The Kill Zone

by David Hagberg

  “Oh, wow, Mac, am I late?” he gushed, scuttling across the covered porch.

  “You’re just in time,” McGarvey told him. “I’m glad to see you.” He gave Otto a warm embrace. “Did you bring a gun with you tonight?” he whispered into Otto’s ear.

  “I don’t have a gun, Mac. Honest injun.” He swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I had it. Probably shoot myself in the foot or something, ya know?”

  “Okay,” McGarvey said, and he brought Otto into the house, where they hung his coat in the closet and joined the others in the living room.

  Otto stopped in his tracks. “Oh, wow,” he murmured. He hopped from one foot to the other a couple of times, looking at each of them, his mouth opening and closing as if he were a fish out of water.

  These people were on his list; all of them except for Runkov, the one unknown, and the eighth name, which he wouldn’t tell anybody. And Yemm, of course, who was dead.

  McGarvey watched the play of emotions on Otto’s face, trying to judge what it was his old friend was thinking. But with Otto that was almost always impossible. Sometimes Otto admitted he didn’t know what he was thinking.

  No one knew what to say or do. McGarvey motioned for Otto to have a seat in front of the fireplace, but no one else moved. They were waiting, like lovers just before the climax: breathless, unfocused, thinking only of themselves at this exact moment, wondering how it was they were here, and exactly what would happen next.

  McGarvey walked over to the sideboard. He poured a small brandy and drank it. These were friends. Longtime friends, some of them. Loves. Acquaintances. But McGarvey had no questions about how he had gotten here. He’d built this prison for himself brick by painful brick over a twenty-five-year career with the CIA. Overzealousness. Not staying within the strict letter of the law. Taking matters into his own hands. Straying from the fold. Running with the wolves in the night; or rather not running with the wolves. His entire career he had been guilty of the sin of individualism. Working under his own charter. Operating by his own set of rules. His own personal code of honor, if an assassin could be said to have such a code.

  He’d been called an anachronism, finally, by a deputy director of Operations in the Company a few years ago. The West had won the Cold War. The bad guys had all packed up and gone home. McGarvey’s brand of justice was no longer required. Thanks, but now it’s time for you to go.

  But that was before Osama bin Laden and his ilk.

  Besides that he could not go. Because he’d never found the answers to the questions that were at the core of his existence. He had a sense of honor, but it never seemed to square with the real world. He thought he knew what a hero was, but the older he got the less certain he became of that.

  Duty. Responsibility. Passion. The nineteen men who died striking the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and those heading for the Capitol Building who crashed in a field in Pennsylvania all felt that they had duties. They certainly had passion. And they accepted a warped sense of honor and responsibility. For a time they’d even been heroes to some people; to a lot of people actually. And not just Afghanis or Islamic fundamentalists, but some Americans and French and Germans. People who believed that the U.S. was evil and needed to be struck down.

  Did he understand any of that yet? McGarvey didn’t think he did. In fact he felt that he had never been further away from understanding anything than he was at this moment.

  He turned to face them. “Somebody is trying to kill me. And one of you may know who it is.”

  “It could be somebody else,” Otto cried. “Honest to God, I’ve tried to find out. I’ve done everything I could.” He lowered his head. “Honest injun, kimo sabe. Honest, honest.” He began to cry, his shoulders shaking. But no one reached out to him.

  She makes us blindly play her terrible game, and we never see beneath the cards. Fate. Luck. Chance. Destiny. Voltaire had believed in all of that, but McGarvey wasn’t sure that he did.

  In the SUV beside the highway, Grassinger’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel. If all the principals were already in the house, and the only one they were waiting for now was the assassin’s control officer, then didn’t it make sense to reactivate the defenses along the driveway? He had a mind to call McGarvey and suggest just that. But the director would be having a busy time of it right now, sorting out the who’s whos.

  He had wanted to station a couple of Blatnik’s people in the house, or at the very least outside nearby, but McGarvey had been very specific on that point.

  It was dead cold in the car with the engine off. He glanced at Nikolayev, who was hunched down in his overcoat and appeared to be dozing. Not as cold as Moscow gets. Or Siberia.

  “There’s a car coming your way,” Tony Blatnik radioed.

  “Stand by.” Grassinger spoke into his lapel mic. He reached over and nudged the Russian, whose eyes opened. “Someone’s coming.”

  Nikolayev sat up and brought the binoculars to his eyes as there was a flash of headlights up on the highway.

  Grassinger entered all but the last number of McGarvey’s cell phone.

  The headlights briefly illuminated the trees as the car slowed and turned down the driveway. It was an RAV4 sport utility vehicle. Grassinger recognized it immediately.

  “A woman,” Nikolayev said.

  Grassinger raised his binoculars to make sure, although he knew who it was. Louise Horn’s profile showed up clearly for a moment until her car disappeared into the woods. Of all the suspects down at the house, Otto Rencke, in Grassinger’s mind, was the worst-case scenario.

  “It’s Louise Horn. Otto Rencke’s friend,” Grassinger said. He didn’t know how McGarvey was going to take the news.

