by Vince Flynn
“Mid-September, I think.”
“A lot could’ve happened between then and the first Tuesday in November. His candidate could have fucked up in one of the debates and overnight his lead would have vanished. These photos were his insurance policy.”
“I agree.”
“So why did he decide to give them to you?”
Kennedy sighed. “This is where things get interesting. Apparently there’s some bad blood between Baker and Stu Garret.”
“Alexander’s campaign manager?”
“Yes. They despise each other. In early October, Baker decided to give Garret something to really sweat over, so he took three of the photos, wrote, ‘You’ll Never Win,’ on the back, and had them delivered to Garret’s hotel room in Dallas.”
“Did Garret know they came from Baker?”
Kennedy shrugged. “If he did, it was a guess.”
Rapp put his hands on hips, looked down at the photos, and then shook his head. “Did Special Agent Cash happen to be in the second limo on the day of the attack?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
Kennedy walked back to her desk and grabbed a two-inch file in a red folder. She returned to Rapp’s side and said, “I want you to take a fresh look at the case from top to bottom.” She handed the file to Rapp. “This is the Secret Service’s preliminary report. Read through it and talk to Special Agent Rivera. I want to know if she knew one of her people was screwing the boss’s wife.”
Rapp nodded. “So you’re thinking Gazich might be telling the truth.”
“That the second limo was the target…I think that a lot of people rushed into this thing assuming certain facts. Read the report. Especially the investigator’s notes. The entire investigation was conducted through the prism that the attack was perpetrated by terrorists. Give it a fresh look and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Rapp lifted the file up and looked at it for a second. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Kennedy hesitated briefly and then said, “Have Marcus do a thorough check on Stu Garret.”
“Stu Garret,” Rapp said with obvious surprise. “That little pud. You think he’s capable of pulling something like this off?”
“There are some things you don’t know about Mr. Garret, and I’m not going to get into them right now, but trust me when I say the man is capable of almost anything.”
“Okay. I’ll have Marcus start right away.”
“Have him focus on the month before the attack.”
“You got it. Anything else?”
“No. Just be careful and move fast. We don’t have much time.”
41
WASHINGTON, DC
Wednesday morning arrived with a bit of a hangover for Mark Ross. He had actually tried to leave the hotel at one point, but the festive atmosphere continued to build until well after midnight. After the meeting with Tom Rich from the Times, Ross had gone up to see Alexander, who was in a black mood. There’d been times over the past month when Ross had wanted to grab Alexander by the shoulders, shake him violently, and tell him the harsh truth about his deceased wife. The woman was a slut. She deserved to be the First Lady of the United States about as much as a street hooker from New Orleans did. What Ross wanted to do and what was prudent, though, were miles apart. Besides, Alexander had proved very malleable in his grief. He’d basically let Ross run the transition team, which enabled him to stack the administration with people who were loyal to him. There were a lot of people from Georgia, to be sure, but Ross made sure they got jobs at Transportation, HUD, Education, Veterans’ Affairs, and the like. Defense, State, and Justice, the crown jewels of any administration, were loaded with his people.
After meeting with Alexander in the Abraham Lincoln Suite, Ross headed down to the Round Robin Bar for a much-needed drink. That was shortly before six. Four hours later he found himself more than a little cockeyed, drinking a glass of cognac and smoking a big fat Dominican cigar with two big Hollywood producers. Party big-hitters from across the country kept showing up, and with Alexander sulking in his suite, it fell on Ross’s shoulders to thank them for their hard work and support. At midnight he finally tore himself away from the party. One of his aides convinced him to stay at the hotel and offered to fetch him a change of clothes before morning. Less than stable on his feet, Ross took the young man up on his offer.
