Crossfire (Kirk McGarvey 3)

by Hagberg, David

  Again Danielle had drifted off for a moment. "Makes one wonder about the connection between this woman's search for a Nazi submarine and her disappearance in Argentina."

  "What do you mean?" Murphy asked.

  "A lot of Nazis went down there at the end of the war to escape retribution from the Allies. A lot of money went with them. Gold. Artwork. Diamonds. All taken from the bodies of their Jewish victims, or looted from museums across Europe. A lot of it has never turned up."

  "She's a treasure hunter?" Murphy asked.

  Danielle shrugged.

  "Which has nothing to do with the attack on our embassy," Ryan said.

  Murphy nodded. "He has to be brought in, Phil."

  "What about the girl?"

  "Her, too, if getting her out of Argentina poses no serious threat to our operations down there. But McGarvey has to be brought in at all costs. It wouldn't do to let the Argentinians get their hands on him."

  "We'll do what we can," Carrara said, rising.

  "See that your people do," Murphy said. "Light a fire under them if need be, but get it done. Soon."

  At the door Carrara turned back. "What about this Iranian connection, sir?"

  "You'll hear about it soon enough," Murphy said. "There've been rumblings about an assassination attempt on Richard Abbas."

  "My chief of station in Tehran?"

  Murphy nodded. "Doyle thought there might be a connection with McGarvey."

  "Where'd we hear about this?"

  "I'm not sure," Murphy said, turning to Danielle.

  "Came from Mike Oreck's office, I think," the DDCI said.

  "Yes, sir," Carrara said, and he left.

  Back in his own office, Carrara looked up Oreck's number in the headquarters directory. The man headed what was called the Office of Economic Research; Thomas Doyle was his immediate superior.

  He telephoned the man directly, even though he should have gone through the Directorate of Intelligence.

  "Phil Carrara. Wonder if you could spare me a couple of minutes this morning."

  'Tes, sir," Oreck said. "Have you spoken with Mr. Doyle?"

  "Saw him this morning in the general's office," Carrara said.

  'Tes,. sir. Could you tell me what this is in reference to?"

  "I'm told that your office has heard rumors of a threat against one of my people."

  "Oh, that, sir," Oreck said, his voice suddenly guarded. "I think you're right: it would be better if I came up and personally briefed you."

  "Has my man been warned?"

  "Ah, yes, sir," Oreck said. "I believe that message went out with the overnights. I'll be right up."

  Oreck was a heavily built man with dark hair, thick black eyebrows, and a square face. His handshake was bone-crushing.

  "Sorry to have been so mysterious on the telephone, sir, but this has an extremely tight distribution list, if you know what I mean."

  "I don't know," Carrara said. "I was told this morning that a death threat against my chief of Tehran station was uncovered by your office, which I found odd."

  "Not so odd, sir, considering the project."

  Carrara said nothing.

  "You'll be receiving your briefing package today or tomorrow sometime. A planning and implementation conference will be scheduled for early in the week."

  "Go on."

  "Well, sir, the President has apparently signed a secret agreement with the Iranian government to return monies we have been holding in frozen bank assets. Oil payments mostly, from what I gather."

  "What does Dick Abbas have to do with this?"

  "The Iranians have demanded payment in gold. We've agreed, and the gold will be shipped to Bushehr on the Persian Gulf sometime within the next ten or fifteen days."

  "By ship?" Carrara asked, surprised. "Why not by air?"

  "Because we are sending them approximately four million ounces, sir. One hundred twenty-five tons of gold."

  Carrara sat back.

  'Tes, sir, it affects all of us that way. On the present market it's worth a bit more than one and a half billion dollars."

  "What about my chief of station?"

  "He's to make certain that the shipment makes it overland from Bushehr to Tehran. There are certain people within the Iranian army who would like to get their hands on that gold."

  "No doubt," Carrara said. "But Abbas is under deep cover."

