Separation of Power

chapter NINETEEN
Milan, Thursday evening

Rapp was growing impatient. He'd arrived at the Jamaica Cafe before six so he could check the place out. Anna was back at the hotel sleeping. After a tiring night of travel and a full afternoon of shopping, she'd hit the wall. Rapp had tucked her into bed and said that he'd return and wake her for a late dinner. He noted with a yawn that he could use a little sleep himself.

Rapp had grabbed a corner booth in the bar, which was beginning to fill with customers and smoke. In his left hand he held his Heckler & Koch HK4 pistol with a snubbed silencer. It was under the table covered by a cloth napkin. Rapp wasn't taking any chances and with each passing minute his unease was growing. It was now a quarter past six, and there was no sign of Donatella. Mentally, he began going down the list of possibilities. Rapp agreed with Kennedy that Donatella's activities in America some two weeks earlier were not sanctioned by the Israeli government. Mossad had done a lot of crazy things over the years, but this didn't fit. There was no reason he could think of why the notorious Israeli intelligence service would want to double-cross him and leave him for dead in Germany. Mitch Rapp and the Orion Team had been Mossad's greatest ally for nearly a decade.

They were capable of penetrating the operation. There was no doubt about that. If anyone could do it, it would be Mossad, but they still didn't have the motive. And if director Stansfield had been right, the motive was to stop Kennedy from becoming the next director of Central Intelligence. Once again Rapp didn't see it. As the director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center she had been a staunch ally of the oldest democracy in the Middle East. No, Rapp thought, Donatella had to be free-lancing. The big question now, was for whom.

As the minutes slid by he began to wonder if he'd ever get the answer to his question. There was the chance that Donatella was hung up at work and running late, but you did not survive long in this business by accepting the most common reason. You survived by thinking of all the possibilities and planning for contingencies. Throwing logic aside for the moment, he wondered what she would do if she had in fact been working for Mossad when she'd assassinated Peter Cameron. She'd have to run. There was no other solution. She couldn't very well turn to the Israelis and tell them he'd contacted her. They'd just as soon kill her rather than protect her. For once and for all, Rapp did away with that possibility. There was no way the Israeli government was involved in this.

There was the list of usual suspects. The Russians, the Chinese, Iraq, Iran, Syria, the Palestinians and the French. Of the group, the Russians were probably the only ones who had the assets to penetrate the operation, and once again, he didn't see the motive. All roads pointed back to America. Somebody wanted him dead, and if Thomas Stansfield had been right, that person or persons ultimately wanted to end Irene Kennedy's career.

Rapp hadn't the faintest idea who they were. He needed Donatella to point him in the right direction, and for that to happen she had to show up. As he looked around the bar for the hundredth time he quietly hoped that she'd been smart enough to keep their meeting earlier in the day to herself. She had to trust him one last time and he would make sure she'd make it through without getting harmed.

Finally, at 6:27 Donatella entered the noisy, crowded bar in a black pant suit with a coat draped over one arm. Like two true professionals they barely glanced at each other. They'd been taught the same thing. Trouble almost always comes from where you'd least expect it. Get the target to focus on one thing and then blind-side them. They both warily checked their flanks to make sure no one was coming after them. Rapp watched heads turn as the gorgeous Donatella walked through the bar. His eyes expertly scanned the crowded bar, searching for faces he'd seen before, and looking for a pair of eyes that were watching him rather than the stunning brunette.

Donatella smiled her devilish smile and came around to his side of the booth. She kissed him on the cheek and then with her curvaceous hip she bumped him to the side and sat practically on his lap. Her intent was twofold. First of all, she did not want to sit with her back to the door and second, she did not want to have to talk across the table. It would be much better if they could whisper in each other's ear.

"Sorry I'm late," said Donatella in Italian. She shook her head to the side in an effort to move some other thick mane out of the way.

"What was the holdup?" asked Rapp in her native tongue.

"It was a disastrous day. We had a shoot that cost a lot of money and produced nothing but crap, and then the only man I've ever truly loved stopped by my office and told me he was getting married." Donatella flagged down a passing waiter and ordered a double Stoly martini with a lemon peel. When the waiter was gone she turned back to Rapp and said, "All in all it's been a really shitty day." With a fake smile she asked, "And how was your day, honey?"

Rapp felt a little guilty. "I'm sorry, Donny. I never meant to hurt you." Taking her hand he said, "You've always been very special to me, and you always will be."

"But not that special." She stared at Rapp with her dark brown, almond-shaped eyes, her full lips pursed as if she might begin to cry.

Rapp put his right arm around her and pulled her tight. He kissed her forehead and said, "You have to have faith that everything will turn out."

