The Expediter

by David Hagberg

  Todd had disappeared around the corner, and McGarvey heard Liz’s voice from the bedroom. “Sorry, sweetheart, I sorta got distracted when Otto got hit.”

  “Put your weapon on the floor or I’ll kill her,” a man with a Russian accent said.

  “You’ll shoot her no matter what,” Todd replied.

  “I don’t give a shit about her or you. We came for McGarvey. Where is he?”

  McGarvey came around the corner. “Here,” he said. A large man dressed all in black stood next to Elizabeth, the muzzle of his pistol inches from her temple.

  “Put your gun down.”

  “The four out back are all down, and your pal who was outside the study is gone. It’s just you.”

  A little wildness came into the man’s face. “I said put your gun down.” His attention was on McGarvey.

  Elizabeth moved sharply backward a half step. “Now!”

  McGarvey fired one shot, catching the man in his left eye, his head snapping back. His pistol discharged, the bullet plowing into the wall across the room, and he fell back. McGarvey fired a second round, hitting the man in the neck and a third and fourth hitting him in the chest.

  “Daddy!” Elizabeth cried.

  He looked up out of a daze, on the verge of firing again at a man who had died after the first bullet entered his brain.

  “It’s okay,” Todd was saying at his side. “They’re all down or gone. We need to help our people now.”

  Somewhere in the far distance McGarvey thought he could hear the sounds of a lot of sirens coming down the driveway, but he couldn’t take his eyes off his daughter. She was hurt, but she was alive and for now that’s all that mattered to him.

  Washington/Tokyo

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  Rencke was nearly unconscious by the time the cleanup crew arrived from Langley in four unmarked vans and got to work. With them was Lance Karp, a Company medical doctor who quickly checked his vital signs.

  “Is he going to make it?” McGarvey asked. He still hadn’t completely come down from the action, something that took longer and longer for him to do the older he got.

  “He’s serious but not critical for the moment,” the doctor said. “A chopper is on its way. We’ll take him to All Saints and I’ll put him on the table right away. I’ll know better then.” All Saints in Georgetown was a private hospital used exclusively by the CIA and the other thirteen U.S. intelligence organizations. All the staff held secret clearances. Nothing was ever leaked about the patients who were brought there.

  Two technicians strapped Otto on a gurney and brought him downstairs to the front hall. The doctor took a quick look at Elizabeth’s arm and applied a temporary bandage to stop the bleeding.

  “You’re lucky, the bullet missed anything serious, but you’re going to be out of action for a bit. You’re going aboard the helicopter.”

  “I’m coming with them,” McGarvey said.

  “No room, and there’s nothing you could do to help,” Karp said briskly. “Let me do my job, Mr. Director. I’d say you have your hands full here for the moment.”

  He had Todd take off his jacket and lift his shirt. An angry red welt oozed a little blood, but it was nothing serious.

  “Have one of the medics put a bandage on that,” the doctor said. “You’ll be sore for a couple of days, but you’re even luckier than your wife.”

  One of the techs, wearing white coveralls with booties over his shoes and a hair net, appeared at the door. “Chopper is five minutes out, Doc.”

  “Anyone else here needs tending?”

  “We’re taking care of them.”

  “I see,” the doctor said. “Downstairs in five minutes,” he told Elizabeth and he left.

  The technician came in. “Dick Johnson, Mr. Director,” he said. “What do you want done out here?”

  “I want the place sanitized within twenty-four hours,” McGarvey said.

  Johnson glanced around at the destruction that had been wrought by the AK-47s. But he nodded. “We can take care of this stuff, but we’ve got two bodies in back, two on the east side, plus the two up here, and it’s Mr. McCann down in the study.”

  “Take McCann and the woman to All Saints and put them on ice. Get rid of the other five.”

  The four shooters outside, plus the Russian lying in a pool of his own blood, would be taken to a crematorium used by the Company’s housekeeping section and the ashes and bones, which would be ground to a fine powder, would be flushed down a floor drain.

