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.
He slammed the Porsche in reverse and headed back to the park entrance, worried he’d read her wrong and she was capable of killing an agency security officer in cold blood. She could leave his body somewhere in the park, and by the time it was discovered in the morning, she would be long gone.
As he pulled into the park, he saw that the entry road paralleled the highway for a little ways before it passed the upriver exit road. He switched off his headlights and slowed down. In the distance a narrow blacktopped road turned right, while the main entry road continued to parallel the Parkway before crossing over to connect with the downriver-bound highway.
The park’s gate would be closed, but most of the park was heavily wooded, with hundreds of places to pull off and hide a body.
McGarvey took the road right into the park, slowing to a crawl. Less than one hundred yards in, he caught a glimpse of the Caddy ahead, and he got off the road. He jumped out of his car and ran through the woods, pistol in hand.
It was more than possible he had underestimated the woman and would be in time to see her gun down the security officer.
The road here was very narrow, trees close in, making it next to impossible for her to turn around. When McGarvey got to where the Caddy was stopped, the security officer was standing next to the car, his hands above his head, Alex ten feet away from him. McGarvey couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the officer shook his head, lowered his hands, and walked away down the road, deeper into the park toward the river.
Alex watched him until he was just about out of sight, and then she stuffed the pistol she’d been holding into the pocket of her coveralls.
McGarvey turned and raced as fast as he could to where he’d parked his Porsche, managed to get it turned around, and headed back to the access road, where he got lucky with a spot to pull through some brush and into a stand of trees.
Less than a minute later, Alex at the wheel, the Escalade passed and sped off to the upriver access to the Parkway, toward I-495, where she would either turn north up to I-270 into the Maryland countryside of small quaint towns, or south on I-495 and on to Dulles.
He got his car back up on the highway, headlights still out, and stayed well behind until he merged with the Parkway and spotted her taillights three-quarters of a mile away.
The highway crested a hill, and he lost her for a half a minute. He switched on his headlights and paced her, turning with her south onto I-495, where, within a couple of miles, traffic started to pick up and tailing her became much easier.
He called Otto. “She’s heading south on four ninety-five. Call Blankenship and tell him his officer is in Turkey Run Park, unharmed.”
“If she’s going to Dulles, we’ll have to get a team out there to look for her. I don’t know what ID she’d be traveling under.”
“How soon will you have a satellite in position?”
“Seven minutes. Do you want me to alert Dulles security?”
“If she knows we’re on her tail, she’ll break off and go deep. I want to know where she’s heading.”