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“There’s some stuff that’s not adding up.”
“Such as?”
“Gazich, not that you can trust the guy, claims that he did exactly as he was told. That he didn’t screw anything up. It was the people on the other end of the operation who gave him bad intel.”
“How so?”
“Gazich says a half a minute or so before the explosion he received a phone call that told him the target was the second limo. So I figure that the Secret Service must have shuffled the limos after they left the conference. Someone is standing on the street, they watch the candidates get in the second limo and they make the call to Gazich. Then the motorcade starts to roll, and a block later the Secret Service has the second limo move up to the lead position. They do that stuff all the time. You can easily see where the terrorists screwed up.”
“It sounds like it all adds up, though.”
Rapp shook his head. “I talked to Rivera. She says they didn’t shuffle the limos.”
“They didn’t shuffle the limos?” Kennedy repeated, her surprise obvious.
“Nope, which leads me to believe that Gazich is lying.”
The sick feeling in Kennedy’s stomach grew. After a moment she said, “Or he’s telling the truth.”
“Why would you say that?”
Kennedy looked across the room, out the window and into the darkness, and sighed. “I think it’s time I showed you something.”
40
Kennedy opened her safe, retrieved the oversized envelope, and walked over to the sitting area across from her desk. Rapp followed and came to a stop at her left as she laid out the photos in a slow, deliberate manner. At first Rapp had no idea what he was looking at, other than the fact that they were surveillance photographs of two people, who if he had to guess probably weren’t married. There was something vaguely familiar about the woman. Rapp ignored her naked body and focused on the face. She was rather animated in the first six shots but in the seventh, the camera had caught her with her mouth closed, her face relaxed, and her eyes looking off in the distance. She had a detached vacant look on her face that was definitely familiar. Rapp finished looking at all the photos and then went back to the seventh one. He almost picked it up for closer examination, but his professional instincts stopped him. No sense leaving his fingerprints on something that obviously had Kennedy spooked.
Again, Rapp focused on the face, and ignored the beautiful body. The high cheekbones, the thin nose, the long, wavy, chestnut hair tangled and partially obscuring the right side of her face. There was something definitely familiar about the woman. Rapp blocked out every feature except the eyes, nose, and mouth. Suddenly everything clicked. He pictured the woman with her hair up in a kind of loose ponytail, dressed stylishly yet conservative, playing the role of a candidate’s wife. It was Jillian Rautbort. The president-elect’s wife. Rapp’s focus intensified as he remembered the sorrow he’d felt for the political couple after the attack. Jillian Rautbort wasn’t much older than Anna had been when an explosion had taken her life. Rapp felt Alexander’s pain. He’d seen some of the footage of the funeral and the public statements Alexander had made in the immediate aftermath. He’d watched the man on election night when his opponent had conceded the race. Even in victory the man seemed irreparably wounded. It appeared that the greatest achievement of his career was tempered by a loss that could never be repaired.
These photos now forced Rapp to call those painful memories into question. Was it an act? Rapp had a hard time believing it. His job depended on being able to judge people in a split second. Picking friend from foe in a foreign land where the wrong decision could mean his lif
e. Alexander’s pain seemed so genuine. If he’d been faking it, the man was an absolute monster.
Rapp’s eye settled on the man in the photos for the first time. The collage started with the two standing and then with Jillian riding the man on a lounge chair next to the pool. The guy was big. Jillian Rautbort looked tiny on top of him. Where Jillian was completely naked, the man still had on most of his clothes. His pants were pulled down to mid-thigh. There was something oddly familiar about him as well. Rapp noticed something coiling from the man’s left ear. His eyes opened a bit wider and he began searching the other photos for the same coil. He found it in two other photos.
“Jesus Christ,” Rapp said softly.
He looked at the photos where the man was on his back. Specifically the right side of his belt line. He expected to find either a radio or a gun. The photo wasn’t clear enough, but something was there.
Without taking his eyes off the photo Rapp said, “Please tell me this guy is not a United States Secret Service agent.”
“Unfortunately he is.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I wish I was.”
“Who is it?”
“Special Agent Matt Cash.”
Rapp looked at the photos again, from left to right. “When were these taken?”
“Labor Day weekend at her parents’ Palm Beach estate.”
“How did they come into your possession?”
“Cap Baker. He bought them from an unknown individual for what was probably a large sum of money.”
