come at them like that.”
“Bullshit. They drew their pieces.”
“Now we know what to expect,” Kangas said. “We won’t make the same mistake they did. Anyway he didn’t kill them. Which means they’re probably Company security, or maybe Bureau muscle or federal marshals.”
“It looked like he was in custody.”
“But why?” Kangas said.
They reached the exit on Memorial Drive, traffic panicky as it came out of the cemetery, and when they got to the bridge across the river Kangas speed-dialed Remington’s encrypted number. It was a call he didn’t want to make, but if they weren’t going to bug out, as Mustapha had suggested, they’d have to come clean.
Remington answered on the first ring as if he’d had his cell phone in hand and was waiting for the call. “Yes?”
“There’s a problem.”
“Tell me,” Remington said.
“We got hung up behind some traffic on the way out after the funeral and had to guess when to push the button. We got it wrong. McGarvey survived but his wife and daughter were killed outright.”
“What happened next?” Remington asked, and it didn’t sound as if he were the least bit concerned.
“McGarvey was like a crazy man. He took down two armed men—probably CIA security or maybe federal LEs—shot one of them in the leg and then jumped in the backseat of a dark Toyota SUV and took off. We got the Maryland tag number. You can run it.”
“Give it to me.”
Kangas repeated the number.
“Did you manage to get away clean?”
“Yes. There was a lot of confusion. Nobody was paying attention to anything except getting the hell away.”
“Where are you now?”
“Just getting off the Arlington Memorial Bridge,” Kangas said. “I’m going up to Rock Creek Park in case you need to meet up.”
“No,” Remington said. “I want you to go to ground for now, until I can figure out something.”
“Sorry, sir. But if we’d been given more time to plan—”
“I don’t want to hear excuses,” Remington shot back. “This isn’t over, nor is your involvement. McGarvey is still a problem. He’s still your problem. But for now you’re to keep out of sight until I can work out what comes next.”
“Mr. Sandberger—” Kangas said, but again Remington cut him off.
“Will not be bothered with this for the moment.”
“Can you tell me if McGarvey was under arrest, because the two guys on his ass sure didn’t act like bodyguards?”
“He’s been charged with treason.”
It wasn’t what Kangas had expected to hear. “Holy shit,” he said half under his breath. “Why not let the FBI do our work for us? At the worst he’ll go to prison, at best he’ll get shot to death trying to escape.”
“There are other considerations,” Remington said. “None of which are any of your business at this juncture. For now keep your heads down, but keep in touch. There’ll be more.”
“Treason for what?” Kangas asked. “If we’re going to continue to put our asses on the line and either get arrested or taken down by the crazy son of a bitch, we ought to know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“What you’re dealing with is a million-dollar bonus. For each of you.”
Kangas’s breath was taken away. “Yes, sir,” he said. “We’re going to ground.”
“Good man.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The house on Whitehaven was quiet, Colleen had gone to a meeting of one of her charity events and the cook and cleaning lady had the afternoon off. Remington had poured himself a large snifter of a good Napoleon brandy after the call from Kangas and he stood now at the window of his study turning over the possibilities in his mind.
He would have to call Roland with this, of course, but before he did so he needed to think things through. Kangas and Mustapha had screwed up, that much was clear, and there was no question now that they had become expendable. In fact, they might even have become liabilities, depending if anyone had seen them near the scene.
But beyond that they would have to deal with a man who couldn’t be more highly motivated to strike back at whoever he suspected had killed his wife and child. He’d come to Frankfurt to confront Roland, whose name he’d told them was on Alexandar Turov’s computer in Tokyo, which meant the former CIA director had at least part of the puzzle, and it meant that he would probably come after Admin, especially Roland.
And he turned that over in his mind. It was possible that McGarvey would even manage to take Roland out, leaving Admin without a CEO, which was a role Remington