The Cabal (50 page)

Pete was amazed. “People died for this nonsense. Money. Position. And if things had gotten out of hand in Mexico City, or Pyongyang or Taipei, we might have gotten embroiled in some sort of a nuclear exchange.”

“Wars have started for less,” Adkins said.

“Still leaves Mac in jail, and Foster’s people on the loose to figure out their next scam,” Pete said. “What can we do about it?”

Otto and Adkins exchanged a glance, and Otto touched a finger to the send box in the header of what looked like an e-mail message. “Just did it.”

“Did what?”

“We wrote an e-mail detailing everything we just told you, and sent it to every name from Remington’s flash drive and Whittaker’s laptop.”

“Don’t you think they’ll fight back?”

“With what?” Otto asked. “We have the proof, and Mac got it for us.”

“Now we wait,” Adkins said.

At the Central Detention Facility, known as the D.C. jail, McGarvey sat on his cot, his back against the dirty concrete wall. His clothing had been taken from him when he’d been admitted thirty-six hours ago, and he was dressed now in jeans, a light blue denim shirt, and black shoes, no laces.

He was in a special holding cell away from the general population used for prisoners on suicide watch, prisoners who were in danger from the other inmates, and occasionally a special case like McGarveys ordered held by the Bureau or the U.S. Marshal Service.

So far no one had come to talk to him, and the jailer who delivered his meals had said nothing, merely sliding the metal plate, tin cup of Kool-Aid, and the spoon through the slot in the metal door, and returning in twenty minutes to retrieve the dirty dishes.

The single light set behind a grille in the ceiling never went out, and there was no window.

Everything hinged on Otto, as operations in the past so often had, but he hoped that Dick Adkins and Pete had managed to make it to safety and keep their heads down until the dust settled.

There were going to be repercussions, and it was almost certain that Foster would fight back using whatever connections were left in place and still loyal to the cause. But it was anyone’s guess how it would turn out.

During the first night, and all yesterday, he’d had plenty of time to
think about Katy and Liz and Todd, and what his life was going to be without them. But he’d come to no conclusions. Too soon, he supposed. And he was numb, a feeling he’d never really known to this depth. It was as if a very large part of his body and his mind had been cut out and disposed of. No ceremony. No time to prepare. No time to mount some sort of defense or counterattack. They were there in his life, and then they were gone.

He’d also thought about the day Katy had given him the ultimatum, her or the CIA, and he’d been so stupid that he’d walked out the door and had taken up an existence in Switzerland. But even that separation, that distance had never been final in his mind. There’d always been at least a glimmer of hope, a possibility for reconciliation that was missing now. And he was still angry. Almost shaking with anger.

The door locking mechanism was thrown back, the door swung open, and Ansel was there, holding what looked like a clear plastic dry cleaner’s bag over his shoulder, his thumb hooked in the curve of the hanger.

McGarvey sat up. “Where’s your partner?”

“He didn’t show up for work this morning,” Ansel said.

“No one knows where he is?”

Ansel’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right,” he said. “Anyway, all charges against you have been dropped, but there’ll be a coroner’s hearing. A lot of dead bodies scattered around that need answering for.” He came in, laid the bag at the foot of the cot, and stepped back out of the cell as if he were wary of getting too close. “Your clothes have been cleaned and pressed. Soon as you’re dressed I’ll get you out of here.”

“What about my shoes?”

“With your other things up front.”

McGarvey got up and began changing out of the prison garb. “Anything else been going on around town overnight? Disappearances? Resignations? Suicides?”

“You knew all along that something like this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

“Not at first. But the deeper I got into the mess the more likely I thought Foster and his people would fold if they were given a nudge. Like a house of cards.”

“Well, Foster’s car was run off the road early this morning and he was shot to death. No witnesses.”

“Anyone with him?”

“No. He was driving. As it is we’ll probably never find the killer. It was professional.”

“It’ll turn out to be an Administrative Solutions shooter. They’ve got a grudge.”

“Against you,” Ansel said.

“Foster owed them a lot of money. I didn’t,” McGarvey said. “Who else?”

Ansel shook his head. “I don’t know, I don’t think anybody does yet, but the media is all over it. One of Langdon’s advisers resigned, along with a couple of guys from the State Department, one at Justice, and maybe someone at the Department of Energy. A general who was an adviser to the Joint Chiefs was found shot to death in his office last night. A suicide.”

