Even now, as he sat on the deck of his sailboat, anch.o.r.ed just off the coast of the French Riviera, one had to look closely to see what Alan was really doing. At first glance he looked every bit the relaxed and retired gentleman casually perusing the newspaper as another day in paradise got under way, but upon closer inspection there were a few telltale signs that Alan had not entirely left the employ of his government. The first hint was a bit difficult to catch. It involved the unusual size of the radar dome that sat near the top of his mast and the odd-shaped antennae that sat next to it. The next sign that was a bit more obvious was that Alan wasn"t really reading the paper.
Out of sight, but within reach, was a small control panel with an array of dials. Plugged into this control panel was an earpiece. Alan at first listened intently to the conversation that was taking place between the Prince and his visitor, manipulating the various controls in an effort to boost the effectiveness of the directional microphone concealed at the top of his mast.
He had dropped anchor the morning before just off the port beam of the Prince"s ma.s.sive yacht, placing one other boat between his and the Prince"s. Under orders from London, he"d been loosely shadowing the Prince for over a week. He"d even gotten to know a few of the crew members in the process. The captain of the ship was a retired French naval officer, as was much of his crew. Like most mariners, they were friendly to other sailors. While picking up provisions back in San Remo, Alan found out the ship was headed for Monte Carlo and then on to Cannes, a very common trip for the big yachts. Alan let it be known that he was headed in the same direction, so they"d probably be b.u.mping into each other along the way. Things had progressed now to the point where the crew knew him on sight and waved as they went back and forth to sh.o.r.e in their power launch.
Headquarters was famous for being skimpy with the information they gave to their people in the field. They"d told Alan only to follow, observe, record and report. They didn"t tell him why they wanted him to baby-sit Prince Omar, but then again, they didn"t really need to.
Alan knew enough about the dysfunctional House of Saud to know what his government was interested in.
The conversation that was taking place on the big ship didn"t appear to be what they were after, and the dashing young man who had arrived less than an hour ago didn"t fit the profile of an Islamic fundamentalist.
With this in mind Alan checked his dials one more time to make sure everything was being recorded and then he began to read his paper, only half listening to the conversation that was going on in his left ear.
With the sun quickly warming the cool morning air, Alan let out a yawn and crossed his left leg over his right. The voice of a woman drew his attention away from the paper and he looked across the water to see what was going on. From his vantage point all he could see were the tops of several heads, and then a blond beauty came into view near the back of one of the upper sun decks Without warning she dropped her robe and stretched her pale arms above her head, revealing a very nice pair of b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Alan lunged for his binoculars, but by the time he got them up she was gone. He laughingly shook his head. He was slowing down in his old age.
He was still smiling as he went back to his paper, and then slowly, his face turned more serious. The conversation between the Prince and his visitor had without warning gone from mundane to quite noteworthy.
Alan checked again to make sure the equipment was recording and then he went back to feigning interest in the paper. Whoever this David was, he would have to get some photos of him when he climbed back on board the launch to return to sh.o.r.e. As the two men continued their discussion, Alan decided that London would be very interested indeed in his next report.
SEVEN.
Mitch Rapp drove across the Key Bridge on his way to a meeting at the White House. His mood was tense and his patience short. He was not happy about what he"d learned this morning. The honeymoon was over. He"d been back in town for less than twenty-four hours and he was already looking to wring someone"s neck. Ignoring his boss"s orders, he"d left his bodyguard back at Langley and driven himself. He"d had some death threats lately, quite a few of them in fact, but despite the danger he needed some time alone to think before he met with the President.
He"d promised himself that he wouldn"t allow his new position of influence to be wasted.
The whole reason he had this new position was that his cover as a covert counterterrorism operative had been blown during his boss"s confirmation hearing by a congressman who had no admiration for the Agency, and now every piece of c.r.a.p from Boston to Baghdad knew who he was and what he looked like. His face had been broadcast across the airwaves. He was called America "s first line of defense against terrorism. Virtually every newspaper in the country had reported his story and there had been several magazine covers. The entire thing was unnerving to him.
The media spectacle his career had become went against everything he knew. Most of his life since the age of twenty-two had been a secret. Not even his brother had known that he worked for the CIA.
Now, because of all the publicity before he even hit forty, he had been unceremoniously retired from the field, brought in from the cold and given a new job and a new t.i.tle to go with it. He was now special a.s.sistant to the director of Central Intelligence on counterterrorism.
