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Authors: David Hagberg

Without Honor (17 page)

BOOK: Without Honor
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McGarvey glanced again out the window toward Yarnell's fortress. Yes, he thought, there was a job to be done here. But that was only a part of it. He himself had watched Yarnell while poor Janos was being shot to death at some service station beside the highway, his body stuffed unceremoniously in a men's room. Yarnell had his army. But was he the king … or was he merely a general?
The apartment was large and well furnished. It contained two bedrooms, an efficiency kitchen, two bathrooms, and a long living room–dining room combination in which the surveillance equipment had been set up.
“They'll be back within the hour,” Trotter said. “I sent them away for the afternoon. I wanted to have a little chat with you before they got started. Ground rules.”
McGarvey didn't feel like showing his old friend much mercy. “You want me to kill Yarnell for you, but you don't want your crew to know about it.”
Trotter's jaw tightened. “We've gone a long way for you, Kirk. We've bent over backward to accommodate your needs. Don't push us too far.”
“Then I'll quit and return to Switzerland.”
This time Trotter did not react the way he had before. This time McGarvey had Janos's murder on his conscience. It was a psychological weapon Trotter
was going to be using regularly from now on. McGarvey could see the entire plan, and it saddened him in a way. Nothing had changed, it seemed, in the five years he'd been out of the fold. There was no honor here, as someone at the Farm had once told him about the spy business. “We're dealing in what is fundamentally one of the most dishonest occupations in the world; that of inducing perfectly ordinary people to betray their country, to go back on their principles and ideals. Don't expect any honorable men in the profession,” he'd been told. “And don't expect to keep your honor intact for very long, not if you want to be very good at your job.” But then, assassins were not to be treated with honor in any event; respect, of course, but not honor.
“Build the case for them, Kirk. Tell them all the little bits you want—of course, they already understand that a surveillance operation on our Mr. Yarnell has been ordered. Tell them, if you'd like, how you were recruited, or why, and that you've been brought in as an outsider to prove Yarnell's guilt. But leave out the part about the prosecution, will you? It's all we're asking. Not much.”
“If I don't?”
“They will be withdrawn.”
“By then it would be too late. If they know what might happen and it actually does, they will come forward during the investigation that will follow.”
“No they won't, Kirk.”
Again McGarvey glanced out the window. “I won't take that risk, John.”
“Under the circumstances I don't think you have much choice.”
McGarvey turned back. There was an odd light in Trotter's eyes. “What circumstances?”
Trotter puffed up a little. “We had to have our
insurance, too. You must understand that. You would not be welcomed back in Switzerland, that part of your life is over with. There is simply nothing left there for you to go back to. And, from what I understand, Kathleen will probably marry Phillip Brent.”
“What are you getting at?” McGarvey asked softly.
“Do you know this man? Have you heard of him?”
“He wants to sue me for an increase in Kathleen's alimony. Harassment …” Another chilling thought suddenly struck McGarvey. “Who is he, John? What does he have to do with this?”
“It wasn't up to me,” Trotter said. “I mean, I knew nothing about it until after the fact.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I'm surprised you didn't catch it. But then you were out of the country so long that the name couldn't have meant anything to you. And these past couple of days have been hectic at best … confusing.”
McGarvey was having a very bad premonition about this.
“Phillip Brent is one of Darby Yarnell's closest friends and associates. They do a lot of business together. In fact, Kathleen and Elizabeth have been frequent houseguests—”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” McGarvey swore softly. “Down there?” he demanded, pointing toward Yarnell's fortress.
“There. Yes.”
A wave of anger and disbelief washed over McGarvey. That and fear, not only for what was and had been happening, but fear for what he might do.
“How long has it been going on?” he asked.
Trotter said nothing.
“How long, John?”
“A year. Maybe a little longer.”
“My ex-wife and daughter and Phillip Brent have been pals with Darby Yarnell for more than a year?”
Trotter nodded.
McGarvey could feel his blood pressure rising. The old meanness was coming back. Only this time he felt dangerous. “Not only didn't you mention this in Lausanne, it was the very reason you came to me in the first place, wasn't it? Whose idea was it, yours or Leonard Day's? The joke was on me the whole time, wasn't it? You must have had quite a few laughs.”
