First Kill--A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  Beckett hesitated for a long moment. “No one has seen them, and operations at the stadium have stopped.”

  “The funeral is for tomorrow?”

  Beckett nodded. “Surely to God we’re not sending anyone.”

  “What else did you and Baranov discuss?”

  “Two things, actually, and I’ll be damned if I know which is the more startling, or even if I should believe anything the man said to me.” He glanced again at the four men seated at the next table. They were deep in conversation. “He hinted at economic changes coming in Moscow. Said the people were starting to demand it. Said that sooner or later there’ll have to be a decent peace between us.”

  “There’s been talk about Gorbachev making some dramatic move, though what that might be is anyone’s guess,” Trotter said. “What was the second thing?”

  “He said that Varga had to be stopped, but not by an American assassin. He said the situation was delicate for Washington because the U.S. needed to keep Chile stable, and all of South America, for that matter, stable for as long as possible. And that Moscow needed Chile for the reason we suspected—CESTA del Sur.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “He said that to keep the peace he’d kill Varga and the wife and make it look like a love triangle gone bad.”

  Trotter was surprised that Baranov would admit such a thing to the head of CIA operations in Chile. “He said a love triangle. Who’s the third person?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “And you didn’t ask?”

  “I don’t much care for pawing through people’s dirty laundry.”

  “Maybe you should have made an exception in this case.”

  “I know a little something about Baranov. He has a compound not far from the Vargas’ outside San Antonio, and it’s my guess that he’s the third. But what I can’t fathom is his relationship with the DINA.”

  “He met with you, why not their intel people?”

  “Because he also met with Pinochet, whose golfing partner is General Varga. And the rumor on the street is that Pinochet has an eye for Varga’s wife.”

  “How about that,” Trotter said. “Is it possible that el Presidente is the third?”

  “No, we keep close tabs on his movements. The point I’m trying to make is that Baranov’s relationship with the DINA is something of a mystery. To me there’s more there than Baranov trying to work on setting up his network.”

  “Why?”

  “Baranov has never gone to the DINA’s headquarters. It’s another place we watch around the clock. And he always meets with the same officer, Felipe Torres.”

  “The agency’s number-two man. A tough bastard, from what I read.”

  “Torres and his wife are also friends with Pinochet. So if Baranov had actually assassinated Varga and his wife, it would put him in an untenable position.”

  Trotter took a drink of his cognac. “We’re apparently back to square one is what you’re telling me?”

  “As I said, the funeral is tomorrow.”

  “Then you’ll see the bodies.”

  “Closed caskets,” Beckett said. “And we really are at square one. It’s why I came up here to speak with the director and my boss.”

  “Why’d you agree to talk to me?” Trotter asked, although he knew the answer.

  “I was told that you’d want to see me, and I was ordered to be open with you. Which I have been. Can you do the same for me?”

  “Why not?”

  “Were we sending someone to assassinate the general?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it’s still not on yet?”

  “Frankly I don’t know,” Trotter said, but before Beckett could object he raised a hand. “We’ve lost contact with our man.”

  “Varga and his wife are dead?”

  “No one knows that for sure. But it’s a safe bet that because of Baranov’s relationship with Pinochet and Torres he won’t do it. But it’s something the White House wanted to happen.”

  Beckett caught it. “Wanted, as in they changed their mind?”

  “Yes, he’s been recalled.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  SIXTY

  McGarvey awoke from a fitful sleep a little after two in the morning. It was pitch-black outside, no signs of any habitation in any direction. The front door of the bus was open and the driver was gone.

  From his window near the rear of the bus Mac could make out the driver talking with two men just off the side of the road. It looked as if they were arguing. One of them was holding a Kalashnikov rifle.

  The bus, which was about three-quarters full, of mostly working-class people, including two pregnant women, had been noisy and filled with laughter through the late afternoon and into the night, especially after McGarvey had passed around one of the bottles of brandy. But now no one made a sound.

  Four American girls in their late teens were huddled in the back, holding each other.

  The man in the aisle seat next to McGarvey was wringing his hands. He was old, his sun-weathered face cracked, his hair white, his clothes rough. McGarvey had shared his brandy with the man, whose name was Pedro, who in turn shared his supper of empanadas. The old man’s English was fairly good.

  “Have we been stopped by the police?” McGarvey asked.

  “No, they are highwaymen.”

  “We’re being robbed,” the pregnant woman across from them whispered. Like the others she was very frightened. “They sometimes shoot people.”

  “Where are the police?”

  The old man shook his head. “They almost never come this far east from Villa Mercedes. Not east of the new tunnel.”

  McGarvey had bought a route map at the Retiro and had studied it, especially the instructions for the border crossing, which Pedro had translated for him. The old man was only going as far as Mendoza, but he knew people who had gone all the way to Santiago.

  There wasn’t much out here, the flatlands of the interior beginning to give way to the foothills that in turn led to the Andes, passing very close to Aconcagua, the highest mountain in South and North America.