He awoke a few minutes before 7:00 a.m. and ordered room service before jumping into the shower. The food arrived while he was shaving and he asked the young man to set it up in front of the TV. He finished shaving and then sat down in his hotel robe and dug into his eggs, toast, and bacon. He used the bacon and toast to poke at the rich yellow yolks. He chased it with some grapefruit juice and then started in with the coffee. Within minutes he was feeling better. Then there was a knock on the door.
Ross cocked his head in the direction of the sound and considered ignoring it. It was rare these days that he got to spend time alone. There was more knocking. This time it was much louder. The door shook. Ross threw his napkin on the table and walked across the suite. He yanked open the door to find Stu Garret standing there with a huge grin on his face.
Garret pushed his way past Ross and said, “I heard you tied one on last night.”
Ross closed the door and followed him, saying, “I was merely trying to be a good host.”
Garret went straight for the room service cart and snatched a piece of bacon from Ross’s plate.
“Don’t touch my food, Stu.” Ross was dead serious.
“Relax,” said Garret as he grabbed a newspaper from under his arm and presented it to Ross. “Isn’t this beautiful?”
In large black type across the top of the paper was the headline, “CIA Tortures Wrong Man.” Ross snatched the paper from Garret’s clutches and began reading in earnest. The grin on his face was even bigger than the one Garret had when he’d answered the door. “This really is beautiful. He mentions both Kennedy and Rapp in the first paragraph.” He kept reading and a few moments later added, “I’m not going to have to lift a finger. The press is going to tear them apart for me.”
“Like hyenas descending on a wounded rhino. It’s already started.” Garret picked up the remote for the TV and turned on CNN. “It was picked up by all the wire services and amplified on the cable news stations, AM radio, the Internet. You name it. The blogosphere is going nuts. They might not make it to Saturday.”
Ross laughed and shook his fist in the air. “Stu, this has to be one of your better calls.”
Garret nodded in agreement. “Pretty well played, if I do say so myself.”
A former CIA employee was on screen laying into Director Kennedy for not keeping Mitch Rapp on a tighter leash. He claimed that he had been warning people for years that the man was out of control.
“Do you think there’s a chance he could go to jail?” Ross asked.
“Who knows? It’s typically against the law to kidnap people and shoot them.” Garret found his comment amusing and started laughing.
“We should probably think about coming out with a statement.”
“Not yet. Too early. Let everyone else do your dirty work. Maybe tomorrow or Friday you could release something. For now I’d just sit back and enjoy the implosion of Kennedy’s career.”
The advice sounded good to Ross. He wondered how Kennedy was taking the news. Morale out at Langley would not be good this morning. The thought of all the long faces gave Ross a delicious idea. He clapped his hands together loudly, and then rubbing them together, started for the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Garret asked.
“To get dressed. I’ve got a busy morning and I need to squeeze in an unscheduled stop.”
42
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
K ennedy was late for the senior staff meeting, which was very unlike her. Even more unusual was the fact that she’d slept in. She needed to catch up after a long, restless night. She had gone to bed watching Letterman and worrying ab
out the possibility that this thing could go all the way to Josh Alexander. She fell asleep before the first guest, woke up some time around 3:00 in the morning, and then tossed and turned for two plus hours trying to figure out just how damaging the entire thing could be. If the second limousine was the target, and it was done to both eliminate a problem for the candidates and drum up sympathy, an election had not simply been stolen. It had been manipulated, which added another layer of concern to an already horrible problem.
Innocent lives had been taken, but Kennedy was being paid to worry about an even bigger picture. Chiefly, the safeguarding of the country and its institutions from foreign attack and subversion. What worried her the most was the possibility that the Belarusian mafia may have had a hand in the affair. Russia and Belarus were very close. The communication between their intelligence agencies was good. It didn’t always flow both ways, but in the end Mother Russia got what it wanted. The separation between their intelligence services and organized crime was at times nonexistent. If the Belarusian mafia helped plan the attack on the motorcade, it was an almost certainty that the KGB knew about it. With that type of information in their possession the KGB would be in a perfect position to subvert the next administration.
