Retribution (9781429922593) (7 page)

“Have you ever not been right?” she asked. She picked up a phone and called Marty Bambridge, who was the deputy director of operations and told him that she and Otto were coming up to his office with the BND officer.

Wolf stepped closer to the table and stared at the two photographs of the woman. The one on the beach showed Pam Schlueter, somewhat reminiscent of a young Judi Dench, the British actor. She was smiling, apparently still happy with her husband, who had most likely taken the picture.

But in the second photograph, the determined, angry expression on her face, clear even though the photograph had been taken from a distance, was the same as in the photos the BND had managed to come up with.

In the first she was a happy young woman, but she had changed. Somehow in the past fifteen years she had become radicalized, and Wolf felt that it had taken more than an abusive husband to do it.

 

TEN

The DDO's secretary announced them and Bambridge told her to send them in. He was an officious little man, with narrow shoulders and a nearly permanent look of surprise on his dark face. Backroom gossip was that despite his name, he behaved more like a Sicilian and therefore was probably connected with the Mob. His temper was legendary, but he was a good organizer, though almost always by the book.

He rose from his desk as they came in. “I'm sorry that your colonel's courtesy call came too late; otherwise we might have been able to help out.”

“The captain was on a surveillance mission,” Pete said. “The assassination of a former SEAL came as a surprise.”

“I should have known better,” Wolf said.

“Yes,” Bambridge said, and they all sat down. “What brings you up here at this hour? I was getting set to finally go home.”

For as long as she could remember Pete had wanted to slap the officious bastard in the mouth. And a couple of years ago she'd said as much to McGarvey, who'd laughed.

“No one would blame you, but the man does a nice job pushing papers. Stay on his good side and you'll get promoted. One of these days he'll be gone.”

“Walt loves him, and he's got a couple of intelligence oversight committee members on his side. Maybe he'll end up as DDCI, or even DCI, God forbid.” Walter Page was the director of central intelligence.

“Won't happen,” Mac had assured her.

That was last year, but now she wasn't so sure. Rumor was that Page was considering him for the deputy directorship, which was only a heartbeat from the DCI's chair, at least on a temporary basis.

“Otto has come up with a couple of interesting connections,” she said.

“No doubt interesting,” Bambridge said. He'd had a troubled relationship with McGarvey over the last few years. Otto and Mac were longtime friends, and therefore in Bambridge's mind, Otto was also a wild card.

“The guy Captain Weisse was following shot and killed a former SEAL Team Six operator who was on the operation to take out bin Laden,” Otto said. “He'd written a memoir of his time in the navy and was bringing it to the UDT/SEAL museum.”

“How do we know that?”

“The police found it inside the museum,” Wolf said.

“Any of it in the media? Was he hyping for a book contract or something?”

“Not that we know of,” Otto said. “But the fact that the shooter knew that Barnes would be there at that exact time means the group that hired him has some damned good intel contacts here in the States.”

“Who, for instance?”

“I don't know that part yet, but my guess would be somewhere within the Pentagon, or perhaps inside JSOC at Fort Bragg or down in Virginia. I'm digging into Barnes's phone and travel records to see if he still has some buddies up there. Maybe someone with a grudge or someone in financial trouble.”

Bambridge turned back to Wolf. “Who did he work for?”

“A group calling itself the Black October Revolution, specializing, we think, in the assassinations of high-profile targets for some fairly serious money. It's run by a woman who was actually married to an American naval officer.”

“Ended in divorce,” Otto said.

“The SEAL in Fort Pierce was hardly a high-profile target,” Bambridge said. “So why is it I have a funny feeling that you're going to tell me this woman's ex is or was a SEAL himself and this assassination was just for revenge.”

“He's a captain now in JSOC—DEVGRU, Virginia Beach.”

“And the connection is what?”

“Not really a connection, not yet,” Otto said. “Let's call it a coincidence, like having a photograph coming out of ISI headquarters in Islamabad a few years go—just after the bin Laden raid.”

