limo with the two women followed by McGarvey’s Cadillac SUV headed down Miles Drive that connected with Grant and then Clayton to the South Gate, at the same time Kangas got behind the wheel of the Taurus, Mustapha riding shotgun with the mobile phone detonator, a dreamy expression on his face. They had switched from the LeSabre, they had used before as an ordinary tradecraft precaution.
“Watch the delay,” Kangas said, pulling out of the parking area onto Memorial Drive, heading as quickly as was prudent in the direction McGarvey and his women had gone.
“The numbers are in,” Mustapha said. “All it wants is the nine.”
Kangas suddenly had a sharp premonition of doom, almost like the battlefield hunches that your time was numbered. He was spooked, in part because he’d temporarily lost sight of the two CIA cars around the curve, and in part because although McGarvey hadn’t looked like much in person, the man’s reputation was nothing short of fearsome.
“There they are,” Mustapha said, and Kangas saw the SUV through the trees below and to the left.
He started to turn onto McPherson Drive, which led straight down to Grant, when a Toyota SUV with a man behind the wheel and a woman riding in the passenger seat suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and he had to brake hard to avoid a collision. When the Toyota passed he pulled in behind it, but they were going too slow, and he was conscious only of the possibility that if they missed McGarvey this afternoon they’d have to try again. It was a prospect he did not relish, especially if someone discovered the IED under the storm sewer lid. McGarvey would put it together and realize that someone was gunning for him.
“Get around them,” Mustapha said. “We won’t make it in time.”
“We don’t want to get stopped.”
At the bottom of the hill where Grant met Clayton Drive, Kangas spotted the limo and McGarvey’s SUV through the trees approaching the South Gate. They’d run out of time. Except for some blind stupid bad luck they would have been in perfect position by now.
Mustapha was fingering the cell phone’s keypad. “What do you want to do?”
It was a matter of seconds before the two cars would go through the gate and pass over the IED.
“We’ll have to take the shot from here,” Kangas said, making the only decision that was possible.
The car they were following turned onto Clayton, evidently heading to the South Gate, and just past the intersection Kangas slowed nearly to a halt, no cars behind them or ahead of them at that moment.
Their view of the gate, and especially the driveway beyond it leading to Southgate Road, was mostly obscured by a line of trees. But it was the best they were going to do for now.
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” Mustapha demanded. “I can’t see a fucking thing.”
“Get ready with the nine,” Kangas said. “I’ll tell you when.”
“Goddamnit . . .”
“Stand by,” Kangas said as the limo passed through the gate. “Okay.” With a two-second delay from the time the last number was entered and the signal went to the IED, the timing would be tight. But they had no other choice.
He could just make out the hood of McGarvey’s SUV passing the gate.
“Now,” he said sharply.
Mustapha pressed the nine, but almost instantly a large explosion hammered the quiet afternoon, blowing branches off several trees directly in their line of sight.
No delay, the single thought flitted across Kangas’s mind.
TWENTY-SIX
One moment Katy’s limousine was there and in the next instant it was replaced by a bright flash, followed immediately by an overpowering bang and a millisecond later a concussion that knocked all the air out of McGarvey’s lungs.
Glass seemed to be flying everywhere inside the SUV, which swerved sharply to the left, slammed into the ditch at the side of the driveway, and stopped at an odd angle, its front bumper stuck in the upslope of the swale, throwing everyone inside forward against their restraints.
The front airbags had deployed but a large piece of smoldering metal had blasted through the windshield on the passenger side, slicing the airbag and decapitating Dan Green in a spray of blood that splashed McGarvey and the two federal marshals.
Pete Boylan had been shoved back by the airbag, and she was pawing at the material, but she seemed to be in a fog, not really aware of what had just happened.
McGarvey could just make out what remained of the Company limo, the wreckage lying