The Kill Zone km-9

by David Hagberg

  A male supply sergeant. In the CIA, after he’d doctored his records, he thought that he’d found a home. Though he didn’t have a lot of friends in those days, at least he had some respect, even though he knew that they called him names behind his back. Then Mac came along.

  Right off the bat Rencke knew that McGarvey was his kind of a person.

  Just standing in the same room with him gave you a confidence you never had before. And when Mac patted you on the shoulder and told you that you did good, it was like a frosty pitcher of cream and a plate of Twinkies. It didn’t get any better. But Mac was drawn again and again back to Washington. So Washington had become Rencke’s magnet because Mac was a friend and because Mac believed in him. Mac had given him the legitimacy that he had searched for all of his life. Rencke had a place.

  CHEVY CHASE

  The helicopter touched down at the far end of the cul-de-sac just long enough to drop Rencke off. He turned away as it rose into the blowing snow and peeled off to the south. There were police cars, fire rescue units, two ambulances and a dozen civilian vehicles choking the street.

  All of them had their red or blue lights flashing. The effect was surreal in the snow. Police tactical radios were blaring, and there had to be at least fifty uniformed cops along with FBI agents in blue-stenciled parkas and a lot of civilians, most of whom were CIA security officers. Rencke made his way over to the remains of the van and the burned-out shell of the DCI’s limo. The Bureau’s forensics people were sifting through the wreckage, finding and removing bodies and body parts. Flash cameras were going off all over the place. A Montgomery County sheriffs deputy intercepted Rencke. “Let me see some ID.” Rencke held up his CIA card, and the cop shined a flashlight on it, comparing Rencke’s face to the photograph. “Mr. McGarvey’s over in his driveway,” the cop said. Rencke mumbled his thanks and skirted the people and equipment gathered around the remains of the van. It was probably one of the onstation vehicles they’d used to stand watches in front of the house. The explosive device that had destroyed it had been very powerful. There was debris all across the cul-de-sac and up in people’s front yards. The force of the blast had been enough to partially destroy the limo parked several yards away. Looking at the wreckage of the scene reminded him of what the aftermath pictures of the chopper explosion in the Virgin Islands looked like. McGarvey stood at the end of his driveway with a group of CIA security people, a MHP captain and the FBI’s Fred Rudolph. They looked up as Rencke approached. “Where’s Mrs. M.?” Otto asked, unable to contain himself any longer. McGarvey smiled tiredly and laid a comforting hand on Rencke’s arm. “She’s okay. She’s inside, and there’s somebody with her.” “Oh, wow, I was really scared, ya know.” Rencke glanced over his shoulder at the technicians and security people working around the van. “Where’s Dick?”

  “He didn’t make it. He’s dead,” McGarvey said. “He got caught in the explosion.” “Who else?” Rencke asked. His throat was constricting.

  “Janis and Peggy, and a couple of guys from Security. Looks like they had been shot to death before we arrived. Then the van was booby-trapped. Whoever it was drove a dark blue Mercedes.” Rencke closed his eyes. He was sick at his stomach. He felt like a traitor.

  Dick Yemm had been on his short list of suspects. He and his Beltway computer friend, who was ex-KGB.” “We’re heading to the safe house in the morning,” McGarvey said. “Why not now?” Rudolph interjected.

  “Not in the dark,” McGarvey told him. “And not until we can get everybody calmed down.” “We’ll set a trap,” Rencke said. “You and I, Mac, wherever it leads. We’ll set a trap. Cause I know…” “You know what?” McGarvey asked sharply. He was concerned, troubled, even a little apprehensive. Rencke had never seen that kind of a look on Mac’s face before. It frightened him badly. He stumbled back a pace, confused now by all the lights and movement. He felt like a moth that was fatally caught in the light of a very powerful flame. A seductive flame. He was being drawn to his destruction. “We’ll do it, Mac,” he cried in anguish. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his long, frizzy red hair whipped wildly in the wind, and his jacket was open, revealing his dirty MIT sweatshirt. He began hopping from one foot to the other The cops and security people watched him in open amazement. He was a spectacle. He looked up and spotted a pale, round face in an upstairs window for just a moment before it disappeared. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he muttered.