“No one is laughing about this, Kirk. On that you must believe me. Yarnell was and is a very dangerous man—”
“Who is involved with my ex-wife and daughter!”
“He must be eliminated.”
“And I am the only man for the job, is that it? Can't miss with Kirk. He has a personal stake in this.”
“If you warn her and she suddenly withdraws, Yarnell will become suspicious. It would be extremely dangerous for her, Kirk. Surely you can see that.”
“You don't involve families, John. Don't you remember the old score?” McGarvey was sick at heart. He realized now that he knew absolutely nothing about dishonor. He'd never really known about it.
“It's bigger than families, can't you understand that?” Trotter's eyes were wide behind his glasses. He looked like a fanatical revolutionary. “The man is friends with the director of Central Intelligence, for God's sake. He is on a first-name basis with the
president of the United States. Let's put it in perspective!”
 
Trotter's team showed up later in the afternoon, all bright and full of cautious enthusiasm. Among them were Lewis Sheets, the tan mack from Lausanne, and Lorraine Hawkins, the girl with the
sommersprossen.
Bill Porter, the bureau's resident electronics expert, and a Mexican second-story man, Emiliano Gonzales, rounded out the little group. McGarvey behaved himself, but he would forever remember having the feeling that they all were playacting and everyone knew it. The deception was part of the new regime. They'd watch Yarnell on his home turf. Meanwhile, the ball of string saved up all these years had to be unwound, and McGarvey thought he knew where the starting bit might be.
He watched from the window of the Long Island Airways Piper Navajo as they came up from the southeast, parallel to the beaches of Long Island. It was nearly noon, and after the strain of Washington and the hustle-bustle of LaGuardia Airport, the barrier islands, broad beaches, and tree-studded communities below seemed peaceful, idyllic. Ahead just off Highway 27 lay the airport in East Hampton, the hills and sand dunes flattened at this altitude, the big Atlantic combers breaking all the way from Ireland, tame. Even the vast ocean distances were softened by the haze that obscured the horizon. He'd not been around these parts in years, not since Elizabeth was a little girl. The Hamptons in those days had been Kathleen's idea of “arrived.” She met a lot of people, made a lot of friends up here. For a time she even attempted to affect a Hampton accent. Their house back in Alexandria in those days was filled with Long Island bric-a-brac, as if they were tourists back from Mexico or Morocco, somewhere where the vendors were as thick as flies and one
had
to buy souvenirs. But then, he was using his memories as a shield against his bleak thoughts about John Trotter, Oliver Leonard Day, and all that they
hadn't
told him—which was a legion.
He'd driven up to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport to pick up his flight to New York, watching behind him for anyone from the bureau's team on his tail. But he'd come away clean as far as he had been able to determine. Of course, again at LaGuardia he had gone through the switchbacks, the feints, the over-the-shoulder routines, and in the end, climbing aboard the tiny prop-driven executive aircraft out to Long Island, he'd even looked to the observation platform, half expecting someone to be up there even then, watching him, reporting back. By then Trotter would have been able to put two and two together and would have figured out who he was coming to see. But there'd been no one.
The cab, which was an old Chevrolet station wagon, took him to the house, which was located on the beach three-quarters of a mile north of town. The road wound down through dunes and tall grasses that were permanently bent toward the land because of the nearly constant sea wind. They drove past an old storm fence that was half-buried in the sand, a No Soliciting sign knocked down. It hadn't taken much to find the place from the files Day had sent over. A couple of telephone calls to a folksy local tax assessor and he'd had his directions. The house was a lot larger-than he had expected it would be. Tall dormers, a widow's walk, weather-beaten shingles, a broad screened porch that looked out to sea, a large stone chimney—which was smoking a little now because it was chilly and old men were almost always cold, especially in the spring—were all punctuated by dark, unblinking windows. On a sand hummock below the front steps a picnic table with one leg broken leaned forlornly into the salt breeze. Big rolls of brownish foam scudded along the beach beneath an overcast sky. Way out to sea a large container ship headed south.
He'd brought a leather shoulder bag packed with a few last-minute things. After the cabbie left, he shouldered the bag, walked up the sand path, mounted the steps, and let himself onto the screened porch. The place smelled musty and dead and very old. He knocked on the door with the heel of his right hand, the entire front wall of the house shivering under the blows. The house would be considered a disgrace in the Hamptons, he mused. Raze the place and don't look back, Kathleen would have said. But then there never had been too many rich spies and almost never any
old
rich spies.