  He hit the last number of McGarvey’s cell phone, then started his car and eased it out of the ditch and up toward the highway.

  McGarvey’s phone rang once, and then a recorded voice came on. “The number you are trying to reach is busy. If you wish to leave a message please touch star and wait for the tone.”

  Grassinger broke the connection and tossed the phone aside. “Tony, we have a problem,” he said into his lapel mic.

  “We’re moving now,” Blatnik’s voice came back. “Who is it?”

  “Rencke.”

  Two Agency SUVs with Blatnik and three of his people made it to the driveway by the time Grassinger and Nikolayev reached the paved surface.

  “Tell them to be careful,” Nikolayev cautioned. “Rencke could have contingencies.”

  Grassinger immediately understood what the Russian meant. If it was Rencke, he might suspect that someone was up here. Once Louise Horn was safely down the driveway he might switch the defensive measures back on. There were stop sticks out to one hundred yards from the clearing above the house. Inside that line were contact mines that would explode if a vehicle passed over their pressure pads. Antipersonnel claymore mines were set up in the woods on either side of the road.

  “Tony, I want you to pull up before Point Alpha,” Grassinger radioed. He hauled the big SUV off the highway and careened down the driveway as fast as he could keep the car on the snow-covered dirt road.

  “We’re just about there.”

  “The PDS might be rearmed,” Grassinger shouted. It was the Perimeter Defense System.

  “Okay, we’re stopping,” Blatnik radioed back.

  Grassinger raced around a long curve and saw the taillights of the two SUVs stopped up ahead. They had run without headlights. He shut his off as he swept down into a hollow and back up the other side to stop right behind them. They weren’t far from the house here.

  Blatnik and his people were gathered on the road. They had drawn their guns. Grassinger and Nikolayev hurried to join them.

  “We’ll have to go on foot from here,” he told them. “But stay out of the woods. The claymores might be hot.”

  “They could have the driveway covered from below,” Blatnik cautioned. “We’d be sitting ducks as soon as we got out in the open.�
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  “It’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Grassinger replied. “Have your people move in from the back.”

  Blatnik radioed the orders.

  Grassinger and Nikolayev started down the driveway, Blatnik and the others behind them.

  “What exactly is it that we’re waiting for?” Adkins asked. No one wanted to look at the others. But each of them understood McGarvey’s logic in bringing them here like this. At one time or another they had all suggested the same thing; that whoever was gunning for McGarvey had to be someone very close. Like someone in this room.

  “For someone to blink,” McGarvey answered absently. He thought he’d seen a light up on the hill.

  “Is someone coming?” Elizabeth asked.

  Headlights emerged from the woods and started down the hill. “Yes,” McGarvey said. He went out into the stairhall, shut off the lights and withdrew his pistol.

  He watched from the hall window as the car came toward the fountain and paddock, but he couldn’t tell what kind of a car it was. Why hadn’t Grassinger called?

  Elizabeth came from the living room. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Call Jim and find out what’s going on.”

  The car moved fast, fishtailing as it came around the curve on the west side of the paddock.

  “The phone isn’t here. Do you have it?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Never mind,” McGarvey said. He must have put it in the living room.

  Then the car came around the sweep of the curve and he could see that it was Louise Horn’s bright yellow RAV4 with an American flag on the radio antenna.

  Elizabeth was at his side. She recognized the car, too. “Hell,” she said softly.

  “Keep everyone where they are,” McGarvey told her. He locked the closet door and slipped the Walther’s safety catch off and stepped outside. He stood in the deeper shadows between the front door and the lights spilling from the living room windows.

  He was angry that they had gotten to Otto. Mad at Louise Horn for taking advantage of his vulnerabilities. Otto had never had any sort of a real life. From what McGarvey knew of his background, Otto’s childhood had been a living hell—a mother who didn’t want him and a drunken stepfather who belittled and beat him, mentally as well as physically.

  He was upset with himself that he hadn’t seen and recognized the signs in Otto in time to help. McGarvey wanted to lash out at someone, at anyone for what had been done to his friend. Otto was his friend; in actuality his only friend, and McGarvey had let him down. There was no clear path out of this dark morass. Not for any of them. There was no solution that would make it all better. There was no going back.

  McGarvey wanted to think that he had suspected Otto all along. Because Otto as the assassin could do the CIA the most harm. But even in the last few days when the circle of suspects had diminished to a handful, McGarvey had refused to believe in his heart that it could be his old friend. Anyone but Otto.

  The RAV4 slid to a stop behind the line of cars. Not bothering to switch off the engine or the headlights, Louise Horn scrambled out of the car and headed up the driveway in a dead run, her civilian jacket open. As she came up the walk, McGarvey saw that she carried something small and black in her right hand.

  “That’s far enough, Louise,” McGarvey said from the darkness.

  Louise reacted as if she had been shot. She stopped dead in her tracks. “The killer is here,” she whispered breathlessly. “They used your cell phone, Mr. Director.”

  “I used my cell phone—”

  “I’m not talking about the calls that you made to your security people. Someone called a blind number in Chevy Chase just a few minutes ago. I was waiting on the highway monitoring the calls. Otto gave me the intercept equipment.” She held up the special cell phone she carried in her right hand. She talked in a rush, words tumbling on top of each other.

