Flash Points: A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  McGarvey was coming through the woods. Kamal couldn’t hear him, but he knew he wouldn’t remain in place and allow the police to do the job for him.

  Kamal turned, and running lightly on the balls of his feet through the woods upriver with as little noise as possible, made his way the two hundred meters or so where the parkway crossed the creek and just beyond where P Street also crossed it.

  Holstering his pistol, and making sure that no one was on his six, he scrambled up the embankment to the street, just as a white Lexus was approaching from Georgetown.

  He pulled out his wallet, held it up, as if it were a police identification, and jumped out into the middle of the street.

  A middle-aged man in a business suit, his collar undone, his tie loose, was behind the wheel. He powered the window down.

  Kamal stuffed his wallet back in his pocket and pulled out his pistol as he came around to the driver’s side.

  “What the fuck?” the man blurted.

  Kamal shot him once in the head. He reached inside the car, unlocked the door and opened it, then dragged his body out into the street, got behind the wheel and drove off.

  * * *

  Taillights turned north on 22nd Street NW heading toward Florida Avenue and Embassy Row, as McGarvey reached P Street from the creek.

  A man in a dark business suit with thinning gray hair lay on his back gasping for breath in the middle of the street. Blood filled his left eye socket and dribbled down his cheek from a close-range bullet wound to his head.

  Holstering his pistol, McGarvey bent down over the man but there wasn’t much he could do.

  He phoned Otto. “Got a man down on P Street just east of the creek, bullet wound in his head, but he’s still alive.”

  “Wait one,” Otto said.

  McGarvey leaned closer. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” the man whispered.

  “Help is on the way.”

  “Ambulance is just around the corner,” Otto said. “Be there in less than five.”

  “Am I going to die?” the man asked.

  “No.”

  “I thought he was a cop. But he shot me.”

  “What’d he look like?”

  “English,” the man said, and his chest heaved, and suddenly he was still. His eyes were open, but he was dead.

  “It was al-Daran,” McGarvey told Otto. “Shot this guy and took his car. But tell the EMTs there’s no hurry, he didn’t make it. And embed Pete with the cops for now. He missed me but he might try for her.”

  “Already done,” Otto said. “Give me an ID and I’ll find out what he was driving.”

  McGarvey took the dead man’s wallet out of his back pocket, the job distasteful in the extreme. If he had been a little faster he could have reached al-Daran before this happened. There was no good reason for the guy to have been killed, except that he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “Charles Conrad,” McGarvey read from the driver’s license. The address was in Chevy Chase.

  Otto was back at the same moment the ambulance arrived. “A seventeen Lexus LS Sport. White.”

  McGarvey backed away from the body as a pair of EMTs came from the ambulance.

  “Put out an APB, but give them the heads-up that this guy is a well-motivated professional.”

  “Doing it,” Otto replied.

  One of the EMTs used a respirator bag on the man while the other listened to his chest with a stethoscope.

  “What about Pete?”

  “She’s still on the east side of the parkway opposite O Street, but she wants to know if you’re okay.”

  “Fine. Tell the cops there’re two bodies on the opposite side of the creek between N and O. The field is clear, so far as I know, but tell them to tread with care.”

  “The APB has been issued.”

  “Probably won’t do any good, he’ll ditch the car as soon as possible.”

  * * *

  Kamal parked the Lexus down the block from Union Station. Making sure that there were no cops around, and that he wasn’t being observed, he locked the door and walked away.

  It was just after two when he reached the Hyatt Regency and took the elevator up to his room, which looked toward the Capitol building, all lit up.

  They had traced him to the Hay-Adams because he had used his O’Neal documents too many times. It was possible, though unlikely, that they might connect his Hollman documents, from when he had stayed in Atlanta, here to this hotel.

  There were only a few days left until the attacks would begin, and he would have to be back in New York. By now Ayman Baz’s teams from Mexico would be getting ready to cross the border for San Francisco, New Orleans and Pastor Buddy’s operation in western Kansas.

  Baz had agreed to send them out at the very last moment, to minimize the risk of their being detected.

  “Do any of them have friends or family living anywhere near those three targets?” Kamal had asked.

  “No. It was one of the first things I checked. They’re clean. Means they shouldn’t be on any FBI or INS directory.”

  “Have any of them ever been in the States?”

  “As students on clean visas. None of them ever got so much as a traffic ticket.”

  Kamal had been satisfied at the time, but now he wasn’t sure about Baz, or the GIP, or the Saudi UN mission in New York.

  He went downstairs to the biz center and brought up an area map showing the locations of a half-dozen business airports within a twenty-five-kilometer radius of the Hyatt. The Washington Executive Airport at Hyde Field, not too far from Joint Base Andrews was adequate.

  At the desk he told the clerk that unfortunately he had to leave early. He wanted a cab to take him to Dulles.

  He was packed and in the cab in under fifteen minutes.

  At Dulles he would call Pastor Buddy to send the Gulfstream for him, then rent a car and drive over to Hyde Field and wait for as long as it took.

  It was time to go to ground.