The door opened and a very old man with watery, pale green eyes, wispy white hair, and a few days' growth of white whiskers on his chin stood looking out. He was dressed in a thick wool sweater with the tall collar turned up, steel gray wool slacks, and thick carpet slippers. His skin seemed parchment thin, and his lips, his bony cheeks, and the arches above his eyes were blue-white and veined. His right hand, raised as if in greeting, shook slightly from a palsy.
“Mr. Owens?” McGarvey asked. He didn't know if he should shout. “Darrel Owens?”
“Who the hell are you?” the old man asked, looking beyond McGarvey down toward the driveway. His voice was soft, precise, and cultured. McGarvey felt just a little like an idiot. He smiled.
“Kirk McGarvey, sir,” He held out his hand.
“Is something funny, for Christ's sake?” the old man demanded looking McGarvey in the eye.
“No, sir.”
“What do you want?”
“I'd like to ask you some questions.”
“About what?”
According to his jacket Owens had had a reputation for being a tough bastard. McGarvey had little doubt this old man was him. He'd cut his teeth
during the Second World War in the OSS, and had been one of the shakers and movers when the agency was established in 1947. His name, along with Donovan's, Bill Casey's, and a very few others were a legend. He was seventy.
“Darby Yarnell,” McGarvey said with just a little trepidation. After all, Owens had been Yarnell's boss for much of the man's career in the CIA. “Just a few questions. I won't take up much of your time.”
“You don't look Russian. And your name does seem to ring a bell in the distance.”
“Russian?” McGarvey asked.
This time Owens chuckled. “We've all got our enemies, what? Russians. You've heard of them? They're supposed to be the bad guys.”
“Maybe I shouldn't have come,” McGarvey said, softening his tone even further.
The old man lowered his head and looked up at McGarvey as if through the tops of bifocals. “I'm not senile, you sonofabitch. Old, but I've still got most of my marbles. You came to ask about Darby Yarnell. We called him a prick, do you know why?”
McGarvey shook his head, not knowing what to expect.
Owens laughed. “Because he had such a perfect head.”
“I don't know …”
“You have questions, son? I've at least got the time, if not all the answers.” Owens stepped back into the house. He beckoned. “I always figured Yarnell was too big for his britches. What's the sonofabitch supposed to have done?”
“I don't know if he's done anything. But that's just it.” McGarvey came into the house and closed the door. He dropped his bag in the vestibule and followed the old man back into the hall, which smelled of must and age, of medicine and faintly of backed-up toilets, over all of which was the odor of
wood burning in a fireplace. Masculine odors. Together, not so terribly unpleasant.
A very large, very old dog raised its head from where it lay in front of the fireplace and looked up at McGarvey. It wagged just the tip of its tail, yawned deeply, and then laid its head back down. The remnants of lunch—soup, some bread, and a bottle of beer—remained on a broad oak coffee table. Photographs of dozens of foreign places, each with Owens and sometimes others in them, adorned the walls. The room was dimly lit and very warm from the fire. McGarvey suspected that Owens lived alone here.
“You with the Company, then?” the old man asked. “One of the new regime? A Powers man? Hear he's doing good things. About time, I suspect, what?”
“Ex-Company. I was fired a few years ago.”
Owens stared at him through eyes suddenly shrewd. “Knew I'd remembered the name. You're the hit man who got canned over the Chile thing. A Carter regime casualty.”
McGarvey nodded.
“Who are you working for now? What are you doing here?”
“Looking for answers.”
“You going to kill him? Is that it? Is this an old vendetta? Are you settling an old score? You're on intimate terms with the bad guys, then?” McGarvey had the feeling that the old man was enjoying this, even though he was skeptical and mistrustful. It probably got very lonely out here on the beach. Especially in the winter when the winds blew the weather in. With spring came hope. He could see it written on the man's face.
“I hadn't planned on it.”
“He hadn't planned on it,” the old man hooted.
He turned to the dog who looked up again from its sleep. “Hear that, he hadn't planned on it. Maybe it'll just happen, then. Moscow Center rules and all? I suppose he's packing a piece. Probably a Makarov … light, accurate, reliable. Maybe even a Graz Buyra, the heavyweight. Do the job right. Final.”
