Allah's Scorpion (23 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Allah's Scorpion
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Gloria moved in from his right, batted his hand away from the pistol, and grabbed it out of the holster. She stepped back a pace. “Let’s all calm down here, before this shit gets out of hand,” she said.
Weiss was beside himself with rage. “You bitch,” he growled. He backhanded Gloria in the face, snapping her head back, and sending her bouncing off the wall, the pistol falling to the floor.
Before McGarvey could move to interfere, Weiss came after Gloria, shoving her back against the wall again. But this time she was expecting it. She rolled to the side, grabbed Weiss’s right wrist, and slammed his forearm against the door frame, both bones breaking with an audible
pop
.
Weiss screamed and staggered away from her, trying to cradle his broken arm against his chest.
The MP was stunned.
Gloria stepped forward, slammed the heel of her right hand into Weiss’s nose, breaking it, blood gushing out both nostrils, then hit his left kneecap with her right instep, dislocating the man’s knee.
Weiss collapsed on the floor and Gloria was about to go after him when McGarvey was at her side.
“That’s all,” he said softly.
She looked at him, her nostrils flared, her eyes wild.
“Come down, Gloria, it’s done. We’re out of here.”
Slowly she came back, and nodded.
Weiss was curled up, whimpering in pain.
“Someone call an ambulance for Mr. Weiss,” McGarvey said.
Lieutenant Albritton had moved well out of range and he kept looking from Weiss to Gloria and then to McGarvey. But he didn’t say anything.
McGarvey looked at bin Ramdi, who had shrunk back into a corner of the interrogation room, a mostly unreadable expression on his face. But it was obvious he was impressed by what he’d just witnessed, and extremely wary.
“You sons of bitches are going to fucking jail!” Weiss shouted.
McGarvey looked down at him and shook his head. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to hit women?”
“Evidently not,” the MP said, half under his breath. “But he sure got told this time.”
 
 
EN ROUTE TO ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE
They’d not been interfered with as they left Camp Delta and drove across base down to the ferry landing. Nor were they stopped from reaching their Gulfstream, even though it was very likely that by then General Maddox had been informed about what had happened.
In this case McGarvey thought that it was probably for the best that it wasn’t a prisoner who’d been roughed up, though by the time they reached Washington he was pretty sure that McCann would try to bring Gloria up on charges.
It was morning, the sun just rising above the Atlantic horizon as they approached the U.S. East Coast. Gloria had been far too keyed-up to sleep on the fourteen-hundred-mile trip back to D.C., but she hadn’t wanted to talk about what had happened.
She came forward from the head where she had splashed some water on her face, and straightened out her hair and touched up her makeup. She sat down in the big leather seat facing McGarvey, a resolute expression on her round face; she had screwed up and she was ready now to face her punishment.
“I jeopardized the mission,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“He had it coming.”
Gloria smiled tightly, and nodded. “I might have killed him if you hadn’t stopped me.”
“The paperwork would have been endless,” McGarvey said. “Ask me, I know.”
Without averting her gaze, Gloria began to cry silently, tears welling in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.
McGarvey’s heart suddenly went out to her. She’d had a difficult life, losing her mother and then her husband, so she was seasoned to pain. But she wasn’t much older than his daughter Elizabeth. And she had the same sort of tough exterior that was a cover for a sometimes confused and frightened little girl who wasn’t sure if she was ready to be an adult.
He reached out and touched her knee. “You did a good job down there. Because of you and your partner we found out what Allah’s Scorpion is, and now we’ve got a good shot at shutting it down.”
“I got Bob killed.”
“It wasn’t you who killed him, it was the bad guys,” McGarvey told her. “You’d better understand that, otherwise you’re not going to be much help to me.”
Her dark eyes widened slightly. “I thought I would be pulled out of the field after this.”
“Are you kidding?” McGarvey asked. “Why do you think Weiss came after you?”
Gloria’s jaw tightened. “Because he’s dirty, and he knows that I suspect him.” She shook her head. “But I don’t have any proof, and Howard’ll go ballistic as soon as Weiss starts making noises.”
“Which might not happen,” McGarvey said. “He’s gotten rid of us, and I think Maddox is going to order him to take his lumps and shut his mouth.”
“I don’t get it, Mac, why would somebody like Weiss work for al-Quaida? It doesn’t make sense. I mean he’s an asshole, but he’s apparently got a good career going for him. Why would he take the risk?”
“Money. Ego. Arrogance,” McGarvey said. He’d seen the same sort of thing many times before. Men, and a few women, who’d thought that they were better than everyone else. Superior. Smarter. Quicker. Or, for some of them, it was the same sort of thrill that a bungee jumper gets when he steps off the edge. It was almost a death wish. When some traitors were caught they were relieved that they no longer had to lead a double life. In many respects prison would be easier.
