The Third Option (26 page)
Rapp had regained his composure by the time they reached Dumond's. Kennedy had already called Dumond and told him that Rielly had been taken. Dumond, never quite knowing how to deal with Rapp, decided not to attempt any words of comfort. Instead, he explained how the search for the Professor was going. Unfortunately, it wasn't going so well. Coleman's two men, Kevin Hackett and Dan Stroble, had been looking over thousands of photos of current and former State Department employees, and they had yet to come up with a solid match.
This was not what Rapp wanted to hear, and he could barely contain his anger. Dumond, however, had an idea that he thought might help. «When was the last time you tried this guy?»
«Around nine this evening.»
«And he hasn't answered since the first time you talked?»
«Yep.»
«Well, he's going to have to, isn't he?»
«Why?»
«If he's the one who took Anna, he's going to want to talk to you.»
«Yeah, you're right, but I don't see where you're going with this.»
«Well, he has no way of getting a hold of you. You never left him a number.»
«And?»
«He's waiting for you to call him.»
Rapp was a little irritated with Dumond for stating the obvious. «That's what I'm planning on doing once you have everything set to track the call.»
Dumond held up a finger. «I have a plan. I have a Smart Van on the way over. Irene authorized it.» Dumond was referring to a fourth-generation mobile digital surveillance unit that was made by Audio Intelligence Devices, a division of Westinghouse. The CIA's Science and Technology directorate customized the vehicles upon delivery.
«Marcus, you know how I hate all of this technical shit, so just give it to me in a language I can understand.»
Dumond started and stopped himself twice as he tried «I to state in the simplest terms what he wanted to do. Finally, he said, «If we have the van in the right position prior to the call, and you keep him on the phone long enough, I think I can track him.»
«You're sure?»
«No, I'm not sure, but if we get lucky and are in the right neighborhood when he takes the call, I can at the very least get us to within a few blocks,» Dumond cautioned, «That's assuming he's stationary.»
«How long until we can make the call?»
«The van should be here within five minutes.» Dumond pointed to a map on the kitchen counter, As he walked over to it, he said, «We really don't have any hits on his cell phone at this time of the day, so I can't guarantee we'll be in the right area when he takes the call.»
«What are you talking about, Marcus?» Rapp's voice was tinged with irritation.
«I pulled up his cell tower usage for the last three months and plotted it on the map. These bright yellow pieces of paper mark the top ten towers he has most frequently used.» Dumond grabbed a piece of paper lying on the map. «This lists the calls, what time of the day they were made, for how long, and what tower they were routed through.»
«Get to the point, Marcus.»
«The point is, I don't have him making too many calls after eleven in the evening, so it's going to be hard to predict what area of town he'll be in.»
«Shit.»
«In the morning we'll have a better chance.»
Coleman placed his hand on Rapp's shoulder and nodded toward Dumond's bedroom, Rapp followed him into the room and closed the door.
«What's up?»
«Are you sure you're up for this?» asked Coleman.
«What kind of a question is that?»
«It's a damn good one.»
«Have you ever known me not to be up for something?»
«I've never seen you in love.»
«What in the hell does that have to do with this?» snapped Rapp.
«It has everything to do with this. They have Anna, and it's your judgment. You're too emotional.»
«Don't worry about me, Scott.»
«I am going to worry about you. You're out there snapping at Marcus like he's your little brother.»
«He is like a little brother to me.»
Coleman took a step back. «This isn't good, man.»
«What isn't good?»
«I'm telling you, you're too emotional. I think you should turn this over to someone else.»
«Who? The fucking feds? Yeah… let's get the HRT in here. That would go over really well, right up to the point where Anna gets killed and they start asking who I am.»
«I'm not talking about the feds, Mitch. Just calm down for a second. You need to know when to let go. This thing is going to get worse before it gets better, and you can't let your emotions get in the way of making the right call.»
