became clear.
“Virginia,” Louise said, and she read off the numbers for her husband.
“Half a mo,” Otto said.
“Anybody in the car or nearby?” McGarvey asked.
Louise pulled the image back a little so they were looking at the entire car, and adjusted the light values again. “No,” she said. She touched another tab and the hood of the car came up a soft red. “Hasn’t been there long. Engine’s still warm.”
“Calvin Boberg,” Otto said. “And take a wild-ass guess who he works for.”
“Administrative Solutions,” McGarvey said.
Louise made another adjustment to the satellite’s infrared capabilities. “Here we go,” she said excitedly. “See the faint red smudges leading way from the car and into the woods.”
“Footprints?” McGarvey asked.
“Heat signatures,” Louise said, absently, and she moved the icon to follow the trail, finally coming to the edge of the woods just before the clearing up to the house, and Boberg’s heat output stood out brightly against the cooler trees and ground.
“Waiting for you?” Otto asked.
“Be my guess,” McGarvey said. “Pan out wider.”
Louise did, and started the icon toward the house, but something at the edge of the screen caught her eye. “Hold on,” she said, and she moved to the right, to the helicopter pad.
“That’s one of our choppers,” Otto said.
“Whittaker?”
“Yeah. But what’s he doing? He’s gotta know you’re on the way.”
McGarvey stared at the machine on the pad for a moment. Its rotors were not moving. “Tighten up, I want to see if the pilot is still aboard.”
She did; the pilot was in the left seat and the door was open. He was smoking a cigarette.
“He’s waiting for Whittaker to come back,” Louise said.
“Check the status of our VIP jets at Andrews,” McGarvey said.
“I’m on it,” Otto said. “But if he runs, especially with you still on the loose, it’ll look damned suspicious.”
“Not him,” McGarvey said. “He’s come to convince Foster to get out of town.”
“St. Croix,” Otto said after a few seconds. “One of our Gulfstreams manned and standing by in the ready hangar. Two passengers on the manifest. Robert Foster and David Whittaker.”
“Take a look at the house.”
Louise panned left, brought the area out to forty meters and toned down the light input because of the outside floods. “Looks like they’re expecting company.”
“They have Admin’s guy out front, and Schilling inside.” He said, “Foster’s probably not a shooter, but David is.”
“He started out as a field officer. Expert marksman on the pistol range,” McGarvey said. He remembered telling his staff, when Whittaker was promoted to deputy director of operations, that David was one of the few men in that position to really know what it was like to pull out a pistol and actually fire it with some expectation of hitting the target. “I’m going out there.”
“I have to switch the bird back out to the ship,” Louise said, “in case some supervisor notices it’s off target.”
“Can you get back to Foster’s from time to time?”
“Every five minutes or so,” Louise said.
“Good enough, but keep in touch if anything changes.”
“I’ll go with you—” Louise said, but McGarvey cut her off.
“I need you here to keep tabs on the house and grounds.”
A nightlight plugged into a socket across the room suddenly started to blink. “Someone’s at the door,” Otto said and he doused the room lights, and pulled up the camera concealed in the eaves.
Pete looked up, grinned at the camera and waved.
“She was wounded,” Louise said.
“That she was,” McGarvey said, putting his gun back in its holster. “Let her in.”
Otto buzzed the lock. “We’re upstairs,” he told her on the intercom. He flipped on the room lights.
Pete came up, in fresh jeans and a dark pullover and dark jacket, CIA stenciled on the back. She’d cleaned up and brushed her hair, and she was still grinning.
“How did you get past Franklin?” McGarvey demanded.
“I have a gun and he didn’t,” Pete said. “No bone chips, no major arteries. Just a heavy graze. He sewed me up and pumped a pint of O-positive into me, nothing but a local anesthetic and a butterfly bandage.”
“What are you doing here?” McGarvey demanded.
“I expect that you’re going after whoever’s name came up on Remington’s flash drive. Probably Foster, and I’m coming with you.”
“Not a chance in hell.”
“Give me one good reason.”
“You’re wounded.”
“It stings, nothing more.”
“No,” McGarvey said.
“Sorry, Mr. Director, but if you rightly remember you are my prisoner.”
Louise shook her head. “You’re nuts, do you know that? All of you are certifiable.”
SIXTY-SIX
They took Louise’s Toyota SUV, Pete behind the wheel after assuring McGarvey three times that she