The Third Option

chapter 25
In any other city, in any other walk of life, Donatella Rahn would have been seen for exactly what she was  -  a ravishing beauty  -  but in Milan, Italy, she was over the hill. At thirty-eight, the former model was washed up. Donatella was two inches short of six feet, and with a good diet, a daily walking regimen, and the help of a skilled plastic surgeon, she had maintained her gorgeous body. It was amazing enough that in her late thirties she looked as good as, or better than, she had when she was prancing across the runways of Milan, Paris, and New York, but it was even more amazing considering what she had been through. Donatella Rahn was a unique and complicated person.

It was a nice fall morning in Milan as Donatella walked to work. Every spring the people of Milan eagerly awaited summer. It meant trips to some of the world's most beautiful lakes. But by the time August rolled around, they were once again ready for fall. The warm, humid air of summer brought smog and choking pollution to the city. The crisp cool air of autumn helped clean things up.

Donatella took her time walking this morning, which probably had something to do with the boots she was wearing. They had a four-inch heel on them, and as was the case with most of the fashion she helped sell, they were not very practical. She passed the House of Gucci on Via Monte Napoleone and resisted the urge to spit on the display window. She took a right onto Via Sant' Andrea and crossed the street. Up ahead was the House of Armani, her home for almost fifteen years. Donatella was fiercely loyal. It was, in fact, probably the only thing she had inherited from her mother other than her looks. She was the byproduct of an Austrian father and an Italian mother. Her mother was a Jew from Torino, Italy, and her father was a Lutheran from Dornbirn, Austria; it was no surprise that their marriage had failed.

Italy was, after all, the Vatican's backyard. The country had a not so illustrious record of crushing religious dissent. The marriage lasted three short years, and then she and her mother returned to Torino, where they lived with Donatella's Orthodox Jewish grandparents. At sixteen she ran away to Milan. She wanted to model, and she didn't want any more religion. She got her way on both counts, and it was the start of a very bumpy road.

Now, all of these years later, Donatella Rahn entered the House of Armani knowing that her colleagues hadn't the slightest idea of her full range of talents. She eschewed the elevator, as always, and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. As usual, she was one of the first to arrive. She entered her sanctum and closed the door for privacy. Her office was modem industrial, a miniaturized version of an airplane hangar. Sketches of clothes cluttered every available inch of the two couches and four chairs. Her coworkers liked to complain that there was nowhere to sit in her office. Donatella wondered if they would ever take the hint that she wanted it that way.

The only thing in the office that wasn't covered with sketches was a large glass desk. Donatella sat down behind it and turned on her computer. Her sleek flat Viewsonic screen came to life a moment later. She checked her work e-mail and then her personal e-mail. After wading through seventeen messages, she checked a third on-line mailbox. This mailbox, she had been assured, could not be traced back to her. There were only three people in the world who knew about it. One in Tel Aviv, one in Paris, and one in Washington. Almost all of the messages came from the person in Tel Aviv.

This morning was no different. Donatella clicked on the message, and the decryption software on her computer went to work. When it was done, she began to read. She was being offered a job in Washington. It was rated at a quarter of a mil- lion dollars, which meant the individual was not high profile. If he were, the rate would be a half million or more. On this she had to trust her handler. He had only screwed up once. It had almost cost her her life, but in his defense, it had been an honest mistake. She read a brief profile of the target and then checked her electronic organizer. There was a show in New York this coming weekend. It wasn't a big one, but then again, part of her job was to find undiscovered talent.

She thought it over for a minute and then decided to accept. She typed in her reply and logged off. She would receive a more thorough dossier within several hours. The next call was to her travel agent to book a ticket and check the availability of the company's apartment in Manhattan. With that accomplished, she set about clearing her schedule for the remainder of the week. Donatella Rahn was indeed a very complicated woman.

