wheel, and a very short man got out from the other side.
They stood there for a moment or two, looking at the group gathered near the hearse. The rear doors opened and a pair of large men got out, one from either side, followed by Kirk McGarvey, on the passenger side.
“Bingo,” Kangas said, half under his breath. Yet he was a little disappointed, because the former DCI didn’t look like much after all.
TWENTY-FOUR
Liz had insisted that there be no church or chapel service, Todd would not have wanted it. What ceremonies were to be performed and what words were to be said, would take place graveside. She’d also insisted that his name as a CIA officer not be placed in the public record, instead she wanted only the anonymous star on the marble wall in the lobby of the OHB at Langley.
“He belongs there with those heroes,” she’d instructed. “He was one of them. He’d feel at home there.”
Nor had she wanted a big crowd, though all the instructors at the Farm and many students of Todd’s wanted to pay their respects today. She hadn’t wanted to share her grief or theirs with them.
“Stay here, please,” McGarvey told the deputy marshals and his CIA minders. “You have my word I won’t try to run.”
Ansel and Mellinger didn’t like it, but they nodded, and McGarvey walked past the line of cars to where Katy and Liz were standing near the hearse. The chaplain had walked back up the hill, but stepped discreetly aside.
Katy was holding on to their daughter, and she looked awful, her hair and makeup a mess. He’d never seen his wife this way, but Liz was practically catatonic with grief.
“It wasn’t just a robbery, was it?” Katy asked, her voice trembling, and barely audible.
“No,” McGarvey said, kissing his wife on the cheek. “Where’s the baby?”
“At the Farm.”
Liz suddenly focused, and she looked from her father to the hearse where the funeral director and his assistant had opened the rear door and withdrew the flag-draped coffin out onto a wheeled stand, and she almost collapsed.
“Easy, sweetheart,” McGarvey said, taking her arm.
“It’s not real,” she whispered. “This is not real.”
She was trembling, but not crying, and McGarvey’s heart broke not only for Todd, but because he couldn’t do a damn thing for his daughter when she needed him more than she’d ever needed him.
“Is it someone we can find and punish, Daddy?” she asked, her grip tightening on his arm.
“Yes,” he said close to her. “I’ll find them, I promise you.”
“No trial.”
“No trial,” he said.
Six men who’d come up from the Farm to represent everyone there, took up positions on either side of the coffin as pallbearers, and Liz turned to look at the people gathered on the side of the road, waiting to follow the coffin down the hill.
“We have to wait,” she said. “Otto and Louise aren’t here.”
McGarvey looked around, but she was right, and a tiny worry began to nag at the back of his head. “They’re probably hung up in traffic. They’ll get here, but we need to start now.”
Liz glanced at the people waiting, then up into her father’s face. “Okay, Daddy,” she said.
McGarvey nodded at the pallbearers, who gently lifted the coffin off the trolley, and with the chaplain in the lead they started down the hill, Liz’s and Katy’s bodyguards nearby, reminding everyone that this business was far from over.
Dick Adkins and Dave Whittaker held back, even though it would be up to Dick to present Todd’s widow with the flag, and McGarvey suspected they wanted to distance themselves from him until they saw which way he would jump. After Germany they were treating him like something volatile, nitroglycerin ready to explode at the slightest mishandling.
When the mourners were seated, and the coffin placed on the lift’s framework over the open grave, the chaplain began, and when he spoke Todd’s name out loud, Liz squeezed her eyes shut. Todd’s parents were dead, and only a few distant relatives had shown up. He’d once explained to McGarvey that his family was filled with odd ducks. They had sacks of money, but no one much cared for one another. It was one of the reasons he’d fallen for Liz. For as long as he could remember he’d wanted a wife and children, loads of kids and in laws and people who cared.
The chaplain was speaking about service above self, love of country, dedication, bravery, and finally the ultimate sacrifice of a man in his prime;