Consent To Kill_ A Thriller Part 24

"Have they been thoroughly checked?"

"We're working on it right now."

"Did any of them see anything out of the ordinary?"

"Nothing came up during the initial interview that was handled by the sheriff's department."

Coleman's companion emerged from the woods. He held up his forefinger and said, "One guy. He had a bike, and he wasn't here long."

McMahon was completely dumbfounded. "Where? Show me?"

The guy walked over to the edge of the road and pressed his thumb down on the end of his tactical flashlight. The tiny device was extremely powerful. "See how the tall gra.s.s is pushed toward the street in that single line? Those are bike tires. The markings on the right are footprints. The tire track curves this way." The man pointed south. "The street dead-ends down there, but there's a trail that cuts through the woods." He looked at Coleman. "I've run it with Mitch before. After about a mile the trail forks-east to a beach and west, where it hooks up with a dirt road that runs along the edge of a small airstrip back out to one of the county roads."

"Back up a minute," said McMahon. "There were a fair amount of people running around here after the explosion. When I arrived on the scene I remember at least one person with a bike and who knows how many had already come and gone. How do we know it wasn't some neighbor who made that track?"

"Can you give me one good reason why a neighbor would carry their bike twenty feet into the woods, lay it down on the ground, and then lie down next to it?"

"Not off the top of my head."

The man looked back at Coleman. "I'm going to take a look at the path and see what I can find." He held up a Nextel two-way mobile phone. "I'll check in with you in fifteen."

"You want me to come with?"

The guy shook his head. "This tango is long gone." Without another word, the man took off jogging down the street.

"Who the h.e.l.l is he?" asked McMahon.

"He's the best sniper I've ever seen. He can track anything."

"He works for you now?"

"Yep."

"Lovely. G.o.d, I hope you don't end up with the FBI on your doorstep someday."

"You and I both."

The sheriff returned, mumbling something under his breath. It was obvious things hadn't gone so well at the roadblock. "This TV crew is getting really pushy. They know we're stonewalling them. I spoke to their news director myself and he says we have five minutes until he gets a lawyer and judge involved. They're demanding to know the status of the husband, and they said they don't care if he worked for the CIA and neither will the judge."

Before McMahon could answer, Coleman said, "Sheriff, will you give us just a minute?"

The sheriff appeared hesitant at first and then consented. Coleman pulled McMahon a few feet away. "Can you take your FBI hat off for a second?"

"Do you really have to ask me that?" McMahon had proven to Coleman in the past that he was willing to look the other way.

"Throw the TV crew a bone. Have the deputy tell them Mitch is dead."

"Why in the h.e.l.l would I want to do that?"

Coleman stared at him with a look that said, Do I really have to explain this to you? He would have preferred to not have this conversation with a law enforcement officer, but there wasn't a lot of time. "This was not an accident. It was a contract kill. One guy, maybe two."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"So why do you want us to leak to the press that Mitch is dead?"

"Theoretically speaking, in this line of work you get paid anywhere from a third to half of the fee as a down payment, and then when you complete the job you get the rest of the fee. If you don't complete the job, you don't get the rest of the money."

"And your point is?"

"If the media reports that Mitch is dead, this person will get the rest of the fee. Money will have to change hands. Probably a lot of it. That creates a trail."

"What if they get paid cash?"

"No trail, but my guess is a professional contract on Mitch would run at least four million dollars, maybe double that."

"And your point?"

"That's a lot of cash. Not the type of thing you want to try and get through customs. When you start talking that kind of money you're better off setting up dummy offsh.o.r.e corporations and transferring it electronically. The amount of money that's moved around every day is astronomical. It's like the old needle in the haystack."

"Then how in the h.e.l.l are we going to find it?"

Coleman grinned. "We wait a few days...maybe more, and then we let it be known that Mitch is still alive. Whoever ordered the hit is going to be p.i.s.sed. They're going to demand that this guy finish the job or give the money back." Coleman shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe we get lucky and they simply reverse the wire transfer. Same banks...same amount. The original transfer will be made tomorrow or the day after, and the refund will be made within a day or two from when it's announced that he's still alive. We could trace it."

"And if these guys decided they'd rather finish the job than give the money back?"

Coleman's face took on a wolfish smile. "Well, now that'd be even better, wouldn't it?"

McMahon got real uncomfortable. "Scott, you guys need to sit this one out and let us handle it."

