The Third Option

  Cameron set the paper down and stared aimlessly at his wall. Would national security advisor be too lofty a post? Maybe not. He had the practical experience and now the academic title. If anyone could make it happen, it would be Clark. His pie-in-the-sky daydream was rudely interrupted by the ringing of one of his phones. He knew it wasn’t his office phone—that had an entirely different ring. But he could never tell his two cell phones apart. One was legitimate, meaning it was purchased under his real name. The second phone was purchased using a bogus name. He had paid for a year’s worth of service using a money order. One thousand minutes a month, anywhere, any time.

  The phones were in his leather briefcase. Cameron reached in with two hands and grabbed both phones. The Motorola was the one ringing. No number came up on the caller ID, but that wasn’t unusual.

  He pressed the send button and said, “Hello.” There was no immediate response, so Cameron repeated himself.

  “Professor, how are you doing?” came the slightly menacing voice.

  Cameron leaped from his chair—the voice on the phone caused the hair on his neck to stand on end. He knew instantly who was on the line. He had listened to that voice in Germany. Attempting to sound unfazed, Cameron replied, “Ahhh…fine. And you?”

  “I would say I’m doing very well.” Rapp offered nothing further, intentionally letting the tension build.

  Cameron went over to the window and looked down on the street to see if anyone was watching him. Silently, he cursed himself for not preparing for this contingency. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to help me out. I have no idea who this is.” He did not sound convincing.

  “Oh, I think you do.” Rapp’s voice was steady and direct.

  “No…I really don’t.”

  “Come on, Professor. We have mutual friends, or should I say had mutual friends?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “The Jansens of Evergreen, Colorado, or should I say the Hoffmans of Germany?”

  Cameron was shaking. How in the hell had Rapp found him? Grasping for words, he finally managed to say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think you do.”

  “Who is this?”

  “I told you…I’m an old friend of the Jansens. In fact, I think we almost bumped into each other in the woods once.”

  Cameron grabbed his forehead with his free hand and squeezed. How in the hell did Rapp know he’d been in the woods that night? He hadn’t even told the Jansens. “Listen, I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about.”

  “Why don’t you drop the act, Professor? We need to negotiate.”

  “Negotiate?” asked an incredulous Cameron. “For what?”

  “Your life.”

  “My life.” Cameron’s voice cracked under the strain. “Just what in the hell are you talking about?”

  “Cut the bullshit.” Rapp’s voice took on a harder edge. “I’m going to call you back in one hour. In the meantime, I suggest you calm down and gather your thoughts. My offer is simple. You tell me what I want to know, specifically who hired you, and I’ll let you live. And if you have half a brain, you won’t tell your employer about this call.” Rapp paused, giving Cameron a second to think about things, then added, “If you screw with me in the slightest way, I’m going to do to you what you did to the Jansens. Except I’ll be much closer than you were. I promise you, the last thing you’ll feel before you die is my warm breath on the back of your neck.”

  The line went dead. Cameron was left standing in the middle of his office staring at his phone—shaking. “How in the hell did he find me?” Cameron felt the urge to run. He needed to get out of his cramped office. He shoved the phones back in his briefcase and grabbed his laptop. He left everything else where it was and locked the door behind him. He needed to find someplace safe. A place where he could think things through and figure out what he was going to tell Clark.

  It had been more than an hour. Eighty-seven minutes, to be exact. Rapp paced in frustration from Dumond’s kitchen through the dining room and into the living room. He stepped over a lime-green Nintendo Game Boy that was on the floor in front of the fifty-two-inch TV and looked out the window. Rapp’s new companion, Shirley, came up beside him and rubbed her neck against his leg. Rapp scratched the top of her head. Kevin Hackett and Dan Stroble, two of Coleman’s men, were supposed to be arriving any minute. They were bringing more firepower in case they needed it. That had been Coleman’s idea, and Rapp didn’t argue. Rapp felt more than secure with his 9-mm Beretta. Anyone who was foolish enough to try to take them down would lose a lot of men.

