Blood Pact (McGarvey) (40 page)

Al-Rashid eased to the end of the stacks and looked down the corridor just as the woman disappeared down the main stairs. He waited another ten seconds then made his way after her, stopping just short of the landing. Again he was just in time to see her disappear around the corner into the gloom.

A few drops of blood had dripped on the first step, and more two steps farther down. She had been hit, but not badly.

He glanced down the corridor in the direction of Dr. Vergilio’s suite of offices. The outer door was open, and he suspected that some sort of a trap had been laid for him. But he knew that she was downstairs, and even if she’d found a second brick of Semtex and had placed it in the office, she would have had no idea how much time to set on the fuse.

In any event she wanted the diary, and she meant for him to see whatever was waiting for him in the doctor’s offices. She was using whatever it was as a bargaining chip.

And he figured that he knew what it was.

Glancing again toward the darkness at the base of the stairs to make sure she hadn’t come back, he sprinted down to the open office door. A few more drops of blood had fallen on the tile floor, which didn’t make sense unless she had been hurt earlier. But again there wasn’t much of it, so her wound was slight.

He eased around the corner, and swept the small outer office with his pistol, but nothing moved. Nor was anything or anyone behind the door, nor did he see anything that would indicate she’d laid a trap for him.

At the door to the doctor’s inner office, which was also open, he hesitated before he looked in.

Dr. Vergilio, a small hole in her forehead, lay crumpled on her knees, her head back against the front of the desk. The Cuban had shot the doctor at close range, but it made no sense unless she’d taken the cipher key for herself because the doctor had refused for some reason at the last minute to cooperate.

Back out in the corridor he returned to the head of the stairs to listen. But the only sounds were those of the crowd outside.

He turned on his heel and sprinted noiselessly past the stacks he had hidden behind to the rear service stairs that he took cautiously to the ground floor, where he held up again. Tall book stacks lined the rear corridor, framing the back door that opened onto the side wall of the Alcazar. To the right were display cases and around the corner toward the front were the rows of map cases and one of the bricks of Semtex he’d set.

Someone in that direction was talking. It was the woman and she sounded urgent.

Al-Rashid crept to the corner and made his way almost to the map cases, when he spotted María crouched behind one of them, her attention to the right, toward the main staircase. He slipped behind the last of the book stacks.

“… I don’t know where he’s hiding, but I’m telling you he killed Dr. Vergilio, I saw her body with my own eyes.”

Al-Rashid ducked back just as María turned and looked over her shoulder, a cell phone to her ear.

“I was hiding just around the corner and soon as he left I checked on her, but it was too late.”

She had to be talking to McGarvey. It was very possible, even likely, that he was the man arrested at the sidewalk café because of the tip al-Rashid had called to the CNI. But if that was him, it meant he’d been released. Or at the least had convinced someone to get back here. Time was running short.

“Yes, Otto’s right, he’s wearing a guard’s uniform. But he’s gone now.”

Al-Rashid had eased around the corner intending to shoot her, but he stopped.

“Listen to me, goddamnit, I’m across the street in the Cathedral. I followed him over. And I talked to him. I have a flash drive on which I downloaded the cipher key from Dr. Vergilio’s laptop. I told him we could make a trade, the key for a copy of the diary.”

Al-Rashid didn’t move.

“Of course we weren’t face-to-face. He would have killed me, and taken the key. I told him that I’d wait for the copy.”

The woman was playing both ends against the middle.

“I don’t know where it is, but he said he would photograph the key pages with his cell phone. He’s supposed to be back in ten minutes. And no, I don’t want you barging in over here, for all I know he never left. He could be hiding somewhere inside the church to take the photos. I want you guys to back off. I don’t want another shoot-out. I want the diary.”

Al-Rashid watched as she pocketed her phone and he stepped out from around the stacks. “I’ll have the flash drive, if you please,” he said.

SEVENTY-FOUR

Two blocks out they stopped at the edge of the crowd, got out, and headed the rest of the way on foot. Prieto was talking on a handheld radio, ordering the police to keep a close eye on every door and window of the Archives and the Cathedral.

