Â
Ryan switched off the tape recorder. “He can be charged under the Secrets Act. Trial in camera.”
“He's the Deputy Director of Operations, Howard. I can definitely see his point of view, even though I think he's wrong. But he and McGarvey have both served this Agency well,” Murphy said. He suddenly wondered if it was such a hot idea taping his conversation with Carrara and sharing it with Ryan.
“Well, you warned him.”
“Yes, I did. I've trusted Phil's good judgment for a number of years, and he's never let me down. He knows the score. And he knows the limitations imposed on him because of his position. But we're not going to take any action against him unless and until he steps over the line.”
“I think you're wrong, General.”
“As always, I appreciate your candor. But this time I'm going to overrule you. I've relieved him from active duty for the time being, which cuts him out of the mainstream.”
“He's got plenty of friends here. I'm sure he's still plugged in to everything that's happening.”
Murphy didn't like the petulant note in Ryan's voice. “Nonetheless, he's still a top-level administrator with this agency. And he'll continue to have our trust and support. I expect that I've made myself clear.”
Â
John Whitman was summoned to the FBI director's office after lunch. His people had worked hard on the Guerin case (as it had come to be known) for the past ten days, but they were still stymied by a lack of hard evidence. The State Department and White House had warned them away from Edward Reid, and now the CIA was dragging its feet about Kirk McGarvey. He was going to talk to the director to approach the Attorney General again for a little slack. Without some leeway they simply could not do their jobs. It was aggravating, he thought, and he was tired of giving his people excuses when they needed answers. The director's secretary passed him inside immediately.
“I know that look on your face,” FBI Director John
Harding said. “But this time you don't have to say a thing. The CIA has agreed to cooperate.”
“That's good news.”
“The A.G.'s office is preparing a warrant for McGarvey's arrest on obstruction of justice and industrial espionage. But you're going to have to take it easy, John. All we've got is circumstantial evidence for the most part, and you've seen his file. I don't want anyone hurt.”
“I understand.” Whitman could hardly contain himself. McGarvey might not have all the answers, but he'd be a start.
“Get your people ready, and I'll let you know when we have the paperwork in hand.”
Â
Phil Carrara and Roy Ulland headed out of Washington through Arlington toward the rural Sterling address that had come up on the computer-generated map. They'd tried to contact McGarvey at Dominique's Watergate number without success, which bothered Carrara, especially after his talk with the General this morning. If Mac were taken out, Carrara thought, they'd lose. Simple as that. He didn't carry a weapon and neither did Ulland. But he didn't really think they'd need to be armed. They were just going to take a look. If they needed reinforcements they'd call for them.
Â
McGarvey watched in his rearview mirror as the white Toyota van with darkly tinted windows came up the ramp to the Washington Memorial Parkway behind him. He thought it was the same car that had followed him from the Hyatt over to Reid's Georgetown house. He'd not slept in the past thirty-six hours, and he knew that his judgment was affected.
Reid's gray Mercedes was three cars ahead, and following him was easy. His trail could be picked up at anytime either from his house or from the Hyatt. But whoever was in the Toyota was a different story. McGarvey was betting that they were Japanese. But who were
they following, him or Reid? If it was Reid, it meant that the former State Department official was somehow involved with the Dulles crash. Or at least the Japanese thought he was and were investigating him. If not, it meant they were Kamiya's people sent to finish the job that had been started in Tokyo. If that were true it could mean that he was getting close, which led again back to Reid. The arguments were circular, and therefore worthless.
A few miles north, Reid turned off the parkway and headed west on State Highway 123 toward the back entrance to the CIA. For a brief moment McGarvey had the wild notion that Reid was working with the Agency and that all this was some sort of gigantic setup engineered by the General and Howard Ryan. But the Mercedes passed the access road without slowing and a couple of miles later turned east, toward the airport, on the Dulles Airport Access Road.
It was possible that he had gone home to pack a suitcase and was booked on a flight somewhere. If he were involved with the Dulles crash, and with whatever was going to happen on Sunday, he would want to get out of Washington or even the country until the dust settled. But that wasn't right. If Reid were going to end up the Monday-morning hero he would have to stick around.
Perhaps he was going to the airport to meet someone, or perhaps he wasn't going to the airport at all. There were several other exits from the access highway before Dulles.
McGarvey drove past the ramp Reid had taken, crossed under the highway, and turned up the westbound ramp, back toward the city.
He looked in his rearview mirror. The Toyota passed the east ramp, and as he merged with traffic on the highway, it was two cars behind him.
One question was answered.
Â
“I think I was followed part of the way out here,” Reid said. He was agitated.
“But not here to the house?” Mueller asked. They watched the highway from one of the front bedrooms. No one had come up the driveway.
“It was a blue Saturn. Followed me from the Hyatt to Georgetown, then as far as the Dulles highway. But it turned off.”
“Coincidence?”
“Maybe,” Reid said uncertainly. “I only got close enough once to see that there was only the driver. And it was a rental car. The Bureau doesn't operate that way.”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm not sure of anything,” Reid snapped. “But if I am being followed, and it's not the Bureau, then who? The CIA?”
“It doesn't matter. If someone shows up out here, we'll be ready for them.”
“I'm getting out of here tonight,” Zerkel said from the doorway. “Did you bring my money?”
“As a matter of fact I did,” Reid said, turning away from the window. “But first we're going to discuss your safeguards. They'll have to be neutralized.”
