First Kill--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  “What good will that do?”

  “Tell Paul and the other minder that I’m staying at the Marriott out by the Pentagon, but that the op is a go.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  McGarvey phoned Janos from a booth outside a McDonald’s in Tysons Corner. Only a few cars were in the parking lot. Janos answered on the fourth ring.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me. I’m on my way over; I need to talk to you and Pat.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “Neither do I, but it’s necessary,” McGarvey said. “And Janos? Have Pat pack a bag for you and the kids. You’re leaving for vacation.”

  “Christ.”

  * * *

  It took twenty minutes to drive down to Annandale, Mac working his tradecraft to make sure that no one was on his six. But the light traffic on the Beltway made it relatively easy. When he got there, all the lights were on in the house, which he knew was Pat’s doing, and exactly what he wanted. They had listened. But there were no minders outside.

  Janos met him at the door, and he did not look happy. “You’ll have to explain it to Pat. She doesn’t want to listen to me.”

  Dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, she was in the kitchen tossing ice into a Styrofoam cooler filled with bottles of Coke. She stopped. “This better be fucking good, Kirk,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Two men came to my house tonight to kill Katy and Liz.”

  “Oh my God. Are they okay?”

  “They were out of town.”

  “What about the shooters?” Janos asked.

  “They’re dead,” McGarvey said. “But I’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest, and I think that once the two don’t report in, someone will be coming here. Maybe a couple of hours, but no more than that. You’ll have to be out of here before then.”

  Pat’s mouth dropped open and she shook her head. “Goddamn you both. Playing your games.”

  “This is not a game,” McGarvey said. “There’s a spy, maybe two of them, inside the Company, who are probably working for the Russians. They’ve tried to kill me two times already and my family once, and they’ll do whatever it takes to stop me.”

  “From doing what?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  She laughed, a note of hysteria in it. “You can’t tell me? That’s rich. You’ve practically opened every door in the barn, and now you don’t want me to take a look at the horses inside?”

  “I’m being sent to Chile to assassinate a general.”

  “I don’t care, except that you’ve dragged my husband into it, and now me and my children. Just go and do it. Or, better yet, refuse the job. Go home and take care of your own family instead. From what Katy tells me you need to do something before it’s too late.”

  McGarvey wasn’t overly surprised that Katy had talked to Pat, but it hurt hearing it. His pride was banged up. He was taking care of the Company’s business, but not his own. “I can’t walk away from it now. Katy and Liz are out of the way and safe. I want you and Janos and the kids to do the same.”

  “Kirk, are you listening to yourself? Some tin pot general in South America is more important than your own family? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “He’s a bad man.”

  “The world is filled with bad men.”

  “He’s tortured and murdered hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people.”

  “No one is innocent.”

  “Women and children?”

  She turned away, looked at the freezer door, still open, and softly closed it. “This is nothing but politics and you know it. I read the Post, I know about Pinochet’s regime and how we’ve been propping up the economy for years. The bastard’s a dictator, and he’s our pal. And let me guess: this general has become an embarrassment to us. Pinochet refuses to do anything about him, so you’ve been ordered to go down there and do the job. Am I close?”

  “The Russians want to stop me.”

  “So they can become Pinochet’s new friends? They’ll kick us out, and maybe make a trade agreement. Chile has copper, which we need. Can it be that simple? Not just politics, but money too? Is that fucking it, Kirk? Because if it is, I have to agree with your wife: you need to get a new job before you get yourself and the rest of us killed!”

  Sometimes in the middle of the night over the past couple of years, McGarvey would wake up in a cold sweat, his heart racing. It was the same nightmare that had started just after he’d finished training at the Farm. He was on a tall, sheer cliff that looked down on a ragged jumble of boulders. Huge waves were coming in, one after the other, crashing against the base of the cliff. He could feel their power shaking the ground he was standing on.

  At one point when he was about to turn away and go inland, he spotted Katy and their new infant walking out of the shadows. The footing was terrible and Katy was having a nearly impossible time making her way with Liz in her arms toward where the waves were breaking.

  McGarvey screamed at her to turn back, but she looked up at him and shook her head. It was then he saw a dark figure behind her, prodding her forward to her certain death, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  “Katy!” he would scream over and over, until finally Katy woke him up from his dream.

  Pat and Janos were looking at him.

  “Kirk?” Janos asked. “Are you okay?”

  “Get the kids and go,” he said. “Now, please.”

  “Take the cooler to the car,” Pat said. “The suitcases are at the head of the stairs—put them in the trunk. I’ll get the kids.”

  “Should I take my gun?” Janos asked when she was gone.

  “Yes,” McGarvey said. “Where are you going?”

  “Key West. An old friend of my mother’s lives there.”

  “Drive straight through, and don’t contact anyone until I get word to you, or until you find out I’m dead.”

