Blood Pact (McGarvey) (38 page)

“It comes back to why should I help you?”

“Because you are an honorable man—“

McGarvey cut him off. “Bullshit. I want the real reason.”

“You have found out that the Society made a substantial payment to your government through a bank in Richmond, Virginia, before the start of your country’s Civil War. Without its help for the Union it is possible that the war could have been lost, or at the very least have dragged on for years shattering an already precarious economy. We sent the money to help your democracy. As we have at other times of crises.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why? Because you no longer believe in altruism? Even though your stated motive in pursuing this matter was to avenge the needless deaths of those two students? Or because Monsieur Rencke could find the records of no other payments? Though I assure you more were made: During the First World War, and the second, and Korea—though not Vietnam because we believed you were wrong. You have not been able to find the traces because we have a banking system in place that screens such transfers.”

McGarvey wasn’t accepting any of it, and he said so, and yet he could detect no artifice in the Frenchman’s voice, only an apparent sincerity.

“You have become a cynic, and rightly so considering your past. But think about America’s role in the world—especially in the Western hemisphere in the last two centuries. People don’t immigrate to China, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran or Iraq. Poor Mexicans don’t usually head south to Guatemala, Belize, or Honduras—they cross the Rio Grande by the tens of thousands to find a better life for their children who when they are born in the United States automatically become citizens.”

“I know the history of my country,” McGarvey shot back, when two men in plainclothes got out of a dark car and crossed the sidewalk directly toward him. He broke the connection, enabled the password protection, and laid the phone on the table, his hands in plain sight.

“Señor McGarvey,” the taller of the two said politely. He held up his credentials wallet, while the other shorter, squatter man remained a step behind and to the left. “I am Captain Eduardo de la Rosa, of the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia
.
You are under arrest, charged with murder.”

SEVENTY

María went with Dr. Vergilio across the broad corridor through the stacks to a window on the opposite side of the building that looked across the street at the Cathedral, colored lights already illuminating its façade and bell tower. At just a few minutes before eight the crowds had grown dramatically, but so far it didn’t look as if any confrontations with the police had begun. A lot of people carried signs, and even up here they could hear some of the chanting.

Vergilio stepped directly in front of the window to get a better look, and María pulled her back.

“Bad idea,” María said. “If this guy wants to take you out you don’t have to make it easy for him.”

“Our meeting isn’t until nine.”

“He’s here already, believe me.”

Vergilio gave her a sharp look. “He’s not going to do anything to me as long as he thinks I have the cipher key to trade with him.”

“But you do, and so long as you hold out he’ll bargain.”

“But I don’t have it. I’ve been telling you and McGarvey and anyone who wants to listen that I simply do not have the key. Never did.”

“Then what use would the diary be to you?”

“Not much beyond the historical record. The government will probably be interested, though. And they’ll make copies and bring in the encryption experts, all in secret of course.” She shook her head and looked María in the eye. “When I was younger I would have fought for the rights to make an expedition to New Mexico, fought my government, the U.S. government, anyone I could. But now?”

“A lot of people have given their lives for this.”

“A lot of people’s lives were
taken
.”

They’d left the office doors open, and they heard the distant jangle of a ringing telephone. Dr. Vergilio turned away from the window and walked back across the corridor, María right behind her.

The Archives was deserted now, only she and the doctor, plus three security people downstairs were in the building at this hour. But the three were old men, only here to keep the tourists in line. The real security tonight was the police presence outside, and mission one for them, so far as she understood it, was to protect the Archives, the Cathedral, and the Alcazar from harm by the mob.

She reached the office right behind Vergilio as the doctor picked up the telephone.

“Sí?”

María tried to gauge Vergilio’s reaction, but the doctor only seemed a little perplexed.

“I don’t know a priest named Ringers. If he wants to see me tell him to come back in the morning. We’re closed now. And when he’s gone make sure that all the doors are locked.”