  THIRTY-FOUR. THE 23RD PSALM

  The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways I to die and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

  Plato’s Apology

  Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away … A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.

  Plato’s Phaedo

  WEDNESDAY

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “VAS HA WAS FAMOUS FOR SPREADING LIES AND DISUNITY LIKE ROSE PETALS ON FRESH GRAVES. HE ALWAYS MANAGED TO INCLUDE THE THORNS.”

  OVER THE ATLANTIC

  Six miles above the unforgiving winter ocean, Otto Rencke tried to put a cap on his fear. The cabin aboard the Company’s VIP Gulfstream was luxurious compared to the cramped cockpit of the Aurora. But the jet was slow, and Rencke was impatient. The only light came from the open cockpit door. It was four in the morning, and the crew thought that he was sleeping. They left him alone, which is what he wanted, what he needed, so that he could put his thoughts in order. Nikolayev was the key to the puzzle. Otto had known it almost from the very beginning, in August, when the KGB psychiatrist had walked away from Moscow. Some premonition, some inner voice, something inside of his gut started telling him that there was an operation brewing. Sometimes they started that way. A spy drops out of sight. Classified records turn up missing. The authorities in the host country pick up their heads and the hunt begins.

  But he hadn’t been one hundred percent sure, so he brought Elizabeth into his confidence. She was in the middle of researching her father’s old files for his CIA biography, so she had become something of an expert on the subject. Nikolayev was an old man, a name out of the Baranov past. He had been a Department Viktor man, which meant that he knew about ruthlessness. And he was suddenly a loose cannon. But he had not dropped out of sight inside Russia, something that was apparently quite easy to do these days. He had come to the West, first to establish a safe haven for himself, then to make contact with the CIA. He had used a supposedly anonymous re mailer to send a sample of his information to the address that Rencke had provided. But it was just a sample. Tantalizing. A glimpse into Baranov’s mind, a mad genius from the past. But useless in terms of finding out who was gunning for McGarvey. Rencke looked at his hands, which were shaking.

  He had gone without sleep for a couple of days now, living mostly on Cokes and on black beauties. Another day or so, and he would crash. It was inevitable. Baranov, according to Nikolayev, had set up Network Martyrs, which was a group of sleeper agents in the States. That had been more than twenty years ago. When the time was right for a particular unit of the network to accomplish its task, he would be awakened. One of Network Martyrs sleepers had been reactivated. The target was McGarvey. But after that brief message, Nikolayev no longer responded. He didn’t answer his e-mails. Nor did he reply to Rencke’s queries at the letter drops in Paris that he had established to initiate the first contact. It could be something so simple as Nikolayev’s own death. Perhaps the SVR had found him after all and put a bullet in his brain. Or perhaps he had died of a heart attack; he was an old man. The real mystery were the misdirections, if that’s what they were. If McGarvey was the target of Network Martyrs, and if the sleeper assassin had been awakened, by whatever means, then why hadn’t a simple, straightforward attempt been made on the DCI’s life?

  Why target Otto? Why sabotage Elizabeth’s skis in Colorado? And, if the sleeper was a Baranov-trained assassin, why the clumsy attempts on Mac’s life in the Virgin Islands and again just hours ago in front of his house? Were they the m
issteps of an amateur, Rencke wondered. Or signals that something else was happening. Something that was just outside of his understanding. Rencke laid his head back. Their ETA was 6:00 A.M.” which was 11:00 A.M. in France. Two hours from now. He had time to catch a little sleep. He needed it to keep his head on straight. He was starting to lose track of his logic. Nikolayev’s anonymous re mailer hadn’t been so anonymous after all. The service providers in the Czech Republic were not on the cutting edge. Cracking them had been easy. But not now. He couldn’t think straight. When Otto woke up, the Gulfstream was coming in for a landing at Pontoise Air Force Base outside of Paris.