  “How will you know how to find me?”

  “I’ll know,” McGarvey said. “Go.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  McGarvey had pulled a chair next to the living room window, where from a spot in the shadows he had a clear sight line to the street. He was sipping a can of Bud, his pistol on the small lamp table beside him.

  It was nearly dawn now, the sky to the east beginning to lighten. It had been four hours since Janos and Pat and the kids had left. They would be at least two hundred miles, probably more, south by now. Outside Raleigh at least.

  Janos was tough—he would be good to drive until at least noon, when Pat would take over so that he could get a few hours of sleep. They would stop to use the bathroom and get something to eat only when they got gas.

  “What are you going to do tonight, Kirk?” Pat had asked.

  “I’m going to stay here to see if anyone shows up.”

  She’d given him an odd look. “And heaven help the bastards if they do show up,” she’d said.

  “Take care of Janos,” McGarvey had told her. “He needs you.”

  “We do love you, you know,” she’d said at the front door. “God bless you.”

  A VW bus painted in psychedelic colors rattled around the corner and came slowly up the block. McGarvey reached for his pistol as someone in the passenger seat tossed a newspaper out the window a few doors down across the street. At the end of the block, the van made a U-turn and came back, the woman passenger tossing newspapers onto the driveways of several houses, including the Plonskis’, and at the far corner disappeared.

  It was possible that the phone line here was tapped, and the opposition knew that Pat and Janos were gone. As soon as they had left he’d made a thorough sweep of every room in the house looking for bugs, but found nothing.

  It was also possible that no one had thought of using the Plonskis to put pressure on him. Or their timing had been off, and they had not gotten organized to get here soon enough.

  There was no question why someone—either the DINA or the KGB—wanted him dead to protect the gene
ral’s life. They were being fed information from inside the Company. But they would have to understand that if he failed or was killed even before he left for Chile, the CIA would almost certainly send someone else. Maybe a string of someone elses, until sooner or later one of them got lucky.

  Holstering his pistol at the small of his back he went into the kitchen and called Information for the number of Madison Travel in Georgetown. He phoned and got an answering machine that gave normal office hours from nine to five Monday through Saturday.

  “For special requests or information, please dial the private number at any time. Or after the beep leave a message and a callback number.”

  McGarvey called Information again and asked for the company’s private number, but there was no listing.

  He called the agency again and at the end of the recording left his name. “I’d like to meet with a representative to discuss some important travel arrangements for a special assignment I’ve been given. I think we could discuss terms. Leave a message for me at the Arlington Marriott.”

  He’d just unzipped his fly with the Chilean intel officers through Trotter, and now with whoever was behind the contractor employment agency.

  It was time to up the ante another notch and see who might come out of the woodwork. Katy and Liz and Janos and Pat and their kids were out of harm’s way. It was just him and the opposition now.

  * * *

  It was a couple of minutes before eight by the time McGarvey made it back to Georgetown and found a place to park a half block and across the street from the travel agency. There was quite a bit of traffic now; people were on their way to work. No one paid him much attention as he picked the lock on the front door, screening his actions from view. He was just a man trying to get to work himself and having difficulty with the key.

  He was inside in under a minute.

  The place was laid out like an ordinary travel agency, a receptionist’s desk in front and two desks for agents in each corner. Blinds covered the front window, though from outside the travel posters taped to the glass were clearly visible. More posters covered the walls. Brochures, magazines and other travel-agency-type literature were arranged on a couple of low tables. A door led to what was likely a back room.

  McGarvey drew his pistol and, keeping out of a possible line of fire, turned the knob and eased the door open with his foot.

  The room was carpeted and furnished with a small conference table, around which were six leather chairs. Nice posters of the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu hung on two walls, while three tall cabinets sat side by side along the rear windowless wall. Two of the cabinets were unlocked, the shelves of each filled with travel brochures.

  Holstering his gun, he went back to the front room and made a quick search of the desks, and especially the Rolodexes, for any names that might stick out. But if there was any information to be found connecting this office with the work of a contractor service, it wasn’t obvious to him at first glance. Nor did anything else seem out of the ordinary.

  He turned to leave when something odd suddenly struck him. The file cabinets and all the desk drawers in the front room were not locked. Nor were two of the three tall cabinets in the rear room locked. All but one.

  It took him less than a minute to pick the lock and open the third cabinet. Two eight-track recorders on the top shelves were on and recording. Small video monitors showed images from cameras in the front room and this one, in stop action, one frame every ten seconds.

  He rewound the front recorder to the point where he came through the door, and then the second one, which showed him coming in this room, his pistol drawn.

  The bottom three shelves were filled with eight-track tapes, dates printed on them. He pulled out tapes for the past four days, leaving the one showing him.