Donatella pushed away; her eyes were moist. "That's easy for you to say. You have someone. You found the person you want to marry, and what do I have? Nothing."

"You have to have faith that it will happen for you, too."

"My faith was you. However foolish it might have been, I thought one day we'd walk away from all of this crap and live happily ever after."

After brushing a tear from her cheek, Rapp said, "We haven't exactly seen a lot of each other over the past year."

"I know, it was foolish of me, but dammit, I loved you. I still love you."

Rapp swallowed uncomfortably. He knew Donatella to be a very passionate woman, but he didn't expect her to show this much emotion. "Donny, I loved you very much. You know that. We were there for each other during some of the worst times." She nodded, but kept her head tilted down, buried in his chest. Pulling herself together a bit, she looked up and said, "I'm happy for you ... I really am ... it's just that ..." She couldn't finish the sentence.

"What?"

"This is a lonely f*cking business."

Rap knew all too well what she meant. He pulled her close and squeezed tight. "Don't worry, Donny. If you're ready to put it all behind you, I'll make it happen." Rapp decided at that exact moment that he would do whatever it took to bring her in. He would use whatever leverage he had to make sure she was safe.

Donatella sat up and grabbed a handkerchief from her bag. She blotted the tears from her eyes and said, "I'm not done yet. I have a few more years left before I can retire."

Rapp thought of the fate of Peter Cameron and decided she might not have a few more years. At that moment the waiter approached the table and set Donatella's drink down.

"He'll have a glass of your house red wine, please." Donatella dismissed the waiter and turned to Rapp. "If I'm going to cry and drink vodka I'm not going to let you get away with drinking coffee."

Rapp didn't argue. He instead used the opening to get to the point. "Donny." Rapp looked her in the eye to make sure she knew how serious he was. "I'm going to tell you some things, and as always they're in complete confidence. In return I need you to be honest with me."

Donatella set her drink down and moved back a bit. She'd been thinking about how she was going to handle this all day and she as yet hadn't come up with a solution. "I'll do my best."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'll do my best."

"Will you be honest with me?"

"I'll be honest with you, but you know there are certain things I can't answer no matter what our history is." Reluctantly, Rapp conceded the point and asked, "Are you going to answer the question that I asked you in your office this afternoon?"

She'd thought about little else since he'd left, that and the fact that the man of her dreams was going to marry someone else. Her first instinct was to lie. It had nothing to do with Mitch, it was standard operating procedure. Everybody was on a need to know basis, and if they knew that, shouldn't be asking the question. Hence they shouldn't be offended when they found out they were lied to. Mitch fell into a different category, though. They had been through so much, and not just in the bedroom, but in the field. There was an unspoken rule between them. If you can't answer the question, don't. Mitch knew something. She had no idea how, but one thing was clear, somehow he knew she was in Washington several weeks ago.

Rapp leaned in and repeated the question. "Where you in Washington several weeks ago?"

Donatella took a sip of the cold vodka. "Yes."

"Did you spend any time at George Washington University?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I do."

"No one else?" asked a skeptical Donatella.

"Oh, there are others, but no one wants to know as bad as I do."

"And why is that?"

Rapp studied her for a second. They could go on like this for hours, like two tennis players volleying the ball across the net at each other. He was in no mood for such a game; he didn't have the time. Taking a calculated risk he said, "There was a professor at George Washington University that I really wanted to talk to. Unfortunately, someone stuck a pick in his ear and scrambled his brain before I could get to him. Any idea who would do such a thing?"

Donatella fidgeted and looked away at the crowd. She knew he had her. He'd seen her kill that way before. Choosing to deflect his question by asking one of her own she said, "Why did you want to talk to him?"

Rapps eyes lit up with anger. He leaned in until his nose was just inches away from Donatellas. His response was spoken through gritted teeth. "Because he tried to kill me."

Situation Room, Thursday morning

Colonel Gray had the room's rapt attention. Even the unflappable Irene Kennedy was shaking her head in disbelief at the Delta Force commander's bold plan. Its audacity was absolutely beautiful.

President Hayes looked at the colonel with a slightly miffed expression and asked, "You've already practiced this?"

"Yes, sir."

"How?"

"We took three MH-47E heavy lift helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) and loaded them each with one Mercedes sedan and four Delta operators. We flew the planes from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina to Hulbert Field in Florida. Once we arrived we conducted eight separate infiltration and exfiltration operations over an eight-day period. We tried to make the exercise as realistic as possible. Each night we sent out two MH-53 J Pave Lows with Delta operators in each bird. Their job was to secure the landing area for the arrival of the MH-47E's. The first two nights we made it easy on them. We selected paved roads on remote parts of the base. The Pave Lows arrived at the preselected area and secured and marked the landing strip. The MH-47E's arrived and landed without incident. The cars were unloaded and the Delta operators took off on their simulated mission. The cars were then reloaded and the choppers took off.

