Act of Treason (32 page)

“Thanks. I’ll call you later.” Rapp closed his phone and pointed at Dumond’s computer screen. “These calls match up perfectly. Garret set up the interview and Ross was the high-level source who fed Rich the story. Look.”

Kennedy bent forward and squinted, but before she could begin reading a new screen popped up and covered the T-Mobile page. Some type of ominous law enforcement shield sat in the middle of the screen. “Whoa,” Kennedy said, fearing their unlawful intrusion had been discovered. “Marcus, you’d better take a look at this,” she said as she backed away.

Dumond quickly set his coffee down and grabbed the computer. He spun it around, studied the screen for a split second, and then began hitting keys.

“What is it?” Rapp asked with no real worry in his voice. Dumond was the master of his own little universe. He would never initiate an incursion that could be traced back to him.

“Customs and Immigration web site. When I was in their database earlier today I put a flag on Garret’s passport.”

“A flag?” Kennedy said in a slightly alarmed voice.

“Not the normal kind of flag. I set it up so I would receive an alert if he tried to leave the country. I also tapped into the airline’s reservation system while I was checking his travel.” Dumond typed in several commands. The screen changed as quickly as his fingers flew. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Dumond stopped typing and stared at the screen.

“What?” Rapp asked.

“Garret just checked in for an Air France flight from Dulles to Geneva.”

Rapp and Kennedy looked at each other, their thoughts passing without words.

“When does his flight leave?” Kennedy asked.

“Twelve twenty.”

“I’ll call Jose and have him put his best people on it,” Kennedy said.

Rapp checked his watch. “There’s a chance I can get there first. Besides, I don’t think we want to use embassy people for this. Tell him I want NOCs only.”

“You’re probably right.” Kennedy watched Rapp punch numbers into his mobile phone. NOC stood for Non Official Cover. They were Langley’s most coveted operatives. “Are you sure you should go?”

“You have any better ideas?”

“Not at the moment.”

Rapp could tell she still wasn’t sold on the idea. “Like you said, Irene. We have less than two days. If these guys were involved in any way in that attack, I’m willing to bet the answers are in Switzerland.” Rapp looked away from Kennedy and spoke into his phone. “Scramble the boys. We need to be in the air by midnight.” Rapp listened for a second and said, “Across the pond. Mostly surveillance, but you never know. I’ll see you in thirty.” Rapp closed the phone and looked at Kennedy. Her expression radiated concern. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Kennedy frowned and said, “I’m not worried about you.”

“Then who in the hell are you worried about?”

“Stu Garret.” Kennedy shook her head. “I know how you think, Mitch. I don’t want you slapping him around.”

“Irene…come on,” Rapp said as if he was complaining.

“Well…at least not until he gives you a reason.”

G
ENEVA
, S
WITZERLAND

G
arret was in a supremely foul mood. He’d boarded his flight convinced he would sleep his way across the Atlantic. He had it all planned out. He’d have a vodka on the rocks before takeoff and two or three glasses of red wine with his meal, and then he’d kick off his shoes, recline his seat, put on the little mask they handed out, and he’d snooze until the sun was gleaming off the snow-capped Alps. Unfortunately, he didn’t account for his enlarged prostate. An hour into his slumber he awoke to make his first of three trips to the head. When he landed in Geneva, he was tired, grumpy, and more than a bit out of whack. He was at least happy, though, to be out of Washington. No one bugging him for photographs and advice.

A driver was waiting for him at the airport. The man took him to his hotel and on the way showed him where he would be meeting Mr. Speyer for dinner at 8:00. Garret was immediately put off that they were going to make him wait for six and a half hours to discuss business, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Speyer wasn’t answering his phone, and he wasn’t about to call Green.

He checked in to his hotel a little before 2:00 in the afternoon and asked for a 7:00 p.m. wakeup call just to be safe. When he got up to his room the jet lag hit him hard. He turned off both mobile phones and hit the Do Not Disturb button on the hotel phone. He must have been dehydrated from the flight because he slept straight through to his 7:00 p.m. wakeup call without disturbance from his prostate. Garret showered and shaved and put on a blue sport coat, white dress shirt, and dark gray slacks.

