The Cabal (13 page)

McGarvey got out and went into the building, which looked very much like a military interrogation and holding center, and was led down the corridor to a small room furnished only with a metal table and two chairs. The walls were bare concrete, the floor plainly tiled, with a single dim lightbulb set into the ceiling and covered with wire mesh.

He sat down at the table and Mueller sat across from him; his partner leaned against the wall beside the door.

“Shall we begin with why you came to Germany under a false passport, but aboard a CIA aircraft?” Mueller said.

“To talk to Roland Sandberger, as I’ve told you.”

“Why did you bring a pistol?”

“I always travel armed. Have for years.”

“And what about the silencer?” Mueller asked. “Were you planning on killing Herr Sandberger?”

McGarvey shrugged. “Only if I felt that it was necessary.”

“What would have constituted a necessity?”

McGarvey took a moment to answer. “I had a reasonable expectation that either he or his bodyguards would have tried to assassinate me.”

Mueller glanced over his shoulder at his partner then turned back. “I see. And now what are your expectations, Herr McGarvey?”

“That you’ve just run out of questions. That you’ll be reporting this to your superiors in Pullach. That you will not interfere with the movements of Sandberger or his employees. That this incident has been reported to the consul general here in Frankfurt, and most likely
via some old-boy connection to Langley. And that sometime tomorrow someone will show up to fetch me.”

Mueller was not happy.

“Have I left something out?”

“Fuck you,” Mueller said, and he and his partner left the interrogation cell.

“And the horse you rode in on,” McGarvey added.

It was around two the next afternoon when David Whittaker, the deputy director of the CIA, showed up at the Drake Kaserne and McGarvey was fetched from his VIP guest suite.

Since he’d not brought an overnight kit, he’d been supplied with pajamas and toiletries, had been fed a good wiener schnitzel with boiled potatoes and several bottles of dark Lowenbrau for dinner, and an equally good breakfast and lunch. Other than that he’d been left alone, though the morning English edition of the
International Herald-Tribune
had shown up at his door, and he’d had a television to watch, but no telephone.

Whittaker was dressed, as usual, in an old-fashioned three-piece suit, bow tie, and wingtips; his eyes wide behind his wire-rimmed glasses. He was the most moral man McGarvey had ever known, and stern because of it. His was just about the last of the old-school East Coast Presbyterians, the kind who had ruled the roost since the OSS days of World War II.

“You’ve become something of a problem,” he said when McGarvey was brought to the dayroom, and they shook hands.

“I always have been,” McGarvey said. When Mac was the DCI, Whittaker ran the Directorate of Operations, and had done a fine job. Now he had risen to his highest level in the Company; it wasn’t likely that he would ever become the DCI, because he was too low key, not political enough. The U.S. was one of the few countries in which the top spy wasn’t a professional intelligence officer, only an appointed, well-connected amateur, and for a long time morale at the CIA had been low. Especially these days when more than fifty percent of the Agency’s employees had less than five years’ experience.

“The Germans have released you into my custody,” Whittaker said. “As you might guess a lot of strings had to be pulled at the highest levels.”

“Thanks.”

Whittaker gave him a bleak look. “So far this incident has not reached the White House. At least not officially—”

“Which incident is that, Dave?” McGarvey interrupted sharply. “My arrest here or Todd’s assassination?”

“The Bureau has identified Todd’s killers. They were Muslim extremists, members of one of al-Quaida’s splinter cells in Laurel, Maryland.”

“Bullshit,” McGarvey said. He was trying to put a cap on his almost blind anger, and it was taking everything in his power.

Whittaker overrode him. “They were targeting CIA officers. It was the same group who made the hit just outside our main gate a few years back. Todd just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Arrests are expected any time now?”

“No,” Whittaker said. “One of their bomb makers apparently screwed up yesterday and blew up the storefront mosque where they were at afternoon prayers. The rubble is being sifted for clues as to who was directing them.”

“What about Givens?”

“He and his wife and child were killed in a home invasion, a simple robbery.”

McGarvey tried to interrupt, but Whittaker held up a hand. “Two
pairs of fingerprints were found in the apartment and the suspects are already in custody.”

“They admitted it?”

“Not yet.”

“They have alibis?”

Whittaker conceded the point. “It was to be expected. But they’ll eventually come around.”

“Unless they die under mysterious circumstances,” McGarvey said. “Maybe they’ll hang themselves in their cells.” He shook his head. It was worse than he expected. “Christ.”

“Todd’s funeral is the day after tomorrow at Arlington. You’ll be allowed to attend, of course, but before and afterward you’ll be kept in custody.”

“What am I being charged with?”

“Treason,” Whittaker said, solemnly. “And that comes from the Justice Department.”

McGarvey almost laughed.

“I’m told that President Haynes tried to hold you back; he even warned you. More than once. And he liked you. The new president does not.” Whittaker shook his head. “Sorry, Mac, it’s out of my hands.”

