I didn’t,” McGarvey said. “Who else?”
Ansel shook his head. “I don’t know, I don’t think anybody does yet, but the media is all over it. One of Langdon’s advisers resigned, along with a couple of guys from the State Department, one at Justice, and maybe someone at the Department of Energy. A general who was an adviser to the Joint Chiefs was found shot to death in his office last night. A suicide.”
“All Foster’s people,” McGarvey said. “Just like your partner probably was.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ansel said. “And I don’t think I want to know. But I expect that’s exactly what the president is going to ask you.”
McGarvey shook his head. “I don’t have anything to tell him that he doesn’t already know by now.”
“No choice, Mr. Director. Technically you’re still under arrest until I drop you off at the White House.”
The D.C. jail was way out by RFK Stadium, and during the long drive over to the White House Ansel didn’t say a thing, but he let McGarvey use his cell phone to call Otto.
“I’m on my way to the White House, the president wants to talk to me. Did our friends make it okay?”
“It’s not your cell phone. You can’t talk.”
“Right.”
“I’ll take care of it. But yeah, they made it just fine. Have you been told what’s been happening around town?”
“Some of it. How many from the lists?”
“So far twenty-three out of thirty-seven, and without Foster the rest of them won’t get very far,” Otto said. “You heard that he was murdered?”
“Yes. Where was he going?”
“Looks like he was headed to Dulles. He keeps a corporate jet out there.”
“Flight plan?”
“Zurich.”
And so it was over and done with, or very nearly so. “What about you guys?” McGarvey asked. “Are all of you in the clear?”
“Pete’s going back to work tomorrow, debriefings probably for at least a week. Louise and I will do the same, but not until Monday, gives us a few days to clear out of here, pick up Audie, and get back to our old apartment.”
“And Dick?”
“DCIs serve at the president’s pleasure, with congressional consent,” Otto said. “What about you?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” McGarvey said. “I suppose I’ll bunk with you and Louise for a day or two and then go to Casey Key and start closing down the house and getting rid of the sailboat.”
“You’re not going to move back?”
“No,” McGarvey said.
“The phone you’re using is a U.S. Marshal Service issue. Soon as you hang up, I’m going to fry it. Might be a recording device inside, memory, something, ya know. Can’t be too careful.”
“You’re right.”
“Louise and I have a few things to do yet, but Pete’s coming over to pick you up. She’ll be waiting at the West Gate. We’re all going to have pizza and red wine. Lots of red wine.”
Ansel dropped him off at the White House west portico. “I’m sorry that things worked out the way they did for you, Mr. Director,” he said. “Your wife and daughter and son-in-law. This stuff should never involve families.”
“Not in an ideal world,” McGarvey said, and he got out of the car and didn’t look back as Ansel left.
He was met by a presidential aide who escorted him down to the Oval Office without a word. President Langdon was seated in an easy chair facing his National Security Adviser Frank Shapiro, seated on the couch.
“Good, you’re here at last,” the president said. “We have to clear up a number of things before your news conference. I’m appointing you as interim director of the CIA, just until this mess is straightened out.”
“No.”
“No, what?” Shapiro asked sharply. He was angry, and looked a little like a frightened man.
“No, sir, I’m not going back to work for the CIA, nor am I going to hold a news conference.”
“I understand how you must feel,” Langdon said. “But your country needs you. I need you, because we’re facing a set of very serious problems, and the Chinese government is demanding some answers. Immediate answers.”
“No, sir,” McGarvey said.
“Well at least sit down and hear me out,” the president said, his voice rising in anger.
“I’m not staying, Mr. President,” McGarvey said. “I came here because I was ordered to, and because I wanted to tell you that I don’t like you, I never have. I don’t believe in most of your policies or most of the people you picked for your advisers.”
Shapiro got to his feet, but Langdon waved him back.
“Mr. McGarvey is exercising his right as a citizen. And as it turns out I don’t like him, never have, never have agreed with how he did things.” He looked McGarvey in the eye. “But I believe that there is no man alive who loves his country more than you do.”
“No, sir,” McGarvey said. “That man had better be you, or we’re all in trouble.”
EPILOGUE
Several Months Later
It was noon, and, shirtless, McGarvey was running along the rocky path above the Aegean Sea on the Greek island of Serifos, pushing himself as he had since coming back to the same island, the same converted lighthouse he’d run to a number of years ago.
That time John Lyman Trotter, a close friend, had turned out to be a mole within the CIA, and in the end McGarvey had been forced to kill him, getting seriously wounded himself. He’d found this island, this refuge in the middle of nowhere, and started the healing process.
Only now he wasn’t bouncing back quite as fast, and this time he was alone, truly alone except for his granddaughter, who Otto and Louise had brought here six weeks ago for a visit.
And seeing her, being with her, was wonderful and sad all at the same time because Audie was the spitting image of Liz, who’d been the spitting image of Katy. A lot of memories had come to the surface making it next to impossible to keep smiling and keep it light.
Already she was forgetting her parents. It was something Otto and Louise wanted to correct. They wanted to show her the pictures, a few videos that Todd had made and tell her about them.
“Later, when she’s older,” McGarvey had told them after they’d put her to bed. The night had been soft, the kind Katy had always loved. “She wouldn’t understand. And you’re her parents now. Just love her, it’s all she needs.”
Reaching the west side of the island, he came in sight of the white-tiled patio at the base of the lighthouse one hundred yards below, and pulled up short. The figure of a man was leaning on the railing looking down at the sea, one hundred feet below.
Apparently he’d walked up from town, not an easy task.
McGarvey had switched back to his Walther PPK, more out of sentimental reasons than any other, and it was holstered at the small of his back. He never went anywhere without it these days.
So he started down the path toward the lighthouse wondering who the man was, because he wasn’t familiar, and why he had come.
And McGarvey was curious, so his step quickened just a little.