Dance with the Dragon (22 page)

McGarvey heard Rencke stirring in the cabin behind him, and he turned as the special ops director came out of the door, yawning deeply and scratching himself with one hand while tightly clutching his laptop with the other.

“I left the Homeland Security background file on Congressman Newell on the table, along with the personnel files for Gil Perry, Gloria Ibenez, and Louis Updegraf.”

“Anything unexpected?” McGarvey asked.

“Nothing much. Newell wants to run for president, which is probably why he was screwing around with the Mexican oil deal, but he won’t make it. Perry wants to become deputy director, and he’ll probably make it unless he screws up. And Gloria, well, nobody knows about her. Her fitreps are all the same; she’s a damned fine field officer, but she doesn’t follow orders and she’s a major pain in the ass.”

“Updegraf?”

“A good officer across the board, and nobody knows what the hell could have happened to him down there. The fact that he was running an operation without reporting to Perry is right off the chart. Nothing in his file, including his psyche evaluations, could have predicted it.”

“What about his wife?” McGarvey asked. “Has she gone public yet?”

Rencke shook his head. “Adkins convinced her to go back to Wisconsin and let us get to the bottom of what happened. Whatever it was, we’d let her know.”

“Open the trunk and I’ll help you load the files,” McGarvey said.

Rencke put his laptop in his car and opened the trunk as McGarvey came out with the first box to be returned to Archives. It took them only a couple of minutes to finish the job.

“What else do you want?” Rencke asked.

“First off, I want all the Bureau’s files on Liu,” McGarvey said.

“I think I got most of them,” Rencke said. “What’re you looking for, Mac? Something specific?”

“I saw the files on the women whom the Bureau thought Liu had raped and killed. But there was no mention of the other women who hung around in New York and Washington. Someone must have interviewed them.”

“If they’d known something it would have shown up in a Bureau report, and I would have seen it.”

“Maybe they asked the wrong questions,” McGarvey speculated. “Maybe there’s another Shahrzad out there who had an affair with Liu but managed to get out before it was too late.”

“I see what you mean,” Rencke said. “I’ll get on it as soon as I get this stuff back.”

“Get some sleep.”

“Yeah, right,” Rencke replied. He looked like an unmade bed, all rumpled and bleary eyed, but then he always looked that way. “What else?”

“What about the guy in the shadows at Liu’s compound? Have you come up with anything new?”

“Not yet,” Rencke admitted. “But I’ve got one of my programs chewing on it. I’m using the assumption that he’s Middle Eastern, with most of the weight on Iranian, and that he’s either a businessman, specifically someone involved with Iran’s oil ministry, or an intelligence officer. I’m betting intel.”

“What the hell are the Iranians doing in Mexico?”

“Whatever it is, the prez ain’t gonna like it,” Rencke said. “I’ll get what I can from the Bureau’s files and anything else I can come up with and send it down with a courier. I don’t think I want to trust the Internet with this shit.”

“Make it early. I may be leaving tonight.”

“Where are you going?”

“That depends on what you can come up with. But probably New York. I’d like to see if Liu left any pieces behind that the Bureau didn’t pick up.”

THIRTY-THREE

THE FARM

McGarvey had slept until noon and was just finishing reading the personnel files of Perry, Updegraf, and Gloria as well as Congressman Newell’s Homeland Security jacket when a courier showed up around three with a thin manila envelope stamped
TOP SECRET.

Rencke had gone back into the FBI’s computer system in New York, where he had dredged up the very short encounter sheets for three women someone named Special Agent E. J. Charles had interviewed a couple of years ago. They’d apparently had some connection with Liu, and been part of the initial investigation. In each case the files had been stamped
NO FURTHER ACTION AT THIS TIME.

The information was not very important, but Rencke always handled files he had hacked from other computers as top secret material. A number of people understood that their systems weren’t secure from Rencke, but nothing could be proven and he wanted to keep it that way.

He had included a short note in his nearly illegible handwriting that a trace of the three women came up blank except for one of them. She was Monique Thibault, who had worked as a French translator at the UN and apparently had a brief relationship with Liu, though what sort of a relationship wasn’t explained in the FBI file. Rencke had found her at an address on New York’s Upper West Side.

