Ulland popped up at the far edge of the clearing, about ten yards from the back of the house, and keeping low hurried the rest of the way to where the phone line came in.
Carrara studied the back of the house through the binoculars. Because of the angle of the sun there was nothing to be seen in any of the windows, either downstairs or upstairs. Nor was there any movement anywhere on the property that he could see.
Ulland removed the cover from the telephone junction box on the side of the house, did something to the wires inside, and replaced the cover. Next he reached up and attached something to one of the windows and then melted out of sight back into the tall grass.
The entire operation at the back of the house had taken less than sixty seconds, and Carrara breathed a sigh of relief.
Â
Mueller stood perfectly still ten yards behind and to the left of the man watching the back of the house through binoculars. The second man had probably placed a bug on the phone line and possibly a sensitive microphone on the dining room window and had started back across the field.
Their van had made two passes on the highway and then had not come back. This was the only vulnerable approach, and Mueller had come up to wait for them. He did not think they were FBI. The Bureau conducted operations on a much larger scale. And except for the white Toyota van that had also made a couple of passes, no other vehicles of any interest had gone by. If they were CIA, however, they were working out of their charter, which made this a rogue action. Reid must have been mistaken about the Saturn.
He'd gotten two clear looks at both men, and he was satisfied that neither of them were Kirk McGarvey, the only man he had any cause to fear.
He raised up to sniff the air. A confrontation was coming between them. He didn't know how he knew it,
but he felt that somehow they would meet, that their destinies were intertwined. Melodrama, he thought. But the feeling was strong, and growing stronger.
Â
“This is David Kennedy.”
“Sam Varelis, National Transportation Safety Board. I'm calling from Washington for Kirk McGarvey.”
“Mr. McGarvey is not here.”
“I'm trying to reach him. Can you help?”
Kennedy hesitated. “Mr. McGarvey is no longer in our employ. Has this anything to do with the accident last week?”
Varelis wanted to talk to Mac, but Kennedy was the ultimate responsible party. “This is an unofficial call, Mr. Kennedy. Can you tell me what happened with McGarvey? Have you been pressured by someone here in Washington?”
“If this isn't an official call, then what do you want?”
“I'm trying to save lives.”
Again Kennedy hesitated. “So am I.”
“Where is he?”
“You're a friend?”
“Yes, he's a friend, so far as I'd trust him with my life. Or anyone else's.”
“I don't know where he is. But the Attorney General is going to issue a warrant for his arrest.”
“On what charge?”
“Industrial espionage and obstruction of justice. I just received the call.”
“That's bullshit,” Varelis blurted.
“I agree,” Kennedy said. “Have you come up with something?”
“I think there's a possibility that your Dulles crash, and the accident in '90, were not accidents.”
“What have you found?”
“Both crashes were caused by port engine failures. The exact same failures, which caused the same structural damage to the wings. That's nearly impossible.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I'm faxing you the material. But Mac has to be informed.”
“I'll see what I can do. How can I reach you?”
Varelis gave him a number. “Be quick about it, Mr. Kennedy.”
“I will, believe me,” Kennedy assured him.
Â
The snow muffled Mueller's footsteps as he came up directly behind the man waiting next to the tree. At the last moment Carrara turned.
Mueller pushed him back against the tree and drove the stiletto through his throat hard enough to sever his spinal cord at the base of his skull and penetrate the tree trunk, pinning him like a bug on a specimen card.
Carrara tried desperately to fight back, but Mueller held him in place until his body finally went limp, then propped his legs under him so that the knife through his throat would temporarily hold him upright.
The second man suddenly rose up from the grass at the edge of the clearing twenty feet away and charged like a bull in an arena.
Mueller languidly turned toward him and raised his left arm as if to ward off a blow. At the last possible moment he reached up with his right and yanked the stiletto out of Carrara's throat. He stepped quickly to the left, inside Ulland's guard, and plunged the blade into the man's chest, just below his left breast.
R
eid was shaken to the core. “I know this one.”
Mueller had brought both IDs down to the house. “Phillip Carrara, was he someone important?”
“He was Deputy Director of Operations. The third most important man at Langley.”
“What about the other one?”
“I don't know. Probably a technician from the Technical Services Division. But you know what this means. There's going to be an all-out manhunt.”
Mueller shook his head. “I don't think so.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Weren't you listening? We're done! Everything is down the tubes. My life ⦠everything. It's all over!”
“Not unless you fall apart. They weren't here officially.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Think about it, Reid. Does the CIA work this way? You said they didn't. If you were under investigation the FBI would have brought a team out here, not the CIA. These two were freelancing for somebody. McGarvey.”
“They'll be missed.”
