Soldier of God (43 page)
Authors: David Hagberg
His pistol in hand, McGarvey held up just inside what had been a pantry beyond the mudroom down a short corridor from the rear entrance. It had taken him less than two minutes to blow the lock on the rear security gate, cross the narrow parking area filled with a half dozen cars, and let himself in.
He’d been prepared to blow the rear door or take down anyone who came to investigate, but the door had been unlocked and no one had shown up.
The storeroom was dark and smelled musty. It was filled with locked file cabinets, and shelves holding hundreds of what appeared to be U.S. government bulletins, documents, and at least five years’ worth of the
Congressional Record
pulp publication.
Congressional Record
pulp publication.
This was a trap. All his senses were superalert. No one had come to investigate the explosion at the back security gate, nor had the loading-entrance door been locked.
Where were the security people?
There were closed-circuit television cameras on the gate, outside the back door, and where the corridor opened into the large kitchen. They knew that he was in the building. Yet no one was rushing to intercept the intruder. It was very much
unlike
any Saudi operation he’d ever seen. Even their think tanks had tighter security.
unlike
any Saudi operation he’d ever seen. Even their think tanks had tighter security.
Khalil wanted him to come here.
This was a large building with more than two dozen rooms. McGarvey had spent some of the morning trying to remember the layout. He’d only ever been inside once, after Yarnell’s death, and he supposed that the Saudis might have changed things around to suit their purposes. But Katy could be anywhere, and even without interference it might take a long time to find her. No matter what Khalil’s purpose was, the Saudis weren’t about to let an American stay here very long.
Khalil was here, though, he was sure of it. He could almost smell the man’s scent. “Here I am,” he murmured. “I’m coming.”
No one was in the industrial kitchen, nor did it look as if it had been used to cook a meal in a long time. There didn’t appear to be any foodstuffs, and the three gas stoves were pristine; there weren’t any pots or pans hanging on the hooks, nor plates or glasses on the shelves.
McGarvey stopped again and cocked an ear to listen. The house was dead quiet. Yet people were here.
A pair of swinging doors led to what had been a dining room large enough to seat thirty people. McGarvey eased one of the doors open and cautiously peered through the crack.
Nobody was there.
The large table was still in place, but it was laid out with glasses, water carafes, and lined tablets and pens at each position. At one end was a complicated-looking, multiline telephone console, and beside it a red phone without push buttons. The room was apparently used for conferences.
But this wasn’t the headquarters of any Middle Eastern trade association. The Bureau had long suspected that Saudi intelligence was operating out of a safe house somewhere in the city that was independent of the embassy. McGarvey had a hunch that he’d just stumbled onto it.
The closed-circuit television camera mounted high on the wall on the other side of the room came to life and tracked McGarvey as he left the kitchen, hurried around the table, and made his way to the tall, ornately paneled sliding doors, which opened, as he remembered, directly onto the main stair hall.
If there was a security detail here, someone would be stationed in the front hall to screen incoming staff and visitors.
McGarvey put his ear to the doors, but there were no sounds. He eased one of them open slightly and looked out.
The large hall was empty, as was the railed second-floor corridor leading from the head of the stairs. Middle Eastern paintings and tapestries and long, curving scimitars decorated the walls. Persian rugs were scattered on the highly polished wooden floor. To the right a heavy wooden door with an oval, etched glass window led to a small vestibule. Directly across from the dining room was a counter about eight feet long. It was the security post. He could see the reflection of a monitor screen in the door glass.
McGarvey looked over his shoulder, but the way behind was clear. He was being led into a trap, but he had no options that he wanted to consider. Katy and Kahlil were here, and he was going to find both of them.
What bothered him most was not that Khalil had snatched Katy, but why he had not taken Liz as well and disappeared into the woodwork with both of them. If he were one of the al-Quaida leaders, he would be hunkering down now until the attack, and probably for the long haul. They had to know that the pressure to find them would be ten times what it had been after 9/11.
But Khalil had allowed Liz to leave, even telling her the timetable for the attacks.
For just a moment McGarvey felt a flash of self-doubt. Perhaps the cable television van transporting Katy had not doubled back here to drop her off before showing up at the Saudi Embassy. It was possible she was over there and not here after all.
He shook his head.
It was Khalil’s ego driving him now. After his failure in Alaska, he was willing to go to any lengths, take any risks to hit back. His actions had nothing to do with al-Quaida or striking a blow against the West; this was personal between them.
They were watching his every move. Khalil wouldn’t want to kill him at first, just disable him, bring him down. For that McGarvey would have to come out into the open where they could have a clear shot at him.
