Free End Game by David Hagberg Page B

commercial waterfront at Piraeus.
    McGarvey had sent Pete to soften the blow, and Moshonas for his authority, rather than approach Coffin himself. “He’ll be on a hair trigger. If I show up, he might want to shoot first and listen later.”
    And it had worked, along with allowing him to keep his weapon. But Pete realized she resented Mac’s attitude just a little, even though he was right. If Coffin had pulled his weapon, she was sure she would have been able to handle herself.
    She turned and looked back at him. “You could have shot me and simply walked away. Why not?”
    â€œWouldn’t have been very sporting. In any event, I’m sure you would have responded in kind, and both of us would be on our way to the hospital or the morgue.”
    â€œSo, what’s the point? Why’d you set yourself up for the fall? Who’d you think was coming after you? Not us. Your record was clean when you walked away from the Company.”
    â€œIt’s more complicated than that, as Walt and Istvan found out.”
    Pete understood. “Almost everything usually is.”
    â€œWhat about the other Alpha Seven operators? Are they okay? Have you managed to make contact?”
    â€œYou were our first. We’re still working on the others.”
    â€œRencke is?”
    â€œYes. Wager and Fabry were the only ones left still working for us.”
    â€œThey’re dead now. So might the others be.”
    â€œWe found you,” Pete said, and faced forward as the lights around the harbor came into view. Her skin crawled, having an armed man—especially one of Coffin’s character—sitting behind her.
    She’d only ever met a few NOCs in her career, and all of them had been singularly egotistical liars, cheats, and con men—she’d not met a woman NOC field officer. But those traits were the prime requirements for the job of going into badland to spy and not get caught. They had to screw over people on a regular basis in order to fulfill their assignments.
    Mac had told her about the one couple who’d moved in next door to an Egyptian major who worked in logistics and supply for the air force. The man was married and had four children, and as a major he was barely making ends meet.
    The U.S. wanted to know what aircraft spare parts were most in demand, so Boeing and Northrop and other U.S. suppliers would not only have a leg up in their business dealings with the Egyptians, but so Washington would have a better handle on the actual workload the air force was under.
    It started easy. The NOC and his wife, who had two children of their own, invited the major and his family over for an old-fashioned American backyard barbecue, complete with beer and tapes of a couple of Packers football games.
    A couple of weeks later the NOC’s oldest son, who was ten, taught the major’s son, who was eight years old, how to ride his bike. The lessons went on for a week, until the major’s son demanded a bike like their neighbor’s boy had.
    It was an impossible demand on a major’s pay, so the NOC bought a bike from the BX at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, had it shipped to Cairo. And within two days the major’s son was riding around the neighborhood.
    The major had been unable to resist the pressure from his son and his wife to allow the boy to keep the bike, and that had been the beginning of his conversion to a spy for the U.S. against his own government.
    The NOC had targeted the major, figured out his weakness, and had homed in on it. Mission accomplished. Two years later, after the NOC and his family transferred out, the major came under suspicion so he killed his wife and children and then put the pistol into his own mouth and pulled the trigger. It was an easier way out for him than military prison.
    â€œThing is,” McGarvey had told Pete, “we never really needed the information. The parts were all made in the U.S. and the suppliers had all