  “What about fingerprints, dental, and DNA for IDs?”

  McGarvey glanced at the Russian who’d shot Otto, killed Huk Kim, and would have killed Liz, and shook his head. “No need. I know why they were here tonight and who sent them. I want them gone without a trace.”

  “Yes, sir,” Johnson said. “By this time tomorrow they’ll have disappeared and we’ll have this place right as rain.”

  “We’re taking the Hummer, but there’s a Mercedes in the garage,” Todd said.

  “Mr. Rencke’s. We’ll have it driven back to the campus tonight.”

  “One of the bad guys got out of here with McCann’s Lexus,” McGarvey said. “He’ll have abandoned it by now, but find it and get it out to Langley.”

  “Any chance of us bagging him?”

  “No. He’ll be on his way back to Tokyo and I want him to get there.”

  Downstairs, McGarvey, Todd, and Elizabeth held up as McCann’s body was being removed from the study. “Turov had him eliminated to keep him from telling us where the money was coming from.”

  “Which means that Turov knows?” Todd asked.

  “I’m not sure,” McGarvey said, his heart already hardening again for the job ahead. “But I’m going to ask him just that before I kill him.”

  The helicopter was landing in the clearing twenty yards from the house, and they hustled Liz out to it as Rencke was being loaded aboard.

  “We’ll see you at the hospital,” Todd told her and gave her a kiss.

  “What about Mother?” she asked her father.

  “I’ll call her in the morning. She can fly up to be with you.”

  Elizabeth managed a slight smile. “She’s already here. She checked into the Hay-Adams three days ago. Couldn’t stand to languish in Florida while you were out on the firing line. Call her tonight. She’ll want to know about Otto too.”

  “I’m not going to have much time for her or you, sweetheart.”

  “I know. But if you’re going back to Tokyo, take Todd along. You might need the backup.”

  McGarvey used his cell phone on the way in to call his wife at the Hay-Adams. She was just leaving to have dinner alone in the hotel’s Lafayette Room, and she was over the moon to hear from him. “Where are you?”

  “I’m with Todd, we’re on the way to All Saints.”

  “My God, are you hurt?”

  “It’s not me. Elizabeth has been shot in the arm, nothing too serious, but Otto’s in rough shape. They’ll be operating on him within the hour.”

  “I’ll leave for the hospital right now,” Katy said.

  “I’m not staying for long,” McGarvey told her. “This thing isn’t over yet.”

  “I figured as much. The president’s address to the nation is being postponed until tomorrow night, because of some new developments. Kirk, everyone I’ve talked to thinks he hasn’t a clue what to do next. It’s frightening.”

  “They’re right. But it’s not his fault.”

  “Can you do something to help him?”

  “I’m in the middle of it, Katy,” McGarvey said. “I’ll see you at the hospital in about thirty minutes.” He broke the connection and pocketed the phone.

  Todd glanced over at him. “If you’re going back to Tokyo I want to come with you. Liz was right, you might need backup.”

  “Could get messy, especially with the Japanese. And Tokyo might not be such a healthy place to be.”

  Todd grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  McGarvey re
turned the smile despite himself. “Just don’t ever call me Pop again.

  By the time they got to the hospital, Elizabeth had already been treated as an outpatient, and they found her, Katy, and Otto’s wife Louise in the surgical waiting room on the fourth floor.

  Katy jumped up when they walked in and before she hugged her husband she looked into his eyes, something she did when she needed to gauge his mood. “Will it be all right?” she asked, holding him close.

  “If it isn’t I’ll have done a lot of work for nothing,” he told her, trying to keep it as light as he possibly could under the circumstances.

  “That’s good enough for me,” she said. “When are you leaving?”

  “In the morning.”

  She smiled faintly. “Would you like to bunk with me tonight?”

  “I was wondering when you were going to ask,” McGarvey said.

