Alex knew George was coming for her. They’d all known it to one degree or another. But she thought she was special, not so much for the sexual relationship she’d had with him, or for the rampages they’d gone on down in the oil fields, but because of her position of influence with the DCI. So she figured she would be the last.
It was very late, and while standing in front of the window in the back bedroom, she began to rethink her options. Perhaps coming back hadn’t been such a good idea, except that after looking at all the photos Otto had sent over—several hundred of them and many more to go—she was convinced George had left the campus.
And she had a pretty fair idea where he’d gone and why. Killing her and Roy wouldn’t be so easy for him now that McGarvey had become involved, and he had to know it. Maybe in the end he was becoming the duck decoy, and they the hunters.
Getting out of here and going to him seemed to her to be the only sensible thing to do now.
As luck would have it, Pete had checked her bag before they brought her back upstairs. She’d taken the radio, of course, and the Glock, but had left her spare underwear and wallet with her Givens’s things. But none of them had thought to search the room for her cell phone, universal car key, or the papers she’d used to rent the car at the airport.
McGarvey showed up at the open door. “Don’t you guys ever sleep?” he asked.
The house had settled down a couple of hours ago after he’d declared it a night. There’d be more videos and photos to see in the morning, but Blankenship had been given her list of the campus’s security defects, and his people were busy attending to them. Or at least starting.
“Only when it’s safe.”
“None of us understand why you don’t just tell us what George showed you up in the hills.”
“I suppose you don’t,” Alex said, turning to face him. Her room was dark, only the light from the hall spilling in. Schermerhorn’s door was closed. “Is Roy asleep?”
“He’s looking at some of the photographs again. Says he might have found a couple of possibilities.”
“Maybe I’ll help him.”
McGarvey looked at her for a long time. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day, and you guys need to be ready for it in case George does show up.”
“He could come tonight.”
“Daylight attacks so far.”
“What about security?”
“One of Blankenship’s guys is outside.”
“What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”
“Maybe you do,” McGarvey said. “Get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” Alex said.
McGarvey went back downstairs. She could hear his footfalls, and then low voices, his and Pete’s. She wondered if they were sleeping together.
She retrieved her universal key and the Alice Walker IDs, credit card, and cash, and stuffed them into her pockets. Slipping on the maintenance man’s coveralls and ball cap, she went across the hall and tapped lightly on Schermerhorn’s door, keeping her eye on the head of the stairs in case McGarvey came back.
Schermerhorn didn’t answer, so she went in.
At first she thought he was gone. The computer was on, a man’s face on the screen. But then she realized he was standing in the deeper shadows in the corner.
“I’m getting out of here, but I need you to buy me a little time,” she told him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded. He was bright enough to keep his voice barely above a whisper.
“They’re bound to check in the next hour or so. And when they find I’m not in my room, they’ll come here. Stuff some pillows under the covers next to you and tell them we’re sleeping together.”
“McGarvey won’t buy it.”
“He might if you’re loud enough.”
“Christ, how the fuck are you going to get out of here? And where are you going?”
“The how has always been my business, and I think you know the where. But just keep looking for George’s picture and keep your mouth shut. They’re not going to shoot you for helping me.”
“You’re crazy, do you know that?”
“Just like all of us were for keeping our mouths shut when we had the chance to blow the whistle.”
“Would have been our death warrants.”
“Still could be.”
“Just don’t kill any of the good guys,” Schermerhorn said.
“Might already be too late for that, Roy. Just watch your back, okay?”
She slipped out of his room and went to the end of the hall, where she crept down the narrow servants’ stairs that led to the kitchen pantry and the room with the dish cabinets and sinks for washing up.
Early in their careers, NOCs were trained to work on the other guy’s expectations. Do what they thought you would do, only in a different fashion. McGarvey and the minders expected her to stay and help them find George. And that was exactly what she was going to do—help them find George. Only in the way they hadn’t thought of.
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.”