  They were far enough north that the winter sun, even at eleven in the morning, was low in the hard blue sky. But unlike Washington there was little or no snow on the ground. France had had a mild winter. Tough on the skiiers, but easy on everyone else. He popped a black beauty and looked out the window, bleary-eyed, as a dark gray Citroen sedan came across the tarmac and pulled up in front of base operations. When the Gulfstream rolled to a stop and the door was opened, Rencke pulled on his jacket and got his laptop. His head was already beginning to clear, though he felt a little disjointed. “Get some sleep,” he told the cockpit crew. “We’re heading home in a couple of hours.” “What do we tell the French?” Captain John Brunner asked. He’d been called away from what was supposed to have been an early night. But this was part of his job. “They won’t ask,” Rencke said. “But they’ll probably offer you something to eat and a bed at the BOQ. Don’t get too comfortable.” The Citroen’s driver came over and took Rencke back to the car. Like all the officers in the Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Con Pre-Espwnage, Action Service, the young man was built like a Chicago Bears linebacker. He politely held the door for Rencke to get in. A man in civilian clothes was waiting in the backseat. Action Service major Jean Serrou, the man Rencke had contacted yesterday, was not much older than his driver and just as competent-looking. “M. Rencke, I presume. You had a good flight?”

  They shook hands. “Yes, but it was a little long.” Major Serrou smiled and nodded. “The Aurora is much faster.” “But not very roomy.

  I’ll be taking him back with me,” Rencke said. “If you’ve found him.”

  “We have,” Serrou said. He motioned for the driver to head out. “He is staying at a small hotel in Olivet, just outside of Orleans. It is less than one hundred kilometers from here. We can be there within the hour.” “That is very good work, Major,” Rencke said. He was starting to fly a little.

  “It was simple once you told us from where he was sending his computer messages.” This was a back channels request, not an official one, from a high-ranking officer of the American intelligence establishment to the SDECE’s Service 5. Not too many questions would be asked. But Serrou did have his people to think about. “Is this the same man the Russians are looking for?”

  Rencke nodded. “But they mustn’t know that we have found him. Not just yet.”

  “He is a very old man then, not very dangerous?”

  “Don’t underestimate him,” Rencke warned. “I hope that you told this to your operators?”

  Serrou smiled knowingly. “They are quite well prepared.” The French Action Service was somewhat like a combination of the British SAS and the American SEALs, with a bit of the FBI thrown in. They were well trained and bright. “But tell me, do you expect any trouble?”

  Rencke had thought about that on the flight over. He shook his head.

  “No. He might even be expecting me. In any event I’ll go in alone. On my own responsibility.”

  Serrou shrugged. “As you wish.”

  OLIVET

  They parked at the end of the block one hundred meters from the small five-story hotel Rivage. It was right on the river, and next door, diners were seated at a very small sidewalk cafe. The sun was high enough now so that it provided a little warmth. Rencke was homesick for his life here. He had been lonely, but content and even happy at times in France. Yet he didn’t want to be doing anything else, except what he was doing; helping his friends. He had a family now. “I have two people posted in a third-floor apartment across the street,” Serrou said. “In addition there are three teams of two operators each circulating on the street. On foot, pushing a baby carriage, driving a delivery van. And I have one team on the river aboard a barge.”

  Rencke looked sharply at the Frenchman. “That’s a bit much for one old man.” Serrou shrugged. “So was calling us.” He held up a hand before Rencke could comment. “In the old days when you were fighting with the Russians, we French didn’t mean much to you. So, correctly, De Gaulle kicked your military asses out of our country. He allowed the CIA to remain, but not the military. He was a practical president. And now that the Russians threaten only themselves, you still don’t think much of us.” “I have lived here.” “Yes, and for the most part we had no objections. As long as you did not conduct business on French soil, and as long as you did not endanger French citizens, we were content with your presence. Yours and Kirk McGarvey’s.” He held Rencke’s gaze. “Now we only wish for the truth sometimes. Even perhaps just a little truth.” Rencke glanced out the window at the hotel. A young couple was just coming out. The woman pushed a baby carriage. “Someone tried to assassinate our Director of Central Intelligence,” he said.

