Protect And Defend

chapter 50
Rapp closed the door to the cell, and hustled down the hallway. The looped recording of a man being tortured was playing on the overhead speakers. Rapp ignored the agonizing screams and grappled with the implications of what he'd just learned. From the onset of the attack on Kennedy's motorcade he'd assumed it was Sunnis who were behind the plan. The Sunnis ran the police force and had been known to work with al-Qaeda in Iraq on a limited basis. Iranian and Hezbollah involvement brought things into a much more complicated light. At first Rapp couldn't believe they would be so reckless as to actually kidnap the sitting director of the CIA, but the more he thought about it, the less he was surprised. Clearly these were desperate men willing to take great risks to hold on to power.

Dumond had set up shop in the conference room. He had two of his high-powered laptops plugged into full-size monitors and was working both. Stilwell was sitting next to him taking notes and helping translate.

Rapp stopped in the doorway. "Any luck?"

"Not yet." Dumond didn't bother to look up from the screen. "I'm not sure the Iranian Army has these personnel records on their network."

Rapp was afraid of that. "What about public databases? Motor vehicle registry, utilities, birth records?"

"I'm searching all of them."

Ridley joined Rapp in the doorway. He was holding a stack of freshly printed 5x6 photos. "These just came in." Ridley handed the stack to Rapp, who began peeling through them. "That first one is of Minister Ashani right after he arrived."

Rapp reached the third photo and Ridley stopped him. The vantage was from the front of the helicopter and showed Ashani walking to the right. On the left side of the helicopter there was another man in a dark suit walking in the opposite direction. "Who's this?"

"I don't know."

Rapp flipped through a couple more photos and stopped on a head shot of the mystery man. The digital photo had been cropped and blown up. The quality wasn't perfect, but it was still easy to make out the man's features. He had a dark brown beard and even though he was wearing sunglasses there was something vaguely familiar about him. Rapp continued going through the shots and stopped on the second to last one. It showed the mystery man climbing into a police SUV that was bracketed by two police pickup trucks, both with.50-caliber machine guns mounted to the roofs.

Rapp quickly shuffled back to the best photo of the mystery man and handed Ridley the rest of the stack. "Charlie's in the Situation Room with the president, right?"

"Yes."

"Get on the horn with him and tell him we're ninety percent sure Iran is behind the kidnapping of Irene."

"Ninety percent?" Ridley questioned. "We haven't even verified that this Tahmineh is who he says he is."

"That's why I didn't say one hundred. Trust me, Rob, we need to get the National Security Council talking about this. If it is Iran, it'll take them half a day to figure out who the hell to even call." Rapp began moving toward the door. "Irene doesn't have that kind of time."

Rapp went straight back to Tahmineh's cell. He threw open the steel door, walked right up to the seated and handcuffed man, and thrust the photo in his face. "Who is this guy?"

The Iranian's eyes were literally bugging out of his head and he was sweating profusely. "I don't know."

"Bullshit!" Rapp screamed.

"I mean I don't know his name. I don't know him. I saw him for the first time today."

Rapp felt his jaw tighten. Through clenched teeth, he asked, "When and where?"

"It was this morning. Right before the attack. We had been moved into position before dawn and were waiting. He showed up maybe an hour before the attack and took over."

"Is he special forces?"

"No." The prisoner frantically shook his head. "I don't think so."

"He gave Captain Dadarshi orders?"

"Yes."

"Was he from the Ministry of Intelligence?"

"I don't know," the man pleaded.

Rapp eyed him. There were no signs that he was being anything less than truthful. "You have no idea who the man is?"

"No."

It would stand to reason that the mystery man worked for Ashani, and it would also stand to reason that a lowly corporal would have no idea who the man was. Rapp did not want to try to figure out his next move in front of the prisoner. He left the cell without saying another word and closed and locked the door. He began pacing up and down the hall while the torture track played as background noise. His mind turned the facts over and over, looking at each bit of information from every angle he could think of. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it earlier.

Rapp snatched the two-way radio from his hip. He hit the talk button and said, "Rob, get me a number for Minister Ashani."