High Flight (91 page)

Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: High Flight

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“Wait a minute,” McLaren interrupted. “Are you saying now that you think it was the Japanese who attacked us?”

“They might have planned something, but I think someone else got involved. Maybe by accident, I don't know. Yamagata should have some of the answers.”

“Are you talking about Bruno Mueller?”

“I think Mueller killed Phil Carrara and another guy from the CIA because they were getting too close. They've been targeting Guerin and a company called InterTech, which I think is a link back to the Japanese.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Franson demanded.

“A lot of people have already been killed. I'm trying to stop it from escalating.”

“Okay, so we wait here until we get some backup, and then we go in and take them,” McLaren suggested.

“If he takes a hit he won't do us any good,” McGarvey argued. “He's probably got help, and they'll fight back if they're cornered.”

“You thinking about taking them one on one?”

“I'd have a better chance alone.”

“I'll go with you,” McLaren said.

“Bullshit!” Franson started to turn, but Joyce grabbed his arm.

“Sorry, Mr. Franson, but you and I will wait here for the others.”

“Sonofabitch!”

McGarvey withdrew the pistol from Franson's neck, eased the hammer down, and climbed out of the car. He started down the road. McLaren caught up with him as he screwed the silencer on the end of the Walther's barrel, then pulled the ejector slide back, jacking a round into the empty firing chamber.

The FBI agent laughed. “Don't tell Franson you wouldn't have shot him. He'd probably kill you with his bare hands.”

FBI Special Agents Kris Wentworth and Brian Strong had been on surveillance duty since six in the morning, and they were bored.

“How about some music?” Strong suggested.

“I don't care,” Wentworth said, lighting a cigarette. They'd not listened to the radio all morning.

Reid had been re-scheduled to fly on Air Force Two, and they would have had the rest of the day off. Sundays were slow unless they were on special assignment like now. But the dumb sonofabitch had driven his car off the Suitland Parkway five miles short of Andrews. By the time the tow truck had come to pull him out of the ditch he was too late to catch the flight. They'd monitored his two cellular calls from the car: one to the AAA and the other to the White House. But it hadn't seemed right to Wentworth. He'd bet anything that Reid had deliberately missed the flight.

“Hang on,” Strong said from the rear observation position.

Wentworth looked up from the viewfinder of the powerful telephoto camera lens as a yellow Corvette came down the street, turned up the driveway, and parked next to Reid's house. A young, good-looking woman got out of the car and went to the door.

“Who is she?” Strong asked.

“I don't know. Run a trace on the plates.” Wentworth studied her through the lens. She rang the bell, and a few moments later Reid came to the door and let her in. It was odd the way she'd clutched her purse, as if she was afraid she'd drop it, as if she were carrying something important.

“Dominique Kilbourne, Watergate Apartments,” Strong read from the computer screen. “No warrants.”

Kilbourne, Wentworth thought. The name was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't dredge it up. “See if we have anything on her.”

“Shall we call it in?”

“Not yet. Maybe she's just a call girl, and the old boy is getting it on.”

“Here it comes again,” Strong said.

A white Toyota van had passed Reid's house a minute ago. It came back from the opposite direction and parked at the corner.

The angle was wrong for Wentworth to get a clear camera shotâthe van was fifty yards away on the other side of the street. “I can't make the plates.”

“Stand by,” Strong said excitedly. He flipped a couple of switches on a bank of sensitive receivers. “That was really fast. VHF band, but high-speed burst. Encrypted, I think.”

“From the Toyota?”

“Yeah, they just sent a message to somebody. It's not one of ours.”

“Amundson.”

“Sir, this is North American Intercept. We've got that back trace. It's Bank of Tokyo. No doubt about it now. Started out as an international funds transfer to InterTech Corporation's Alameda mainframe. But the funny thing is there wasn't any transfer of funds. The signal is being automatically up-linked to the company's geosync satellite, which is relaying a two-thousand-cycle tone modulated onto its microwave carrier.”

“Is InterTech processing the signal?”

“No way to tell for sure. But there's no appreciable delay, so I'd say it's automatic. Could be InterTech doesn't know what's going on.”

“Is it still running?”

“Yes, sir.”

Amundson sent the FLASH-designated message to the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and FAA, then picked up the telephone and called the White House Situation Room direct.

“Gentlemen, there's no longer any doubt who's behind this attack on us,” President Lindsay said after the NSA call. “It means Enchi is lying.”

“He might be in the dark just like we are,” Secor suggested. “Could be some faction other than his government. He's had trouble with the Democratic Socialist Party since the beginning.”

“He would not have placed his military at DEFCON TWO.”

“Mr. President, the FBI is sending someone to InterTech. I think we should wait to see what they come up with.”

“In the meantime, how much more damage will be done to us? How many more lives will be lost?” the President demanded. “I want all Japanese Self Defense Forces held to their home waters and air space.”

“Considering what's going on north of Hokkaido, they might not back down,” Secretary of Defense Paul Landry cautioned.

“I'll call Enchi and tell him what we're doing and why. If he's not part of whatever the hell is going on, he'll take steps to stop it. If he is part of it, he'll understand that I mean business.”