Bambridge's eyes narrowed, and he held up a hand. “This stops right now. Unless Captain Weisse has been buried underground in one of the old bunkers in Berlin, he, like you, should be perfectly aware that Pakistan is our chief ally fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Without them we'd be dead in the water, wide open for another nine-eleven.”

“Come on, Marty, Pakistan is no ally,” Pete said, her anger coming to the surface as she'd known it would even before she'd stepped into his office. But he was the DDO and he needed to know what was going on, even though he was an asshole. “Anyway most of those people were Saudis. Pakistan is helping us because they need our military aid, without which India would steamroller them.”

“That's a good bit of analysis for an interrogator from housekeeping.”

“I have photographs of three ISI officers who were seen entering the ISI building at the same time she was inside,” Otto said.

“A lot of people work there. What's your point? Another coincidence?”

“All three of those officers were very vocal at that time in their anger over the bin Laden raid right under their noses.”

“So were a lot of them,” Bambridge said. “So what?”

“The day after the woman was seen leaving, their complaints stopped,” Otto said. “Another coincidence, wouldn't you say?”

“Coincidences do happen,” Bambridge said, and Pete started to object, but he held her off. “Any supposed link to the ISI or to any person in specific—any Pakistani—is a nonissue as of this moment. And that is a standing order from the top. In the meantime, several murders were committed on U.S. soil, two of which Captain Weisse has himself admitted to. The local police have already requested help from the FBI, and a team has been in place since late this afternoon.”

“I imagine they will want to interview me,” Weisse said.

“You have been ordered home. Your embassy has made the arrangements.”

“There'll at least be a coroner's inquest,” Pete said. “And Captain Weisse has told me that he is willing to share his file on the Schlueter woman.”

“The Black October Revolution and its aims are of no concern to this agency at this time.”

“For Christ's sake, Marty, one of their people killed several U.S. citizens, including a decorated war hero—and we're not interested?”

“Naval intelligence has been notified, and they are on the case as well, though it's my understanding that Barnes was no longer on active duty. Captain Weisse will be deposed at home, and that comes directly from his Colonel Mueller.”

Pete suddenly realized that Bambridge was frightened. She almost called him out but thought better of it. Someone above him, either the DCI himself or Robert Bensen, the deputy director, had given the order to back off, and Marty was a team player to the end. He followed orders even if they stank.

“Okay, Marty, you want us to drop it, we will.”

Otto was clearly surprised.

“The situation is being handled,” Bambridge. “Is there anything else that I need to know at this time?”

“No,” Pete said, and they all got up.

Bambridge shook hands with Weisse. “Give my regards to your colonel. I'm sorry for your agency's sake that things didn't work out as you might have hoped they would.”

“Thank you, sir,” Wolf said.

*   *   *

“What the hell was that all about?” Otto asked in the elevator on the way down to his office. “The silly bastard was lying out his ass.”

“You're damned right he was,” Pete said. “Someone got to him, someone high enough up the food chain to scare him witless.”

“Someone from across the river? The White House?”

“Or the Pentagon. Someone on the SecDef's staff.”

“Should I be hearing any of this?” Wolf said. “I'll have to report it to my boss.”

“You might as well, because we're not done with you and your investigation of the Schlueter woman and her group.”

“Isn't the man we just talked with your boss?”

“Yup, but Otto's going to let his computer programs loose while I go talk to an old friend, who'll probably contact you at some point.”

“Off the grid?”

Pete and Otto laughed. “Definitely off the grid.”

“Who's the old friend?”

“Kirk McGarvey. Can you delay going back? I think he's going to want to talk to you?”

“Twenty-four hours?”

“Plenty of time.”

“I'll give you my encrypted cell phone number.”

“I already have it,” Otto said.

