The Cabal km-14

by David Hagberg

  For a moment he debated calling the house, but decided against it until he had his shot. Keeping out of sight just within the woods he hurried over to the driveway and across and into the woods on the other side.

  If the chopper pilot could keep them engaged for just a few minutes, Boberg figured he could come up behind them and take the two easy shots. If one of them were McGarvey, and he manged to take the guy down, taking over Admin would be a pice of cake, because he would have Foster’s blessing.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  The twin-engine helicopter was modern and sleek. The helipad lights had been switched off but the strong floods spilling across the lawn from the house reflected off the bright paintwork.

  From twenty feet away they could smell cigarette smoke, and as they got closer McGarvey could see that the instrument panel lights were switched off. It would take several minutes for the machine to be started and readied for takeoff, which was the break he’d hoped for. If Boberg had spotted them they would need a diversion to get over to the house.

  “I think he’s coming through the woods behind us,” Pete whispered.

  “What’s Boberg doing?” McGarvey spoke softly.

  “Two seconds,” Louise’s voice came back. “I’m moving from the ship.”

  “He won’t try a shot now for fear of hitting the helicopter,” McGarvey told Pete.

  Louise was back. “Okay, if that’s you and Pete just behind the chopper, he’s about twenty yards almost directly behind you in the woods.”

  “Go back to the ship,” McGarvey said. “He’s twenty yards behind us,” he told Pete.

  He pulled out his pistol. Holding it in his left hand out of sight at his side, he moved forward, his right hand trailing on the fuselage.

  The pilot looked up, startled, and then he reared back, his eyes wide. “Son of a bitch, you scared the shit out of me, Mr. Director.” His plastic name tag was readable in the bright lights from the house.

  “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but what the hell are you doing out here, Cardillo?”

  The pilot shook his head. “Listen, I don’t want any trouble, Mr. McGarvey, but as far as I was told just about every LE officer in the area is looking for you.”

  “That’s what you were supposed to be told. It’s a cover. Now what the hell are you doing out here?”

  The pilot was skeptical. “I flew Mr. Whittaker down from the Campus.”

  McGarvey turned to Pete. “Another comms screwup,” he said, and she nodded.

  “You have to get out of here right now,” she told the pilot.

  “What about Mr. Whittaker?”

  “We’ll have to take care of him,” McGarvey said. “But you guys stumbled into the middle of a Bureau-Company ops we’re running on one of Robert Foster’s people. I’m surprised that Dave didn’t get the word. Damned sloppy, because this whole thing was his call from the beginning.”

  “I’d better call him,” Cardillo said, reaching for a phone.

  “And warn the house?” McGarvey demanded. “Hell no, I just want you out of here as quickly as you can get this thing running.”

  The pilot was confused. “That’s going to take a few minutes.”

  McGarvey motioned him to get on with it. “Our people are moving in right now, and we don’t have time to screw around.” He held out his hand. “I’ll take the cell phone.”

  The pilot hesitated for a moment, still extremely skeptical, but he handed over the phone.

  “Go,” McGarvey said.

  The pilot began flipping switches and the helicopter’s lights began coming on, first on the control panel and then the nav lights on the fuselage and tail section.

  “Stand clear,” he shouted, and he closed the door and the engines began to spool up.

  McGarvey and Pete hurried around to the front of the chopper, ducking low as the main rotor began turning. “Louise, we’re going to try for the house, and I want to keep the chopper between us and Boberg. Give me bearing.”

  “Stand by,” Louise said.

  The main rotor was building up speed, and McGarvey had to cup a hand over his earpiece.

  “You’re good to go on a straight line from the nose of the chopper to the east side of the house,” Louise’s voice was faint over the noise. “Is the chopper getting set to take off?”

  “Any minute.”

  “Then get the hell out of there right now.”

  McGarvey glanced over his shoulder. The pilot was looking at them, and he was shaking his head. He made a slashing gesture at his throat and the engines began to spool down. McGarvey turned and pointed his pistol at the man’s face.

  For a second nothing happened, but then the engines roared back to life and the main blades began to spin up.

  “I think he got the message,” Pete shouted.

  “Stay low and move fast,” McGarvey told her. “Boberg’s right behind us.”

  He turned and sprinted toward the house, Pete right behind him.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Adkins had never wanted to be a spy, but he was a damned good administrator because he knew how to manage people while at the same time balancing the complex relationships between the Company, the White House, the director of National Intelligence, and, in some ways most important, Congress.

  Pulling up at the CIA’s main gate was the first test of how good a spy he actually was, because if he were stopped here the mission would be a bust, and McGarvey, a man for whom he had an immense amount of respect, would most likely end up dead or in jail.

  One of the guards came out of the building and over to Adkins’s car. “Good evening, Mr. Director, back again so soon?” He could have been a Dallas Cowboys’ linebacker; he had the size and the look.

  “I have a couple of things to take care of. Couldn’t wait.”

  The guard hesitated, but then nodded. “I’ll have to make note of your entry, sir.”

  “Of course,” Adkins said, and the guard stepped back.

