Kennedy nervously cleared her throat and said, “He called me at home.”
He took the news stoically and said, “So he’s alive.”
“Yes.”
“Did he have an explanation for missing his check-in?”
“Yes. He was shot.”
If Stansfield was alarmed, he didn’t show it. “How bad?”
“I’m not sure. He said he’d been hit in the shoulder. That was all.”
“And this was on your home phone?”
His tone was devoid of judgment, but Kennedy knew it was there. She nodded reluctantly.
Stansfield was far from thrilled to hear this news. He sat motionless for a few moments and then said, “Your phones are clean as far as you know?”
“They were swept two weeks ago.”
“Do you record your calls?” Stansfield asked this only as a precaution.
“No,” she answered honestly, “I’ve never seen the need.”
“How long did the call last?”
“Less than two minutes.”
The answer seemed to take some of the tension out of Stansfield. “I need you to repeat everything that was said.”
Kennedy relayed nearly verbatim what Rapp had said. The only thing she omitted was her warning Rapp about Victor’s keeping an eye on the apartment.
“Have you talked to Ridley?” Stansfield asked, referring to Rob Ridley, the leader of the advance team.
“Yesterday. He assured me that Tarek was traveling without bodyguards.”
“So the advance team missed them and Rapp missed them as well,” Stansfield said. “I find it hard to believe both of them would miss something so obvious.”
“I do as well.”
“So . . . we have four dead men in the room that the Libyans are claiming were Tarek’s bodyguards, but our best advance team and one of our best operatives somehow never saw them.” He took off his glasses and set them in his lap. “That doesn’t add up.”
“No it doesn’t. And this part about the fifth man . . . the one who shot Rapp.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t get it at first, but now it seems obvious. He’s telling us that he had nothing to do with the deaths of the two hotel guests and the worker in the alley. He specifically said he stuck to protocol. That he went out the window and the fifth man was responsible for the other three.”
Stansfield had understood what Rapp was trying to say the first time Kennedy repeated the conversation. His mind had already jumped to another detail. “I received a report from our station chief last night. He said the four dead bodyguards all had silenced MP5s.”
Kennedy pursed her lips. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“You’ve had protection details. Have you ever seen your details carry silenced weapons?”
Kennedy thought about the men who occasionally kept an eye on her when she was in a particularly nasty part of the world. “No . . . come to think of it.”
“There’s also a rumor that the Paris police are having a hard time finding anyone who saw these bodyguards with Tarek.”
“You mean in the days preceding the attack?”
“Yes.”
“This doesn’t add up.”
“No it doesn’t,” Stansfield said. “You said Mitch said it was a trap?”
“Yes.”
Stansfield stood and walked over to his desk. He stopped and looked out the window at the rolling Virginia countryside. He began connecting the dots and after a half a minute he said, “I think he’s probably right. Bodyguards don’t carry silenced weapons.” Stansfield turned around. “Bodyguards make sure they are visible so they can act as a deterrent and bodyguards don’t fire their weapons aimlessly . . . at least not good ones.”
“I’m not sure I follow the last part?” Lewis asked.
“Apparently over three hundred rounds were fired in that hotel room. Doesn’t that seem a bit excessive to either of you?” Stansfield shook his head. “Put yourself in their shoes. You are tasked with protecting one of your country’s most important ministers. Do you think you are going to simply rush into the room, guns blazing on full automatic? Tarek and the prostitute were shot more than a dozen times each. I took another look at Mitch’s file yesterday. He’s one or two shots to the head and that’s it.”
Lewis nodded. “That’s how Hurley trained him. The caliber of the weapon and the distance to the target dictate the number of shots. Rapp likes to get close for the kill shot . . . that’s what Hurley calls it.”