“She could have been lying about where she was,” he said when he finished the transmission.

“That’s possible,” McGarvey said. “You and your people take the Cathedral, I’m going into the Archives. But I’ll need one of the cops to help me get in, because I’m sure that it’s locked up.”

Prieto relayed the order. “Someone will meet you at the front door.”

“Tell him not to go inside, because if Montessier is there your man will find himself in a shoot-out. And I want the guy alive. He’s probably hidden the diary somewhere and if he’s dead we may never find it.”

Prieto gave that order as well. “We don’t know what he looks like.”

McGarvey brought up the passport photo on his phone, showed it to Prieto, and then sent it to the major’s cell phone.

At the police line Prieto held up his open credentials wallet and they were passed through.

Before they separated the major gave McGarvey a hard look. “I have a feeling that you’re lying to me, that the Cathedral is a ruse. You want to take the bastard yourself.”

“Just in case, watch yourself.”

“If you find what you’re looking for don’t run, señor, because wherever you go I will come after you.”

“You already tried it in Florida.”

Prieto nodded tightly. “The next time it won’t be a simple surveillance mission.”

McGarvey angled left, working his way through the surging crowd that was starting to get ugly. A lot of the demonstrators held bottles half filled with gasoline, the necks of which were stuffed with rags.

In some spots the people had got to within fifteen or twenty feet of the police line, and the cops in the riot gear, batons at the ready, clear Lexan shields up, were clearly nervous. The chanting had grown louder and more urgent than earlier.

A cop in riot gear was waiting at the main door of the Archives. He had a Heckler & Koch MP7A1 slung over his shoulder by a strap. The small weapon, which could be used either as a pistol or as a submachine gun, carried a ninety-round magazine of 4.6X30 mm ammunition, the same as the older MP5, Room Broom.

“Señor McGarvey?” he asked. He was a sergeant.

McGarvey nodded. “I need to get in right now: do you understand English?”

“Yes, but the door is locked. I don’t have the key.”

“Shoot out the lock.”

The cop hesitated.

“Do it!” McGarvey shouted.

The cop reluctantly unslung the MP7, switched off the safety, and fired several rounds into the lock.

McGarvey pulled his pistol and shoved the door open with his foot. “Stay here,” he told the cop, and dropping to the tile floor just inside, he rolled left so that he would not be framed by the lights outside.

Except for the crowd noise the interior of the museum was quiet. Behind him the door slowly swung closed. To the left were display cases, straight ahead beyond the reception desk the main stairs led up to the second floor, and down the long corridor to the right low cabinets were lined up in precise rows and columns.

McGarvey lay quiet for a full minute, absorbing the sounds and smells of the place. It dawned on him that he was smelling something other than the dusty books and records, something modern and even sweet. Perfume. Chanel. María.

Someone to the right called out, but softly, the voice ragged.

“Kirk.”

McGarvey got to his feet, and sprinted down the corridor, making as little noise as possible, all his senses alert for Montessier.

María lay on a pile of what looked like manuscripts or maps, all of the pieces encased in plastic sleeves. Black dust, what almost looked like gunpowder, was spread all over the place. Blood streamed from wounds in both shoulders, both knees and her chest, just above her left breast. She was in a great deal of pain.

“No,” she cried. “Stay back.” She tried to move, but couldn’t because of her wounds.

“I’ll get an ambulance.”

“No, get back now.”

McGarvey looked over his shoulder to make sure that Monstessier wasn’t standing in the shadows nearby, waiting to kill both of them.

“Please, Kirk, get away before it’s too late,” she said, her voice only a whisper. She was desperate. “I’m lying on a brick of plastique and he’s cracked the fuse. It’s going off any second now.”

McGarvey holstered his pistol and went to her.

“No,” she moaned.

“Easy,” he said. He moved her aside as gently as possible, but still she whimpered in pain.

The Semtex was a one-kilo brick, an acid fuse stuck in one end. McGarvey yanked the fuse out of the plastique and a split second later it sparked, burning his fingers as he tossed it away. “Jesus.”

María said something in Spanish that he couldn’t quite make out.