Weiss, if he was guilty of anything other than being a simple asshole, was not cut of the same dangerous cloth as Rupert Graham. Men like Graham, and others McGarvey had come up against, who were as brilliant as
they were ruthless, were at war with the world. Whatever brought them to that point, and there was no one reason that McGarvey had ever discovered, did not interfere with their skills on the battlefield.
Carlos the Jackal had been the first of the specialist killing machines in the modern era, and Graham was just another. He would never be brought to trial, because he would simply take his war into prison. Men like him had to be killed. There was no other solution.
“Hijo de puta,”
Gloria said softly.
“Yeah.”
 
 
CIA HEADQUARTERS
Coming back out of the field, as he had done countless times before in his career, brought back a host of memories. A good many of them were very bad: missions in which he had made kills; missions in which he had nearly lost his life; missions in which his family’s lives had been placed in jeopardy. Riding into the city he remembered the face of every person he’d killed. The number wasn’t legion, but over a twenty-five-year career he had a lot of blood on his conscience.
Adkins had sent a Company limo out to Andrews for them, and on the drive in McGarvey had made a quick phone call to his wife.
“Touchdown,” he told her.
“You’re in one piece?” she asked, and he heard the relief in her voice.
“All my fingers and toes.”
“ETA?”
McGarvey glanced at his watch. It was a couple of minutes after ten. When he looked up, his eyes met Gloria’s. There was an odd, hungry set to her mouth. “I should make it by lunchtime or a little later. How’d the move go?”
“Most of our worldly possessions are on the way south,” Kathleen said. “How about us?”
“Soon,” McGarvey promised.
“As in tomorrow or the next day?”
“Soon,” McGarvey said. He felt bad, because this sort of conversation had interrupted his marriage for a lot of years. These days Katy was more pragmatic about what he did, but the uncertainty and hurt was an ever-constant pressure in her gut. He could hear it in her voice. She was afraid for him.
“We’ll talk then,” Kathleen said and broke the connection.
The Company had provided them with a furnished apartment not too far from their house in Chevy Chase until McGarvey was finished with this assignment. He’d wanted her to drive down to their new place in Sarasota, and Liz had volunteered to ride shotgun for her mother. But Kathleen wasn’t leaving town without her husband.
“You okay?” Gloria asked.
McGarvey managed a smile. “Just trying to get retired and stay that way.”
“Soon?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
Their driver radioed ahead and they were passed directly through the executive gate, and whisked to management’s underground parking where the elevator was waiting for them. “Welcome back, Mr. Director,” the driver said.
“I’m not back,” McGarvey told him.
He and Gloria rode up to the Directorate of Operations on the third floor. He got out with her. “You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “I’m a big girl, I can handle Mr. McCann.”
“I’m sure you can, but I’ll put in a good word for you anyway,” McGarvey told her. “This isn’t over, and I have a feeling I may be asking for your help again.”
Gloria’s eyes lit up with pleasure. “Any time,” she said, and she headed down the corridor to the DDO’s office.
McGarvey went in the opposite direction back to Rencke’s office, which a few months ago had been moved out of the mainframe room here to Operations, where he could be closer to the Watch. His big office behind glass walls had originally housed a dozen cubicles where Directorate of Intelligence analysts task-shared with DDO junior desk officers. Their offices had been scattered all over the third floor.
Rencke was standing in the middle of the room on one leg, like a flamingo, his red hair flying everywhere, while data streamed across nine computer monitors arrayed around the perimeter. The wallpaper on each of them was lavender. He was leaning up against a long conference table that was strewn with maps; high-resolution satellite photos in real light as well as infrared; stacks of file folders, many of them with orange stripes denoting top secret or above material; empty Twinkie wrappers and a half-empty bottle of heavy cream.
McGarvey knocked on the glass door and let himself in.
“Bad dog, bad dog, go away and come again another day!” Rencke shouted.
“Just me,” McGarvey said.
Rencke spun around so fast he almost fell over. “Oh, wow,” he cried. “Did you find the golden chalice? Did you?”
“You were right, it’s a submarine operation. The five guys they sprung last week had all been submarine crew.”
Rencke clapped his hands. “Uncle Osama isn’t about to waste the skills of a Perisher dude. No way.” He stopped suddenly, the animation leaving his face. “You found something else?”
“They were transferred to Echo the same night,” McGarvey said.
“Gitmo’s starting to smell like a barnyard,” Rencke said. “Any ideas?”
“Guy’s name is Tom Weiss. He’s the ONI officer in charge of interrogations,” McGarvey said. “He’s either an idiot or he’s on someone’s payroll.”