  "Yes, sir. His job is simply to keep a watchful eye. If anything should begin to develop, he's to use the SatCom system to call for help. We need the impartial observer there. And we need the secrecy, of course."

  "Once it's on Iranian soil it's their problem, so why are we involved? And why wasn't I informed earlier?"

  "This just developed, sir. And it came from the White House. I believe the current thinking is that with everything that's been going on in the region, we need a friend, even if it is Iran. Or maybe especially. At any rate, apparently we've guaranteed delivery at Tehran. We're looking for stability in the region, and we'll do whatever it takes to insure it."

  "Then it should have been shipped by air. Our air force could have brought it in."

  Oreck said nothing.

  "But you're also trying to tell me that someone may have gotten wind of the shipment and Dick's role as a watchdog, and they want to eliminate him because of it. Is that correct?"

  "That's what we believe."

  "I see," Carrara said absently, his mind racing to a dozen different possibilities and problems.

  "If there'll be nothing else, sir ... ?" Oreck said.

  "No," Carrara replied. "Thanks for coming up this morning."

  "Yes, sir," Oreck said, and he let himself out.

  Where were the connections? Carrara asked himself. There had to be connections. A gold shipment to Iran. The possibility of a treasure aboard a Nazi submarine that an Argentinian woman was seeking. The attack on the U.S. embassy in Paris. McGarvey's initial fears that somehow Arkady Kurshin, the chameleon, was alive and involved. Of course, there had been the rumors out of Moscow.

  Or was it all simply revenge, as Howard Ryan argued? Revenge and insanity. And was everything else merely coincidence?

  He didn't think so.

  the dawn broke cold and gray over the Golfo San Matias. In the night the wind had risen sharply, and it was now kicking up steep six-foot waves from the east. The motion aboard the Chris-Craft was unpleasant.

  McGarvey got a mug of coffee from the galley on the starboard side of the main saloon directly across from the dining table, and bracing himself against the pitch and roll made his way topside.

  Maria was going over their scuba gear with Jones. Jorge was back on the bridge, preparing to bring them into the wind to make the boat a more stable platform for the dive. Angry dark clouds scudded in very low from the open ocean.

  "How long will this weather hold?" McGarvey asked.

  Jones looked up, then at the horizon and the sea. "Not long,"

  he said. "You will get one dive this morning. After that it'll be too rough."

  "It's enough," Maria said. She'd been in a taciturn mood since yesterday afternoon's confrontation with Jones, after they'd found what they took to be the submarine.

  Jones had not elaborated on what he knew of the U-boat's sighting forty-six years ago, nor had they asked him to do so. But the mystery would be solved in the next hour or so, McGarvey figured, and then he would be able to return to Paris.

  He'd known all along that sooner or later he was going to have to go back to Europe. Whether or not the embassy attack had anything to do with the murders of Dr. Hesse and Albert Rothmann—a long shot, he thought, but nagging nonetheless —he was starting to have the same over-the-shoulder feeling that he'd had in Freiburg.

  Someone was behind him. The awareness was like the throb of a mild toothache. Insistent. A presence.

  Turn around, he'd been telling himself for the past few days. This adventure with Maria was becoming even less than a diversion. He did not care about Argentinian po
litics, and he cared even less about Nazi war criminals of nearly a half century ago. Yet at times he found that he was almost afraid to look over his shoulder lest he come face-to-face with himself. Something his sister said he'd never done, especially not since the deaths of their parents. But that had been years ago. Where had his life gone? Into what place had it leaked?

  "Bring me back a sample," Jones said dryly.

  Maria didn't bother answering him. "We're just going down to take a look. Confirm that it's what we're looking for. I don't think we'll be able to do more in this weather."

  "Can we stay here until it passes?" McGarvey asked.

  "That's probably not such a good idea," Jones said. "We're in for a big blow. The barometer is down and going farther."

  "We'll come back," Maria said, an odd note in her voice.

  She was lying again, which McGarvey found disturbing. They'd come this far, had gotten this close, yet she said she was willing merely to take a look and then leave.

