Free The Kill Zone by David Hagberg Page A

feels,” she murmured luxuriously.
    He poured her a glass of wine and set it on the broad, flat edge of the tub. “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, starting to get up.
    â€œDon’t go.”
    â€œDon’t you want some peace and quiet?”
    â€œI had twenty years of that; now I want you.” She ran a hand across the top of her chest, letting droplets of water run down between her breasts. “Even if we were in the same room for the next twenty, it wouldn’t make
up for what we lost.” She shook her head thinking back. “Such a stupid waste, actually. My fault.”
    â€œOur fault,” McGarvey corrected. “I had a habit of running away, remember?”
    â€œAt least you had a reason,” she flared mildly. “I was just … arrogant. Young, dumb, ambitious. I wanted to be a perfect mother, I really did. I loved Elizabeth with everything in my soul, but I wanted my freedom, too.” She absently touched the base of her neck, her collarbones and shoulders. “I tried Valium, because I felt guilty, but it didn’t work for me. Made me sick at my stomach.” She laughed. “The doctor said that I was tense.”
    â€œIt wasn’t much better for anyone else. It’s time to stop beating yourself up. You were hiding out in the open, and I was hiding underground. You had the tougher assignment.”
    â€œEverybody hated the CIA. My friends used to tell me that kicking you out was the best decision that I’d ever made. But they were jerks. The kind of people you and I always hated. I would look at our daughter and wonder why they weren’t seeing what I was seeing; a perfect little girl who was half you.” She closed her eyes and laid the cool wineglass against her forehead. “I wanted to tell them, but I didn’t.”
    â€œWe spent a lot of time being mad at each other,” McGarvey said sadly. “We both made some dumb decisions.”
    â€œWhen you came back to Washington out of the clear blue sky I thought that you’d come for me. When I found out that the CIA had hired you to dig out Darby and his crowd, I was mad at you all over again.” She was looking inward, regret all over her face. “I threatened to sue you for money, I flaunted myself all over Washington and New York, and I even got word to you that I was thinking about getting married, but nothing worked. Then the CIA comes to see you in Switzerland to offer you a job, and you come running. It wasn’t fair.”
    McGarvey didn’t know what to say. It was a time for going back, and the memories were just as painful for him as they were for her. But maybe necessary, he thought.
    She opened her eyes wide to look at him. “Do you know the worst part?” she asked. “When I saw you walking down the street it was like someone had driven a stake into my heart. I made a mistake, pushing you away, and here you were back in Georgetown even more inaccessible to me than ever. I had become the kind of person we hated; I had become one of my friends, a pretentious bore.”

    â€œBut here we are, Katy,” he said softly.
    She smiled, some of the trouble melting from her face. “It’s going to be okay, isn’t it, Kirk?”
    â€œGuaranteed.”

TUESDAY

    SIX
    IF KIRK MCGARVEY WERE CONFIRMED AS DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE HE WOULD BE ASSASSINATED.
    MONTOIRE-SUR-LE-LOIR, FRANCE
    N ikolayev walked along the country road into town as the sun reached over the distant line of poplars marking the edge of the wheatfield. He encountered no one this morning. Loneliness, he decided, was a subject on which he could write a very long book. Now there wasn’t even a routine to look forward to as he grew older. He could not return to Moscow, nor would he be able to remain here much longer.
    Sunday’s edition of the New York Times, Washington Post and Le Monde, carried the same story. Each newspaper had given