David Hagberg - End Game

“What the hell are you talking about?” Page asked.

Pete gave McGarvey a questioning look, but he motioned no. He suspected Schermerhorn was trying to tell them something in his oblique way. NOCs, even when they were telling the truth, never told it straight on. They tested the waters first. Always.

“I read the newspapers and the blogs — between the lines. Every now and then even al-Qaeda hits it on the head. Bin Laden kicked the Russians out of Afghanistan. Didn’t make him stupid afterward, just rabid.”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Schermerhorn shook his head. “Goddamn bureaucrats. Linear thinkers.”

“Enough of this.”

“Be careful where you tread, Mr. Director. One of these days something just may rise up out of the dust and bite you squarely on the ass.”

Page’s intercom buzzed. It was his secretary.

“Mr. Whiteside has an update on the situation in New Delhi. May I bring it in?”

Page hesitated, but McGarvey motioned yes.

“Please do,” the DCI said.

Alex walked in, nodded to the others, her expression neutral, and handed the file folder to Page. “Mr. Whiteside said if anything new comes up before one thirty, they’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Dotty.”

Alex walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

She reached her desk, picked up her phone, and hit 70# in time to hear Page say: “Well?”

Schermerhorn was there; she’d recognized him the moment their eyes had met.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I’m not sure.”

“Be sure,” McGarvey said. “Otherwise, we’re talking about an innocent woman.”

It was a fabrication. She’d heard it in Roy’s voice. He was lying for her benefit because somehow they knew she was listening in.

She pulled her Glock 29 pistol and silencer from its elastic holster attached to the underside of the bottom drawer, stuffed it into her purse, and slipped out the door.

A few people had started to show up, and she smiled and nodded as she made her way down the corridor and around the corner, stopping only long enough to make sure no one was coming after her.

Taking the stairs down two at a time, she reached the second floor before an alarm sounded.

“Attention, Security, OHB is currently under lockdown. This is just a drill. Repeat, the OHB is currently under lockdown. This is just a drill.”

She sprinted the rest of the way down to the parking garage. The stairwell doors were only locked from the outside. No security procedures were required to exit; nevertheless, she pulled out her pistol, shifted her bag to her left shoulder, and held the pistol at her side.

A lot would depend on the next sixty seconds. If the lockdown included the garage, the security barriers would be raised from the floor at the driveway out and she would be stuck here.

She pulled open the door and stepped out just as a security officer she only vaguely recognized came around the corner at the elevator door, twenty feet away. His sidearm was holstered.

He turned to her. “Sorry, ma’am, we’re under lockdown. You’ll have to go back up.”

Alex walked directly toward him, her eyes on his.

“Didn’t you hear?” the officer asked. His name tag read: SOLDIER.

Alex raised her pistol and pointed it at him. “Lay your weapon and your radio on the floor along with your security badge, and then step back.”

The man reached for his gun.

She changed aim to his head. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will. Do as I told you, immediately.”

The officer unholstered his pistol and laid it on the concrete floor, then took his radio from its holster on the opposite hip, unclipped the shoulder mic, and laid them on the floor.

“Your security badge.”

He took it off and laid it down.

“Turn around and walk away. If you shout for help, I will shoot you, and trust me, Soldier, I’m an expert marksman.”

“No way in hell are you getting out of here.”

“You’re probably right, and you can take credit for slowing me down. Go, and don’t look back.”

The officer hesitated for just a moment, but then turned around and headed toward the opposite side of the long garage.

Alex picked up his radio and badge, and then followed him just to where her car was parked. Making sure he wasn’t turning around, she got behind the wheel, started the car, and headed for the up ramp.

At that moment a klaxon blared.

She raced the rest of the way up to the exit just as the security barriers began rising from the floor.

A security officer stepped into view in the middle of the driveway.

Without slowing down, she aimed directly for him.

At the last moment he leaped aside, and she passed over the barriers, one of them ripping out her catalytic converter and muffler, and she was outside and free.

She had worked out this scenario before, and in fact, three years ago she had taken a drive around the campus, figuring out ways to get to the rear of the campus, via Colonial Farm Road, which connected through to an automatic gate that then led to Highway 193.

The gate would be locked down for her badge, of course, but she had Soldier’s.

Page was on the phone with Bob Blankenship, the CIA’s chief of security. He put a hand over the mouthpiece. “She just made it out of the garage,” he told McGarvey. “We’ll have her at the main gate.”

“Give those guys the heads-up that she’s armed,” Pete said, coming in from the outer office.

“Stand by.”

“She had a pistol of some kind attached to the bottom of one of the drawers in her desk. She must have heard what we were saying, because she was in a big hurry. She got her gun but didn’t close the drawer.”

“No,” Schermerhorn said. “She wants us to know she’s carrying. She’s thumbing her nose at us because she has a plan.”

“Excuse me,” McGarvey said, and took the phone from Page. “Bob, Kirk McGarvey. She’s armed, but she won’t try for the main gate. Did any of your officers have a one-on-one encounter with her?”

“Tom Soldier in the parking garage just a minute or so ago. She disarmed him, but she didn’t shoot him.”

“Did she take his security badge?”

“Yeah, and his radio, but she left his sidearm on the floor.”

“No one got hurt?”

“No.”

“Stay off the radio. She’s going to try for the back gate, using your security officer’s badge, which I assume hasn’t been locked out.”

“Shit,” Blankenship said. “I have two people back there.”

“Tell them not to approach her, or she will shoot.”

“Can’t use the radio, so what do you want me to do? Write them a letter?”

“Radio them. But have the Virginia state police a block off one ninety-three and one twenty-three a couple of miles either side of the gate. If she gets out, she’ll try to commandeer a car or truck.”

“I’m on it,” Blankenship said. “But she’s just the DCI’s secretary, for Christ’s sake.”

“She was an NOC and a damned good one, from what I’m told. How soon can we get a couple of choppers in the air in case she abandons her car and tries to make it through the fence on foot?”

“At least fifteen minutes.”

“Too late. Tell your people to watch themselves.”

“This is unbelievable,” Page said. “Are you sure she’s the right one?”

“No. But she did take off with a gun she’d hidden in her desk, and she disarmed a security officer.”

“She didn’t kill him, did she?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Page asked.

“I’m going to ask her when I pick her up,” McGarvey said. “Roy’s coming with me.”