Face Off--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  “You can drive, and I’ll slow down anyone coming from our six,” she said. She grinned. “That is, if you can keep up.”

  Keeping low, and making as little noise as possible, they made their way in the darkness to the corridor, then, watching the corners and keeping an eye out for anyone coming up behind them, made it to the entry hall.

  They held up at the front door. The Mercedes, its driver’s side door still open, its engine still turning over, sat unattended, so far as McGarvey could tell.

  But there was no time to make sure. It wouldn’t take Najjir and his people very long to realize that he and Pete had doubled back.

  “On me,” he said.

  “Right.”

  McGarvey sprinted out the door, directly to the driver’s side of the idling Mercedes, Pete right behind him.

  She was in the passenger seat as he got behind the wheel.

  “We have company,” she said, and started firing toward the rear.

  Without closing the door, Mac slammed the car in Drive and accelerated down the short driveway, through the open gate, and toward the park, beyond which were busy streets leading toward downtown.

  “Anyone following us?” Mac asked.

  “Not yet, but we have a slight problem.”

  “What?” McGarvey asked, glancing at her.

  “I think I’m going to pass out.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I think one of the bastards taking potshots into the lobby got lucky,” Pete said. “Hurts like hell, in my side. Like a stitch. Maybe my liver.”

  McGarvey reached for her with his free hand when she slumped over against the door.

  He made a hard right, passing Taksim Square, and got on the phone with Otto, while checking the rearview mirror. So far no one was behind them.

  “You’re out,” Otto said.

  “Pete’s been shot, maybe badly. Vector me to the nearest safe hospital. Someplace very public.”

  “The Vakfi Amerikan Hastanesi, but it’s too far. You’re better off trying to make our consulate—they have a good med staff on call.”

  “Are you tracking me?”

  “Make the next right,” Otto said.

  Four military troop transports appeared from a street to the right and came to a screeching halt, blocking the main street.

  McGarvey had no recourse except to slam on the brakes, one hand preventing Pete from pitching forward, and crank the wheel hard left, sending them careening down a side street.

  FORTY-ONE

  Marty Bambridge got off I-495 a mile south of the interchange with the GW Parkway and headed down Georgetown Pike, which led to the CIA’s rear gate, three miles away.

  His phone chimed. It was Otto Rencke.

  “As soon as you get back we’re meeting with the general. I’m in his office right now.”

  “Fine by me,” Bambridge said. “It’s about time we get this shit straightened out.”

  “What shit is that, Marty?”

  “Who’s in charge of the Company’s operations.”

  “It’s certainly not someone stabbing two of its people in the back.”

  “McGarvey no longer works for us,” Bambridge said, realizing his mistake at once.

  “You’re wrong, you son of a bitch.”

  “At any rate I don’t give a flying fuck what kind of shit he and his girlfriend have gotten themselves into this time. But it has to stop. Now!”

  “Is that what you discussed with Bill Rodak?”

  “That’s none of your goddamned business,” Bambridge shouted.

  “But it is my business,” General Gibson said. “I’ll see you in my office. And just so you won’t be blindsided, I’ve asked Carlton to join us with the usual nondisclosure agreement, in case it needs your signature.”

  Carlton Patterson was a personal friend not only of Rencke but especially of McGarvey. And employees holding classified information were required to sign the agreement at the time of their dismissal.

  “That would require the consent of the president.”

  “No,” Gibson said. “But depending on what you’ll tell us, we may go over to the White House for a meeting to see if we can mitigate any damage that might be coming our way.”

  “Mr. Director, I can’t begin to guess what nonsense Mr. Rencke has been telling you, but as your deputy director I have to advise you that this is a can of worms that you might wish to step away from. For the good of the agency.”

  “In my office, mister. Now!”

  * * *

  Otto’s phone vibrated.

  “I have what looks like a unit of the Turkish military on my ass right now,” McGarvey said over the noise of an engine at top speed and wind noise from an open window or windows.

  “Are you clear?”

  “Four troop trucks showed up and baricaded the intersection just a couple of blocks from the warehouse. They knew we were coming. Is the consulate out?”

  “Depends on Pete’s condition,” Otto said.

  “She’s unconscious, but still breathing. Lot of blood on the seat.”

  “Mr. McGarvey, this is General Gibson. I need you to pull over right now, turn on your headlights and flashers, and attend to Ms. Boylan before she bleeds to death.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Director, the only way the Turkish military could have shown up so soon was as if they had been warned by Najjir. We stop here and they’ll take us.”

  “If you don’t, Ms. Boylan won’t make it. I’ve seen my share of battlefield wounds. You take care of Pete and I’ll take care of the Turks. But don’t shoot at anyone, no matter what happens. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” McGarvey said.

  * * *

  Bambridge slowed down at the entrance to the Langley Fork Park, which was just adjacent to the CIA’s property. He pulled off to the side of the road and parked as a dump truck rumbled past.

  From here he could see the turnoff to the agency’s back gate, but not the guardhouse itself. In his mind he only had two choices open: he had to bluff his way past the director or take a runner. Neither was an attractive option.