“Same one who hassled Gloria last week. He couldn’t have been terribly happy to see her on his doorstep again.”
McGarvey explained the confrontation they’d had this morning, and Rencke was loving it.
“Big man on campus got taken down a notch by the little lady.” He laughed. “Wait’ll I tell Louise. She loves that kinda shit.”
“Take a peek down his track, but don’t make any waves yet,” McGarvey said. “If he is dirty he’ll have cutouts, probably someone else there on base, unless he’s set up a little nest egg account somewhere. Maybe the Caymans. But he’ll have to have a line of communications.”
“If it’s electronic I’ll find it,” Rencke said. “But there might be a letter drop somewhere. Any idea how often he gets back to the States? Could be here, ya know.”
“I don’t know anything about the man, except that Gloria thinks he’s dirty, and for now that’s good enough for me.”
“She’s kinda like Liz, isn’t she?” Rencke said.
“I thought the same thing,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime, while Graham is looking for a crew, we need to find out where’s he’s going to get a sub and a weapon. And for some reason I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time on this one.”
“It’ll probably be a Kilo boat. I’m running an inventory right now for all of them our spy birds can spot, but we’ll miss all the ones either locked
up in sub pens, or tucked away in some remote inlet somewhere. I was thinking about asking Pete Gregory. He’s a naval historian over at the Pentagon.”
“Go ahead and hack their database, but hold off on Gregory,” McGarvey said. “If you don’t find anything in the next twenty-four hours I’ve got someone else in mind who might be able to help us come up with a short list. And I know that he won’t leak anything to the ONI.”
 
 
CIA HEADQUARTERS
Adkins closed a file folder on his desk, and got to his feet as McGarvey walked into the DCI’s seventh-floor office. The director looked worn-out, the weight of the world on his shoulders. His jacket was off, his tie loose.
“Here he is at last,” he said. “From what Ms. Ibenez has been telling us, you two have probably created a firestorm for us.”
Gloria was seated across from the DCI, along with Rencke’s boss Howard McCann. None of them looked happy.
“He had it coming, Dick,” McGarvey said, crossing the room. He pulled a side chair over and sat down next to Gloria. “And there’s a good chance he’s dirty. I’ve got Otto looking into it for us.”
“Dirty or not, he could charge Ms. Ibenez with criminal assault,” McCann pointed out dryly. “There were two witnesses.”
“Actually there were three witnesses if you count me,” McGarvey said. “Has Weiss or anyone from the ONI called or filed a complaint?”
“Not yet, but I expect it’s coming.” McCann glanced at Gloria with obvious distaste. “God help us if the media gets the story. We’ll never hear the end of it.”
“We’re going to put Ms. Ibenez on the South American desk until this blows over,” Adkins said. “It’s a good idea that she keep a low profile for now.”
“That’ll have to wait. Ms. Ibenez has agreed to give me a hand.”
“Oh, come on, McGarvey,” McCann said. “I’ll give you anyone you want. Hell, take your daughter if you need a woman on the mission for some reason. But Ms. Ibenez is going to keep her head down.”
“Liz and her husband have got their hands full out at the Farm,” McGarvey said. He was having second thoughts about Whittaker’s recommendation for McCann to head the DO. The man was a competent administrator, but he knew nothing about the sort of people who worked for him. CIA field officers were a breed apart. And he was no spy. He’d spent nearly all his career behind a desk, writing reports rather than generating them.
“Okay, I’ll give you someone else—” McCann said, but McGarvey waved him off.
“She’s already up to speed. And where I’m going I might need someone to cover my back.” McGarvey smiled faintly. “She’s already proved that she can handle herself in a fight.”
“In my book, injuring a military officer when he was doing nothing more than his job is not exactly a sterling recommendation,” McCann shot back.
“Apparently she hasn’t told you that Weiss was pulling out his gun to shoot me with, so she had to disarm him,” McGarvey said. “That alone makes her my new partner.”
“She didn’t have to break his arm,” Adkins suggested.
“Did she tell you that Weiss hit her first, even though she was trying to defuse a situation that was getting out of hand? Nearly knocked her unconscious.” He looked at McCann. “What would you have done in that situation, Howard? Throw harsh words at the man?”
“I wouldn’t have been there in the first place.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” McGarvey said. “And if you don’t mind a suggestion from someone who’s held your job, ease up on your people. Don’t be such an asshole.”
McCann flared, and he nearly came out of his chair. “Shooting people to death or threatening them with great bodily harm is not proper tradecraft.” He nodded toward Gloria. “And this woman managed to get her partner shot up with no problem.”