“Yes, they will,” Mueller said mildly. “But I'll take care of it.”
Reid wanted to believe everything was okay. But like Zerkel he was on the verge of a breakdown. “How?”
“Leave it to me. In the meantime I want you to get ready to get out of here. You're going to go home to resume your normal activities until Sunday.”
“Normal activities?” Reid looked at the German as if he were crazy.
“That's what you want, isn't it?”
Reid opened his mouth, then closed it.
“I'll be back in an hour. Be here.”
Mueller donned a pair of thin leather gloves, pocketed the wallets, and went outside. From the back porch he studied the woods across the clearing. There was no sign that anything had happened, nor, from where he stood, could he see the van parked at the end of the dirt track. The forecast was for more snow sometime this evening and tomorrow morning. If it was heavy enough the van's tracks would be covered. He removed the bug from the telephone junction box at the side of the house, and the pickup from the dining room window, then crossed
the field on the same path Ulland had used to sneak down from the woods.
The gray windowless Dodge van was equipped with sensitive electronic eavesdropping equipment, some of it low-lux cameras and infrared-sensitive recording devices used for nighttime surveillance operations. One rack contained telephone-tap receivers, tape recorders, and tracing apparatuses. Another contained two-way communications radios, at least two of which were high-speed burst encryption devices designed to maintain up- and down-links with satellites. Still another contained sophisticated computer equipment that could be patched into any number of bases. Mueller had seen or heard of a lot of this. His KGB training had been the best, and during his six months in the States he had gleaned information about such equipment then in the developmental stage at the National Security Agency. One of the tape recorders had been used. He switched it on.
“Thank you for calling the
Lamplighter.
How may I direct your call?” a woman said. “Let me speak with Mr. Reid,” Mueller's own voice answered.
He rewound the entire message and erased it. They'd probably had a tap on Reid's Georgetown house this morning. There'd been a two-ring delay before the call had been rolled over to the
Lamplighter
office. Next he went searching for the trace to the Sterling farmhouse, finding it without problem, and erasing any evidence of it from the computer memory. He could find no indication that anything had been sent back to Langley.
He drove the van to the end of the dirt track and loaded the two bodies in back. Then he covered what blood had splashed on the snow and the drag marks from the bodies. By morning all traces of what had happened would be hidden until a meltoff and then would be washed away. Mueller got behind the wheel of the van, drove it around to the garage behind the farmhouse, and went back inside.
“How is Louis doing with removing his safeguards?” he asked Reid.
“He says he's working on it. I saw you put the van in the garage. It can't stay there. Sooner or later it'll be discovered.”
“That's right. When we leave I'll take it up to Baltimore and dump it.”
“If you're stopped, or if someone sees you, it'll be all over.”
“That's what you're paying me for. Before Sunday I want an additional two million dollars deposited into my Channel Islands account. Will this be a problem?”
Reid looked at him sharply, but then shook his head.
“I'll take the cash you brought for Louis as well.”
“I understand. What about the last three repeaters?”
“I'll take care of them tomorrow.” Mueller stepped closer. “You understand what I am capable of, Reid. If something happens and the authorities come after me, nothing on this earth will stop me from getting to you.”
“I'd be a fool to breathe a wordâ”
“Believe me,” Mueller said softly.
Reid's eyes widened. He nodded. “I do,” he said.
Â
“Bridge, CIC.”
“CIC, aye,” the
FF Cook'
s second officer answered.
“I've got two airborne incoming, bearing one-seven-zero, twenty-seven miles out, speed five hundred knots.”
“Can you say type of aircraft and altitude?”
“Sir, they look like F/A-18 Hornets, at two thousand feet. They've illuminated us.”
“Ours?”
“I don't think so, Mr. Boyle. They're coming from the northeast. I'd guess Tanegashima.”
“Stand by.”
“Aye, aye.”
Ensign Tim Boyle called the captain on the growler phone. “This is Boyle, Captain. We have a pair of incoming aircraft that CIC thinks is Japanese.”
“Have the
Barbey
and
Thorn
been notified?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Do it. I'm on my way.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Boyle hung up and called their
sister ship, the
FF Barbey,
first. They too were painting the incoming fighter/interceptors, and they'd already informed the
DD Thorn,
thirteen thousand yards southwest.
Captain Zimmerman showed up on the bridge a minute later, his utility blues rumpled as if he'd slept in them. “Get me Jim Otter on the
Barbey,
” he told Boyle. He called CIC on the growler. “This is the captain. How far out are they?”
“A little under twelve miles, sir. Should be overhead in ninety seconds. But they've dropped to below five hundred feet.”
“Any chance they're ours?”
