platitudes, but comforting, except McGarvey was having a tough time settling down.
He glanced over at the two bodyguards from the Farm, and they acted nervous, too, their heads on swivels as if they expected something to happen at any moment. Adkins and some of the others seemed ill at ease, though Whittaker was apparently paying attention to the service.
None of this made any sense to McGarvey; not Todd’s death, not the obviously fake disk, not the murders of the Washington Post reporter and his family, not Sandberger and Administrative Solutions, especially not the Friday Club, because if there was a pattern he wasn’t seeing it. Yet everything within him, all of his senses, all of his experiences, his entire hunch-mechanism, if that’s what it could be called, were singing. Trouble was here and now, and he wasn’t armed.
. . .
The funeral was short, and after Adkins presented Liz with the folded flag he and Whittaker, who’d avoided eye contact with McGarvey, headed back up the hill to their limo, Dick’s bodyguards preceding them. The chaplain came over and shook hands with Liz and Katy and McGarvey and he, too, left, the other mourners stepping over to where Liz and Katy were seated to pay their respects.
Neither Katy, nor especially Liz, was engaged in any of it; they were in a different world, which made McGarvey feel all the more helpless. Senseless; so goddamned senseless, and yet there was a reason for Todd’s assassination.
When the last of the people were finally gone, McGarvey helped Liz and Katy to their feet, and walked back up the hill with them, their bodyguards never more than a few feet away.
At the road, he helped them into the CIA limo that would take them back to the Farm until the situation was resolved one way or the other, or until in McGarvey’s estimation it was safe for Katy to take their daughter, with bodyguards, back down to their home on Casey Key.
McGarvey stood at the open door, and touched his wife’s cheek. She was looking up at him, her eyes large and moist. She hadn’t cried during the service, she’d already shed her tears, and there would be more to come, but for now she was holding on.
“I can’t go with you now,” he told her, and she nodded.
“I understand,” she said. “And I know it’s foolish for me to say it, but be careful.”
“I will.”
“Hurry back to me, darling,” she said. “I miss you terribly.”
He reached in and kissed her. Liz looked at him. “Take care of Audie,” he said. “For now, that’s what’s important.” But she didn’t respond.
No one said a thing to McGarvey when he walked back to the SUV and got in the backseat, Ansel and Mellinger beside him, and Pete behind the wheel with Green riding shotgun. They were subdued, and the deputy federal marshals knew enough to keep their peace, and McGarvey was happy for it. He didn’t want to start any trouble, but the funeral, and being with his grief-stricken wife and daughter, had put him right at the edge.
The hearse had left immediately after the coffin had been carried down to the grave, and the chaplain and mourners were all gone now, leaving only the CIA’s Lincoln limousine a half-dozen car lengths up the road.
Pete started to pull out, but McGarvey stopped her.
“Let’s follow them,” he said. “I want to make sure they get out of here okay.”
“Yes, sir,” Pete said, and although the marshals didn’t like the delay they continued to hold their silence.
Something heavy was in the air, McGarvey could feel it, feel that something wasn’t right. He powered down the window and looked out, but except for the Tomb of the Unknowns up the hill no one was at any of the other graves or monuments within sight.
“That’s bulletproof glass, Mr. Director,” Ansel said, but McGarvey ignored him.
It was nothing but an imagination that was severely overworked, he told himself, as the Lincoln started down to the South Gate, and Pete fell in behind.
“They’ll be okay,” Pete said. “They have good minders who know their business. And once they reach the Farm no one will be able to touch them.”
“They have to get there first.”
Pete glanced over her shoulder. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” McGarvey said. “I want to follow them down to the Farm.”
“No way,” Ansel said, but Dan Green looked over his shoulder at McGarvey.
“I think it’s a good idea, Mr. Director,” Green said. “Just to be on the safe side.”
TWENTY-FIVE
The