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Clark managed to stay calm and listen without interruption, despite the fact that he desperately wanted to ask Cameron one blindingly obvious question. When Cameron finally finished, Clark got his chance. “What were you doing there?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“What were you doing in the car? Why would you expose yourself like that?”
Cameron was slightly embarrassed. Clark had preached to him about keeping a low profile. “I knew this was going to be complicated, and I wanted to make sure Duser didn’t screw things up.”
Clark felt the need to take a sip of wine. He reflected on the possibility that Cameron was not telling the truth. The man was a voyeur, that was obvious enough. His sudden desire to be so hands-on was dangerous. Cameron was the one and only person who could tie the senator to the events of the last five days. He took a second sip, and while the expensive red liquid slid down his throat, he decided Cameron would have to go. Clark didn’t know where he would find a replacement, but he would. The man had become too big a liability. The senator would have to make arrangements for his disappearance, but until then he would keep Cameron close and happy.
“Peter, you’ve done very good work for me. I want you alive and out of jail.” The senator frowned. “No more field trips with the boys. You’re too valuable for that. Let them do the dirty work, and concentrate on keeping your hands clean.”
“Yes, sir.” Cameron let out a sigh of relief and said, “There has been another development.”
“Good or bad?”
“Oh, I think you’ll like this one,” replied Cameron with a smile. He retrieved a small tape recorder from his pocket. Holding it up, he said, “Earlier this evening, one of my people intercepted this conversation.” Cameron turned up the volume and pressed play.
“Anna Rielly here.”
“Honey, it’s me. Are you all right?”
The quality of the tape was good. Clark leaned forward, resting his forearms on his desk. “Is that who I think it is?” Cameron nodded.
“Mitchell.”
“Honey, it’s me, but I can’t talk long. Are you okay?”
A slow chill of excitement ran down Clark’s back. This was the first time he had heard Mitch Rapp’s voice. After carefully studying him for months, this was the first time he had felt the man’s presence. The voice was deep and a little scratchy, just as the senator had expected. Clark listened to the rest of the tape intently and then had Cameron play it back for him two more times. Clark memorized every word of the tape. He was beginning to see a path. A way to complete his plans. After a long moment of reflection, he looked up at Cameron and said, “I want you to get into the girl’s apartment. See if she keeps a journal. If she does, copy it. If there are any computer disks, copy them also. Find out what type of books she reads, what magazines she subscribes to, if she takes any medication.” Clark paused. “See if you can get her medical history. I want to know as much about her as possible, and I want it by tomorrow night.”
“That might be a little difficult.”
That was not what Clark wanted to hear. Not with Rapp so close. Things were reaching critical mass. “Peter, I pay you well. No excuses. I want that information by tomorrow evening.” Always aware of the need to keep both friend and foe close, he added with a warm grin, “When this is all over, I will make sure you are very well compensated, Peter. To the extent that you just might choose to retire.” Clark held up his wine glass in a toast to the future.
Cameron nodded. “I’ll get it done.”
With a smile still on his face, Clark decided to go ahead and hire the person who would get rid of Cameron. There was no telling when he might have to have him taken out.
THE CLUB WAS located off 695 in Dundalk. Downtown Baltimore was four miles due west. It was a Bally’s Total Fitness club, one of hundreds nationwide. That’s why Gus Villaume had joined. Flexibility and anonymity. At Bally’s he was just one of millions trying to fight the never-ending battle. Villaume was in the twenty-sixth minute of his workout, and he was sweating profusely. Four more minutes on the stationary bike, and he was done. There were eight televisions mounted on the wall in front of him. They carried the signals of MTV, VH-1, ESPN, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX. Most of Villaume’s attention, however, was focused on the issue of Condé Nast Traveler that was sitting in the bike’s magazine stand. Villaume’s real job—or fake job, depending on how you looked at it—was travel writing. He was published under the name Marc Gieser, and his two areas of expertise were southern France and French Polynesia. The job provided him with a great cover for international travel and a good thirty to fifty grand a year in legitimate income. The other benefits were obvious: he could stay at some of the world’s finest hotels for next to nothing, just so long as he continued to write nice things.
The club was pretty calm. Villaume refused to enter the place between the hours of eleven A.M. and nine P.M. This evening, there was one guy running on a treadmill and two women talking to each other on the stair steppers. Villaume had chose Baltimore as his home because it kept him close enough to Washington to be readily available but far enough away to keep him from bumping into the wrong people when he was out and about. He had been thinking a lot about Peter Cameron since returning from Colorado. There was something unsettling about the man. In a nutshell, he couldn’t be trusted.
Villaume and his people were not usually hired to kill someone. More often his work involved simple intelligence gathering: rifling through an office in the middle of the night, copying a computer hard drive, tapping phones, and planting bugs. Attorneys and businessmen were his two biggest clients. He knew who they were, but very few of them knew who he was. The rules were simple. Villaume had a network of overseas accounts that he used to collect fees. He would receive a name and summary of the information desired. Villaume would then quote a price to the client. If the client agreed, he or she would transfer half of the fee into one of the accounts. When Villaume handed over the desired information, they would wire the other half. It was usually very simple.
That was, until Peter Cameron had shown up. The man had been insistent on meeting face-to-face. To help assuage Villaume’s fears, Cameron offered to double his fees. At the relatively young age of fifty-two, Villaume was looking to retire. There was, however, a catch. He wanted to make sure he was absolutely set—no financial worries. The lifestyle he had in mind required at least two million dollars. When Cameron waved the prospect of double fees in his face, the temptation was too much to resist.
Now he wondered if it might not be a good idea to take wha
t he had and disappear, at least for a while. He would have to alert the others. Tell them to cool it for a while and lie low. Maybe take a long trip. He’d already warned Lukas and Juarez to be careful. With Cameron associating with the likes of Duser, things could get ugly.
The thirty minutes was up. Villaume stopped pedaling and closed his magazine. He had made up his mind. Lukas and Juarez needed a vacation. There were two others on the team, but, fortunately for them, Cameron didn’t even know they existed. As Villaume stepped from the bike, he looked up at the array of televisions above the running track. The local news was starting. It appeared all three stations were leading with the same story. Villaume froze upon seeing the words “College Park” flash across the screen directly in front of him. The volume was off, but subtitles were running across the bottom of the picture. A reporter was standing in front of a yellow maze of crime scene tape. She pointed over her shoulder at two parked cars. Villaume scrambled to read the white-on-black words as they were typed in from left to right. There was something about one hundred shots being fired…one dead for sure, maybe two. The police were looking for a silver SUV. A Maryland driver’s license appeared on the screen. The station reported that the victim’s name was Todd Sherman. Gus Villaume knew better. He turned and started walking for the exit. The face on the driver’s license belonged to Mario Lukas.
Villaume forced a smile and said good night to the attendant behind the front desk. Inside he was burning up. Mario Lukas had been his friend for a long time. He had taken care of Mario, and Mario had taken care of him. Mario was the muscle, and Gus was the brains. Alone they were adequate, together they were the best. Villaume thought of running. They had made arrangements years ago that if one of them died, the other would get all the money. With Mario’s passing, Villaume’s retirement account had just effectively passed the two-million mark. He could disappear and never look back. But that meant allowing that smug prick Cameron off the hook. Villaume crossed the parking lot to his car. At the very least, he had to alert Juarez. After that, he could decide what to do with Cameron. As Villaume opened his car door, he was overcome with grief for the loss of his friend and hatred for a man he barely knew.
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.