When he arrived downstairs a car was waiting for him. Garret walked outside with his puffy down coat and stopped for a moment on the sidewalk. Across the street was Lake Geneva. The city lights flickered on the surface. As a political consultant, Garret had a keen sense of awareness when it came to people. He liked Geneva. It was a city of scoundrels, many of whom tried to portray themselves as aristocracy. It was a voyeuristic heaven. You got to watch the charade of social pretense that masked insatiable appetites for food, drugs, drinking, gambling, and sex. It could be a very fun place to visit.

Garret stuffed his hands in his jacket and climbed into the back of his waiting Mercedes sedan. The driver said hello in French, and Garret nodded to his reflection in the rearview mirror. The car eased out into traffic and rolled down Quai du Mont-Blanc, toward the finest restaurant in all of Geneva. Garret was looking forward to the meal, but he was not looking forward to the company. He decided he would have to order the most expensive thing on the menu. He didn’t have to worry about the wine. Speyer would take great care to make sure something extremely expensive was selected.

M
itch Rapp sat in the backseat of the car and studied Garret through the opaque glass of the backseat side window. The fingers on Rapp’s right hand clamped down on the cuff of his black leather jacket. The entire team was carrying miniaturized encrypted radios with wireless earpieces. Rapp pressed the Transmit button sewn into his cuff and said, “He’s on his way.”

He released the button and looked at Hacket who was behind the wheel. “You know the routine, Kevin. Hang back for a second and make sure no one else is following him.”

The black Mercedes sedan began to roll. The flight from DC had taken six hours and eleven minutes. They were wheels up at 11:47 p.m., and with the time change they were on the ground in Geneva a few minutes before noon; a full hour before Garret’s plane was due to land. No one slept on the way over. There was too much work to be done. Dumond went online and hacked into the networks of seven different hotels before he found out where Garret was staying. He was booked at the Beau-Rivage on Quai du Mont-Blanc overlooking the lake. If he had business at Speyer’s bank, the hotel made sense. It was a short walk.

After analyzing the Rivage’s reservation system, the best they were able to do was get a room on the same floor as Garret two doors down. There was no adjacent hotel with a direct line of sight to Garret’s room so they would have to bug his room instead. After they cleared customs, they found two identical black Mercedes sedans with heavily tinted windows and a white Volkswagen cargo van waiting for them. In the trunk of each sedan they found a full complement of silenced weapons, and in the back of the van a surveillance kit. Everyone was dressed in business attire, except Coleman and Stroble, who were wearing pilot’s uniforms. Coleman and Stroble took one of the sedans and parked out in front of the Air France terminal. Rapp, Dumond, and Hacket took the white van and followed Brooks and Wicker, who were in the other Mercedes, to the Rivage. Brooks and Wicker checked into the room at the Rivage while the rest of the team went to the D’Angleterre a few blocks away. Rapp and the other two waited outside until the newlyweds finished bugging Garret’s room.

Dumond in the meantime managed to insert Garret’s mobile phone numbers into the National Security Agency’s Echelon system. The CIA worked closely with the NSA on overseas matters. Neither wanted to be embarrassed over the discovery that they were intentionally targeting U.S. citizens abroad, so they’d developed a system where numbers could be monitored for a brief period, a day or two, and then they would be purged from the system as if they’d never been looked at in the first place. Garret’s e-mail addresses were also added to the list. So far the hardest part of the op had been getting a reservation for Brooks and Wicker at Le Bearn. Wicker slid the concierge at the Rivage a hundred-dollar bill and the guy barely batted an eye. It took two more C-notes before the guy could guarantee a table.

