Blood Pact (McGarvey) (22 page)

Colonel León had been taken to the hospital by ambulance with no siren or escort, which could have meant she was dead and they were merely transporting her body, or she was wounded but still alive and there’d been no siren because they wanted to bring no attention to themselves.

“The thing is you have to make certain,” Msgr. Franelli had told him.

“There is the chance that they may be expecting me. The risks would be great.”

“Yes, I know this. But the woman is very important to Mr. McGarvey.”

“Then I do not understand. If she is so important to his search, then why don’t we allow her to help—if she is still alive? Won’t he find the diary much sooner?”

“Perhaps, but we do not want the Cuban intelligence apparatus to become involved. Just as we do not want the CNI butting their noses into Church business. The only outsider’s help we need or want is McGarvey’s.”

“What if I am captured?”

“See that you’re not. But at all costs you must find out if Colonel León is dead, and if she still lives you must kill her.”

“I don’t see how—”

“You are our finest soldier, my son, you will seek God’s help and He will show you the way.”

God’s help, Dorestos allowed himself a bitter thought. God had never once been mentioned during his actual training exercises. Prayers were said before a mission for its success, and afterward for the souls of those who had lost their lives, but never during a battle.

There are old warriors and there are bold warriors. The Order wishes for boldness. Go with God, but remember what you have learned.

The hospital fronted on Thirty-fifth Place, but Thirty-sixth Street dead-ended at an expanse of trees that grew to within a few yards of the rear iron fence that was twelve feet tall, the tops of each rung ending in spikes. Climbing over it would not be impossible, though almost certainly security cameras would be trained on the entire perimeter.

Earlier in the evening, after making sure where the ambulance had taken the woman, he’d raced back out to the jet parked at Reagan National where he’d talked to the monsignor, and afterward studied the layout of the hospital on one of his databases. The fact of its existence wasn’t a secret, only the fact that its patients were exclusively operators from the U.S. intelligence community was.

He’d come up with a plan to create a diversion that would hopefully last long enough for him to get inside, find the woman, make certain that she was dead, and get out. Only he knew that it couldn’t work if it included his escape with his own life intact.

He packed a small overnight bag with a couple of shirts, and several magazines of ammunition for his pistol, and drove back to Washington where he checked in at the Georgetown Suites under his work name of Albert Thomas.

A half hour ago, he’d written a note on hotel stationery to Kirk McGarvey apologizing for the incident in the woods behind the Renckes’ house, but that the death of Colonel León was necessary. He sealed it in a hotel envelope on which he wrote the All Saints address, and taking only his handgun and spare magazines, leaving the overnight bag behind, slipped out of the hotel, and found a taxi in a queue on M Street waiting for customers from the bars.

“I would like you to deliver this letter for me,” he told the driver who was skeptical.

“Get in, I’ll take you wherever you want to go, and you can deliver it in person.”

“That isn’t possible,” Dorestos said. He held out a hundred-dollar bill. “It’s not far from here. Should only take you a few minutes.”

“Whatever you say, pal,” the driver said. He took the money and the envelope.

“One other thing, though. I don’t want you to take it up there until midnight.”

“What the hell is this supposed to be, some kind of a gag?”

“Exactly that,” Dorestos said. “But the money is real.”

“I can’t guarantee I won’t be taking a fare somewhere across town. So I’ll either deliver it right now, or you’ll have to take your chances that I’ll be on time.”

Dorestos pulled another hundred-dollar bill from his pocket. “Midnight.”

The driver only hesitated for a moment, before he took the money. “Midnight,” he said.

Dorestos glanced at the driver’s taxi license. “I sincerely hope that I have not wasted my money, Mr. Singh, three-two-eight P-L-sixteen. I believe it’s called double-dipping.”

*   *   *

Lights illuminated the rear parking lot and emergency entrance, and standing in the darkness behind a tree a few yards from the fence Dorestos spotted three cameras—one at each corner covering the fence line and one in the middle trained on the entrance. Even if someone did make it over or through the fence they would be spotted in the parking lot and tracked to the door.

