David Hagberg - End Game

This was her story and no one interrupted her, not even Schermerhorn, who looked as if he had been transported back to that time. His face was filled with a lot of emotion. Nothing hidden, unless it was another act.

“Besides, by the time he walked into our position, we had him covered. If he had so much as given any of us a bad look, we would have shot him. He just came up the hill and said ‘Hi, I’m your new control officer. You may call me George.’

“Chameleon challenged him, but he just said something to the effect that he knew where we were hiding and what our mission was. Said it was stupid at best and everyone at headquarters knew it, so he had come out to save our asses.”

“Those were his only credentials?” McGarvey prompted after she fell silent for several moments.

“That and he knew all our handles, something only Bertie knew. It was enough for us.”

“Why didn’t Bertie come with you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who was your team lead before George showed up?”

“Larry was.”

“The Chameleon,” McGarvey said.

She nodded. “Anyway, our new orders were to harass the enemy. We weren’t going to confront them in a shootout. ‘This won’t be another O.K. Corral,’ he said. ‘We’re the insurgents. We’ll sneak down at night, take out a handful of soldiers, officers if possible, and then scoot back up into the hills.’”

“The Iraqis must have reacted.”

“At first they sent out patrols on foot, but we just avoided them. It was easy to do in that terrain. When they started sending up helicopters, it got a little tougher, but we managed.”

“Was that when you and George stepped up your attacks?” McGarvey asked. “Picked up the level of savagery?”

Alex glanced at Schermerhorn but then looked away. “He said they deserved whatever we could give them. It wasn’t just about the coming war; it was about a millennium plus of senseless murders in the name of a supposed prophet.”

“Muhammad.”

“He was rabid on the subject. We all thought he was probably a Jew, with his New York Brooklyn accent, or maybe even Upper East Side. Maybe had relatives who’d died in the Holocaust, maybe even people he knew in Israel.”

“Could he have been Mossad?” McGarvey asked. “It would explain his dedicated hatred.”

“Some of the guys thought so, but his English didn’t have the British accent Israelis learn in school.”

“I thought he was Mossad,” Schermerhorn said. “Born in New York but emigrated to Israel.”

“Then why in heaven’s name did you cooperate with him?” Pete asked gently but in genuine amazement. She wanted to hear his side of the story. “Maybe it was the fog of war?”

“I don’t know. But by then I think all of us, including Larry, were willing to follow Alex’s lead. And she seemed to think this guy was something special.”

“He was,” Alex said.

“How soon after he showed up were you sleeping with him?” Pete asked.

“A couple of microseconds. He said he had come bearing a gift — a secret that was going to change everything. And I wanted to find out what it was.”

“And did you?” McGarvey prompted.

“We all did, and believe me, it was nothing we expected.”

The sun had come around so that it shined directly into the conference room windows, which darkened automatically, giving the bright day the look of an overcast one. It seemed to fit Alex’s and Schermerhorn’s moods.

“Could I have something to drink?” she asked. “Coffee, water, I don’t care. It’s been a long morning.”

“You were telling us about a gift George brought you,” McGarvey said.

“He didn’t exactly put it that way. But he said he’d come to help.”

“And it did change everything.” Schermerhorn said.

“First something to drink.”

McGarvey nodded, and Pete went out of the room to get something. She left her pistol lying on the table, directly across from where Alex was sitting.

After a beat Alex stood up and went to the windows. “A white van is just leaving,” she said. “Blankenship’s minders?”

“I suspect it’s the caterers. They came to stock up for us.”

“You’re thinking about keeping me here, along with Roy, till this thing is figured out? It won’t be that easy, though. Not without George. So I suppose we’ll be the hand-carved ducks floating in the pond, the hunter hiding in the weeds.”

She went back to the table and looked at the pistol before she sat down.

“Will he show up?” McGarvey asked.

“It depends on his orders, I suppose, but he’s already demonstrated what he’s capable of. Five down, only the two of us left.”

“You looked for him here, but you said you couldn’t find him. Maybe he’s not the killer.”

Alex laughed, but it was without humor. “You still can’t imagine how easy it is to get in and out of this place. Especially if you’re willing to kill someone for it.”

“Are you?”

Alex looked straight at McGarvey. “Under the right circumstances, you bet. But so far no one has held a gun to my head.”

“What about the security officer in the parking garage?”

She laughed again. “Come on, McGarvey. You know as well as I do that most of your rent-a-cops are outclassed. As long as everyone plays by the rules, the system works. But step outside the playbook, and Blankenship only has a few good men who know what the hell they’re doing.”

Pete came back with a couple of liter-and-a-half bottles of Evian and several paper cups.

Alex opened one of the bottles, poured half a glass, and handed it to Pete. “You have to be just as thirsty as I am by now.”

“Yeah, listening to bullshit always makes me thirsty,” Pete said, and drank the water. She shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint you, Ms. Unroth, but I’m not suddenly going to go all glassy-eyed and start telling the truth because something’s been put in the water. Though it’d be good if you and Roy did. Maybe we could get somewhere and actually save your lives.”

“Give Roy and me guns and a lot of ammunition and put us in a safe room here. Then send us a video feed of every single male and female on campus — George was a pretty boy. Narrow face, nice eyes, great lips. That would include all employees, including the guys in the Watch, the janitors and other maintenance people, the caterers who just came and went. Bus drivers and taxi drivers who drop people off at the OHB. Tour guides, along with all the VIP congressmen, Pentagon staffers. FBI people and any other LE person who’ve ever come on campus. The people who come in to fix the leaks in the roof, or the plugged-up toilets, or the electrical outlets that spark. The crews that blacktopped the road six months ago. The cable people — we just upgraded our fiber-optic network. How about pilots and passengers flying across our airspace? Anyone notice the hang gliders down in Langley Fork Park? Or hikers or campers not far from where I crashed through the fence? How about tunnels, storm water drainage pipes? You guys have all that covered?”

“I expect we have most of it,” McGarvey said, getting her point.

“Most of it’s not good enough. And who watches the watchers? Who minds the minders? This place leaks like a sieve.”

Pete sat down. “Wager and the others thought they were safer in here than outside,” she said.

“They were wrong, weren’t they?” Alex flared. “Like shooting fish in a barrel. You people still don’t get it.”

“Then why didn’t you run when you had the chance?” McGarvey asked. “Why’d you come back into the barrel, knowing all that?”

“Because of you.”

“Thanks for that, but I didn’t do such a hot job in Athens.”