Rapp was going to argue but thought better of it. «If at any time you think I'm blowing this thing, you let me know; I respect your judgment, and I'll listen.» He paused for a second and added, «With one exception. Every last one of these motherfuckers is dead, and don't try to talk me out of it.»
THE CATERING VAN pulled up in front of Marcus Dumond's four-plex. It was white with a large black chef's hat on both sides and the back cargo doors. Above the hat was the name of a catering outfit, Kip's, and beneath it was a phone number. The catering outfit was legitimate, run by a former Agency employee and his wife. The Agency had arranged some very favorable financing for the couple, and in return they had a legitimate cover for some of their surveillance vans.
Dumond climbed into the back of the van with two laptops and a bag of equipment. Rapp and Coleman joined him in the van, and Kevin Hackett and Dan Stroble followed in Coleman's Explorer. Dumond told the driver to take them to Washington Circle and closed the door. Dumond went to work immediately, getting his laptops set up and bringing the rest of the equipment on-line. One side of the van contained three pizza racks stuffed with high-tech surveillance equipment. In the middle were two color active-matrix flat panel displays. The top one was touch-sensitive and used to control a vast array of technology, and the bottom one was for video feed. Dumond sat in a captain's chair that was bolted to the floor. There was a small space under the monitors for Dumond's legs. Rapp and Coleman watched him work from a bench seat in the back.
It took almost fifteen minutes for them to reach Washington Circle. There was a luggage rack on the roof of the van. It was never used. Instead, it housed a myriad of antennas, video cameras, directional microphones, and a direction finder. After Dumond had hacked his way into the Sprint network, he got the direction finder ready and told Rapp it was a go.
Rapp and Coleman had been discussing how to handle the call. They both need that, to start with, it was best if Rapp acted as if he knew nothing about Rielly's disappearance.
Dumond had rigged the cell phone so both he and Coleman could listen in on the call. He was also recording the conversation on a DAT. Rapp punched in the number and counted the rings. When he hit four, his heart sank for fear that the call would once again go unanswered, but then, after the sixth ring, someone picked up. Rapp said, «Professor, how are you doing?»
PETER CAMERON HAD left Rielly sitting in the living room and walked toward the front of the house when his phone started ringing. When he reached the foyer, he answered it and heard the familiar voice of Mitch Rapp. Cameron left the house and went to stand in the driveway next to his car. He didn't want Duser or his men to hear him talking.
«I'm sorry I haven't taken your calls, but a few things came up.»
«Like what?»
«I'd rather not talk about it over the phone.»
«Does that mean you'd like to meet in person?»
«Maybe.» Cameron hesitated. «If you can guarantee my safety.»
«That all depends on what you have to tell me.»
«Listen, when I was hired to do this, I had no idea who you were, and if I had, I would have never taken the job.»
«That makes me feel much better,» Rapp responded with sarcasm. «Who hired you?»
«I don't want to talk about it over the phone.»
«Then let's meet.»
Cameron leaned against his passenger door. «I would, but something tells me I might not leave that meeting alive.»
«That depends on what you have for me and how honest you are.»
«What I have for you is big! Really big! But you need to give me some assurances.»
«Like what?»
«That I'll live, and you'll leave me alone. That no one from the Agency ever knows who I am.»
«That might be a tough one.»
«Then you can forget it. I'll just disappear and take my chances that you'll never be able to track me down.»
«If I were you, I wouldn't feel so confident about that.»
Cameron looked up at the night sky and grinned. If only this fool knew who he was dealing with. «Listen, can't you see the position I'm in? I want some guarantees from you, or I'm better off on the run.»
There was a long pause, and then Rapp said, «All right, what is it that you need?»
«First thing… I meet you and only you. If I see anyone else around, I'm outta here. Second, I want your word that you will never reveal to anyone who I am.»
«That's going to depend on how good your info is.»
«It's good. It's going to blow you away.»
«Give me a hint.»
«The person who hired me is someone big here in town. Someone you'd never suspect.»
«If he's as big as you say he is, I'll get you a new name I and a new face.»
