The Kill Zone (19 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: The Kill Zone
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“Nevertheless, it'll have to be done,” Stenzel insisted. “She'll disintegrate unless she's removed from the source of her stress; removed either physically or through drugs.”
“We'll do the best we can,” McGarvey said. It seemed whatever direction he turned there were emotional roadblocks. “Are you going to hospitalize her?”
“Not now. Are you going to continue the confirmation hearings?”
“I don't have any choice.”
“Then keep the details from your wife.”
“She hasn't paid any real attention—”
“She knows all about them. Especially the attacks on you by Senator Madden.”
McGarvey winced.
Stenzel glanced again at Yemm. “Is she in any physical danger?”
“Possibly,” Yemm replied.
“Is she aware of it?”
“She is now.” McGarvey said.
“I've instructed your security people to call me if there's any change in her behavior. I've left some Librium; we'll see if that takes the edge off her anxiety. In the meantime she needs to get some rest. If she was in the hospital, I could take care of it, but keep her off the telephone and away from the radio, television, computer, newspapers, whatever.”
McGarvey showed Stenzel to the front door, then went upstairs to the master bedroom. Kathleen was up and dressed in jeans and one of his old flannel shirts. She'd just finished with her makeup when he came in. She managed a timid smile for him.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” McGarvey said, going to her. They embraced. “How are you feeling?”
“A little tired. A little keyed up. But much better.” She brushed a speck of lint off his jacket lapel. “I thought that you might be going into the office this morning, so I had the girls put this out for you.” She looked up at him. “They're going to be a big help for a few days.”
“The doctor says that you need to get some rest.”
“I'll take a nap this afternoon. I've got work to do on the Beaux Arts invitations. And if I'm not going anywhere for the next few days, I'll have some phone calls to make. Will this be resolved by then?”
“I don't know.”
“That's not very comforting.”
“Katy, this isn't going to be that easy—”
“C'mon, darling, we have a life to get on with. We're right in the middle of season. The baby is due in five months. And you have to wind up your Senate battle.” She shook her head. “We can't go on like this, with something like this hanging over our heads.”
McGarvey was at a loss for words. It wasn't Kathleen talking to him. It was someone else; someone who wasn't dealing with reality. “We'll do the best we can.”
“I know,” Kathleen replied. She gave him a pat. “Now get out of here. I have work to do, including soothing our neighbors, who have to be wondering what's going on over here.”
“Dr. Stenzel doesn't want you using the phone.”
“Piffle,” she said with a dimissive gesture.
“Are you going to be okay, Katy?”
“I've been better. Just get it done, would you?”
“I'll be home early,” McGarvey said.
He gave her another kiss, then went downstairs. Yemm was waiting in the stairhall, his coat on. He had McGarvey's coat in hand. He looked grim.
“What now, Dick?”
“We have to get to work, boss. Elizabeth was hurt on the slopes. They took her to Denver General.”
CIA HEADQUARTERS
The security people inside and outside of the house were informed, but the news was kept from Kathleen. As soon as Yemm pulled out of the driveway and radioed headquarters with the “Hammerhead en route” message, a pair of Maryland Highway Patrol unmarked cruisers moved in front and back as escorts.
McGarvey was beside himself, angry, frustrated, fearful, made all the more worse because he was completely helpless to do anything for them.
What could be done was being done by the Office of Security. He had to trust his own people for now.
Adkins was keeping the recall as low-key as possible under the difficult circumstances, but it was impossible to hide the fact that something out of the ordinary was happening. Too many people were showing up at headquarters at odd hours.
By four the telephones had begun to ring, and by 9:00 A.M., when McGarvey walked into his office, the landslide was at full speed. Every newspaper, wire service, television and radio network in the country, it seemed, wanted to know what was going on.
The rumor was that the DCI and his wife were in the USVI for the weekend. The fact was that a helicopter exploded on the beach of a deserted island down there, and within hours the CIA had issued a heads-up to all of its people worldwide.
Yemm went down to Security to pitch in, and Adkins walked in from his office with a stack of file folders, e-mails and faxes from their field people and law enforcement agencies between Washington and the islands.
Ms. Swanfeld had also come in. She brought McGarvey his coffee as he took off his jacket and pushed up his sleeves. “No calls, unless it's someone I have to talk to,” he told her.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “How is Mrs. McGarvey?”
“She'll be okay. Thanks for asking.”
“Of course she will be,” Ms. Swanfeld replied as if any other idea were unthinkable. She went out to her desk.
“We couldn't reach either of them because they left their cell phones in the hotel room,” Adkins said. He laid the files and messages on McGarvey's desk.
“What happened? How is she?”
“She's going to be fine,” Adkins said. “I spoke with the emergency room doctor who said that she was lucky she was wearing a helmet.” Adkins looked terrible. He was taking this personally. “They were skiing off piste, and she ran into a tree. The fact she was wearing her helmet, and that she's young, probably saved her life. That, and Todd was carrying an avalanche locator, which he keyed as soon as the accident happened. The ski patrol got to them in minutes. They stabilized her and choppered her down to Denver.”
McGarvey reached for the phone, but Adkins stopped him.
“It's not such a good idea if you call them just yet, Mac.”
“What else?” McGarvey demanded.
“We have people out there with them. They'll be okay. The problem is that they haven't been told about what happened to you. I don't think they need that kind of news right now.”
