Consent To Kill

Chapter 70-74

70

N o one moved. Ross stood like a statue in front of the couch and just in front of the president. His cheeks were red and his fists balled up tight. He blinked several times, as he struggled with whether or not to take Irene's threat seriously.

"She just threatened me! She can't do that."

Everyone in the room had a law degree. Such was the state of politics. Attorney General Stokes, however, was the only one who had seen the inside of a courtroom. He shook his head and said, "She gave you an opinion as to what Rapp might do. It wasn't a threat."

That was not the answer or support that Ross expected from his friend. He turned to the president and said, "I can't work with her anymore. Something has to be done."

"Sit down, Mark." President Hayes crossed his legs and looked at his newest Cabinet member. The onset of his illness had given Hayes cause to become more reflective. Gone was his yearning desire to drive and shape the debate. It had been replaced by a tactic that he found far more productive. He would sit back and listen. Let the monumental egos of his advisors battle it out. Over the last forty-eight hours he had come to the conclusion that Ross was in fact the wrong man for the job, but replacing him was pretty much a nonstarter. A man like Ross would not go quietly. He would leak to the press like a sieve. He would make it his personal mission to destroy Kennedy. She didn't deserve that, and Hayes didn't want her distracted. Her job was too important. It was time to rein in the egos and remind them who they worked for.

Hayes cleared his throat and said, "I'd like to be very clear on something. If it wasn't for Mitch Rapp, I believe this city would have been destroyed by a nuclear explosion six months ago. That means pretty much everybody in this room would have been killed." Hayes took a moment to make eye contact with each person. "The lengths to which he went to stop that terrorist attack..." Hayes shook his head and his voice trailed off. "You don't even want to know what he had to do, but let's just say it wasn't pretty. We owe the man our lives, and that is no small thing."

"I know that, but..."

The president held up his hand and in a firm voice said to Ross, "Don't interrupt me. All of us are either elected or appointed. That means our time in our particular position is limited. Cabinet members last on average about three years. Presidents and VPs, we get four, and we're really lucky if we get eight. People like Kennedy and Rapp, they've devoted their entire lives to the war on terror. They were fighting it before most of us even knew there was a war." Hayes paused and folded his hands over his knee. "I for one think they deserve our support on this one."

"But, Bob," Ross said, "it's more complicated than that. We have alliances and relationships that are at stake here. We cannot have an employee of the CIA running around blowing people up."

"We can't?" Hayes asked provocatively, with an arched brow.

"No!" answered an appalled Ross.

Hayes sized up Ross while he slowly nodded his head. He stopped, pursed his lips, and said, "Do you know what I think...I think we are the United States of America and we need to start acting like it."

The three Cabinet members stared back at him not sure what to say. The vice president knew better than to speak.

"If the Saudis want to make an issue out of this, they will lose. Mark, I want you to call Prince Rashid, and tell him that I'm extremely upset. You may tell him exactly what Irene said. If we find that he had any knowledge of his friend placing a bounty on one of my top counterterrorism people, I will personally sign the executive order that authorizes his assassination."

"Mr. President," said an uneasy secretary of state, "he is a member of the royal family. The king would be extremely upset."

"The king hates his half brother," the president said with a frown. "He knows Rashid would love nothing more than to become king and undo everything he has worked for. I will call the king myself and discuss the situation. I will guarantee by tomorrow all of this will be a nonissue."

Hayes stood and buttoned his coat. Everyone jumped to their feet, Ross a little slower than the rest, Hayes noticed.

"Mark, do you have a problem with any of this?"

"No, sir," he replied without enthusiasm.

"Good. And, Bea," Hayes said to his secretary of state, "when you talk to the Swiss foreign minister, tell him I appreciate his cooperation on this issue. If he persists in raising a stink, tell him I'm going to make it my personal goal in life to call every billionaire I know and tell them to divest any holdings they have in the Swiss banking industry."

The secretary of state swallowed hard and nodded.

Hayes walked over to his desk and checked his appointment book. He glanced up. No one had moved. He picked up the handset of his secure phone and said, "If you'll excuse me, I need to make a call to the king."

