Retribution (9781429922593) (13 page)

“Actually it was the other way around. She was a farm girl, no sisters, only four older brothers who she roughhoused with from the time she could walk. At least that's how she explained it to me.”

“The SPs were called to your quarters more than once.”

“Believe me, McGarvey, I could have killed her, so I was very careful not to let her take things too far. In the end in Washington she'd gotten so aggressive that one night I had to let her break my arm. The next day I moved over to the BOQ on Andrews and sent her home. She filed for a divorce from Germany.”

“Was watching porn her idea too?”

“It was mine, something we did together. And that's as far as I'll take that issue. But if you think that Pam was somehow behind the murders of those two DEVGRU operators and their families, you're barking up the wrong tree.”

“You say she was aggressive. Was she crazy?”

“Clinically nuts?” Cole asked. He shook his head. “I'm no shrink, but at the end she was having some pretty big mood swings. I put it down to her being pissed off living in the States. She never made friends, not one, never even tried.”

“Would you know if she might have played around, maybe had an affair?”

“Maybe, but I don't think so. Wasn't her style.”

“While you were married, did she ever go home, visit old friends or family?”

“Twice.”

“Has she still got people in Bad Aibling?”

“Her parents and one of her brothers are dead. The other three are married, living in Munich I think, but I'm not sure,” Cole said. He sat forward. “I'm more motivated than you to figure out who killed two of our people, but my hands are tied. If they'd been on active duty it would have been different.”

“Were you given direct orders not to try to find out what happened?”

“No,” Cole said, and McGarvey thought he was lying.

“Of the other twenty-two operators, only three are still on active duty, and all of them are stationed here.”

“What twenty-two?”

“The others on the Neptune Spear raid. I think that all of them have been targeted by a group led by your ex-wife and financed by the government of Pakistan.”

“What brought you to that conclusion?”

“The guy and his wife in Florida were murdered by a German, who was being followed by a BND officer. They got into a shootout, and the BND officer killed the assassin. When I went to Germany to talk to the BND, someone tried to take me down. I think that it was a Pakistani who arranged it.”

“What's the connection with Pam?”

“The BND believes she's the head of an organization that hires out as assassins.”

“Bullshit,” Cole said, getting to his feet. “Get the hell out of here.”

“Would you know how to reach her if need be? A phone number, an e-mail address, something like that?”

“With all due respect, Mr. Director, you don't work for the CIA any longer, so whatever the hell you're doing here has no official sanction.”

McGarvey got up. At the door he turned back. “It'd be too bad if I found out that you were still in contact with your ex-wife.”

“If that's a threat, I would suggest that you tread with care. I've recorded this conversation.”

Otto had warned about that as well. He had given McGarvey a device that looked like an ordinary cell phone, but one that broadcast the equivalent of a white noise signal, which made recordings impossible. “Keep him guessing after you leave and he tries to play it back,” Otto had said.

“We'll keep in touch,” McGarvey said.

“I don't think so.”

“Count on it.”

 

TWENTY-ONE

Pete had come over to the Renckes' safe house in McLean, and after they'd finished lamb chops, a very good potato galette, and a nice salad that Otto had learned to make from online recipes, she asked McGarvey what was bothering him. “You've been quiet ever since you got here. Something troubling you?”

“Cole's reaction wasn't what I thought it would be,” Mac said. “He's absolutely sure that his ex-wife couldn't be behind the killings.”

“Maybe he's a liar.”

“Not that good.”

“How'd he react when you told him that you knew he was doing porn on the web?” Otto asked.

“He didn't deny it.”

“The question is, did he agree to either call the other nineteen ex-SEALS back to base for their own protection or at least convince the ONI to get involved?” Louise asked.

“They're no longer on active duty. Not his problem.”

“None of them did their full twenty,” Otto said. “As far as the navy is concerned they're on their own. Every one of them on the raid was over thirty at the time—all of them with beaucoup experience. The trouble is that just about every one of them have screwed-up backs, blown-out knees, and serious rotator cuff problems because of crap they had to do not only in the field but during training. A lot of them are suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress syndrome, their hearing is shot from the constant firing of weapons and use of explosives, and their eyesight is crap because of hours looking though night vision oculars. But they can't use the navy's medical service because they weren't wounded or disabled, and they can't get any decent health-care insurance that they can afford because of their disabilities.”

“What about VA hospitals”

“From what I've learned, those guys are way too proud to stand in line.”

“Hell of a way to treat our war heroes,” Louise said. “Can't we get the bureau or at least the local cops involved?”

“They're investigating the two attacks, but no crimes have been committed against the others, nor have the guys gotten any threatening letters or e-mails or phone calls,” Otto said. “Their hands are tied.”

McGarvey had thought about exactly that problem on the drive up from Virginia Beach—that and the likelihood that the United States and Germany had backed away from making any waves that might implicate the government of Pakistan in the killings.

“Has Marty or Walt Page made any noise to make me back off?” he asked.

“Not a word,” Otto said. “I think they
want
you to get involved. Have from the start. Means they're willing to stand aside, but they won't offer you any help. Neither will the bureau.”

“That's about what I figured.”

Pete was staring at him. “There's something else,” she said.

“I picked up a tail just north of Williamsburg. A white Lexus SUV, so far as I could tell, only the driver. He was good, matching my speeds, keeping at least three cars behind me. I got off the interstate at Richmond and drove around town. Three times I pulled into parking lots in tough neighborhoods and got out of my car. Come get me. But each time the guy in the Lexus didn't take the bait. And each time when I got back on the highway he was there. So I just lost the bastard.”

“How?” Pete asked.

