the nose of the chopper to the east side of the house,” Louise’s voice was faint over the noise. “Is the chopper getting set to take off?”
“Any minute.”
“Then get the hell out of there right now.”
McGarvey glanced over his shoulder. The pilot was looking at them, and he was shaking his head. He made a slashing gesture at his throat and the engines began to spool down. McGarvey turned and pointed his pistol at the man’s face.
For a second nothing happened, but then the engines roared back to life and the main blades began to spin up.
“I think he got the message,” Pete shouted.
“Stay low and move fast,” McGarvey told her. “Boberg’s right behind us.”
He turned and sprinted toward the house, Pete right behind him.
SIXTY-NINE
Adkins had never wanted to be a spy, but he was a damned good administrator because he knew how to manage people while at the same time balancing the complex relationships between the Company, the White House, the director of National Intelligence, and, in some ways most important, Congress.
Pulling up at the CIA’s main gate was the first test of how good a spy he actually was, because if he were stopped here the mission would be a bust, and McGarvey, a man for whom he had an immense amount of respect, would most likely end up dead or in jail.
One of the guards came out of the building and over to Adkins’s car. “Good evening, Mr. Director, back again so soon?” He could have been a Dallas Cowboys’ linebacker; he had the size and the look.
“I have a couple of things to take care of. Couldn’t wait.”
The guard hesitated, but then nodded. “I’ll have to make note of your entry, sir.”
“Of course,” Adkins said, and the guard stepped back.
Driving up toward the OHB, Adkins kept glancing in his rearview mirror expecting to see flashing lights, but nobody was behind him and the guard had gone back inside the reception building.
It was nothing short of amazing that Whittaker hadn’t yanked his credentials. It was a stupid lapse of security procedures that even the gate guard had recognized.
The parking area in the front of the building was practically deserted, and so was the VIP parking garage where his entry pass worked, as it did in the elevator. He had debated arming himself, but decided against it, because there was no way he was going to get into a shoot-out with security. If he was busted he could make the argument that his clearances were still intact, and he’d merely come back one last time out of simple nostalgia. No one would believe him, but they wouldn’t be able to prove anything different.
Unless he was caught in Whittaker’s office.
The seventh-floor corridor was deserted, all the doors closed, unlike when he had been the DCI, and McGarvey before him. Under Whittaker, morale at the Company had already dropped, and the word was that everybody was busier watching their own backs than actually doing any real or creative work.
Halfway down the corridor he stopped at the DCI’s door, swiped his pass, and entered the old four-digit code he’d used before the president had fired him. The lock clicked softly and he was in. Whittaker was a fool. And if what McGarvey had told him was true, David was also so arrogant that he’d felt no need to take ordinary precautions.
He passed through the outer office, the only illumination from the tiny green indicator on the emergency light in one corner up near the ceiling, and into the DCI’s office. The blinds were open and before Adkins turned on the desk lamp he closed them against the faint possibility that someone outside might know that Whittaker was not in the building and wonder why a light had just come on in his office.
The main computer on the desk was in standby mode, but Whittaker’s Toshiba laptop on the credenza was closed. Adkins sat down, opened the laptop, and powered it up. As he’d suspected it was password protected. Whittaker wasn’t a complete idiot.
Using his cell phone he called the number McGarvey had given him, and Otto answered after the second ring.
“Oh, wow, I know where David is right now, so this has gotta be Dick Adkins calling from the DCI’s office.”
The man was a genius, but he was spooky. “Mac told me to call if I ran into trouble getting into David’s laptop.”
“Did it boot up?”
“No. All that’s on the screen are two boxes: User ID and password.”
“It’s a Toshiba, right?”
“Yes.”
“Look