«I can take care of that on my own. I just want your word that you'll keep my identity to yourself and you won't try to kill me.»
«You have my word.»
Cameron checked his watch. He'd been on the line long enough. «Give me a number where I can reach you.»
Rapp hesitated for a second and then gave him the number to his mobile phone. «When are we going to meet?»
«Tomorrow morning around sunup. I'll call and give you instructions. I'm going to run you through some paces, and if I see anyone following you, I'm gone.» Cameron pressed the red button on his phone and laughed. It was too easy. Rapp was going to walk right into the trap. The man had no idea they had Rielly.
THE VAN WAS stopped. They had pulled over on 23rd Street between the State Department and the Navy Bureau of Medicine. Dumond worked the keyboard of the laptop on his right while Rapp and Coleman watched. After a few seconds, the boyish Dumond looked at Rapp and said, «We weren't even close.»
«What do you mean?»
«He's not even in the city. Hell, he's not even in the county.»
«Where is he?»
«He's out by the bay. South of Annapolis.»
Rapp jumped up from the bench seat and looked over Dumond's shoulder. «Show me where the tower is.»
Dumond pointed to the screen. «Right here. By Mount Zion.»
Rapp squinted at the screen, trying to decide if this was a coincidence or not. Keeping his eyes on the map, Rapp asked, «You said you've got a log of calls he made for the last four months.»
«Yep.»
«Has he ever used this tower before?»
Dumond grabbed the printout and flipped through the pages. It took him twenty seconds to scan the entire list. When he was done, he looked up at Rapp and said, «This is the first time this tower has handled a call for him.»
Noticing that something was bothering Rapp, Coleman asked, «What are you seeing that I'm not?»
«My house is about two miles from there.» Rapp pointed to the screen.
«Hmmrn.» Coleman scratched his chin and looked at the map. «They could have taken Anna to a safe house out there.»
«Yeah, they could have.» Rapp opened the small door leading to the driver and said, «Take us out to two-fourteen. Let me know as soon as we cross three-oh-one.» Rapp closed the door and looked at Coleman. «Tell the boys we're going out to Maryland.» He quickly punched Stansfield's number into his phone. When Kennedy answered, he said, «How quickly can you get a surveillance chopper to take a look at my house?»
«I can scramble one out of Andrews. I'd say they could 'be there within ten or twenty minutes.»
«Good. Get them airborne on the double.»
«Mitch, what's going on?»
«I can't get into it right now. Get the chopper moving, and call me back.»
The small hangar sat on a secluded portion of the massive Andrews Air Force Base, just south and east of Washington, D.C. It was manned twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, by a rotating set of pilots, technicians, and mechanics. When the call came in to scramble, the pilots were off the couch and strapped into the cockpit of the advanced Bell 430 helicopter within seconds. With the help of the chopper's Full Authority Digital Electronic Control system, the bird was started and ready for takeoff in thirty seconds. The Bell 430's normal civilian configuration was for two pilots and seven passengers. This bird had room for only four passengers. The rest of the room was taken up by surveillance equipment. A lone technician sat in back to monitor it.
As the four-bladed chopper began to roll away from die hangar, the copilot asked the control tower for permission to take off and gave them his desired heading. The request was granted almost instantly. No flight plan would be filed. No record would be kept of the helicopter's departure.
The pilots were both alumni of the Army's famous 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The group was known as the Night Stalkers. Both men had flown together in the dangerous skies over Somalia back in 1993. They considered themselves lucky to be alive. Several of their closest friends didn't make it back from that deployment.
The power was increased to the twin-turbine Allison 250-C40B engines. The helicopter lifted gracefully from the tarmac, its three landing wheels instantly retracting into the smooth underbelly of the machine. Heading due east, to avoid the main north-south runways of the base, the helicopter reached an altitude of three hundred feet and leveled off. They quickly reached a cruising speed of one hundred forty miles an hour on a loose easterly heading. One minute into the flight, the technician in back gave the copilot the exact location of their target. The copilot punched the numbers into his navigational computer, and a second later the computer gave him an ETA of nine minutes and thirty-four seconds.
