The Survivor (19 page)

“Yes, sir.”

Gadai opened the door. “Isabella.”

She spun, fear and surprise playing out across her face.

“Come in,” he said, keeping his words purposely vague. If she was wearing a wire, the police would assume he was in room 200 instead of being across the hall.

The woman did as she was told and he closed the door behind her.

“Have you brought me what I asked for?”

She gave a short nod and held out the envelope.

Gadai sat at a desk that he'd moved away from the draped window and tore open the flap. He inserted the thumb drive he found into his laptop and began perusing the accompanying single page of paper while it loaded.

The written instructions were somewhat more complex than he'd expected. Files were individually designated and various scenarios were laid out, each with a different release schedule.

“You're following the second scenario?” Gadai asked.

Accorso nodded, perspiration beginning to form on her upper lip. “We were informed that Akhtar Durrani died by an authenticated email. When we didn't hear from the client, we released file D-six on the third of the month.”

He nodded noncommittally. It would have contained the information on the Russian mole in Istanbul. The next file to be released, designated R-12, was scheduled for Thursday. What revelations did it contain? The identity of a highly placed informant? A list of bribes to foreign officials? Evidence of wrongdoing by the CIA's administration? It was impossible not to speculate.

“And by ‘released' you mean you simply sent it to the email address in the instructions.”

“Yes.”

“Have you looked at the files?”

“They're encrypted.”

“Do you know who the client is?”

“He's anonymous. He contacts me by phone once per week and gives me one of the pass phrases listed on the instruction sheet.”

Gadai scrolled through the list of files contained on the thumb drive,
feeling a growing sense of elation. They had anticipated twenty or thirty. Instead there were hundreds. How much had Rickman known? What level of access had he enjoyed? Could Taj be right? Could this innocuous data-storage device contain the means to the Central Intelligence Agency's destruction?

“Do you have backups of this information?”

“Yes.”

“In the office of the attorney who handles this client?”

“What about my daughter? You said—”

“I said she wouldn't be harmed if you did as I asked. But you're not answering my questions, are you, Isabella?”

He saw the ripple in her cheeks as her jaw clenched in anger, but it was a pathetic display. She was nothing more than a frightened woman who couldn't even hold on to a husband. She would do what she was told.

“Are the backups in the lawyer's office?” Gadai repeated. “Tell me quickly. Your daughter doesn't have much time left.”

“No,” Accorso said, finally. “He may still have the original of the paper instructions because his secretary made this copy for me. The files are contained on the firm's central computer. It's backed up every night.”

Gadai looked up at her. “And do you have a way of deleting those files from both your mainframe and the backups?”

She didn't answer immediately and he just stared at her, letting the seconds tick by.

“Yes. We have a way to do that. Sometimes we have clients who move their business and want their information wiped from our system.”

“That's good,” Gadai said calmly. “Listen very carefully, Isabella. I want you to eradicate everything about this arrangement from your system. I want it to appear that it never existed.”

Surprisingly, she shook her head. “What happens when the client notifies my firm that the files aren't being sent? What will you do to my daughter then?”

Gadai smiled reassuringly. “There will be no such notification. Your client is dead. Forget any of this ever happened, Isabella. When the backups are deleted, your job and your daughter will both be safe.”

Of course, it was a lie. He couldn't leave the woman alive. But his words had the intended effect and she relaxed slightly.

“Go back to work,” he said. “Tonight, have a glass of wine. Spend some time with Bianca. I promise you'll never hear from me again. Once you've done what I ask, it will be over.”

N
EAR
L
AKE
C
ONSTANCE

S
WITZERLAND

D
ROP
the weapon, Mitch. And don't get your hands anywhere near that throat mike.”

Charlie Wicker slid forward in the tree stand and sighted through his scope. Rapp had modified his radio to constantly transmit on the frequency Gould had been excluded from. For good reason, it seemed.

Up to that moment, Wicker shared Coleman's take on this op. Gould had crossed Mitch Rapp as bad as anyone ever could and was still breathing. If Wicker had been in the Frenchman's position, he'd have fallen to his knees, thanked Jesus, and slunk away to the far corners of the earth in case Rapp ever changed his mind. This psycho just didn't get it.

“We're copying this, Mitch.” Coleman's voice over the comm.

Through his scope, Wicker had a good view of the knoll they'd abandoned. The wind was blowing gently along it, causing the tall grass to wave rhythmically. About halfway up, something caught his eye. A patch that wasn't swaying to the same music as the rest.

“I have movement,” he said into his throat mike.

It was the reason they'd surrendered the high ground for this tactical and literal hole. Anyone planning an assault on Obrecht's property
would want to take advantage of that knoll, but Gould's anxiousness to put them up there had made Rapp suspicious. He'd expected a betrayal and that was exactly what he was getting.

A camo-covered arm came into view at the bottom of his scope image and then disappeared again.

“Confirmed. One man closing on our former position. I'm guessing there are more just out of sight.”

“Can you hit him?” Coleman responded.

If he had his Barrett, it would be no problem. That kind of artillery was impossible to handle in the stand, though. That left him with his M39. An excellent weapon but not exactly built for these kinds of ranges.

“Real low percentage, Scott.”

Scott Coleman glanced skyward, but couldn't see the man in the tree above. When Wicker said low percentage, it meant “virtually impossible for the best shooters on the planet.” In the years they'd worked together, though, the diminutive SEAL had rarely missed.

“You're my only failure, Mitch. I thought I'd forget about it as time went on but it just got worse.”

Coleman ignored Gould's voice over the radio and activated his throat mike again. “What have you got, Bruno?”

“The guards are playing it cool, but they've all pulled back behind the wall. I have no targets.”

