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“And just how does he know we had him under surveillance?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
Lee thought about it for a second and said, “Maybe.”
“Make it a priority to find out, please.” Kennedy reached for her phone. “In the meantime, I’d better see what I can do to head the secretary off before he does any more damage.”
It was noon, it was fall, it was Saturday, and if you were a native Washingtonian, it was the best time of the year to be in the nation’s capital. Spring was nice, but it brought too many tourists and the dreadful humidity of the Potomac River Valley. In the fall, the air was crisp, the colors were vibrant, and in neighborhoods all around the city, the coeds were back and excited about another year away from Mom and Dad. As Peter Cameron walked hurriedly around the south side of Washington Circle, he thought of none of this. He wished he could be out enjoying the gorgeous Saturday afternoon, but there were more urgent issues at hand.
Cameron had been back in the States for only a few hours, and in that time he had discovered some very bothersome information. He and the Jansens had left Germany just after midnight from a small airfield on the outskirts of Hamburg. Then they flew to Meaux Esbly, another small airfield an hour from Paris. Cameron took the first flight for New York out of Charles De Gaulle in the morning, and the Jansens left from Orly and were to fly nonstop to Mexico City. From there they were to take a flight to Los Angeles and then home to Denver.
Cameron reached the northwest side of Washington Circle and continued up Pennsylvania Avenue. He had just left his small office at George Washington University. Cameron had worked at the CIA from 1974 to 1998. During his last year at Langley, he had been approached by someone who presented him with a job opportunity that would increase his income five-fold and allow him to dabble, free of congressional oversight, in something he really enjoyed. Part of the package was a professorship at GW that required about ten hours a week and paid as much as his old job at Langley. The class was about the CIA, it met three times a week, and he had two full-time teacher’s assistants. There were other consulting jobs that came along with his new package and some cash bonuses for doing exactly what he was doing right now.
At 25th Street, Cameron took a right and headed halfway up the block before ducking i
nto the Columbia Hospital for Women. He approached a row of pay phones. Three were being used, and two were not. Cameron plugged in the proper change and dialed a number. When the voice answered on the other end, Cameron brought his fingers up and pinched his larynx. His voice sounded scratchy and a pitch higher.
“I need a cab.”
The voice on the other end asked, “How fast, how far, and how many passengers?”
“In an hour. Twenty miles, domestic, and four passengers.”
There was barely a pause on the other end, then the reply, “Site four in sixty minutes. Anything else?”
It took Cameron an extra second to remember that site four was the Montgomery County Airpark, and then he replied, “No.” He hung up the phone and left the hospital. He hated using phones. It came from years of knowing first-hand the capabilities of the NSA and the CIA, but there was little choice, given the urgency of what he had to do. Cameron had just left one of the computer labs at George Washington. He rarely used his office computer to surf the Web, and when he worked out of the labs, he tried to use a different computer each time. He had also obtained a list of students with Internet accounts and their passwords. The Internet was the strange new world, and the laws protecting privacy on it hadn’t yet made it into the infancy stage. Virtually every law enforcement, military, and intelligence agency monitored the Web searching for patterns of suspected spies, terrorists, and criminals.
Cameron turned onto M Street and headed west toward Georgetown. Just twenty minutes ago, he had used the account of a sophomore who was majoring in international business to surf the Web. It was the top story with all of the German newspapers and TV stations. The London Times had even posted it. Cameron had expected the Hagenmiller assassination to be fairly high-profile. That was part of the plan. But what he didn’t expect to see was that the German authorities were seeking three individuals. Not two but three. When he had left the estate, there had been no fire, let alone a fire that would go on to destroy half of the century-old mansion. The stories also reported that the remains of two badly burned bodies had been found in the smoldering wreckage. Beth Jansen had specifically said three bodies, not two. Hagenmiller, the bodyguard, and Rapp. Something was wrong, and Cameron thought he knew what it was.
He was starting to sweat. He unzipped his blue jacket as he crossed over Rock Creek and flapped it open several times to let his body heat escape. The parkway below was crowded with bikers and joggers. Cameron pushed on across the bridge, cursing the fact that instead of enjoying the day and relishing a job well done, plus a sizable cash deposit in one of his offshore accounts, he now had to deal with these incompetents.