Mueller had no doubt that the GMC was an FBI surveillance unit. But he couldn't think who was in the Toyota, except they were interested in Reid or perhaps the young woman who'd shown up in the Corvette.

He screwed the can silencer on the end of the Beretta. He could not afford to walk away, but neither could he afford to attract any attention. Holding the pistol out of sight at his side, he stepped around the corner and headed for the Toyota. Most people would be at home, glued to their television sets, watching the unfolding drama of America's greatest air disaster. The chances that someone would be looking out a window were slim, but present. This would have to be done quickly.

For the first moments the advantage would be his. Most cops on stakeouts had tunnel vision. They were
focused on the object of their surveillance. It made them vulnerable. In addition, most of the cops he'd ever met had little or no imagination. The unexpected froze them. They saw what they expected to see.

As he approached he could see that no one was behind the wheel. The driver had crawled into the back. It confirmed his suspicion that it was a surveillance unit. Their attention would be directed elsewhere.

Reaching the van, he opened the passenger door and climbed inside. Two slightly built men were in the back. One of them wore a headset, the other was looking out the rear window through a pair of binoculars. They turned in surprise.

Mueller shot them both in the face, driving their bodies backward, blood splattering the banks of electronic equipment.

They were Japanese. But it didn't surprise him. America's intelligence services leaked like everybody else's. No doubt there was a pipeline back to Tokyo from the CIA and the FBI's counterespionage division. The only thing that bothered Mueller was the extent of their knowledge. He did not want to spend the rest of his life running from them as well as the Americans. In many respects the Japanese were a more efficient, more patient people than Americans.

He eased the Beretta's hammer down and stuffed the gun in his belt as he checked the GMC in the rearview mirror. Even if they'd been watching, they could not have seen what had gone on inside the van. But he did not want to give them time to think about it.

He got out of the Toyota, waited for a cab to pass, then walked across the street and down the block. As he approached the GMC, he held his open wallet up as if he were a cop showing his ID.

Someone powered the passenger door window down, and Mueller lowered his wallet. “I need to use your radio.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” the FBI agent asked suspiciously.

“I've got two men down in the Toyota, and I need a Technical Services unit from Langley over here pronto. Will you guys call it in for me? I'm Tom Rheinberger, Operations. Tell them it's Scarlet Ribbon.”

“What's going on, Kris?” someone asked from in back.

“A guy says he's CIA.”

“Look, I don't want to blow your operation, pal, but if Reid happens to look out his window and see us having a powwow we might as well all pack it in. Either call Langley for me, or let me do it. But make up your mind.”

“I don't know if we've got your frequency,” Wentworth said.

“You gotta have it,” Mueller said, opening the door. “I'll show you.”

“Just a sec,” Wentworth said. He turned to the back.

Mueller pulled out his pistol and climbed in behind him, pushing him down. The second FBI agent reared back as Mueller shot him point-blank in the face. Then, as Wentworth tried to get free, Mueller shot him in the back of the head just behind his left ear.

“What do you think about that?” he said to himself.

McGarvey waited below the wooden walkway for McLaren to come down the driveway. Kennedy's footprints crossed the parking area to the walk where they were joined by another set. There were no signs of a struggle, nor was there any blood. They'd seen him coming, and they'd taken him. Simple. He didn't think they would shoot another lone man, apparently unarmed, approaching the house on foot. But they'd sure as hell come out to challenge him.

Coming through the woods from the highway, McGarvey had spotted one of the closed-circuit television cameras trained on the driveway and had sent the FBI agent back.

“Are you wearing a vest?”

“Yeah, but it hurts like hell to get shot,” McLaren said. “If it comes to that, don't miss.”

“I won't.”

“No, I don't expect you would.”

McLaren, his coat buttoned and his hands in plain sight at his sides, came into view at the end of the driveway. He stopped a moment, as if he were studying the house, and then followed the footprints toward the walkway around the side.

A Toyota van and a gray Lexus were parked in front of the house. They'd not been moved since the last snow. Unless Yamagata and whoever he had with him had another way out of here, they were still inside.

McGarvey lay still and watched as McLaren climbed the steps to the walkway and again hesitated a moment before starting toward the front of the house. Before he got halfway, a Japanese man dressed in a Cal Tech track suit, armed with a Glock-17 automatic, came around the corner.

“Who are you?” the Japanese asked.

McLaren stopped, his hands out. “Hey, take it easy. I'm looking for Dave Kennedy. I was told he was here.”

“You're mistaken.”

McGarvey eased the Walther's hammer back and switched the safety catch off as he rose from his hiding place. “Lower your weapon now, or I will shoot you.”

The man's eyes flicked to McGarvey, but his aim never wavered from McLaren. “We wish you no harm, Mr. McGarvey. In fact, we were expecting you.”

“Is Yamagata here?”

“Yes.”

“Then put your gun on the railing and step back.”

“It's not what you think.”

“Hayai,
” quick, McGarvey said.

The man's eyes widened slightly in surprise.

“Ima!”
Now!

The Japanese intelligence officer carefully placed the big handgun on the snow-covered railing and stepped back a pace.

McLaren pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the Japanese. McGarvey climbed up on the walkway and retrieved the man's weapon.