End Game

by David Hagberg

  “How soon after he showed up were you sleeping with him?” Pete asked.

  “A couple of microseconds. He said he had come bearing a gift—a secret that was going to change everything. And I wanted to find out what it was.”

  “And did you?” McGarvey prompted.

  “We all did, and believe me, it was nothing we expected.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  The sun had come around so that it shined directly into the conference room windows, which darkened automatically, giving the bright day the look of an overcast one. It seemed to fit Alex’s and Schermerhorn’s moods.

  “Could I have something to drink?” she asked. “Coffee, water, I don’t care. It’s been a long morning.”

  “You were telling us about a gift George brought you,” McGarvey said.

  “He didn’t exactly put it that way. But he said he’d come to help.”

  “And it did change everything.” Schermerhorn said.

  “First something to drink.”

  McGarvey nodded, and Pete went out of the room to get something. She left her pistol lying on the table, directly across from where Alex was sitting.

  After a beat Alex stood up and went to the windows. “A white van is just leaving,” she said. “Blankenship’s minders?”

  “I suspect it’s the caterers. They came to stock up for us.”

  “You’re thinking about keeping me here, along with Roy, till this thing is figured out? It won’t be that easy, though. Not without George. So I suppose we’ll be the hand-carved ducks floating in the pond, the hunter hiding in the weeds.”

  She went back to the table and looked at the pistol before she sat down.

  “Will he show up?” McGarvey asked.

  “It depends on his orders, I suppose, but he’s already demonstrated what he’s capable of. Five down, only the two of us left.”

  “You looked for him here, but you said you couldn’t find him. Maybe he’s not the killer.”

  Alex laughed, but it was without humor. “You still can’t imagine how easy it is to get in and out of this place. Especially if you’re willing to kill someone for it.”

  “Are you?”

  Alex looked straight at McGarvey. “Under the right circumstances, you bet. But so far no one has held a gun to my head.”

  “What about the security officer in the parking garage?”

  She laughed again. “Come on, McGarvey. You know as well as I do that most of your rent-a-cops are outclassed. As long as everyone plays by the rules, the system works. But step outside the playbook, and Blankenship only has a few good men who know what the hell they’re doing.”

  Pete came back with a couple of liter-and-a-half bottles of Evian and several paper cups.

  Alex opened one of the bottles, poured half a glass, and handed it to Pete. “You have to be just as thirsty as I am by now.”

  “Yeah, listening to bullshit always makes me thirsty,” Pete said, and drank the water. She shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Unroth, but I’m not suddenly going to go all glassy-eyed and start telling the truth because something’s been put in the water. Though it’d be good if you and Roy did. Maybe we could get somewhere and actually save your lives.”

  “Give Roy and me guns and a lot of ammunition and put us in a safe room here. Then send us a video feed of every single male and female on campus—George was a pretty boy. Narrow face, nice eyes, great lips. That would include all employees, including the guys in the Watch, the janitors and other maintenance people, the caterers who just came and went. Bus drivers and taxi drivers who drop people off at the OHB. Tour guides, along with all the VIP congressmen, Pentagon staffers. FBI people and any other LE person who’ve ever come on campus. The people who come in to fix the leaks in the roof, or the plugged-up toilets, or the electrical outlets that spark. The crews that blacktopped the road six months ago. The cable people—we just upgraded our fiber-optic network. How about pilots and passengers flying across our airspace? Anyone notice the hang gliders down in Langley Fork Park? Or hikers or campers not far from where I crashed through the fence? How about tunnels, storm water drainage pipes? You guys have all that covered?”

  “I expect we have most of it,” McGarvey said, getting her point.

  “Most of it’s not good enough. And who watches the watchers? Who minds the minders? This place leaks like a sieve.”

  Pete sat down. “Wager and the others thought they were safer in here than outside,” she said.

  “They were wrong, weren’t they?” Alex flared. “Like shooting fish in a barrel. You people still don’t get it.”

  “Then why didn’t you run when you had the chance?” McGarvey asked. “Why’d you come back into the barrel, knowing all that?”

  “Because of you.”

  “Thanks for that, but I didn’t do such a hot job in Athens.”

  “But you did. You were the lightning rod. George has an inside source here. You were hiding out in Serifos when Pete and Otto came to talk to you about the murders here on campus. Mr. Page knew about it, and so did I. But Marty Bambridge knew, and I expect there were people on his staff who also knew. And excuse me, Mr. Director, but when’s the last time you had your lighthouse swept for bugs? Or debugged your phones or computer? When Otto talks to you, he uses his backscatter encryption system no one has been able to break. But that in itself is a dead giveaway. He makes an encrypted call to Serifos, and voilà, someone like George could know he’s talking to his old friend Kirk McGarvey.”

  “Nice speech,” Pete said.

  “I’ll stay here as long as I think it’s safe for me to stay. But give me something to protect myself with when George does show up.”

  “You’d just walk out the door?”

  “Christ. Haven’t you people heard a thing I just said? Yeah, if the time comes, I’ll just walk out the door.”

