Dance with the Dragon (48 page)

For just a moment Liu was nonplussed, but then he laughed. “You got a photo of him that night. But it mustn’t have been a very good one if you thought he was Iranian.”

“Middle Eastern.”

“No, his mother was a Siberian, I think. He was an intelligence officer, but he worked for the FSB.”

“Russian,” McGarvey said, surprised. “What the hell are you doing with them?”

“Yes, Russian. But you did manage to get part of it right. Viktor was freelancing, this time for Iran, which is why Shahrzad came here to keep an eye on me.”

“And Updegraf?”

“That was her idea, to keep me on the straight and narrow. And by the way, it was her idea to have him eliminated when he started to get too close. I turned him, and it was easier than you think, him and that utter fool Perry.”

“It still brings us back to Iran,” McGarvey said. “They were paying you a great deal of money, but why? What have you been doing for them right under the noses of your own people?”

“That’s something you’ll never know,” Liu said, and he raised his pistol. “Put my computer back on the desk, please. Even if you managed to get out of here with it, the machine would be of no use to you. One wrong keystroke and the hard disk will fry itself. But that’s a moot point after all, because you’re not getting out of here.”

EIGHTY-FIVE

THE COMPOUND

Gloria appeared in the doorway behind Liu. She was out of breath, her lips parted, her nostrils flared. Her eyes were on McGarvey’s.

“I never meant for it to come to this,” she said.

“Very touching,” Liu said. “Kill him.”

“You can’t kill a former DCI.”

“We had no idea who he was, just some intruder with a grappling rope coming over my wall. One of my men shot him to death. Sorry. But he should have knocked on my front door. I would have met with him. In fact, it is I who’ll telephone the authorities, as soon as his body is put in place and you’re out of here.”

“By tomorrow morning they’ll come down on you so hard even your own government won’t be able to bail you out,” Gloria said. “You won’t be able to run.”

“I don’t intend to go anyplace,” Liu said mildly. “Either kill him or get out of here.”

“He can’t let you leave alive,” McGarvey suggested.

“I know,” Gloria said, and she jammed the muzzle of the Walther into the back of Liu’s head. “Nobody has to die tonight,” she said. “Put down the gun.”

“It’s a little late to switch sides again, my dear,” Liu said. “The man isn’t stupid. He knows that you’re a double. You either take your chances with me, or return to the States and go on trial for treason. If you’re lucky you’ll get life in prison.”

“Fuck you,” Gloria said, and she pulled the trigger, the hammer slapping on an empty chamber.

Liu was distracted for just a split instant, time enough for McGarvey to bring the rifle up to his hip and squeeze off two rounds, catching Liu in the middle of his chest and under his chin as he staggered backward, the second bullet spiraling up into the general’s brain, killing him instantly.

He went down hard, his head bouncing on the tile floor, blood pooling like a halo.

Gloria was staring at McGarvey. “You knew all along,” she said. “The gun was empty.”

“I wasn’t sure until just now,” McGarvey said.

She was figuring her options—he could see it in her eyes.

“What if I just turned around and walked out of here?” she asked.

“I’d stop you.”

It was the answer she’d expected. She nodded. “I would have killed him, you know. For you.”

“Why?” McGarvey asked.

“Why was I working with Liu?”

“Why were you working for everybody except us?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t very well go back to Cuba—my father took care of that for me nineteen years ago. And the States was never home. Nobody there, including my father, gave a shit about me. My mother was gone. My aunts and uncles and cousins were in their own little worlds. And it looked as if guys like Perry and poor, stupid Updegraf were going to end up on top. Talk about the dumbing down of America. You have no idea.”

“So you decided to work for yourself,” McGarvey prompted.

“Me is all I’ve ever had,” she said. “Until you.”

“What was going on?” McGarvey asked. “What was Liu doing?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But you have his computer. If you can get it out of here tonight and up to Otto, he’ll figure it out.”

“How many men are in the compound?”

“Six, I think,” she said. “They know you’re here. They’re just waiting for Liu to call them in, or for you to try to get out.” She looked down at Liu’s body. “I thought he would kill you, and it drove me crazy. It’s why I came back.” She looked up. “I love you. That part’s never been a lie.”