  Otto Rencke was a fucking freak, but he had the respect of just about every intelligence agency in town, and he was feared for what he could do to the computer infrastructure. In fact it was he who had repeatedly warned not only Gibson but even the White House about Russian cyber attacks, and about the trouble that WikiLeaks was giving all of them.

  His suggestion was to hurt the Russians so badly that they would back off, and to mount a full-court press—in secret, especially out of the eyes of the media—to track down whoever was feeding the information to Julian Assange and his people. And once that person or persons were identified, his advice was to have them killed.

  Of course, the media would find out sooner or later and there would be hell to pay. Bambridge’s advice was to leave well enough alone, investigating in the same way they had been doing. Stay the course and sooner or later the traitors would be outed and the problem would be solved.

  The real problem was the Russians, of course, and Putin himself. It was a situation that he was intimately familiar with.

  He waited for a car to pass, then headed down to the back gate. Running wasn’t an option. Not yet at least.

  * * *

  McGarvey pulled in to an empty parking spot just past a coffeehouse, the sidewalk tables mostly filled with couples who looked more like tourists than locals.

  He went around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. Pete almost fell out, and he had to hold her back to keep her from tumbling onto the sidewalk.

  She had lost a fair amount of blood, but when he lifted her shirt he could see that the jagged entry wound just above her right hip wasn’t bleeding profusely. Nor was the fluid that had come from the wound black. She was hurt, but not mortally.

  He took off his shirt, folded it into a square, and pressed it against the wound. She moaned and looked up at him, her eyes open.

  “Is it time to
go home?” she asked, her voice ragged.

  “Just about.”

  First one siren started up to the east, the direction of the roadblock, and then another, and then a third. All them headed this way.

  McGarvey pressed her right hand over the makeshift bandage. “Hold this,” he said.

  She did as she was told, but then cocked an ear, the sirens much closer now. “That’s for us?”

  “Probably. But you need help, and Gibson said he’d take care of the Turks for us.”

  “Don’t worry about the Turks, this is a Russian op.”

  “You’re right. But I’m not going to drive around Istanbul while you bleed to death. So keep still, and let me do the talking.”

  “Sexist,” she mumbled, and she drifted off.

  Making sure that Pete was slumped back away from the door, McGarvey took the room broom from the floor, where she had dropped it, and laid it on the sidewalk, along with the pistol.

  The sirens were very loud now, just around the corner, and people in the coffee shop were becoming alarmed. Many of them were walking away, while others had gotten to their feet but clearly didn’t know what to do, which direction was safe for them to run.

  A UAZ, the Russian jeep, came around the corner and screeched to a halt about twenty feet away. A man in military camos, officer’s pips on his shoulder boards, jumped out, a pistol in his right hand. He made eye contact with McGarvey.

  “Are you Mr. McGarvey?” he asked, in passable English.

  “Yes. The woman in the car needs medical attention.”

  The Turkish officer pointed his gun at Mac as the three trucks came around the corner.

  “Put up your hands, please, or I will be forced to open fire.”

  McGarvey did as he was told.

  The trucks pulled up short, and a dozen armed soldiers piled out of each of them.

  “The woman in the car is badly wounded,” McGarvey said loudly enough that the soldiers could hear him. “She needs to be taken to a hospital.”

  “We will see to it,” the officer said, but he didn’t lower his weapon.

  Najjir got out of the jeep.

  FORTY-TWO

  McGarvey stood loose as Najjir said something to the officer, who lowered his pistol. The civilians had fled from the café, and all that was left were the three dozen soldiers standing in a tight perimeter around the car, their rifles at the ready. No avenue of escape was even remotely possible now.

  “Otto, are you copying?” McGarvey said softly.

  “Yes.”

  “The Turkish Army is here; no way out.”

  “The general is working on it; stay frosty.”

  “Najjir is here too. He just got out of a jeep with a Turkish officer in uniform. Looks like army intel bureau markings.”

  “Stand by,” Otto said.

  Najjir walked over and stopped a few feet away from the side of the car, out of reach of McGarvey but where he could see Pete. “How bad is she?”

  “She needs help.”

  “I can see that. The major assures me that an ambulance is en route, should be here momentarily.”

  “Where will you take her?”

  “I’m told that a medical team is standing by at your consulate, and as soon as she’s stable she’ll be flown to Ramstein. How about you?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “That’s good, because I’ve honored my part of the bargain and now it’s time for you to cooperate.”

  “To Russia?”

  “Out of Turkey,” Najjir said. He held out a hand. “Toss your phone to me, please. There is no need for Mr. Rencke to listen to the rest of our conversation, or to track your movements.”

  “We will find you,” Otto said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You can’t go deep enough.”

  “We’ll see,” Najjir said. He gestured for Mac to toss over the phone.

  “He’s right,” McGarvey said, but he held up the phone.

  The major raised his pistol and the soldiers sharpened up.

  “With care,” Najjir said. “We don’t want an unfortunate accident now.”

  McGarvey tossed the phone to Najjir, who took off the back plate and removed the battery and SIM card, both of which he dropped to the ground and crushed with the heel of his shoe.

