David Hagberg - End Game

Bambridge was frustrated, but Page had gotten it, and he motioned for his DDO to stand down. “So, what’s Mac suggesting?”

“If we can find something linking the three of them to someone else, a fourth party, it’d be our best lead. But it’s a long shot.”

“Nothing else we can do at this point, I suppose,” Patterson said.

Toni Borman, lanky, pleasant smile, and almost as tall as Louise was announced by Alex, and she went to work following Otto’s lead.

“Did you bring the interview tapes with you?” he asked.

“Actually, a thumb drive, encrypted of course,” Borman said. She took an electronic device about the size of a smartphone out of her pocket and methodically started on the room. High across the ceiling first.

“Did you listen to the interviews?” Otto asked.

“Some,” Borman said. “Mostly boring.” She worked her way across the walls, top to bottom, especially the light fixtures and electrical sockets, and the wall-mounted flat-screen television.

“Anything stand out in your mind?”

Borman shrugged and Otto shook his head.

“No, not really,” she said. She lingered at Page’s desk and his computer, and when she was done, she looked up. “You have the thumb drive — you listen. Maybe you’ll hear something I didn’t. But I didn’t pick up anything.”

“Thanks for your help,” Otto said, and went with her to the door.

“The director asks, we’re not to be disturbed for just a bit,” he told Page’s secretary.

“Of course,” Alex said.

Otto closed the door and sat down with the others.

“What the hell was that all about?” Bambridge fumed. “Security sweeps every key office on the entire campus every week.”

“On a schedule I know and we think someone else probably knows. We need to randomize the sweeps and notify no one of the time or office. The security people will just show up, and everyone will have to accommodate them.”

“Obviously, you believe there’s leak somewhere that whoever the killer is has access to,” Page said.

“Mac thinks there might be two of them, one still on campus and another free to travel around. Whoever the second one is was in Athens last year to do Joe Carnes, then again a few days ago to kill Coffin, and yesterday in Milwaukee to try for Schermerhorn. But they missed and killed his girlfriend instead.”

“Has he surfaced yet?” Bambridge asked.

“He showed up this morning, and he’s with Mac and Pete, plus with something else we’d already guessed. Or at least partially guessed.”

“How do we know he’s not the second killer?” Patterson said. “He kills his girlfriend, and his informant here on campus tells him we’re closing in on them, so he comes to us to ask for what? Protection?”

“He said he came to help find the killers. He doesn’t want to be next.”

“Does he know who they are?”

“Could be Alex Unroth, who’s the only other Alpha Seven operator still alive, or their supposed control officer, who they only ever knew as George. Trouble is, the team’s actual control officer was Bertie Russell — I checked — but he was killed in Iraq in oh four. There’s no record anywhere of a control officer with the work name of George who joined them on their mission three months before the war started.”

“What about when they came home?” Bambridge asked. “They must have been debriefed.”

“He didn’t come back with them, and apparently, the man was never missed.”

“None of them said anything? They didn’t ask their debriefers what happened to George?”

“No.”

“Why?” Patterson asked.

“Because of what George showed them was buried in the foothills above Kirkuk,” Otto said, and hesitated just as Kirk had told him to do.

“Well, come on, dear boy. Don’t keep us in suspense,” Patterson prompted. “What was buried?”

“He refuses to say.”

“This is bullshit, Walt,” Bambridge said. “Let’s get the guy in here right now. We have people who’ll find out whether he’s lying.”

“He’s already given us the answer,” Otto said. “He worked here for a couple of years as a maintenance man, and one of his jobs was to take care of the grounds, especially the statues and sculptures.”

“Including Kryptos ,” Page said. “He has the solution to panel four.”

“Yes, but it’s not the original cipher, and he won’t give us the solution to the new one. But my darlings are already chewing on it, and I suspect it’ll only be a matter of a few days before they come up with the solution.”

“And?” Page asked.

“He changed the cipher on four,” Otto said, and before Bambridge could object again, he told them how Schermerhorn said he had done it. “I took a photo of panel four yesterday and compared it with the original. They’re different, all right.”

“Then he knows the answer,” Page said.

“Yes, he does. But Mac says he won’t tell us, because no one on the Hill or in the White House would believe him. They’ll have to see it with their own eyes when four has been decrypted.”

“This has gone from stupid to ridiculous,” Bambridge appealed to Page. “I say we bring him in immediately and end this right now.”

“They are bringing him in,” Otto said. “As soon as I finish my homework. It’s either Alex or George. I have their general descriptions, from which we can probably eliminate ninety percent of the personnel on campus. My darlings are working on that, too.”

“That’s something,” Patterson said. “But explain to me why he came to us either for our help, or to help us, and yet he refuses to tell Mac the message he put on the panel for everyone to see. What does he want? What’s his game?”

“He says he wants to help prevent world war three.”

Schermerhorn had told his story, and he was agitating to leave. No way in hell was he sticking around to see how things turned out, and he sure in hell wasn’t going out to Langley to look at faces.

“I don’t care what Alex or George did to change their identities; it’s the eyes. I never forget the shape, and especially not the expression,” he’d told them.

McGarvey phoned Louise at two in the afternoon, after Schermerhorn had promised to at least give them until dark.

“I want to bring our guy over to your place, just for the night,” he said.

“We have the third bedroom upstairs. Anyway, Audie’s safe.”

“I didn’t ask Otto yet, because he’d say yes no matter what.”

“Will Pete be with you?”

“Yes.”

“Then if he gets out of line, there’ll be three of us to shoot him. See you in a half hour.”

McGarvey had phoned from the bedroom of Pete’s apartment, and when he came back to the living room, Schermerhorn was again staring out the window at the parking lot and street that led up to Dupont Circle. He was looking for someone to show up, and he turned around with a start.

“Who’d you call, some minders?” he asked. Minders were security officers. Like babysitters with guns.

“A friend at another safe house. We’re moving you there immediately.”

Schermerhorn was alarmed. “I said I’d give you until dark, but then I’m out of here. If you want to ask me some more questions, go ahead. But then that’s it.”

“We’ve already told your story to the DCI and the director of clandestine services, plus the Company’s general counsel. They know about the fourth panel, and they know you’re here.”

“Shit,” Schermerhorn said, and made for the door.

Pete pulled out her gun and pointed it at him. “I will shoot you, Roy,” she said.

Schermerhorn pulled up short and turned to her. “And then what?” he asked. Suddenly he didn’t seem so concerned.