In a brief postscript, Rencke had written that assuming Liu’s mystery guest was an Iranian intelligence officer for the sake of his analysis program had deepened the lavender by two shades. “Keep in touch,” he had added.

McGarvey looked up from the note. It was exactly what he had hoped for. Shahrzad had painted a picture of Liu that was in none of the CIA’s files. Not even Tommy Doyle’s people had guessed at the depth of the Chinese intelligence officer’s weakness for women, as she had described it. If Monique Thibault could confirm even a part of the story, McGarvey would have two out of the three pieces of the puzzle he needed to unravel the mystery of what the Chinese were really doing in Mexico.

The third part, he suspected, was probably going to turn out badly for some good people, and he wasn’t looking forward to forcing the issue, yet he knew that it could not be avoided. Just like Baranov, Liu had set up fail-safes for himself, much like the booby traps the VC had left behind in ’Nam. Pick up the wrong thing at the wrong time and it could explode in your face, killing you and anyone nearby.

He shredded the encounter sheets, Rencke’s note, and the other files and sealed them in a burn bag. He thought about going over to the dining hall for a late lunch, but decided against it. Now that he had done his reading and Rencke had come up with at least one name, he wanted to get it over with, and the sooner he started, the sooner he would be finished.

He took a quick shower, got dressed, and packed his hanging bag, placing his pistol and extra magazines in a small diplomatic pouch, which he sealed, then called U.S. Airways to book a seat on the 7:05 p.m. Washington–New York shuttle, using one of his work name credit cards. He also booked a room under the same name at the Grand Hyatt, which was just a couple of blocks from the UN.

His daughter, Elizabeth, drove up in one of the Hummers as McGarvey was putting his bag and diplomatic pouch in the Chevy Impala he’d rented yesterday. She was dressed in camouflage BDUs and looked as if she had just come from a field exercise that hadn’t gone very well.

“Were you going to say good-bye, or just drive out the gate?” she asked, jumping out of the Hummer and coming around to him. She was clearly unhappy.

“What’s the problem, sweetheart?”

“Todd wanted to know if you’d have dinner with us tonight. We’re going into town.”

“I have any early plane to catch,” McGarvey said. He went back into the cabin and Liz followed him.

“Have you finished your homework?” she asked.

“Just about,” McGarvey said. He put on his jacket, and handed her the burn bag. “Take care of this for me, if you would. It’s fairly sensitive material.”

Liz boiled over. “Goddamn it, Daddy, you’re getting too old for this kind of shit. We’ve got some capable field officers who can handle whatever it is you’re looking for.”

McGarvey faced his daughter and smiled indulgently. “That’s the second time you’ve said something like that to me. Have I become that doddering?”

“Mother’s worried about you.”

He nodded. “She has every right to be worried.”

“Well, goddamn it, can’t you at least take the time to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“No. But Dick Adkins might talk to you.”

She stamped her foot in frustration, and her eyes suddenly filled. She looked away, embarrassed by such a show of emotion. She was a woman, and sometimes, like at this moment, she was just a little bit ashamed of her sex. According to Katy, Liz had been a raging tomboy as a young girl, and more than one boy’s parents had called to complain that Liz had beaten up their son. A glass ceiling existed for women in the CIA, even for the daughter of a former DCI, and Liz meant to break through, by being better than her male counterparts. In her mind that meant not getting emotional and crying.

McGarvey knew all of this, but she was his daughter. He took her in his arms. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said softly.

She stiffened and started to pull away, but then melted. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Goddamn it to hell.”

“You said that already,” McGarvey said. “Now, do you want to tell me what’s really bothering you, other than the fact that you have a father who had the bad grace to turn fifty-plus?”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said into his shoulder.

“Neither do I, yet. And besides, you don’t have the need to know.”

She parted and looked into her father’s eyes. “Have you talked to Mother? She called yesterday wondering if I knew where you were. If you were okay. I had to lie to her.”

“It’s better for now that she doesn’t know. Believe me.”

“Is it about Gloria Ibenez?” Liz blurted.

McGarvey had a sudden chill. He didn’t like people, not even friends or co-workers, looking over his shoulder. “What about her?”