“Are you familiar with Oliver Leonard Day?”
Owens's eyes narrowed. “Justice?”
“He would accept a telephone call from you. If you needed any kind of a confirmation he would make it, though he wouldn't necessarily like it. I can give you his number if you have a phone out here.”
“I'm capable of looking up a telephone number,” the old man said. He shook his head. “I'm truly sorry you are here, you know, though I suspected someone like you would be showing up on my doorstep sooner or later. Part of the business, I guess. Though one could always hope.” Again he shook his head. “Justice.”
McGarvey didn't know if he was referring to Justice the department, or justice the noun.
Owens stacked the dishes on his tray and picked it up. “Would you like something to eat?”
“No thanks.”
“A beer?”
“If it's not so cold,” McGarvey said off-handedly.
Owens grinned. “Been in Europe for a while, then. Make yourself comfortable.” He left the room.
McGarvey took off his jacket and dropped it over the back of the chair. The crackle of the fireplace was real. Nothing else seemed to be. On a table was a stack of magazines:
Central Intelligence Retirees Association Newsletter.
They went back a number of years. Over the mantle were photographs showing Owens with Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and finally Ford. All of them
were signed best wishes or with similar sentiments except for Kennedy's, which made mention of Cuba:
Cuba libre
—next year, Darrel.
The date on the photograph was more startling, however. It was November 21, 1963—the day before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
“Washington was called Camelot in those days, remember?” Owens said coming in from the hall. He'd brought a couple of beers.
“I was in the service, stationed in Germany. I remember the day Kennedy was shot perfectly,” McGarvey said.
“Everyone remembers that day.” Owens handed McGarvey his beer. It was cellar-cool. “I was convinced a shooting war was imminent. After the Bay of Pigs, and the missile crisis, there wasn't much left except for an all out exchange of ICBMs.” Owens looked up at the photograph, his eyes moist. “He wasn't such a hot president, you know. But he cleaned up nice, and his wife was a looker. Our country was young—we weren't even two hundred yet—and so was our president. Hell, we could lick the world, or at least show them the way into the twenty-first century. We were going to the moon!”
A ways off they could hear the horn of some very large ship, the sound blown onto the shore by the breeze. Then it faded as the breeze momentarily died.
“Will you trust the memory of an old man?” Owens asked softly. He hadn't taken his eyes off the Kennedy photograph. “Could be faulty.”
“As long as no one has tampered with it, such as is done with paper records, I'll be satisfied.”
Now Owens looked at McGarvey. “You've got a bone in your teeth, haven't you, lad,” he said. “You've got the look about you. Oh, boy, have you ever got the look.”
Owens was married for forty years. His wife had
been dead now for nearly ten. McGarvey figured the man could write the book on loneliness.
 
“Yarnell played double for the Bay of Pigs,” Owens began with no preamble. “It was his first real field assignment. We knew the Russians were getting themselves involved in a big way down there, so we decided to throw Yarnell into the equation. We wanted to see if we couldn't hold them off. Provide a little diversion, if you catch my drift. Misdirect them. By then it was too little, too late. It was one of the few projects at which Darby Yarnell ever failed. But then, it wasn't his fault. The conception was all wrong.”
McGarvey hadn't thought the man would begin with an apologia for Yarnell, but then it was Owens's story and he'd tell it in his own fashion. Only if he got off the track, McGarvey decided, only if the old man wandered too far afield, as old men are wont to do, would he bring him back. McGarvey settled down with his beer to listen and listen closely, because if there was one lesson he'd learned well from the early days, it was that more than half of any story was
between
the lines. So pay attention, boyo, and you just might learn something.
In those days, Owens explained, the agency was very young. They were still learning their lessons from the NKVD straight out of Moscow and still trying to assimilate everything their own OSS had taught them.
Overlap
as a conceptual term became the bane of their existence. The organizational chart had gaps a mile wide in some places, and even worse, crossovers wider. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians was the watch phrase. Their pariah was the man who tried to play both ends against the middle, and they were loaded with the type. It gave just a hint of the troubles they were having and would continue to have in the years to come.
BOOK: Without Honor
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