Terrorism had finally reached out and touched America, and her citizens were finally waking up to the fact that there were people out there who hated them, zealots who wanted to see the Great Satan toppled. The President and Rapp"s boss, Director Irene Kennedy, had given him a mandate. In addition to working in conjunction with the Agency"s counterterrorism center, they asked him to thoroughly study the nation"s counterterrorism capabilities and come up with a recommendation on how to streamline operations and improve defenses.
Rapp"s first response had been to tell the President to start focusing on offense. So far the President had shown no signs of following that advice.
Kennedy, knowing Rapp better than anyone, admonished him to keep his temper and tongue in check. She told him to look at the study as a fact-finding mission. The a.s.s-kicking would come later when he gave his report to the President and the National Security Council.
That was when he could vent and let the truth be told, and Irene Kennedy knew better than anyone that the truth did need to be told.
If Rapp had learned anything during his lengthy study of America "s counterterrorism efforts, it was that there were too many meetings.
Too many meetings that accomplished nothing, and more often than not, created more red tape and ha.s.sles for the people who were on the front lines doing the important work. The meetings were a colossal waste of energy and resources. They never started on time and they always ran over, and that was the least of their problems. Now that he was on the inside, after spending more than a decade abroad working covertly for the CIA, he could see why so many in Washington thought the Agency had dropped the ball.
The Agency had become the ant.i.thesis of what Colonel Wild Bill Donovan, its founder, had designed it to be. It was a risk-averse haven for bureaucrats to put in their time so they could retire and collect their pensions. Sensitivity training and diversity workshops had taken priority over recruiting case officers with foreign language skills who had the chutzpah it took to run covert ops.
Thanks to Aldrich Ames, the FBI had been invited to join the Agency"s Counter Intelligence Center. The brothers in dark suits had eviscerated the ranks of Langley "s few remaining good case officers, for the simple reason that too many of the men and women in the directorate of operations were mavericks. Never mind that mavericks, independent thinkers, were exactly who Wild Bill Donovan and President Roosevelt had in mind when they started the Office of Strategic Services at the onset of World War II. Donovan and Roosevelt understood that you didn"t hire decent, respectable, risk-averse family men to spy on the enemy. You hired risk-takers who were willing to put their lives on the line to get a piece of information that might make the difference.
It was not a business for the meek, b.u.t.toned-up type. It was a business for daredevils who liked to gamble.
Signal and photographic intelligence now replaced eyes and ears on the ground. The billion-dollar satellites and ground intercept and relay stations were clean. They couldn"t embarra.s.s you the way a turned case officer could. They didn"t bleed, they couldn"t be kidnapped, they didn"t lie and Congress loved them. The bright glossy photographs of terrorist training camps and scratchy audio intercepts of our enemies plotting to strike gave them great satisfaction.
The politicians marveled at America "s technological superiority.
There was one big problem, though; the enemy knew they were being watched and listened to, and went to great lengths to hide what they were doing from the big prying eyes and ears in the sky.
Everyone in Washington knew this, but it didn"t stop groups like the State Department from pushing for more signal intelligence. The alternative was putting real men and women in the field and that could be very messy. Uncontrollable CIA case officers were a constant source of irritation for the State Department. They snooped around host countries, tended to drink too much, tried to recruit agents and generally behaved in a way that no gentleman or lady from Foggy Bottom would endorse. Even worse, if they got caught, the host country would expel innocent State Department employees along with the offending CIA case officer and the whole affair would upset the delicate dance of diplomacy.
The CIA had become just another Washington bureaucracy. A money-sucking black hole of political correctness. In short, the CIA was a reflection of the times and its political leaders. Now Rapp truly understood why Director Stansfield had done what he did. The recently deceased director of the Agency had fought hard to insulate the CIA from the political whims of Capitol Hill, but it was a Herculean task that no one man could perform. Seeing the winds of change approaching, Stansfield had created a covert counterterrorism unit known as the Orion Team. The group"s mission was to operate in the dark and take the battle to the terrorists. Mitch Rapp had been the tip of that spear for the better part of a decade. He"d killed more men for his country than he could count, and he had come close to losing his own life more times than he dared to remember.
For the last several years he"d seriously considered getting out. Instinctively, he knew that one of these times, no matter how good he was, the breaks wouldn"t go his way and he"d end up dead. The decision to make the move was finalized when he"d met Anna Rielly. She was only the second woman he"d ever loved, and the first had been a long time ago. Soon after meeting her he knew she was the one. It was time to get out of the killing business and get on with a normal life.
That had all been before the towers and the Pentagon were hit.