If someone were watching the monitors.

The tree limbs had been cleared so that the lowest one was at least ten or fifteen feet overhead, good enough to stop someone from climbing up unless they’d brought a ladder, or a grappling hook and line. But something like that would almost certainly attract attention.

Keeping the trunk between him and the fence line, Dorestos stepped back ten yards and sprinted forward, leaping off the ground at the last moment, his big hands outstretched above his head. He easily caught the lowest branch and hauled himself up into the deep foliage of what he thought was probably an oak tree.

He remained absolutely still for a full thirty seconds, watching for any sign that someone in the hospital had spotted him, and would sound the alarm or come running. But nothing changed. The only noise was from a garbage truck on Whitehaven Parkway just to the north.

It was ten minutes before midnight and Dorestos worked his way up to a stout limb that stretched almost to the fence line, about five feet higher than the tops of the spikes where it had been trimmed back.

He waited another thirty seconds to make certain he hadn’t been detected and then eased into a position from where he could see the east quarter of the front gate where the taxi driver would show up to deliver the letter. If he didn’t, Dorestos hoped that the man was at peace with his god.

Early in his small-arms training, he was on the two-hundred-inch pistol range, firing a variety of semiautos, among them the SIG Sauer, a variety of Glocks, and a few other more exotic weapons of Russian and Chinese manufacture. The stress was on learning what weapons were currently in use in the field, so that if chance found him needing to scavenge a pistol he would understand not only how to shoot it, but how to fieldstrip it.

The man at the position next to his right was a veteran of a number of SMOM missions. Out of the corner of his eye Dorestos noticed that the man had turned left, carelessly holding his weapon in such a way that if it were to fire it could injure someone.

“Watch it,” Dorestos said.

The priest grinned. “What’s your problem? It’s on safe.” He raised the pistol.

Dorestos reached over with lightning speed and grabbed the pistol, yanking it up and to the right. It discharged into the air.

“Bastard,” the priest said, and he came at Dorestos, who stepped to the side and laid both pistols on the stand.

He didn’t remember what he said, or exactly what he did next, but in an instant the range supervisor and a couple of instructors were running his way, the priest lying on the ground, his chest caved in.

The entire incident had been recorded on range surveillance video, and Dorestos had not been reprimanded though he’d heard later that the brief film clip was being used as a training exercise. What not to do in a weapons-hot situation in the presence of an unknown enemy.

Headlights flashed on the street at the front of the hospital, and moments later the cab pulled into the driveway. The cabbie beeped the horn once.

Dorestos counted off a full twenty seconds. By now all eyes inside the hospital would be on the front gate.

He scrambled to the end of the limb and leaped out over the spikes and dropped to the ground on all fours, almost like a cat landing.

He caught a fleeting glimpse of what he thought might be the figure of someone in a fourth-floor window, but then he was across the parking area and through the door to the rear reception area and emergency room, deserted at the moment.

FORTY-ONE

McGarvey watched from the front entryway as Kutschinski, his pistol out of sight at his back, walked down to the front gate.

“This your guy?” the CIA babysitter had asked.

“Not unless he’s hiding in the backseat, but watch yourself. I’ll back you up.”

The driver got out of his cab and handed something through the gate. It looked like an envelope.

The phone on the security console in the stair hall rang as McGarvey, his pistol in plain sight, stepped outside and walked down to the gate.

The driver stepped back a pace. “Shit,” he said. He turned to get back into his cab.

“Hold up,” McGarvey said.

The cabbie looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide. “I don’t want any trouble here. I’m just delivering a letter.”

“It’s addressed to you,” Kutschinski said.

McGarvey took the envelope. “Who gave this to you?”

“A big guy, didn’t give me his name. Said I was supposed to bring it here at midnight.”

“Where was this?”

“M Street, about a half hour ago.”

“How’d he sound?”

“Like a fag or a teenage girl,” the cabbie said without hesitation.

It was a diversion. “Get the hell out of here,” McGarvey told the cabbie, and he and Kutschinski raced back up the drive.

