“I wonder,” Azarov said. “If I were him, I’d have requested an American security team. Mitch would hesitate to attack out of fear of injuring one of them.”
“A frontal assault isn’t feasible anyway,” Claudia said. “Even if it succeeded, it would play into the narrative that Mitch has gone insane and is running around the globe, killing people. He’d be hunted for the rest of his life, and anything he had to say about the Saudis would be completely discredited.”
“It’s like being teamed up with a bunch of old ladies,” Black said. “I’ll do it. I’ll go to North Dakota or Iowa or wherever and pop that asshole right in the head. No muss, no fuss, no collateral damage. And Mitch can be three thousand miles away with an airtight alibi.”
“They’d still assume he was behind it, based on what’s happened so far,” Donatella said.
Black grabbed another beer. “But Claudia said she could get Mitch off the hook for killing Nassar’s two buddies—”
“Three,” Rapp said, causing the others to turn toward him. “Qadir Sultan was found dead last night along with two security men from the Saudi intelligence ministry.”
“Let me guess,” Donatella said. “One shot to the head from a nine-millimeter bullet.”
“That matches the early reports.”
“He’s destroying his own network in an effort to keep it from leading back to him,” Azarov pointed out. “Is it possible that this is good for us?”
“Sultan was the last of the men that we’ve identified as being close to him,” Claudia said. “It’s likely that his network extends further, but Mitch and I don’t think anyone left would have direct knowledge of Nassar’s involvement. He would have interacted with them through intermediaries.”
“Then punching a few holes in Nassar is the way to go,” Black said. “He’s taken out his lieutenants for us. With him dead the whole thing collapses. Job done, Mitch hangs out a shingle and makes an obscene amount of money taking contracts. How is this not a good plan?”
“Because the rest of us are experienced enough to know we don’t want to spend the rest of our lives being hunted by the world’s governments,” Donatella said. “It’s not as romantic as it sounds, Kent.”
“Then we need to demonstrate Nassar’s involvement,” Azarov said. “Prove that he killed those people and that he’s financing ISIS.”
“Agreed, but it’s easier said than done,” Claudia replied. “The man doesn’t leave behind a lot of loose ends.”
Rapp’s phone chimed as a heated discussion of their situation broke out among the others. He opened a hidden app and watched a series of jerky images being broadcast via a satellite connection.
The gate he’d spent so much money on turned out to be worth every penny, surviving the first attempt at a breach before succumbing to a SWAT vehicle traveling at reckless speeds. His front door had held longer than expected, too, noticeably fatiguing the men who were now fanning out in his entryway. A man wearing a suit instead of combat gear appeared after the area had been secured and Rapp squinted down at the image.
Claudia would be pleased to know that she’d been right about North Dakota. It was where the FBI had sent Joel Wilson.
Wilson began tearing up the room, ostensibly in a search but really just to cause as much destruction as possible. Rapp had told Irene Kennedy that they should bury that piece of shit in the woods somewhere, but she’d thought moving against him would cause more problems than it solved. He wondered if she still felt that way.
“Mitch?” Claudia said. “Mitch? What are you doing? Are you listening to us?”
He didn’t respond, so she broke up the meeting, finally coming alongside him while the others wandered off.
“Are you all right?” She glanced at the phone and put a hand on his shoulder. “You must have expected this.”
“Yeah.”
He concentrated on Wilson as the man held a tablet up to one of the interior security cameras. He recognized the wallpaper picture as one taken of him playing with Anna and Claudia in front of her house in South Africa. Now the man had a current picture of all of them as well as a shot of Claudia’s home.
“Who is he, Mitch?”
“An old enemy that I didn’t deal with when I had a chance.”
“CIA?”
“FBI.”
“So now Nassar’s solicited the help of the American government. I hate to bring this up again, but is it time for you to contact Irene?”
He didn’t respond, instead freezing the image and continuing to stare down at it.
“Mitch?”
“How hard will it be for them to get into your tablet?”
“Hard. It would take even Marcus at least a week. There’s nothing on it, though. I use it mostly for reading magazines.”
“Can you access it remotely?”
“No. It’s not set up that way. Why?”
“What about the computer at your house in Cape Town? Could you access that remotely?”
“Sure. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that, with that picture, it’s not going to take them long to show up on your doorstep.”
She shrugged. “We’re not there, and accessing the information on my computer would be extraordinarily difficult, Mitch. I have confidential files on it from my time working with Louis. It would take years, even with the help of the NSA.”
“But you could get in remotely and make it easy, right? Wipe the sensitive information and change the password to Anna’s birthday or something.”
“Sure. But why?”
He ignored the question. “Would it be possible to create some fictitious emails between you and me and backdate them?”
“Not too difficult, but they wouldn’t be entirely convincing, particularly combined with the simplistic password. If someone looked closely, I’m not sure the scenario you’re talking about would hold up.”
Rapp nodded slowly, only partially hearing her. Nassar had to be dealt with whether it blew back against him or not—that was a decision Rapp had already made. But if he could lead Nassar into a trap and get someone else to do the wet work, his life would be a lot simpler. And probably a lot longer.
He tossed his phone onto the table in front of him. “It doesn’t need to hold up. I know Joel Wilson, and I can guarantee you that he only sees what he wants to see.”
CHAPTER 43
Langley
Virginia
U.S.A.
IRENE Kennedy closed the thick file on Aali Nassar’s life and considered what she’d read. His early schooling had come from the Saudi madrassa system, but he’d moved on to an English university after that—an educational background that could create both radical Islamists and secular moderates. He was extraordinarily competent and ambitious, traits that defined both great men and evil ones. Which was he?
In the world of intelligence, nothing was black-and-white. This situation, though, was more murky than most. Unfortunately, if she pieced it together in the most logical way, the picture that emerged was as ugly as any she’d ever seen.