“Stan. You're just in time to be the icing on my cake.”

Coleman confirmed McGraw's report with the video being beamed from Dumond's drone. There was no more time to screw around.

“Wick. Take the shot. If you can't hit him, get close enough to put the fear of God into him.”

When those mercs made it to the top of the knoll and found no one, it wouldn't take them long to locate his team's tracks and descend on them. On the other hand, if they lost the element of surprise and found themselves under fire by an unseen sniper, they might retreat. Mercenaries tended to like to push things only so far. It was hard to cash checks with half your head missing.

The familiar puff of Wicker's silenced rifle sounded and Coleman glanced pointlessly up into the tree again. “Report.”

“I think I winged him,” Wicker said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Yeah. Confirmed. I have blood on the grass. He's still moving, though. Do you want me to try to finish him?”

“Negative. Let him bleed.”

A wounded soldier was almost always more damaging than a dead one. If the injury was serious, he might panic or start screaming in pain—two things that could quickly demoralize the most battle-hardened unit. Even if he held it together, his comrades would have to evaluate how bad he was and whether they were going to leave him or attempt a rescue.

“No new targets and the wounded man has taken cover,” Wicker said. “They're good. No question of that.”

Coleman nodded silently. It's exactly how his team would have reacted. Go still, evaluate the situation, and try to ID the sniper.

“If you get another reasonable target, take the shot. Hurt him bad but try not to kill him. Let's give them something other than us to deal with.”

“Roger that.”

“Bruno?”

“Still nothing.”

Coleman returned to his pack and unstrapped the SMAW rocket launcher secured to its side. This particular unit fired a prototype thermobaric projectile that had been heavy as hell to carry but was guaranteed to make an impression. Its developer at Raytheon had actually laughed out loud when he'd been asked if it could penetrate a reinforced cinder-block wall.

Gould was still talking, but Coleman tuned him out and activated his mike again. “Mitch, Stan. If you can hear this, get ready. Things are about to get a lot less subtle.”

ISI H
EADQUARTERS

I
SLAMABAD

P
AKISTAN

S
ENATOR
Carl Ferris and his entourage all rose to their feet when Taj entered the outer office. The American politician strode toward the smaller man, enveloping his hand and smiling broadly.

“Good to see you, Ahmed. It's been a long time.”

“Too long, sir. I'm honored that you took time out of your schedule to meet with me personally.”

“Deciding which chair Sunny Wicka's ass is in while she drones on about our new aid package isn't much of a priority for me.”

The program to be announced at next week's state dinner was yet another example of the bribes that the Americans believed would keep Pakistan docile.

Not that Taj objected to the influx of Western money. He would see to it that only a tiny portion of that billion dollars ever found its way into the hands of Pakistan's poor. The rest would be diverted to the military and the terrorist groups the Americans were so frightened by.

“Please join me in my office, Senator.”

Ferris waved at his people to stay where they were and followed the ISI director inside.

“Tea?”
Taj offered.

“I'm on a tight schedule, Ahmed.”

“Of course. I understand completely.”

Ferris had gained a visible amount of weight and was trying unsuccessfully to hide it with a creatively tailored suit. Undoubtedly it was the product of stress. The information given to the politician by Akhtar Durrani would have made for an explosive hearing—endless hours of Ferris hitting Irene Kennedy with specific dates, names, and places, while she stammered and equivocated. A bold first step toward his party's presidential nomination.

Unfortunately, Durrani was dead and Kennedy had discovered Ferris's relationship with the former ISI deputy director. She was keeping the information quiet for now, but the public release of evidence linking the prominent senator to Pakistani intelligence had the potential to devastate his political career.

“Let me say—” Taj started, but Ferris spoke over him.

“Kennedy told me that Durrani kidnapped her man Joe Rickman and was torturing him for information. That they're both dead now.”

“Irene Kennedy is a professional liar.”

“And you're not?”

“I was appointed to this position specifically
because
I'm not, sir.”

Ferris frowned, but there was no skepticism in his expression. Like everyone else, he saw Taj as weak. A pawn to be used and, if necessary, sacrificed.

“So you're saying it's not true?”

“That would be too simple, Senator. Kennedy mixes truth with lies to keep her enemies off balance.”

“Is that scotch?” Ferris said, pointing to a crystal service. Taj had his people bring it in specifically for this meeting.

“It is.”

Ferris poured himself a glass uninvited. “What's
your
truth, Ahmed?”

“Durrani was little more than a thug. He was not capable of creating a plan this complex. I can assure you that it was entirely Joe Rickman's
doing. He had become disillusioned with the CIA in a similar way that you have. He saw it as a corrupt and destructive organization that no longer answered to elected officials like yourself. Unfortunately, he was far more clumsy in his actions than you would have been.”

It was untrue to the point of being transparent. Rickman had been a brilliant strategist. He'd spent years devising a plan that had a very real chance of dismantling America's intelligence apparatus. This partisan half-wit would be no more capable of comprehending Rickman's complex machinations than Durrani was.

Of course, the senator didn't see it that way and accepted the blatant flattery without a second thought. “How were they killed? Kennedy didn't say what happened to Rickman and the reports said your man had a heart attack.”

“They were shot by one of Durrani's men with the help of an anonymous American.”

“An American? Are you sure?”

“Yes. We have recordings of his voice. It's impossible to prove because of the poor quality, but we believe it was Mitch Rapp.”

Ferris's face twisted with hate and he stalked around the room for a few moments, processing what he'd heard. Finally he stopped short. “That bitch! She made me believe that Durrani had been playing me and murdered Rickman. She said she'd release the emails between us and make me out to be either a traitor or some naïve patsy. She threatened to have me arrested. Me!”