Now he wasn"t so sure. An anger burned inside him. He knew the face of the enemy better than perhaps anyone in the country. It was the hideous face of Islamic fanaticism. It had taken all the restraint he could muster to not get on a plane and go over to Afghanistan.
Kennedy had convinced him not to. He was too important. She needed him right at her side, using his language skills and contacts in the region to run down leads and try to figure out what had happened.
Kennedy had vision, just like her mentor. She could see the goals of the competing agencies and interests in Washington and maneuver her way through the minefield. She knew that in the wake of 9/11 the politicians on the Hill would try to pin the whole thing on the CIA.
Never mind that beginning with the Church Hearings in the mid-seventies, it was the politicians who had pulled the CIA out of the spying business.
Then, in the eighties, it was the politicians again who told the CIA to break off any a.s.sociation with nefarious individuals, ignoring the fact that to catch the bad guys you actually had to talk to them and their a.s.sociates from time to time. But the politicians on the Hill didn"t want to hear any of it. The CIA either had to bat a thousand or get out of the hood. So ultimately, the politicians got exactly what they wanted. They created an agency that was afraid to take risks.
How could they have known in 1922, when Great Britain created the new country of Transjordan, that one day its capital of Amman would grow into a city of international intrigue? Amman, a city of over a million souls, was a dusty old town that had been cleaned up and dragged into the twenty-first century by the forward thinking King Hussein I and his son Abdullah II. Bordered to the east and south by Iraq and Saudi Arabia, to the north by Syria and to the west by Israel, Jordan was a cursed piece of land that was poor in mineral and oil deposits and plentiful in refugees. Palestinians, to be precise, and lots of them. For the first thirty or so years after the formation of Israel, Jordan moved in lock step with her Arab neighbors in calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state. But after getting decisively trounced in every military engagement with their Zionist neighbors Jordan began to think of Israel as a dog that was better left undisturbed, at least as far as outright wars were concerned.
If being cursed with a worthless piece of land wasn"t enough, Jordan had to contend with a cast of neighbors that included the Middle East "s most notorious despot, the ultra wealthy and schizophrenic Saudi royal family and the Syrians, who for various twisted religious reasons hated the Jordanians almost as much as they hated the Jews. With no real resources or industry to build an economy, Jordan from its inception was dependent on foreign aid. At first it was the Brits, then the Arab League and then with the promise of better relations with Israel, the United States began to infuse millions of dollars in humanitarian, economic and military aid into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
EIGHT.
King Hussein became masterful at playing both sides of the fence, taking money from both his Arab brothers and America. With great care he put his country on a course of neutrality and did not deviate even during the Gulf War. Despite immense pressure from the United States and Saudi Arabia, King Hussein chose not to jump into the fray.
Publicly he proclaimed that he would not take part in the butchering of the Iraqi people, privately he told his keepers that it would serve them better if a channel of communication was kept open with Baghdad.
King Hussein convinced President Bush that the Jordanian General Intelligence Department would provide him with invaluable information about what was going on inside Iraq. The Bush administration agreed and in return for cooperation with the General Intelligence Department the foreign aid spigot of the United States was only reduced instead of completely shut off.
At the time the agreement was reached King Hussein had no idea just how fruitful it would eventually be for his kingdom. During the years of sanctions that followed the Gulf War, Jordan became the lifeline of Iraq. Goods flowed in from Jordan like a river to the sea, and in exchange Jordanian coffers were filled with profits made from selling discounted Iraqi oil. Black market import-export companies sprang up in Jordan like weeds on an unkempt lawn. The French were the first to arrive, and they were quickly followed by many of their European neighbors and then the Chinese and the rest of the Pacific Rim and Asia. Jordan got a cut of everything and the entire racket became a ma.s.sive boon to the Jordanian economy. All the while, with a wink and a nod, Jordan maintained her position of neutrality.
Amman was the place where Saddam"s henchmen came to replenish the ruler"s military supplies and shop for his grocery list of weapons of ma.s.s destruction. It was also where the CIA and Britain "s MI6 focused an increasing amount of their resources. Amman had become the Middle East"s version of Cold War Berlin. Any country that was big enough to care had spies on the ground in Amman, and with so many intelligence agencies operating in the city it was almost impossible to do business without someone noticing.
That was why David had chosen to meet his Iraqi contact in the Jordanian capital. He wanted to settle a score, send a message and muddy the waters in one fell swoop. David"s connection to Prince Omar and the Saudi royal family needed to be protected at all costs.
