End Game by David Hagberg

“You’re not making any sense, Mac. Anyway, we’re back to a motive, because if we can’t come up with that, then the killings, and the way they happened, make no sense.”
    â€œFirst we need to find Larry Coffin,” McGarvey said.
    â€œMaybe not so easy,” Otto said. “If this guy was as good an NOC as his reputation had him, he won’t be found if he doesn’t want to be found.”
    â€œHe’s either the killer or if he isn’t, he’s heard about the funerals, and he’ll want to know what’s happening.”
    â€œYou’re betting the latter.”
    â€œBecause it’s going to be the easiest,” McGarvey said.
    â€œIf you’re right, he’ll have to guess someone has made the Alpha Seven connection and will be coming after him,” Pete said. “Either the killer or someone from the Company.”
    On the way up from Serifos, McGarvey had thought about the easiest, most direct approach. Something to dig the guy out of hiding. Coffin had been an NOC, which meant in order to survive as long as he had, not only in the field but in hiding from his own people, he had to maintain at least minimal contact with the Company. It didn’t have to be a personal contact. Someone on the inside but maybe an electronic contact.
    â€œThe CIA retirees’ newsletter is online these days, right?”
    Otto nodded. He was grinning. “Why sneak in the back way when you can ring the front doorbell?” he said. “How do you want it to read?”
    â€œAlpha Seven reunion. Give him your e-mail address.”
    Pete got it. “He’d be a fool to answer.”
    â€œEither that, or he thinks he’s smarter than we are,” Otto said.
    â€œOr desperate,” Pete said.
    â€œSmarter,” McGarvey said. “But curious.”
    *   *   *
    Otto posted the announcement online and took the CIA’s Gulfstream home. But Pete had refused to go with him. “At the very least, Coffin is a psycho himself—a very smart and successful psycho. I’m going to stick around to watch your back.”
    â€œYou’d better move in here with me so I can watch yours,” McGarvey said reluctantly. He didn’t want any sort of entanglement, especially not just now. Whoever this guy was who’d killed Wager and Fabry and then had chewed off their faces was crazy, but he was also a professional field officer, which made him doubly dangerous.
    Pete moved her things over, then went downstairs and checked out of her room and into his. She was back for just a minute when someone knocked at the door, and McGarvey went to answer it.
    An older man with a very thick shock of white hair who was dressed in a ratty old sports coat and slacks that hadn’t seen an iron in a month held out his Athens metro police badge. “Spiros Moshonas,” he said. “Mr. McGarvey, I presume?”
    McGarvey let him in. “What can I do for you?”
    Pete came to the bedroom door, and the detective smiled and nodded. “I followed you up,” he apologized. “The hotel won’t reveal anything about their guests, not even to the police.”
    They had checked in under their real names—no reason at this point for them to have used work names and false papers.
    â€œActually, the NIS asked my department to send someone over to have a little chat,” Moshonas said. The NIS was the Greek intelligence service headquartered here in Athens.
    â€œGood,” McGarvey said. “Maybe you can help us.” He got the tablet Otto had left with them and pulled up Coffin’s dossier, which included a half dozen photos, and showed them to the cop.
    â€œYou’re looking for this man?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMay I ask why?” Moshonas smiled. “What I mean to say is that it’s highly unusual for a former director of the CIA to come here so openly, and then apparently in pursuit of