Face Off--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  “Are you expecting someone to be here already, watching for us?” Pete asked.

  “I hope so,” McGarvey said.

  “The point being?” she asked. She was nervous.

  “I’d like to get them all here and then lead them out of the hotel. I don’t want any collateral damage.”

  “We’re not armed.”

  “If someone is there, they’ll be in the lobby somewhere, or maybe up in the Lounge, where they’d have a good view.”

  “They’ll be carrying.”

  “Most likely,” McGarvey said. “I’ll provide the diversion while you go up and get our pistols. But I don’t think whoever shows up—especially if it’s Marty—will have much stomach to start a gunfight. Not here.”

  “You’ll bet our lives on it?”

  “No, just mine.”

  “Goddamnit. I knew you’d say something like that.”

  Inside, they passed the area where the bellmen dropped the bags of guests checking in and those leaving. Out from under the overhang, Pete went left toward the elevators and McGarvey walked into the lobby, just to the left of the escalators from Forty-Second Street.

  He scanned the couple of dozen or more people in the broad lobby, some of them seated, others coming or going, for a familiar face or faces. He knew all of the players from in-person contacts, except for Kazov. But Otto had sent him several photos of the Russian.

  Pete got on one of the elevators and the doors closed.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Bambridge had gone back up to his room to try to think out what Pamela had told him to do. First he was to shoot Kazov to death right there in the lobby, the moment he showed up this evening. Then he was to call the FBI and get them over to the hotel. And finally he was to call the media to let them know that the deputy director of the CIA had personally bagged the bad guy behind a recent string of events.

  “Even McGarvey will have to be impressed,” Pamela had promised him.

  “It’ll take more than that.”

  “You’re going to hand him Bill’s head on a platter. The Paris thing, the nuclear weapon, the whole works. You’ve been chasing down this issue for several months, only supposedly going along with Bill so that you could find out what his real intentions were.”

  “And?”

  “He’s working for the Russians, and Kazov was his operational officer here in the States. The whole point was to bring Weaver down. But single-handedly you will have saved the presidency. And Weaver is big on returning favors. Might just fire Gibson and put you in charge.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Dream big, sweetheart. And if you pull this off, we won’t have to go to ground.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “The weather in the Caribbean is nice all year long.”

  Bambridge’s cell phone rang. But the caller ID was blocked.

  “You need to come over to the Grand Hyatt right now,” Kazov said. He sounded pumped up.

  “I thought we weren’t meeting until tonight.”

  “Something’s come up.”

  “What something?”

  “An opportunity.”

  “I’m not going anywhere unless you start making fucking sense. I’m tired of this shit, Vlad, and I want out.”

  “Are you familiar with the name Karim Najjir?”

  “He’s the Saudi operator you hired for the Paris thing.”

  “And the guy who got the drop on McGarvey and handed him over to the SVR.”

  “Who turned him loose on Putin’s orders. This whole goddamned thing is going south. And I’m going to ground right now.”

  “You have a job to finish. We both do.”

  “Fuck it, I’m no assassin.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure that Awadi sent Najjir and the broad he’s with here to kill us both. He’s at the Hyatt, and together we ought to be able to take him down and come out of this as heroes.”

  “Goddamnit.”

  “Rich heroes. Going to ground takes a lot of money.”

  “Who the hell is Awadi?”

  “The Saudi prince I used to come up with Najjir, and who, by the way, has offered to buy our nuclear weapon from me.”

  Bambridge was silent for several beats. His instinct was to put down the phone and disappear right now. He had no qualms about leaving Pamela behind. But Kazov was right. Going to ground in style did take a lot of money.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Meet me at the viaduct entrance across from the train station as soon as you can get there.”

  “Armed?”

  “Of course,” Kazov said. “And call Bill, tell him to meet us there.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It all ends this afternoon, Martin. And you’ll be able to call your own shots: You either come up rich, or as today’s hero, or both. And you won’t have to shoot anyone, unless it’s to defend yourself.”

  * * *

  Bambridge telephoned Rodak, who answered on the second ring. It sounded as if he were standing on busy street corner somewhere.

  “What do you want, Marty?” Rodak asked.

  “Vladimir wants to meet us at the Grand Hyatt. The entrance on the viaduct across from Grand Central.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? The son of a bitch wants you to kill me, and now we’re all supposed to meet somewhere? Kiss and make up?”

  “Prince Awadi has sent the guy and his woman, who did the Paris thing for us, here to kill us both. He’s evidently trying to cover his tracks. He’s also offered to buy the missing bomb.”

  “There is no bomb.”

  “But apparently there’s money on the table.”

  “So what does he want us to do?” Rodak demanded.

  “I’m not sure, but Vlad and I will be armed, and I assume you will be too. The three of us should be able to take him down.”

  “And hand him over to the FBI.”

  “You’d be the hero.”

  “And you’d be the man who saved Weaver’s ass.”

  “What about Vladimir?”