  A surgical nurse, in a blood-splattered gown, a mask hanging from her neck, came in. “Mrs. Rencke?” she asked.

  Louise jumped up and went over. She was very tall and slender with thick dark hair and a homely face, screwed up now in concern. Otto thought she was beautiful, and she thought he was the smartest, kindest man on the planet. “Me,” she said.

  “His left kidney was destroyed, and it’ll have to come out. But Dr. Karp is about the best there is in the business. Your husband will be just fine, the doctor wanted me to tell you that. But it’s going to take several hours.”

  “I’ll wait,” she said.

  “So will all of us,” Katy added.

  When the nurse was gone, McGarvey went out to the corridor and used his cell to call the Watch, which was the operations center in the Company’s Old Headquarters Building. The watch commander answered. “O’Day.”

  “Good evening, Darrell, this is McGarvey.”

  “Mr. Director, how are you? I heard there was something of a dustup at one of our safe houses tonight.”

  “Otto’s been hurt, but he’ll pull through. I need to borrow one of our Lears and a crew without attracting any attention from down the hall. Can you do that for me?” The CIA maintained a small fleet of the twin-engine VIP jets that were capable of transoceanic flights.

  “When do you need it?” O’Day asked without hesitation.

  “Right away.”

  “I think I can arrange that, sir. Can you tell me where you’re headed?”

  “Okinawa. And I’m going to need an assist from the Navy out there.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else?”

  “Some information.”

  “Anything.”

  “Who’s the current bureau chief for Chinese intelligence here in D.C.?”

  “As a matter of fact I have the Chinese file open at the moment, we’re working on the Watch Report for the President’s A.M. briefing,” O’Day said. “Ma Pang-yu. He’s an army colonel at their embassy under the cover of military liaison.”

  “How do I get ahold of him? Do you have his private number?”

  This time O’Day did hesitate. “I suppose I should ask you why you want the jet and that particular piece of information, and make a note of it somewhere.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll try to get to it before my shift is over,” the watch commander said, and he gave McGarvey Colonel Ma’s Washington number. “Good hunting, Mr. Director.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said. He hung up and called the number.

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  Minoru had called ahead and the Gulfstream had been ready for him by the time he had driven the Lexus up the dirt road, switched for the van, and got out to the private aviation terminal at Dulles. They were airborne a few minutes after one in the morning en route to Seattle, and now at three eastern daylight time, he had composed himself enough to think about telephoning Turov on the Nokia.

  The crew aboard the luxuriously appointed jet was Japanese. The pilot and copilot had been lured away from JAL by a fabulous sum of money, and Keiko, the pretty flight attendant, had been the mistreated girlfriend of a Japanese yakuza boss who Turov had killed eighteen months ago.

  “Would you like me to prepare the bed for you, Hirobumi-san?” she asked.

  “Perhaps later. For now I would like more tea and then some privacy. I need to make a call.”

  “Of course.” The woman bowed.

  She was back a minute later with a pot of water and the tea things on a tray that she placed on the low table in front of Minoru. She smiled at him and then disappeared onto the flight deck.

  He took his time measuring the tea powder into the pot of water, stirring with the bamboo implement six times in a clockwise motion then pouring two-handed into the small handleless porcelain cup. He drank with a slurping sound until the cup was empty, then refilled it, his mind returning to an ordered state for the first time this evening.

  It was a little after five in the evening in Tokyo when Turov picked up on the first ring. He’d been waiting for the call. “Where are you?”

  “Aboard the jet,” Minoru said. “We left Dulles about two hours ago.”

  “Was the mission a success?” Turov asked, and Minoru could hear tension in the colonel’s voice.

  “A partial success. The woman is dead, as are Daniel, Lavorv, and his four shooters. No one left alive saw my face.”

  “McGarvey?”

  “We could not get to him. He knew we were coming, and just like you he laid a trap.”

  “He’s less like me than you could possibly imagine, Hirobumi,” Turov replied coldly. “Tell me everything.”