“I’ll get help.”

She tried to reach for him but she couldn’t move her arm.

McGarvey took her hand in his. It was icy cold. “It’ll be okay.”

“He’s still here,” she whispered. “He took the flash drive with the key. But he can’t get out because of the cops.”

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs, I think. Be careful—” she said, and she died in mid-sentence, all the light going out of her eyes, her chest rising and then falling as if she was a tire that had been punctured.

McGarvey stared at her face for a long time. Hers had been an uneasy life, yet she was a product of the Cuban state. She was her father’s daughter, had been even before she had come face-to-face with him on his deathbed just a few months ago. A liar, devious, a manipulator, a user, a sociopath, a killer.

Now that she was dead he felt some pity for her. Some sorrow. Whatever she deserved, this wasn’t it, and yet he knew that he was being a maudlin fool.

*   *   *

On the roof, al-Rashid had spotted McGarvey appear out of the crowd and with the help of a uniformed cop shoot his way through the front door. He glanced at his watch. The digital timer was more than one minute past zero, and still there had been no explosion from below.

The woman could not have moved her arms to defuse the Semtex, so it had to have been brave McGarvey. The champion of the underdog. Yet Colonel León was an intelligence officer of an enemy state. It made no sense to his way of thinking.

His plan was for the explosion to occur, and when the fire department showed up he would descend to the ground floor where he would pretend to be a victim. Once outside he would discard the guard’s jacket and walk away. He had the diary, and now he had the cipher key. Once he delivered them to Prince Saleh, he would be paid and he would disappear into the woodwork. Maybe Thailand. Maybe even the Czech Republic where life after the Russians had become good.

All that had suddenly changed. First he would have to deal with the problem of McGarvey, and then he would have to set the fuses on the remaining two bricks of Semtex.

Only a small delay.

“You shouldn’t have left the ladder down,” McGarvey said from behind him.

*   *   *

McGarvey, crouched on the second to the top rung of the wooden fold-down ladder, his head and shoulders just above the access door to the roof, hadn’t expected Montessier to simply throw down his pistol and turn around.

“Ah, Monsieur McGarvey. You found the woman, and disarmed the plastique. How clever. And now you have me. So what’s next? Will you shoot me, or will you arrest me? Or are you open for a deal? Anything you need or want?”

“The flash drive you took from Colonel León.”

Al-Rashid reached into his pocket.

“Easy.”

He took the flash drive out of his pocket and tossed it down. “And the diary too?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have it on my person this evening, but I’ve already made a copy and sent it to my employer. Surely you must have guessed that by now.”

“Put your hands together behind your head and lace your fingers together.”

Al-Rashid did as he was told, but slowly, measuring each movement.

McGarvey climbed the rest of the way up. He was less than ten feet away from the man, an easy shot even under the poor light conditions. He took out his cell phone. “María was willing to make a deal, so why did you shoot her?”

“I had no use for her. She had the cipher key and I took it. Except for you my work is finished here. I merely need to get out of this building.”

McGarvey dialed Prieto’s number, but there was no answer and after four rings he called Otto.

“Yes?”

“I have him on the roof of the museum. Major Prieto is in the Cathedral, tell him to get over here now.”

“You might have to hold on for a bit. It’s starting to get ugly down here. What about María and the doctor?”

“They’re dead.”

“Hang on, Mac, we’ll get to you.”

An explosion below on the street lit up the night sky, followed immediately by a volley of gunshots.

Al-Rashid turned to look over the railing at the edge of the roof, and in a flash leaped over it and disappeared.

By the time McGarvey reached the edge and cautiously looked over, al-Rashid had already climbed down to the level of the second-story windows. A shot from this angle was impossible, because if he missed he would hit someone on the street below that was shoulder to shoulder with people—most of them men, but many of them women and even a few children.

Al-Rashid, hanging on with one hand, fired six shots up, all of them slamming into the stonework, a piece of which caught McGarvey in the jaw as he ducked back. The caliber was small, almost certainly María’s pistol, a Russian-made 5.54 PSM, with only an eight-round magazine.