“Negative, Captain. ELINT has intercepted a transmission to the aircraft from Tanegashima.”
“What'd they say?”
“It's encrypted. We're working on it.”
Zimmerman hung up the growler phone and accepted a handset from Boyle. “Jim, we'd better stand by battle stations.”
“It'll be provocative.”
“Overflying us in the early morning without first establishing a comms link is aggressive enough for me. Especially now. Mike Hanrahan's got his hands full.”
“Has anyone tried talking to them, or to Tanegashima?” Lieutenant Commander Otter asked.
“ELINT picked up a transmission from their base. As soon as it's decrypted and translated we'll have a better idea.”
“Could take awhile, Adam.”
“We're here to escort the
Thorn.
We're not going to act like sitting ducks.”
“You're the boss,” Otter said at the same moment the two Japanese Air Self Defense Force fighter/interceptors screamed overhead and CIC called back.
Â
As soon as the Japanese submarine had gone deep and faded from sonar detection, the
Thorn
had gone to battle stations. The arrival of the two Japanese fighter/ interceptors had not improved anyone's disposition.
“They just passed over the
Barbey,
ten thousand yards and closing,” Sattler in CIC reported.
“Same drill as before,” Hanrahan told his XO. “If they want to get close enough to trigger our guns, then so be it.”
Ryder didn't argue. He gave the order.
Forty seconds later the ASDF Hornets passed port and starboard of the
Thorn
just outside the Phalanx's Vulcan cannon aiming and firing radar envelope.
“They're making wide turns. Looks like they'll come back for another pass,” Sattler said.
“Did they drop anything into the water?” Hanrahan asked.
“Negative.”
“Anything from sonar yet?”
“Nothing, Captain. We lost them at fifteen hundred feet, and nothing's showed up since. But he's not supposed to be able to dive that deep.”
“No breakup noises?”
“Negative.”
“Well, we're getting another lesson in Japanese technology,” Hanrahan said. “We'll stay on this course and speed. Sooner or later he's going to have to come up for air.”
“Meteorology says the winds might be diminishing for the next few hours. We might be able to send the choppers up.”
“Good idea. Meantime, anything else out there?”
“Not a thing.”
“Keep a sharp eye. If I'm right they'll send out another Orion for station keeping.”
“What's going on, Skipper?” Sattler asked.
“Don, I wish the hell I knew,” Hanrahan replied.
Â
McGarvey pulled up across the street from the CIA safe house in Falls Church where Carrara had placed Dominique. The neighborhood was well maintained, each large house set back on a half-acre of carefully tended lawns and trees. According to Phil this place had been owned by a drug lord and had been acquired by the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms when the man took his fall. It had been transferred to the CIA's inventory five years ago.
There was little traffic, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary here, yet McGarvey hesitated. He was so tired his hands shook when he lit a cigarette. At times he saw spots in front of his eyes. He glanced in the rearview mirror.
At one point he'd realized there were two identical white Toyota vans leapfrogging behind him as he drove around Washington. But when he'd tried to double back, they disappeared. Although he'd managed to get them off his tail, they'd also shaken him. It was his fault, but such sloppiness could get him killed. Whatever else happened he desperately needed a few hours sleep. Someplace safe.
On the way out here he'd stopped at a gas station to telephone Carrara. But there'd been no answer at his house. Not even the answering machine was on. It was troubling.
He rolled down the window and tossed out the cigarette before he drove across the street and up the driveway to the house, parking in front. Dominique, dressed in UCLA sweatpants and shirt, met him at the door. She looked concerned.
“Has something happened, Kirk?” she asked.
“I need some rest.”
Dominique took him by the arm and led him inside. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled. “Bacon and eggs okay?”
“Sure.”
She sat him at the kitchen counter and poured him a cognac, then started the food. “I've been going crazy not knowing what's going on.”
“Have you seen Phil Carrara?”
“Not since he brought me out here.”
“I'm surprised you agreed. Have you talked to David, or to your brother?”
“Nobody,” she said, her voice suddenly husky. “Phil
told us about your past. Everything. What you've done for everybody, and how you've been treated.”
“I'll live,” McGarvey replied. He no longer had the strength, or the stomach, to fight her. In many respects she was like his ex-wife Kathleen. Certain of herself and where she fit. Certain of the difference between right and wrong, between what was fair and what was unjust. Certain that he was something to avoid if at all possible. The septic tank pump-out man was a necessity, but you didn't invite him to dinner, especially if it was impossible for him to change out of his workclothes. They were right.
“He told us about your parentsâ”
“Leave it,” McGarvey ordered harshly.
Dominique drew a sharp breath. “I'm sorry.”