McGarvey took out his sat phone and speed-dialed Rencke’s number.

“It won’t work inside the compound,” she said.

The no-signal indicator came on.

He looked up. “You can come with me or stay,” he told her, though for the life of him he didn’t know why he had changed his mind about taking her back. It certainly wasn’t love.

She was surprised. “There’s nothing for me back at Langley,” she said. “I won’t sound the alarm or try to stop you. But if you get out of here in one piece I’ll disappear.”

“And if I don’t?”

She looked away. “I don’t want to think about it,” she said softly. “No matter what happens I’ll never see you again.”

McGarvey felt a genuine sorrow for her. Almost everything that had happened in her life after her father had defected had been her fault. Yet she’d done some good work for the CIA, and she had a lot more to give. But there was no chance for her now, which put him between a rock and a hard place. He couldn’t take her with him. As she said, there was nothing but prison for her back home. Nor could he kill her.

“Someone will probably be coming after you.”

“I know,” she said.

He stuffed the laptop in his backpack.

Gloria held out his pistol. “Do you want this?”

McGarvey reached into his pocket, pulled out two magazines of ammunition, and handed them to her. “You might need these.”

She nodded tightly. “Thanks.”

As he stepped past her back into the bedroom, she reached up and kissed his cheek. “Good-bye, Kirk,” she said. “Watch your left.”

McGarvey passed through the bedroom and held up just at the open sliding glass doors. He pulled the night-vision glasses up to his eyes and searched the deeper shadows around the pool. One man, holding what appeared to be an AK-47, was hiding in one of the cabanas. A second, also armed with a Kalashnikov, was crouched behind a stack of pool chairs and chaise longues. Neither weapon was equipped with a suppressor. Evidently they didn’t care how much noise they made.

He raised the Steyr, the sighting awkward because of the bulk of the night glasses, and squeezed off one shot, taking down the guard behind the chairs. The man’s body pitched backward, his gun clattering on the pool deck.

The one in the cabana stepped around the corner to see what the noise was all about and McGarvey double-tapped him, once in the chest and the second time in the head, and he crumpled to the deck.

Gloria suddenly appeared out of the darkness behind him, and before he could pull off his glasses and turn around, she was at his left shoulder, the Walther in her hand.

“I’m getting out of here with you,” she said. “His people will kill me if I stay. Anyway, I think my chances are better on the outside.”

“Probably a good call,” he said. “I’ve taken out the two on the other side of the pool. But no one’s reacted.”

“As long as you’re in the house they won’t risk hitting Liu. They’re pretty good.”

“Ex-GAFE?”

She nodded. “They’ll be waiting for you to try for the front gate or go over the wall on the same side you came in.”

“What about the back gate?”

“They’ve got claymores back there, tied to motion sensors,” she said. “But I don’t think they’ll be expecting you to go over the wall behind the cabanas. It’s probably why they put only two of their guys back here.”

“Okay, cover me,” McGarvey said.

“No, you’re a better shot,” Gloria said. “And I don’t think they’ll open fire on me, not at first.”

Before McGarvey could object, she stepped out onto the pool deck, the pistol at her side, and headed toward the cabanas.

She got halfway around before someone in the darkness to the left called out something to her. McGarvey couldn’t make out what it was, but Gloria suddenly ducked down and sprinted for the cabanas, firing over her shoulder as fast as she could pull the trigger.

McGarvey was out the door, laying down a line of fire in the same direction in which Gloria was shooting, as he followed her in a broken-field run.

The guards hiding in the shadows of the east wing of the compound began returning fire, first at Gloria and then at McGarvey when they could see that he hadn’t brought Liu along as a hostage.

Gloria just made it to the end of the last cabana when she was hit and went down, scrambling the last couple of feet on her hands and knees around the corner.

McGarvey emptied the magazine toward the east wing just as he reached the last cabana and ducked around the corner.

The side of Gloria’s T-shirt was covered in blood, but she’d managed to swap out magazines in the Walther.

