First Kill--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  “Why bother with minor shit?” one of the students had asked. “I say just go for the fucking kill.”

  That evening, the student’s locker was empty and he was gone. There were no explanations given and none asked for. School One wasn’t for pizdecs.

  Kaplin had risen early at Baranov’s request and he was waiting in his office. Only the overnight staff was here, but the shift change was due in an hour. The chief of station wasn’t happy.

  “What is it this time?” he asked.

  “I’m returning to Mexico today. My flight leaves this morning.”

  “Your work isn’t done here. Or have the Americans decided not to send an assassin after all?”

  “The bodies of General Varga and his wife will be found in their bed later this morning. Initially it’ll be treated as a double-suicide, at least until I’m safely outside of Chilean airspace. Or very possibly until I’m on the ground in Mexico City.”

  “Initially?”

  “I don’t know how long that fiction will last, until my name comes up as a suspect. But it won’t hold for long. Pinochet doesn’t like his heroes tarnished.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “They’re not dead, but they’ll stay out of sight at their compound for a few days, until after their state funeral.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense to me,” Kaplin said. “I thought the idea was for McGarvey to come here and run into a trap you’d set up. Either kill him or maybe even put him on trial. Teach the Americans a lesson, make a point with Pinochet.”

  “There was never a chance of a trial, and certainly not a public one at that. I was going to kill him with my own hand, and then either make his body disappear somewhere or possibly send it in a coffin back to Washington.”

  “But?”

  “You’re aware that I have a source in Washington who told me that the CIA was sending an assassin. Felipe Torres has his own source up there who told him the same thing.”

  “I’d hate to trade places with Beckett. The poor man wouldn’t know who to trust at Langley.”

  Baranov stifled a laugh. “No service is without its informants.”

  Kaplin waved him off. “You could end up like a dog chasing its own tail. I’ll let the mole hunters in Moscow cover that end of the business. I have Santiago to mind.”

  “The same job Dick Beckett has,” Baranov said. “Actually he’s a pleasant man. We had a chat the other day about McGarvey.”

  Kaplin took a moment to respond. His face was a study in disbelief and resignation. “That could be construed as an act of treason.”

  “It served a purpose.”

  “The same as faking the murder of Varga and his wife? And as long as you evidently discussed it with Beckett, why not share your thoughts with me?”

  “Something else is going on in Washington that neither my source nor Torres knows about. Someone has been putting a lot of pressure on McGarvey. They’ve threatened his family, they’ve tried to kill him.”

  “They want to stop him from coming here.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to turn out to be that simple.”

  “And?”

  “It’ll be made known to McGarvey that I killed the Vargas, but not why. He’ll also be told that I’ve quit Chile and gone back to my network in Mexico City. I think he’ll come to me.”

  “Why?”

  “To have the same sort of chat I had with Beckett. By all accounts the man is as curious as he is driven. His wife and daughter were threatened, and he’ll want to know if I had a hand in it.”

  “And then?”

  “He’ll want to know who’s been trying to kill him, or at the very least distract him from coming here and assassinating Varga. And he’ll want to know why I killed the general and his wife.”

  “Again—and then?”

  “Perhaps Mr. McGarvey and I will work together to solve the mystery in Washington.”

  “You are out of your fucking mind.”

  “Perhaps I’ll kill McGarvey myself, bring his body back here, and then blame the Vargas’ deaths on him after all.”

  “But they’ll be alive.”

  “I’ll kill them for real.”

  Kaplin looked toward the open door to the anteroom where his secretary usually sat. She wasn’t here yet. “I’ll have to report this conversation, of course. If for nothing else than to cover my own ass. From where I sit you’re on some rogue operation that could go flying off on a tangent at any second and get us—this station—in some sort of an international shitstorm.”

  “Fine,” Baranov said. It was about what he expected from Kaplin, who was basically a decent person and a good administrator, but not much of a spy and especially not much of a spymaster. “In the meantime I need to use a secure phone in the referentura.”

  “It’s not completely secure.”

  “That’s not a problem.”

  Kaplin got it. “Disinformation,” he said.

  * * *

  One of General Leonov’s aides at headquarters outside of Moscow answered Baranov’s call. “Da.”

  “Everything is going according to plan. Do you understand?”

  “I’ll pass your message along. Do you need any further assistance?”

  “Not at this time.”

  “Very well. Good hunting.”

  “Spasiba,” Baranov said, but the aide had already hung up.

  * * *

  Baranov spent most of the early morning out of sight at the embassy, only bringing his bags down to the car at the last minute. He slipped away without saying goodbye to anyone just after eight-thirty for the drive to the airport.

  Traffic was reasonable at this hour. When he arrived, he parked in the long-term lot and took his two bags into the terminal, where he checked in at the desk, got his ticket and boarding pass, and headed across to a bar at the international gates.

  He bought a beer and took it to a pay phone between the men’s and ladies’ across the corridor. Using a phone card he called Henry at the secure Washington number and left the callback.

  Henry called three minutes later. “Are you on your way?”