“Are we talking about North Korea?” McGarvey asked. Last year a high-ranking Chinese intelligence officer had been assassinated, apparently by North Korean police in Pyongyang. China was threatening to attack, and Kim Jong Il was promising to launch three of his twelve nuclear weapons on Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo. Millions of people would have died.

In desperation a North Korean intelligence officer had been smuggled into the U.S. where he’d come to ask for McGarvey’s help proving that North Korea didn’t order the assassination. And McGarvey had done just that, despite warnings from the White House not to get involved.

Whittaker nodded. “You made a lot of enemies.”

“I stopped a war.”

“That’s up to the diplomats. It was felt at the time, and still is, that had you not interfered, our position in the region would have been strengthened.”

“They were willing to risk a nuclear war for the sake of points?”

“Some of the president’s advisers made a case for it.”

McGarvey nodded after a long moment. “At least I’ll get my day in court.”

“
In camera
with no jury because of the sensitive nature of the material.”

“What about Katy and Liz?”

“They’re safe at the Farm,” Whittaker said.

“Safe from who, Dave,” McGarvey shot back. “Todd’s killers were blown up, and the guys who killed Givens and his family are in jail. Who’s left?”

Whittaker sidestepped the question. It was clear that he was extremely uncomfortable. He was doing his duty; he didn’t have to like it. “Otto and his wife have disappeared; nobody knows where they are.”

Somewhere in or near Washington, McGarvey guessed. With his laptop and a secure access to the web. Otto would want to stick around in case Mac needed help.

“Did you bring someone from housekeeping with you?” McGarvey asked, his anger rising. “Do you want to take me back in cuffs and shackles?”

Whittaker almost stepped back. “No,” he said.

“They’ll never prove treason against me, and you know it. In the meantime we still have a problem that’s somehow connected between Mexico City and Pyongyang.”

“The material on the disk we found in Todd’s car was simply too fantastic to believe. You saw it; you can’t tell me that you put any validity to what Givens was claiming.”

“It wasn’t the disk Givens gave my son-in-law.”

“That would admit a conspiracy—”

“Right,” McGarvey said, but suddenly he was tired, and he didn’t give a damn. All he wanted now was to get back to Washington for
Todd’s funeral, to be with Katy and their daughter, Liz, and with their granddaughter, Audie.

It was obvious that Whittaker felt essentially the same; he, too, was tired of this assignment, which probably seemed to him to be a waste of time.

“If it’s any consolation, the Company will do everything within its power to defend you. I’m behind you, and so is most of the senior staff.”

McGarvey nodded. “What does Carleton think about my chances?” Carleton Patterson was the CIA’s general counsel and had held that position for at least ten years. His was always a reasoned opinion.

Whittaker shook his head. “Not good.”

Left unsaid was that this was a hell of a way to end a distinguished career.

At Andrews Air Force Base the CIA’s Gulfstream with the same crew that had brought McGarvey over to Frankfurt in the first place taxied over to the government hangar and inside and the engines spooled down.

“Good luck, Mr. Director,” Debbie said as McGarvey hesitated for just a moment at the hatch.

He nodded to the pilot and copilot and winked at the girl, then went down where a pair of U.S. marshals was waiting for him, badges hanging out of the lapel pockets of their suit coats. They were large men, alert, their jackets unbuttoned, earpiece comms units and sleeve mics.

For an awkward second or two the four of them, including Whittaker, stood at the bottom of the stairs. It wasn’t every day that a former
director of the CIA was taken into custody, and especially not a man of McGarvey’s experience and reputation, and everyone was taking this seriously.

The larger of the two—square-jawed, with a no-nonsense look about him—stepped forward. “Mr. Director, I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Ansel.” He nodded toward his partner. “Deputy Marshal Mellinger. Sir, at this time we are placing you under arrest on a federal warrant on a charge of treason. Do you want your Miranda rights explained to you?”

“No.”

“If you’ll give us your word that you’ll cooperate, there’ll be no need for handcuffs.”

“You have my word. Where are you taking me?”

“To the D.C. Superior Courthouse annex for booking,” Ansel said. “Afterward you’ll be transported to Langley until your trial.”

“We need to finish your debriefing,” Whittaker explained.

And it was about what McGarvey figured. He would be treated with kid gloves until after the funeral, everyone knew that he wouldn’t make a move until then. “Whatever I tell you will be used against me at my trial. That about it, David?”

“You know the drill, Mac. You’ve been in these sorts of situations before. The more you tell us the easier your life will be.”

“I don’t think you’re going to like what I tell you. And it’s not very likely Dick will pass my version along to the White House. It’s something none of them will want to hear.”

He and Whittaker had spoken only a few words on the long flight back from Germany, amounting to little more than conveying the entire Company’s sympathies about Todd’s death.