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Hacket was waiting at the rear bumper snapping on a pair of disposable latex gloves. When the trunk lid came up, he reached in and yanked the clear plastic cover off the light casing. He flicked the cover into the recesses of the trunk and pulled the small bulb out of its slot. With darkness restored, Hacket walked around to the front passenger door and opened it a few feet. The body began to fall out of the car. Hacket placed his left hand on the head of the dead man, opened the door the rest of the way and then grabbed the limp body under both armpits. He dragged him out of the car and back to the trunk. Wicker stood on the other side of the car, his head slowly turning from one end of the alley and then back. The Russian was at least 200 pounds, but Hacket was a solid 225. He hefted the torso into the trunk face down and then picked up the legs, and twisted and bent the body the rest of the way in. Hacket softly closed the lid and they drove away.

By the time they got back to the café, the place was nearly empty. Parking was not a problem. Brooks was across the street packing and sanitizing the hotel room. Coleman and Stroble were treating wounds, securing the prisoners, and going through Gazich’s stuff looking for information. Both the big Russian and Gazich were given morphine. Rapp sat at the bar, drank a glass of wine, and kept an eye on Papadakos. As business slowed and the place began to empty, the old man joined Rapp at the bar and ordered a bottle of red. He drank three glas

ses in under thirty minutes and ordered another bottle. He was clearly anxious to be done with the entire drama.

At 1:00 in the morning the last two patrons were shown the door. They stumbled off, weaving their way down the sidewalk in search of the nightclubs a few blocks over. By 2:00 a.m. the street was pretty still. Brooks stood watch at one end of the block and Wicker the other. The big Russian was marched down the stairs under his own power. The dead Russian and Gazich needed to be carried. They debated wrapping them up in tablecloths, but decided the better route was to make it look like they were drunk. Hacket and Stroble carried Gazich out first, the two former SEALs book-ending the Bosnian, one under each arm, like three drunk sailors on shore leave. They stuffed him in the back of the van and then went back for the dead Russian. He was carried down in the same fashion and placed in the backseat of the car that Wicker had driven earlier.

Wicker came back from his post at the end of the block and climbed behind the wheel of the car with one dead Russian in the backseat and another one in the trunk. He pulled away from the curb with Hacket following him in the rental car they had picked up while they waited for their luggage at the airport. They were headed back to the same alley. The dead Russian in the backseat would join the dead Russian in the trunk, and then Wicker would abandon the car in a nice shady spot, where with any luck the stench would go unnoticed for a few days. After that they were to head up to Gazich’s house in the hills where they would search it from top to bottom.

Rapp said good-bye to Papadakos and thanked him for his cooperation. The old man asked Rapp what would happen to Deckas. Rapp lied and told him he wasn’t sure, even though he knew exactly what he was going to do with him. He was going to squeeze every last bit of information from him and then he was going to give him a death befitting a man who set off car bombs in the middle of an urban neighborhood. He needed to be made an example of. Rapp could tell the old man was worried so he told him that people way above his pay grade would be sorting the whole mess out. If Rapp had only known how accurate that statement was he probably would have finished off Gazich right there on Cyprus.

16

WASHINGTON, DC

T he phone rang at 6:01 a.m. Kennedy noticed the time before she answered the phone. She was lying on her left side, and the glowing green numbers of her alarm clock were staring her straight in the face when she opened her eyes. She reached out with her right hand and grabbed the handset. Attempting to view the small caller ID screen without her glasses would be futile. The cord got caught on something, so she tugged. A magazine and the TV remote fell to the floor. For security reasons she did not own a cordless phone. She kept her head on the pillow and brought the sturdy beige handset to her right ear.

“Hello.”

“Director Kennedy?”

“Speaking.”

“Major Hansen…duty officer White House Situation Room.”

“Yes, Major.”

“POTUS has called a meeting for zero seven hundred.” POTUS was the military’s acronym for President of the United States.

“In the Situation Room?”

“No, the Oval, Ma’am.”

“I’ll be there.”

Kennedy placed the handset back in its cradle and thought, So much for sleeping in on Sundays. She threw back the covers and laughed to herself. She was going to be out of a job pretty soon. Or at least this job, and whatever job came after this one would be undoubtedly less demanding. She could sleep in all the Sundays she wanted.