  Minoru did, succinctly and precisely, leaving nothing out, including his estimation of Lavrov and the four men who’d been brought down from New York without blaming them for the partial failure. “But you have fulfilled your contract, Colonel, and you are in the clear.”

  “Loose ends are never in the clear.”

  “This time may be different.”

  “Very well, how do you see it?” Turov often used Minoru as a sounding board.

  “Of the two assassins you hired, the woman is dead so can offer no testimony and the husband is in North Korean custody, and at this point the Chinese would not believe anything Pyongyang told them, even if Kim Jong Il were to declare that on a clear day the sky is blue.”

  “Continue.”

  “Daniel is dead so the link from you to the Central Intelligence Agency has been severed.”

  “For now.”

  “No one is left who can prove a thing against you.”

  “Except for Kirk McGarvey,” Turov said softly. “He will come here again.”

  “If he does we will kill him, my colonel,” Minoru said. “You and I together. But if he remains in Washington, or returns to his home in Florida he will be ineffective without the woman’s testimony.”

  “I’m not so sure, Minuro-san,” Turov replied after a beat.

  Minoru closed his eyes and felt a profound sense of gratitude for his own Bushido patience and understanding. “Believe me, Colonel, McGarvey is no longer a threat to us. If he persists we will destroy him.”

  “We’ll talk more when you arrive.”

  “In the morning,” Minoru said. “We will make plans for Australia.”

  EIGHTY-SIX

  McGarvey and Katy got back to the hospital around 7:30 A.M. Housekeeping had brought his things from the safe house over to the hotel so he’d been able to change into some fresh clothes. He’d repacked this morning and brought his bag with him.

  Todd had taken a pale, exhausted Elizabeth to their quarters at the Farm, and had promised to be back first thing this morning with the equipment they would need.

  Louise had slept on the chair beside Otto’s bed, and both of them were awake now, though it was obvious Otto was in a lot of pain. His breakfast tray of tea, juice, and Jell-o was untouched.

  “What, no Twinkies?” Katy asked. Rencke’s idea of a balanced diet was junk food, especially Twinkies, and heavy cream.

  Otto’s grin was lopsided and his long red hair was even frizzier tha
n usual. “Oh, hi, Mrs. M,” he said, his voice weak. “They’ve never even heard of them.”

  Katy and Louise embraced. “How’s he doing?”

  “He’ll be just fine in a few days,” Louise said. “But he wants me to bring him a laptop.”

  “How’re you feeling?” McGarvey asked, laying a plastic 7-Eleven bag on Otto’s breakfast tray.

  “I’ve felt better,” Rencke said. He eyed the bag. “Emergency rations?”

  McGarvey and Katy had stopped to buy a couple of packages of Twinkies on the way over. “Something like that. For when you feel up to it.”

  “They took out one of my kidneys, Mac. Makes us brothers.” A number of years ago McGarvey had lost one of his kidneys because of a gunshot wound, the same as Otto’s.

  “Practically twins,” Katy said.

  Otto stifled a laugh.

  A hospital security officer in plain clothes came to the door and knocked on the frame. “Mr. Director, could I have a word, sir?” He was an older man who looked as if had played pro football a while back and hadn’t let himself go soft.

  McGarvey stepped out into the corridor with him. “Is my guest here?”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve got him in reception downstairs.”

  “I’m taking him down to the morgue. We’re going to turn the woman’s body over to him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  McGarvey went back into Otto’s room. “I have to go now,” he told them. He and Katy embraced.

  “Watch your back, sweetheart,” she said.

  “I’m taking Todd with me.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Kick some ass, kemo sabe,” Rencke said, and Louise nodded.

  Colonel Ma Pang-yu, dressed in an English-cut business suit, was a small, dapper man with a very light complexion and round non-Oriental eyes. He was seated across from the security reception desk. He got to his feet when McGarvey appeared at the door.

  “Good morning, Mr. Director,” the Chinese intelligence officer said, his English good.