71

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

It was Tuesday morning, and the surveillance team had been in place for a little less than twenty-four hours. So far there was no sign of Erich Abel. They'd spent most of Monday trying to get a better feel for just who the man was and watching the apartment. That's what they were best at-waiting and watching, and of course not being noticed. They obtained an updated photo off his driver's registration as well as twelve years of driving history. Not a single ticket or parking violation in all that time, which said a lot about the man. They ran his credit report and found out where he banked in Vienna, and what credit cards he used. The credit cards were checked for activity and to no one's surprise they hadn't been used in nearly two weeks. They checked phone records, for the apartment, the office, and any mobile phones they could link to him. Back at Langley a team of specialists were poring over the numbers he'd called, trying to connect them to a company or a person. There were a lot of Saudis on the list.

Late Monday afternoon they'd sent a man into the apartment. It was a nice building that fronted Stadt Park just south of old Vienna's inner ring, no more than a mile from his office. There were fifty-two units in the building. It didn't totally reek of money, but it was definitely high-end. There was a doorman and security cameras, so they had to be creative. They sent two agents through the front door posing as a couple. They were lost, and looking for an old friend who they thought lived in the building. Thirty seconds into the charade the male agent remembered the correct name of the building they were looking for. A name that just happened to sound like this one, but was in fact the name of a building three blocks away. When the doorman stepped outside to point them in the right direction, two men with a lock pick went through the back door.

They didn't bother planting bugs to start with. Abel had gone underground, and it was highly unlikely that he would be returning anytime soon. This was an information grab. The agents spent nine hours going through every square inch of the two-bedroom apartment. They took nothing, but photographed anything that might be of consequence; old address books, handwritten notes, files, and photographs. Then everything was downloaded onto a laptop and relayed to the team for immediate analysis. They opened every book and leafed through them page by page. Every appliance was pulled out and inspected, every scrap of food, dry, frozen, or refrigerated, was checked to make sure it was real. Then they went room by room checking the floor, walls, and ceiling for hidden compartments.

They'd done this many times before. Where and how a person lived said a lot about them. These agents, in their fifteen plus years with the CIA, had rarely seen a place so clean, so organized, and so sanitized. There was no doubt about it, this Abel was a professional with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They'd suspected thirty minutes into the sweep that they wouldn't find any bombshell. Subjects like this were too cautious to keep the important stuff at home. They used safe deposit boxes, or other offsite storage that would be hard to link to them. Shortly past midnight one of them left through the front door while the other stayed and planted a few bugs just in case. He waited twenty minutes and also left through the front door. There was a new doorman on duty. He would think they'd been visiting one of the owners.

Rapp, Coleman, and the guys got to the hotel a little before eleven in the evening. The drive from Riyadh to Qatar had been uneventful. The plane had been waiting, fueled, and ready to go. They were wheels up by six in the evening and on their way to Vienna. Through a fronted travel agency that was actually owned by the CIA six separate rooms had been booked at the Europa. The two connecting rooms were held under a single reservation and were being used as the command post. The other four rooms were under separate bookings that coincided with the fake passports used by the surveillance team. These rooms were used for sleeping.

Milt Johnson was the team leader. Now in his sixties, he was no longer an in-house employee of the CIA. He was a civilian contractor, which for him was just fine, because it meant he collected his full pension plus a salary that was thirty percent more than what he'd made during his last year. Milt typically ran his team in three eight-hour shifts, or two twelve-hour shifts to start with. If things got really hairy, which they usually did, he needed his people rested, because he would have to put them all into the field. The tricks of Milt's craft were fairly standard. They rented the most common cars they could find in the host country, they kept them filled with gas at all times, and he always had at least one man on a scooter or motorcycle. Unless the situation called for it, he never hired people who were too tall or too short, or too pretty or too handsome. His people carried things like reversible jackets, hats, and sunglasses or clear eyeglasses. He always had a makeup artist on hand and he never let his people drink coffee. Coffee meant bathroom breaks and too many bathroom breaks could lead to losing the target. Milt knew firsthand because he'd blown a major surveillance operation one time.

It had been during the mid-seventies, and the United States had had a mole in the Berlin embassy. Milt was part of a team that had zeroed in on the deputy ambassador. He was on the night shift all by himself, drinking coffee like a fiend so he could stay awake. Every hour on the hour he was getting out of the car and ducking into the alley to relieve himself. In the morning, the deputy ambassador was gone, and Milt was left having to explain how the man had slipped out from under his nose. He hadn't had a cup of coffee since.