“Is my daughter going to be all right, Dick. No bullshit now.”
Adkins nodded. “The docs say she'll come out of this just fine. But she lost some blood, and there was the truama to her head, even though she was wearing a helmet.”
McGarvey forced himself to calm down, take this latest round of trouble one step at a time. He nodded for Adkins to continue.
“Jared called about ten minutes ago,” Adkins said. Jared Kraus was the director of the CIA's Technical Services Division. “He's on the ground at Hans Lollick. He said the explosion was definitely Semtex. No doubt whatsoever. And a lot of it, by the looks of the damage.”
“Someone's after me,” McGarvey said, distracted.
“Yeah,” Adkins agreed. “But who?”
Ms. Swanfeld came to the door. “Mr. McGarvey, the President is on Secure One for you.”
“I want a staff meeting in my conference room at ten o'clock,” McGarvey said, reaching for the phone.
“We'll know more about Colorado by then—”
“A
full
staff meeting, Dick. Somebody with an old grudge is gunning for me, but we still have an intelligence agency to run.”
Adkins did a double take. “How about first things first?”
“We don't have the luxury.”
“Then go out to Cropley and let us handle the situation without having to duck every time someone comes near you,” Adkins blurted angrily.
“Staff meeting at ten, Dick,” McGarvey said. He picked up the phone and turned away. “Good morning, Mr. President. You know what happened to us in the VI?”
“Your security people sent us the heads-up last night. How are you doing?”
“It was a close call, but no one got hurt except for the civilian helicopter pilot. We're working to see if he was in on the plot.”
“It wasn't an accident then?”
“No. It was an attempted hit.”
The President was silent for a moment. “Any idea who it might be?”
“We're working on it. We'll get them.”
“Will they try again?”
“Probably.”
Again the President was silent for a beat. “Do you want to withdraw your name, Mac? Get out of there? No one would blame you if you did. You've given your share.”
McGarvey took his time before he answered. The morning sun was very bright. It looked cold outside. The air was superclear. “A few days ago I might have considered it, Mr. President. But not now. I won't leave like this because someone is gunning for me.”
“I know the feeling,” President Haynes said. Last year McGarvey had broken up an assassination attempt on the President and his family. It had been a very close thing. “the media is starting to make noises. How do you want to play it?”
“As a nonevent for now. I don't think it would do my chances in the Senate much good if they thought that I was a lightning rod for the crazies.”
“Okay, if there's anything you need, let me know. And say hello to your wife and daughter for me. They're all right, aren't they?”
“So far.”
“Well, good luck then.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
He didn't like to leave it at that, with lies. Once you started down that path there was almost never a redemption. People remembered lies much longer than they remembered the truth. But he wasn't sure of anything, or anyone, now.
Whoever pushed the button in the VI was no stranger, because if they were, it meant there was a mole somewhere here, within earshot of the director's office. Neither possibility was comforting.
Adkins came to the door. “Staff is set for ten. All but Otto.”
“Why?”
“No one knows where he is. He's not here, but Louise swears that so far as she knows he's at his desk.”
McGarvey closed his eyes for a moment. “Is she lying?”
“I think so. Whenever Otto wanders off she gets hyper. She sounded okay this time.”
“Have Security find him.”
“Why bother?” Adkins asked with a trace of bitterness. Looking for Otto had become an almost full-time job.
“Because he probably has the key to finding out who's gunning for me,” McGarvey explained. “And because he's one of us. And because I said so.”
 
 
Ms. Swanfeld walked into his office ten minutes later. She looked pale.
“Mr. Director, it's your son-in-law on three. He's calling from Denver General Hospital.”
McGarvey had been trying without much luck to concentrate on the India-Pakistan NIE updates that Otto had prepared two days ago. He looked up, a vise around his heart. “Thank you.”
He picked up the telephone after Ms. Swanfeld withdrew. “What happened, Todd?”
“Elizabeth has been hurt. She'll be okay, but it wasn't an accident, that's why we're using our work names.”
“Someone is with you?”
“We're secure,” Todd said. He sounded shook-up, but steady.
“Okay. From the top. What happened out there?” McGarvey asked.
“We were skiing off piste when Liz's bindings came apart and she hit a tree head-on. But they were set to blow. Somebody packed them with Semtex. She never had a chance.”
The whispering was loud now, like a waterfall just around a bend in the path.
“But I don't know about the detonator. Probably an acid fuse, anything else would have been too big. Technical Services can retrieve her skis and check it out.”
“That means somebody out there at Vail must have set them.”
“That's what I figured.”
“Let me talk to her,” McGarvey said.
“She's in the recovery room,” said Todd, his voice deflated. “She'll be out of it for a while.”
“You said that she'll be okay—”
“Yeah. But we lost the baby.” Todd choked up. “She never had a chance, the doctor said. They tried to save her. But they couldn't.” Again Todd was overcome, and he had to stop.
All the air had left McGarvey's office. He looked up. Adkins was there listening in on the extension. He was slowly shaking his head.
“It was our daughter, and they killed her,” Todd said. “There was no reason for it, Mac. They could have come after me, one-on-one. I would have fought them any time, anyplace under any conditions they wanted. Christ.”
“Stick with her, Todd,” McGarvey said. He had to force the words out of his throat, force his lips to move.
“I'm sorry, Dad. God help me, I should have made her stay home. I should have been more responsible.”

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