Coleman let loose an ominous laugh. "Yeah, right. I talked to Irene on the way over here. He's awake." The former SEAL stopped and looked at McMahon for a long moment. "He knows she's dead. When he gets out of that hospital what do you think he's going to do? Sit on the sidelines like a good little Boy Scout while you guys push your subpoenas through the courts and try to get foreign governments to cooperate? Best-case scenario your investigation will take two years." Coleman shook his head. "It ain't gonna f.u.c.kin' happen. I'm telling you right now he's going to kill every last motherf.u.c.ker who had anything to do with this, and there is nothing any of you can do to stop him."

McMahon ran a hand over his face and sighed. He knew Coleman was right. "Jesus, this is going to get ugly."

"You're d.a.m.n right, and I've got a word of advice for you. Skip. Just get out of the way and tell anyone you care about to do the same."

41.

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA.

G ould awoke to the sound of the TV and Claudia crying. It took him a moment to even remember where he was and he looked at the TV and saw a photo of Anna Rielly. They'd first heard the news on the radio the night before, driving through Columbus, Ohio. Claudia cried for the better part of an hour. Fortunately, he had told her the truth, which was that he didn't know if the woman had survived. He had waited as long as he could before triggering the explosion and when he left the scene she was in the front yard. ould awoke to the sound of the TV and Claudia crying. It took him a moment to even remember where he was and he looked at the TV and saw a photo of Anna Rielly. They'd first heard the news on the radio the night before, driving through Columbus, Ohio. Claudia cried for the better part of an hour. Fortunately, he had told her the truth, which was that he didn't know if the woman had survived. He had waited as long as he could before triggering the explosion and when he left the scene she was in the front yard.

When they reached the hotel in Indianapolis, Claudia cried herself to sleep and now here she was in the morning shedding yet more tears. This pregnancy thing was really s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with her emotions, and Gould didn't know how much more he could take. He'd tried to console her with words, he'd tried to comfort her by holding her, but nothing was working. This was not the first time he'd killed someone other than the primary target, and she had never so much as had a sniffle before.

Gould rolled out of bed and went into the bathroom. After relieving himself he stood in front of the mirror staring at his reflection. He looked the same. Same hazel eyes, same wavy brown hair, same broken nose. Nothing had changed, inside or out, for him, but something had fundamentally changed for Claudia. As they were falling asleep in the hotel room, Gould reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. It was a gesture he'd made countless times. It was silent in nature, but it communicated the simple message that he was there for her. He did not expect his touch to cause her to shudder and whimper with even greater intensity. Although her reaction hurt his feelings, he was too tired to pursue something that he knew words could not solve. This was going to take time.

Gould was still tired. After leaving Rapp's house he'd thrown the bike in the back of the pickup truck and whipped a quick U-turn. Back on the paved roads he made his way over to U.S. Route 301 and took it south across the Potomac River and into Virginia. He'd located Caledon State Park on a map, and it looked to be the perfect place to dump the truck. It was only a few miles across the river into Virginia. Gould drove past the main entrance and continued down Virginia State Route 218 until he found a secondary road that led into the park. A half mile into the park, with no one else in sight, he put the truck into four-wheel drive and turned onto an overgrown trail. Once he'd made it far enough in that he could no longer see the road through his rearview mirror he shut the engine off and grabbed his backpack and helmet. Gould took the license plates off, shoved a hand towel from the hotel into the gas tank, and then doused the cab and the rest of the vehicle in gasoline. The forest looked pretty dry so he took a few steps back before lighting the match and then let it fly.

He took off on the mountain bike and was near the town of Osso when the fire trucks pa.s.sed him heading in the other direction. Thirty-four minutes later he pulled up in front of the James Monroe Museum and left the bike unlocked in a bike stand. He then walked three blocks and found Claudia waiting behind the wheel of a white Town and Country minivan. Gould got in the front pa.s.senger seat, kissed her, and they were on their way. Once they were a few miles outside of town Gould had her pull over and he took over driving duties. He set the cruise control five miles an hour over the posted limit and told Claudia to e-mail the German and tell him it was done. That was when she'd asked about Rapp's wife.

They'd driven through the late afternoon and well into the night. Gould wanted to get as far away from Was.h.i.+ngton as possible. They were now on their third rental car in as many days, all of them acquired under a new license and credit card. There was no trail for anyone to follow. They were going to disappear into America's heartland for a month if need be and then make their move. At least that had been the plan, but now Claudia was acting so strange, Gould wondered if it wouldn't be better to turn south and get her out of the country.