She’d fallen back asleep sometime around five and was woken up by her son at 8:15. He was late for school and she was late for work. Normally this would have created a panic, but when Kennedy took a look at the front page of the New York Times, she decided she’d take her time. Langley would be rife with recrimination this morning. Longtime coworkers, some of them friends, would be weighing their options. Many of them would come to the conclusion that it was time to distance themselves from Kennedy. Her tardiness would only add to the rumors and unease, but that couldn’t be helped.
After dropping Tommy off at school, she unfolded her copy of the Times and read the article while her driver brought her straight to Langley. She read it twice and both times she smiled. Rapp had been right about two things. The first was that Rich definitely thought he was going to win a Pulitzer for the story, and the second was that this was going to be fun.
When she stepped off the elevator just outside her office, her administrative assistants were both on the phone. Pink call messages as thick as a deck of playing cards were waiting for her. Sheila, with the overdone makeup and the red hair, gave her a look that said Help. Kennedy smiled, said good morning, and walked into her office. Three men were waiting for her at the far end of the room. They were seated at the conference table. Kennedy set her briefcase behind her desk, closed the office door, and then hung her black cashmere overcoat in her closet. She tugged on the sleeves of her white blouse and unbuttoned the jacket of her blue pinstriped pantsuit. She’d picked the outfit with the press conference in mind.
Sitting at the table were Deputy Director of Intelligence Charles Workman, Deputy Director of Operations Jose Juarez, and Deputy Director Roger Billings. All three men sat in silence with their hands resting on the polished wood surface of the long table. They were obviously waiting for her to speak first. Kennedy walked to the far end where a singed American flag was framed. It had been pulled from the rubble of the Word Trade Center.
Kennedy pulled a chair out and said, “Sorry for being late this morning.” She was about to sit when she noticed a copy of the Times underneath her briefing folder. Kennedy slid her leather bound briefing book to the side and said, “May I get any of you something to drink before we get started?”
All three men declined by shaking their heads. Kennedy eased into her chair and set her reading glasses atop the leather briefing folder. “So what do you have for me this morning?”
Juarez was sitting on her left. The dark circles under his eyes were more pronounced this morning. She was sure Tom Rich had probably called him for a comment last night, and she was also certain he had said nothing. As for the two men on her right, Kennedy couldn’t be sure. They were good men, but they did not have the screw-you attitude of a Clandestine Service officer. Juarez had survived some very nasty stuff in the field. He would not be spooked by an investigation and the possibility of a new director. Workman and Billings, though, were desk jockeys. They’d spent the vast majority of their careers right here in Washington. They were ensconced in their nice suburban homes, Workman with three kids and Billings with four. The older ones were in college, which added financial pressure, and the younger ones were thinking about college, which added even more. They were both nearing fifty, and they were both in a position to succeed Kennedy if she got the boot. Which, from their vantage point this morning, looked like a certainty. Juarez, on the other hand, knew he would never get the top job. He was more spit than polish and had the irritating habit of speaking truth to power.
To become the director of the CIA you needed to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. There’d been many presidents in tune to the fact that they needed people like Juarez around to balance out all the ass kissers who were so enamored of the office. The Senate was a different story, though. Especially the older senators who’d been around for three terms or more. They had a sense of entitlement, and often perceived disagreement as a sign of disrespect. Juarez did not get along with these men, and he made no effort to disguise his dislike of them. Workman and Billings, on the other hand, worked very hard to curry favor from this crucial block of senators.
Billings was Kennedy’s number two. He’d grown up in Vermont and attended Dartmouth. He was as steady as they came, and he did not like change. A worrier, it showed in his wispy brown hair that he parted to the side from left to right.
Billings gave Kennedy an uneasy look and asked, “Have you read the Times this morning?”