IT WAS RAINING, and the Wednesday morning temperature was a chilly fifty-two degrees. Kennedy's sedan drove east on Independence Avenue. Traffic was thick, as the deluge of government employees scrambled to make it to their desks by nine. The sedan rolled past the Air and Space Museum and then crossed 4th Street. Kennedy looked out the window at the throngs of people huddled under umbrellas waiting for the light to change. Normally, she would have brought something to work on during the ride from Langley to the Hill, but she had forced herself not to. She needed to straighten some things out in her head.

The only good piece of news since Saturday was that Mitch was alive. She could have done without his dramatic reappearance and his skepticism in regard to her loyalty, but, as he had pointed out, she wasn't the one who had been shot. Mitch was a different breed, and Kennedy had always respected that. He operated much closer to the edge than she ever would or could. He had once again proven that his level of skill was bewildering. With no help whatsoever, he had made it out of Germany and back to the United States, where he then broke into the CIA director's house and in the process also broke the jaw of the CIA employee who was there to make sure such a thing never happened.

When Rapp finally settled down, they filled him in on what lime they knew. He in turn had asked a lot of questions for which they had almost no answers. The situation was dismal, Rapp was disgusted, and Kennedy was embarrassed. Rapp, never one to pull a punch, had placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the director of the Counterterrorism Center and Stansfield, telling them, "You've got a leak, and if you don't find it, I'll find it for you."

Kennedy already knew she had a leak, but in the current political climate, the last thing she needed was Mitch Rapp running around Washington banging people's heads together. To Kennedy's consternation, Stansfield had actually encouraged Rapp to find the leak, but in her opinion, it was time to let Mitch take a long vacation. With the chairman watching like a hawk, she didn't need Rapp drawing unneeded attention to himself, and ultimately her  -  no matter how good he was.

What Stansfield had neglected to tell Kennedy was his real reason for wanting to turn their bull loose in the china shop. His doctor had told hint the day before that the cancer was progressing much faster than anticipated. And indeed, he could feel it eating away at his insides. Each day was a little worse. It was no longer an issue of months but weeks. He needed to put things in order before he passed. He needed to find out who was behind the recent events. Rapp had been the target in Germany, but something told the old director that whoever was behind this move had a much bigger target in mind than Rapp. There wasn't enough time left for subtlety, only results, and if there was one thing Rapp was exceptional at, it was getting results.

The government sedan passed the Sam Rayburn House Office Building. The four-story behemoth was named in honor of Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn, the congressman from Texas who had served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1912 to 1961. The people of Texas had sent Rayburn to Washington a staggering twenty-five times. From 1940 until his death in 1961, Rayburn served as speaker of the house seventeen times. During that time, very little happened in Washington without Sam Rayburn's approval. Chairman Rudin had an office inside the Rayburn Building, but he spent most of his time in a second office on the top floor of the Capitol. He liked to refer to it as his eagle's nest. Max Salmen, the CIA's deputy director of Operations, called it the vulture's lair. Rudin didn't like this one bit, but that, of course, was Salmen's intent. In recent: years, Salmen had stated that his sole mission before retirement was to drive Rudin insane. At first, Kennedy wondered why Stansfield tolerated this, and then it dawned on her that the more Rudin focused his hatred on Salmen, the less he would have left over for die rest of die Agency; She wished that were die case this morning.

The sedan pulled up to a checkpoint manned by die Capitol Hill police. After a brief inspection, they were waved through. Kennedy was dropped off near the ground-floor entrance on die southeast side of the building. She stepped from the car and opened her umbrella. With her leather organizer in her other hand, she walked through the rain and entered the huge neoclassical building, where she lined up to go through the metal detectors. Most of the ground floor of the Capitol was occupied by committee rooms and offices and was not accessible to die general public without a pass. The areas that were accessible tended to be located in the middle of the building and included the Hall of Columns, the Old Supreme Court Chamber, and die Brumidi Corridors. The south wing of the building held the House of Representatives, and the north wing held the Senate. On the second floor were the chambers for both the House and the Senate, along with offices for leadership of both bodies. The Capitol's most identifiable feature, its rotunda, was also on the second floor. The third floor had more committee rooms and offices and the galleries from which visitors could watch the House and the Senate in action. All three of these floors were immaculately maintained.