  “I’m at the airport now. Do you have any updates?”

  “I don’t have everything yet, but someone from Madison tried again.”

  “And failed?” Baranov asked.

  “From what I understand, yes.”

  “Does he know I’m returning to Mexico?”

  “I doubt it,” Henry said. “But if he finds out, he’ll come for you before Santiago. Wild horses couldn’t stop him.”

  “Make sure he finds out,” Baranov said.

  “Be careful what you wish for, my friend. You might just get it.”

  “Oh, I sincerely hope so.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  It seemed strange to McGarvey to be sitting alone in his own house, a hunted man. But for the moment he figured it was a relatively safe haven until it was time to leave Washington.

  In the chaos immediately after the explosion, he’d managed to slip upstairs to his hotel room. The shooter’s body lay on its side, next to a Winchester deer rifle and powerful scope. He’d taken one shot to his left eye. An infrared scope was set up on a tripod just left of the open balcony door, and lying next to it on the floor was a miniaturized walkie-talkie that had probably been used to detonate the Semtex.

  The coldness of the premeditation against the woman got to him the most.

  The man, who appeared to be in his mid to late twenties, was dressed in dark slacks and a dark polo shirt. He carried a Maryland driver’s license, which identified him as Ronald Dahl, and a matching American Express credit card. Tucked in a back compartment of his wallet was a dining hall pass for Ft. Hood Army Base in Texas dating back five years.

  He carried a standard-issue Colt .45 pistol in a shoulder holster, and a couple hundred dollars in cash in his left trouser pocket. But no pictures of a family, a girlfriend, a favorite car or boat. None of the ordinary keepsakes that just about everybody
carried around with them.

  The mistake had been the dining hall card, which identified the shooter as Specialist First Class Roger Digby. The name card was genuine; the name on the driver’s license and credit card was fake.

  Pocketing the dining hall card, McGarvey got his two spare sets of IDs—passports, credit cards and family photos, including of three children—along with a few thousand dollars in cash. He left his bag, clothes and Larson passport, and within five minutes was out the back door.

  The next twenty minutes had been dicey. Police were everywhere, along with fire trucks and several ambulances. But he’d managed to slip away in the chaos and phone for a cab from a gas station a half block away.

  “I don’t know what the hell just happened over there, and I don’t want to know,” he told the cabbie.

  “Fucking city is getting worse every year,” the driver said. “Where to?”

  “The Greyhound bus depot.”

  “Getting out of town?”

  “Just to Baltimore,” Mac said. From there he would take another cab home. Just a minor bit of tradecraft, but it wouldn’t hurt.

  * * *

  The yard lights were on a timer and had gone out just at dawn. The newspaper delivery people showed up, and an hour later neighbors were out and about heading off to work. Watching for another half hour from an upstairs window, he’d spotted nothing out of the ordinary.

  He finished packing some clothes and another pair of shoes. He would pick up shaving gear and everything else he needed later at one of the airport shops at Dulles, and just before he checked his bag he would pack his pistol, holster and two spare magazines of ammunition for the first two legs of his trip. After that he would never go anywhere unarmed.

  Downstairs he tossed the bag in the trunk of Katy’s powder-blue Mercedes convertible. Back inside he stared at the kitchen telephone for a long moment.

  Trotter promised that Katy would not be told of his supposed death at the Farm, and yet he wanted to call her at his sister’s, just to hear her voice, to tell her that he was fine. But she would catch the lie. She would be able to tell that he wasn’t fine. He was on a mission, so why had he stopped to call her? It wouldn’t make any sense to her, so she would know he was lying. And she would put pressure on him again to quit the Agency.

  On top of that he was fairly sure that a tap had been put on his phone. He’d checked the house first thing, but he’d found no bugs. Tapping the line at a nearby distribution box, however, would be simple.

  He left a note on the counter for her that he was okay, that he missed her and Liz, that he loved them and that he’d be back in one piece soon. And a P.S. that he was sorry about her car, but that it would probably be in the police impound yard nearest to Dulles.

  * * *

  Katy was forever nearly running out of gas. It was one of those details that didn’t register on her radar. With just fumes in the tank McGarvey stopped at a gas station six blocks from the house, filled up, and then used the pay phone to call American Airlines. He booked a round-trip first-class to Atlanta, returning in two days, using an American Express Gold credit card in the name of Stewart Bentley.

  Finished there he drove to an IHOP down in Somerset and had breakfast, after which he phoned Trotter’s direct number at the OHB.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m leaving Dodge in the morning,” McGarvey said. He had no idea why he lied—it simply came out. (“Survival is a learnable skill, ladies and gentlemen,” the instructors at the Farm drummed into their heads. “Trust your training, but also trust your instincts.”)

  “Santiago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it you they were after?”

  “You might want to check on a shooter who was a grunt at Fort Hood a few years ago. Name of Roger Digby. Mid to late twenties.”

  “They found the body of Ronald Dahl in three-oh-three. But the room was registered to Michael Larson, same as on the rental car agreement, which the locals managed to find from the tag in the burned-out wreckage. You?”

