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

civilian, but much older, looked up. “Good morning, Mr. Director. You may go right in.” Neither she nor the aide had smiled.

The colonel in full uniform, his blouse buttoned, did not get up from behind his desk when McGarvey walked in, nor did he offer his hand, merely gesturing for Mac to take a seat. He was a nondescript man of medium build, balding on top with a gray fringe, narrow, pale blue eyes, and a mottled complexion that made him seem much older than his thirty-eight years. A West Pointer, he’d graduated in the middle of his class. According to the dossier Lou had provided, he’d worked in military intelligence his entire career, and his nickname was Don’t Rock the Boat Ward.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” McGarvey said. “I won’t take much of your time.”

“What do you want?”

“Someone has put a contract on me.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“In the past few days, two assassins have tried and failed. You may have heard something.”

Ward pursed his lips and shook his head. “No.”

Mac was sure the man was lying. “I’m pretty sure that there’ll be more to come, and there’s a possibility that the Russians, though maybe not officially, are somehow involved. It’s why I came to you.”

“Otto Rencke is your friend; I’m sure that he could help. Ask him.”

“I did, and he mentioned you and your connections at the Pentagon. Past and present.”

Ward visibly colored. “Look, you son of a bitch, I wasn’t involved in the business you got yourself into the last time, and I’m sure as hell not in league with some Russian who might think the same as I do that it might be a better world without you.”

Mac let it lie for a long moment or two. “What Russian might that be?” he asked at length.

“Any Russian, take your pick. There’s an entire country of them who’d like to see you go down.”

“Curious stance for a man in your position to take, wouldn’t you say?”

Ward grabbed his phone and called his secretary. “Mr. McGarvey is leaving now,” he said, and he was obviously careful not to crash the phone down.

“I’m sure there still are people across the river who feel the same as you,” McGarvey said.

“Get the fuck out of here, or I’ll call the SPs.”

McGarvey got languidly to his feet. “Don’t let me find out that you or some of your pals are involved in this thing.”

Ward was barely in control. “Is that a threat?”

“Yes,” McGarvey said, and he left Ward’s office.

McGarvey crossed the river on the Douglass Bridge and made his way through town on Independence Avenue, traffic heavy as usual at this time of a weekday. He delayed calling Otto and Mary and especially Pete while he worked a few things out in his mind.

Ward had been lying, something he’d expected. But he didn’t think that the man was involved. Nor did he now suspect that someone in the Pentagon was involved. If they had been, Ward would have known about it, and he wasn’t a good enough liar to keep it off his face.

But the main point of this morning was to make sure that word did get back at least to the DIA’s office in the Pentagon. And if someone over there was involved, they would make their move soon.

The other point was to wonder how he would deal with the situation if it was someone in the Pentagon gunning for him again. It made him think that maybe all these years inside and outside the CIA, everything he had done, was a colossal waste of time.

Back more years than he wanted to count, John Lyman Trotter, a man who he thought was his friend, told him once, “In this business, self-doubt is a cancer that will kill you as surely as the real thing.”

But then John had turned out to be a traitor.

TWENTY-NINE

Hammond woke up a little after seven in the morning, and after a night of bad dreams, he was disoriented at first. He could not get the faces of the Chinese assassins, who in the night had morphed into scorpions and were coming after him, out of his head.

He reached over for Susan, but her side of the bed was empty, and then he heard the shower shut off.

Yesterday, after the man and woman had left, everything had become surreal for him. His guests seemed like they were never closer than arm’s length, their talk and laughter out of focus, unreal. Yet he had gone through the motions of being an engaging host.

Susan had cornered him a couple of times demanding to know what was going on, but both times he’d held her off.

“Later. We need to talk about it, but not now.”

They were out on the aft deck, and Susan had looked over her shoulder at the people in the crowded saloon. “They’re here?” she asked.

“They were, but they’re gone now.”

“Did you hire them?”

He nodded.

“How much?”

“Twenty-five million. In gold.”

“Jesus,” Susan said softly. “Do you think they’re worth it?”

He had asked himself the same thing all the rest of the day and through the night each time he’d awakened from his nightmare. But he hadn’t come up with an answer that made any sense to him. For the first time in his life, he was truly frightened. Even more frightened than he had been of his stepfather who used to beat him just about every time the old man had come home drunk after working in the steel plant.

Susan hadn’t pressed him for anything more when they finally came down to the master suite around two in the morning. Nor had they made love. She had just come to bed, rolled away with her back to him, and had gone to sleep. Which was just as well, he’d thought at the time, because he didn’t think he would have been capable.

He started to drift off again, when he heard her briefly on the phone in the bathroom. She came in a minute later wearing a white