“Are you hit bad?” he asked as he dug a spare magazine out of his backpack and reloaded the Steyr.

“I’ll live,” she said tersely.

“Can you make it over the wall?”

“I think so.”

The compound had fallen silent. McGarvey stuck his head around the corner for just an instant, and drew immediate fire from the house. He ducked back, held the Steyr around the corner, and fired off a quick burst in the direction of the shooter.

When he looked down, Gloria was grinning up at him. “You’re damned good,” she said.

McGarvey laid his rifle aside, pulled the grapnel out of his pack, and tossed it up over the wall. Like before it caught on the first try.

“On three, go,” he told her, snatching the rifle.

She got painfully to her feet, stuffed the pistol into the waistband of her jeans, and grabbed the rope. She nodded. “One … two … three,” she said, and she started up.

McGarvey held the rifle around the corner and fired a continuous burst as Gloria scrambled up the rope and disappeared over the top.

The return fire came immediately, most of it over the top of the cabana or into the lintel. Their angle from the east wing was all wrong, making it impossible to hit anyone on the wall. It was a weakness in the compound’s security, and Gloria had known enough about the place to understand what it meant for them.

But by now Liu’s men would understand they had made a mistake, and would be changing their tactics.

McGarvey switched out his last magazine, and peered around the corner just long enough to see two men sprinting across the pool deck in front of the open sliders to the living room. He took them down with two short bursts, then emptied the magazine on the east wing.

Slinging the weapon over his shoulder, he reached the wall in three steps, grabbed the rope, and started up, more fire coming from the east wing. But then he was over the top and on the ground on the other side.

Gloria was trying to struggle to her feet, the left side of her T-shirt soaked with blood, and some black fluid.

McGarvey helped her up, but she tried to push him away.

“I’ll cover you,” she said, her voice weak.

“We’re getting out of here together.”

“I’m not going back to stand trial.”

“I’m pretty good at coming up with cover stories,” McGarvey said. “Been doing it all my life. I’m taking you home.”

She winced in pain when he gathered her up in his arms, but she didn’t cry out.

“Watch my back,” he told her as he started down a shallow slope to the edge of the road, trying his best to jar her as little as possible.

At the bottom he searched the top of the wall, but nothing moved, nor had anyone come out of the main gate.

“Anything moves, shoot it,” he said.

Holding her as gently as possible, he sprinted across the road to the thick willows at the water’s edge.

Halfway across, Gloria started shooting, squeezing off one methodical shot after the other, emptying the magazine by the time they reached the lake and the cover of the willows.

But they’d taken no return fire, which bothered him.

Gloria’s body went slack and she almost slipped out of his arms. He went down on one knee and laid her on the damp ground. Her eyelids were fluttering, and when he checked her pulse at the side of her neck, it was weak and rapid. He pulled up her T-shirt to check the wound, which was leaking a thick, dark fluid. She’d been hit in the liver. The pain must have been brutal, and she had to know she was already as good as dead. Even if she had been on an operating table her chances would have been slim.

She stopped breathing with a little sigh, and her body went totally slack.

“Goddamn it,” McGarvey said softly.

He put much of the blame on her father’s shoulders. There’d never been any love between them, and he’d never bothered being there for her when she’d needed him the most after her mother’s death. The only question left in his mind was who had ordered him taken out and why. Either it was Liu, to stop him from saying anything more about Gloria, or it was Cuban intelligence that had finally gotten to him. Either way didn’t really matter, because even at the end he hadn’t stepped up to the plate for his daughter. He hadn’t defended her, as most fathers would have done for their daughters, when McGarvey had come calling. All he could say was that he didn’t trust her.

McGarvey took his pistol from Gloria’s dead fingers and checked the load. It was empty, and there were no more magazines for it or for the Steyr.

At that moment someone shouted something from the road in front of the compound, and a car came out of the gate, its headlights flashing on the road above.

EIGHTY-SIX

XOCHIMILCO

No doubt they had found his car by now and the route he had taken approaching the compound. And they would realize that he and Gloria were trapped in the willows.