  “I’m sure that, between us, we could get him sent back to Moscow instead of to jail,” Bambridge said. “We might just come out of this whole shit case in one piece.”

  “And there’s always tomorrow,” Rodak said. “I’ll be there.”

  * * *

  Bambridge checked his pistol and holstered it under his left arm, then put on his jacket. Before he left the room he phoned Pamela and told her everything that had just happened.

  “This could go bad for any number of reasons,” she said.

  “Better than going to ground and having to look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.”

  “First you have to bag this Saudi assassin and his woman.”

  “Three against one.”

  “Three against two. By all accounts she’s an accomplished killer too. So just don’t get into this without putting your male pig attitude on a back burner.”

  “I’ll let you know soon as.”

  “Good luck, sweetheart.”

  SIXTY-NINE

  McGarvey had taken a seat in the expansive lobby, which at this time in the afternoon was not terribly busy, so that if it came to a gunfight—which he didn’t think was going to happen here—the risk to innocent bystanders would be minimal.

  From where he sat he could not see Najjir or Miriam, but he had a direct sight line to the stairs. No matter what, though, he didn’t think that Najjir would try to run. The man had come to finish the job he and the woman had started in Paris.

  Mac’s phone buzzed. It was Otto.

  “Bambridge just got off the phone with his wife. He and Kazov are on their way to you.”

  “What about Rodak?”

  “They’re not together, but he’s coming too, and you’re the target. What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t want to spark a hostage situation, so we’ll keep the NYPD out of it for the time being. We get SWAT teams guys charging in, Najjir will not going down w
illingly.”

  “What about the Bureau?”

  “Call the Bureau’s New York SAC and find out if someone is on Kazov, but I think they probably lost him, or at least he’ll ditch them before he comes over here.”

  “They’ll want to know why we’re interested.”

  “Tell them that you might have something in the next fifteen minutes or so.”

  Otto was silent for a long moment. “This could go south in a New York minute, you do know that.”

  “I don’t think anyone is going to start a shooting war in the lobby. They’re going to want to make a deal or deals to save their own skins.”

  “Everyone has their own agenda, and I think taking you and Pete out of the picture is on the top of everyone’s list.”

  “Except for Marty. He wants to come out of this a hero.”

  “Which makes him a loose cannon—the most dangerous one in the bunch.”

  “And my ally,” McGarvey said.

  Najjir and Miriam appeared at the head of the stairs and paused.

  “Showtime,” McGarvey said. “Call the SAC now.”

  “Will do, and I’m going to give the NYPD the heads-up, no matter what you say. They can cordon off the hotel. No sirens.”

  “Not until everyone shows up.”

  “Leave your phone on.”

  “This ends here and now,” McGarvey said. He pocketed his phone but did not shut it off.

  Pete got off the elevator, came down the two stairs to the lobby floor, walked over to McGarvey, and sat down beside him on the couch, placing her open shoulder bag between them. She looked up.

  “Everyone is heading this way,” McGarvey said. “Marty, Bill Rodak, and Kazov.”

  “Is Otto on top of it? We might need some backup.”

  “He’s giving the Bureau the heads-up, and as soon as the others get here he’ll have NYPD closing down every way out of the hotel.”

  “We could defuse the situation by getting up and walking out the door.”

  “No,” McGarvey said, and Najjir spotted him.

  “Is this about me?” Pete asked.

  “I nearly lost you,” McGarvey said, and he left it at that.

  * * *

  “Let’s grab a cab and get the fuck out of here,” Miriam said, as she and Najjir started down. “It’s the safe play.”

  “It ends here,” Najjir said, his eyes never leaving McGarvey’s.

  “Goddamnit, he’ll have backup.”

  “Not him.”

  “I’m not playing into this shit. I’m walking away from this right now.”

  “Understand that if I come out of this alive, you’ll be my next target.”

  Miriam shook her head in disbelief. “You macho motherfucker, if we both come out of this in one piece, you’ll be my next target.”

  “Then we understand each other.”

  “Perfectly.”

  * * *

  No one in the lobby was looking at them as Najjir and Miriam came across. McGarvey took his Walther out of Pete’s purse and, keeping his finger on the trigger, lowered the pistol out of sight beside his right leg.

  “May we join you?” Najjir asked.

  “Of course,” McGarvey said. “But if either of you reaches for a weapon I will shoot you.”

  “We’re here to talk, not to fight,” Najjir said, and he and Miriam sat down across the low coffee table strewn with sections of USA Today.

  Pete reached into her purse, but left her hand there. “I told you that we’d be back.”

  Najjir shrugged nonchalantly. “The business in Paris and Istanbul was just that. Unfortunate timing all around but, given the circumstances, we had no other option.”

  “Nor do we have a lot of options,” Pete said directly to Miriam. “Either kill both of you here and now, before this shit gets out of hand, or call the FBI and have them take care of you. And I think you can guess my first choice.”

  “Nobody’s going to start a war this afternoon. We’re here to work out a compromise.”