A laptop was sitting on the seat next to Rapp. The screen was divided into four pictures. Wicker and Brooks had already arrived at Le Bearn and had planted several miniaturized cameras and listening devices in the bar, restaurant, and bathroom. Dumond was monitoring everything from the back of the van which was parked a half block away from the restaurant. The screen currently showed a picture of the street outside the restaurant, the front door of the restaurant from the inside, and two more interior shots of the dining area. Dumond was recording everything.

G
arret stepped through the front door a few minutes early and was immediately cut off by three men wearing tuxedos. Le Bearn wouldn’t let you into the bar if you didn’t have a reservation for dinner. The shorter of the three men greeted Garret in French. He was polite but unyielding. Garret ignored the greeting and told the man he was meeting Joseph Speyer for dinner. Their attitudes changed immediately. One man grabbed his coat, the third disappeared, and the other began singing the praises of one of Geneva’s most well-respected bankers.

The man himself showed up just moments later. Next to Garret, with his frumpy demeanor and ill-fitting clothes, Speyer looked as if he’d just stepped out of a
GQ
ad. His two-button, blue-gray flannel suit had a faint light gray pinstripe. The fabric hung from his thin frame perfectly, the pants breaking at the perfect spot above a pair of handmade light brown Italian shoes that matched the frame of his glasses. Speyer’s thinning light brown hair was cropped short and styled slightly forward.

They had just made it to the bar when four men came through the door. Two of them were huge. Standing well over six feet tall and weighing upwards of three hundred pounds, everything about them screamed
bodyguard.
The two older men sandwiched in between them were Cy Green and Aleksandr Gordievsky. They were opposites of sorts. Green had a relaxed air of confidence about him. His permatan, slicked-back hair, open-collared shirt, gold necklace and watch, and double-breasted blue sport coat was the uniform of the ultra-wealthy. Compared to Green, Gordievsky looked a bit pasty. His brown hair was mostly gone, except around the sides and in back, where he grew it a bit too long. His suit was a bit too shiny, and the mock turtleneck sweater that he wore under the jacket screamed Eurotrash.

Handshakes and greetings were exchanged, and the restaurant staff made a great production out of taking care of the group. They were escorted to their corner table where Green and Gordievsky insisted on sitting with their backs to the wall. The two hulking bodyguards were given the table next to them. Water and bread were left, and drink orders were taken. A special wine list was brought to the table and offered to Green, who quickly declined and gestured for it to be given to Speyer.

While Speyer perused the list Green looked across the table and flashed Garret a devilish look. “You have picked a good time to visit. Tonight is going to be great fun. When we are done with this exquisite meal we are going to hit some fabulous clubs and then we will head back to my place for some truly unique late-night entertainment.”

Garret hadn’t flown all the way from DC to party. He wanted to get the nasty stuff out of the way, so he said, “We have a problem.”

“May we at least eat before we talk business?” Green said.

“I’d rather get it out of the way. You guys promised me that you were going to tie up all the loose ends over here.”

“And we have,” Green smiled at a passing woman.

“Didn’t you see the president’s press conference yesterday?”

Green dismissed Garret’s worries with an unconcerned look. “I’m not worried.”

“They found
the
guy.”

“There is no way they can trace the Bosnian back to any of us,” Green assured him.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Tell him, Joseph.”

Speyer did not bother to take his eyes off the wine list. “Everything was done with cash. We never met him.”

“How did he get the money?”

“We put it in two separate duffelbags and flew it into Cyprus on a private plane. The assassin gave us some coordinates. The bags were left behind a stone wall in the middle of the night on a deserted stretch of road outside Limassol.”

“So no one ever met him face-to-face?”

“Nope,” Green said.

“And there’s no financial records anywhere, or e-mails that could be traced back to you?”

“None.”

“So the CIA is lying,” Garret smiled.

“Or the Bosnian is lying,” Green added.

“Who the fuck knows with the damn CIA?” Garret said. “They have got to be the most incompetent idiots on the planet.” He sat back and took a drink of water.

Green folded his perfectly manicured fingers in front of his face and asked, “So how is my pardon coming along?”

