “I expect that you’ve all heard of Eve Larsen. If what she’s trying to do actually works she could be a prime target.”
“Some people in Oslo think she’s on the right track,” Patterson said. “And her laboratory in Princeton was vandalized last night. Did you hear about it?”
“Yes.”
Page sat back, a sudden thoughtful expression on his face, and he and Bambridge exchanged a look. “Do you know the woman?”
“She was at Hutchinson Island when the plant was evacuated. I helped get her out.”
“Erling Hansen telephoned me yesterday afternoon,” Page said. Hansen was the director of the Norwegian Intelligence Service. “Asked for a back-channel favor.”
“The Nobel ceremony?”
“The NIS got an anonymous tip that something might happen to her either on the way to Norway or sometime shortly after she arrives in Oslo.”
“Anything specific?” McGarvey asked.
“No,” Page replied. “But he said the way the warning was stated struck one of their analysts as religious in nature.”
“Schlagel,” McGarvey said.
“Since you brought it up, yes, the thought has crossed my mind.”
“What’d you tell Hansen?”
“That we’d look into it. But I don’t think it would be politically wise to send someone over with her. She can hire her own bodyguards if she — or you — think it’s necessary.”
“I’ll ask her,” McGarvey said.
Bambridge called down to Rencke’s office for McGarvey, but a recorded message merely stated that he was out of the building for a couple of hours.
“He doesn’t punch a time clock,” Bambridge said. “But he spends a lot of nights here when he’s on to something.”
“Has that been happening lately?”
