Authors: David Hagberg
Without Honor (42 page)
“I want you to leave the country,” Day said. “Back to Europe where we dug you up from under a rock.”
A week ago he would have resented such a remark. It didn't matter any longer. “What's our story?”
Day looked at him, his lips compressed. “You, mister, have no story. Plain and simple, you keep your mouth shut. You were never here, you know nothing about it.”
“Keep my ex-wife out of it,” McGarvey said tiredly. “Other than that you're welcome to it.”
“We'll just see now, won't we,” Day said, puffed up with self-importance. “From what I can see she was very deeplyâ”
McGarvey reached over in the darkness and clamped his fingers around Day's throat, cutting off the man's wind. “If need be, I'll come back and kill you. It's easier than you think.”
Day's eyes were bulging nearly out of their sockets, and his face was beginning to turn red. He tried to struggle, but McGarvey's grip was iron tight. Trotter had reared back, he didn't know what to do.
“Make certain my ex-wife isn't involved in any way, and I'll keep my end of the bargain. Do you understand me, Mr. Deputy Attorney General?”
Day nodded frantically and McGarvey let go.
He lit a cigarette and for the remainder of the trip over to the Marriott he sat back in his seat and stared out the window, ignoring the other two. In the morning he would leave. He found that he was actually anxious to see Marta again, hold her in his arms, if she would come away with him. Not Switzerland, of course, but they would find solace somewhere together. He resolved to be a better person. He'd stepped back into the fray and found that the rules of the game, if not the class of participants, had drastically changed. It wasn't for him. He might be dissatisfied in the future, there never could be a guarantee against that. But he didn't think he'd ever again pine away for the agency.
He lit a cigarette and for the remainder of the trip over to the Marriott he sat back in his seat and stared out the window, ignoring the other two. In the morning he would leave. He found that he was actually anxious to see Marta again, hold her in his arms, if she would come away with him. Not Switzerland, of course, but they would find solace somewhere together. He resolved to be a better person. He'd stepped back into the fray and found that the rules of the game, if not the class of participants, had drastically changed. It wasn't for him. He might be dissatisfied in the future, there never could be a guarantee against that. But he didn't think he'd ever again pine away for the agency.
He reached in his pocket and felt for the miniature tape recorder he'd taken from Yarnell's body. He thought about turning it over to them, but had decided against it. At least for the moment. They had their story in any event. Yarnell had been a traitor. Donald Powers had somehow discovered his friend's duplicity and when he had confronted him with it, Yarnell shot him. Yarnell was killed during his attempt to escape. Spectacular headlines, but it was a story they all could live with. There'd be no one to dispute it, whether or not Powers died of his wound. He thought again that he didn't know a thing about honor.
“Good-bye, Kirk,” Trotter said outside the hotel. They shook hands. Day remained in the car.
“Take care of yourself,” McGarvey said, and he meant it.
“You too.”
For the rest of the morning, McGarvey lived in a state that could only be called disbelief and horror. He had not gone to bed after Trotter and Day had dropped him off; instead, he had listened to the recording that Yarnell had made of his conversation with Powers. And then he had listened to it again. He had telephoned Evita's club twice, but there was no answer. He called the Del Prado in Mexico City, but the clerk knew nothing about Ms. Perez. She had not checked out, but she hadn't returned to her room either. No one had seen her leave the hotel. He ordered from room service with the gray, overcast dawn, but when his breakfast came he found he didn't have the stomach for it and drank barely a half a cup of coffee. He telephoned Trotter a few minutes before eight.
“I don't think there's anything left to be said, Kirk,” Trotter growled.
“Is he still alive?”
“Powers? As of six when he came out of the operating theater he was in critical condition.”
“Can he speak? Will he regain consciousness?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Trotter demanded. “Just go, Kirk. Leave it be.”
“I have to know.”
“Maybe we treated you shabbily. I have no defense. It's just the way it went. But there's nothing to be gainedâ”
“Is he conscious?” McGarvey persisted.
Trotter sighed. “I don't think so. From what I understand he may never come out of it, and if he does he'll probably be a vegetable. It's all over. Go.”
“But he was innocent.”
“We know that.”
“So was Yarnell.”
“What are you talking about? What the hell are you saying? Good Lord, haven't we gone through enough?”
McGarvey looked at the tape recorder lying on the desk. “It was a Baranov plot,” he said. “And he will have won if you publish the story that Yarnell was a traitor.”
“We have the evidence.”
“Circumstantial, all of it,” McGarvey said. He was thinking about Basulto's story, about Owens's hatred of Yarnell, who was probably guilty of seducing his mentor's wife and of arrogance and of a certain hardness of character and purpose. He thought about Evita and everything she'd told him. She'd been manipulated all right, but by Baranov not by her husband, who had in his own way tried in the end to insulate her. And he thought about poor Janos, who had died on a fool's errand. Yarnell had not murdered them. Baranov had.