  Driving up toward the OHB, Adkins kept glancing in his rearview mirror expecting to see flashing lights, but nobody was behind him and the guard had gone back inside the reception building.

  It was nothing short of amazing that Whittaker hadn’t yanked his credentials. It was a stupid lapse of security procedures that even the gate guard had recognized.

  The parking area in the front of the building was practically deserted, and so was the VIP parking garage where his entry pass worked, as it did in the elevator. He had debated arming himself, but decided against it, because there was no way he was going to get into a shoot-out with security. If he was busted he could make the argument that his clearances were still intact, and he’d merely come back one last time out of simple nostalgia. No one would believe him, but they wouldn’t be able to prove anything different.

  Unless he was caught in Whittaker’s office.

  The seventh-floor corridor was deserted, all the doors closed, unlike when he had been the DCI, and McGarvey before him. Under Whittaker, morale at the Company had already dropped, and the word was that everybody was busier watching their own backs than actually doing any real or creative work.

  Halfway down the corridor he stopped at the DCI’s door, swiped his pass, and entered the old four-digit code he’d used before the president had fired him. The lock clicked softly and he was in. Whittaker was a fool. And if what McGarvey had told him was true, David was also so arrogant that he’d felt no need to take ordinary precautions.

  He passed through the outer office, the only illumination from the tiny green indicator on the emergency light in one corner up near the ceiling, and into the DCI’s office. The blinds were open and before Adkins turned on the desk lamp he closed them against the faint possibility that someone outside might know that Whittaker was not in the building and wonder why a light had just come on in his office.

  The main computer on the desk was in standby mode, but Whittaker’s Toshiba laptop on the credenza was closed. Adkins sat down, opened the laptop, and powered it up. As he
’d suspected it was password protected. Whittaker wasn’t a complete idiot.

  Using his cell phone he called the number McGarvey had given him, and Otto answered after the second ring.

  “Oh, wow, I know where David is right now, so this has gotta be Dick Adkins calling from the DCI’s office.”

  The man was a genius, but he was spooky. “Mac told me to call if I ran into trouble getting into David’s laptop.”

  “Did it boot up?”

  “No. All that’s on the screen are two boxes: User ID and password.”

  “It’s a Toshiba, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look on the bottom and give me all the numbers you see.”

  Adkins turned the laptop over. “There’s a bunch of them.”

  “Find the Toshiba pin number. It’ll be printed right under a bar code.”

  “Got it,” Adkins said and he read it.

  Otto laughed. “I built that machine. Okay now find any label that says service.”

  “There’s only one. Two sets of numbers.”

  Otto laughed even harder. “Dumb,” he said, and he read off both set of numbers.

  “That’s it,” Adkins said.

  “My service numbers. He hasn’t changed a thing.”

  “Mac said he’s been distracted.”

  “He’s going to get even more distracted any minute now,” Otto said. “User ID, whittakercia. Password: tk%//7834ps.”

  Adkins entered both, and the computer booted up. “Okay, it worked.”

  “Of course,” Otto said. “If Mac gave you this number he must have given you my e-mail address. Get online, type in my address, and hit send, and then get out of there. But leave the machine turned on.”

  “First thing in the morning somebody — his secretary at least — will come in here and find out someone hacked his computer.”

  “It’ll be all over by then, Mr. Director, and you’ll have a bunch of work to do, ’cause the president is going to reinstate you. Honest injun.”

  “Jesus,” Adkins muttered, but he did as Otto had asked.

  “Good work. I’m in. Now beat feet.”

  By the time Adkins shut off the desk lamp and opened the curtains every file on Whittaker’s laptop was being downloaded at lightning speed.

  He let himself out into the still-deserted corridor, and hesitated for just a second before he headed down the hall to the Watch, which was housed in a long room, one end of it glassed in for added security. Manned 24/7 by a watch commander and five people, including a National Geospatial Analyst, anything that was happening anywhere in the world that had any effect or even the possibility of an effect on U.S. interests was monitored here. With direct links to the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and just about every other surveillance system, the people who worked here considered themselves to be information junkies. They had an almost compulsive need to know what was happening on a real-time basis everywhere.

  And like air traffic controllers who never saw the light of day during their long shifts, and who had the indoor palor and thousand-yard stare of people who’d worked too long and too hard at something that was nearly impossible to comprehend, analysts in the Watch always looked as if they were on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and loving it.

  Adkins swiped his pass on the reader, entered his code, and the lock clicked softly. Everyone looked up from what they were doing, and all the wide-screen monitors on the walls above each position went blank, and a red light on the ceiling began flashing.

  Ron Loring, the watch commander had been leaning against his desk, his jacket off, his tie loose, and he immediately came over before Adkins could take more than two steps into the room. “What are you doing here, Mr. Director,” he said softly, but urgently. “You have to leave, immediately.”

  “McGarvey sent me to talk to you. It’s important.”

  Loring shook his head and stepped back. “I’ve got to call security. You know the drill, sir.”

  “Something big is about to go down. Maybe even tonight. And it has something to do with the Chinese.”