Kennedy was headed to the fourth floor, which she often thought of as the neglected child of the Capitol. The offices there were far less glamorous, the paint was chipping in places, and water stains on the ceiling were not uncommon. Visitors rarely glimpsed the fourth floor, which was one of the reasons it was chosen as the location for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Kennedy walked past Office H-405, which housed the committee's staffers. She opened a door a little farther down and stepped into a tiny waiting area.

There were two people in the room: a staffer sitting behind a reception desk and a Capitol Hill Police officer. The staffer greeted her and told her to take a seat. He picked up the phone and told someone on the other end that Dr. Kennedy had arrived. The man listened for a few seconds and then hung up. Looking at Kennedy, he said, "It'll be a few minutes."

Kennedy nodded and thought to herself, I'm sure it will. Chairman Rudin was notorious for making CIA employees wait. Kennedy checked her watch. It was 8:56. They'd told her to be there by nine. She would be shocked if she was called in before a quarter past nine. She was right. At 9:24, she was summoned to the inner chamber. The committee room was the smallest in Washington. There was no gallery  -  no room for reporters to sit and listen. The sixteen members  -  eight Democrats, seven Republicans, and one independent  -  sat ten feet in front of the witness table in two rows. There were chairs for staffers behind the top row, and on the wall were the thirteen seals of the government agencies that made up the intelligence community, or IC.

Like the committee room for the Senate, this was also a room within a room. Highly secure, it was swept by technicians from the National Security Agency on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, depending on the business that was being conducted.

Kennedy set her organizer on the table and looked up to see Michael O'Rourke coming toward her. The congressman from Minnesota was the lone independent on the committee. O'Rourke said hello and asked Kennedy how her son was doing. After their pleasantries were concluded, O'Rourke said, "Irene, I need you to be honest with me about something."

Kennedy studied the young congressman for a second and said, "I'll try my best. What is it?"

"Does the name Mitch Rapp mean anything to you?"

Kennedy studied O'Rourke before answering. Looking over his shoulder at the other committee members, she said, "Maybe you should come out to Langley, and we can talk about this." Kennedy was fully aware that Anna Rielly and Congressman O'Rourke's wife were best friends. Rapp had kept her in the loop.

"So you know him?"

"I never said that." Kennedy reached out and touched his arm. "Come see me at Langley, and we'll talk about it."

O'Rourke nodded. "I'll be out this afternoon, then."

"That's fine. CaIl my office and see what time works best." O'Rourke agreed and went back to his seat. One more thing to worry about, Kennedy thought to herself. She looked up and saw Chairman Rudin scowling at a piece of paper. From his perch, he looked down his beaklike nose at Kennedy and said, "You may be seated."

Congressman Zebarth, the ranking Republican on the committee who sat immediately to Rudin's right, leaned forward and said, "Good morning, Dr. Kennedy. Thank you for coming to see us on such short notice." Zebarth winked and leaned back in his chair. Zebarth was the only other member on the committee who had been in Washington as long as Rudin. Very few politicians, let alone Republicans, got along with Rudin, but Zebarth was a throwback to the old days when politicians could agree to disagree and then go have a Manhattan. Keenly aware of the rules of debate and decorum. the silver-tongued Virginian could slice an adversary to pieces without a single angry word. The Republican leadership had placed him on the Intelligence Committee because they thought he was the only man who could handle Rudin's crotchety attitude.

Rudin shuffled some papers around and cleared his throat a few times. When he was done, he took a drink of water and removed his glasses. Looking down at Kennedy, he said, "I have been hearing some very upsetting things about your organization lately."