“John?”
“I'm here.”
“I'll meet you at Leonard Day's house. Right now. This morning. Call him and tell him we're on the way out.”
“I won't.”
“I think you will.” He hung up. It was all clear to
him now. All the pieces fit, from the hijacking of the flight out of Miami in which the two CIA officers were murdered to the incident last night. Yarnell had been doing his duty as he saw it up there. Nothing more.
him now. All the pieces fit, from the hijacking of the flight out of Miami in which the two CIA officers were murdered to the incident last night. Yarnell had been doing his duty as he saw it up there. Nothing more.
McGarvey cleaned up, ordered a rental car through the hotel desk, and drove out of the city up to Day's palatial home on Lake Artemesia near College Park. The morning was cool and windy. The lake was dotted with whitecaps. No one was fishing. A plain gray Chevrolet sedan with government plates was parked under the overhang when McGarvey drove up. It was at places like this, he thought, that the real work of government service was often conducted. It didn't offer him much comfort.
Inside Trotter and Day were waiting for him in the study. They were drinking coffee. Trotter looked terrible; his eyes were bloodshot, his tie undone, his jacket disheveled. He hadn't changed from last night. Day, on the other hand, seemed fresh in his three-piece pinstriped suit. He also looked angry, even imperious, sitting behind his big leather-topped desk.
“I haven't got time for your asinine bullshit this morning, McGarvey. I want that straight from the beginning here,” Day said. “You want money we'll give it to you, although John tells me that you refused his very generous offer.”
There had been no offer, but it didn't matter. “Yarnell and Powers were both innocent,” McGarvey said, facing him across the desk like a schoolboy before his masters.
“So John has told me. And what of your painstakingly gathered evidence?”
“I was wrong.”
“He was wrong,” Day hooted looking over at Trotter. “What do you suppose he was wrong about?
on his loyalty. Throw our entire secret service into shambles just at the moment we most need its services.”
on his loyalty. Throw our entire secret service into shambles just at the moment we most need its services.”
“But what did Jules and Asher have to do with it, Kirk,” Trotter asked.
“I expect that operation was designed to do nothing more than get Powers's attention. He and Baranov have known each other for more than twenty-five years.”
“It was him in Mexico City?” Trotter asked.
McGarvey nodded.
“What are you talking about?” Day demanded. “Who? What about Mexico City?”
“When Yarnell was in Mexico City he worked Baranov, who at the time was his counterpart at the Soviet embassy. One evening Powers apparently showed up at a party that Yarnell threw and at which Baranov had supplied the women.”
Day's eyes narrowed. His sarcastic manner was gone. “And there was an indiscretion?”
McGarvey nodded. “Most likely. Just that one night. Yarnell might not have thought much about it at the time, but Baranov had, and so had Powers.”
“It was the link between them all these years,” Trotter said, understanding the situation at a much deeper level than Day because of his training.
“Why in God's name did he run to Powers last night? Why did he shoot him? It doesn't make sense, McGarvey.”
“It didn't to me at first,” McGarvey said. “Not until this morning. But first you have to understand that this entire affair, everything that has happened, was orchestrated by Baranov.”
“He's that good?” Day asked.
McGarvey nodded.
“And it started, you say, with the deaths of Jules and Asher?”
Darby Yarnell's guilt or his innocence?”
“It was a Soviet plot,” McGarvey went on doggedly. He wanted to get this over with and leave before he did something truly stupid like going across the desk and smashing Day's pretty face.
The study was a pleasant room. It smelled of books, leather, Day's cologne, and coffee. A lot of the books were privately bound in matched covers. McGarvey wondered if anyone had ever read them.
“It began with the hijacking of the Aeromexico flight out of Miami,” he said. “Planned and financed by the Soviet-run CESTA network.”
Trotter sat forward a little. “The weapons were Soviet made. Supplied by CESTA.”
“Because of the missile thing?” Day asked. “Is that why those two were shot down? Were the Russians afraid of an early discovery?”
“No,” McGarvey said patiently. “I think the missile thing will turn out to be simply another Cuba.”
“Simply,” Day said in amazement.
“The Cuban missile crisis got the Russians exactly what they wanted all along. A promise from us to never again intervene in Cuban affairs. It worked then, and I suspect it will work in Mexico.”
“If that wasn't the Soviet's goal, and I'm certainly not saying that I agree with you, then what?”
“How effective was Powers as a DCI?” McGarvey countered. He was thinking about the tape recording.
“Very,” Day said. “The best we've ever had, bar none.”
“Where is he now?”
