The Shadowmen Read Online Free Page A

newspapers, maps, and 3-D images—that didn’t require viewing glasses—of places, things, and even people could be manipulated by a wave of the hand. Keyboards had once been placed just about everywhere, but lately, nearly everything was done by voice recognition.
    â€œOh, wow,” Otto said when he’d buzzed them in. As usual, he was dressed in faded jeans, sneakers—the laces untied—and a ratty old sweatshirt with the shield-and-dagger logo of the old KGB. His long hair, now a little bit gray, was contained in a ponytail, and since he and Louise were married several years ago, he’d dropped twenty-five pounds and had kept it off. Almost from the start, she’d broken him of most of his bad habits, including eating Twinkies and washing them down with heavy cream or at least half-and-half.
    It had only been a couple of months since Mac had gone out to Serifos to work on his book, but Otto wore his feelings on his sleeve. Every meeting was a reunion.
    â€œHow’re Louise and Audie?” Mac asked.
    â€œMissing you,” Otto told him. “Did Pete brief you?”
    â€œOn the way back. Have you come up with anything new in the meantime?”
    â€œNada. I sent one of our forensics teams out there to see if the creep might have left some DNA traces. I was hoping he might have cut himself with the chisel or maybe smashed a thumb. But no such luck.”
    â€œLet me see it.”
    Otto nodded. “Bring up the recent Arlington file on three, please.”
    A sweeping 3-D image of a gently sloping hillside mostly filled with neat rows and columns of white headstones came up on one of the large monitors.
    â€œI thought that he might have left footprints or maybe dropped something from a pocket,” Otto said. “Advance, please.”
    The image moved slowly up the hill where near the top it slid left along one of the rows of grave sites.
    â€œI left the headstone as it was but had it covered.”
    The view stopped at Katy’s marker, a black plastic bag duct-taped to it.
    â€œClear, please,” Otto said.
    The bag disappeared, and a dozen emotions and countless memories tumbled over each other in McGarvey’s head. He’d come back from his blackest op, the one in Chile, and Katy, sick with worry, had given him an ultimatum: Her and their infant daughter, Liz, or the CIA. He’d been young then and stupidly headstrong, so he’d not taken either. He’d turned his back on her, quit the CIA, and moved to Switzerland. Years lost that could never be regained, though he’d gotten them back finally when Liz had grown to be a young woman.
    Kathleen’s name had been left intact, but her married name had been chiseled off, as had the inscription LOVING WIFE OF KIRK MCGARVEY .
    â€œHe used a two-inch chisel, almost certainly brand new, because the chips showed sharp edges,” Otto said.
    â€œCan we be sure that a man did this?” Pete asked. “Why not a woman?”
    â€œA woman would have erased Katy’s name too,” McGarvey said. He wasn’t sure how he knew such a thing; he just did. “Did he touch Liz’s stone or Todd’s?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI’ll have another one made.”
    â€œAlready done.”
    McGarvey stared at the image for a long time. It didn’t matter who did the thing or why, but the message was clear: I am coming after you; I just wanted you know.
    â€œI have to go out there to take a look first.”
    â€œCould be it’s exactly what he wants you to do,” Otto said.
    â€œI hope so.”
    â€œYou didn’t bring a gun,” Pete said.
    â€œI’m doing this alone,” McGarvey told her.
    â€œThe hell you are. Someone needs to cover your back, and anyway, by your own admission, you think that I could be next, so I have two vested interests.”

4
    They stopped at McGarvey’s apartment in Georgetown, where he picked up his Walther PPK