“Is it him?”

Ellerin was on the phone when they burst in. “Your girl called, said she saw someone come over the fence. I’m trying to get Pat but he’s not answering.”

“You didn’t see anything on the monitors?”

“I was watching the front gate.”

“Son of a bitch,” Kutschinski said, and he headed for the stairs in a dead run.

“I’ll clear the back,” McGarvey said. “But watch yourself, this guy will know we’re on the way up and he’s damned good. I’ve never seen anyone faster.”

Kutschinski didn’t reply as he took the stairs two at a time.

McGarvey hustled down the corridor where he held up at the door into the emergency room and cocked an ear to listen for a sound. Anything. But except for some piece of machinery running somewhere in the distance, the hospital was silent. Even Kutschinski bounding up the stairs was so light on his feet that he made no noise.

Moving with care, McGarvey crossed to the rear stairs where he spotted two wet footprints on the tile floor just inside the door from the parking area. The priest had walked through the woods in the back and had somehow gotten over the fence when all eyes inside the hospital had been watching the front gate. Everyone except for María.

He started up the stairs, stopping at the first floor long enough to check the corridor, which was dimly lit in red from the exit signs front and back.

He did the same on the second floor, with the same results, then moved to the third just as Nurse Randall came out of one of the rooms.

She stopped short, startled when he came through the door. She started to speak but he motioned for her to keep quiet, and when she spotted the pistol in his hand she looked over her shoulder into the room.

“We have an intruder, but I don’t think he’ll come after you or these four guys,” McGarvey, keeping his voice low, warned her. “He’s after the woman, but keep out of sight.”

She nodded and went back into the room and closed the door.

McGarvey headed up to the fourth floor, the corridor in near total darkness. Both exit lights had been turned off, and the only illumination came from what was probably a television set halfway down the hall in María’s room.

He eased the door open. “Morris,” he called softly.

The corridor remained silent.

He opened the door and moving fast, rolled left around the corner into the reception room. Pat Morris, a thin trickle of blood from a hole in his forehead, lay sprawled back on the couch.

McGarvey glanced over his shoulder but nothing moved in the corridor.

Morris’s pistol lay next to the Heckler & Koch on the coffee table, the magazines missing from both weapons.

Bambridge would not have sent amateurs out here, yet it looked as if Morris had been caught totally unawares. Yet he must have heard someone coming through the door from the stairs, he must have known that his life was in danger.

McGarvey stared at the weapons for a long moment, before he holstered his pistol. He fieldstripped the pistol, tossing all the parts behind the couch. Then he removed the receiver spring from the MP7, pocketed it, and laid the weapon back on the table.

He turned and dodged his way to María’s open door. He took a quick peek inside before he pulled back. The bed was empty. The bathroom door was open but no one was waiting there.

With his pistol in both hands up at chest height he rolled into the room, scanning left to right, but except for the picture on the television screen nothing moved. Nor was there any sign of violence.

María had evidently seen someone coming over the fence, had phoned Ellerin downstairs, and had presumably warned Morris that they had incoming. But she was gone and Morris was dead.

McGarvey took ninety seconds to clear each of the other six rooms on the floor before he went to the front stairwell door and opened it a crack. If the priest had gone down to the third floor searching for María he would have run into Kutschinski. No one had heard gunshots, which meant that everyone including the priest was using silenced weapons.

But the man had to have good intelligence to know what this place was, that María was a patient, and had the balls to come here to what amounted to a CIA stronghold. He either had a death wish or he was even better than McGarvey thought he was, and arrogant enough to know it.

Silently closing the door McGarvey used the house phone on the wall a few feet down the corridor to call Ellerin. But the phone rang four times, before he hung up.

The priest
was
like a shadow or a ghost, flitting over the fence, then up here to kill Morris and then down to the ground floor to take out Ellerin. The son of a bitch was pulling the odds down to his favor by eliminating the opposition one-by-one. But if he’d gotten to Ellerin, it meant he must have passed right through Kutschinski.