Transfer of Power

chapter 33
Deep in thought, Anna Rielly sat, feet pulled close, arms wrapped around her shins, and her chin resting in the valley between her knees. Her shoulder-length brown hair was pulled back in its ponytail again. The long sleeves of President Hayes's black sweatshirt were rolled up several times. She was comfortable, warm, and had a little bit of food in her stomach along with two Tylenol 3s, which helped dull her aching jaw and ribs. All things considered, she was doing pretty darn well.

How strange life could be, she thought to herself. One week ago she was in Chicago working at the station, living in her apartment in Lincoln Park. She was ready for a change, in both her career and her personal life. Since the rape, things had been jumbled. There had been the boyfriend who couldn't handle what she had been through. He was a pharmaceutical rep, and when offered a promotion and transfer to Phoenix, he jumped at the chance and told Anna he couldn't love someone who couldn't love him back. She'd blamed herself for that one until she was healthy enough to realize that if he had really loved her, he would have given her more than seven months to recover.

It had actually turned out to be a blessing. Spending the last several years alone had allowed her to grow in strength. Independence and self-reliance were great things. The best part about them was that the only person who could let you down was yourself. The downside, which she was now experiencing, was that you woke up one day and realized you had either pushed everybody away or not allowed anyone to get close enough. Either way, you were left with a lonely existence.

Rielly thought fate had to figure into the equation somewhere. It always did for those large defining moments in life. What kind of twisted fate had led her to this strange moment, this crossroad? If she hadn't gotten the job as the new White House correspondent, if she had missed her flight to D.C., if her alarm had failed to wake her up three days ago, if she had been released with that first group of hostages, if that pig hadn't dragged her up to the president's bedroom? Rielly eyes got big. If Mitch Kruse, or whatever his real name was, hadn't stepped in when he did? Wow, Rielly thought as a shiver ran up her spine. The thought of Kruse not showing up when he did was horrifying. She owed him a lot. More than she could probably ever express.

Rielly stared blankly at the wall opposite her. Her thoughts settle din on the man named Kruse, and on the odds of him appearing exactly when he did and all of the possible outcomes in between. It was staggering. Call it fate, call it a guardian angel, call it what you like, but someone or something had stepped in and put him there at that exact moment in time. A smile fell across Rielly's face, and she looked upward to say a little prayer of thanks.

* * *

Before picking up the phone, Stansfield told Kennedy to listen in on a second phone located on the other side of the room. He then asked General Flood and Campbell to say silent. Stansfield's hand reached down and picked up the handset. At the same time, he sank into his chair and brought the phone to his ear.

"This is Director Stansfield."

At first there was only breathing, heavy breathing, and then the words hissed forth. "I know all about you. Who you are, what you've done, and all of the people you've sent your minions to kill."

Stansfield looked back again at the readout on his phone. The black letters said, "WH Sit Room." The hostile voice he recognized as that of Rafique Aziz, and it didn't even come close to riling the director the Central Intelligence Agency. Instead, Stansfield leaned back and asked, "What can I do for you, Mr. Aziz?"

"Do for me," spat an obviously agitated Aziz. "You can tell me what you have done with Fara Harut!"

It was a statement made with confidence; Stansfield was sure f that. The director stayed cool and replied, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Don't insult me," screamed Aziz. "I know what you have done, and I want to know where Fara Harut is immediately, or you are going to have more dead hostages on your hands!"

Aziz was screaming so loud that Flood and Campbell could hear him from where they were standing. The two men stepped forward while Stansfield replied, "It is not my intention to insult you. I sincerely have no idea what you're talking about."

"You are a snake," screamed Aziz. "I should have known better than to have thought for a second that you would give me the truth! I swear I will make you pay for what you have done!"

Aziz was now yelling so loud Stansfield pulled the phone away from his ear and listened to Aziz ramble from a more comfortable distance of six inches.

The voice squawked from the earpiece. "You give me the truth right now, or I will walk down the hall and put a bullet in the head of one of the hostages, and when I come back, if you do not have an answer for me, I will go back and kill another, and I will keep doing it until you tell me what you have done with Fara Harut!"

"Mr. Aziz," replied an unflinching Stansfield, "I have no idea what you are talking about. If you would tell me what has got you so angry, I will do my best to find out where Fara Harut is."

"Don't toy with me! I know who you are, and what you do! You are a liar and a murderer of innocent women and children!"

Stansfield sat calmly in the chair, the phone still held several inches away from his ear. He had to think quickly, and he had to get Aziz to back down.

"Well, Mr. Aziz, if that's the way you feel about me, we must have a lot in common." Without giving Aziz a chance to reply to the shot, Stansfield continued, "By the way, I must commend you for your speech this morning. It really played well with the politicians. I tried to advise them that you were not serious. That you were performing. To and for what, I have not yet figured out, but I have my ideas."

"Silence!" screamed Aziz. "I want to know where Fara Harut is immediately, or someone dies!"