Milt had worked with Rapp a lot over the years, but until just a few years ago he'd never known his real name. He'd read about the explosion at the house and the death of Rapp's wife. He had been very sorry about it. When Rapp arrived in the hotel room with Coleman, Milt casually took Rapp by the elbow and led him into the connecting room. The rooms were sizable and elegant. It was a turn-of-the-previous-century hotel that had either been kept up remarkably well or completely renovated. There were two double beds, an antique desk, and a massive armoire that doubled as an entertainment center, dresser, and in-room refrigerator.

Milt closed the connecting door and said to Rapp in a somber voice, "I'm very sorry about your wife."

Rapp nodded. He appreciated the sentiment, but didn't want to talk about it. "Thanks, Milt. I appreciate you getting on this so quick."

Milt nodded. He was four inches shorter than Rapp and had gray wispy hair that had receded at least a quarter of the way back from its youthful starting point. "We'll find this guy. Don't worry."

"Anything so far?"

"Nope. And to be honest I wasn't expecting to. I've read his file. These Stasi guys were pretty good, and this one seems above average. He's a smart little f*cker but we'll catch him."

"The apartment was a bust?"

"Yep, but we had to cover it."

"The office?"

"First thing in the morning."

"Expectations?"

Milt shrugged. "We might find something, but I'm thinking the banks will be the key. This guy likes nice things. He just bought a brand-new hundred-plus-thousand-dollar Mercedes." Milt smiled. "When he finds out you drained his accounts he's going to come unhinged. If he calls the banks to sort it out, we'll be on him. If he doesn't, he's going to be low on money and he'll have to surface sooner rather than later."

Rapp thought about that. "What about putting the word out? Unofficially of course. Offer a million dollars for him and see if he contacts any of his old Stasi buddies for help."

"I thought about that, but I think we should wait a few days. Let's see where tomorrow takes us and then we'll decide. In the meantime, I want you to get some sleep. You look like shit."

"I feel like shit."

"That's to be expected." Milt put a hand on his shoulder. Sleep was a strange thing. The more you needed it, the harder it was to get. And Milt could see that Rapp desperately needed some sleep. "Mitch, have I ever let you down before?"

Rapp shook his head.

"And I'm not going to let you down now. I'm not going to stop until I find this Abel guy, and then I'm going to find the people he hired. You can count on it. Now go to bed. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a big day."

72

T ayyib had met the woman on two occasions, both times in Abel's office. Rashid had sent him there unannounced, for no other reason than to make Abel uncomfortable and to let him know that the six-foot-four Tayyib with his haunting eyes and impassive demeanor knew where Abel worked. Rashid had made up some inconsequential reason for the visits, but the message was clear enough. Tayyib did not like women. Especially large-breasted blond women who were trying to make him stray from the path. That was what he remembered most about Greta Jorgensen-her impossibly large breasts and the tight sweaters she had worn on both occasions. He would not have known her name if it hadn't been displayed on a placard sitting on top of her desk.

The men he sent to find Abel had reported that he was not at the office on Monday. Tayyib asked them what excuse the secretary had given them and they reported that there was no secretary. The office was closed. No one was there. Tayyib asked them if Monday had been a holiday. They said it wasn't. That meant Abel had talked to her and told her not to come into work. And that meant she knew how to communicate with him. Finding out where she lived did not prove difficult. Outside of the Kingdom, the Saudi Intelligence Service was strongest in Vienna, the home of OPEC. There were only two Greta Jorgensens in the phone book and three G. Jorgensens. Tayyib estimated the woman to be in her late thirties and either divorced or single. She hadn't been wearing a ring. The intelligence people at the embassy eliminated three of the Jorgensens straightaway and with a little more checking they eliminated the fourth.

The fifth and final woman lived in a bland apartment building north of the Danube not far from the Wiennord train station. They had one of the interpreters from the embassy call her apartment to see if she was in. She answered on the fourth ring and in perfect Austrian German the interpreter asked for Johan. She explained that no Johan lived there and the interpreter told her he was sorry.

Twenty minutes later Greta Jorgensen was sitting in front of her computer making the final arrangements for her trip. That was what her boss wanted her to do, and she loved to travel. Her bags were packed and she was leaving in the morning. It was almost midnight when she heard a faint knock on her door. She had a neighbor who was a waitress. Sometimes when she got off work, she'd stop by to see if Greta wanted a glass of wine and a cigarette. Greta had told her about her sudden trip and asked her to come along. The friend had said she couldn't afford it. Greta hoped she had changed her mind. She opened the door without bothering to look through the peephole and was surprised to find a very tall serious man standing there instead. Greta tilted her head to the left and studied the face that she vaguely recognized, but couldn't place. Before she could make the connection, the man punched her in the jaw and everything went black.