Yes, the Iraqis could provide money to the cause, but nothing compared to the Saudis. If the grand plan did not go as he hoped, David wanted to be able to point the Israelis and the Americans and anyone else who cared in the direction of Saddam Hussein. He did not want them to go looking in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for him.
The green Range Rover snaked its way up Al Ameer Mohammed Street toward one of Amman "s famous seven hills. Night had fallen on the city and they were headed for the Intercontinental Hotel. It was Amman "s finest hotel, and the arrogant man David was going to meet would stay nowhere else. David sat in the backseat and went over the plan one more time. He had carefully applied a black beard flecked with gray to his face and had added a touch of gray to his eyebrows.
Over his hair he was wearing the black-and-white keffiyeh of a Palestinian.
As they neared the hotel he put on a pair of dark-rimmed gla.s.ses and checked his disguise with a small mirror. He looked a good fifteen years older. He had met with the Iraqi on six previous occasions and he had worn the same disguise each time.
David trusted very few people, and none of them were Iraqis. He had caught them in many lies during his business dealings with them, but in truth he had expected nothing less. They were the bullies of the neighborhood, and in the Middle East there was no shortage of bullies.
The Iraqis made up the rules and then changed them again when they didn"t like the way things were going. David despised them for the way they feigned concern over the Palestinian plight. The truth was that there wasn"t a single Iraqi who truly cared for the Palestinians. To Saddam and his henchmen the Palestinians were nothing more than a lightning rod to attract anti-Semitism and hatred for America.
As the Range Rover pulled up to the front of the hotel, David was focused on the task at hand. Tonight the blood bath would begin. If things went right it would be the first step in a long odyssey that would change the face of Middle East politics. It takes war to make peace and tonight would be the first shot in David"s war.
He stepped from the vehicle and b.u.t.toned the jacket of his double-breasted blue suit. His posture slouched and his stride shortened, he moved toward the door of the hotel playing the role of an older man. The doors were opened by two bellmen who greeted David warmly. They knew him only as Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian businessman who had strong ties to the PLO. David continued through the lobby, his Prada loafers clicking on the marble floor. He entered the bar and peered through the smoke-filled haze. The man he was looking for was seated in the far corner, his back to the wall like he was some cowboy in an American film. Two of his bodyguards were seated at the adjacent table and were eyeing the rest of the patrons, their menacing stares reminding everyone to mind their own business.
All three men had bushy black mustaches, a prerequisite for anyone in Saddam"s inner circle.
David approached the table with feigned enthusiasm.
"General Hamza, it is so good to see you again."
Hamza did not offer his hand. He simply looked at the chair opposite him and nodded for his guest to sit. The Iraqi general took a drag from his unfiltered cigarette and said, "You are late."
"I am sorry," David lied, "but I had a hard time getting through the checkpoints."
Looking down at the two attache cases on the floor next to him, Hamza replied, "You"d better have a better plan for getting back with these. If you lose them, I will have your head."
David nodded effusively.
"General, I will not allow your money to fall into the hands of the Zionist pigs."
The general reached for his drink with the same hand that held the cigarette. Never taking his eyes off the Palestinian he said, "For your own good, you"d better make sure you do not allow that to happen."
David again nodded and eagerly a.s.sured the general that no such thing could ever possibly occur. The two attache cases contained a million dollars apiece in U.S. hundred-dollar bills. It was money for Hamas and Hezbollah to continue their terrorist insurgency into Israel.
General Hamza was not a man to be taken lightly, but David was far from intimidated. The head of Saddam"s Amn al Khas, or Special Security Service, was a brute, and brutes were easy to trick.
Hamza"s thuggish behavior was legendary. In Iraq his name was spoken in whispers. He was responsible for entire families disappearing in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard from again. On his orders, men and women were tortured and beaten for months simply because they knew someone who had been deemed a traitor to Saddam. Often, Hamza allowed those physically and mentally scarred subjects to live so that they could return to their communities and serve as living, walking, horrific, disfigured proof of what happened to people who went against Saddam. In any civilized society Hamza"s behavior and tactics would be deemed inhumane at the least, but what made his actions all the more reprehensible was that the overwhelming majority of the people he had tortured and killed had done nothing wrong. In the twisted world Saddam had created for himself, he was convinced there were spies everywhere, traitors lurking in every city and every part of his government. There was a purge at least once a year and if the SSS didn"t come up with bodies Saddam would turn his paranoid rage on the SSS instead. To avoid having his own head put on the chopping block, Hamza made sure his people found traitors.
Guilty or not, they found them, they tortured them until they would say anything to stop the pain, and then they executed them.