  Rapp checked his watch. It was twenty past four in the afternoon. The rain had started to fall again in a slow, steady trickle. He had tried the Professor’s phone five times, and each time he had received a recorded message telling him the customer was not available. Something was wrong. Coleman had listened to the first call on another extension and had agreed with Rapp. The Professor sounded scared, and he was lying. He knew exactly who Rapp was and what had happened in Germany and Colorado.

  Now Rapp feared they may have lost the man. They may have spooked him into disappearing entirely. Rapp worried about how long this would take to tie up. He was going to see it through to the end, no matter how long it took, but if this Professor decided to disappear, it could be years, and it would mean using the Agency’s legitimate assets, something Rapp was loath to do.

  Coleman approached Rapp at the window and said, “I hope he didn’t decide to tell his employer about the call.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Rapp watched the drops falling in a puddle that had formed between two heaved sections of sidewalk. “They need to know what we know.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If he’s with his employer right now, they’re trying to figure out just how much we know.”

  “Well, based on the conversation you had with him, he should be able to figure out that you don’t know who he’s working for.”

  “And we have to hope that he doesn’t pass that on to his boss, or he’s going to end up just like the Jansens.”

  “Yeah.” Coleman agreed. “You know, there’s something we haven’t discussed enough.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Motive. Who and why? You have a lot of enemies, Mitch.”

  “Most of my enemies are the same as yours. They live in the Middle East, and they don’t have the type of clout to penetrate that operation I was running in Germany.”

  “So who is it?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m leaning toward someone here in D.C.”

  “What about the Israelis?”

  Rapp shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. As I look back on what happened in Germany, I’m starting to think that I wasn’t the target.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Think about it. The Jansens had ample opportunity to kill me. Why did they wait and shoot me after I had killed the count?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because they wanted me to be fingered for the hit.”

  Coleman thought it over for a second. “Then why are you ruling Israelis out? They get you to do their dirty work and make sure none of the heat comes down on them.”

  “No.” Rapp shook his head. “The Israelis are never afraid to take a little heat. Especially if they can prove the person they killed was in bed with Saddam.”

  “Yeah…I suppose you’re right.”

  “Whoever did it wanted me exposed. They didn’t want personal vengeance.”

  “How can you be sure? You’ve been involved in some pretty serious shit over the years. You probably couldn’t begin to count the enemies you’ve made.”

  “No, I couldn’t, but you’re missing the point. Someone had the clout to penetrate that operation in Germany. That is no easy thing. It would take a person in a pretty powerful position to have accessed that information.” Rapp pointed at himself. “If I was the target, why dust me in
Germany? Why not have the Jansens kill me here in town, out at my house? Why not have this Professor put a bullet in my head from two hundred meters like he did to the Jansens?”

  Coleman slowly nodded. Rapp was right. It didn’t make sense. “So, if you weren’t the ultimate target, then who is?”

  “I don’t know, but if their intent was to have me found at the scene and identified…” Rapp paused and thought about the ramifications. “That would have spelled trouble for a lot of people.”

  “Namely the president.”

  “Yep, and the Agency.”

  Coleman thought about it for a moment and added, “That still doesn’t rule out foreign involvement.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But my gut tells me it’s someone here in town.”

  Dumond called from the other room. Rapp and Coleman went back into the dining room and found a grinning Marcus Dumond leaning back in his chair.

  “I’ve got some info on your man.” Dumond pointed to the computer screen in the middle. “His mobile phone account is through Sprint, and it’s registered under the name of Tom Jones. It was purchased at a Radio Shack in Alexandria five months ago. It looks like he paid for a full year of service in advance.”

  “What did he use?” asked Rapp.

  “A Mastercard. I already checked into the credit card account. It was opened and closed a month later. The billing address is for an apartment in Falls Church. We can look into it, but my guess is it’s a dead end.”

  Rapp agreed. “What else do you have?”

  “Something you’re going to find interesting.” Dumond pointed at the screen to his left. “This is a map of downtown from the Hill to the Potomac. All of these little red dots you see are towers that Sprint owns and operates.” Dumond scrolled down the screen. “This is a list of all the calls that have been made to this phone in the last thirty days.”

  Rapp looked at the list. “What about calls he has made?”

  “There aren’t any. He’s smart. He knows someone could do exactly what I’m doing right now. The trail ends here.”