  For a moment he considered setting fire to the office, but dismissed it because of the likely collateral damage to the upstairs business and to adjacent buildings. He also considered putting a bullet into each of the recorders, but also dismissed that idea. He wanted whoever was in charge here to know who had come here and why.

  Back in the front office he hesitated a moment longer, considering staying until the staff showed up. But confronting them, some if not most of whom might be totally innocent of any involvement with the contracting service, wouldn’t accomplish much either.

  Taking the tapes with him, he let himself out, not relocking the door to send another message: I was here. You’ve seen my image, you know that I took some of your tapes and you know to contact me at the Marriott. Send your hired guns.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Driving to Santiago from San Antonio just before lunch, Baranov sincerely wished to get this business over and done with as soon as possible. At the moment it seemed that killing McGarvey before he left Washington would be the best of all possible worlds. Yet leading the man here into a trap and then killing him so that a clear message could be sent to Washington would carry the most political weight.

  At that point it wouldn’t really matter if Varga was dead or not. CESTA del Sur would benefit, because at the very least, he figured that Pinochet would give his tacit assent to let the KGB have a relatively free rein here. It would be a nearly ideal outcome for everyone—Pinochet would still have Washington’s support, Moscow would have a foot in the door and Baranov would get his promotion.

  But something was not right in Washington. Something else was going on. Someone other than the sources Baranov knew about was stirring the pot. Not only did he not know who it was, he had no earthly idea what they were trying to accomplish. The situation was starting to spin out of control and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  And on top of everything Kaplin had called first thing this morning and actually ordered him to come to the embassy. It was a matter of some urgency, he’d said. Which was purely shit, of course. The station chief was tired of having someone meddling on his playing field. This morning would be nothing more than an exercise in establishing who was boss.

  He was passed through the gate and parked in back as before. This time he’d brought his Makarov holstered under his left armpit.

  The young plainclothes security officer looked up. “Good morning, sir. Please sign in.”

  “Something new?” Baranov asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Baranov signed his name in the log.

  “Are you carrying a weapon, Captain?”

  “Da.”

  “I must ask you to surrender it.”

  “Nyet.”

  The officer picked up the phone and made a call. “Captain Baranov is here, sir. He is armed and refuses to surrender his weapon.”

  Baranov wasn’t alarmed, but he was more than curious now. His instinct to arm himself wasn’t so far off after all.

  The officer handed him the phone. “It’s Mr. Kaplin, sir.”

  Baranov took the phone. “What the hell is going on?”

  “There is no reason for anyone other than security to come into this building carrying a weapon,” Kaplin said harshly. “The ambassador’s orders, not mine.”

  “No.”

  “Then unfortunately I will have to order security to place you under arrest.”

  “Pizdec,” Baranov swore.

  Almost immediately two large security officers, one of them with his sidearm drawn, but pointing down and to the side, came out of a room on the other side of the corridor. They stopped a few feet away.

  Baranov nodded. “This better be good, Anatoli,” he said. He handed the phone back to the security officer at the desk, then unbuttoned his jacket and eased his pistol out of its holster by the handle and laid it on the desk.

  The young officer came around the desk with a security wand, which he ran over Baranov’s body. “I’m sorry, sir. Just orders.”

  “May I go up now?”

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  The KGB station chief was waiting at the open door to his inner office. “We’re n
ot to be disturbed,” he told his secretary and he stepped aside to let Baranov through, then closed the door.

  “You know what I’m doing in Chile, so what the fuck is going on?” Baranov demanded. A worry nagged at him.

  “We may be in some serious trouble.”

  “You or we?”

  “All of us. This embassy, especially this station. We have reason to believe there may be a spy here. Someone in a position to handle sensitive materials.”

  “Am I a suspect? Is that why you wanted me unarmed?”

  “Not you. Someone inside the building. Someone with daily access to the referentura.”

  “The list has to be small.”

  Kaplin was worried. “Too small,” he said.

  All of a sudden Baranov got it, or thought he did. Something about the laser his source at Langley had told him about. At the time it was too esoteric, almost pie in the sky. A bit of information to be passed along to the technicians in the First Chief Directorate’s Scientific and Technical Division.

  But now it was making some sense.

  “Do we have the ability to monitor the CIA station’s traffic to Langley?” Baranov asked.

  “Yes, of course. But at the moment we have only partial decryptions of their new equipment.”

  “But you can decrypt some of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go to the referentura. Clear it of everyone but us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think I know where your leak is.”

  * * *

  They sat at the conference table in the securest room within the referentura’s four-room suite. It was here that the most secret of meetings were held. The latest Russian anti-surveillance equipment was on, including white noise generators that produced a signal that dampened any type of listening device, and a Faraday cage, surrounding the floor, ceiling and walls, which would defeat any type of electronic eavesdropping.

  “My work here is nearly finished,” Baranov said.

  “I don’t understand.”