Which was exactly what he was going to give them.
He started to turn around, as if he had decided against continuing, but then he flung the doors open and darted out into the stair hall, sweeping his pistol left to right, covering the corners and then the upstairs landing for any sign of movement.
He was across the hall in a few long strides, where he levered himself over the counter and ducked down behind it.
He was somewhat exposed to anyone on the upstairs landing, but it couldn’t be helped. In any event he planned only staying long enough to find Katy.
Keeping one eye toward the landing, he quickly studied the security board. In addition to a telephone console and what appeared to be the controls for the front and back gates, there were two monitors. One of them showed the corridor between the kitchen and the rear entrance. The other was an outside view, at the front gate.
Beneath each monitor was a double row of switches that controlled which camera was displayed. And lying on the console was a floor plan of the building, the camera positions marked and numbered.
McGarvey glanced at the upstairs landing, then flipped the first switch. The view in that monitor changed from the kitchen corridor, to the rear gate.
Katy could be anywhere in the house, possibly in an upstairs bedroom,
but more likely she was somewhere in the basement, where there were no windows from which she might attempt to escape, or signal for help.
but more likely she was somewhere in the basement, where there were no windows from which she might attempt to escape, or signal for help.
He started with the cameras in the basement rooms. The first showed a view down a dimly lit corridor. The second and third showed empty rooms, both of which could have been used as interrogation cells.
He found Katy in the fourth, a room at the end of the corridor, and his heart leapt into his throat. She was seated on a narrow cot, her knees drawn up to her chest. He couldn’t see her face very clearly, but by the way she held herself he knew that she had been hurt.
For a second a monstrous dark rage welled up inside of him, threatening to block out all sanity. He looked up at the second-floor corridor, everything in his soul wishing for Kahlil to be there. Right now. Just the two of them.
But then he came down.
Katy was alone in the cell, and she didn’t appear to be in any immediate danger. He found the room location on the floor plan. The entrance to the basement was just off the rear corridor the way he had come in.
His eyes went to the monitor showing the front gate. A black Mercedes with heavily smoked windows had pulled up. The rear door opened and a man stepped out.
He looked familiar.
McGarvey checked the upstairs landing again, and when he turned back to the monitor the man from the limo was at the front gate, pressing the buzzer, looking up at the television camera.
Suddenly McGarvey was no longer sure of anything. He was looking into the face of a man who should not have been outside this building. Katy was here, and so should this man have been. Unless everything he believed was wrong.
Or unless something else was going on. Something to do with the al-Quaida attacks in less than two days.
And he was afraid for Liese’s safety because he had sent her on a dangerous wild-goose chase.
“Let me in at once.” The voice of Prince Salman came from the speaker next to the monitor, and McGarvey pressed the button to open the gate.
The large living room of Prince Salman’s chalet was silent and getting dark because storm clouds had blown in from the west, covering the late afternoon sky. Liese sat with her knees together, pistol in hand, across from Princess Sofia and the children.
She laid the gun on her lap, and brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. She hadn’t even gotten through the first hour, and yet it seemed as if she had been here forever. But Kirk would call when he was in the clear, so she would have to hold on until then.
The first few minutes had been the worst, because she’d expected the security guards to try to take her by surprise. She’d been startled by every little sound, by every movement the princess or one of the children made. At one point a phone rang in another room, and for a couple of seconds she had the silly notion that it might be Kirk calling the security staff to let her go.
But no one came to talk to her, and gradually the house settled down until there were no noises. She wished she was almost anywhere else but here. In Kirk’s arms, she daydreamed, even though she knew that would never be possible.
“Sergeant, my daughter has to use the WC,” Princess Sofia said. The youngest girl had been fidgeting for the past five minutes.
Liese shook her head. “It will only be another hour. I’m sorry, but she’ll have to wait.”
The little girl’s eyes were very wide, coal black, her complexion a beautiful olive, her long dark hair in a single braid. She sat nearest to her mother, her tiny hands in her lap. Her tee shirt had Minnie Mouse embroidered on the front, from Euro Disney outside Paris.
“She’s only seven; she doesn’t understand these things,” the princess said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you have children, Sergeant?”
The question was like a sharp dagger in an open, festering wound. Liese’s breath momentarily caught in her throat. She shook her head again. “I’m not married.”
The princess laughed disdainfully. “Of course you’re not. You’re Swiss, and you’re too efficient to understand about having a husband who gives you children.”