María held up a hand.

“Just a minute,” Dr. Vergilio said, and she held her hand over the telephone’s mouthpiece.

“Can you bring up an image on the security cameras downstairs?” María asked.

Dr. Vergilio brought up the program on her desktop computer, and Otto Rencke stood at the security desk looking up in to the lens.

María wasn’t much surprised. “Send him up,” she said.

Dr.Vergilio relayed the order and hung up. “Do you know him?”

“He’s a friend of McGarvey’s.”

“I’ll send him away,” Dr. Vergilio said, and she reached for the phone.

“No. I have a better idea.”

Otto showed up at the door a minute later. “We thought you might still be here,” he said. He came in, and looked around. “Neat place.”

“Is Mac with you?” María asked.

“He’s watching the Cathedral, I suspect waiting for the guy you know as Paul Harris to show up.”

“Won’t be there for another hour,” Vergilio blurted.

“That’s what he told you, but it’s a good bet he’s already there, or somewhere very close.”

“So it’s going to be a shoot-out between them?” María asked.

“If it comes to it,” Otto said, and he blinked. “Because sure as hell if you go over there and try to get the jump on him with whatever weapon your embassy supplied you with you’ll get yourself and Dr. Vergilio killed.”

“You don’t give me much credit.”

“And you’re not giving this guy his due. He’s a professional gun, probably working for the Saudis. He’s already killed the vice mayor of Paris and his mistress, along with the wife and teenage son of the Voltaire who came to see Mac in Florida. The one the CNI took out.”

“But he has the diary,” Dr. Vergilio said. She was angry.

“He won’t give it to you,” Otto said. “Think about it. This guy was the one who killed your building manager. Broke her neck, according to the cops. If you bring him the cipher key, he’ll kill you.”

“
Puta,
I don’t have it!”

Otto grinned. “I’m not a whore, or even a son of a whore. If he believes you, he’ll kill you, and then break in over here and steal your laptop. The one he was looking for at your apartment.”

Vergilio instinctively glanced at the computer where she’d laid it atop a pile of papers on the credenza behind her desk.

“Yes, that one,” Otto said.

“What do you suggest?” María asked.

“Mac wants both of you to get out of here right now.”

“To the Cathedral?”

“Anywhere but there. Go down to the train station, or even a police precinct station, but just get the hell away from here. And take your laptop with you.”

“It contains no cipher key!” Vergilio shouted. “And I’m not leaving the Archives, not with that mob outside, except to go across the street.”

“They’re not here to harm this place or the Cathedral or the Alcazar. Anyway, there are enough cops out there to make sure nothing happens tonight.”

“I want the diary.”

“He won’t give it to you, and you’ll end up dead,” Otto said. “And so will you,” he told María.

He turned away and took an iPhone from his pocket.

María pulled the Glock from the waistband of her jeans, and pointed it at him. “I won’t allow you to call Mac.”

“Shoot me and the guards downstairs will hear it.”

“If need be I’ll shoot them as well.”

Dr. Vergilio’s eyes widened in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“You and I are going to meet with Señor Harris. You’re going to give him your laptop, after we load a flash drive with the cipher key, just in case. But when he produces the diary I will kill him and we’ll come back here and make copies.”

“If she gets her hands on the diary, she’ll kill you too,” Otto said.

Dr. Vergilio stepped back. “You’re both so stupid. I’ll tell you for the last time, I do not have the cipher key.”

“Close the office doors,” María said.

Vergilio was confused.

“Now,” María said.

“Don’t you understand what’s going on?” Otto asked.

But Vergilio went past him and closed the outer door into the corridor and then came back and closed the inner door to her office.

“Toss the phone on the floor,” María told Otto.

Otto did it.

“Are you armed?”

“You know Mac well enough to know that he doesn’t much trust me with guns.”

“Call the guards,” María told Vergilio. “Tell them that you spoke to the police, who want all of us to leave once they’ve locked up.”