“In the hospital, of courseâ”
“Baranov has won,” McGarvey said quietly. “Powers was a thorn in his side. Has been for years and years, so he wanted to get rid of him. Cast doubt
“By killing them and making sure that Powers knew the weapons were Russian made and CESTA supplied, Baranov was putting Powers on notice that trouble was coming.”
“He warned Powers.”
“In effect. He wanted Powers to become defensive. Just one more link in a very long chain of evidence.”
Day shook his head, and Trotter had to explain it for him. “Innocent men aren't generally defensive. Just another piece of circumstantial evidence.”
“The Cuban was working for Baranov, of course,” Day said.
“From the beginning,” McGarvey said. “And you have to admire him. He did a fine job.”
“Where is he now?”
“Havana, I suppose. Picking up a medal. Or a bullet.”
“And Darby's ex-wife?” Trotter asked.
“Hopefully on her way to New York. Baranov actually came to New York about nine months ago to see her. He told her that someone like me would be coming around asking questions about her ex-husband. She had a grudge, and she had seen things in Mexico City that she couldn't possibly have understood. At the time Yarnell was very close to Baranov. They did everything together. Two young spies, both brilliant, both headstrong and arrogant, were working each other. Seducing each other, playing the game on a grand scale. What was a poor little Mexican princess supposed to believe when she saw them together?”
“How could Baranov possibly know that someone like you would be coming?” Day asked.
“He set Basulto on you and Trotter. He knew that you wouldn't take it to the CIA because of Powers's friendship with Yarnell. He figured that you
might be calling in an outsider. Someone who knew the game. A radical.”
might be calling in an outsider. Someone who knew the game. A radical.”
“How do you know that Yarnell wasn't actually a traitor?”
“Because of the quality of the intelligence he sent back on every assignment he was ever given. His boss, Darrel Owens, had nothing but praise for his protege's work in Mexico City and in Moscow, although he hated him.”
“Why?” Day asked. They were leaving him behind again, but it didn't matter now. McGarvey figured that Trotter would explain it to him later.
“Yarnell was probably sleeping with his wife.”
“Why in heaven's name?” Day chirped.
“He was hedging his bets,” Trotter said. “He was an ambitious kid and wanted to get to the top as quickly as he possibly could. The cuckolded husband is almost always the first one to cooperate lest he make a public fool of himself.”
Admiration and hate often went hand-in-hand in this business, McGarvey thought, recalling his afternoon with Owens. No one, he suspected, had ever been neutral about Darby Yarnell, who in the end had made the most tragic mistake of his life. He had simply out-thought himself. In the end neither he nor Powers had been a match for Baranov's skills.
“What about Janos Plónski?” Trotter asked, breaking into McGarvey's thoughts. “He'd found something in the records that got him killed.”
“My fault,” McGarvey said tiredly. He supposed Pat and the kids had returned to England where her mother still lived. Eventually, he knew, he would have to face them, but only after he found the right words.
“What did he discover?” Trotter prompted.
“He looked up Basulto's track. Several of his
operations had been pulled from their jackets. But it was done years ago.”
operations had been pulled from their jackets. But it was done years ago.”
“By whom, if Yarnell and Powers were innocent?”
“There wasn't time to get the dates straight, but I suspect Roger Harris did it. He was Basulto's case officer and he suspected there was a mole in the agency and he wanted to hide what Basulto was doing for himânamely finding the traitor.”
“Who killed Harris in Cuba then ⦔ Trotter started to ask, but a sudden understanding dawned on him. “Basulto,” he said into the breach.
“Yeah,” McGarvey replied.
“Well, what about Yarnell's bodyguards,” Day wanted to know. “That's not what you would consider normal behavior for an innocent man.”
“Yarnell was never what you would think of as normal,” McGarvey countered. “He'd always surrounded himself with a crowd. Admirers, some of them, others actual bodyguards. Maybe he'd gotten paranoid in his old age. Maybe he thought Baranov would be coming after him someday. I don't know.”
Day sat back in his chair, his hands in front of him on the desk. “Still doesn't answer the question of why Yarnell went to see Powers last night. Why he shot him. Not the actions of an innocent man.”
Darby Yarnell had been an arrogant sonofabitch. But a romantic for all of it. An overzealous patriot who had thrown himself body and soul into being a spy in defense of his country. The ends, for him, justified the means. Any means. And it was those very qualities that Baranov had recognized early on, that he had used to manipulate Yarnell. All the signs were there, but McGarvey had seen them too late. As they all had. Only Baranov had known the outcome from the very beginning. Only Baranov
truly knew about honor and dishonor, and how to use this understanding to the best advantage. McGarvey took the miniature tape recorder out of his jacket pocket and laid it gingerly on Day's desk.
truly knew about honor and dishonor, and how to use this understanding to the best advantage. McGarvey took the miniature tape recorder out of his jacket pocket and laid it gingerly on Day's desk.
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