Kill Shot (31 page)

“Have they told you who they think was behind the attack?”

“No,” Cook answered with a shake of his head, “but there are certain things in my business that we’re loath to discuss over the phone.”

“Of course.” Wilson took a gulp from his drink and sighed as it warmed his throat. “Do you have a sense, though, that they might have some leads?”

“Apparently it’s turned into a spook convention in Paris and everyone is a suspect.”

“And Stansfield?”

“He’s flying over with me.”

Wilson stared at his visitor for a moment. “Your idea or his?”

“Mine. I thought it would be a good idea to get him out of his element. I have some surveillance teams set up to follow him. If he does anything unusual or meets with anyone of interest we’ll know.”

“Sounds like a good idea. What else?”

Cooke took a tiny sip and said, “Hurley showed up.”

Wilson edged forward in his seat. “Interesting. Where is he?”

“Paris . . . DGSE has him under surveillance.”

“You’re good,” Wilson said with an admiring tone. “Has he done anything stupid?”

“Not yet, but knowing his history, there’s a good chance he’ll give the French a reason to arrest him before the week is over.”

Wilson smiled. “I hope you’re right. What else?”

Cooke nodded and then took his time. He took another small sip, set his glass down on a cork coaster sitting atop a small wood side table, and leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and folded his hands. “I’m not sure how to put this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. Is there something between you and Stansfield you haven’t told me about?”

Wilson gauged that Cooke was in possession of some information that had caused him to ask the question. Being an attorney by trade, he did what all good attorneys do: Rather than answer the question he asked one. “What do you mean?”

“I mean some problem . . . some bad blood between the two of you?”

Wilson shook his head, gazed into his drink for a moment, and then said, “Other than the fact that I don’t trust the man, and that I think he should be tried and thrown in jail, no . . . there’s nothing I can think of.”

“Nothing specific?”

“Paul,” Wilson said, his tone turning testy, “if you have some information come out and say it. There isn’t anything that I can specifically think of that has transpired between Thomas Stansfield and me. He is my subordinate and has always been. When I was a senator, and I sat on the Intelligence Committee, we had our brawls, but so did every other senator. It was our job to push him, and in light of his uncooperative nature, there were a lot of heated moments.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“And now that I’m secretary of state, and one of the president’s closest advisors, he is, well, so far beneath me, he would hardly warrant a thought if it wasn’t for the fact that I fear he is ruining our relationship with one of our closest allies.”

Cooke nodded as if he only half bought Wilson’s explanation. “You might spend very little time thinking about him, but it doesn’t go both ways.”

“What do you mean?”

Cooked hemmed and hawed for a moment and then just said it. “I don’t think the man likes you.”

Wilson smiled as if he was proud of the information. “There are a lot of people in this town who are jealous of me. I don’t doubt for a moment that Thomas Stansfield is one of them.”

Cooke decided to push him a little. “Thomas Stansfield isn’t some amateur, and you’re not the first cabinet member to go after him. He’s outlasted more directors and presidents and Senate oversight committees than we could begin to count.”

Wilson shifted in his leather chair and straightened his back a few degrees. “Your point?”

“You’d be a fool to underestimate him.”

“I never underestimate my enemies and I have a strategy that will prevail.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to win because I will refuse to play Stansfield’s games. I don’t operate in the shadows. I work in the harsh light of day where the truth can flourish. These others who have gone after him were foolish enough to think they could beat him at his own game. I’m not so naïve.”

“Fine,” Cooke said, even though he was thinking the exact opposite. The only way to take on Thomas Stansfield was to plot so carefully, walk so softly, that he never saw you coming until you shoved the knife in his back. “Well, either you have him scared or you did something to really piss him off, because I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Like what?”

“I stopped by his office this morning to ask him about Paris.”

“And?”

“He denied any involvement, of course . . . not that I expected anything different.”

“So it was an unremarkable meeting?”

“I would say yes . . . at least until your name came up, and then he became uncharacteristically heated.”