“She called yesterday too, looking for you, and I got the feeling that she knew or guessed that you were here. She says that you and she are working together again.”

“That’s true,” McGarvey said. “What’d you tell her?”

“The same thing I told Mother; that I hadn’t seen you and had no idea where you were. Then around ten this morning Otto e-mailed an update on Gloria’s personnel record, asked that I bring it over to you. It’s classified only confidential, so he didn’t think it was necessary to send a courier. Anyway, he thought that you’d be sleeping.”

“Where is it?”

“In the truck,” Liz said. “I’ve got a right to know what’s going on, you know. She’s in love with you, and I don’t think she’s going to back off unless you force the issue.”

McGarvey nodded, sad not only for Gloria’s sake, but for that of his daughter, who was worried sick about her father and mother getting another divorce. She’d spent most of her childhood without her father, and now that she had him back she wasn’t about to give up so easily.

“I know,” he said. “And what I’m going to do won’t be very pretty, and you might hear some things that’ll be hard to swallow.” He hesitated a moment for her to digest what he was saying. He could see the uncertainty and fear in her eyes. “But no matter what you hear, nothing I’m going to do will hurt your mother.” He smiled. “I love her, too, you know.”

Liz’s eyes began to fill again. “Oh, Daddy,” she blubbered. “I’m sorry.” She came back into his arms, shivering.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” McGarvey said. “I’m never going away again. You’re going to have me around for the duration.”

THIRTY-FOUR

EN ROUTE TO DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

McGarvey picked up what at first he figured was a loose tail on I-64 at the entrance ramp just outside Camp Peary’s north gate. Whenever the Farm came under someone’s scrutiny the first thing the opposition put in place, after overflights and satellite views, was a tail on every car heading back to Washington or Langley on the interstate. He figured it was one of those operations. Lately the Russians had been taking a closer look at us.

It was late afternoon, and McGarvey wanted to get up to Dulles in plenty of time before his seven o’clock flight to turn in the rental car at the Hertz counter, have dinner, and look at the new material on Gloria Ibenez that Rencke had e-mailed. The black Toyota van a couple of cars back wasn’t much more than a nuisance, yet something at the back of McGarvey’s head was thinking coincidence. He was on the hunt, and leaving the Farm someone was following him. Yet there weren’t many people who knew he’d been there, unless he’d been followed from Langley the day before yesterday.

He reached into the backseat with one hand and grabbed the diplomatic pouch. He opened it on the passenger seat, took out his Walther PPK, loaded a magazine into the handle, and stuck the pistol into his belt beneath his jacket. The black van was still two cars back, and McGarvey concentrated on his driving, switching lanes now and then to pass a car or truck, sometimes speeding up, sometimes slowing down, without being obvious about what he was doing.

A half hour later on the outskirts of Richmond, I-64 split three ways—straight into the city center, south on I-295 to Petersburg, and north on the bypass highway to Washington. McGarvey waited until the last possible moment to take I-295 North, but the Toyota driver easily kept up. Apparently he had anticipated which direction McGarvey was headed.

On the north side of Richmond traffic picked up, heavy at times, the interstate rolling through the Virginia hills, the day pleasant and mild. He’d thought about using his cell phone to call his daughter and give her the heads-up that the Farm was being surveilled again, but by now he was reasonably sure that whoever was behind in the Toyota had targeted him specifically. It was an interesting thought, considering how few people knew where he’d gone for the past couple of days, unless he’d been identified by Liu’s people, who’d somehow found out that he’d left Mexico City and returned to Washington. Could be the general had laid on a fishing expedition, stationing people at all the obvious places where a man such as McGarvey might reasonably be expected to go. But that would take a lot of assets and, if nothing else, at least the tacit approval of the Guoanbu chief of the Washington station. If that was the case it meant that Liu had definitely sat up and taken notice. Which was a good thing because it meant that he had something to hide.

McGarvey bided his time for the next twenty miles, the van never far away, until he came to a rest stop about halfway to Fredericksburg. He took the exit and headed down to the car parking area in front of a pleasant-looking redbrick colonial building. There were plenty of people coming and going, including several families seated at picnic tables, a couple walking their dog, and three truckers over by their big rigs, the engines idling.