73

Rapp and Coleman stood shoulder to shoulder behind Milt and watched him orchestrate the movements of his team. On the desk in front of him, three laptops were open and powered up. The one on the left showed the exterior of Abel's office building, the one in the middle was a live feed through the windshield of a car that was moving through morning traffic, and the last one had a map of Vienna on the screen. Everyone on Milt's team wore a transponder. Each agent's location was marked on the screen with a neon green dot and a number. This way Milt knew where all of his people were at every moment and like an air traffic controller he could look at the screen and vector them into position as was needed.

The plan this morning was simple. The building where Abel's office was located was near Parliament, which meant there would be a fair amount of cops in the neighborhood. The building was five stories, made out of stone, and like nearly everything else in Vienna, it was in immaculate shape considering it had been built a full century ago. Abel's office was on the third floor, sandwiched between two attorneys. The place was well organized and occupied mostly by professionals. That was why Milt had wanted to wait until morning. There was no need to push it if they didn't have to. Buildings like this received visitors all day long, but overnight they shut down. The place had decent security and was staffed by a watchman. It would be far easier to walk in under their nose in broad daylight.

Standing in front of a fountain across the street, one of the agents called in that everything was clear. It was two minutes before nine and people were streaming into the building. The sky was patchy with clouds and the temperature was mild. It looked like rain was likely.

Milt flipped the mike arm up on his headset and announced to the two men standing behind him, "The weather is perfect."

He yanked the mike back down and asked, "Sarah, how are you feeling?"

"Good." The voice came out of a small black speaker on the left of the desk.

"All right. Why don't you head in. Nothing fancy. No big risks. We've got all morning." Milt never liked to rush unless he had to.

THE HOTEL WAS only a few blocks from the office. A black A-4 Audi pulled out into traffic and less than a minute later it stopped in front of Abel's building. A brunette with dark, horn-rimmed glasses got out of the car and closed the door. Milt never worked with blondes. They stood out too much. The agent's shoulder-length black hair had a slight wave to it and on her right side it partially covered her face. She was wearing a stylish black nylon trench coat that stopped midthigh and could be reversed to light gray. Underneath, she was wearing a dark gray pantsuit with a white blouse. Very monochrome. Very forgettable. At least that was the intent.

Sarah had a wireless, pin-sized fiber-optic camera in her glasses. She stayed right on the heels of two men and headed for the elevators. A medium-sized black purse was slung over her right shoulder, and a newspaper was folded in quarters and clutched in her left hand. She kept her chin down in case there were any cameras. There were three elevators. The doors to the middle one opened, and she followed some people in and stepped off to the side. Three had already been pressed so she retreated even farther into the elevator. She wanted to be the last one off. The elevator lurched straight to the second floor and a few people got off. At three the doors opened, and one man hurried off. Sarah paused for a beat and then pressed her way to the front. A man held the door for her and she stepped off and took a right. The other man had gone to the left.

"Remember your bailout," Milt said softly. "If it isn't right, you've got a bathroom and a staircase at the end of the hall."

The building was U-shaped with an inner courtyard. Sarah continued down the hall to where it stopped and took a right. Abel's office would be on her left, midway down. Number 318. So far everything was clear. In the right pocket of her trench coat was a small black object shaped like a gun. It was actually a lock pick. It would take her less than two seconds to get in. She rounded the corner and immediately sensed something was wrong. Up ahead, about where Abel's office should be, there was a cluster of people. Sarah gave them a good look and then glanced down at her paper. Milt was already talking in her ear.

"Give me a slow drive-by and keep on walking."

Sarah was already planning on doing just that. She glanced up again and counted three heads. All men, one very tall and two of average height. She looked down at her paper and actually slowed her pace a touch. There were still four doors ahead on her left. Sarah looked up as she passed the next office so they could get a number off the door. It said 312. The men were standing in front of Abel's office. Her pulse quickened and she wondered if Milt had already figured it out.

His voice came over her wireless earpiece in a calm and slow tone. "I think they are crashing our party. Would you please get me a close-up of their faces and then head into the ladies' room?"

