David Hagberg - End Game

“There’ll be a good chance you’ll be dead before we can get an ambulance over here.”

“I meant, I’m going with you to another safe house. But then what?”

McGarvey motioned for Pete to put down her gun. “We’re getting out of here just in case the leak at Langley also knows where you are. Could be we’re saving your life.”

“Noble of you.”

“Just protecting our investment. And when we’re done, you’ll be free to walk.”

“Providing I give you what you want.”

“The killer.”

Schermerhorn had brought nothing with him. He’d stashed what he’d taken from Milwaukee somewhere safe nearby, and when it was time to leave, he’d get out of Washington clean.

“To go where?” Pete asked on the way over to the Renckes’ safe house in Georgetown.

“Someplace safe.”

“That’s what Carnes and Coffin thought,” McGarvey said.

Schermerhorn fell silent, but he glanced over his shoulder out the rear window every ten seconds or so.

Pete was driving. “We haven’t picked up a tail,” she said.

“What about the gray Caddy Escalade? Been with us since we crossed Rock Creek.”

“It’s not one of ours,” Pete said. She turned left on Twenty-Seventh Street NW, and one block later right on O Street. The Escalade was no longer behind them. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Schermerhorn said.

McGarvey called ahead, and Louise opened the iron gate to the parking area behind the brownstone. She was waiting at the door for them as the gate swung shut.

“So who’s the mystery guest? One of the Alpha Seven crowd?”

Schermerhorn introduced himself and held out his hand, but Louise just looked at him for a moment then stepped aside so they could come in.

“Otto should be back any minute,” she said, leading them through the rear hall to the kitchen. “Said he’d finished with the meeting.”

“How’d it go?” McGarvey asked.

“Just about the way you said it would,” Louise said. “Anyone want a beer?”

Schermerhorn shook his head.“You’re Otto Rencke’s wife,” he said.

“So they tell me,” she said. “Someone killed your girlfriend.”

Schermerhorn nodded.

“Chewed her up just like the others.”

“It was meant for me.”

Louise got a couple of beers from the fridge for Pete and Mac, and one for herself. “Doesn’t seem as if you’re shook up about it.”

“Should I be?”

Louise gave McGarvey a look, as if to say, Scumbag , and Schermerhorn caught it.

“It’s the nature of the job,” he said. “You folks trained me.”

“Don’t get me started. I’ve known plenty of NOCs,” Louise said. She looked up at the monitor unit on the wall next to the back hall. “Otto’s home.”

“Does he know I’m here?” Schermerhorn asked.

“He does now,” Louise said.

Otto breezed in, gave his wife a kiss, and put his iPad on the counter. “Roy Schermerhorn, the Kraut,” he said.

“Did you come in clean?”

Otto laughed. “I don’t know. I never did check my rearview mirror,” he said. “You guys up for pizza tonight? We can order in.”

“Did you narrow down the range of possibles?” McGarvey asked.

“Thirty-seven of them, nine women, all of them about the right age, or close, though I wouldn’t trust the personnel files with my life. Nothing obvious jumped out at me, but these guys were professionals.”

“I’m not going to be able to tell you anything from looking at a bunch of files,” Schermerhorn said. “You’re wasting my time.”

Otto turned on his iPad and shoved it in front of Schermerhorn. The photograph of Walter Wager came up on the screen.

“Jesus,” Schermerhorn said, sitting down. “It’s Walt.”

“Mr. Ponderous,” Otto said. He brought up Fabry’s and then Knight’s photos from their personnel files. “They were hiding out in the open, hoping being inside they’d be safe.”

“Isty and Tom,” Schermerhorn said softly. He looked up. “Could I have that beer after all?”

Louise got him one.

Otto brought up Coffin’s prison photo. “Do you recognize this one?”

Schermerhorn stared at the image for a long time.

“The eyes ring any bells?” McGarvey asked.

“It’s Larry, all right. I’d recognize him anywhere. But he looks different. Worn-out, maybe sad. I don’t know. Not himself.”

“He was running for his life, just like you are,” McGarvey said. “Only he wasn’t quick enough. Neither were Carnes or the others.”

“Or your girlfriend,” Louise said into the sudden silence.

“You can see it in his eyes,” Schermerhorn said.

“He didn’t look like that the last time we saw him,” McGarvey said. “He took a sniper rifle round to the back of his head. Completely destroyed his face.”

“That’s what Alex and George did to the rag heads in the end,” Schermerhorn said, his voice soft.

“Are you ready to look at the rest of the pictures?” McGarvey said.

Schermerhorn took a deep drink of his beer then nodded. “Sure,” he said.

Alex sat at her desk, trying to keep her heart rate normal, the expression on her face pleasantly neutral, as staffers came and went into the DCI’s inner office. The Speaker of the House had called for an update on the goings-on across the river. The president’s chief of staff asked Page to come in at nine in the morning to help with Norman Hearney’s briefing — Hearney was the new director of national intelligence. And Stanford Swift, an old friend from IBM, had called for lunch tomorrow, but Page had declined. “Full plate just now, Stan.”

The problem was trust, something Alex didn’t know if she could count on for much longer. In the four years since she’d started here first as a substitute for Page’s secretary, and then the full-time position when the woman was killed in a car accident, the DCI had come to trust her.

The most immediate problem was the Kraut showing up here in DC. By all rights, after the Milwaukee incident with his live-in, Alex had expected Schermerhorn to run for the hills. One less operator to have to worry about in the short term.

But sometimes, like right now, she felt like a juggler with too many balls in the air while standing barefoot on a slippery slope that kept moving. The center was starting to fall apart; it wouldn’t hold for much longer, and then God only knew what would happen next. Except the fallout would be lethal.

Her desk console chirped. It was the director.

“Dotty, could you come in for a minute?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Alex said.

She’d heard what Rencke had said inside. In the last three years she’d heard everything that had been said in Page’s office. Was privy to all his phone calls, all his e-mails, even his private ones, and especially the encrypted ones. She’d recorded everything against the day — which might never come — when she needed some insurance. Though what she knew of the recordings wouldn’t be of much help now.

Getting up, she considered taking her subcompact Glock 29 from its hiding place in her desk, but decided against it. If she had to kill the DCI, she would do it only if she had a decent chance of escaping. She took her iPad and stylus instead. Sometimes he liked to dictate letters or notes the old-fashioned way.

Page was staring out the window, his back to the door when Alex walked in.

“Have a seat, please,” he said, his back still to her.

She sat down across the desk from him.

“Hell of a way to go out,” he said.

“Sir?”

Page turned around. “I’m going to resign. I’m sure you’ve already guessed. A lot of people have. Means you’ll be handed your walking papers. New DCIs seldom keep their predecessor’s private secretaries.”