The tile on the bathroom floor felt cold on her bare feet. January in DC. Kennedy turned on the bathroom light and studied her face in the mirror. At forty-five she looked pretty good for her age, but at six in the morning with no makeup and bed lines on her face, she was frightening. Being a woman in this town wasn’t easy. She turned on the shower to give it a chance to warm up and started brushing her teeth. With toothbrush in mouth she walked out to the kitchen and put on some hot water for her tea. On the way back she poked her head in her son’s room to check on him. He was safe and warm beneath the covers.

Kennedy did not like being cold. She put her hair up and stepped into the hot shower. For five minutes she stood under the water, increasing the temperature until her skin turned pink. It took her five minutes to dry off and get dressed and another five to put on her face. By 6:33 she’d alerted her security detail of the meeting and was in the kitchen taking her first sip of tea and dialing the Global Ops Center at Langley on a secure line. The duty officer answered on the first ring. Kennedy asked him if there was anything worth reporting. He said it had been a pretty slow night. She was surprised by the answer and asked him if he was sure. He told her he was. The director thanked him and hung up.

Kennedy grabbed the warm mug with both hands, leaned against the kitchen counter and asked herself why the president was calling a 7:00 a.m. meeting on a Sunday morning. If the Global Ops Center was in the dark, the odds were the crisis had emanated at the Pentagon, or maybe Justice. With one week to go until the ax fell, Kennedy found herself strangely ambivalent about the whole thing. She took another sip of tea and wondered if this was good or bad. She’d been the consummate professional her entire adult life. She spent more than twenty years at Langley and she had given it her all. The job had even cost her a marriage. She thought about that for a moment and realized it wasn’t fair to blame the failed marriage on Langley. It would have failed if she’d been a stay-at-home mom. Her ex was too selfish. He proved that yet again when his second marriage fell apart after nine short months. He was a decent man, but a mama’s boy, which made him extremely high maintenance and Kennedy had neither the time nor the desire to give his ego the attention he desired. Plus, one-way relationships were never a good idea.

Kennedy climbed into the back of her Town Car and picked up the Sunday edition of the Post. Maybe withdrawing from the job was her subconscious protecting herself from the inevitable disappointment of being shown the door. Anything was possible, she supposed. She did not want to leave Langley, especially after such a brief stint as director. She’d been there over twenty years. Practically her entire adult life. She would miss the people and the action that went along with running the world’s most unfairly maligned spy agency. She wouldn’t miss the hours, and she most definitely wouldn’t miss the politics. She’d miss the place though. There was no doubt about it.

When they pulled up to the first checkpoint, it was already 7:00 a.m. By the time she cleared security she was five minutes late. When she entered the Oval Office she found four men standing in a loose circle around the president’s desk. They were the president himself, Attorney General Stokes, FBI Director Roach, and President–Elect Alexander. Roach was in a gray suit and striped tie. The other three were wearing blazers, dress slacks, and open-collar shirts. At first glance she was surprised by the absence of several key players, the Secretaries of Defense and State, the president’s national security advisor and his chief of staff. Then she remembered it was a Sunday morning with just six days left until the peaceful, democratic transfer of power. Very little got done this week. The career bureaucrats and professionals were busy running the government while the political appointees had either moved onto new jobs or were busy looking for one.

President Hayes stopped talking when he saw Kennedy and said, “There she is. The woman of the hour.”

All four sets of eyes focused on Kennedy. She blushed slightly and asked, “And why would that be, Mr. President?”

“Always modest, this one,” Hayes said to President–Elect Alexander. “You’ll figure that out soon enough. No offense to these two over here,” Hayes gestured to Stokes and Roach, “They have done admirable jobs, but this one here…she’s done an amazing job and she gets almost no credit for it. All of her victories and successes are locked up in a vault out at Langley. A hundred years from now they’ll be writing about her in the history books.”

Kennedy blushed. She stood motionless midway between the door and where they were standing. She was not used to such attention and looked uncomfortable.

Hayes smiled, gestured toward the furniture opposite his desk, and said, “Let’s sit.”

Two lengthy couches, big enough to comfortably seat four adults each, faced one another with a glass-topped coffee table in between. In front of the fireplace sat two blue and gold striped silk armchairs. President Hayes gestured for Alexander to sit next to him in front of the fireplace. The place of honor.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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