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This was Rashid’s oldest, closest friend. A devout Wahhabi and a good man. He could never abandon him. “No. You heard Ross. What evidence they have is thin. If the Americans want to persecute every man who has wished Mitch Rapp dead, they will have a list numbering in the millions.”
“But they just happen to be right in this case.”
“I will return to the Kingdom tonight and take care of Saeed. He will be fine. The Americans will never be able to prove a thing.”
“Mitch Rapp will not need proof,” Tayyib said in an ominous voice. “He will start killing and torturing until he finds out who was behind this.”
“Ross said the president has ordered him to stay out of this.”
“Rapp has never been one to follow orders. With his wife dead, the Americans have no hope of controlling him.”
“Then he must die,” Rashid snapped.
Tayyib nodded. “I know of two CIA safe houses in Virginia. One is very close. I helped interrogate several prisoners there after 9/11. They are fortified facilities but not heavily guarded.”
“I want him dead,” snarled Rashid.
Tayyib thought about this for a moment and then said, “It will cost a lot of money and it will be very messy.”
“I don’t care. Just so long as Rapp is killed and none of it is linked to us.”
“I will take care of it.”
48
VENICE, ITALY
T he news of Rapp’s resurrection was for the most part lost on the general public. It appeared at first on news crawls—those obnoxious streams of words that flowed across the bottom of the twenty-four-hour cable news channels. Intelligence agencies weren’t proud of it, but they got a lot of their information from cable news, and the people whose job it was to monitor these channels stood up and took note that Mitch Rapp was alive. Phone lines burned, and e-mails flew back and forth between secretive buildings and across borders. The international espionage community was a loose affiliation of spies, analysts, and operatives who were bound by the unique nature of their careers. The mission of each organization was to collect and disseminate information, and not just within their own government, but to allies as well. Rapp was an icon in their world, admired by friend and foe alike. He was a man who had worked in the field and come up through the ranks—something they could all respect.
The news that he had been killed had been met with mixed reaction. Some thought his demise inevitable—no man could so aggressively wage a war against religious fanatics and remain unscathed. Those few who were ideologically opposed to Rapp’s stance and methods applauded his death, but most were saddened by the news. He was one of them, and his death was a reminder of how dangerous their jobs were. There was another element to the story, though, that gnawed at a great number of them. Rapp’s wife had been caught in the crossfire, and there was an unwritten rule in their line of work that families were off limits. Whoever had gone after Rapp had gone too far, so when news broke that Rapp was still alive, the vast majority of these men and women were secretly, and some not so secretly, hoping that Rapp would make the killers pay.
As a former Stasi officer and current freelancer Erich Abel was still connected to the fraternity, and it was safe to say that he was more surprised than anyone to hear that Rapp was alive. His day had started well enough. He’d gone for another long walk, this time through the Castello neighborhood of Venice, stopping in the Campo Santa Maria Formosa for breakfast and then continuing on his meandering walk through the narrow streets and alleys. He found two small galleries that showed promise. They were far enough off the main path that he knew he could negotiate a reasonable price for individual pieces. Abel was already spending his money. He would buy a small villa in the South of France and keep his place in Zurich. The place in Vienna, he decided, would be put on the market and his office closed. There were too many Saudis in Vienna, and it was time to sever that relationship. It had been profitable, but he no longer trusted Rashid. The man was on a jihad and everybody was expendable except himself.
He’d decided all of this before he’d been blindsided by the news that Rapp was still alive. Abel had been on his way back to his hotel after a late afternoon tour of more art galleries when he turned on his phone to check messages. For reasons of security and serenity, he’d been leaving the phone off but turning it on only a few times a day. He instantly knew something was wrong when the screen on the phone told him he had eleven new voice-mail messages and sixteen new e-mails. The first four were from his secretary in Vienna reciting a list of people who were trying to get ahold of him—almost all of them Saudis. The fifth message was from Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, and it was not pretty. In his thickly accented English he demanded that the job be finished or all twenty-two million dollars be refunded. Apparently the man did not remember the part where Abel had told him half of the money was a nonrefundable deposit. The sixth call was from Prince Muhammad bin Rashid’s personal assistant and then after that it was a jumble of people. The e-mails were pretty much the same. By the time Abel reached his penthouse he’d come to the reluctant conclusion that Mitch Rapp was in fact alive. How they had missed him, Abel didn’t know, nor did he care. The reality was the man was breathing and Abel’s entire world was in shambles.
Abdullah, in one of his messages, proclaimed that the job must be finished. Abel considered the feasibility of this only briefly. Going after Rapp when he didn’t expect it was one thing, but now that he was alert it was out of the question. Even before this disastrous news, Abel had felt he could no longer trust Prince Rashid. That was why he was in Venice, staying in a five-star hotel under an assumed name and paying for everything in cash. Now that the job had been botched, Rashid would want him silenced. Abel began packing his suitcase and pondering how quickly the Saudis could move on him. Their intelligence services were good within the Kingdom but they were anemic abroad. Rashid would have to hire someone like Abel, which would take time.
Abel closed the suitcase and zipped it shut. He walked over to the large window in time to see another cruise ship passing through the Canale di San Marco. Row after row of faceless people lined the starboard decks snapping photos, waving, and watching. The ship was massive. Abel considered how easy it would be to disappear on one of those ships. He would be lost in the myriad of tourists from around the world. A divorced man looking to take his mind off a disastrous marriage. He’d used it as cover before and in fact he was using it right now. That was the excuse he’d used to pay for the room in cash and use an alias. Abel had explained to the manager that he was going through a messy divorce and had decided to tour Europe in style rather than give the wretched woman a penny. Her lawyers, though, were right on his heels and if he had any hope of holding them off he needed to be discreet.
Abel stared at his phone for a minute and then turned it on. He dialed his personal assistant’s mobile number and waited for her to answer. After the eighth ring he got her voice mail. “Greta, it’s Erich. Remember that thing we talked about? Well, I’ve decided to take a sabbatical. If you need to get ahold of me, you know how to reach me. Good-bye.” Sabbatical was a prearranged code word that was a warning to Greta. She was supposed to stay away from the office until he told her it was safe to go back to work. In the meantime she would be paid for six months of work. After that she should assume something had happened to him and look for other employment.
He checked his e-mail quickly and then decided to send a message. He pulled up the address for the assassins and began typing. It read: You failed. Finish the job, or return the money. He didn’t bother attaching a name.
Abel scratched out a quick note and stuffed it in an envelope along with a thousand euros. He grabbed his bag and wheeled it to the elevator. When he reached the front desk, he asked to see the manager. A moment later Nico appeared from the back off
ice and stepped out from behind the counter. He took one look at the suitcase and held his hands out in surprise.
“You are leaving us so soon?”
Abel adjusted his glasses and said in a low voice, “I’m afraid the lawyers are hot on my trail.” He handed the envelope to the manager and said, “I may try to make my way back in a few weeks. I left a number along with a generous tip for your judiciousness.”
The man clutched the envelope to his chest. “You are too kind.”
Abel leaned in a bit closer and said, “Call me if anyone comes looking for me.”
The manager winked. “I will.”
Abel wheeled the medium-size black suitcase out the front door and turned left to catch a water taxi. A valet from the hotel was there to assist him and Abel tipped him generously.
