FORTY-SIX

It was early evening, Washington time, and Maggie Jones, their flight attendant, came back and touched McGarvey on the shoulder. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t asleep.

He looked up. “Yes?”

Pete was curled up in one of the wide leather seats near the back of the cabin, wrapped in a blanket, a pillow under her head.

“There is a call for you. The captain says you may use the aircraft’s phone system; it’s in your console.”

“Thanks.”

“May I get you something, Mr. Director?”

“How far are we from landing?”

“One hour.”

“You might wake Ms. Boylan and see if you can come up with something to eat—I suppose breakfast would be best.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was Otto on the phone, and as soon as McGarvey picked up, he switched on his backscatter encryption program.

“Schermerhorn was killed less than two hours ago. I just got off the phone with Blankenship. The entire campus is in a serious uproar this time. Somehow the White House finally got wind of what’s been happening, and the president has sent for Walt.”

“Tell me,” McGarvey said.

Pete had been awakened by the tone of McGarvey’s voice. She came forward and sat down across from him.

McGarvey put the call on speakerphone.

Otto relayed everything Blankenship had told him, including the business with the three flash bang grenades hidden in the woods, either timed to go off at three-minute intervals or remotely detonated.

“Could be the bastard set the grenades and got into the house hours ago—maybe right after Alex left and you and Pete went after her.”

“She didn’t double back, so it wasn’t her,” McGarvey said.

“George?” Pete suggested. “Could be she’s led us on a wild goose chase so George would have an open field.”

“Blankenship said he had four of his guys on the outside and another two in the house,” Otto said. “Makes him damned good.”

“And when the first grenade went off, no one thought to go upstairs to check on Schermerhorn,” McGarvey said.

“They were focused outside,” Otto said. “And after he made the kill—there was blood everywhere—he apparently took a shower and changed clothes.”

“Find out who passed through the gate after that time; maybe something will pop out.”

“Already did it. Nada. The bastard could still be on campus.”

McGarvey glanced at Pete. She shrugged.

“She could have run to save her own life because she knew George would be coming after her and Schermerhorn,” he said. “But why specifically Paris?”

“Good city to get lost in,” Otto said. “Obviously, she wanted to draw you out. Maybe she knew your background in France and counted on the DGSE to slow you down.”

“But not to meet George, unless she knew he was going to kill Schermerhorn and she was going to Paris to wait for him to join her. Drawing me and Pete off helped.”

“Or unless it was someone else,” Otto said. “Someone we don’t know about. Another Alpha Seven member. Someone connected with the mission. Someone who is desperate enough to make sure that whatever was buried in Iraq stays hidden.”

“Back where we started from,” Pete said.

“We still have Alex,” McGarvey said. “And if there is a third person, we also have George.”

“A Frenchman?”

“At this point I’m betting Mossad.”

“It would fit with what I’m thinking,” Otto said. “But at this point, only Alex and George know what’s buried out there and where it’s buried.”

“Schermerhorn knew,” Pete said.

“So did everyone else on the team. It’s what got them killed. Someone wants to keep it a secret at all costs.”

“Who’s directing it?” Pete asked. “Who’s pulling the strings? Because if you guys are suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, it has to be someone who was either in the White House during that time period, or someone very high in the Pentagon.”

“Colin Powell,” McGarvey said.

Pete was surprised. “I’m not going to buy anything like that,” she said.

“Not him, but there had to have been people on his staff when he was at the UN who liaised with the White House and the Pentagon. Maybe someone on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or on the security council.”

“You’re talking about a fall guy in case something went wrong,” Pete said. “If that’s the case, he or she has to be pretty nervous by now.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with,” Otto said. “In the meantime, what are you going to tell the DGSE if they show up? And I’m betting they will.”

“Depends on who they send,” McGarvey said.

“But not the truth.”

“Some of it, but not all.”

*   *   *

Charles de Gaulle ground control directed them to a hangar well away from the commercial gates, near an Air France maintenance facility not occupied.

As soon as they were parked and the jet’s engines spooled down, Maggie opened the hatch and lowered the stairs. She stepped aside and ducked into the cockpit as an older man with thick gray hair came aboard.

McGarvey recognized him at once. “Captain Bete,” he said, rising.

“Actually, its colonel now, and no one calls me bête noire any longer.” Bete was French for a “beast” or an “animal,” and a bête noire was a bugbear. Twenty years ago he’d resented the play on his name.

McGarvey introduced him to Pete, and they shook hands and sat down across from each other.

“I will come directly to the point, Monsieur le Directeur. Why have you come back to France? Your presence is making a number of people nervous, as you can well imagine.”

“Your service might be aware of a disturbance at the CIA.”

“There have been rumors.”

“We have a serial killer on the campus who has already murdered four people at Langley and another two in Athens. We’ve followed a woman we think may know something about it.”

Colonel Bete sat back in his seat. “You are a dangerous man, and violence seems to find you. But you have never been a liar. Is yours an official service-to-service request for assistance?”

“No.”

“I thought not,” Bete said. “Who is this woman?”

“Her actual name is Alex Unroth, though she’s traveling under the name Lois Wheeler, coming in on an Air France flight from Dulles in an hour or so.”

“Who is she, exactly? Dangerous?”

“Extremely. She was an NOC, and very good at killing.”

“Do you want us to arrest her?”

“No. She’s come here to meet someone. I want to know who it is. And when the meeting actually takes place, I’ll make the decision either to take her into custody or continue to follow her.”

“An action she will resist.”

“Yes.”

“With force.”

“Yes,” McGarvey said.