  * * *

  Bambridge got out of the cab at the viaduct entrance to the Grand Hyatt. As soon as he’d paid the driver and the cab left, Rodak came out of the hotel and they shook hands.

  “Is Vlad here yet?” Bambridge asked. He was jumpy.

  “I haven’t seen him, but we have another, bigger problem, and I think we ought to make a one eighty and get the hell out of here.”

  “What’s that?”

  At that moment another cab pulled up and Kazov got out. When he’d paid the driver he came over. “The Three Musketeers, together at last.”

  “Bill thinks that we should walk away from the entire situation,” Bambridge said. “And I’m just about ready to agree with him.”

  “You’re both armed, I assume, as I am. And we’re facing one man and his woman. Both of them criminals. I think the French would give us medals if we took them out. So let’s get it over with and go our separate ways.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Rodak said.

  “No one here in New York or, especially, in Washington will be happy about you guys participating in a shoot-out in a hotel lobby. But your president will come out on top, as he usually does.”

  “You’d have to return to Moscow, and there would be questions,” Bambridge said.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Goddamnit, neither of you is listening,” Rodak said.

  “What?” Bambridge demanded.

  “I took a look. Najjir and his broad are down in the lobby seated across from McGarvey and Boylan. And it looks as if they’re having a quiet little chat.”

  “Christ,” Bambridge said softly.

  “Then we end it here and now,” Kazov said. “McGarvey and his woman were unfortunately killed in a gunfight. The important thing is the terrorists were taken down as well. God bless America. Vive la France.”

  “You’re talking about McGarvey, for Christ’s sake.”

  “We take them from behind,” Kazov said. “In it all or lose it all.”

  SEVENTY

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say that what you did to my fiancée and me was just part of an operation that went bad,” McGarvey said. “We happened to be in wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “A bit more complicated than that, but for the sake of argument, continue,” Najjir said.

  “What do we do about the innocent people on the ground near the Eiffel Tower who lost their lives because of you?”

  “Or the people you killed in Paris and Istanbul?”

  McGarvey shrugged, his grip tightening on the pistol at his side. “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Yes.”

  “You said that you wanted a compromise. What are you proposing?”

  “That we walk away from here, of course,” Najjir said. “My lady and I will disappear, and you and your lady will return to Washington the heroes for having saved the day.”

  “What about the plot to bring down President Weaver?”

  “I know nothing about it,” Najjir said. “My brief was to attack the Eiffel Tower, which would ultimately end up in the French cooperating with you to bring down a group of Russian cyber attackers operating in Paris, who were aiming at damaging or even bringing down the power grid and therefore most of the internet in the U.S.”

  “How about the nuclear weapon missing from Russian depot outside Moscow?”

  Najjir shook his head. “As I’ve already said, our operational orders were very specific. Bring down the tower and get out.”

  “But you had backup teams and fallbacks. You must have expected trouble.”

  “Of course. Doesn’t every operation come with risks of failure? You of all people should understand this.”

  “You arrogant prick,” Pete said, and she started to bring her pistol out of her purse, but McGarvey reached over and stayed her hand.

  “We’re not getting into a gun battle here in public. So if we do let Mr. Najjir run—maybe back to hi
s bosses in Saudi Arabia, or should I say, to Prince Awadi—we can always find him.”

  Two women in designer jeans, one with a light silk blouse, the other wearing a blue blazer, packages in hand, came up the escalator, to the left, and started across the lobby.

  “At one time I was a paid field officer for the GIP, but I went freelance, as you say, some years ago. And I think that I have heard of the prince, though he’s only a minor cousin. One of a thousand. So even if he is involved, I seriously doubt if he would have the money to pull off an op as complicated as the Paris one.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “That, I can’t say,” Najjir said, spreading his hands. “But you can understand that one has to be careful with his sources, especially the ones with the money.”

  “There’s the rub then,” McGarvey said. “The Paris deal was a failure. We saw to that. So your need for money to recoup your losses had to have been greater than your common sense. So you delivered me to the Russians. To someone most likely working in or for the SVR. The mistake, of course, was that the SVR and the Kremlin are at odds with each other just now. So Putin sent me home to help him solve a problem of a missing Russian nuclear weapon.”

  “As I have said, I know nothing about such a weapon.”

  “Perhaps not, but I think the people who do would be very interested in you.”

  “Good heavens, why?”

  “Because you gave me to the Russians. They’ll want to know why, and they probably won’t believe anything that you tell them.”

  Najjir smiled. “Then we’ve reached another impasse.”

  “Not at all. Because talking to me you’ve become a magnet. A counterpoise, actually, for another counterpoise—for the missing nuclear weapon that doesn’t exist, for the chance to take down President Weaver, and for taking me out of the picture.”

  “I’m not following you,” Najjir said, but he was clearly rattled.

  “I’m sure that you’re familiar with the names Vladimir Kazov, Bill Rodak, and Marty Bambridge.”

  “Bleedin’ hell,” Miriam shouted.

  McGarvey looked in the direction she was staring in time to see the three men passing the reception desk and heading directly toward the lobby.