“The bad guys shot him, Howard, and then killed themselves. They’re the same sort who hit us on 9/11, and the same sort who damned near nailed the Panama Canal, and who are trying to come up with a submarine,
a weapon, and a crew to hit us again.” McGarvey glanced at Adkins. “I’ve never been politically correct, and I sure as hell am not about to start now.” He turned back to McCann. “Yes, I’ve killed people in the line of duty. And I plan on doing it again. However many it takes for me to get to Graham and stop him, and however many more it takes for me to get to bin Laden and put a bullet in his brain.”
McCann wanted to say something else, but Adkins held up a hand. “Otto thinks Graham will probably try to get his hands on a Kilo boat.”
“That’s what he told me,” McGarvey said, though he wasn’t as convinced as the Special Projects director was. It seemed too pat, too easy. Maybe they were missing something.
Adkins read some of that from McGarvey’s body language. “But?”
“I don’t know, Dick. But I don’t think we should limit ourselves. Graham knows the business. He might have connections we know nothing about. Just like bin Laden does. Pakistan and Iran both have submarines. So do a lot of other countries.”
“In the meantime Otto has got the NRO doing a complete survey of every single Kilo submarine,” Adkins said. “Louise is in charge of the project, but it’s big. Our best guess is in excess of fifty boats spread out from Russia to India, and from Iran to Romania. A few of them are at sea, some of them submerged. Some are in sub pens and therefore invisible, some are in breaking yards being dismantled for scrap, while most are tied up at their docks in plain sight. But it’s the ones we’re going to miss that worries me.”
“What about bin Laden?” McGarvey asked. “Have you guys turned up any new leads yet?”
“The Pakistanis may be closing in on him in the mountains along the Afghanistan border near Drosh,” McCann said.
“They’ve been saying the same thing since 9/11.”
“It’s a tough place to search,” McCann countered. “They’re not only fighting the terrain, but the local tribal chiefs who don’t much care for Islamabad.”
“We have four augmented teams on the ground with ISI right now, and another four en route,” Adkins said. “If he’s there we’ll definitely find him this time.”
“I hope so, because some of those people are going to get killed up there.”
Adkins lowered his eyes, and fingered the file folder. “Did you really want this job, Mac?” he asked. “Did you ever like it?”
McGarvey knew exactly what Adkins was feeling. He’d been there himself. “No one’s supposed to like it. You’re just supposed to try to make a difference.”
“Bob Talarico’s funeral is at four this afternoon at Arlington,” Adkins said. He looked up. “Will you be there?”
“Of course,” McGarvey said. “I have to go over to the apartment to change clothes and see if Katy’s okay. Our furniture is on its way to Florida.”
A bleak look came across Adkins’s face. “There’s no telling how long this’ll take, you know.”
“Don’t worry,” McGarvey said, getting to his feet. “I’m in for the duration.”
“What’s your next step?”
“Gloria and I are going to help Otto find the Kilo boat, because when it shows up Graham will be aboard.”
“Good luck,” Adkins said.
“We’re going to need it,” McGarvey replied. “If Graham gets any wiggle room at all we’ll probably lose him.”
“I’m going to need Ms. Ibenez to file a Sitrep and sit for a debriefing,” McCann said. “No use asking if you’ll do the same.”
“Later,” McGarvey said.
“Go ahead,” Adkins told Gloria. “I’m assigning you to temporary duty under Mr. McGarvey’s direction.”
“Do you think that’s wise, Mr. Director?” McCann asked.
“No, but that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gloria said, getting up.
“Keep us posted, would you, Mac?” Adkins asked.
“Through Otto,” McGarvey promised, and he and Gloria left the office and took the elevator down to the parking garage.
“Thanks for rescuing me,” she told him.
“This won’t be easy,” McGarvey warned. “Screw up and you could get both of us killed.”
“I’ll try to keep up,” she said. “But why me? I thought you always worked alone.”
McGarvey had to smile. She was bright as well as good-looking, but she still had a lot to learn, and the curve on this one would be steep.
“I usually do, but your boss was getting set to gang up on you. And I’ve never liked bullies.”
She turned away. “I know what you mean.” When she looked back a veil had dropped over her eyes, as if she weren’t focusing. “Look, can I bum a ride to Arlington with you? I don’t think I want to be alone.”
“I have to go home and change first.”
“My apartment’s in Bethesda, on the way to where you’re staying. I have to change too. You could drop me off, and then pick me up on the way to Arlington.” She shrugged. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” McGarvey said, and there was a sudden lifting at the corners of Gloria’s eyes that was mildly puzzling, but he let it go. She was under a lot of stress, and losing a partner was almost as traumatic as losing a spouse.

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