Dr. Vergilio did so, and even though she was the curator it took her a minute to convince the man she was talking to to do as he was told. She hung up. “They’re going,” she said.

María switched aim and fired one shot into the woman’s forehead, sending her sprawling backward against her desk.

SEVENTY-ONE

Al-Rashid had worked his way down the street between the Cathedral and the Archives in the middle of the mob, which he estimated to have grown to at least ten thousand people or more in the last half hour. He’d picked up a protest sign someone had dropped, and no one, including the police, paid him any attention—his was just one face in a sea of faces. Even the haversack he carried elicited no attention.

About twenty minutes earlier two men had gotten out of a car in front of a sidewalk café and moments later they led a man in handcuffs from the restaurant, stuffed him in the backseat, and drove off.

He’d been too far away to make out who it was they had arrested, and he decided that in any case it wouldn’t matter. Whoever it was, he was out of circulation for now.

The problem of getting into the Archives was twofold. The first were the security guards inside, and a few minutes after eight three of them came out of one of the side doors, checked the lock, and walked away.

The second issue was the police, but none of them seemed to be paying any attention to the building, only to the mob. But a civilian carrying a sign and taking the time to pick the lock would stand out.

He turned and started after the three guards, who almost immediately split up and walked in three different directions.

The largest of the three, the one who’d locked up, headed left directly past the Cathedral and made his way through the mob, bucking the flow until he reached the nearby Avenida de la Constitución, where he passed through the police barricades and headed straight across toward the river.

Al-Rashid discarded his sign, and keeping his head down, crossed the police line and hurried across the broad avenue until he caught up with the guard a half a block later just at the entrance to a very narrow side street that was already in deeper shadows. Traffic here was almost nonexistent and at the moment no pedestrians were about, and all the shops were shuttered because of the demonstration.

“Señor,” he said softly.

The older man turned around. His face was broad, his hair beneath his cap white. He wore dark trousers and a coat with the Archives insignia on its breast.
“Sí?”

“I have a pistol beneath my jacket and if you call for help I will kill you.”

The old man stepped back in alarm. “Is this a holdup? I have nothing of any value.”

“We’ll see. Down the alley, please, and you will come to no harm. I promise you.”

The Archives’ guard backed up a step, and looked around, but no one was here.

“Please,” al-Rashid said politely.

Resigned, the old man shuffled around the corner and into the alley. About fifty feet in, he stopped and turned, his eyes widening when he spotted the silenced pistol in al-Rashid’s hand. “What do you want?”

“Take off your jacket.”

For several beats the guard was confused, but then he realized something and he raised a hand.

“Your jacket or I will kill you. Be quick about it.”

The guard reluctantly took his jacket off and held it out.

Al-Rashid took it then shot him in the heart. The man fell back, dead before he reached the cobblestones.

Stuffing the pistol in his belt, he dragged the body ten feet farther down the alley and manhandled it behind several trash cans before any blood could leak onto the cobbles. Because of the effects of the suppressor the bullet had penetrated the heart but had not exited out the back.

He found a ring of keys in a trousers pocket, but not much else. No weapon, nor had he expected one.

A car passed on the street they’d come down, but no one was around, no alarms had been raised. Al-Rashid put the old man’s jacket on, walked to the opposite end of the alley, and headed back toward the far side of the Alcazar by a completely different route.

The crowd had not turned ugly yet; no one had started throwing Molotov cocktails like they had last night. The police stood their ground, but did not offer any sort of provocation.

Al-Rashid reached the plaza where earlier kids had been playing guitars and singing, but it was mostly empty, only stragglers arriving to join the mob. In five minutes he was back at the Archives, where he went up to the side door and waved at the nearest cops, who merely glanced over but then ignored him.

The door lock was old, and of the keys on the guard’s ring the largest one was the most obvious, and he was inside the building, in ten seconds, immediately locking up.