It wasn"t as if the Arab world was blameless when it came to such thuggery, it was just the brazen way Iraq went about it and the sheer volume of intimidation and torture that occurred. David could deal with brutality. He didn"t like it but he could handle it. There was something else about the general, something that really turned his stomach, and it was for that reason alone that he would enjoy killing him.
A waiter approached and placed a napkin and a fresh drink on the table for Hamza. The man then asked David if he"d like something to drink. The general nodded his consent and David ordered a scotch and soda.
Hamza polished off the last few sips of his drink and then wiped several droplets of whiskey from his mustache.
"I"ve decided to cut your fee. We"re spending a lot of money on you and not getting enough back. You need to step up the bombing against Israel."
The fee the general was referring to had already been cut once. It had started at ten percent and dropped to five. It was David"s cut for acting as an intermediary. David feigned concern. He had no personal use for counterfeit U.S. money, but he had to at least play the part.
"But I have already cut my fee once."
"And you will cut it again." Hamza leaned back confidently and sucked on his cigarette until the end glowed a bright orange. After he"d exhaled the smoke in David"s direction he smiled and said, "You are doing your people a service. The honorable thing to do would be to take no fee at all."
Honor had nothing to do with it. When David"s fee was reduced the money was not pa.s.sed along to Hamas and Hezbollah. It was pocketed by the general. David was tempted to point out that they were in this together. Arab brothers arm in arm doing battle against the Israelis, but he decided to leave the general"s hypocrisy unchallenged. He needed the money for the next part of his plan and the fact that it was counterfeit was all the better.
His drink arrived and in a defensive tone he said, "But General, the cost of doing business in my land is very expensive. Many people need to be paid to a.s.sure the safe transfer of your very much appreciated funds."
"You should be paying no one," snarled Hamza.
"You should slit the throat of the first person who gets in your way. Hamas and Hezbollah are on a mission from Allah and anyone who trifles with them should be dealt with harshly." The general shook his head in disgust.
"You will never defeat the Israelis until you learn to control your own people."
Biting down on his tongue to restrain himself from smiling, David nodded thoughtfully. He and the general had arrived at the same conclusion, but for different reasons. David would unite the Palestinian people and he would start by killing the arrogant Iraqi brute who was sitting across from him.
NINE.
Rapp was shown into the Oval Office by one of the President"s aides. He found his boss, Irene Kennedy, and General Flood, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sitting alone on one of the couches with a series of folders spread out on the coffee table.
Rapp could tell instantly that Kennedy had broken the news to the four-star general. The stony expression on the soldier"s face said it all.
It was hard enough to lose men in battle but it was beyond infuriating to know that it could have been prevented.
Rapp decided that given the subject at hand it was better for him not to speak. Before he had a chance to sit, President Hayes entered his office with a cortege of aides trailing him. At over six feet tall with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, Hayes stood out in a crowd, and like most men who had reached his station in life, he exuded a real magnetism.
The men and women who worked for him wanted desperately to please him. Hayes unb.u.t.toned his suit coat as he strode toward his desk. By the time he reached it the coat was off. He turned to face the three aides who were arguing about the administration"s education bill.
Hayes held up his hands, palms out, and the three fell silent like well-disciplined kids obeying their father.
As Rapp watched the exchange take place he noticed, not for the first time, that the President had gained a little weight. It was a subject the two men had discussed on several occasions. Rapp, a former tri-athlete still worked out six days a week and watched his intake closely.
The President had confided in him that he was very wary of what his job was doing to his health. After all his official duties, which there was scarcely enough time for, there was still the Democratic Party and its incessant need to raise money.
Barely a day pa.s.sed when there wasn"t a fund-raiser of some sort, and where there was a fund-raiser one could always count on lots of food and booze. Rapp had designed a bare-bones workout plan that the President could do in forty-five minutes. The goal was to do it five days a week, first thing in the morning. As Rapp looked at the President"s expanding waistline, he had a feeling the man had been skipping his workouts.
"I don"t want to talk about this anymore," said the President firmly.
"By the end of the day I want you all on the same page. If the three of you can"t come up with a consensus, this thing will be dead before it reaches the Hill." One of the aides tried to get in a last word, but the President cut her off with a terse motion toward the door. The three left the room dejectedly and closed the door behind them.
Hayes dropped into his chair and picked up a pair of reading gla.s.ses from the desk. After quickly glancing over his schedule, he pressed his intercom b.u.t.ton and said, "Cheryl, I don"t want to be interrupted for the next fifteen minutes."
"Yes, Mr. President," came the always even reply of his gatekeeper.