 

ELEVEN

Kirk Cullough McGarvey, Mac to his friends, ran along the river in Georgetown's Rock Creek Park just at sunrise. He was a man of about fifty, in superb physical condition from years of heavy workouts, long swims, weight training, and fencing at épée with the Annapolis navy team when he was in town. A little under six feet, a little under two hundred pounds, he could still move as gracefully as a ballet dancer if the need arose. Which it often had during a long career with the CIA.

A few other joggers, some walkers, and other folks on bicycles used the park just about every decent morning, and several of them recognizing McGarvey waved or simply nodded, but he was otherwise occupied, thinking about his wife, Katy, and their daughter, Liz, who had been brutally murdered just a couple of years ago.

He thought about them every day. But lately he was sometimes having trouble seeing Katy's face, though her scent was still strong in his mind. And every day, just like this morning, he wanted to lash out, hit back at all the darkness in the world that thought taking lives was the right thing to do.

He'd actually met bin Laden a number of years ago in a cave in Afghanistan, and the man had looked him in the eye and with a straight face lectured that no one was innocent. Infidels—men, women, or children, it made no difference—were all to come to Islam, the one true faith, accept Mohammed into their souls or die.

Mac had begun years ago as a field officer for the CIA and had risen to special black operations, which was the forerunner of the company's elite Special Activities Division. He'd worked for a short time as deputy director of operations and had even briefly served as the agency's director.

But neither desk job had suited his temperament. He hated bullies; it was as simple as that. In the field he could even the odds, take down the bad guys who preyed on the innocents. Unlike bin Laden he firmly believed that just about everyone who went about their business in a peaceful way, respecting the rights of others, was an innocent.

His father had instilled only one hard and fast rule in Mac as a child, and that was no hitting. Yet despite that golden rule his father had worked on nuclear weapons development at Los Alamos and Mac had killed bad people.

The creek and the path crossed under the P Street NW bridge and McGarvey pushed himself. Katy once asked if by running or swimming to just this side of total exhaustion he wasn't trying to atone for what he thought were his sins, namely, assassinating people?

He'd had no answer for her then, nor did he think he would have one if she were alive to ask him now.

A hundred yards later, just at the edge of the Oak Hill Cemetery, Pete Boylan, who'd been doing stretches against a park bench, turned and intercepted him. She wore spandex tights and a white T-shirt that was soaked with sweat, and she looked really good.

“Want some company?” she asked.

“If you can keep up.”

She laughed, the sound husky, all the way from deep inside, and warm. “If it gets too tough, I'll just knock you down and sit on you.”

They ran for a half a mile or so in silence all the way up to Massachusetts Avenue, traffic already building, where they stopped and did more stretches. Mac felt good, better than he had for the past several months, and the heat and female sweat smells coming off Pete's body reminded him of a lot of things out of his past.

“You didn't come down here just to get your exercise,” he said.

“I work out at the gym on campus and sometimes down at the Farm. I'm here because I need your help.”

It's about what he'd figured, not only by her unexpected presence but by the expression on her face; she seemed puzzled and a little pissed off. “Where'd you park?”

“Just off M Street.” It was a little over a mile back the way they had come. “I brought someone with me who I think you might want to talk to.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Otto's met him. He was involved yesterday with a shooting at the UDT/SEAL museum in Florida.”

“I suppose that you and Otto took whatever it was up to Marty and he ordered you to back off.”

“Yeah.”

“You'd better explain,” Mac said, and they started back at a slow jog as she went over everything she'd learned from Weisse and what Otto had come up with. He found that he almost had to agree with Bambridge.

No one in the administration or inside the U.S. intelligence community trusted Pakistan, and especially not the ISI, its secret intelligence service, any further than they could throw the Washington Monument, but the Pakistanis did provide a launching point for U.S. drone strikes on al-Qaeda leaders. Government spokesmen in Islamabad complained loudly about the U.S. military's violation of their borders, and especially their airspace, but that was all about keeping their public satisfied. In the meantime the United States continued to subsidize their military—in a delicate balancing act with India—for the right to continue operations.