The fast and quiet helicopter sliced through the cool fall air. Most pilots would be nervous flying at three hundred feet during the day, let alone a dark overcast evening, but these pilots were different. They had been trained by the U.S. Army to fly in the worst weather conditions possible, and in helicopters that were far less responsive than the Bell 430. To them, going from the noisy drab green choppers of the Army to the sleek, shiny; and quiet Bell 430 was like going from a Ford Taurus to a Jaguar.
As they neared the bay and the bright lights of the city faded behind them the pilots donned their night-vision goggles in staggered intervals, making sure to give each other time to adjust. They looped in south of the target, turned off their navigation lights, and swung out over the bay to a distance of three miles. Less than twelve minutes had elapsed from the time they had received the phone call to the time they were on station.
The pilots put the bird into a hover fifty feet above the dark water of the Chesapeake, and the technician in back went to work. Using an array of high-resolution and IR thermal imaging cameras, he began to survey the target.
PETER CAMERON WALKED back into the house and sat down on the couch near Rielly. With phone in hand and a genuine grin on his bearded face, he said, «I've got some good news and some bad news. Which one do you want first?»
«The bad.»
«Mitch isn't going to make it tonight, but he will be here bright and early in the morning.»
«What time?»
«Around seven.»
Rielly seemed a little dejected. She picked up the remote control and turned off the TV. It was approaching midnight, and she was tired. «I'm going to bed, then.» Rielly stood. «I assume none of your men is upstairs.»
«No. They're all down here. You will have complete privacy.»
«Thank you.» Rielly left the room, and Cameron followed her to the foot of the stairs.
«I'm going to have to leave for a little bit, but I'll be back before you get up.»
«All right.» Rielly said good night and went upstairs.
Cameron watched her ascend the staircase and admired her figure. Duser approached and did the same. When Rielly closed the door to the bedroom, Duser said, «She's got a nice ass.»
Cameron frowned and jerked his head for Duser to follow him. The two men stepped out onto the front porch. In a hushed voice, Cameron said, «Keep your head in the game, and don't even think about touching her.»
«Relax. She's going to be dead in the morning. What do you care?»
«Just keep your fucking hands off her, all right? Her boyfriend is going to be out here early, and I need you to concentrate on matters at hand.» Pointing to the vehicles in the driveway, he said, «The cars have to be moved.»
«Where?»
«I don't know, but they can't be here when he arrives.»
Duser nodded. «I'll figure something out. I need to send someone on a coffee and food run.»
Cameron wasn't sure what coffee and food had to do with moving the cars, so he ignored the comment and said, «I have to go back into the city to grab a few things. It should only take me a couple hours.» He checked his watch. «I'll be back around two. Three at the latest, all right?»
«Yeah.»
«If anything unusual happens, call me.»
«Will do.»
«I HAVE ON E individual. He looks to be standing post at the rear of the house on the bay side.»
Rapp, Coleman, and Dumond had all donned headsets equipped with lip mikes. Using the van's secure communications equipment, Dumond had uplinked to a satellite so they could communicate with the chopper and see what they were viewing in real time.
Rapp listened intently as the faceless voice described the situation at his house, the van rocking slightly as they drove east on Highway 214. The lower screen in front of Dumond showed a picture that looked like a film negative-black and-white with varying shades of gray in between. The shots were being taken by an IR thermal imaging camera. The picture on the screen changed to one filled with mostly black and areas of red, yellow, white, and blue. Rapp stared at an area he knew to be his kitchen and listened to the technician say, «The crrtains are drawn, but I'm getting two… maybe three more heat signatures on the inside… that's on the first floor of the house… and possibly one more upstairs on the second floor.»
Rapp lifted his eyes to the area above the kitchen. He eagerly asked, «Can you tell if any of them are female?»
«The guy in back is definitely male. The people inside are sitting down, so I can't tell.»
«What about the one upstairs?»