  Jones had caught it too, and he looked sharply at her. "If need be, I'll bring my own crew back here."

  "Let's find out what's down there first," she said. "Shall we?"

  Jones nodded thoughtfully, then glanced up at Jorge and mo-

  tioned for him to bring them into the wind. "The bow of whatever is down there is lying at just under two hundred thirty feet. The stern, unless it's the other way around, is in two hundred eighty feet of water. But there's a protuberance of some sort rising about fifteen, maybe twenty feet above the level of the main mass. No matter what, you'll be diving to two hundred feet or more. You're going to have to take precautions."

  'Tes?" Maria said, listening attentively.

  "You'll have only five minutes at that depth. On the way up you'll stop at forty feet for three minutes, thirty feet for six minutes, twenty feet for eleven minutes, and ten feet for twenty-one minutes."

  "I thought you didn't dive," McGarvey said.

  "I don't," Jones said. "But I'm not stupid."

  "Go on," Maria said.

  "You'll need lights. It'll be very dark, and cold. My wet suits are good, but you'll start to feel the cold almost immediately. You're going to have to stick together. Watch each other not only for signs of hypothermia, but for nitrogen narcosis as well. This is no Bahamian sport dive you'll be making."

  "Navy?" McGarvey asked.

  After a beat, Jones nodded. "When I got out I worked on an oil rig in the North Sea. About the third time I'd nearly bought the farm, I promised I'd be good to myself."

  Jones would be all right, McGarvey figured.

  "Anything else?" Maria asked.

  "No," Jones said.

  "Then let's get started," she said.

  It had been many years since McGarvey had last made a dive, and then it had been the type that Jones typified as "Bahamian." Warm, crystal-clear water, in depths of less than one hundred feet.

  This was completely and ominously different. He followed Maria's bubbles down along the buoy anchor line. The water was penetratingly cold, and just under the surface visibility dropped to less than ten feet. It was like swimming in pea soup, or in a fog, or, the thought caused him to shiver, in a very deep cave.

  When he'd been changing into his wet suit in the main saloon, McGarvey had happened to glance aft at the nav station, where

  Jones had been studying the strip charts from the magnetometer. The captain had made a pencil sketch from the readings. The drawing was crude but recognizable as a submarine, its conning tower rising up at an angle, the boat down by the stern.

  How much of the sketch was an accurate depiction of the magnetometer readings, and how much of it was speculation on Jones's part, was a moot question. McGarvey figured he would be seeing it for himself very soon.

  At seventy feet he had to stop for a moment and clear his ears before he could continue.

  At one hundred feet the water suddenly got warmer and visibility dramatically increased to forty or fifty feet. It was as if he were in an airplane that had just descended out of one cloud bank and he was now looking down at another.

  Maria was disappearing below him, still following the buoy anchor line, and he kicked down after her, increasing his speed.

  Below 150 feet it began to get much darker, as if it were the very late afternoon or early evening of a thickly overcast day. The water temperature again dropped, and he could feel his strength beginning to ebb. Jones had warned them that beyond 200 feet they would begin to experience nitrogen narcosis, what was called "rapture of the deep." Breathing ordinary compressed air at that depth created a state much like drunkenness. The victim's coordination and judgment were impaired; some divers decided that they no longer needed to breathe air, that breathing water would be just fine, so they took out their mouthpieces and drowned.

  "Watch yourselves and each other," Jones had repeatedly warned.

  Maria had seemed unconcerned, but McGarvey had taken the warnings to heart.

  At about two hundred feet there was another thermal inversion and the water cleared. It was dark, but McGarvey could see that something very large lay on the bottom, stretching left and right into the blackness.

  At first he was unable to see Maria, but then he spotted her trail of bubbles leading downward and to his left. She was far below him, barely visible.

  He swam down, slowly angling toward where she had disappeared into the gloom, stopping a minute later when her hand light came on. She was at the submarine's conning tower. He

  could make out the periscope and snorkel now, and as he watched, her light flashed on a large white U painted on the side of the sail. The beam shifted to illuminate a figure two, and then the seven, the nine and the eight. It was her submarine.