  “If you’re ready, let’s go,” Najjir said.

  In the distance they could hear an approaching siren.

  “When she’s aboard the ambulance and on her way,” McGarvey said.

  “You’re in no position for any further bargaining.”

  “You can’t imagine the trouble I’ll give you personally. Once she’s on her way I’ll cooperate with you. My word.”

  Najjir hesitated for a moment, but then nodded. “As you wish.”

  * * *

  The bar code in the windshield of Bambridge’s car was still valid, and once the automatic scanner read it and the facial recognition program identified him, he was passed through the rear gate without having to stop and show an ID.

  On the way up to the OHB he used another of the throwaway phones and called Rowe, who answered after four rings.

  He sounded stressed. “What?”

  “What’s your situation?”

  “It’s all fucked up. McGarvey’s not dead, like you wanted. In fact the son of a bitch apparently took out a dozen or more shooters at the factory. The guy’s a fucking machine.”

  “Calm down, and tell me what’s going on, goddamnit.”

  “We got word a half hour ago to get a medical team over from the American hospital to take care of a serious gunshot wound.”

  “McGarvey?”

  “You’re not listening. The incoming is the broad he was with.”

  “Boylan?”

  “Yeah. One of ours, and I don’t know how the fuck you’re going to explain what’s going on if she wakes up and starts talking.”

  “We might have caught a break.”

  “I’m all ears. Because if you go down, so do I.”

  “You don’t have to disappear just yet,” Bambridge said. “Where are you at this moment?”

  “I’m on the way to my apartment to get a few things in case this goes south.”

  “Get back to the consulate right now.”

  “What’s the fucking point?”

  “Thompson is still in Ankara, right?” Stu Thompson was the chief of CIA ops for Istanbul.

  “He left this afternoon, soon as he found out that McGarvey was going to show up. Trouble follows the guy wherever he goes, and Stu wanted no part of it, so he dumped it on me.”

  “Good,” Bambridge said. It had been his suggestion that Thompson get out of the city.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Ms. Boylan works for the Company, which means the only people she will be allowed to talk with, if she wakes up, would be someone from the Company. Since you’re the ranking officer in Istanbul, it’d be you.”

  “Then what?”

  “You didn’t hear me, Mark. I said if she wakes up.”

  Rowe was silent for a longish moment or two. “In for a penny, in for a pound, that it?”

  “No other real choice now.”

  Again Rowe hesitated. “McGarvey better not survive.”

  “He won’t,” Bambridge said, that exact worry gnawing at his gut. “Guaranteed.”

  He broke the connection, and a few minutes later he was pulling in to his underground parking spot at the OHB.

  The Boylan broad was a done deal; now all that needed to be done was to convince the DCI.

  * * *

  A white-and-red ambulance with the crescent moon on the sides pulled up behind the Mercedes and a pair of emergency medics pulled a gurney out of the back and rolled it over to the open passenger-side door.

  McGarvey stepped close as Pete came around and looked up at the medics and then at him.

  She smiled.

  “They’re taking you to our consulate,” Mac said.

  “What abo
ut you?”

  “I won’t be far behind.”

  She spotted Najjir and reacted. “Don’t let them take you!”

  He edged one of the medics aside and leaned in closer. “Won’t be for long, Pete, trust me.”

  She managed a slight smile. “The silly bastard still doesn’t know what he’s gotten himself into, does he?”

  “Whatever happens, don’t talk to anyone but Mark Rowe.”

  “He’s one of the good guys?”

  “Yeah.”

  She managed to give him the thumbs-up, but then faded again.

  McGarvey stepped back, and the medics checked her wound, then eased her onto the gurney.

  One of them said something into his lapel mike while the other stuck a needle connected to a bag of clear fluid into Pete’s arm.

  “She’s on her way, or will be in just a minute or two,” Najjir said.

  “Then let’s get it over with,” McGarvey said. “Actually I’m more curious to see what sort of a reception the SVR gives you, rather than me.”

  FORTY-THREE

  Otto was on the phone with the duty officer at the consulate in Istanbul when Carlton Patterson came in. General Gibson was on his phone, too, and he motioned for Patterson to take a seat.

  “An ambulance transporting Ms. Boylan is on its way to you,” Otto told the duty officer.

  “Yes, sir, we just got word. The medical team is standing by.”

  “She’s one of ours, so I want her treated well.”

  Bambridge walked in at that moment and sat down next to Patterson. He was scowling, but he was holding back something that was frightening him. Otto could see it in the man’s eyes.

  “Will do,” the OD said.

  “Is Mark Rowe there?”

  “Not yet, sir, but I gave him the sit rep just two minutes ago. He said he was on the way.”

  “Good. Have him call me when he shows up,” Otto said.

  Bambridge turned away, but not before Otto caught the faintest glimmer of a smile on the man’s thin lips. It seemed odd at just that moment.

  Gibson hung up his phone, and gave Bambridge a hard stare, before turning to Otto. “That was General Osman, who assures me that none of his units have been deployed in the city at this moment.”