When he was at his apartment in Georgetown, McGarvey drove a modified Porsche Cayenne SUV; the computer code that limited a car's top speed in the United States to 130 miles per hour had been removed. The machine could do in excess of 180 on its Y-rated racing tires.

“He couldn't keep up.”

Pete grinned. “You'll have to take me for a ride one of these days.”

“Any idea who it was?” Otto asked.

“Picking up a tail coming out of the meeting with Cole was no coincidence, or at least I don't think it was. It's something I'm going to find out tonight.”

“How?”

“I'm going to drive back to Georgetown and wait for him to show up.”

“I'll come with you,” Pete said.

“I want you to hold down the fort here for at least tonight. As soon as I get this issue settled I'm going down to Norfolk to be near where most of the nineteen guys are living. In the meantime Otto is going to give all of them the heads-up. If something starts to go down I want them be on their toes, and if all else fails push the panic button.”

“You're not keeping me out of that show,” Pete said. “Not a chance in hell.”

“I'd hoped you say that,” McGarvey said.

“Watch yourselves tonight,” Louise told them.

*   *   *

McGarvey headed straight across to the CIA campus before he picked up the GWM Parkway. Within a couple of miles the white Lexus was in his rearview mirror; he took his time, finally crossing the river into Georgetown on the Key Bridge.

His apartment was on the third floor of a brownstone that overlooked Rock Creek Park. He parked his Porsche in the first available spot on N Street Northwest, about a block out, and walked the rest of the way.

Traffic was light, mostly concentrated several blocks south on M Street, where all the bars and restaurants and shops that drew the tourists and locals were located. At Twenty-seventh Street, instead of turning left to his apartment, he waited for a delivery van to pass, then crossed the street to the park.

A dark, vaguely familiar figure came around the corner, hesitated for a few moments, and then came across.

McGarvey lingered in plain sight long enough for the man to spot him; then he turned and hurried down to the parkway, where he lost himself in the deeper trees near the river's edge. No joggers or strollers were out here at this hour, which was the main reason Mac had led his quarry to the park. If there was to be a shootout he wanted the action to be isolated so that no innocent bystander would be involved.

But he did not want to kill whoever it was who'd followed him from Virginia Beach unless it was absolutely necessary. He needed some answers, not another body.

For a full two minutes the night was nearly silent. The man had disappeared.

Edging around the trunk of a tree, Mac took out his pistol and cocked his ear to listen for something, anything, some sound that did not belong here. Something other than the gentle burbling of the slow-moving creek and the distant traffic. A twig breaking, the rustle of a branch as someone passed, footfalls on gravel.

He caught a slight noise off to the left, upstream, and moved five yards to the trunk of another tree where he held up. Someone was ahead, perhaps twenty yards away, but closer to the creek.

Mac angled back toward the road to a spot he figured was just above where he'd heard the last noise. He stood absolutely still. After several moments he picked out the outline of a man in dark clothing, one hand on the trunk of a tree. The man was facing downstream, less than fifteen feet away. He had something in his free hand that was likely a pistol.

Raising his own gun, Mac stepped out from behind the tree. “If you are very careful you just might survive this night,” he said.

“McGarvey?” the man said, his voice soft, his accent German.

Mac knew the voice. “Let your gun fall to the ground.”

“I'm not armed,” the man said. He raised his right hand and switched on a flashlight, the red beam pointed downstream.

“Captain Weisse?” McGarvey asked.

Wolf turned. “I came to warn you that Pam Schlueter has disappeared and her next target is almost certainly you.”

McGarvey holstered his pistol at the small of his back and walked down to Wolf. “Why like this? Why not a phone call or an e-mail? Why come here and follow me?”

“I've been suspended and all my wireless accounts are being monitored. I had a hell of a time getting out of Germany and then here.”

“Same question: why?”

“Because we both know that Pakistan's government, or at least the ISI, wants to take out all the SEAL Team Six guys who hit bin Laden. But I've been ordered to cease and desist. So here I am.”

McGarvey smiled. “You'll probably end up in jail.”

“We'll see,” Wolf shrugged. “In the meantime I've come to help. What's our next move?”

 

TWENTY-TWO

Flying in over Washington and banking sharply to come in for a landing at Washington's Reagan National Airport just after noon, was déjà vu for Pam Schlueter; her skin prickled and the hair at the nape of her neck stood on end.

Getting off the plane and passing through customs under a Canadian passport in the name of Monica DeLand she had to control her blinding anger, everything she'd gone through here coming back to her in vivid Technicolor.

As an officer's wife ten years ago she should have been flown military to Andrews, but instead she'd been stuffed into the economy section of a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to National and had to catch a cab to their temporary apartment on base. There'd been a hassle at the main gate before she was allowed through, and when she arrived at the married officer's quarters she'd been appalled at how filthy the place was.

Dick had not come home until nearly midnight, drunk; he'd flopped on the couch and gone to sleep even before she could come out of the bedroom to say hi. In the morning he was up and gone before she woke up and it wasn't until the weekend when he was free that they went apartment hunting together.

But he'd had time Friday night for his little S & M games that they'd begun in Munich, and that whole week and weekend had been the beginning of the end for them, though she didn't know it at the time.

The easier solution would have been to assassinate him and be done with it. But even that small an operation took planning, and especially money, of which she had very little. Until she'd contacted the ISI she'd worked as an editor for a number neo-fascist underground newspapers. Most of them spread the anti-Turk and anti-Muslim message, but one called for the wall to be put back up. West Germany could once again be
the
Germany, while the sponges and leeches in the East could form their own government and go back to doing what they did best: live off the dole.

Working around people like that did little to help her bank account but a lot to fuel her anger. She'd become a sharply honed woman of devious intent. She got to know the disaffected Germans. The ones with permanent grudges. The ones filled with hatred like hers.