  “I want to see my sister in Santiago,” one of the pregnant women said. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Now I’ll never see her again.”

  McGarvey checked out the window again. The driver was still arguing with the two men. “You will,” he said.

  He got up and made his way into the aisle, where he pulled out his Walther, unscrewed the silencer and put it in his jacket pocket. “Tell everyone not to make a sound, no matter what happens.”

  The woman’s eyes were wide, but Pedro nodded. “Go with God, my son,” he said.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” he told the American girls.

  They nodded but said nothing.

  McGarvey checked out the rear window to make sure other bandits weren’t within sight. Seeing no one, he unlatched the door and jumped lightly down to the road. He edged to the corner of the bus and took a quick glance. It was very cold. About fifty feet in front of the bus an old American pickup truck was parked. No traffic moved in either direction.

  The one with the rifle was the farthest away, his body blocked by the bus driver’s. There was no viable shot, especially not at this distance.

  Holding his pistol just behind his right leg, he stepped out into plain sight and started walking toward the three men. “Hey, what the hell is going on out here?” he shouted.

  All three of them turned in surprise.

  “I said, what’s going on? Qué pasa?”

  The driver stepped back in reflex and one of the gunmen, in the clear now, started to bring his rifle around.

  McGarvey raised his pistol and fired three shots, all of them hitting the man center mass. The other bandit was reaching into his jacket pocket, and Mac, still moving forward, shot him in the head. He fell to the pavement just a couple of feet from his partner. Both of them were dead.

  “Are you okay?” McGarve
y asked the driver.

  The man was in his forties and wore a uniform. He was impressed. “They would have killed us all.”

  McGarvey holstered his pistol. “That’s what they told me in the bus.”

  “You’re norteamericano. Are you a policeman?”

  “No. Drive their truck back here; we need to get these bodies off the road.”

  The driver hesitated for just a moment. People, including the American girls and the pregnant women, were at the windows looking out.

  “Now, before someone comes.”

  The driver ran back to the pickup truck, as McGarvey went through the bandits’ pockets. But there was nothing to be found except for several spare magazines of ammunition for the rifle, and an American-made Colt .45 pistol with a couple of spare mags. No money, no wallets, but enough bullets to kill everyone on the bus. They were young and very skinny. McGarvey figured them to be in their late teens or early twenties. And they looked like rough trade.

  The driver came back with the pickup truck and lowered the tailgate. A couple of passengers came out of the bus and helped lift the bodies into the truck.

  “We need to get them off the road, where someone driving by in the morning won’t spot them,” McGarvey said.

  “I’ve been on this road many times,” one of the men said. “There are some trees and a narrow arroyo forty or fifty meters away.” He was thin, his face narrow, and he spoke English with a drawl.

  “You’re American?”

  “Houston. I married an Argentine woman, and I teach high school in Mendoza.”

  “Be as quick as you can,” McGarvey said.

  The man was gone in a flash, pulling off the road and bumping down the hill. Within a minute or so the pickup’s lights disappeared.

  “Tell everyone it’s over now,” McGarvey told the driver.

  The man went back inside, and McGarvey, working by the illumination from the headlights, kicked dirt from the roadside to cover the blood.

  The truck and the bodies would be discovered sooner or later, and the local cops, if they were sharp, would figure out what traffic passed this way overnight, and notify the customs authorities at the border crossing. But because the two boys were bandits, the cops might take their time about it.

  A few minutes later the schoolteacher from Houston came up the hill. “Could take days, maybe even longer for someone to discover the bodies. Give you time to disappear. Out of the country.”

  McGarvey looked at him.

  When the man reached the top step of the bus, he looked back. “But the banditos around here sometimes pay off the cops.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” McGarvey said, and he got into the bus.

  All the passengers began applauding, and as he made his way back to his seat, those he passed reached out to touch him, some of them patting him on the back, others his arms, and some of the women kissing the tiny crosses that hung on silver chains around their necks.

  Pedro shook his hand and moved over for him. “Thank you,” he said.

  The driver closed the door and they headed away, people chattering and happy, some of them singing, others praying.

  McGarvey passed the other bottle of brandy around to more laughing and cheers. He was their savior.

  “You are crossing the border into Chile,” the pregnant woman across the aisle said.

  “Yes.”

  “You will not be able to bring your gun across the border,” Pedro said.

  “I’ll hide it somewhere on the bus.”

  “They search the bus,” the woman said. “And in the terminal they have a new X-ray machine. They miss nothing.”

  “She’s right,” someone else said.

  “But it’s okay, señor. I’ll take your gun across. They never search a pregnant woman.”

  SIXTY-ONE

  The bus stopped at a combination gas station and restaurant on the outskirts of Mendoza around four in the morning to refuel and allow the passengers to get off and stretch their legs, and get something to eat. It was eight hours from here to Santiago depending on how much time they were held up at the border crossing. Most of the delays happened during peak traffic hours in the late morning.