  “Yeah. The same woman from the travel agency who said ‘the best’ was coming for me showed up too. Only the guy in three-oh-three pushed the trigger on the Semtex while she was crawling around under my car.”

  “God in heaven.”

  “They’re not screwing around, John. Put someone on the travel agency.”

  “First thing I thought of. But the place was empty when our guys got there. Moved out in the middle of the night. No traces, not even a decent set of prints.”

  “First-class,” McGarvey said.

  “I don’t think we could have done any better,” Trotter said. “What are you going to do for the rest of today and tonight?”

  “I have a couple of things to check out.”

  “We can get you in the back gate, put you up. You’ll be safe for the night.”

  “It didn’t help Campos and Munoz.”

  “They were a lost cause from the day they showed up at our embassy. Their job was to misdirect us, which they did, and then they became expendable.”

  “Same as us?” McGarvey asked.

  “Same as every intelligence agent. It’s what we all agreed to when we signed up. No different than any GI who swears to defend the Constitution with his life against all enemies, domestic or foreign.”

  “Yeah, but in this case who are the enemies?” McGarvey said. “Are they foreign or are they domestic? Are they us?”

  Trotter was silent for a beat. When he replied, he sounded subdued. “I don’t know, Kirk,” he said. “But whoever they are, they have an agenda. One that has to make sense at least to them, if not us. Anyway, keep in touch in case something comes up.”

  A depression came over McGarvey, all at once, like a black cloud. It made him wonder if what he was doing was worthwhile. And maybe Katy was right. Maybe he was tilting at windmills, after all.

  “I guess we’ll have to find out,” he said.

  PART

  THREE

  First Kill

  FORTY-NINE

  The flight down to Atlanta went smoothly and they pulled up to the gate ten minutes early. The plane had been little more than half full, and first-class only had a handful of passengers so the stewardess had a lot of time for them, but McGarvey had been mostly lost in thought.

  Trotter’s last words kept coming back to him. They’d been unnecessary, even dangerous. He was on his way into badland and his control officer wanted him to check in for updates?

  It was almost axiomatic that once an officer was fully engaged in the field, he cut all ties with Langley.

  “Once you drop under the radar stay there until it’s time to come back to the barn,” the senior tradecraft instructor told them. He’d been NOC, a field officer who worked under a nonofficial cover. They were so deep none of them ever came close to Langley, or to any U.S. embassy until they retired. Most of the time they didn’t have direct contact with their control officer. Only in case of an extreme emergency would they phone home, and then the standard assumption was that they had been blown, and they would try to make it to safety. Most of the stars on the wall in the lobby of the OHB represented NOCs whose cover had been blown and who had been killed trying to make it out.

  McGarvey’s original plan was to reach Atlanta, retrieve his bag, and then make reservations for a round-trip flight to Miami, and from there a day later to La Paz, Bolivia, where he would rent a car for the final leg to the border with Chile.

  His passports, credit cards and other IDs were clean. He’d gotten them on his own on the black market shortly after graduating from the Farm. On his two previous trips he’d used the documents that the Company provided him, but he’d also carried one of his own sets. Papers he’d not reported to anyone at Langley.

  If you want to survive, you will develop your own go-to-hell kit. Papers, money, anything else you might need to stay ahead of the bogeyman.

  Nevertheless, walking through the terminal at Hartsfield International toward baggage claim
he took time with his tradecraft to make sure that no one was paying any particular attention to him. He hadn’t left the country yet, and already he felt as if he were in badland.

  But if someone were here, and tried to make a hit, it would mean that not only was his Larson identity blown, but that his other IDs were possibly no good as well.

  Paranoia may not be such a bad trait for a field officer to develop.

  He passed a tavern, and twenty feet later, he suddenly turned around and walked back to it. No one turned around or even gave him a double take.

  He took a seat at the end of the nearly half-empty bar from where he could watch the people passing and ordered a Bud draft.

  “Anything to eat?” the bartender asked.

  “The beer’s fine for now. Do you have a phone I could use?”

  “Pay phones are just across from gate sixteen-A.”

  “Pretty noisy out there.”

  The bartender shrugged and brought the phone from the back bar. “No long-distance.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said. He got the operator and asked for a collect call to Trotter’s direct line.

  When it went through, Trotter accepted the charge. He seemed out of breath, as if he had just run up a flight of stairs, or had heard some disturbing news. “Where are you calling from?”

  “Atlanta.”

  “Are you in a secure spot?”

  “It’s not likely this phone has a bug on it, and no one is paying much attention to me.”

  “I just got the overnights twenty minutes ago. Beckett’s laser product out of the referentura is already falling off, but he’s made two extraordinary reports, both about Baranov. Apparently he’s on his way back to Mexico City to tend to his network.”

  “What’d he leave behind in Santiago?”

  “I don’t know for sure yet, but Dick said he and Baranov met face-to-face. Apparently he’s working on an in-depth report, which he intends on hand-carrying up here within the next twenty-four hours.”