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Rapp ignored her and asked, “Are you hungry?”
“I’m starving.”
“Good. Have a seat.” Rapp pulled out a barstool for her and poured a glass of wine. Efficiently, he prepared two plates of steaming noodles and added a healthy dose of red sauce to each. He grated a little Parmesan cheese and sprinkled it on top of each plate.
Giving him one of her piercing looks, she said, “So what do we have to do to make sure you never get involved in something like this again?”
Rapp wasn’t exactly crazy about his wife’s choice of words. He was a man of action, and the phrase “never get involved” had far too much finality to it. To buy some time, he said, “Irene and I are going to talk about it … go over some guidelines for what I should and shouldn’t be involved in.”
Anna took a drink of wine. “I know this isn’t easy for you, honey, but you’ve sacrificed enough. It’s time to let some other people carry the load. My dad’s been a cop for over thirty years. He didn’t spend all of them kicking down doors and chasing bad guys.”
Rapp knew she was probably right, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. If the Philippines had proved anything to him, it was that he wasn’t ready to call it quits. Somehow he would have to sort all this out before another assignment came up, or he would make the same mistakes.
Anna was about to say something else when the phone rang. Rapp walked over and looked at the caller ID. The call was from Langley. He grabbed the handset. “Rapp speaking.” He listened for a moment and then said, “Jesus Christ. You can’t be serious.” After listening again for a few seconds he said, “All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” and then hung up the phone.
“What is it?” asked Anna with genuine concern.
“Someone just assassinated the Palestinian ambassador to the UN.”
51
The last train for Washington D.C. left Penn Station at 10:05 P.M. and arrived at Union Station at 1:20 A.M. David had purchased the ticket earlier in the day with cash and then gone about preparing for the evening’s focal point. With the Palestinian ambassador now dead, he was ready to move on to the next part of his plan. David regretted having to kill the two bodyguards, but there had been no other way. He tried to take comfort in the fact that their deaths would hopefully result in the birth of a nation.
After leaving the armory, David had calmly walked back to the Sheraton Hotel on Seventh Avenue, just a few blocks south of the Park. He had chosen the hotel for its proximity to the theater district, the main hub of tourist activity for New York. With so many visitors from all over America, and the rest of the world, it was effortless to come and go unnoticed.
Once up in his room David had sanitized the rifle one last time even though he had never touched the weapon without wearing gloves. Each piece was placed individually in large green garbage bags, wrapped tightly and then packed in the outside compartments of his wheeled suitcase. At 8:30 he left the hotel without bothering to check out. The room was under a credit card and would be billed automatically. He’d spied several construction Dumpsters on 52nd Street earlier in the day and he headed west in search of them.
As he approached the first Dumpster he checked to see who was about and then casually unzipped one of the outer compartments of the black wheeled case. When he passed under the scaffolding that protected pedestrians from falling debris he found himself alone. David hurriedly threw two of the plastic bags into the cavernous receptacle. A moment later he found himself standing next to the second
Dumpster. Quickly he chucked the other two bags up and over the side, where they landed with a thud at the bottom.
David continued west and caught a cab on Ninth Avenue. He placed his suitcase in the trunk and then settled into the cramped backseat. The cabbie asked him where to and was visibly disappointed when David told him Penn Station rather than one of the airports. David settled in for the short ride and ignored the recorded voice of some celebrity he’d never heard of telling him to buckle his seat belt. The easy part was over. Now he had to go to Washington and execute the most difficult aspect of his plan.
52
Mitch Rapp had seen the president in various states of anger, but this morning he appeared to be especially upset. Michael Haik, the president’s national security advisor, had put out the word. President Hayes wanted everyone at the White House by 7:00 A.M. sharp. Kennedy had brought along Rapp and CTC Director Jake Turbes. She made it clear to both of them that she wanted them to keep a low profile during the initial meeting with the president’s national security team. The information that the CTC had collected would be discussed later when the group was of a more manageable size.
The large conference table in the Cabinet Room was surrounded by brown leather chairs, each of them exactly alike with the exception of one. The president’s chair had a higher back and was placed in the middle of the table so that he was the focus of attention. This morning, with his strained face and clenched jaw, he was very much the center of attention. Bloodshed in the Middle East was one thing, it wasn’t good, it wasn’t acceptable, but it wasn’t a surprise either. The assassination of a foreign ambassador in New York City along with two of his bodyguards was absolutely shocking and unacceptable.
President Hayes listened to FBI Director Roach relay the facts surrounding the assassination of the ambassador. When Roach was done the president tapped his pen on a legal pad for a few seconds and then asked in a very disappointed tone, “That’s all we know?”
Director Roach, the consummate professional, looked back at the president stoically and admitted, “For now, that’s all we have, sir.”
In an unusually testy tone Hayes replied, “I learned that much reading the Post this morning.” Dismissing the FBI director with a shake of his head, Hayes looked one person over to Roach’s boss, Attorney General Richard Lloyd. “Dick, I want this case solved, and I want it solved in a timely manner.” The president stared at his old friend and added, “I don’t care what it takes. Find out who did this and put them on trial and do it quickly.”
The president then shifted his gaze back in the other direction and settled on Irene Kennedy. Rapp watched all of this from a few chairs down. The president was sitting with his back to the window; his national security advisor, Michael Haik, on his left and his chief of staff, Valerie Jones, on his right. Across the table and next to the attorney general were Secretary of State Beatrice Berg and Secretary of Defense Rick Culbertson.
Hayes kept his eyes fixed on Kennedy, his agitation clearly visible in the way he tensed his jaw. “What have the Israelis had to say about this?”
Kennedy was prepared for the question. If the president wanted to know what the Israeli response was to the killings, he would have asked Secretary of State Berg. Instead he’d asked the director of the CIA, which meant he wanted to know what Mossad had to say about the assassination. She’d already spoken to Ben Freidman three times, and on each occasion he had vociferously denied having had anything to do with it.
“Sir, Director General Freidman denies categorically that Mossad had a hand in what happened last night.”
The president looked doubtful. “Why should I believe him?”
The question could be answered in many ways, none of them good. Freidman had wasted what little trust the president had in him, and Kennedy doubted there was anything she could say or do that could rebuild the damage. She would have preferred to stay quiet on the issue, but the president wanted an answer. “I don’t think Mossad would risk doing something this brazen.”
“And why’s that?” asked Hayes.
