David Hagberg - End Game

Alex laughed. She lowered her pistol and came down the stairs to them.

“You’ve come as something of a surprise,” McGarvey said. “But we know you’re not the killer and neither is Roy.”

“We’re left-handed,” Alex said. She handed the pistol to McGarvey, who gave it to the security officer.

“Leave us now,” he said.

“Yes, sir, I’ll be just outside.”

“Tell maintenance I’m sorry I screwed up their fence and then stole one of their trucks,” Alex said. “I also lifted a set of coveralls and a ball cap from someone’s locker. They’re upstairs in one of the front bedrooms, along with Soldier’s radio.”

Otto was staring at her with open admiration. “You were damned good,” he said.

“I still am.”

“I’m going back to my darlings to tweak the decryption program. I’ll let you know when I come up with something.”

“Even a partial something,” McGarvey said.

The room set up for them was the same one the conference had been held in. The windows were double glazed, white noise pumped between the panes to block out any laser surveillance. The walls were covered with sound-absorbing material that gave the appearance of an expensive damask treatment. And the entire space, top to bottom, was inside a Faraday cage to block electronic signals from coming in or going out.

McGarvey and Pete sat across the long table from Alex while Schermerhorn took up position at the end nearest the door, as if he wanted to bolt if necessary or even stop Alex if she tried to run.

“What made you think to come here of all places on campus?” Pete started.

“You wanted to ask me some questions, and had the tables been reversed, this is where I would have set up. Away from the OHB and out of the fray, so to speak.”

“But this is where Fabry was murdered.”

“I know. Almost a symmetry to it, my being here to help you catch George.” Alex pursed her lips. “It’s why we’re here like this, isn’t it?”

“Do you really give a rat’s ass about any of them, or me?” Schermerhorn asked.

She thought about it for a moment. “At first you guys were fun. We were a team. But then George dropped in on us, and everything changed.”

“For the better?”

“Just changed,” Alex said.

“Would you recognize George if you saw him, the same way you recognized Alex?” McGarvey asked Schermerhorn.

“Damn right.”

“He’s not here,” Alex said. “When Wager was hit, I started looking to see if anyone from the old team was here, besides him, Isty, and Tom.”

“But you didn’t try to warn them after Wager was murdered,” Pete said.

Alex shook her head. “It all happened so fast. There was nothing I could do that wouldn’t reveal my true identity. I found out about Joe Carnes and Larry Coffin, which left only Roy and George. Neither one of them were on campus, so far as I was able to tell.”

“But you knew the killer was right-handed, and that both of us are lefties,” Schermerhorn said angrily. “So then there was only George.”

This time Alex smiled. “Remember the story you told me a few days after we got to Iraq? About when you were a kid in Catholic school in Milwaukee?”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’d just had sex, so your memory might be a little fuzzy. But I know what you said.”

“I’m listening.”

“The nuns thought being left-handed was deviant, so they beat you for two years straight, making you use your right hand for everything. They put your left in a thick mitten. Put your arm in a sling. Even tied it to your side.”

“It didn’t take,” Schermerhorn said. “Soon as I got into public school, I went back to being a lefty.”

“Yes,” Alex said. “But you’d learned to use your right hand just as good as a natural.”

“That’s a refreshing bit of news,” Pete said. “Puts us back to two possibilities.” She made a point of laying her pistol on the table. “George and Roy. Sounds like a comedy act.”

“Not Roy. He was never capable of anything like that. Only I and George were.”

“You told us you looked, but George was not on campus.”

“I told you I looked. Doesn’t mean he isn’t — or wasn’t — here.”

“Then you think he’s gone?”

“I wish it were true. But as long as Roy and I are here, he’ll stick around or, at the very least, come back. He wants us both in order to finish his cover-up.”

“We could move you somewhere else, somewhere safer,” Pete said.

Schermerhorn laughed. “You said he found Larry Coffin in some Greek prison. He’ll find us unless we find him first.”

“For once Roy is right,” Alex said. “Why do think I turned around and came back inside? Maybe between the four of us, we can stop him.”

McGarvey noticed that a small bead of perspiration had formed on her upper lip, and her nostrils flared as if she were trying to catch her breath. She was frightened, and from what he’d learned about her background, and from her performance over the past four years and especially this morning, he was impressed.

“Stop him from doing what?” Schermerhorn asked.

“From killing us, for starts,” she shot back.

“And?”

“What the hell are you talking about? And we’re dead. That’s it. All of Alpha Seven gone.”

“So what? Why should we care? By your own admission, it was only you and George who were capable of chewing people’s necks away so they would bleed to death. Then destroying their faces so they would be unrecognizable even to their wives and children. Do you know Fanni Fabry is still in the hospital? She had a serious heart attack, and on the way in she kept telling the paramedic that she knew something like this would happen someday.”

Alex looked away. She was shivering.

“What wife knows her husband will die in that way?” McGarvey demanded. Katy had been afraid for him from the day she’d learned what he really did for a living. But she once confessed she couldn’t imagine the shock and pain of getting shot. It was beyond her ken. Beyond what normal people experienced or even thought about.

But knowing your husband would have his neck ripped open, his blood drained, and his face mutilated?

“I don’t know what he told her. He was a sweet guy — a good operator — but naive. Never was anything cynical about him. He believed in the best in people.”

“Including you?” McGarvey asked.

She nodded. “Even me until near the end.”

“That was when you and George went on your rampage in the oil fields.”

She’d become a little pale, much of the color gone from her face. She held her hands together in front of her on the table, her eyes downcast, and McGarvey had the feeling she was putting on an act for them. Maybe even for herself.

“George,” he prompted.

“He came swooping down on us early one evening, just around dusk. When he landed, he said he was the avenging angel. And I guess all of us believed him in one way or the other.”

“I didn’t,” Schermerhorn said.

Alex flared. “Bullshit, you all but put him on an altar and kissed his ass, just like the rest of us—”

“Why?” McGarvey interrupted. “This guy swooped down on you — exactly how, and what, did he say to make you not open fire first and check credentials afterward? Your team was in badland. He could have been anyone. Mukhabarat. Spetsnaz, GRU — the Russians had interests over there, still do.”

“He made a HALO jump, but it wasn’t until Carnes spotted his chute about a thousand feet up and maybe a klick or so out that we realized someone was dropping in for a visit. If it had been the Iraqi or Russian Special Forces or intel people, they would have sent in more than one man.”