David Hagberg - End Game

McGarvey holstered his pistol and headed back to where he’d left his car. He phoned Pete.

“Did you get her?” she asked.

“We found where she crashed her car through the fence and then abandoned it. But she didn’t try for the highway. She’s still somewhere on campus.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“She’s not the killer, neither is Roy, so it has to be George. It’s why she came back to work for Page, and why she changed her mind this morning. She wants to find him to save her own life.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“Set up a place where we can talk to her.”

“I’m on it now. The maintenance people are on their way over to the Scattergood-Thorne house, and I’m just leaving Bob Blankenship’s office. He’s sending four of his top people. But if she’s not the killer, this is mostly meaningless.”

“She knows who it is, but I think she also knows why.”

“What about you and Schermerhorn?”

“We’ll be there in ten minutes. In the meantime, tell Blankenship to cancel the lockdown and have all his people except the four stand down. And bring one of their radios with you. I want to talk to her.”

Alex was about to cross the road to the maintenance garage when McGarvey’s Porsche SUV passed, and she quickly ducked back into the woods. She’d only gotten a brief glimpse, but it was enough for her to recognize Roy in the passenger seat.

When the way was clear, she went across. Several pickup trucks with the CIA logo were parked in back, but no one was out and about. After ducking into the big six-bay garage, she held up in the shadows behind a stack of boxes marked MOTOR OIL in various weights.

Someone was talking inside what appeared from her vantage point to be a break room to her left. She could see a fridge and cabinets, and a coffee maker on the counter. Whoever it was sounded agitated, though she couldn’t make out the words.

To the right was a locker room with low benches and a dozen lockers adjacent to the showers and toilets.

She slipped inside then stopped again to listen, but the showers weren’t running. Everyone on duty was apparently either out on the job, mowing lawns, or in the break room. She opened six lockers in quick succession, finally finding a pair of coveralls and a ball cap that weren’t vastly too big for her, and put them on.

Whoever was in the break room was still arguing about something, and no one came out to see her slip through the rear door and get into one of the pickup trucks, start it with her universal electronic key, and drive off.

The questions in her head at this moment were the same as they had been from the day she had come back to the Company for a job inside: What the hell happened in Iraq, and what she should do about it, if anything?

Last year, when Carnes was killed in Athens, she’d damned well known it had been no accident. Joseph and no one else on the team, would have been so sloppy to allow something like that to happen.

She’d become ultracautious with her movements. It was when she had rented the second apartment in Tysons Corner and put the pistol in her desk.

And when Walt and Isty and then Tom had bought the farm — one, two, three — she knew she was somewhere near the top of the list, and her radar had risen. Someone was coming for her; it was just a matter of time, and just a matter of being prepared.

Coffin’s assassination in Piraeus had not come as a surprise, though he had danced all the proper steps to stay safe, ingeniously hiding himself in prison. But when McGarvey got involved, she’d known it was a foregone conclusion the rest of them would be killed. They had to be silenced.

The trouble was, she didn’t really know the entire why of it.

She drove past the large cluster of buildings on the main campus and headed the rest of the way up to the Scattergood-Thorne house, where she figured she would make her stand. She would see to it McGarvey came to her.

He was the one man other than Page who she felt she could trust her life with. But Page was an administrator on his way out the door, while McGarvey was a force within the intelligence community. A tough man, but she’d always heard, a fair one.

The lockdown was over, and people were beginning to move around the campus as business slowly returned to normal. McGarvey and Schermerhorn showed up at the Scattergood-Thorne house just as the caterers were stocking the larder in the pantry, and the four men from Blankenship’s flying squad were activating the electronic security system for the house and grounds.

McGarvey had been here once during his brief tenure as the DCI, hosting a strategic planning briefing for the heads of the US’s four major intel trading partners from Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Along with the U.S., they were called the Five Eyes.

Pete met them in the front entry hall. “We should have everything squared away here within the next few minutes. With her still on the loose, I figured you’d be in a hurry.”

“Get rid of the muscle,” McGarvey said. “She came back because she wants to tell us something.”

“Bob thought you’d say something like that. He wants to keep at least two of them here at any given time. They can rotate on twelve-hour shifts.”

“Only one at a time, and as long as he stays out of the way.”

Otto came in, a big grin on his face. “That whole situation could have gone south in a New York minute. No one got hurt. She wants to talk.”

“That’s what I figured,” McGarvey said. “What about panel four? Are you making any progress?”

“My darlings are still chewing on it. But if Roy would help out, it would speed things up.”

“It’s a transposition code; I’ve already told you that much,” Schermerhorn said. “And you already have the six-letter solution Sanborn gave us. NYPVVT spelled out BERLIN in 2010.”

“You changed the code.”

“Yeah. But BERLIN is still there, still in the same position, just a different set of letters.”

“Damn it,” Otto said. He never swore unless he was frustrated, and he almost never got frustrated. “More lives are at stake here.”

“Including mine,” Schermerhorn said. “But the solution has to come from you; otherwise, no one will believe it.”

“No one meaning who?” McGarvey asked.

Schermerhorn shook his head. “You’ll see.”

One of Blankenship’s men came in from the back door. “We found a pickup truck parked behind the garage. It was taken from the maintenance unit about ten minutes ago.”

McGarvey took the radio from Pete, switched it on, and hit the push-to-talk button. “Alex, this is Kirk McGarvey. I’m here with some people who would like to talk to you. Why don’t you come in and join us?”

“If you’ve given Roy a gun, take it from him,” Alex replied. “And tell whoever Blankenship sent over to wait outside.”

“Pete Boylan is with me.”

“She’s okay.”

“Leave your pistol behind.”

“Not until I’m sure I’ll be secure,” she said. But not over the radio.

They turned around in time to see her coming down the stairs, the silenced Glock in her left hand.

The security officer reached for his pistol, but McGarvey motioned him back.

Roy had the Beretta out and was pointing it up at her.

“I asked you to take Roy’s gun,” she said tightly.

“No firing pin,” McGarvey said.

“Shit,” Roy muttered. He handed the gun butt first to McGarvey. “Thanks. If she had come out shooting, I would have been shit out of luck.”

“I lied,” McGarvey said, stuffing the pistol in his belt. “Nothing’s wrong with the firing pin.”