Sarah did just that. When she was only four paces away, she looked up and smiled. She noticed for the first time that there was a woman standing in the middle of the three men. All Sarah saw was a shock of blond hair between two of the men who were facing her and then they closed ranks and the woman disappeared. Everything about their body language and the expressions on their faces was wrong. It was as if they were angry that she would even dare look at them. Sarah knew instantly that they were Saudi.

RAPP LEANED OVER Milt's shoulder as he rewound the footage. Milt worked the touchpad while he talked to Sarah, who'd had a bad experience before with some Saudi intel officers. "I know you hate them. Just sit tight."

"I swear," the agitated female voice came from the small black speaker. "If they come in this bathroom I'm going to kill them."

"Sarah," Milt said, as the footage jumped back ten frames at a time, "I would really prefer it if you didn't kill anybody." Milt paused the playback on the most clear picture of the two men. One tall and one average. Milt blinked several times and said, "I'll be damned."

"What?" Rapp asked.

Milt shifted to the third computer, closed out the map, and opened a file that Langley had sent him during the night. He'd forgotten to show Rapp. A composite drawing came up on the screen. It was a dead ringer for the taller man that Sarah had just passed in front of Abel's office.

"Who is he?" asked Rapp.

"I don't know." Milt shrugged. "It came addressed to you with a note that said this is the man who hired the Salvadorans."

All at once Rapp recognized what was going on. "What do you have for nonlethal?" Rapp asked urgently.

"We have Tasers."

"Where?"

"In that black case right there."

Rapp grabbed the hard black case off the floor, tossed it on the bed, and popped the clasps. He threw one of the high-voltage stun guns to Coleman.

"Let's go."

"Radios!" Milt half yelled. He grabbed two small black Motorola secure digital radios, clip-on wireless mikes, and tiny, flesh-colored wireless earpieces. "They're charged and ready to go."

Rapp and Coleman stuffed the radios in their jacket pockets, clipped the mikes to the inside of their collars, and put the earpieces in. They started for the door.

"Milt," Rapp said over his shoulder, "tell Sarah she's not allowed to kill anyone until I get there. And send that guy's photo back to Langley and have them verify that he's the one I'm looking for."

"What in the hell do the Salvadorans have to do with this?" Milt watched them leave. Rapp didn't bother to answer his question. "Why do I get the feeling I'm going to have a mess to clean up?" Milt pulled down his lip mike and got busy repositioning his team.

74

Tayyib was beginning to wonder if the woman knew much of anything. They'd taken her from the apartment, shoved her in the trunk of a car, and taken her back to the embassy. Tayyib had started with the fingernails on her left hand. He'd torn them off one at a time. Her story started to change after the third one. She had gone from saying she didn't know where her boss was to telling him that he might be in Italy. Where in Italy, he wanted to know. She sobbed that she didn't know where, just that she thought she overheard him say something about Italy. That was when he decided to let two of the men rape her. They had been eager enough, and Tayyib knew they would be grateful. Tayyib would not defile himself in such a way, but he knew with women, this type of subjugation could put them into the proper frame of mind.

He left the basement storage room and found the kitchen. He gave them an hour. He ate a sandwich, drank a glass of milk, and thought about what questions he would ask her when he started up again. Abel was a man who embraced technology. Tayyib had first met him five years ago. Even then he was carrying one of those combination handheld computers and cell phones. His office would be the key. There would be something there that would tell him where Abel was. Some piece of information stored on a computer. Tayyib could not disappoint Rashid. He had to find the German or the prince would never trust him again.

When he went back downstairs the men were finishing up with her. They had her stripped and bent over a table with her arms tied to the far legs with brown extension cords. She was there for him to take. He felt a rush of excitement and was seconds away from giving in. He forced himself to silently recite the salat ul-jumuah. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar...Ashahadu an la ilaha ill allah...Ashahadu anna Muhammadar Rasulullah...God is greater, God is greater. I declare there is no god but God. I declare Muhammad is the messenger of God...

The prayer, however, did not subdue his desires and he knew that he could no longer be in the presence of the temptress. One of the men laughed that she had begged them to stop. That she had mentioned something about a safe in the office. It was already past four in the morning. Tayyib angrily ordered the men to rape her again. Going to the office right now might arouse too much suspicion. They would have to clean her up and take her to the office in the morning.