“All Foster’s people,” McGarvey said. “Just like your partner probably was.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ansel said. “And I don’t think I want to know. But I expect that’s exactly what the president is going to ask you.”

McGarvey shook his head. “I don’t have anything to tell him that he doesn’t already know by now.”

“No choice, Mr. Director. Technically you’re still under arrest until I drop you off at the White House.”

The D.C. jail was way out by RFK Stadium, and during the long drive over to the White House Ansel didn’t say a thing, but he let McGarvey use his cell phone to call Otto.

“I’m on my way to the White House, the president wants to talk to me. Did our friends make it okay?”

“It’s not your cell phone. You can’t talk.”

“Right.”

“I’ll take care of it. But yeah, they made it just fine. Have you been told what’s been happening around town?”

“Some of it. How many from the lists?”

“So far twenty-three out of thirty-seven, and without Foster the rest of them won’t get very far,” Otto said. “You heard that he was murdered?”

“Yes. Where was he going?”

“Looks like he was headed to Dulles. He keeps a corporate jet out there.”

“Flight plan?”

“Zurich.”

And so it was over and done with, or very nearly so. “What about you guys?” McGarvey asked. “Are all of you in the clear?”

“Pete’s going back to work tomorrow, debriefings probably for at least a week. Louise and I will do the same, but not until Monday, gives us a few days to clear out of here, pick up Audie, and get back to our old apartment.”

“And Dick?”

“DCIs serve at the president’s pleasure, with congressional consent,” Otto said. “What about you?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” McGarvey said. “I suppose I’ll bunk with you and Louise for a day or two and then go to Casey Key and start closing down the house and getting rid of the sailboat.”

“You’re not going to move back?”

“No,” McGarvey said.

“The phone you’re using is a U.S. Marshal Service issue. Soon as you hang up, I’m going to fry it. Might be a recording device inside, memory, something, ya know. Can’t be too careful.”

“You’re right.”

“Louise and I have a few things to do yet, but Pete’s coming over
to pick you up. She’ll be waiting at the West Gate. We’re all going to have pizza and red wine. Lots of red wine.”

Ansel dropped him off at the White House west portico. “I’m sorry that things worked out the way they did for you, Mr. Director,” he said. “Your wife and daughter and son-in-law. This stuff should never involve families.”

“Not in an ideal world,” McGarvey said, and he got out of the car and didn’t look back as Ansel left.

He was met by a presidential aide who escorted him down to the Oval Office without a word. President Langdon was seated in an easy chair facing his National Security Adviser Frank Shapiro, seated on the couch.

“Good, you’re here at last,” the president said. “We have to clear up a number of things before your news conference. I’m appointing you as interim director of the CIA, just until this mess is straightened out.”

“No.”

“No, what?” Shapiro asked sharply. He was angry, and looked a little like a frightened man.

“No, sir, I’m not going back to work for the CIA, nor am I going to hold a news conference.”

“I understand how you must feel,” Langdon said. “But your country needs you. I need you, because we’re facing a set of very serious problems, and the Chinese government is demanding some answers. Immediate answers.”

“No, sir,” McGarvey said.

“Well at least sit down and hear me out,” the president said, his voice rising in anger.

“I’m not staying, Mr. President,” McGarvey said. “I came here because I was ordered to, and because I wanted to tell you that I don’t like you, I never have. I don’t believe in most of your policies or most of the people you picked for your advisers.”

Shapiro got to his feet, but Langdon waved him back.

“Mr. McGarvey is exercising his right as a citizen. And as it turns out I don’t like him, never have, never have agreed with how he did things.” He looked McGarvey in the eye. “But I believe that there is no man alive who loves his country more than you do.”

“No, sir,” McGarvey said. “That man had better be you, or we’re all in trouble.”

It was noon, and, shirtless, McGarvey was running along the rocky path above the Aegean Sea on the Greek island of Serifos, pushing himself as he had since coming back to the same island, the same converted lighthouse he’d run to a number of years ago.

That time John Lyman Trotter, a close friend, had turned out to be a mole within the CIA, and in the end McGarvey had been forced to kill him, getting seriously wounded himself. He’d found this island, this refuge in the middle of nowhere, and started the healing process.

Only now he wasn’t bouncing back quite as fast, and this time he was alone, truly alone except for his granddaughter, who Otto and Louise had brought here six weeks ago for a visit.