"Mr. Aziz, you don't want to do that, and this is why." Stansfield glanced up at the two generals for a second and then said, "Right now you've done a very good job making certain people in my government think that you have turned over a new leaf and that you are a man who will actually keep his word. Myself and several others know this is all a sham. If you kill another hostage, I will take a tape of this conversation to the vice president and I will leak it to the media so everyone can hear that you are truly not the man you tried to portray yourself as this morning. And then. . . well. . . you know our rules of engagement. You were lucky we didn't storm the place after you killed National Security Adviser Schwartz and his secretary. If you start killing hostages again, we will be left no alternative other than to retake the building. . . and that of course means you will die."

"You men will die!" screamed Aziz. "You are a bigger fool than I thought. I will blow this whole building sky high and all of the hostage with it."

"And you will die also, which just happens to suit my needs perfectly. Things will be much easier if you cease to exist." Stansfield leaned back in his chair. "You are threatening the wrong man, Mr. Aziz, and you know it." Now came the time to lie, to really make Aziz think that he was everything Aziz thought he was and then some. "I could not care less what happens to the hostages. I just want to make sure that you and your wretched comrades are dead when this whole thing is over. If we have to lose forty or fifty hostages to mount you head on the wall. . . it's a small price to pay."

"I am not afraid to die! Even if I die, I will have won!"

"I don't think so," replied Stansfield in his calm analytical voice. "You see, after you have killed yourself, we will pluck President Hayes, and quite a few others, out of the rubble, and you will have ceased to be a problem. We will rebuild the White House in six months, and everything will return to normal."

Aziz was enraged, but he knew that Stansfield had him boxed in. for now at least, but, oh, the surprise they would be in for when their president wasn't' so safe. Now was not the time to push things; no matter how much Fara Harut meant, Aziz could not do anything to precipitate an attack by the Americans until he had the president in his hands. Aziz would have to swallow his pride and make a tactical retreat. His ego, however, was far too large to do so without taking a parting shot.

"You are too sure of yourself, Mr. Stansfield." Aziz spoke in a low ominous tone. "Things are not always as they appear. We will talk again this evening, and by then you had better know where Fara Harut is."

With that the line went dead. Stansfield set the phone back in its cradle and looked up at the two generals. General Flood asked, "What in the hell was that all about?"

Stansfield glanced up at Kennedy as she walked across the large office. "he knows Harut is gone and thinks we have him."

"I got that part of it. What was the rest of it about?"

"He said if I didn't tell him right away where Harut was, he would kill a hostage."

"And that's when you decided to play chicken with him?" asked Campbell.

Stansfield shrugged his shoulders. It was hardly the phrase he would have used to describe his method. "I took a risk. I obviously don't want to see any of those hostages killed. All I did was give him the answer that fits his belief of who I really am." Stansfield rubbed his forefinger under his chin. "And he blinked."

Kennedy placed both hands on her hips and frowned. "There was more to it than that, Thomas. He didn't just blink, he rolled over and showed you his belly, and did it way too fast. It was out of character."

"Maybe he's getting tired?"

Kennedy shook her head. "No, there's something else going on. Something I haven't told you about yet because I wanted to check on a few things before I got everybody worried." Kennedy moved her hands from her hips and folded them across her chest. "I picked up in Aziz's voice. When you"   Kennedy pointed to Stansfield   "told him that he would be doing us a favor by killing himself, because when it was all over we would pull President Hayes from his bunker and so forth . . . " Kennedy made a rotating motion with her finger. "When you were finished, the first thing he said in response was, You are too sure of yourself, Mr. Stansfield. Things are not always as they appear.' Did you notice the tone in his voice?" Kennedy looked at her boss hard and gave him a second to recall what Aziz's words had sounded like.

She continued, "He sounded like he knew something that we didn't." Stansfield looked at her as if she was reading a little too far into things, and she responded, "Let me fill you in on some other information first, and then it might make more sense." Stepping toward her boss, Kennedy looked up at the generals and said, "That phone call I received from Colonel Fine this morning was in regard to three names he was checking for me. Three names we got from Harut. One of the names had three matches. The first was an officer in the Jordanian Army, and he's already been ruled out. The second, and we thought the most likely, was an eighteen-year-old Palestinian kid with suspected ties to Hamas. And the third was a man known as the Thief of Baghdad. It turns out the third of the three Mustafa Yassins is the Iraqi who was in charge of looting all of the banks and vaults after they invaded Kuwait."

General Flood shook his head. "It's obviously the second one, Irene."

"It could be," conceded Kenney with a nod, "but what if it's the third one? What if Aziz brought along this Thief of Baghdad, knowing there was a good chance the president would get to his bunker?" Kennedy stopped and looked each man in the eye, one at a time, while she gave them a chance to think about it. "What if Aziz said to Thomas, You are too sure of yourself. Things are not always as they appear,' because he knows President Hayes is not as safe as we thought?"

Everyone's eyes got a little bigger as Kennedy finished stating her case. General Flood looked down at Stansfield and said, "I think this is something we need to bring to the attention of the vice president."

Stansfield stared back at him blankly for a while and then said, "Not quite yet. We need a little more proof before we go to him."

"Well, how do we get that proof?"

"I have a pretty good idea," Stansfield replied with a nod.