  A flicker of interest crossed Loring’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but Mac has made a connection between what happened last year in Mexico City, and a few months ago in Pyongyang, with China. And with the Friday Club here in Washington.”

  Loring turned away for a second. All his analysts were looking at him and Adkins. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Director. But I’ll give you a head start before I call security.”

  “You know damned well what I’m talking about. Goddamnit, I can see it all over your face. What is it? What’s happening over there?”

  Again Loring shook his head, trying to come to a decision. “You never heard this from me. But we’re getting set to send a courier over to the White House.”

  “Why?”

  “China has been warming up its short-range missiles since about sixteen hundred zulu.” Loring looked up at one of the wall clocks. “Almost two hours ago. Then, at about seventeen thirty, Taiwan started doing the same thing with their missiles, and placed their armed forces at Defcon two.”

  “They’re seriously expecting that China is going to attack them?”

  “It’s a possibility. We’re starting to get inputs from the Pentagon and State and we’re putting the package together for the president.”

  “What’s Dave Whittaker’s input?”

  “We haven’t reached him yet. Apparently he’s not at home, and his cell doesn’t pick up.”

  “Christ.”

  “Now get the hell out of here, please,” Loring said. “We need to get back to work.”

  “Right,” Adkins said, and he felt a little sick to his stomach.

  “Tell Mac good luck,” Loring said.

  “Security wants to know what’s going on up here,” one of the analysts called out across the room.

  “Use the VIP elevator, I’ll stall them for as long as I can,” Loring told Adkins.

  SEVENTY

  Sergant Schilling came to the living room door at the same moment Whittaker was trying to reach his pilot by cell phone. It had to have been McGarvey’s doing, sending the helicopter away. But Cardillo was one of them, ferrying members of the Friday Club with no questions asked.

  “The two cameras in front went down, and the lights are going out one at a time,” Schilling said.

  “Something wrong with the power?” Foster asked.

  Cardillo’s cell phone rang.

  “I believe Mr. McGarvey shot out the cameras and is doing the same with the lights.”

  “He’s right outside the house, then.”

  “Yes, sir. But the only way in is through the front door, which I’ll cover.”

  Cardillo’s cell phone rang a second time.

  “Let Boberg know what’s going on.”

  Cardillo’s phone was answered on the third ring. “Yes.”

  “Why the hell did you leave?” Whittaker shouted, but all of a sudden he realized that he wasn’t hearing the helicopter’s cabin noises.

  “Because I didn’t want you to get away before I had a chance to talk to you and Foster,” McGarvey said.

  Whittaker was shaken, but not surprised. “The FBI is on its way out here in force,” he said. Foster and Schilling were staring at him.

  “Not yet, David,” McGarvey said after a slight delay. “We’re monitoring calls from the house, including your cell phone.”

  Whittaker held his hand over the cell phone microphone. “It’s McGarvey on my pilot’s cell phone. Can he get inside the house?”

  “Only with explosives,” Schilling said.

  “Unless you brought some Semtex you’re not getting in here.”

  “I saw the bars on the window,” McGarvey said. “Makes you wonder what Foster is trying to protect. But I don’t need to blow my way inside, because you and Foster are going to let me in.”

  “The hell you say.”


  “We deciphered a flash drive that Remington gave to us before he was gunned down by his own people. It’s a Friday Club membership list. Impressive.”

  “You’ve got nothing, you son of a bitch. You’re a traitor to your country.”

  “We have the information on your laptop. Stupid to leave it in your office for just about anyone to grab. Otto told me that he built the machine, and he knew your user ID and password. Whittakercia? Come on, David.”

  Schilling had stepped out into the stair hall, and he came back. “Boberg is on the way. Keep McGarvey talking.”

  “All you have are the names of a number of American patriots who love their country enough to form a club, just like Kiwanis or Rotary.”

  “Except Rotary wasn’t involved in Mexico last year or in Pyongyang a few months ago. Rotary hasn’t involved the Chinese in some kind of plot.”

  “You’re talking nonsense,” Whittaker practically shouted, but he was rocked to the core. He knew what McGarvey was capable of. He had tried to warn Foster and the others, but none of them would listen, and now it was too late, unless McGarvey could be killed.

  “There never was any polonium in Mexico, and none ever came across the border in Arizona. And we know that the shooters who took out the Chinese general in Pyongyang were South Koreans working for a Russian expediter in Tokyo who’d been hired by Howard McCann. And Howard was getting money from your club of patriots.”

  Schilling switched off the living room lights and those in the stair hall. He was armed with a Franchi SPAS-12 automatic shotgun capable of firing four rounds per second. It was a devastating weapon at close range. “Stay in this room,” he said, and he disappeared into the darkness in the stair hall.

  “Even if what you’re telling me was only partially true, it still proves nothing. How do we know this flash drive you mentioned was Remington’s?”

  “I think Otto could make a case for it,” McGarvey said. “The only thing we haven’t figured out yet is what you people are really up to. Whatever it is involves the Chinese, of course. But to what purpose?”