Wilson liked this. He’d never seen so much as a crack in Stansfield’s sphinxlike demeanor. “What did he say?”

Cooke cleared his throat and started with his first lie. “He said that you should worry about managing all the dilettantes at the State Department and leave the espionage game up to us.”

Wilson didn’t flinch. “What else did he say?”

“Do you want the sanitized version or the unvarnished?”

“Unvarnished.”

Cooke had tried to figure out the best way to deliver this next part. With the right embellishment of Stansfield’s own words and a few lies, he would cut close to Wilson’s heart. “He said that you’ve turned into a bitter, angry man.”

Wilson laughed a little, thought about the comment, and then asked, “Why would I be bitter? I’ve had an amazing life. I’m one of the most powerful men in this country. What could I possibly be bitter about?”

Cooke tried his best to look uncomfortable. He stared at his own shoes for a moment and then he stared at Wilson’s. When he thought the proper amount of embarrassment had been conveyed, he said, “Your wife.” The words seemed to hang in the air for an eternity. Cooke could see that he was on the right track. Just the mention of the wife had put Wilson on edge.

“What about my wife?”

“Well . . .” Cooke shook his head. “I don’t like repeating this, but as I said, it’s so out of character that I thought you must have done something to really piss Stansfield off.”

Wilson’s patience had hit a wall. “What did he say?”

Cooke cleared his throat. “He said you tossed her in an institution the second she became a political liability. That if you truly loved her, as you tell everyone, you would have kept her at home.” Cooke did his best to look embarrassed and added, “I’m sorry, Franklin.”

Wilson’s stately demeanor crumbled. His complexion turned ruddy, his jaw clenched, his nostrils flared, and he looked at the wall to his right. In a wounded voice tinged with anger he proclaimed, “How dare he.”

Cooke was pleased with himself but did a good job concealing it. “This was a private conversation, Franklin, between the deputy director of Langley and the deputy director of Operations. If word were to get out that I shared this information with you, there would be some very upset people at Langley. Even so, I felt you needed to know. I myself was shocked that he would make such an insensitive comment. I had no idea he disliked you so much.”

“Trust me . . . the feeling is mutual, and I get your point. I won’t be saying anything to Stansfield that would put you in a compromising position. That’s not how we’re going to win this battle.”

“I’m sorry,” Cooke said again, shaking his head for dramatic effect, “but I felt that I had to bring this to you. If anyone had said anything like that about me and my wife I’d want to know.”

Wilson nodded but didn’t say anything, he just stared off into space looking wounded.

Cooke stood. “There’s a dark side to him, Franklin. He’s a very dangerous man.” When Wilson didn’t respond Cooke said, “I’ll keep you informed about what I find out in Paris.” Cooke still didn’t get a response, so he started for the door. Letting Wilson stew over his words could only serve his purpose. As he reached the stairs, though, Wilson called out.

“Paul, don’t worry . . . I’m not going to shoot the messenger. I appreciate your honesty.”

Cooke nodded. “Don’t worry, Franklin. He’s going to get what he deserves and you and I are going to be the ones to finally take him down.”

Wilson seemed to not hear anything that Cooke had said. “This is the part of this town that I truly despise. Where is the honor in going after a man’s wife?”

“There is none.”

“No, there isn’t, but I’m not going to let this distract us from our objective. Thomas Stansfield is a dangerous man and he needs to be dealt with before he brings the Agency crashing down around you. I appreciate your friendship, Paul, but I need to know that you are committed to seeing this through.”

“I am, sir. Thomas Stansfield has poisoned the CIA and the only way to right the ship is to get rid of him. Once he’s out of the way I can go about instituting the changes that will ensure the Agency follows the policies of the executive branch and the laws of this country.”

R
APP
smiled. Luke was playing his role to perfection. He had his hands stuffed in both pockets of his jacket and every five steps or so he scanned the block to see if there were any signs of danger. It was not the way Rapp would have acted, but then again he’d told Kennedy that he’d been shot. It wasn’t a stretch for the men in the van to think that he was a little more jumpy than normal.