  FIFTY-NINE

  A uniformed cop drove McGarvey to the other side of the river and down to the end of Dumbarton Street, where Pete was waiting with a massive police presence and several ambulances. A crowd of onlookers had gathered from the apartments and brownstones, all of it being shot live by several television stations.

  “Like a three-ring circus,” McGarvey said.

  “You okay?” Pete asked.

  “Al-Daran had help. I’m guessing GIP from New York. I shot one of them and I suspect that he took out the other.”

  “Here to kill you, I can understand. But you said he took out the other one. I don’t understand.”

  “Someone’s getting cold feet.”

  A Caddy Escalade with government plates came around the barricades. The man riding shotgun got out and came over toward where McGarvey and Pete were waiting to be released by the Bureau’s SAC from the situation. It was Larry Kyung-won, dressed this time in jeans, a light polo shirt and a dark blue jacket with CIA stenciled on the back.

  He showed his ID to one of plainclothes cops, who let him through.

  “You’re a hard man to kill, Mr. Director,” he said.

  “And when you come in out of the cold you do it all the way,” Pete said.

  McGarvey wasn’t really surprised that Kyung-won was here, and yet he was.

  “Marty wants you guys back on the reservation for the time being. Sent me and some muscle to fetch you.”

  “In the morning,” McGarvey said.

  “He wants you two now.”

  “We’re going back to Pete’s apartment to clean up, get something to eat and maybe a few hours of sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  Kyung-won started to object, but then he grinned and nodded. “Yes, sir. We’ll drive you back and then circle the wagons in case the son of a bitch wants to try again.”

  “He’s gone,” McGarvey said. “And we’ll walk.”

  “We’ll be outside if you need us,” Kyung-won said, and he backed off.
/>   * * *

  McGarvey and Pete were cleared by the Bureau SAC who’d shown up and taken charge. They headed down N Street toward Pete’s apartment two blocks away, but at the first corner Mac turned and headed to his place on O Street.

  “You have the willies?” she asked.

  “Just a bit.”

  “Is it Larry?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “They’re right behind us, you know.”

  “I know. But I have a couple of things I want to get at my place.”

  “Tired of getting shot at?”

  McGarvey had to smile. “You could say that.”

  “Then we’re definitely going on a long vacation when this is over.”

  “Sounds good.”

  * * *

  Upstairs McGarvey checked the telltale bit of clear grease on his door lock before he and Pete went inside.

  “Hold off on the lights for a minute,” he said and went to the front window, where he stayed to the left, out of sight from anyone on the street, and parted the edge of the blinds just enough to see the street.

  The Caddy was parked across the street a few cars away. He had a clear view through the windscreen, but no one was inside.

  A shadow moved half a block away, then darted across the street. It was impossible to identify who it was.

  Pete was at his shoulder. “Trouble?”

  The Caddy’s out there, but no one’s inside, and just now I saw someone cross to our side of the street.”

  “They’re out there to watch out for us. You can’t miss the car, but you might not spot someone standing in a doorway.”

  “Al-Daran is not coming back tonight and they know it.”

  “Bet your life on it?”

  “Yeah,” McGarvey said.

  He went back to his bedroom and took a silencer and two spare magazines of ammunition from a dresser drawer. He reloaded his pistol and attached the silencer, then pocketed the magazines.

  Pete was at the bedroom door, her pistol out and pointing down and away from her left leg. “If al-Daran is not coming back, what’s your thinking? Larry?”

  “I’m not sure. But I want you to stay here at the window. I’m going down the rear fire escape. My phone’ll be on vibrate. I want you to keep an eye on the street and let me know if you see anything.”

  “I don’t want to believe it,” Pete said. “But there’ve been a lot of coincidences.”

  “Too many.”

  McGarvey went down the short corridor to the fire escape door, took the stairs two at a time to the roof and outside carefully looked over the edge to what had at one time been a mews. Across the alley old horse stables had been converted to apartments. No lights shone from any of the windows.

  He went down the three flights of stairs to the alley, and keeping close to the wall of the building, hurried to 28th Street NW a half a block away. Nothing moved and he went to the corner of O Street just as a taxi came from the direction of the park.

  From where he stood he was a half a block behind where the Caddy was parked.

  He phoned Pete. “Anything?”

  “Nothing, Where are you?”

  “Corner of Twenty-eighth and O. I’m going to cross the street and take a look inside the Caddy.”

  The taxi passed and a moment later he heard it in Pete’s phone.

  “Where the hell are you?” he demanded.

  “In the front doorway. You said someone came across the street. Make a noise and I’m going to scoot to the other side, maybe draw their fire, if that’s what’s going on here. Could be Larry and the other guy are just doing their jobs.”

  “Goddamnit,” McGarvey said. He couldn’t believe her and yet he did.

  “Now,” she said.

  McGarvey stepped into view. “Here!” he shouted.

  Moving low and fast, Pete raced across the street and directly down the block to the passenger side of the Caddy.

  McGarvey waited at the corner for a shot to come.

  Pete was back on the phone. “The driver was shot in the head. He’s slumped down across the center console.”

  The muzzle of a pistol pressed against the back of McGarvey’s head.

  “Steady now, Mr. Director,” Kyung-won said.