  “Let’s make sure he’s coming, and then help us to catch him,” McGarvey said.

  “He’s on his way, Mr. Director, if he’s not already here,” Alex said.

  “We’ll do what you’ve asked, except arm you. Otto can set up the video feeds, starting with personnel records of everyone on campus, along with the surveillance records for the past week. No need to get beyond when Walt Wager was murdered. Pete will take care of nailing down every opening in the physical plant, and I’ll stick it out here with you two.”

  “Send Blankenship’s minders away.”

  “I didn’t sign up for this shit,” Schermerhorn said.

  “Fine,” McGarvey said. “We’ll ship your ass back to Milwaukee and let the cops straighten things out.”

  “I want a pistol.”

  “The surveillance system is pretty good here.”

  “Didn’t help Walt.”

  “It wasn’t armed when he was killed. You want to do this, I’m it.”

  A look passed between Alex and Schermerhorn. “Set up the video feed for us, and if George is on campus, we’ll spot him,” Alex said.

  “Something’s buried in the hills above Kirkuk,” Pete said.

  “That’s what George came to tell us. And that’s the whole point, even though it still makes absolutely no sense.”

  “Well, what is it, for goodness sake?” Pete asked.

  Alex hesitated. “It isn’t so much what it is—or was, because I think it may have been moved after we left—but why it was, and its pedigree, if you will.”

  “You’re making no sense,” Pete said.

  “I know. But first decrypt Roy’s redo of Kryptos four, and let’s try to take George alive to give us some answers. Because without them, all our lives in this room—even yours, Mr. Director—will be forfeit.”

  “Nothing’s that big,” Pete said.

  “This is,” Alex and Schermerhorn replied almost simultaneously.

  FORTY

  Alex knew George was coming for her. They’d all known it to one degree or another. But she thought she was special, not so much for the sexual relationship she’d had with him, o
r for the rampages they’d gone on down in the oil fields, but because of her position of influence with the DCI. So she figured she would be the last.

  It was very late, and while standing in front of the window in the back bedroom, she began to rethink her options. Perhaps coming back hadn’t been such a good idea, except that after looking at all the photos Otto had sent over—several hundred of them and many more to go—she was convinced George had left the campus.

  And she had a pretty fair idea where he’d gone and why. Killing her and Roy wouldn’t be so easy for him now that McGarvey had become involved, and he had to know it. Maybe in the end he was becoming the duck decoy, and they the hunters.

  Getting out of here and going to him seemed to her to be the only sensible thing to do now.

  As luck would have it, Pete had checked her bag before they brought her back upstairs. She’d taken the radio, of course, and the Glock, but had left her spare underwear and wallet with her Givens’s things. But none of them had thought to search the room for her cell phone, universal car key, or the papers she’d used to rent the car at the airport.

  McGarvey showed up at the open door. “Don’t you guys ever sleep?” he asked.

  The house had settled down a couple of hours ago after he’d declared it a night. There’d be more videos and photos to see in the morning, but Blankenship had been given her list of the campus’s security defects, and his people were busy attending to them. Or at least starting.

  “Only when it’s safe.”

  “None of us understand why you don’t just tell us what George showed you up in the hills.”

  “I suppose you don’t,” Alex said, turning to face him. Her room was dark, only the light from the hall spilling in. Schermerhorn’s door was closed. “Is Roy asleep?”

  “He’s looking at some of the photographs again. Says he might have found a couple of possibilities.”

  “Maybe I’ll help him.”

  McGarvey looked at her for a long time. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day, and you guys need to be ready for it in case George does show up.”

  “He could come tonight.”

  “Daylight attacks so far.”

  “What about security?”

  “One of Blankenship’s guys is outside.”

  “What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”

  “Maybe you do,” McGarvey said. “Get some sleep.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said.

  McGarvey went back downstairs. She could hear his footfalls, and then low voices, his and Pete’s. She wondered if they were sleeping together.

  She retrieved her universal key and the Alice Walker IDs, credit card, and cash, and stuffed them into her pockets. Slipping on the maintenance man’s coveralls and ball cap, she went across the hall and tapped lightly on Schermerhorn’s door, keeping her eye on the head of the stairs in case McGarvey came back.

  Schermerhorn didn’t answer, so she went in.

  At first she thought he was gone. The computer was on, a man’s face on the screen. But then she realized he was standing in the deeper shadows in the corner.

  “I’m getting out of here, but I need you to buy me a little time,” she told him.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded. He was bright enough to keep his voice barely above a whisper.

  “They’re bound to check in the next hour or so. And when they find I’m not in my room, they’ll come here. Stuff some pillows under the covers next to you and tell them we’re sleeping together.”

  “McGarvey won’t buy it.”

  “He might if you’re loud enough.”

  “Christ, how the fuck are you going to get out of here? And where are you going?”

  “The how has always been my business, and I think you know the where. But just keep looking for George’s picture and keep your mouth shut. They’re not going to shoot you for helping me.”

  “You’re crazy, do you know that?”

  “Just like all of us were for keeping our mouths shut when we had the chance to blow the whistle.”

