Rapp continued down the street, his alert eyes taking inventory of everything on the block. He noted every window and every doorway. He looked beyond the door frames and the curtains, into the shadows. If this was a trap, that was where they would be waiting.
Rapp turned onto an even narrower street. Sixty feet down, the American ducked into an alley that had been built long before cars were envisioned. The tunnel-like passage was four feet wide and enclosed in darkness. Slowing his pace, Rapp stopped in the second alcove on his left and closed his eyes. He set his canvas bag of bottles and cans down and listened intently while squeezing his eyelids tighter, trying to speed up the process of adjusting to the near total darkness.
GENERAL CAMPBELL FINISHED the mission briefing and stood at the far end of the room with Kennedy. For the last twenty-four hours they had worked almost nonstop to get everything in place, and now they looked on somewhat helplessly as the president analyzed the pros and cons of the mission.
After a minute of silence President Hayes looked at Director Stansfield and asked, “Who is this man we have on the ground?”
Director Stansfield closed his mission summary and placed it on the table.
“He is one of our best. Fluent in three languages, not counting English, and he understands another half dozen dialects well enough to get by.”
“Is he American?”
“Yes.” President Hayes nodded slowly, and then asked the million dollar question.
“Instead of exposing ourselves by trying to grab Harut…” The president paused and formulated the most tactful way to say what he was thinking.
“Why don’t we have your man-“The president looked to Kennedy.
“What is his name?”
“His code name is Iron Man.”
“Why don’t we have this Iron Man… eliminate Harut?”
President Hayes looked cautiously around the room, nervously aware that what he had just suggested was against the law.
“We have looked at that as an option, Mr. President, but there is another issue we haven’t discussed.” Kennedy looked to her boss.
Stansfield sat leaning back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other. He removed his left hand from his chin and said, “We have just recently come into some information,” Stansfield stated evenly, “that is directly related to this operation.
Yesterday I received a call from one of my counterparts abroad. They informed me that Hamas is targeting Washington for a terrorist attack.
When and where is not certain, but we have a corroborating source that can confirm this intelligence.”
Hayes shook his head and uttered a curse under his breath.
“Where did you get this information?”
“Our Israeli friends brought it to my attention several weeks ago, and it was corroborated by the British this morning.”
“Elaborate, please.” Hayes made a rolling motion with his index finger.
“The Israelis picked up a Hamas commander during one of their sweeps through the West Bank about a month ago.
While they were interrogating him, he made several references to an attack that was being planned here in Washington. The Israelis couldn’t get anything more out of the commander on this issue, except that the man behind the operation is none other than Rafique Aziz.”
President Hayes swiveled in his chair and looked up at the smaller screen that vividly showed the carnage left from one of Aziz’s bus bombings in Israel. The mere thought of the same thing happening in Washington, D.C.” caused the president’s blood to boil.
“This dovetails,” continued Stansfield, “with the NSA’s report that Saddam has offered to bankroll any terrorist attack that is carried out in the United States.”
President Hayes looked at the director of the CIA and rose out of his chair. He reminded himself to stay calm. Saddam had become the unreachable thorn in America’s back, and it was time to start dealing with him in a more ruthless manner.
With sarcasm dripping from his voice, the president said, “This is just wonderful.” All Hayes could think about was the lunatic terrorism of the Middle East playing itself out in the streets of America. He knew there was no way he could allow it to happen, not if he could take the battle to them first.
Irene Kennedy half listened to the conversation between the two generals, her boss, and the president. At the moment, she was more concerned with Mitch Rapp. Rapp was her recruit, and she had grown very fond of him. There was nothing sexual about the connection; it was more in the nature of a bond between two people who had been through the wringer together.
Kennedy had spent more than half of her youth bouncing around the Middle East as her father was moved from one embassy to another. As a State Department brat she saw nothing unusual in this, since most other friends had gone through similar experiences. In fact Kennedy had loved growing up in the Middle East, but unfortunately all of those fond memories came crashing down in April of 1983 when a car bomb ripped through the U.S. embassy in Beirut. Kennedy’s father was killed in the blast, and her life was forever changed.
The anger she felt in the wake of the tragedy had led her to the CIA, and it didn’t take Langley long to make up their mind about Kennedy. She had spent twelve years other life growing up in the Middle East, she had a doctorate in Arabic studies, and she was motivated. Kennedy was earmarked from the very start for counterterrorism. Now, some sixteen years later, she was running the show at the Counterterrorism Center.
But that was only part of Kennedy’s story-the part that was reported to the legislative oversight committees. A separate job that fell under Kennedy’s purview was responsibility for the Orion Team, one of the most secretive organizations within the CIA. Only a handful of people knew of the group’s existence, and it was to stay that way indefinitely. It had to. The group had been formed by Director Stansfield in response to another terrorist incident. The downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December of 1988. Irene Kennedy was given the reins and instructed to build a group with one single task-to hunt down and kill terrorists. As Director Stansfield had said at the time, “There are certain people here in Washington who have decided it is time to go on the offensive. “Who those people were, Kennedy had never asked, and in truth, she never wanted to know. She only knew that she agreed with the strategy and was willing to risk everything to help implement it.
That risk was very real, and by no means marginal. If the wrong people on the Hill, or over at Justice, ever got wind of the Orion Team, they would hold an inquisition, and Kennedy’s head would be the first one on the chopping block.
The truth was, the American people would never be able to stomach the escapades of Mitch Rapp and the Orion Team.
In the political grandstanding that would take place under a congressional investigation, everyone would forget the fact that it was a war. The team would be portrayed as a group of rogue operatives with complete disregard for the Constitution.
Someone like Rapp, who was at this very moment putting his life on the line, would be eaten alive by the country-club liberals and conservative opportunists looking to make a name for themselves.
Kennedy felt the burden of responsibility for Rapp. She was the one that had gone to Syracuse University in the winter of 1988 and discovered him. He did not find the CIA-as she had done after her father’s death-they had found him.
Thirty-five students from Syracuse had perished on Pan Am Flight 103, and one of them had been Mitch Rapp’s high school sweetheart. Irene Kennedy had dangled the prospect of revenge in front of an anguished Rapp, and he had leapt at the chance without a moment’s hesitation. Now, a decade later, they had turned him into quite possibly the most efficient and lethal killer in the modern era of the Agency.
President Hayes had heard enough. He pondered the ramifications for a long moment. If he chose not to act, the end result could cost American lives. Yes, he could lose men tonight, but these men had assumed a risk when