Kennedy looked back impassively, waiting for Rudin to elaborate.

The chairman continued to stare at her, but Kennedy's composure was sending his blood pressure north. It infuriated him that these professional liars from Langley kept coming before his committee and trying to play him for a moron. "Ms. Kennedy, would you mind telling me just what in the hell happened in Germany last weekend?"

Before Kennedy could answer, Congressman Zebarth said, "I am progressing in years, but if my memory serves me right, it's Dr. Kennedy, not Ms. Kennedy."

Rudin mumbled something under his breath and then said, "Dr. Kennedy, what happened in Germany last weekend?"

"Could you be more specific, Mr. Chairman?"

"I could. but I won't, because you know damn well what I'm talking about."

"Excuse me, Mr. Chairman," interjected Zebarth with a confused look on his face, "I don't know whether or not the good doctor knows what you're talking about, but I'm a tad bit embarrassed to admit that I certainly don't. Not that I claim to understand you in the most esoteric sense of the word, but in regard to the CIA, I can usually extrapolate some type of a read on your position."

Rudin refused to look at Zebarth, who was sitting only four feet to his right. He hated the old windbag. Staring straight ahead, he said, "She knows what I'm talking about, and you will soon enough. Just conserve your oxygen for the next couple of minutes. It should help clear the fog."

Zebarth snickered. Imitation was the greatest form of flattery, and Rudin had just stolen a line right out of Zebarth's play book.

"Now, Dr. Kennedy, let's get back to my question. What happened in Germany this past Saturday, and what was the involvement of your agency?"

"Are you referring to the events surrounding HagenmiIIer Engineering?"

"I'm referring to the assassination of Count HagenmiIIer," replied a stem Rudin.

"There isn't much that I can add that you don't already know, Mr. Chairman."

Rudin had his hands folded in front of him. He kept his eyes on Kennedy. "I don't believe you." A chorus of rumbles erupted from the Republican side of the committee. Rudin ignored them and pressed the point. "I want you to tell this committee, in detail, what role the CIA had in the assassination of Count HagenmilIer. And I would like to remind you, if you lie to my committee, you will be prosecuted."

This time, Democrats and Republicans alike turned around to look at the chairman. An accusation as blatant as this was a rare event in the tiny committee room.

"Well, well, well..." interjected Zebarth. "Given the fact that Dr. Kennedy has been very cooperative with this body in the past, I am assuming that the exuberant chairman has some information that he would like to share with the rest of us before we continue down this possibly reckless line of inquiry."

Rudin snatched his wooden gavel and gave it several whacks. "Order. The chair has not yielded. When I have, I will let you know." From the righthand side of the bench came a chorus of questions. Each time Rudin tried to get back to Kennedy, a Republican would ask loudly, "Will the chair yield, please? Point of order, Mr. Chairman." This unruly behavior smacked of the antics displayed on the Judiciary Committee, but it was very unusual for the Intelligence Committee. Even the Democrats seemed a bit miffed by Rudin's aggressiveness.

Kennedy kept her mouth shut and watched. Rudin's blunt question had her concerned, but she didn't show it. The Orion Team didn't exist, and she had nothing to do with the death of Hagenmiller. She would utter those falsities until she was dead. She could never admit any of it no matter how bad it got. The big question was whether or not Rudin was bluffing, or if he had been given some information. A week ago, she would have bet the farm that he was bluffing, but today, with the unknown leak lurking out there somewhere, she couldn't be sure.

With a red face, Rudin yelled over the din of protests, "Dr. Kennedy, answer my question! Did the CIA have anything to do with the assassination of Count Hagenmiller?"

Kennedy calmly looked up at the angry chairman and said, "To the very best of my knowledge, the CIA had no involvement whatsoever in the death of Count Hagenmiller." Kennedy did not blink; she did not waver. She had just committed a felony. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last.