  SIXTY

  “I didn’t hear you come up from behind,” McGarvey said.

  “Shut down your phone and drop it and your gun to the ground.”

  McGarvey eased down, laid the pistol on the sidewalk and straightened up.

  “Now your phone.”

  “I don’t think so. But at least you’re one part of one question answered,” McGarvey said. “I know the GIP hired Kamal—although I suspect he met with the president’s deputy adviser for national security affairs in Beijing awhile back. And we’ve verified that you were an NOC in North Korea. So tell me who you’re working for now?”

  “I said, drop the fucking phone.”

  “Even if he did, the on/off function won’t work,” Otto’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Your friend is a dead man.”

  “A GPS chip was implanted in your body before you went up to Pyongyang,” Otto said.

  “Why didn’t you see me sneaking up behind Mac?”

  “It was shut down, by who I haven’t figured out, but I’ll get it working again. So, basically, Larry, as of now you’re officially fucked. We’ll find you wherever you run.”

  “Put the gun down, and we’ll talk,” McGarvey said. “Tell us what you know and we’ll cut you a deal.”

  “Too late for that.”

  “It wasn’t Grace Metal who tried to kill me at the Farm.”

  “No, but she suspected someone was going to make the try, so she shadowed you.”

  “And you killed her.”

  “I needed your trust for just a little longer.”

  “For what?”

  “To save your life.”

  “But it was you who cut the rope on the Ball Buster.”

  “Change of orders,” Kyung-won said.

  “Whose orders?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “So here we are,” McGarvey said. “Another change of plans? First you were ordered to kill me, and then you were ordered to back off and now you’re back to square one. Shit or get off the pot.”

  “I have a lot of admiration for you. Just about every NOC I’ve ever met does. I don’t want to kill you, I never did.”

  “You tried at the Farm.”

  “I knew that either you or one of your minders—and Grace wasn’t the only one—would discover that the rope had been tampered with. I reported that I had tried.”

  “Reported to whom?”

  “You’ll never know. But I’ll make a deal with you. And it’ll have to include Pete and Otto, who’re listening in.”

  “I’ve never been good at making deals with someone pointing a gun at me.”

  “For the moment I don’t have any choice,” Kyung-won said. “Just promise at least to hear me out.”

  “You turned off your GPS locator.”

  “Every NOC figures out that little trick almost from the get-go.”

  “You want to go deep, but whoever hired you to kill me will want their money back.”

  “They can always try.”

  “I’ll come after you.”

  “But that’s the deal. I won’t shoot you, and you won’t come looking for me.”

  “But you killed Grace and the housekeeper who came with you.”

  “They were expendable.”

  “Like you?”

  “Like all the other guys and three women whose stars—no names, just stars—are on the wall in the lobby of the OHB. You’ve seen them a thousand times. And so has every other son of a bitch who comes through the doors. The trouble is, after a while they lose their meaning. They’re just a decoration.”

  “No star for a traitor,” McGarvey said.

  Kyung-won remained silent.

  “Or a coward.”

  “I’d prefer
to be thought of as another Aldrich Ames. Only I’ll be the one who got away.”

  McGarvey tossed the phone to the left. For just an instant Kyung-won’s attention was diverted, and McGarvey swiveled on his heel as he ducked his head to the right.

  Kyung-won fired one shot, which went wide, and Mac grabbed for the pistol but the other man moved away too fast, and Mac only got his wrist.

  For just a second Kyung-won struggled, trying to pull free.

  McGarvey doubled up his fist and hit the man in his chest—on the left side—with every ounce of his strength.

  Kyung-won was staggered. Still he tried desperately to free his gun hand.

  McGarvey hit him in the chest again. And again. The fourth time, the man’s legs gave out from under him and he crumpled to the sidewalk.

  As he went down, Mac snatched the pistol out of his hand.

  “He’s down.”

  “Help is on its way,” Otto said.

  Pete came running up the street, her pistol drawn, her features rigid, her complexion white. She skidded to a stop, looking from McGarvey to Kyung-won and back, and lowered her pistol. “You sure know how to show a girl an interesting time.”

  McGarvey released the magazine from Kyung-won’s pistol and tossed it aside, then ejected the round from the firing chamber before he tossed the gun aside and picked up his Walther.

  “I didn’t hear it all,” Pete said. “What’d he give you?”

  Kyung-won sat up, rubbing his chest. “I gave him nothing,” he said. “In fact, I should have shot him in the back of the head when I had the chance.”

  “Housekeeping is on the way,” McGarvey said. “Cooperate and you might not get the death penalty. It’s my only deal.”

  Kyung-won shook his head and smiled a little. “Do you think I give a shit about dying?” He got to one knee and then stood. “Just about every sad sack who signs up to become an NOC understands the odds.”

  “Back to square one,” McGarvey said. “Who hired you to take me out?”

  “You think you can handle it?”

  “The truth, yes. But not bullshit.”

  “The Guoanbu.”

  McGarvey was surprised. “Beijing?” Guoanbu was the Ministry of State Security, the Chinese intelligence agency. Hatchett had been sent by the White House to go to Beijing, which could very well mean that the White House wanted him dead.