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As the landing gear locked into the down position, Rapp realized that part of him resented Anna for not understanding the severity of the situation. Hell, she didn't even wait around to let him explain. People had died, Donatella had been shot, and he had just been given a piece of information that would impact the national security of the United States in ways he could only begin to imagine. The news that the head of Mossad was involved in the assassination of a former CIA employee was very serious. A lot of questions needed to be answered. Was Peter Cameron a spy for Mossad, a double agent? Was Ben Freidman acting on his own when he'd ordered the hit, or was he taking orders from someone else? One thing was for certain; things would get worse before they got better. Rapp had gone to Italy to get an answer. All he wanted was a name from Donatella, and he had been foolish enough to think that one name would end it.
Instead, he found himself embroiled in what could become an international crisis. It was clear that Donatella needed to be protected, and she had to tell her story to Kennedy. He'd had no choice other than to get her out of Italy and back to the U. S. as quickly as possible. It was obvious by what had happened at her apartment that Freidman wanted her dead, and Rapp knew that he would not stop until he got what he wanted.
This was the way the last ten-plus hours had gone. He'd bounced back and forth between the crisis with Freidman and his disintegrating relationship with Anna. His past was pulling him in one direction and his future was vanishing over the next ridge.
As far as Rielly was concerned he saw little hope. He could not tell her what was going on. He couldn't even get into the details of his past with Donatella. Yes, they had been lovers, but that was over. He did not care who Rielly had slept with before they met. He trusted her, and it hurt that it wasn't mutual. It hurt that she didn't understand the complexities of his life. He wasn't walking away from an accounting job after a decade. In his line of work you didn't just simply hand in your two week notice and spend your remaining days hanging out in the break room and taking long lunches. In his world there were no coffee breaks, no long lunches, hell, he didn't even have a desk to clean out. It was a dirty, thankless profession and Rapp knew it sounded trite, but somebody sure as hell had to do it. He was trying his best to get out, and it was all for the sake of his future with Anna.
He was angry at her for not appreciating his sacrifices. He'd killed for his country, he'd bled for his country and they hit one little bump in the road and she was gone. He'd even killed for her once, but he wasn't about to hold that over her head. He would never stoop so low. She either loved him, or she didn't. And right now it looked like she didn't. Rapp didn't know a lot about love, but he knew a lot about commitment and loyalty, and in his mind one of the worst things you could do is run away from your partner. People who really love each other stay and work it out. They don't run. Not Rielly, though, she didn't even give him the chance to explain.
He kept telling himself to withhold judgment on Rielly until he had some time to calm down, but he couldn't help it. The more he thought about her storming out of their hotel room the more it angered him. He had to ask himself if that was the type of woman he wanted to be married to and it scared him that he didn't know the answer. He loved her so much it hurt. It pained him that they were so close to having their life together and then, wham, their whole dream was derailed by one bizarre night in Milan.
Rapp was not good at grays. He liked black and white. Gray made for indecision, and indecision in his line of work was what got you killed. The plane was now floating just above the runway. He was almost home on American soil. The wheels gently touched down and Rapp decided on a plan of action. Rielly would have to wait. He wanted out, but he couldn't just abandon Kennedy. She was his friend, and unlike Rielly, he wasn't about to abandon her. He had to see this other business through, and then he would go to Rielly and explain everything. If she truly loved him, she would accept his apology and give one of her own. If she didn't, no matter how painful that proposition seemed, it was for the better. He would have to move on with his life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
Andrews Air Force base, Friday morning
Irene Kennedy checked her watch. She stood at the door of a large gray metal airplane hangar. Her armor-plated limousine was parked outside about forty feet away. Her security detail was relaxing, leaning against the black gas-guzzler. She sipped hot black coffee from a large travel mug and looked out across the tarmac. The sun wasn't up yet, and despite winter's approach it was surprisingly warm and humid. The air was stagnant with pockets of low lying fog hugging the tree line at the end of the runway. Andrews Air Force Base was a busy place, but not where Kennedy was situated. The hangar that the CIA leased from the air force was on a remote part of the base.
There was a 7:00 a. m. meeting at the Pentagon, and Kennedy needed some one-on-one time to prepare Rapp before the Special Forces guys got their hands on him. Not only did they need to discuss the Iraqi matter, she also wanted more information on Donatella and Ben Freidman. Rapp had given her very few details. She thought that he might fill her in once the plane was over the Atlantic, but she'd been wrong. Whatever else Rapp had to say about her counterpart in Israel, he would not trust to even the Air Force's secure communications equipment, and she didn't blame him. Information of this nature not only needed to be kept from the prying ears of foreigners but also from certain groups in America. When Kennedy had tried to press for details, Rapp had only one word for her: Pollard. The innuendo was clear. Jonathan Pollard was an American caught spying for Israel in the eighties. Pollard's treason had compromised every communiqué sent and received by the U. S. Navy for almost a decade. Israel was masterful at recruiting agents in the U. S. and Kennedy firmly believed there were more Jonathan Pollards out there.
