Without Honor by David Hagberg

pieces.”
    â€œYou’re the unknown element.”
    â€œYarnell has already gone to Powers and to the president with this?”
    Trotter nodded glumly. “I’m sure he hasn’t
come right out and said he was being investigated as a spy. But he’s almost certainly worked himself in solid with them. He’ll begin digging in now. But, Kirk, listen to me, the man has his Achilles’ heel. He has a weak side.”
    â€œDon’t we all,” McGarvey muttered.
    â€œYarnell was married back in the late fifties to a girl in Mexico. Very young, very pretty.”
    â€œI thought he was a bachelor.”
    â€œThey divorced a long time ago. She’s living in New York City these days. Her name is Evita Perez. She has a club. In SoHo, I think.”
    â€œChrist,” McGarvey said softly.
    Trotter suddenly turned away again. “We’re asking a lot of you, Kirk. I know it; Leonard knows it.”
    The house grew very quiet. It was all coming to McGarvey now, and he felt very fragile, as if he were a delicate crystal vase that would shatter at the slightest vibration.
    â€œThere cannot be a trial; you can’t or won’t go to the president with this; he’s Powers’s friend; you’re not sure of the bureau. So what, we send him back to Moscow? Is that it, John?”
    Trotter shook his head.
    â€œNo, it would be another Kim Philby. They’d crow about it for years. The effect would be worse than a trial, wouldn’t it?”
    A lot of thoughts came tumbling, one over the other, into McGarvey’s head. The business in Chile was uppermost in his mind. It was still an active file. He could still be prosecuted for murder. Were they holding that over him?
    â€œWe’re talking about murder, here, John, aren’t we? About the assassination of a former U.S. senator, one of the most influential men in Washington.”
    Trotter held himself very still.

    â€œDoes Leonard Day know about this? Has he approved this plan?”
    â€œWe didn’t talk about it … not in so many words.”
    â€œBut the implication was there between you, goddamnit, wasn’t it?”
    Trotter nodded.
    God, he couldn’t believe any of this. “What if I do kill him, John? What then? Where would that leave me? No official sanction from the agency, certainly none from the bureau or Justice. We just don’t do those sorts of things, do we? What happens if I’m caught?” He couldn’t believe any of this.
    â€œYou would have Leonard’s personal help, as well as mine, all the way.”
    â€œYou would take the fall with me if I was arrested?” McGarvey said. “Turn around, for Christ’s sake, and look at me!”
    Trotter turned. He was pale. Sweat lined his brow and his upper lip. “I’ve thought the possibility through. Believe me, I have. If that were to happen, we would go to Powers and to the president and lay it out for them piece by piece. Make them understand.”
    â€œIf you are willing to do that in extremis, why not now? Go to them now!”
    â€œWe’re not sure!” Trotter cried.
    â€œI’m to make sure, first, is that it? I’m to suck after his ex-wife, dig through his dirty laundry. I’m to make sure and then kill the bastard. No trial. Nothing!” McGarvey wanted very much to hit something.
    â€œWe didn’t know who else to turn to,” Trotter said miserably.
    â€œAmerican justice has broken down,” McGarvey said quietly. “Will I get a medal when it’s over? Or will I be the next embarrassment? You have
someone in the wings to put a bullet in the back of my head?”
    Trotter’s eyes went wide. “Good God, what do you take us for, Kirk?”
    â€œWe’ve already established that, John. Now it’s just a question of degree. Nothing more.”
    Â 
    The young girl with the sommersprossen drove McGarvey back up to Lausanne in the blue van