Gambit, David Hagberg [most life changing books .TXT] 📗

you start poking around, you’re bound to find a hornet’s nest.”

“I’m counting on it,” McGarvey said.

“I want to come in with you.”

“Go back to McLean. If they can’t get to me directly, they might try an end run. Otto and Mary are vulnerable.”

Pete’s mouth tightened, and she looked away for a moment. “I didn’t do such a hot job last time.”

She had been with Otto’s wife, Louise, at an interview in Laurel, Maryland, when a shooter had killed Lou, who’d been standing less than ten feet from Pete.

McGarvey reached over for her hand. “You weren’t expecting it.”

“I should have been.”

Gary Starrs, the brother-in-law of one of the SEALs who had taken out Osama bin Laden in May 2011, was chief of night security at the hospital, and he was waiting at the rear door as the gate buzzed open and McGarvey walked around from the front.

Starrs was an unremarkable man in all respects, standing just under six feet with a medium build, except for his eyes, which held the thousand-yard stare of a man who has seen close-quarters battles.

The green Bimmer drove off, and Starrs glanced over at the monitors at Security Post One, which showed a wide-angle view of the entire perimeter three hundred meters out. Nothing was showing. And nothing was eating at his gut, an instinct he had honed in four separate deployments to Afghanistan.

But when Mr. McGarvey asked for a favor, it was time to jump to, feelings or not.

Helen Berliner, the chief of nurses, came around the corner. “Has Mac called to say when he’s going to be here?”

Starrs turned. “He’s coming up the driveway.”

Berliner had volunteered to pull a double shift when she’d been told that Mac was camping out here at least tonight for a possible confrontation with a bad guy or guys. In fact, the entire staff wanted to be on board, and she had to turn away most of them.

“Life goes on, and I’ll need staffers who aren’t asleep on their feet around the clock,” she’d told her people.

This night, it was just Berliner and one other nurse, plus Gary and two others on the security team.

Mac had insisted on a minimal staff on the real chance that someone had eyes on the place. And he’d even asked that Dr. Franklin go home, leaving only Phil Geyer, the usual on-duty physician.

“Are your people set?”

“Yes, ma’am. Front and rear third floor.”

“They’re going to get damned tired staring out the windows without a break.”

“They’re just covering the two shooting positions,” Starrs said. He nodded to the perimeter monitor. “Someone shows up and they’ll get the word. In the meantime, they’re mostly kicking back, staggered interior patrols every twenty minutes.”

“We’re covered?”

“Pretty much.”

Berliner was looking at the monitors. “I thought you said that Mac was coming up the driveway.”

Starrs looked up. McGarvey had disappeared from view. “Shit, shit,” he said.

McGarvey held up to the left of the door, his back to the brick wall. He had ducked below the angle of the surveillance camera, and for the first few seconds, he’d hoped that whoever was pulling security was on the ball and would have come outside, guns drawn.

But it was nearly a full minute before Starrs burst out the door, his Heckler & Koch room broom in his right hand pointed low and right.

McGarvey waited until he’d cleared the doorway, and he rose and placed the muzzle of his pistol on the back of the man’s head.

“You’re dead,” McGarvey said. “And the castle is wide open.”

“Sorry, sir,” Starrs said. He slowly raised his right hand. He was holding a small block of Semtex. “If I went down, my grip would have let go, and boom, one dead intruder.”

McGarvey lowered his weapon. “Not bad. But the advice most field commanders give their people is that you don’t win wars by dying for your country—you make the other poor bastard die for his.”

Starrs nodded. “Anyway, it was just in case, sir.”

“Just in case I missed,” Berliner said from the doorway. She was holding a Beretta 9mm in her right hand, pointed directly at McGarvey.

Mac had to smile. “Okay, you guys win. But nurses aren’t supposed to carry weapons.”

“Not in a civilian hospital, they don’t, Mr. Director, but this place is different.”

McGarvey holstered his gun. “If someone is coming, it’ll be in the night, probably just before dawn. But it’s a long shot. I’m just clutching at straws here.”

“What else can you tell us?” Starrs asked.

“It’ll almost certainly be a lone shooter. A professional who won’t make easy mistakes and won’t discriminate when it comes to his targets. I’m number one, but get in his way and you’re dead.”

“Piss someone off?” Berliner asked.

Again, Mac had to smile. “Happens all the time. Maybe it’s my personality or something.”

FOURTEEN

At the Hay-Adams, Hammond and Tarasov went up to a Lafayette Park View suite and let themselves in without a bellman accompanying them. Hammond’s bag had already arrived and his things laid out in the wardrobe and bathroom. A bottle of Dom Pérignon was chilling in an ice bucket.

“I’m flying back to New York tonight,” the Russian said. “And then Moscow on Tuesday.”

“You’re staying for the interview?”

“Of course, unless you’d rather I not. It’s up to you if you hire him, but he’s a hell of a lot more competent than Slatkin.”

“If I don’t think so, do you have someone else in mind?”

“There are plenty more where this one came from. Believe me, you can’t imagine how many crazies with guns are out there just looking for a chance to make a dollar or whatever currency you’re offering.”

“Is he here in the hotel now?” Hammond asked. He opened the champagne and poured a glass, but Tarasov waved it off.

“He put himself up at the Rosewood.”

“I’m not familiar with it.”

“It’s in Georgetown, actually not far from the hospital.”

Hammond was surprised. “Has he already been told about his target?”

“Only in the most general terms.”

“Then how the hell did he know to book a room so close?”

“I don’t know.”

“What the hell