Rapp had a pretty good idea what was going on inside the van, and he wouldn’t deny that he was taking a certain amount of delight knowing that they were probably falling all over each other trying to figure out what to do. As to who was in the van, he didn’t have a clue, and until right now he hadn’t really considered the question. There were only a handful of people who had watched him closely enough to be able to tell the difference between him and an impostor. Even so, the street was dark and Luke had the same general build. In these situations they would see what they wanted, and that was Rapp returning to the safe house for something that he needed.

Of all the possible assets, Rob Ridley was probably the one who had the most practical knowledge of how Rapp operated. Kennedy and Hurley knew his movements well enough, but neither of them would be pulling surveillance duty. Hurley was too impatient. He needed to be moving, or at least have the option to move, especially after his abduction in Beirut. The man would never admit it, but there were some psychological scars that he still hadn’t dealt with. The most likely option would be Ridley, who specialized in surveillance and advance work. He and his people had done the advance work on the Tarek hit and then vacated the city the day before Rapp had killed the oil minister. Rapp didn’t know where they were headed, but Hurley would have had a day and a half to turn them around and get them back into position. It was possible, but Rapp had a feeling it was someone else.

It would all come down to the call he’d made to Kennedy and whether she was able to convince Stansfield that he’d been set up. If she had failed, Rapp had little doubt who was in the van. Hurley would be calling the shots and he would have his pet dog, that asshole Victor, on duty. Rapp had spent very little time at the farm over the past year, and the year before that they had gone to great lengths to keep his identity a secret from the other visitors. Over that time he’d seen a little over a dozen faces. Men who had returned from operations overseas and guys who were trying to make the team. One of those faces was already gone, killed in Beirut. Rapp didn’t like to think about that day. It was too stark a reminder that his life could go the same way in the blink of an eye.

Kennedy had said she was coming to Paris. How that would play out was obvious. Hurley would be pissed, and he’d tell her to go back to Langley and sit behind her desk and do it in very insensitive, colorful language. The only way she could make any headway was with Stansfield calling the shots. That’s what it came down to. He was the only man who could rein in Hurley.

Rapp stood behind Greta’s shoulder and watched Luke inch closer to the front steps of the apartment. He took a step back and moved to the other side of the window. The van was easy to spot. It was a black Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van. Boxy and tall, it offered the men inside room to move around and they were fairly common in most big cities, as workers used them to navigate the narrow, congested streets. What made this one stand out was the roof rack. The rack had a ladder and several tubes that looked like they could contain anything from rolled-up wallpaper to flooring. In truth they were part of a customized surveillance system that concealed cameras, antennas, and directional microphones.

His money was on Victor, but beyond that he had no idea who would be on duty. More than likely they had pulled assets from stations across Europe, although most of those men would be attached to embassies with official covers, and exposing them to someone like Victor would be a big gamble. Rapp put himself in Hurley’s shoes and decided he’d never do it. Hurley would grab some of his ex–Special Forces assets, guys who didn’t have squeamish stomachs and knew how to keep their mouths shut.

“Greta,” Rapp asked as he kept his eyes on the van, “what do you see?”

“The man in the hat. Nothing else.”

Rapp stepped back two steps and crossed over to Greta’s side of the window. Luke was roughly thirty feet from the front door. Rapp scanned the area beyond to see if there was any movement. There was none, so he went back to the other side of the window to keep an eye on the van. He thought he saw the van rock slightly but it was hard to tell from this distance.

“He’s going up the steps,” Greta announced.

Rapp didn’t bother looking. He was too focused on the van.

“He’s inside.”

In that moment, it occurred to Rapp that they might be waiting in the apartment. His eyes darted from the van to the second floor across the street. He counted three windows in from the corner. The shades were drawn on both the third and fourth windows. There was no way of telling if anyone was in there. Rapp grew a little tense. If they grabbed him, and interrogated him, they might come to the conclusion that Rapp was nearby watching them. “Greta, remember what I said to you. If I tell you I want you to head to your car, I don’t want you to argue with me.”