  The schoolteacher from Houston came back to McGarvey. “I suggest you stay on the bus. The less people who see another gringo the better off you’ll be. I’ll get you something.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said. He hadn’t eaten since the empanadas, and there was no telling what the situation would be like once he got to Santiago. He reached for some money.

  “That won’t be necessary. My wife and I own this place. Anyway, it’s payback time.”

  A lot of the people had gotten off earlier at Villa Mercedes, San Luis, La Paz and a few other towns. And some others had gotten on. Eight or ten people with their bags came out of the restaurant and queued up to have their tickets stamped by the bus driver, but they had to wait until the bus was fully refueled.

  Pedro was gone, and the pregnant woman had slid over to sit next to McGarvey. “Before they come aboard give me your pistol and anything else you need to hide.”

  “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

  “All of us were in trouble on the highway. And we’d probably be dead by now except for you.”

  McGarvey took out his pistol and fast-draw holster from the small of his back under his jacket and handed them, the suppressor and two spare magazines of ammunition to her.

  Without hesitation she hiked her dress up over the top of her panties, mostly concealed by her large belly under a camisole, and stuffed the weapon and other items in the waistband.

  “I’m sorry, but that can’t be comfortable,” McGarvey said.

  She straightened her dress and smiled. “A lot more comfortable than being shot.”

  Ten minutes later the passengers came aboard, and the schoolteacher brought McGarvey a bacon and egg sandwich and a couple bottles of Quilmes lager, one of the most popular beers in Argentina.

  “Save some of the brandy, if you have any left, or at least one of the beers just before you get to the border crossing. They pretty much expect that every guy on the bus will smell of booze. If you don’t, they might get suspicious and wonder who the hell you are. The same as I do.”

  “Thanks for this, and for your advice, but you don’t want to know who I am,” McGarvey said.

  The teacher smiled and nodded. “Then go with God, and watch your step in Santiago. There’s a lot of turmoil going on over there just now.”

  “I hear you.”

  * * *

  Mendoza and the surrounding suburbs and smaller towns had a population approaching one million people. But as the bus rolled through the city there was almost no traffic, and very little to see. To McGarvey it looked like a large modern city in just about any Western country. Tall buildings, broad avenues, a lot of parks and trees.

  In a half hour the pregnant woman next to him was sleeping, and they were out of the city and starting to climb up to the Andes, which they had to cross in order to get into Chile.

  The newcomers were mostly quiet, half asleep. But many of the passengers from the shooting were keyed up. Every now and then McGarvey caught some of them looking at him, and it made him a little uncomfortable. Not for himself, but for them. Customs at the border crossing where they would have to get out of the bus would be an ordeal. In addition it would be very cold at that altitude.

  But there had been no way around taking this journey. He would have been nailed before he ever got clear of the Santiago airport. And it was almost certain that the mock-up of the dock at the Farm would have been reported, which meant they would also be expecting him to come to San Antonio by sea.

  Those two avenues would definitely be covered. The bus station might not be.

  * * *

  The pregnant woman woke up just as they were pulling into the parking area for the border crossing. One bus was just leaving the large terminal building, and theirs was allowed inside.

  “
Everybody must get out now,” the driver told them. “Make sure that you have your papers.” He looked directly at McGarvey. “Everybody must have their papers and their baggage.”

  “My name is Maria,” the pregnant woman said, getting to her feet with some difficulty. She was young, and not very pretty, except for her smile, which was wide and genuine. It was clear that she was frightened.

  “You don’t have to do this for me,” McGarvey said. It was very dark away from the customs area, and they were deep in the mountains. It would be within the realm of possibility to slip away, and later commandeer a car. He’d trained for more difficult scenarios.

  “Yes, I do,” she said and followed the others, who were slowly shuffling up the aisle.

  McGarvey took a deep draft of the brandy. He waited until a few others had passed, then got up and headed toward the door. He felt naked without his Walther. Without it he was vulnerable. Lost before he even reached Chilean soil.

  The people were directed inside to customs, where they stood in three lines in front of a counter where officers, their assistants and bomb-sniffing dogs were waiting. A few bored-looking Argentine soldiers stood by, their sidearms holstered.

  When Maria got to the front of the line, one of the officers came around from behind the counter and said something to her. She shook her head, but didn’t back off.

  He raised his arms out to either side and motioned that he was going to pat her down.

  “No,” she shouted, and she held out her passport. Her small cardboard suitcase was already being sent through the X-ray machine.

  The officer looked over his shoulder at a man in civilian clothes who stood back a ways. The man shrugged.

  “No,” Maria screeched. She stepped back, spread her legs and lifted her dress all the way up to the bottom of her panties. She shouted something in Spanish.

  A couple of other women passengers went to her, and all of them shouted at the customs agent. One of them pulled Maria’s dress down, and she shouted something even more loudly at the man.

  Some of the other passengers were protesting as well.