  “Would have been our death warrants.”

  “Still could be.”

  “Just don’t kill any of the good guys,” Schermerhorn said.

  “Might already be too late for that, Roy. Just watch your back, okay?”

  She slipped out of his room and went to the end of the hall, where she crept down the narrow servants’ stairs that led to the kitchen pantry and the room with the dish cabinets and sinks for washing up.

  Early in their careers, NOCs were trained to work on the other guy’s expectations. Do what they thought you would do, only in a different fashion. McGarvey and the minders expected her to stay and help them find George. And that was exactly what she was going to do—help them find George. Only in the way they hadn’t thought of.

  She would leave them a trail of cookie crumbs so they could get the story from the horse’s mouth—in such a way no one in the White House or on the Hill could possibly deny it.

  The door to the kitchen was open. A dim light illuminated the stair hall at the front of the house. The only sounds were the motors on the fridge and the deep freeze.

  At the back door, which would have been the servants’ entrance and the place for deliveries, she hesitated for just a moment before she went out into the night.

  The officer who’d been in the front stair hall had to have been relieved by now. So whoever was out here was on his own, and he hadn’t seen her.

  A Cadillac Escalade, the semiofficial car of the CIA, was parked down by the garage next to the pickup truck, which hadn’t been returned to maintenance yet. A man was seated in the Caddy’s driver’s seat, which was sloppy as hell. Considering what had happened on campus over the past several days and what was possible to happen here at any moment, the officer’s disregard for security bordered on criminal.

  She angled away from the house and approached the Caddy from the driver’s side, and it wasn’t until she got to within a couple of feet that the officer realized someone was coming up on him. He did a double take when he saw the maintenance department coveralls and ball cap.

  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his door coming open.

  “I came for our pickup truck,” Alex said, keeping her voice low. “They told me you would be back here somewhere.”

  “How the fuck did you get here? No one told me anything.”

  “They dropped me off,” she said.

  All of a sudden he realized he’d made a very bad mistake, and reached for his pistol holstered at his side.

  Alex waited until he had it out then suddenly stepped inside his reach and snatched it out of his hand, twisting his wrist sharply to the left. It was a big Glock 20. She turned the pistol on him.

  “If you cooperate for the next twenty minutes or so, I will not kill you,” she said. “And you can start by making no noise and by keeping your hand away from your radio. Nod if you understand.”

  The officer hesitated only a moment, embarrassment all over his face, but he nodded.

  “This is the plan. You’re going to drive me through the main gate and down to Turkey Run Park on the river. I’ll take your radio and the Caddy, and you’ll have to hoof it up to the Parkway to hitch a ride back.”

  “I can’t let you do this; it’d mean my job,” the officer said.

  “Don’t, and it’ll mean your life. When you get back, you can tell them you were doing a foot patrol around the house when I came up behind you with my own weapon, and you had absolutely no choice.”

  “Did you kill those people?”

  “No. But I have a pretty good idea who did, and I’m going to find him. You can tell them that, too. Give me your radio and get in the car.”

  He did as he was told.

  “VIPs get the armored version of this car, but I’m betting you guys don’t. So don’t do anything stupid. A ten-millimeter round will go through the windshield with no problem.”

  Keeping the gun on him, she hurried aro
und the front of the car and got in on the passenger side.

  “No lights until we’re away from the house,” Alex told him. “Now go.”

  FORTY-ONE

  McGarvey and Pete stood together at an upstairs window facing the back. He had his cell phone out, and as soon as the security officer’s Caddy disappeared down the hill and around the sweeping curve through a copse of trees, he phoned the main gate and got the duty officer.

  “This is Kirk McGarvey. Do you recognize my voice, or do I need to have Mr. Page phone you to verify?”

  “No, sir, I was here when you were DCI,” the man said.

  “A CIA Escalade will be coming through the gate within the next few minutes. A man driving, a woman in the passenger seat. Don’t interfere with them.”

  “No, sir. The lockdown has been canceled.”

  “I know. But I want you to call me as soon as the Caddy passes your position, and then confirm that both of those people are in the car.”

  “Yes, sir,” the duty officer said with some hesitation. “Has this anything to do with our trouble?”

  “Yes,” McGarvey said. “Call me.” He hung up.

  “You’re taking a big chance she won’t shoot the guy soon as they get clear,” Pete said.

  “She’s not the killer,” McGarvey told her on the way downstairs. “Call Blankenship and have him send over another one of his people.”

  Pete glanced up. “What about Schermerhorn?”

  “He’s not our killer either. It’s George—whoever the hell he is. And Alex has gone to find him.”

  “Or join him.”

  “I’m going to follow her and find out just that,” McGarvey said. “Call Blankenship now, and watch yourself. This is far from over.”

  “You too,” she said at the door. She gave him a peck on the cheek, which stopped him in his tracks. It was unexpected.

  He looked at her for a beat. “Take care of yourself, Pete. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “And I don’t want to lose you.”

  Outside, he got into his Porsche SUV and headed down the narrow blacktopped road that led around the OHB and main cluster of administrative buildings.