At least the man I’m in love with is not an assassin
, Liese wanted to say. But even that wasn’t true.
Was hers a life wasted?
she often asked herself. At this particular moment she was more confused than she’d ever been, and she had no idea what the answer was, or if she knew how to find it.
, Liese wanted to say. But even that wasn’t true.
Was hers a life wasted?
she often asked herself. At this particular moment she was more confused than she’d ever been, and she had no idea what the answer was, or if she knew how to find it.
“Can she go alone?” Liese asked.
“Yes, of course,” Princes Sofia said. “Anyway you’ll still have me and the other three under the barrel of your gun.” She said something in Arabic to the little girl, who hesitated for a moment, then climbed off the couch, and keeping a wary eye on Liese, left the room.
“She is a very pretty child,” Liese said, in an effort to be pleasant.
Princess Sofia flared. “You have no right to say that to me. Keep your stupid, meaningless compliments to yourself. Better yet, put away that ridiculous gun and get out of my house.”
“Your Highness, no one believes that you are involved in any way. And I have not come here to offer you any harm. You have my word as a Swiss officer of the law on that.”
The princess was about to say something, when she looked beyond Liese to the left in the direction her daughter had gone and her eyes widened slightly.
“What—” Liese said, turning. A man stood on the other side of the stairs, some sort of a short-barreled rifle in his hand. Liese thought it might be an M 16, she wasn’t sure. But the laser sight targeted her left eye.
Oh, Kirk
, the fleeting thought crossed her mind. It
wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
, the fleeting thought crossed her mind. It
wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
She managed to turn her head and start to move left, when a tremendous thunderclap burst inside her skull and the lights went out.
Khalil waited in the second-floor operations center directly across the corridor from the stairs, watching a bank of television monitors, an overwhelming fury threatening to blot out his self-control. The stupid, arrogant bastard coming here, now of all times and completely out in the open, was beyond belief.
Most of the twenty-two intelligence staffers were gathered here on al-Kaseem’s orders, to stay out of the way until the situation resolved itself. This was one of the few rooms in the building without a closed-circuit television camera. They sat around the big table, at desks and on chairs pulled from other offices.
From the moment they’d heard the explosion at the rear gate until now, McGarvey had done exactly what Khalil had wanted him to do. He’d made his way to the ground-floor security post, had figured out the monitoring system from the floor plan that had been left for him, and had located his wife in her cell. Next he should have gone to her, which would have been his death sentence.
The downstairs corridor was narrow, ill lit, and very confined. When Darby Yarnell owned the house, that basement corridor had led back to his extensive wine cellar. It would have been a perfect place to corner the man. There was nowhere for him to run and hide, no room in which to maneuver.
Al-Kaseem walked over to where Khalil was standing, just out of earshot from most of the others. “This tears everything,” he said, seething with anger. “Did you know he was coming here?”
“No, of course not,” Khalil said, taking care to keep his voice even. He switched one of the monitors to Kathleen McGarvey’s cell. She sat huddled on the cot, hugging her knees to her chest. Then he switched to the basement corridor.
“What are you going to do, damn you?” al-Kaseem demanded. “Your coming here like this will likely shut down our entire North American operation.
All because you wanted revenge for your botched operation in Alaska.”
All because you wanted revenge for your botched operation in Alaska.”
“What are you talking about?”
“McGarvey, you fool. He didn’t break in here without a plan for getting back out.”
Khalil’s eyes were on the monitors showing the view outside and the view inside the stair hall; he was fascinated despite the problem the man’s presence created. McGarvey was good, but he
was
only one man, and he would now have the handicap not only of his wife, but also of the prince.
was
only one man, and he would now have the handicap not only of his wife, but also of the prince.
Prince Salman had gotten through the gate and was marching up to the front door. McGarvey had come back over the counter, and stood in the shadows beside the stairs, his pistol still in hand.
“I expect I will have to kill all three of them,” Khalil said. “You can make the arrangements to dispose of their bodies. In two days they’ll simply become additional casualties in the attack.”
None of the staff could hear their conversation, but a number of them watched the outside monitor and took furtive glances toward Khalil.
“What about my people?” al-Kaseem whispered, urgently. “They’ve seen you. They’re making the connection.”
Prince Salman had reached the front door and was coming into the building.
Khalil turned his hooded eyes to al-Kaseem. “If you cannot control your officers, I can.”
Al-Kaseem stepped back, struck dumb for the moment. He glanced at the monitor. “This has to end, or we’re all dead,” he said.
The prince had entered the vestibule, and he was opening the inner door.
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