Free Blood Pact (McGarvey) by David Hagberg Page A

from an old flame—and a Nokia cell phone with two dozen telephone numbers, all of them connecting to various CNI blind numbers that were answered by various recorded voices.
    Up at the house he found the key under a potted plant and let himself in. Once he had the door closed and relocked he leaned back against it and closed his eyes. What an absolute cock-up. He knew that he was lucky to be alive, but he also understood that he was going to have to do a lot of explaining why the mission had failed so spectacularly.
    They’d been trained as a team, but they’d also been through intensive drills in which one or even all of the other team members were down, in which case they would have to continue alone.
    “Where are the others?” a man, or possibly a woman, with a high, soft voice asked in Spanish.
    Cabello opened his eyes and reached for his gun.
    “If you draw your weapon I will kill you,” the person said in a reasonable tone.
    Cabello could only make out the figure of someone very large on the other side of the small kitchen. The room was nearly pitch-black and he couldn’t make out any details, except that he was sure now that it was a man and that his life was in immediate danger.
    “Who are you?”
    “My identity is of no concern. You have come here because there has been trouble. Where are the others? Dead?”
    “Sí.”
    “Tell me the manner in which they died, and do not lie to me, Señor Cabello, I will know.”
    “Do you know about McGarvey?”
    “Yes.”
    “He shot the others.”
    “Has he followed you?”
    Cabello shook his head. “I don’t think so. I was ordered to get back to Interpol to file my report.”
    “I said do not lie to me, Señor,” the man said, and he fired one shot from a silenced pistol.
    The bullet slammed into Cabello’s left arm with an incredible bolt of pain. He cried out, clapping his left hand on the wound.
    “I warned you, no lies.”
    “What do you want with me?”
    “The truth. The Voltaire Society in the person of Giscarde Petain came to talk to Señor McGarvey, and your team killed him. Why?”
    “He was our enemy.”
    “In what way?”
    Cabello hesitated.
    “Be quick.”
    “You have come this far, you know about our operation, I suspect you know everything else.”
    The figure moved closer so that Cabello could make out his features. He looked like a very large teenager, but with the calmness of a monk. He was dressed in black jeans and a black polo shirt.
    “How close have you come? How close has McGarvey come?”
    “We killed the Frenchman to keep the Society from learning the truth.”
    “Yes, the diary of Jacob Ambli. But your people do not have it and now it appears that Mr. McGarvey has declined to help in your quest. But he knows about it?”
    “Yes, at least I think so. He made a phone call to a friend at the CIA and discussed the incident at the college.”
    “But your team has no idea where the diary is, or who may have stolen it?”
    “No.”
    “Nor does Mr. McGarvey?”
    “No,” Cabello said.
    The dark figure raised his pistol and a thunderclap burst inside of Cabello’s head.

 
    SIXTEEN
     
    It was after ten, and though McGarvey was tired he couldn’t shut down. Drink in hand he stood at the open sliders looking across his pool and down the sloping lawn to the gazebo that Katy had loved so much. But he had to keep reminding himself that even if she were here he wouldn’t have been able to explain to her what had happened today. In fact he would have probably moved her into a hotel in town before the flight up to D.C. tomorrow morning.
    He had taken another shower and slipped on a T-shirt and shorts. At this moment Otto would be sifting through the computer’s memory that he’d downloaded, and possibly even hacking into the CNI’s database in Madrid. Tomorrow they would have some of the answers—hopefully enough to begin with or to step away and let the police and the FBI handle the mess.
    His phone rang, startling him out