  “Once in the Caribbean and once again in front of his own house.”

  “This is fantastic.” Serrou pursed his lips. “The Russians searching for Dr. Nikolayev, your bringing the Aurora here, and then your telephone call yesterday all begin to make perfect sense.” He looked down the street. The young couple had disappeared around the corner.

  “Is he an important man?” “I think he came to warn us,” Rencke admitted. “The SVR wants to stop him from telling his story and thus embarrassing Moscow.” “Something like that.” “Owl,” Serrou said. “So that is why we took this job so seriously. In the end perhaps we will protect him from the Russians.” “Have there been any signs that they’re on to him?” Rencke asked. “No. But we have our eyes open.”

  Serrou was assessing Rencke. “Do you still mean to see him alone?” “I think it’s what he wants,” Rencke said. “Has he been out of the hotel?” “Three times since yesterday. Once for his newspapers this morning Paris, Washington, and New York and twice for his meals.” “He hasn’t used the phone, or tried to return to L’Empereur to send another e-mail?” “Non” Serrou said. “He is in three-eleven. At the end of the corridor in front.” Rencke watched the street for a few seconds.

  “If he agrees to come with me, we’ll need to get back to Pontoise as quickly as possible.” “We want him out of France. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” Rencke mumbled. He got out of the car, crossed the narrow street and walked past the sidewalk cafe to the hotel. He could smell the river mingled with odors from the restaurant. It was very French.

  The concierge and deskman looked up but said nothing as Rencke crossed the lobby and took the stairs up to the third floor. He had not brought a pistol, but he had brought his laptop. If Nikolayev did not want to come back to Washington, shooting him would do no good. But perhaps he had something else to download from his computer. It is what he had promised at in his first message. There was more. The third-floor corridor was empty and quiet. Not even the occasional street noise penetrated this far. The air smelled neutral, or perhaps a little musty. Age. The building was probably more than two hundred years old. Rencke went down the corridor to three-eleven and listened at the door. If there was anyone inside, they were being very quiet.

  No movement. No sounds whatsoever. He shifted his laptop to his left hand and knocked. Someone stirred inside, and a moment later the dead bolt was withdrawn and the door opened. A tall man, very old and thin, the skin on his cheeks and around his eyes shiny and papery, like blue-tinged parchment, stood there. He wore gray trousers and an old fisherman’s sweater. His thin white hair was mussed, but he did not look surprised. “Well, you’re not a Russian or a F
renchman, which means that you must be Otto Rencke,” Nikolayev said in English. His accent was British, and his voice was whisper-soft, yet Rencke could hear the Russian in him. “I got your message, Dr. Nikolayev.” “And you want more. But you wonder why I stopped sending.” Nikolayev turned away from the door and went to a writing table, where his laptop was open and running. Rencke entered the small room and closed the door, but did not bother locking it. With luck he wouldn’t be here long. “Your re mailer is not very secure.” “I discovered that for myself after the fact,” Nikolayev said. He stood with his back to Rencke, looking out the window, watching the comings and goings down on the street. “Once I sent you the first batch of material I got nervous. I sent myself an e-mail, then traced it to where it originated. It was not easy for me, but I did it. So I assumed others could.” He turned around. “I figured that I had a fifty-fifty chance that it would be either you or my own people coming for me. There are still friends in the Czech Republic who cooperate with the SVR.” “Why didn’t you disappear?” “I was on the verge of it when the French Action Service showed up and threw a cordon around me.” He had a warm smile. “Marvelous young boys. I actually felt safe for the first time since August.”