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“I have agreed to this meeting and excluded Director Nassar at your request, Dr. Kennedy. I do this out of respect for you and in acknowledgment of what Mr. Rapp has done to defend my kingdom in the past. But I want to be clear that I believe him to be a murderer.”
Despite their long relationship, Faisal didn’t look at him. Yet another reminder of how quickly political loyalties could change.
“Your Highness,” Kennedy said. “I’d like to introduce Joel Wilson, the FBI agent who was helping Director Nassar try to find Mitch.”
“I’m quite familiar with Agent Wilson,” Faisal said. “Though I was told you were dead.”
“No, sir. One of Director Nassar’s men tried to kill me, but Mitch managed to prevent it.”
“That’s a very serious accusation. Do you have proof?”
“Is the equipment we requested available?”
The king pointed toward an ornate cabinet against the wall. Wilson opened it, docking his laptop and retrieving a remote control. A moment later the lights dimmed and his screen was projected on the wall.
“This first image is a list of dates and places where Mitch has traveled since leaving the CIA. They are corroborated by his passport. You can see that it would be impossible for him to have killed your man in Paris or Qadir Sultan in Saudi Arabia.”
“You’re offering entries in a forged passport as proof?” Faisal asked.
“Please, let him finish,” Kennedy said.
“Thank you. We have corroborating evidence from various cameras in airports and other locations, all time-stamped.”
He scrolled through them, but Rapp’s natural ability to keep his face out of photos worked against him. When Wilson brought up an image of a lengthy telephone record, Rapp had had enough.
“Stop.”
Wilson looked over at him. “I was just getting to—”
Rapp stepped forward and locked eyes with the aging monarch. “You know damn well that I didn’t kill those people because I’m telling you I didn’t kill them. Why would I lie? Why would I be stand
ing here in front of you instead of putting a bullet in your head and hoping the next asshole who sits in that chair is better?”
Faisal jerked back, alarm and confusion reading on his face. It was probably the first time he’d ever been spoken to that way.
“Mitch . . .” Kennedy cautioned, but the old man pushed himself to his feet and spoke over her. “You tell me all this, but then you insist that Aali not be present to defend himself. He’s been unfailingly loyal to me and worked tirelessly against ISIS.”
“Listen to yourself,” Rapp responded. “Even you don’t believe what you’re saying. You either need to run this country or turn it over to someone who can. Because you’ve been played and I can’t tell if you’re too stupid to realize it or too old to care.”
“Guards!” the king shouted, and a moment later two men armed with HK G36s burst through the door. Kennedy took a few steps back while Wilson scurried for the edge of the room. Rapp held his position. He wasn’t finished yet.
One guard took a position to his right, unsure what Faisal wanted him to do. Rapp took advantage of the confusion and swept his legs from under him while grabbing the barrel of his gun. He jerked it out of his hands and rammed the butt of it into the head of the second guard, whose knees buckled. Rapp dropped the rifle and snatched the Browning Hi Power from the man’s holster before he dropped to the marble floor.
The remaining palace guards registered the commotion and he could hear their shouts as they fanned out behind him. They were even less inclined to act, though. Rapp had his weapons lined up on Faisal’s forehead and the slightest twitch of his finger would put an end to their king.
“Are we going to continue our conversation, Highness? Or are we going to end it?”
The events of the last few seconds had come too fast for the man and it took him a beat to process what had happened. When he did, he dismissed his guards. Rapp kept the weapon lined up as they dragged the two unconscious men away. When he heard the door close, he dropped the gun on the floor.
“Twenty years ago, would you have put this much trust in a power-hungry piece of shit like Aali Nassar?”
Faisal sat and let a good thirty seconds pass before he responded. “No.”
“You’ve been playing a dangerous game—blinding your people with religion and hoping that you could control them. But now you’ve lost that control and you’re too old and weak to get it back. Is this the legacy you want to leave? Do you want to be remembered as the last king of Saudi Arabia?”
Faisal seemed to lose the strength to sit fully erect in his throne. “So, instead of the radicals, I should turn my kingdom over to the Americans? To the Christians? Why? Because you believe I’ve been betrayed but offer no real proof?”
“We have a great deal more than what you just saw,” Kennedy said, returning to Rapp’s side. “We have a tape of one of Nassar’s men pledging allegiance to ISIS. We have photos of a number of his people that we’ve been able to associate with Mullah Halabi. We have information putting Director Nassar in Brussels when Mahja Zaman was killed. But I suspect none of this will be enough for you. And in light of that, I believe that you should give Director Nassar an opportunity to prove his own innocence.”