He looked at his watch. It was 8:06 in the morning, and he was h.o.r.n.y. He stared at his reflection in the mirror and told himself to get any thought of s.e.x out of his head. He told himself it was the pregnancy. Once she got her hormones under control she'd be fine. She'd be back to her old self. Maybe she'd even miss the thrill of the hunt. He knew he would.

Gould came out of the bathroom. Claudia was propped up in bed, a box of tissues on her lap, her normally beautiful almond-shaped brown eyes looking very tired and puffy. Gould turned off the TV and said, "Stop torturing yourself. What's done is done."

She shook her head and refused to look at him. "How did it ever come to this?" "Comment en est-on arrive a un tel point?" "Comment en est-on arrive a un tel point?"

Considering her current fragile state he didn't even bother to reprimand her, but he did note that her operational discipline was shot. It might not be wise to take her anywhere. "Darling, we have been through a lot together. The important thing is that we are putting all of it behind us. Do I wish things could have ended differently? Of course, but I have told you before...she knew who she was married to. Mitch Rapp was responsible for hundreds, maybe thousands of deaths. How many innocent women and children do you think were sacrificed so he could kill someone the United States deemed a terrorist?"

"I don't know." She raised her chin in defiance. "And neither do you. I think the Americans practice great restraint in this awful war."

"The Americans, with their arrogance, have brought this on themselves."

"You better be careful." Claudia raised her voice. "You're beginning to sound like some of my old university friends who you despise so much."

The mere mention of her socialist deadbeat friends sent Gould's temper flaring. The last thing they needed was a shouting match that ended with the hotel calling the police, so he checked his temper and in as calm a voice as he could muster said, "Everybody is killing each other. Each side tries to take the righteous high ground, and all we've done is sit in the middle and profit."

"It's a h.e.l.l of a way to make a profit." She looked out the window and shook her head.

It was obvious she was disgusted, but Gould couldn't tell if it was with him or herself. "Claudia, I'm sorry." Part of him wanted to scream at her to go turn herself in if it bothered her so f.u.c.king much, but that wouldn't solve a thing. He lowered his head, and even though he didn't mean it, he said, "I'm sorry, I let you down."

With that he put on a pair of jeans and a sweats.h.i.+rt and picked up the car keys sitting on the desk.

"Where are you going?" Claudia asked.

"I'm not sure." He grabbed a Chicago Cubs baseball cap he'd purchased at a truck stop yesterday evening and slid into his tennis shoes.

"I thought you wanted to get on the road."

He detected a bit of nervousness in her voice, which was what he wanted to hear. "I get the feeling you'd rather not be around me right now." Gould grabbed the door handle and said, "I'll be back in time to check out. If you decide you'd like us to go our separate ways I'll understand." Before she could say anything Gould opened the door and was gone. Pregnancy or not, he felt he had to do something to snap her out of her current emotional state. Yelling at her would only make things worse. Pa.s.sive-aggressive was the better path to take. A subtle threat to leave would force her to look at more than just the last twenty-four hours. She knew he loved her, but she also knew he had the lone wolf gene in him. A little solitude and the thought of raising their child all on her own would get her thinking rationally again.

42.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, DC.

I rene Kennedy was emotionally drained. She'd gone straight from the hospital to CIA headquarters with the knowledge that she needed to put things in motion before meeting with the president and several of his cabinet members in the morning. From the moment the doctor told her Anna was dead, she knew where they were headed. There would be no stopping him. Under normal circ.u.mstances he was difficult enough to manage, but now in the wake of his own personal h.e.l.l, it was foolish to think that anyone could control him. There would be those in Was.h.i.+ngton, however, who would think otherwise-powerful people who were used to having their orders followed to the letter. rene Kennedy was emotionally drained. She'd gone straight from the hospital to CIA headquarters with the knowledge that she needed to put things in motion before meeting with the president and several of his cabinet members in the morning. From the moment the doctor told her Anna was dead, she knew where they were headed. There would be no stopping him. Under normal circ.u.mstances he was difficult enough to manage, but now in the wake of his own personal h.e.l.l, it was foolish to think that anyone could control him. There would be those in Was.h.i.+ngton, however, who would think otherwise-powerful people who were used to having their orders followed to the letter.

Where the president would fall in this regard, Kennedy was unsure, but she had little doubt where her new boss would come down on the issue. Support from the other members of the National Security Council was sure to be spa.r.s.e. Some of them would be deeply concerned that the rule of law be followed, and others would be terrified over the thought of a vengeful American on the loose undermining their diplomatic efforts. One or two of the members might support Rapp, but they would never do so publicly. For all of its bellicose underpinnings, Was.h.i.+ngton was a town that prided itself on civility. These people would blanch at the idea of a government employee on the loose seeking vengeance for the murder of his wife.