“What guarantees will I haveâ?”
“You'll have a million dollars in cash, and my word, Louis. Isn't that enough?”
Zerkel teetered on the brink of insanity. His eyes were wild, and his lower lip twitched. He nodded finally. “I want to see it first.”
“Very well,” Reid said. “The money is downstairs.”
Â
“Kan-cho
on the bridge,” the XO announced.
“As you were,” Seiji Kiyoda said. All his best officers were present, he noted with satisfaction. He glanced at the clock. It was 0300 local. A steward handed him a cup of tea.
“We're ready,” Minori said.
“Very well,” Kiyoda answered. He stepped back into the sonar room. “How's it look on the surface?”
“Pretty rough, sir.” Chief Sonarman Tsutomu Nakayama brought up one of the displays. “Lots of surface clutter. I'd say they're sailing into forty-knot winds or
more, six- to seven-meter seas. But it's hard to hold any target.”
The crewmen aboard the American destroyer would be fatigued fighting the storm, and their important officers would probably be asleep at this hour. The
Samisho,
on the other hand, cruised in comfort seventy meters beneath the surface, and her important officers had been ordered to rest for the last twelve hours.
“How far back are they?”
“Twenty-five thousand meters. Same course and speed.”
“They remain in passive mode?”
“Yes,
Kan-cho.
They go active only when we shut down.”
Kiyoda studied the displays. “Anything else out there?”
Nakayama brought up another display. Barely visible in the waterfall were a series of straight-line dots. “I think it's an oil tanker. One hundred thousand meters plus, to the south-southwest. She'll be out of our range within the next couple of hours. No designation.”
“Then it's just us and Sierra-Zero-Nine. Keep a sharp eye for anything else coming up behind him. They may have called for help.”
“Aye, aye,
Kan-cho.
”
Kiyoda returned to the control room, and brought their present course, speed, and depth up on his command console, then overlaid that data on a chartlet of their operational area. Their speed-of-advance had steadied to ten knots on a course just west of south that would allow them to clear Amami-O-Shima Island and the off-lying reefs and islets. The waters here were treacherous, alternating between very deep and very shallow. Even experienced sailors could come to grief here because of the many uncharted shoals and dangerous currents.
But these were Japanese waters.
He looked up at his XO and officers and gave them a faint smile. Good men, he thought. Expert, dedicated,
and loyal. No captain could ask for more. Sad that this would be the last time they'd sail together.
“Sound battle stations.”
“Hai, Kan-cho.
” Minori rang the Klaxon.
“Come right to two-six-zero, dive to six hundred fifty meters.”
“Yo-so-ro,
turning
omo-kaji
to two-six-zero degrees, down angle on the planes eighteen degrees.”
“Very well,” Kiyoda said. His boat was coming alive. “Report when battle stations are manned and ready. Report when at course and depth. And prepare for silent running.”
“Aye, aye,
Kan-cho,
” Minori said, his eyes bright.
Â
Carrara steadied his shoulder against the bole of a tree as he studied the sprawling farmhouse and outbuildings one hundred yards across a clearing. The fire number at the entrance to the long driveway off the highway matched the one from the trace. Whoever had telephoned Reid had done so from here less than two hours ago.
They'd confirmed the location and then had discovered the dirt track through the woods east of the house. So far as they could tell no one had used the road for a long time. The snow was undisturbed except for animal tracks.
Someone was in residence. Smoke curled from the chimney, and Carrara could make out the rear bumper of what looked like Reid's Mercedes on the other side of the garage at the rear.
He brought the glasses around to the south. The end of Dulles's main runway was five miles away. A five-hundred-yard-long blackened scar was plowed through the woods on the other side of the airport. Bits and pieces of glass, plastic, and metal debris from the crash still sparkled in the distance.
“We can wait for darkness, if you want. But I think I can get to the house, put a bug on the phone line, and get back without detection,” Ulland said.
Carrara looked up. Ulland was studying the open field through his binoculars.
“The grass is tall enough so that if I keep down nobody in the house will spot me.” The TS operative grinned. “Might be able to put a pickup on one of the downstairs windows.”
Carrara studied the approach across the field through his binoculars. The grass was tall enough. “I'll cover you from here. Anything goes wrong, I want you out of there on the double.”
“Gotcha,” Ulland said. He went back to the van for his equipment.
Â
Takako Kunihiro and Masao Yakota, driving a white Toyota van with dark windows and identical to the one that was following McGarvey, made a second cautious pass by the driveway to the farmhouse Edward Reid had come to. Beside the fact that Reid was rabidly anti-Japanese, they were only interested in him because McGarvey was. They'd had a difficult moment when McGarvey had broken off tailing Reid and had headed back into the city. It was obvious that he knew he was being followed, so Hamagachi and Korekiyo, driving the lead unit designated Sand Dollar, had kept with him. They now knew that they were of more interest to McGarvey than Reid was. It told them something.
“Nothing,” Yakota said.
“I agree. Find out where Sand Dollar is, and if they need our help we'll join them, or we will return to the embassy,” Kunihiro instructed.
Â
For the first time Carrara wished he had a weapon. From where he stood within the woods he could see where Ulland had entered the tall grass, but he could not spot him now. If Reid were involved with the Dulles crash, and if he were somehow involved with the former East German intelligence service, they would not take kindly to being spied upon. Especially if Colonel Mueller were here. The man was an assassin and would be armed.