him in the car. It’s McGarvey I’m worried about. If we don’t take him out this afternoon we could be in a world of shit.”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure we do the job right.”
TWENTY-TWO
The afternoon was almost too bright, the sky too clear, the air too balmy for a funeral, as McGarvey walked out to the same Cadillac Escalade that had brought him over from Andrews. He’d been handcuffed, at the request of the federal marshals—it was standard procedure—his sport coat over his shoulders, and Pete and Dan Green were on either side of him.
Steve Ansel and Doug Mellinger were waiting at the SUV, all four doors open, their jackets unbuttoned. No one wanted trouble today.
“Just a minute,” Pete said, and she produced the key for the handcuffs. “No trouble, Mr. Director?” she asked. “Your word?”
“My word,” McGarvey said.
“This is bullshit, Pete,” Green objected.
“It’s his son-in-law’s funeral, goddamnit,” Pete said and she glanced at the federal marshals. “Any objections?”
Ansel shrugged. “You drive. We’ll sit in the back with Mr. McGarvey, just to make sure.”
“Afterward we’re coming back here. We’re not finished with the debriefing.”
“You have him for as long as you want,” Ansel said. “That was the interagency understanding.”
Only a part of McGarvey had listened to the exchange, but it had registered with him; he understood the bureaucratic bullshit-speak that was a separate language not only in the District of Columbia and most of the Beltway, but for the isolated center here and there, like the CIA, or Quantico, or Fort A. P. Hill and the Farm, of course. But he’d been a part of the establishment, or sometimes on the fringes, for so long that he understood not only what was being said, but what was meant between the lines. Unofficially the CIA and just about every other intelligence or law enforcement agency had been at odds for years, not sharing intel, not really cooperating, and now a pair of federal marshals had most likely been ordered to give the Company enough rope to hang itself—or at least cause an embarrassment.
“Fine,” Pete said, and they all got into the SUV, with her behind the wheel, and headed down the hill and along the long sweeping curve past the OHB, the front parking lot nearly full.
They passed through the front gate and headed down to Washington. Traffic was light, nevertheless the pair of deputy marshals in the back with McGarvey had their heads on swivels. No one wanted an incident, but Mac did have a reputation; wherever he went trouble seemed to materialize.
Pete glanced in the rearview mirror. “It’s not being made public that Mr. McGarvey has been charged with anything, or is under arrest.”
Neither marshal commented, and McGarvey got the impression that they couldn’t care less. A pair of LE officers simply doing their duty, doing what they’d been tasked to do.
“In any event it’s our call,” Pete said. “If this became public there’d be a firestorm. The media would come down on us like a ton of bricks. Nobody wants that. The fact a former DCI is in custody for treason is spectacular. It’s not every day something like that happens.”
It came to McGarvey that Pete was up to something, and he could see that Dan Green was wondering the same thing, because he was giving her an odd look. But Ansel and Mellinger weren’t getting it, or didn’t give a damn.
“Do you think there’ll be a trial?” McGarvey asked, and Pete glanced at his image in the rearview mirror and their eyes met.
“That depends on what you give to us over the next few days or weeks,” she said, and her partner gave her a double take. “We’ll have to keep you in isolation to run down all the facts here. But no one wants to rush into anything blindly, right?”
Ansel glanced at McGarvey and then at the back of Pete’s head. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, it’s classified for now, I’m afraid,” Pete said. “Need to know, and all that. You understand. And trust me we appreciate your help. Taking responsibility for Mr. McGarvey’s security as well as his safety. It takes the burden off us.”
Ansel was getting angry. “What the hell are you going on about?”
Pete glanced over her shoulder. “Hey, listen, we’re just following orders like you guys. Doesn’t mean we have to like it. Right?”
Mellinger said something like She’s fucking with us, or at least that’s what it sounded like to McGarvey and he gave Pete a brief smile. She’d just