David Hagberg - End Game

She would leave them a trail of cookie crumbs so they could get the story from the horse’s mouth — in such a way no one in the White House or on the Hill could possibly deny it.

The door to the kitchen was open. A dim light illuminated the stair hall at the front of the house. The only sounds were the motors on the fridge and the deep freeze.

At the back door, which would have been the servants’ entrance and the place for deliveries, she hesitated for just a moment before she went out into the night.

The officer who’d been in the front stair hall had to have been relieved by now. So whoever was out here was on his own, and he hadn’t seen her.

A Cadillac Escalade, the semiofficial car of the CIA, was parked down by the garage next to the pickup truck, which hadn’t been returned to maintenance yet. A man was seated in the Caddy’s driver’s seat, which was sloppy as hell. Considering what had happened on campus over the past several days and what was possible to happen here at any moment, the officer’s disregard for security bordered on criminal.

She angled away from the house and approached the Caddy from the driver’s side, and it wasn’t until she got to within a couple of feet that the officer realized someone was coming up on him. He did a double take when he saw the maintenance department coveralls and ball cap.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his door coming open.

“I came for our pickup truck,” Alex said, keeping her voice low. “They told me you would be back here somewhere.”

“How the fuck did you get here? No one told me anything.”

“They dropped me off,” she said.

All of a sudden he realized he’d made a very bad mistake, and reached for his pistol holstered at his side.

Alex waited until he had it out then suddenly stepped inside his reach and snatched it out of his hand, twisting his wrist sharply to the left. It was a big Glock 20. She turned the pistol on him.

“If you cooperate for the next twenty minutes or so, I will not kill you,” she said. “And you can start by making no noise and by keeping your hand away from your radio. Nod if you understand.”

The officer hesitated only a moment, embarrassment all over his face, but he nodded.

“This is the plan. You’re going to drive me through the main gate and down to Turkey Run Park on the river. I’ll take your radio and the Caddy, and you’ll have to hoof it up to the Parkway to hitch a ride back.”

“I can’t let you do this; it’d mean my job,” the officer said.

“Don’t, and it’ll mean your life. When you get back, you can tell them you were doing a foot patrol around the house when I came up behind you with my own weapon, and you had absolutely no choice.”

“Did you kill those people?”

“No. But I have a pretty good idea who did, and I’m going to find him. You can tell them that, too. Give me your radio and get in the car.”

He did as he was told.

“VIPs get the armored version of this car, but I’m betting you guys don’t. So don’t do anything stupid. A ten-millimeter round will go through the windshield with no problem.”

Keeping the gun on him, she hurried around the front of the car and got in on the passenger side.

“No lights until we’re away from the house,” Alex told him. “Now go.”

McGarvey and Pete stood together at an upstairs window facing the back. He had his cell phone out, and as soon as the security officer’s Caddy disappeared down the hill and around the sweeping curve through a copse of trees, he phoned the main gate and got the duty officer.

“This is Kirk McGarvey. Do you recognize my voice, or do I need to have Mr. Page phone you to verify?”

“No, sir, I was here when you were DCI,” the man said.

“A CIA Escalade will be coming through the gate within the next few minutes. A man driving, a woman in the passenger seat. Don’t interfere with them.”

“No, sir. The lockdown has been canceled.”

“I know. But I want you to call me as soon as the Caddy passes your position, and then confirm that both of those people are in the car.”

“Yes, sir,” the duty officer said with some hesitation. “Has this anything to do with our trouble?”

“Yes,” McGarvey said. “Call me.” He hung up.

“You’re taking a big chance she won’t shoot the guy soon as they get clear,” Pete said.

“She’s not the killer,” McGarvey told her on the way downstairs. “Call Blankenship and have him send over another one of his people.”

Pete glanced up. “What about Schermerhorn?”

“He’s not our killer either. It’s George — whoever the hell he is. And Alex has gone to find him.”

“Or join him.”

“I’m going to follow her and find out just that,” McGarvey said. “Call Blankenship now, and watch yourself. This is far from over.”

“You too,” she said at the door. She gave him a peck on the cheek, which stopped him in his tracks. It was unexpected.

He looked at her for a beat. “Take care of yourself, Pete. I don’t want to lose you.”

“And I don’t want to lose you.”

Outside, he got into his Porsche SUV and headed down the narrow blacktopped road that led around the OHB and main cluster of administrative buildings.

His cell phone chirped; it was the OD at the main gate.

“They just passed.”

“Thanks,” McGarvey said. He called Pete. “They’re out.”

“Blankenship isn’t happy, but he’s sending two of his people up here. He wants to know why we can’t go after his man.”

“Tell him I’m on it,” McGarvey said. He phoned Otto and told him the situation.

“We caught a break. We’re at the extreme end of a pass. I can task the satellite, but it’ll take a minute or so, and the angle will be very low.”

“How’s the decryption going?”

“Close,” Otto said. “Hang on.”

A couple of minutes later McGarvey drove past the main gate and down the hill toward the interchange with the George Washington Parkway, which to the right headed downriver toward Washington and, to the left, upriver, where it ended in a couple of miles at I-495.

Traffic was all but nonexistent at this time of the night, and when McGarvey got within a hundred yards or so from the interchange, he slowed to a crawl.

“They turned left,” Otto came back. “But that’s all I can give you for another eighteen minutes until a new bird comes up over the horizon.”

“How far behind am I?” McGarvey said, speeding up.

“About three minutes, but if she spots you, it’s game over unless all you want to do is get her back. And that could end up in a hostage situation gone bad, though I don’t think she’d take it that far.”

“Get back to the decryption. I want it as fast as possible,” McGarvey said, and hung up.

He swung left along the long curving entrance that merged with the Parkway, and tucked in behind a Safeway eighteen-wheeler that, the way it was driving, looked as if it were heading unloaded back to a distribution center somewhere just outside of the city.

The truck was speeding, about fifteen miles per hour over the limit, and he figured Alex wouldn’t be doing anything to attract any attention, so she would probably have the security officer drive only five or ten miles per hour over the speed limit.

Before long he would catch up with her.

At the last moment he caught a glimpse of the Escalade turning off the highway and disappearing into the woods toward the river. The brown National Park Service sign announced it was the entrance to Turkey Run Park.

Standing on the brakes, McGarvey managed to pull over about fifty yards past the entrance, the Escalade well out of sight. A car coming up in the distance seemed to take forever before it reached him and passed.