There was about five seconds of silence and then, «It could be male or female, it could be a dog. I can't tell. I'm only getting a small heat signature.»
«Are you getting any audio?» asked Rapp.
«A little background noise, but that's it. I think they might have the TV on.»
«Can you get me an idea of what's happening on the other side of the house?»
«Affirmative. Give us a minute to relocate.»
Rapp pushed the lip mike on his headset up and said to Dumond, «Get Irene on the horn, and tell her to get the Special Operations group airborne and en route to my house immediately;» While Dumond was making the call, Rapp looked at Coleman and asked, «What in the hell is going on?»
«It looks like someone is having a party at your house.»
Rapp actually smiled. This was good news. He finally had an enemy he could engage. «What do you think the chances are that the Professor is in there?»
«Based on his cell tower usage, I'd say it's a pretty good bet that he's sitting at your kitchen table as we speak.»
Rapp looked at his cell phone. «We could confirm that pretty easily.»
«How?»
«Call him right now. The bird should be able to pick up noise of his phone ringing.»
Coleman thought about it for a second and said, «Wait the time is right. Let's get out there and get the SOG in place. We don't want to spook him.»
«All right.»
«Do you think that's Anna upstairs?»
«l hope so.»
The faceless voice came back over their headsets. «We have a couple of cars in the driveway.» Rapp, Coleman, and Dumond looked up at the screen and watched. «We also have one individual standing near the front door. He ears to be carrying a weapon. Let me see if I can get a little closer.» The picture zoomed in on the warm body standing on the front porch. The man's body was mostly red with a yellow glow around the edges. Near his waist was an elongated area of blue.
Coleman spoke before the technician did. «It looks like a machine pistol with a suppressor attached to the end.»
«Either that or an assault rifle.» Rapp squinted at the image.
A second red figure appeared on the front porch and then a third. Rapp's immediate fear was that they had somehow sighted the chopper. Using their call sign, Rapp asked, «Libra Three, have you been discovered?»
«That's a negative.» It was a different voice this time. «We're two miles out and obscured by a tree line.»
One of the men left the porch and walked over to one the cars. He climbed in, and a moment later the car started moving. The technician announced, «One, of the cars is leaving.»
«We see it.» Rapp flipped up his lip mike, looked at Marcus, and snapped, «Find out where we are, and tell him to step on it!» Pulling the lip mike back down, he asked, «Libra Three, can you keep contact with both targets?»
There was no response at first, and then, «That depends on how big the separation gets between the two.»
«Keep an eye on both for as long as you can.»
Dumond left the small door to the front of the van open and sat back down at his console. «He said we just passed Queen Anne Road.»
«That means we should be at the Muddy Creek exit in five minutes.» Looking at Coleman, Rapp pointed behind them with his thumb and said, «Tell the boys to be ready for some action.» Rapp watched the screen and listened to the technician call out the car's maneuvers. Rapp's thoughts kept going back to Anna. He was going to have to decide pretty quickly if the chopper was going to keep an eye on the house or follow the car.
Coleman knew what Rapp was thinking and said, «The house isn't going anywhere.» Rapp didn't say anything, he just kept staring at the screen. Coleman said, «Did you hear me? I said the… «
«I heard you.»
The secure phone on Dumond's console started ringing. Dumond grabbed it and then turned to Rapp. «It's Irene. She wants to know what's going on.»
Coleman persisted. «Mitch, the Professor could be in that car.»
«I know, I know.» He looked at Dumond and said, «I can't talk to her right now.»
The pilot of the chopper came over the headset. «You're going to have to make a decision between the car and the house.»
I can't afford to lose contact with the car,» Coleman persisted.
Dumond held out the phone a second time. «She says she wants to talk to you.»
Rapp felt like ripping the phone from the console and throwing it out the door. It wasn't what he wanted to do. But he knew what was right. Rapp lowered his lip mike and said, «Libra Three, stay with the car.» Then, tearing the headset off, he grabbed the phone and growled, «What?»