At 29th Street, Cameron found another pay phone and punched in a number. He said, “Hey, I’ve got a tee time in an hour. Can you make it?”
The person hesitated and then said, “An hour might be pushing it. Where are we playing?”
“Montgomery Village Golf Club.”
There was another pause. “Is it a tough track?”
“It can be, but I think you can handle it.”
“Do we have a foursome?”
“No.” Cameron looked over his shoulder. “We could use two more, and make sure they’re good sticks. And I don’t want to play with any strangers.”
“Got it. I’ll meet you out there in ninety minutes.”
Cameron hung up the phone and headed up 29th Street. The cobblestone sidewalk was steep and heaved from tree roots. A sheen of sweat coated his face, and his beard was starting to itch. His apartment was at the top of the hill on Q Street. It was only six blocks, but all of it was uphill. The forty-eight-year-old veteran of the CIA cursed himself for the extra weight he’d allowed to build around his abdomen. When this was over, he would check into one of those high-class spas where they flushed all of the crap out of you and the weight just melted away. That’s what he needed—to be pampered and surrounded by beautiful people. For the first time ever, he had the money to enjoy the finer things in life.
But first he needed to take care of this loose end. Up the hill Cameron trudged. By the time he reached Dumbarton, the jacket was off, and the pits of his button-down shirt were soaked through. The two bags he needed were already packed, and his car was parked in a rented garage two blocks away. Downhill, thank God. He would have to stop at one of the safe deposit boxes and get cash for the freelancers. No one in this line of work came cheap. He would, of course, ask his employer to reimburse him later, and with any luck he would be able to retrieve the money he’d paid the Jansens. Cameron debated for several seconds whether or not he should send word to his employer. As he crossed the intersection at O Street, he decided against it. The man hated shoddy work and loved people with initiative. He would take care of the problem on his own and then give him a complete accounting of the events. The Jansens had to go. If Irene Kennedy got her hands on them before he did, his employer would have an aneurysm. Cameron might have to disappear for a while. Maybe forever.
THEY HAD ARRIVED in Freiburg at ten minutes to six in the morning. The city of a little more than two-hundred thousand was just starting to stir. During the night’s journey, Rapp had discarded his silenced Ruger and encrypted radio as they passed over a bridge near Stuttgart. He had also burned the BKA credentials and several other documents. Rapp had been to Freiburg once before in his mid-twenties. He had picked it randomly as a place to disappear between assignments. His memories of the city in the middle of the Black Forest were good ones. The plan back then was to stay one week, but he ended up staying for two. He had arrived before the annual Hocks Festival. Freiburg was a big cyclist town, and it didn’t take long for Rapp to hook up with one of the clubs. He spent his days racing through the forest and river valleys with a pack of crazed cyclists who enjoyed the pain almost as much as he did, and his nights drinking great German beer and chasing beautiful German women. There would be none of that on this trip.
Rapp had found a spot near the Munsterplatz, the town’s marketplace, and ditched the cab. Farmers and craftsmen were already arriving to set up their stands for the busy Saturday morning crowd. Rapp and Geoffrey had set off on foot. A mile later, they walked into a small inn called the Zum Roten Baren. Geoffrey had followed Rapp’s instructions perfectly. He told the man behind the front desk that they had driven down from Frankfurt to spend the weekend hiking and that they had planned to come down the night before but had to work late, so instead they got up early and drove down.
The elderly innkeeper seemed to buy the story. Rapp had instructed Geoffrey to pay for two nights in advance with cash. The innkeeper happily took the money and gave them a room without checking IDs, which pleased Rapp all the more. Up in the room, Rapp gave Geoffrey the money he’d promised, blindfolded him, and tied him securely to the bed. Before leaving, Rapp went over Geoffrey’s story with him one final time. “Just lie on the bed and try to sleep. When the housekeeper discovers you, have them call the police and tell them the whole story. Tell them I threatened to kill you if you didn’t cooperate, just like we discussed in the car.”