If they wanted to avoid the inevitable they had just two options. The first would be to incarcerate him, but Kennedy had already taken the precaution of having Rapp transferred from Johns Hopkins to a CIA safe house in rural Virginia. Even if they somehow managed to jail him it would only be a temporary solution. They could not hold him forever. The other, more permanent, solution would be to have him killed. The problem here was that the only people with the temerity to do so, the quiet warriors like Coleman, were already lining up to support him. Kennedy knew that in a month or a year many of these civilian leaders would have wished that they had thought of killing him, but none of them had the stomach to issue such an order. For now, though, they would delude themselves into believing they could actually order him to stand down.

During the night Kennedy had talked to the head of the Jordanian Intelligence Service three separate times. They now had a name to go with the bounty that had been placed on Rapp's head: Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, a Saudi billionaire. Kennedy had not made the connection at first, but one of her counterterrorism a.n.a.lysts did shortly after the information was dispersed. Saeed Ahmed Abdullah was the father of Waheed Ahmed Abdullah, a terrorist who had been involved in a plot to detonate nuclear bombs in both New York and Was.h.i.+ngton. U.S. Special Forces had apprehended the man in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, just days before the attack was to take place. With the clock ticking, Rapp was left with little alternative other than to torture Waheed into revealing the details of the plot. The information Rapp got from the terrorist helped intercept one of the bombs before it could be brought into the country.

How the father had learned of Rapp's role in his son's downfall was unclear, but Kennedy had her suspicions. For now, she'd ordered the Counterterrorism Center to collect every sc.r.a.p of information on Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, and keep it within the family. She'd already made the risky decision that the CIA would not be pa.s.sing everything they learned onto their sister agencies-agencies that were hamstrung by the rule of law. They would give the appearance of full cooperation, and reams of information would be handed over to the FBI, but almost all of it would be useless. The valuable intel would be used to stay out in front of the actual investigation.

Kennedy arrived fifteen minutes early for the meeting, as was her habit when meeting with the president. She was escorted to the Oval Office by one of the White House staffers where she waited by herself until 9:05, when she was joined by the president's national security advisor, Michael Haik. The two possessed similar temperaments and had a very good working relations.h.i.+p. Haik unb.u.t.toned his suit coat and sat next to Kennedy on the couch.

"How are you holding up?"

"Fine."

"I know you are, but how are you holding up?" It was a question from one friend to another.

"I've been better," Kennedy answered honestly.

"How's Mitch?"

"He's pretty beat up, but the worst of it is behind him...at least physically."

Haik was the steady type of thinker every president needed-pragmatic, disciplined, and cautious. There wasn't much that ruffled his feathers. "How did he take the news of his wife?"

Kennedy kept it together. She'd already cried and she would cry more, but not here, not in the Oval Office. "He had to be sedated."

Haik nodded as if he'd antic.i.p.ated the answer and then he leaned back and draped an arm over the back of the couch. It was clear that he wanted to say something, but that he was trying to figure out where to start. "Irene, we've always been straight with each other, so let me tell you what's going on here this morning. Right now the president is in his private dining room finis.h.i.+ng up a meeting with the vice president, Secretary of State Berg, Attorney General Stokes, and Director Ross."

Even though she was surprised Kennedy nodded as if she'd already known this.

"To put it bluntly, they are deeply concerned over what Mitch might do when he recovers."

"So am I."

"I mean they are really concerned. They don't think you can control him and a few of them think you won't even try."

Kennedy showed no emotion. Her breathing stayed steady and shallow. She obviously wasn't the only person who had spent the night strategizing. "Why?"

"They think you have a conflict of interest. That your loyalty to Mitch will cloud your judgment and put you at odds with what is best for the country."

What was best for the country was debatable, but Kennedy wasn't here to argue. "I can a.s.sure you there is no conflict."

Haik wasn't sure if he believed her, but it didn't matter; he wasn't the one raising the stink. "I sneaked out early because I wanted to give you some friendly advice. They're going to come filing in here any minute and you're not going to like what they have to say." Haik paused for a second and picked a piece of lint off his trouser leg. "Do yourself a favor and go along with what they want."

"I get the sense you're trying to help me, Mike, but your advice seems off the mark."

"What I'm trying to tell you is that a deal has already been struck. Three cabinet members are in there right now telling the president what has to happen and they say they have more members on board. They've got him b.u.t.toned up with no room to maneuver. Officially he has no choice but to follow their recommendation."