  McGarvey swam a little closer until he was just about at the same depth as she was, but well aft of the conning tower. She still had not spotted him. She kicked off and swam around the front of the sail, disappearing on the other side.

  McGarvey swam the few yards across the afterdeck to the starboard side of the boat. Maria was just entering the submarine through an open hatch at the base of the sail. The escape trunk, he figured. But it was open. Someone had probably gotten out of the boat that way.

  He had started to swim forward when he spotted another open hatch directly below him. He stopped, then swam down to it. Switching on his light, he shined the beam into the interior of the U-boat. At first he could make little sense out of what he was seeing. He was looking down into the boat's machinery spaces, probably into the engine room itself. But everything was in a jumbled mess. One of the bulkheads was twisted and nearly torn away from the inner hull. The decking beneath it was buckled.

  There had been an explosion aboard.

  Backing out of the blown hatch, McGarvey looked forward. Maria was still inside the boat. He turned and swam the rest of the way to the starboard side of the boat and followed the steeply curving hull down.

  A very large hole had been blown out of the side of the submarine. He could look all the way through the pressure hull into the machinery spaces.

  His lips were beginning to feel thick, but the water temperature no longer seemed to bother him, and he was not feeling so claustrophobic.

  He held up his right arm so that he could see the depth gauge strapped to his wrist. He could read the numbers, but for a long second or two they didn't seem to make any sense.

  More than two hundred feet. He recognized the first number. Then he understood that he was at 268 feet, and that he was feeling the effects of nitrogen narcosis.

  Time to leave; the thought struggled to form in his head. Warning bells were beginning to jangle at the pit of his stomach.

  A Company psychologist had once told him that the reason

  he was so good at what he did, the reason he had survived for so long in a profession whose mortality rate was extremely high, was because he had an overdeveloped instinct for survival.

  "You don't know when, or probably even how, to give up," the doctor had told him.


  There was a certain humor in that notion, McGarvey thought, that he'd never seen before.

  He pushed away from the submarine's hull and hung there ten feet above the sandy bottom. He looked down. Something had fallen out of or had been blown from the submarine and littered the bottom. He languidly swam the rest of the way down, the air from his regulator thick and sour-tasting.

  With great effort he managed to switch on his light and shine the beam on one of the bricklike objects, while with his other hand he fanned the silt from it.

  For a seeming eternity he had trouble understanding what he was looking at. But the object was shiny, reflecting the harsh light. And it was gold. That fact slowly penetrated the fog in his head.

  With exaggerated care, McGarvey picked up the gold bar, fumbled it into the mesh bag clipped to his waist, and pushed himself upward.

  It was difficult swimming up from the bottom with the extra weight. When he reached the sub's afterdeck he sank to his knees to rest for a moment, his head already clearing.

  The beam of Maria's light flashed across him, and he looked up as she descended to him from above the conning tower. When she got close he could see that her eyes were very wide behind her face mask. She was frightened.

  She gave McGarvey the thumbs-up sign, and he repeated it for her. Then he pointed upward. She nodded.

  He waited until she'd started up to transfer a little air from his two tanks into the buoyancy-compensator vest to counteract the extra weight he was carrying, and then followed her at an angle toward the buoy anchor line that rose in the gloom, his head becoming clearer with each foot as they approached the surface.

  Kurshin watched as the canvas-covered truck pulled up on the quay alongside the Comdn, a hundred-foot aluminum pleasure vessel. The same two men he'd spotted at the airport

  climbed down from the cab and were joined by three crewmen from the ship.

  The Puerto Nuevo section of Buenos Aires, which was just a couple of miles southeast of the U.S. embassy, was busy this morning. No one paid any attention to Kurshin, who was seated in his rental car, or to the crewmen who quickly unloaded the aluminum cases from the truck and started bringing them aboard the sleek ship.