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Ridley held up his hands and said, “I think it’s safe to say Nash had a good reason for leaving Johnson in place.”
“It’s not his call,” O’Brien said. “If he has something, he comes to us, and we make the decision.”
“Bullshit!” Rapp said while frowning at O’Brien. “You gonna tell me when you were slinking around East Berlin you never made a couple frickin’ on-the-fly decisions and never told your boss?”
“Gentlemen,” Kennedy said without looking at any of them, “do any of you know Mike Nash to be a reckless man?”
One by one they all shook their heads.
“Good,” she said, “then we should all calm down and think about what this might mean.”
The secure phone in the middle of the table started ringing. Ridley reached out and grabbed it. “Hello.” He listened for a second and then gave Rapp the handset. “It’s Nash.”
Rapp grabbed the phone. “What’s up?”
“It’s not good.” Nash’s voice sounded heavy.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’m almost certain Johnson is in the morgue. I gave a friend his profile and he just called me to report that a body fitting his description was found at four this morning, in the trunk of a burning car.”
“Shit.”
“And there’s one other thing, Mitch. I think he was tortured. The body was missing three toes from the right foot. The coroner said they were not removed by a surgeon.”
Rapp felt his guts turn and he told himself, not now. “You have all of his reports, right?”
“Yeah.”
“He had six good suspects, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Get out to NCTC as fast as you can and you get those six dumped into the system and kicked to the top of the watch list. You get any heat from anyone, you tell them the order comes directly from Irene. If they still piss and moan about the protocols, you tell them to put them on the list first and then call me.
“What about a source? They’re going to want a source.”
“Tell them I got it from my counterpart at Mossad and call me with confirmation as soon as it happens. I gotta run.” Rapp hung up the phone and looked at Kennedy. “Johnson’s in the morgue, missing three toes. We have to open this thing up. You have to tell the president and you have to get the National Security Council together.”
“And tell them what?” O’Brien asked. “That contrary to everything we’ve been saying, we actually did send an undercover operative into a mosque and now he’s dead? We’ll all be thrown in jail.”
Rapp grabbed his suit coat and started for the door. “I don’t give a shit what you tell him. Blame it all on me, tell him the Israelis tipped us off. Think something up. The bottom line is, if Johnson is in the morgue, those fuckers are in this city.”
As Rapp reached the door, Kennedy asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’m sure they’re long gone, but I’m going to over to that mosque to see what I can find out.”
“Not by yourself, you’re not.”
“Irene, trust me. They have more to fear than I do.”
Kennedy watched him leave and looked at Ridley. “Go with him,” she ordered. “And make sure he doesn’t kill anyone…unless he absolutely has to.”
Ridley jumped up and chased after Rapp. Kennedy picked up the phone and punched in the secure number for the White House Situation Room. When the watch officer answered on the other end, she identified herself and said, “We have a situation. I need to speak to the president.”
CHAPTER 63
KARIM was dressed in a dark blue suit, white shirt, and blue and gray striped tie. His well-oiled pistol was holstered on his right hip and a radio was clipped to his left hip. A small flesh-colored cord coiled its way past his shirt collar and around and into his ear. An American flag pin was proudly displayed on his lapel. He stood ramrod straight and inspected his men from left to right as if they were on a parade ground. In a manner of speaking, they were. On his far left, Farid stood in front of a blue Ford Fusion. He was dressed almost exactly the same as Karim, minus the earpiece. The car had forged U.S. government plates. No one had an easy job today, but Farid would be the first to move into position. If he failed, it could have a cascading effect on the operation. Next in line were three identical white Chevy vans. Each vehicle had FedEx emblazoned in purple and orange on the side. In front of the vehicles stood three men, each wearing the uniform of a FedEx driver. The cargo pockets on the right side of their pants had been modified to holster their pistols with the silencers attached.
