to shoot me it’ll have to be in the back,” he said. “But it wasn’t us who wiped out your family, you have my word on it.” He turned and started back up the hill.
When he was gone, McGarvey stepped back. “Go.”
Kangas didn’t bother turning around, just headed up the hill after Mustapha.
When they were both gone, McGarvey followed them, coming within sight of the road just as they were getting into the Taurus. A minute later they drove away, and McGarvey called Louise’s cell.
“Can I bum a ride?” he asked when she answered.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Remington was fifty years old, the same age his father had been when he’d hung himself from a ceiling light fixture, the only decisive thing the man had ever accomplished in his miserable life. And at this moment Remington figured that he had come to his own crossroad. Either the McGarvey situation would be resolved and Admin would continue its work in Baghdad for the State Department and here in Washington for the Friday Club, or everything would fall apart.
The cab had taken Colleen over to Reagan National Airport an hour ago, and before she’d walked out the door she’d kissed him, something she had not done in private for a very long time.
“It’s the shootings in Baghdad, isn’t it,” she’d said. “Roland was assassinated and you think you might be next?”
She was a bright woman, and never missed much, but he’d just smiled. “Anything’s possible, my dear. Might even get run over by a bus.”
“But you’re sending me up to New York just in case. How terribly romantic.”
“Just for a day or two.”
She gave him a double take. “You’re actually worried something like that could happen here. I mean just now that you’ve been handed the company practically on a silver platter. Doesn’t seem fair somehow.”
Remington had wanted to tell her to shut her mouth, but he’d held his smile. “Have a good time in New York.”
She’d given him a last, searching look. “Always do,” she said and she left.
It was quiet on Wednesdays, when the house staff had the day off. The only one left was Sergeant Randall, his driver and personal bodyguard, who had his own apartment in the carriage house above the garage at the rear of the property.
Remington stood by the French doors in his study looking at the rose garden. At this moment the bushes were bare, and looked dead. But in two months the garden—his personal project—would be magnificent. If everything held together that long, and he was here to see it.
It was coming up on nine-thirty, time to leave for the office, and yet the only word he’d received had been from Boberg who’d confirmed that McGarvey had shown up in disguise.
“A woman picked him up at the curb in a Toyota SUV,” Boberg reported. “But the plates matched some French doctor supposedly out of the country right now.”
“What about Kangas and Mustapha?”
“Last I heard they were following the Toyota into the city. Haven’t you heard from them yet?”
“No.”
“I’m in the office now, do you want me to try to reach them? Find out what’s going on?”
“I’ll take care of it myself from here,” Remington said. “But listen, Cal, I’m putting you in total charge of Admin for the next couple of days. I’m going to be busy soothing some ruffled feathers.”
“He hasn’t called here yet,” Boberg said, referring to Robert Foster.
“He’s waiting for me to take care of the situation. So just sit tight.”
“Business as usual?”
Remington laughed despite himself. “Or the illusion thereof,” he said. “Something comes up, call me.”
“Will do.”
Remington called the sat phone Kangas had been using since Baghdad, and it was answered on the second ring.
“It was a bloody fucking circus,” Kangas shouted.
Remington could hear the sounds of people and traffic in the background. “Where the hell are you?”
“On the Mall, in front of the Vietnam Memorial. Figured we needed to be around a lot of people. The son of a bitch is good, and we’re going to need some serious help if you still want him taken down.”
Remington held the phone tightly to his ear, but his other hand was shaking. He hadn’t had a drink in two days, and he needed something now. “What happened?” he demanded.
Kangas settled down and went over everything that happened from the moment McGarvey showed up and Boberg told them about the Toyota SUV. “The bitch driving stopped up in Rock Creek Park and McGarvey jumped out and ran into the woods. It was a setup.”
“Which you must