Garret squirmed in his chair for second then looked Green in the eye and said, “It’s coming along just fine.”

“I think you are lying to me,” Green said flatly.

“Cy,” Garret moaned, “we’ve come this far. I’m not going to screw you on our deal.”

“I want my pardon,” Green said in a slightly threatening tone.

“And you’re going to fucking get it,” Garret snapped.

“If I don’t get my pardon, you are a dead man.”

Garret’s throat suddenly felt dry. His life had just been threatened by a man who he knew was capable of following through. “I told you from the very beginning that we were probably going to have to wait until the last minute.” Garret spoke in an even tone. “If the press finds out they could kill this thing. The eleventh hour…Saturday morning…that’s when it will be signed.”

Green ran his palms along the sides of his slicked back hair and accepted Garret’s answer with a nod. Then his face grew serious and he said, “That is fine, but just remember, if it doesn’t get signed, you and your boss are going to pay.”

Garret was not used to being threatened like this. He was usually the one doing the bullying. Feeling as if his back was against the wall, he decided to go on the attack. “For the last time he’s not my boss, and as long as we’re throwing around threats, why don’t you chew on this one. What do you think your old business partner, Pinky, would do if he found out you killed his daughter?”

“Shhh…” Speyer hissed.

Garret lowered his voice a notch and said, “You think just maybe he might call a couple of his old Mossad buddies and have them pay you a visit?”

Green flashed a thin smile at the political huckster sitting across the table. “Pinky should have given that little slut a lobotomy like Joe Kennedy did to his daughter. Trust me,” Green said trying to further undermine Garret’s threat, “she was a constant headache for him. He’s not as upset about her death as it might seem.”

Garret looked at the billionaire through squinted eyes. “Well, how about Josh, then? How do you think the soon to be president of the U.S. of A. would react if he found out you killed his beloved wife, just so you could keep some of your ill-gotten billions?” Garret leaned back, certain the thrust had hit home. “He might send a Tomahawk missile right up your ass. Or maybe he’ll have one of his aircraft carriers accidentally ram that yacht of yours when you’re out in the middle of the Med some night.” Garret picked up a piece of bread. “I sure wouldn’t want to piss off the commander in chief of the world’s lone superpower.”

Green’s face turned crimson with rage. “You ungrateful little shit. This wasn’t my idea.”

“The hell it wasn’t,” hissed Garret.

“You and your boss came whining to me about your problems.”

“He’s not my boss!”

“Excuse me,” said Green. “Your soon-to-be vice president.”

“Our…remember. You’re the one who wants American citizenship back so fucking bad.”

Speyer couldn’t take any more. The restaurant was loud, but even so, a few patrons had glanced their way. “Gentlemen, I think you have both made your point. You have made a deal. Cy has completed his end of the transaction and now it is your turn, Stu. May I suggest a toast?” Speyer raised his glass. “To Cy’s pardon, which I’m sure will be signed on Saturday.”

They all clinked glasses, and Green smiled, saying, “It had better be.”

Garret returned the smile and said, “Don’t worry, it will be. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to take a piss.”

When Garret was gone, Speyer looked at Green and said, “I have never trusted that man. I told you this was a terrible idea. What is so bad about the life you have here? Why do you need to go back to America?”

“You’d never understand. You weren’t born there.” Green looked across the room. There was a pretty blond sitting at the bar. He held up his glass and gave her a smile. Looking back to Speyer he asked, “Are you going to join us later? It should be a wonderful show.”

Speyer wished everyone would leave him alone so he could pick a selection of wines. “I’m not sure. I’m supposed to meet some colleagues later.”

Green smiled his big Cheshire cat smile. “Where…Le Pretexte for a little male bonding?”

Green was right. Speyer planned on meeting a few friends at Geneva’s premier gay nightclub. “What is that American saying you like?”

“Different strokes for different folks.” Green held up his glass. “Find a friend and bring him with. I will have them send a couple of well-endowed boys along with the girls. We will show Mr. Garret how we entertain in Geneva.”