It was human nature to think that only other people had problems. Many parents were slow to believe that their little darling could be causing trouble in school. Other people's children did that. The intelligence community worked the same way. When the navy was caught with a spy in their midst, the air force, the army, the CIA, the FBI, and everybody else pretty much shook their heads and said, "they blew it." Well, Kennedy was a realist. Everybody spied and that pretty much meant everybody was spied on. She remembered the dark days at Langley when Aldrich Ames had been caught by the FBI. Morale was not good during that period, but Kennedy always hearkened to something her boss had said. Thomas Stansfield had been the deputy director of operations at the time. His job, as it had been for over fifty years, was to recruit spies in foreign countries. During the Ames fiasco he had told a conference room full of whining CIA executives that it was the cost of doing business. You can't go into a boxing ring and expect to never get hit, and you can't be in the spying business without getting spied on.
Stansfield had been a big man. He knew how to stay above the petty everyday dealings of Washington. He used to say that ninety-nine percent of the talk in Washington was utterly worthless. To him the key was to take nothing personally and remember the old axiom: whatever goes around comes around. Well, he couldn't have been more prophetic when it came to the Ames case. It was no secret that the FBI and the CIA did not always get along. During the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties the battles were legendary, and the Ames case only deepened the divide. The FBI adopted a very overt smugness toward the CIA. With Ames, the FBI gloated over how talented they were and how inept the CIA was. Stansfield had said to Kennedy and his other people, "Don't worry, the FBI has a few Aldrich Ameses of their own, they just haven't caught them yet."
Stansfield had been right, and almost seven years after the Ames case the CIA returned the favor to the FBI when an agent in Moscow told his CIA controller about an FBI special agent named Robert Hanssen. It was the FBI's turn to suffer the humiliation of a traitor in their midst.
All of this was a reminder to her to be cautious. Kennedy took a sip of coffee, and appreciated Rapp's paranoia. They had to communicate via long distances. There was no way around it. They were, after all, in the information exchange business. They just had to be careful' who they exchanged the info with. Rapp had made the right call in waiting to tell her in person. Ben Freidman had eyes and ears all over Washington, and she was certain he had a few in Langley, too.
The previous night's sleep had been restless. Kennedy hadn't mentioned the Freidman business to anyone, not even the President. She needed to get a better handle on things before she did that. First, she would have to put her most trusted people on analyzing the damage Peter Cameron may have caused as a double agent for Israel. The group would have to ascertain if there were any others at Langley who could be linked to Cameron. After that the job would become interesting. Kennedy had already begun to form a plan that would give Ben Freidman a taste of his own medicine. The true test of spying was not to simply expose someone. There was another option, one that required real talent.
Kennedy heard the car first and then looked to her left. The white van was rolling down the tarmac toward the Agency's hangar. She had been expecting it. As the vehicle neared she pointed inside the hangar and watched as the nondescript vehicle rolled past her. The van contained three individuals whom she knew Rapp would approve of. They were former Navy SEALs. The leader of the group was Scott Coleman, a former commander of SEAL Team 6. He'd brought with him two of his most trusted operators, Kevin Hackett and Dan Stroble. Rapp had worked with them before. If the President and the Special Forces guys got their way, Rapp would be leaving the country very quickly, and that meant somebody was going to have to baby-sit Donatella. It had to be somebody who Rapp trusted implicitly, and that meant the guys from the CIA's Office of Security were out of the question.
Coleman approached Kennedy and extended his hand. In his late thirties he was still lean, and even a casual observer would notice that he was someone not to be messed with. The former naval officer had a very interesting past. He had killed both abroad and at home, and not all of it was sanctioned by the U. S. government. Kennedy took his hand. "Thanks for coming on such short notice."
Coleman looked at her with his blue eyes. "No offense, Irene, but you don't look so good. Have you had any sleep lately?"
"Not enough I'm afraid, but I'll make it."
"So what's this all about?"
"Mitch is bringi
ng someone back from Italy."
"Who?"
"The woman who killed Peter Cameron."
Coleman looked at her with genuine surprise. He'd been with Rapp when they'd discovered Cameron's body in his George Washington University office. "Woman?"
"Yes"
"Is she coming back of her own free will, or is he dragging her back?"
Kennedy didn't answer immediately. At some point she had to decide how much she would reveal to Coleman. She trusted him, but the events of the last several weeks had reinforced the need to know axiom of spying. Theirs was a world where the less that was said, usually the better. In response to Coleman's question she replied, "Yes, she is. Other events that have occurred have driven her into our arms."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