"The next two nights the Pave Lows arrived and found the designated area occupied by potentially hostile forces. They had to move onto the secondary landing sites and so forth. With each passing night we made the mission increasingly difficult. We simulated one of the choppers breaking down, we simulated the force coming under attack in the middle of unloading the cars, we threw everything at them."

"And?" the President asked.

"They fared very well. We finished the exercise with an understanding of what should be done to increase the odds for success. We also came away believing that if called on we could put this plan into action in very short order." The President blinked several times and said, "So you're telling me you think you could fly a couple of these choppers into Iraq, land, unload the cars, drive into Baghdad, hit the target, and get everybody out safely." The President shook his head. "Excuse me if I sound skeptical, but this seems a little over the top."

"I'm in the business of over the top, sir. That's what you pay me for."

President Hayes laughed and then leaned forward. "Colonel, do you really think you could pull something like this off?"

"That depends on what type of cover you're willing to give us, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"If what I've just described to you represents the entire scope of the operation," Gray paused for a second while he calculated the odds of success. "I'd give my men a fifty to sixty percent chance of achieving the primary goal and making it out without any casualties."

The President grimaced. "I don't like those odds."

"I can get them closer to ninety percent if you're willing to expand the scope of the operation."

"How?"

Gray glanced at the two generals before continuing. Both Flood and Campbell signaled for him to proceed. "It would be very difficult to get the choppers that deep into Iraqi airspace without them being picked up. To pull this off, we'd need to create some chaos. General Flood has informed me that one of your contingencies is for massive air strikes."

"It's something I'm considering."

"Well, if the fly-boys were to go in and wreak havoc with the Iraqis' air defenses and lines of communications just prior to my boys going in, it would create the perfect environment. And if they could continue bombing until we were back out it would be a huge help." With a look of disbelief, the President asked, "You want to send your men into Baghdad with bombs dropping all around them?"

"Yes." Gray sat forward and gestured with his hands. "We'd create a safe corridor for the team to get in and out of the city. No bombs would be dropped in that zone, and no bombs would be dropped within, let's say, a six-block radius of the hospital."

"Colonel, I haven't been at this job very long, but I do know that our aviators don't always hit their target. Don't you think its a little dangerous to send your men into a city that we're bombing?"

Colonel Gray looked his President in the eye and said, "Sir, being a Delta Force commando is dangerous. No one fights for me who doesn't want to be there. If my men wanted a safe job they'd go sell cars for a living."

"Point well taken, but .. The President remained skeptical. "This seems awfully complicated and," Hayes looked down the length of the table at General Flood, "you always tell me the more complicated these things get the better chance there is that something will go wrong." "That is usually true, sir," answered the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Colonel Gray wasn't to be deterred. "Mr. President, I'll grant that this is complicated, but I can give you two things that the air force can't." Forcefully, Gray continued. "Lets not forget the primary objective. We need to be sure that we destroy the nukes. I can guarantee that we'll know whether those nukes are actually underneath that hospital. The air force can't give you that guarantee, sir. My men can. They will get into that facility, and they will provide you with a bona fide answer as to whether or not those nukes are actually there. We can destroy the weapons on site, and since they are in a fortified bunker, I'm confident that we could pull the mission off without having to kill all of the innocent people in the hospital." Gray paused briefly to let the President think about what he'd said and then added, "If you do it the air forces way, you will be ostracized by the international community for bombing a hospital. You will have no real proof that those nuclear weapons actually existed. Saddam will bus in the journalists so they can shoot footage of the twisted bodies in the rubble. There will be pictures of mothers holding dead babies covered in dust, and the entire Arab world will hate us even more than they already do. Saddam's control will be further consolidated around a wave of anti-American sentiment and the U. N. will likely vote to end the economic sanctions--"

General Campbell interrupted his subordinate and said, "Colonel, lets stick to our area of expertise, and leave the other stuff to the President and his staff."

President Hayes held up his hand and said, "That's all right ... that's all right. I think Colonel Gray has very succinctly stated what we've all been afraid to say." President Hayes sat quietly for a moment while he thought about the fallout from the air strikes. The colonel was right. The current coalition against Iraq was in such a weakened state that it wouldn't take much to put an end to it. The bombing would more than likely end all economic sanctions. The Israelis had dumped one hell of a problem into his lap. In frustration, Hayes turned to Irene Kennedy and said, "I'd like to hear your thoughts."