Kennedy looked at the newspaper in front of her, her name in large letters underneath the banner. It meant nothing to her. She’d gotten over seeing her name in print years ago. She hadn’t put a lot of thought into how she would handle this. She had a 10:30 meeting with the president, and until then she wanted to keep the information on Gazich as quiet as possible.
“I have read the article.”
“And?” Billings asked.
She studied the two men on her right, and saw two worried civil servants who had devoted their entire adult lives to what they thought was an honorable and worthy cause. They did not want to see their Agency embroiled in another scandal.
“It’s interesting.”
“Interesting,” Billings repeated. He did not attempt to hide his disbelief. “You’re about to be burned at the stake, and interesting is all you have to say.”
The right corner of Kennedy’s mouth turned upwards showing the slightest hint of a smile. “I don’t think anyone is going to be burned at the stake over this.”
“Four senators have already called me this morning,” Billings said.
“And I’ve talked to two,” added Workman.
Kennedy looked to Juarez.
“I stopped counting.”
“And what have you told them?” Kennedy asked all three. None of them decided to answer. Kennedy turned her gaze on Workman who was usually the most vocal. “Chuck, what did you tell them?”
He fidgeted in his chair and said, “I told them the truth.”
“The truth, I’ve found, can be very subjective around here.”
“Not on this one, Irene.”
“Then let’s hear it. Tell me what I need to know.”
“I know you and Mitch are close, but I’ve been warning you for I don’t know how long that sooner or later he’s going to get us all into a lot of hot water.”
Juarez leaned back in his chair and scowled at his counterpart from the intel side of the business. “I’m sure you’ll find some way to save your own ass, Chuck.”
“Don’t defend him, Jose. Do you know how many times I’ve sat here and heard you complain about him?”
“There’s a big difference between keeping our disagreements within the family and shooting your mouth off to some reporter.”
“What in
the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You run the intel side, Chuck. You don’t need some knuckle dragger like me to explain things to you.”
“Are you implying that I spoke with this reporter from the Times?”
Jose grabbed his copy of the Times and read, “According to an anonymous senior CIA official, Mitch Rapp’s methods and lack of control have been a growing concern for some time.” Juarez slammed the paper on the table and said, “It sounds like you wrote it yourself.”
Workman’s pale complexion turned bright red and he snapped, “How dare you accuse me of having anything to do with this.”
Kennedy watched with a critical eye as Juarez and Workman bandied back and forth. She had also wondered who the senior CIA official might be. She was about to intercede and end the argument when her office door opened unexpectedly. Juarez and Workman continued shouting across the table, completely oblivious that an interloper had just entered the Agency’s inner sanctum. Kennedy’s face revealed nothing, but inside she was fuming that this man had yet again barged in on her office without so much as a phone call or a knock.
Vice President–elect Ross strode across the room and stopped at the far end of the conference table. He was in a charcoal gray wool suit with a white shirt and a silver-and-blue tie. In his manicured right hand he held a copy of the Times. He threw it down on the conference table, unbuttoned his suit coat, and placed a hand on each hip.
“I have great appreciation for how difficult this business is, but this can’t continue. I’m trying to save your jobs right now.” Ross pointed to each of the four. “I’ve explained to Josh that we have a good team at Langley. I don’t agree with everything you do, but I’ve told him you are competent people. Now, this morning I wake up to this, and I’ve got the next president of the United States asking me if I’ve lost my mind.”
Ross paused. He looked at Kennedy. There she sat at the head of the table with her damn unreadable expression. “I explained to him that this is a business where batting a thousand is not possible. Even if these accusations are true, they need to be tempered against Rapp’s past successes. His response was that if even half of what was printed in the article is true he wants me to come out here and clean house.” Ross waved his hand above them as if in one fell swoop they could all be dispatched. He leaned over and stabbed his index finger on top of the newspaper. “You know what really boils my blood about this article? This quote in here from a senior CIA official. You people think this is Hollywood, where you settle your disputes by calling up a reporter and stabbing one of your colleagues in the back?”