  “What was the number?” It was a trick, though he didn’t want it to be.

  “I don’t know, Mr. M., it was blocked from the intercept program, and it was encrypted,” Louise said. “Did you call someone in town?”

  “No—” McGarvey said, when all the lights in the house went out.

  Grassinger and the others ran as fast as they could, finally reaching the spot where the driveway emerged from the woods. He stopped and raised his binoculars in time to see McGarvey and Louise Horn facing each other on the porch when the lights in the house went out.

  “Rencke’s spotted her and shut off the lights,” he said.

  Nikolayev stepped off to the side and held on to a tree for support, while he massaged his chest with his other hand. Even in the darkness they could see that he was in trouble.

  “Go,” he croaked. “No time. Go.”

  Grassinger looked again at the porch. McGarvey and Louise Horn were gone. The front door was open.

  He and the others headed down the driveway at a dead run, leaving the Russian to look after himself. If McGarvey had allowed them to station a couple of their people near the house, they wouldn’t be in this situation right now. When they wrote the after ops reports, Grassinger would make sure that that part got included.

  McGarvey stood in the darkness of the stairhall listening with all of his senses for something; anything. Louise Horn stood behind him and to his right. The house was deathly still except for the crackling of the fire on the hearth.

  “Liz?” he called softly.

  “Here.” Her voice drifted out from the living room. The flickering light from the fireplace cast shadows on the ceilings and walls.

  “Where’s Otto?”

  “He’s here,” Elizabeth said.

  “Who’s missing?”

  “No one.”

  That made no sense. Unless someone had gotten through Blatnik’s people in back, no one was here to cut the power. It could have been done from the highway, but Grassinger and his people were on the lookout up there. They would have spotted something.

  “Someone is coming down the driveway,” Louise said softly. “Four … no, five of them on foot. Running.”

  McGarvey heard the noise. Soft, like a small animal mewling in pain.

  It came from the darkness at the end of the corridor that led back to the kitchen. “Somebody find a flashlight,” he said. He transferred his pistol to his left hand and moved past the entry to the living room. Liz and Todd and the others were silhouetted by the flames in the fireplace. The whimpering was louder now. It wasn’t coming from the kitchen. It was coming from the basement door under the stairs. Someone or something was just on the other side; perhaps crouched at the head of the stairs; frightened, in pain. The main breaker panel, where the electricity could have been turned off, was downstairs. But everyone was still in the living room, Louise had just arrived and no one could have come from the back. They wouldn’t have gotten past Blatnik’s people let alone defeat the sensors strung along the property line.

  Just as he knew in his heart that the assassin was not Otto, he finally accepted who it was. Accepted the fact that he had known, or at least felt at some visceral level, who it was. Baranov’s creation. The brainwashing had occurred over fifteen years ago. So long a time ago that it seemed to be in a completely different era; a time when we were naive as compared to now; a time in which the battles were simple: It was us or them. Each side had its generals, and each side had its handmaidens.

  The crying increased in intensity to a low growl; an animal warning its prey that it was on the verge of striking.

  McGarvey knew exactly when and where the psychological conditioning had taken place. He knew why. And he knew the assassin’s control officer. The call had been made to him on the cell phone in the stairhall. All the other phones in the house had been switched off.

  An intense, deep sickness spread through his body. All of his life he had been afraid to trust anyone for fear of what their betrayal would do to him. He had blocked almost everyone he’d ever come in contact with from knowing who he really was. In time h
e’d even forgotten how to trust himself so that like everyone else he didn’t know who he was. A part of him held itself aloof from his own inner thoughts and feelings. He had been living two separate existences. One in which he functioned on a day-to-day level; with friends and acquaintances, with lovers and family. And another in which he existed like a bear holed up in its den for the winter. Run. Run. Run. Hide. Don’t let anyone get too close.

  Despite all of that, people admired him. Respected him. Trusted his judgment. Trusted him to take care of them. They even loved him, some of them. Or at least they loved as much of him as they were allowed to access.

  He couldn’t say why he was that way; perhaps it was because his parents were too old to have children when they did. His sister in Utah was cold and aloof. There’d been love in the family, growing up, but no closeness. He knew that his father loved him, but his father never once told him so. And neither had his mother. It had left an empty spot in his soul, one that for most people was filled with the emotion of belonging.

  That’s what he had missed all of his life. A feeling that people could love him for who he was, not for what he was.

  McGarvey flattened himself against the wall next to the basement door and reached over with his free hand to turn the knob. The flickering reflection of the firelight was surreal.

  The growling stopped.

  McGarvey closed his eyes for a moment, trying to blot out the horror of this, then pulled the door open and stepped back.

  Kathleen, her narrow, pretty face screwed up in a mask of rage and hate and venom, her lips curled back from her teeth in a feral snarl, her eyes wide and insane burst through the doorway. She raised a big Glock 17 nine millimeter pistol and fired four shots as fast as she could pull the trigger, straight ahead into the wall, blasting big chunks of plaster everywhere.