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t distress just yet. I do have one piece of information that might be useful.” Dumond scrolled back up to the map of the city. “Almost half of the calls he has received have been handled by this one tower right here.” Dumond pointed to a spot four blocks west of the White House. “After this tower there’s another one in Georgetown that pops up a lot, and then one more on the Hill. Other than that, the rest appear to be random.”

  Rapp knelt down and looked at the screen. “Can you sort these calls by the time of day they were received?”

  “I’m already on it for you. I’m going back to the start of the service and plotting them by tower, day of the week, and time.”

  “How long until you have something you can show me?”

  “An hour or two, and I should have it pretty well nailed.”

  “Good work, Marcus.” Rapp looked over his shoulder at Coleman and pointed at the screen. “Look at what’s just two blocks away from this tower.”

  Coleman squinted. “George Washington University.”

  “No.” Rapp moved his finger a couple of inches down. “The State Department.” He tapped the spot with his index finger and said, “I’ll bet my left nut this guy works for State.”

  Frowning, Coleman looked at the screen. “Why State? He could just as easily work at the White House or…” Coleman looked at some of the other buildings. “The World Bank or maybe the Federal Reserve. Hell, the United Nations has even got an office there.”

  “It’s State. I know it is. Remember what Irene told us about Secretary Midleton calling her Saturday morning to find out if the Agency had anything to do with Hagenmiller’s death?”

  Coleman thought about what Kennedy had said. It was true that Midleton had seemed to be in on the action a little too quickly. Coleman felt his chest tighten just a notch. If this thing was connected to the State Department, things could get really ugly. “I think you might have something, but we need to talk to Irene about it immediately.” As an afterthought, Coleman added, “And I don’t think we should do it over the phone.”

  SENATOR CLARK HAD all of the players gathered. They were in one of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s soundproof briefing rooms on the second floor of the Hart Building. Clark sat at the head of the long black table with a glass of scotch in his hand. It was a few minutes before five in the evening. He usually waited until after five to pour his first drink, but tonight he had made an exception. He was trying to get the others to relax, especially Congressman Rudin. He was sitting to Clark’s left, looking as ornery as ever. Midleton was next to Rudin, and across from them, on the other side of the table, was their guest of honor—Jonathan Brown, the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  Congressman Rudin had demanded that something be done. Kennedy’s baldfaced lies to his committee could not go unpunished. Clark, always willing to play the role of problem solver, suggested they hold a very discreet meeting. Rudin liked the idea. In his current state of rage, anything other than doing nothing sounded good. Clark had personally made the phone calls. He first called DDCI Brown and asked if he could come to the Hill on an informal visit. Informal was code for off the record. Brown, always willing to keep the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee happy, readily agreed to the meeting. He had arrived in an unmarked car and entered the building through the underground parking garage. Secretary of State Midleton had done the same. It wouldn’t do to have him parading across town in his armor-plated limousine, so he came in a government sedan with blacked-out windows.

  Senator Clark leaned back in his chair and crossed his long legs. Looking at the number two man at the CIA, Clark said, “Jonathan, my colleague from the House is a little concerned over who is running the show at your place.”

  “I’m more than a little concerned,” snapped Rudin. “I’m fucking irate. I’m so irate, I’m thinking about holding hearings.”

  Clark reached out and placed a hand on Rudin’s bony forearm. Not yet, my friend, he thought to himself. I’ll let you know when it’s time for that. Clark patted Rudin’s arm. “Let’s try and stay civil. I don’t think Jonathan is the problem.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you who the problem is. It’s that bitch Irene Kennedy.”

  Secretary of State Midleton frowned. “I don’t think that kind of language is necessary.”

  Rudin, never one to be concerned with decorum, scoffed at the secretary’s concern. “Get off your high horse, Charles. This is no time to worry about etiquette. This is serious shit. I think the CIA killed Count Hagenmiller, and I think that bitch Irene Kennedy came before my committee this morning and lied about it.”

  Jonathan Brown’s face was as white as a sheet, and Midleton was busy pursing his lips and shaking his head in disgust. Clark sat back and enjoyed. It was Brown who spoke first. His voice was a little shaky.

  “I can assure you that the CIA has taken no such action.”

  “Oh, can you?” Rudin’s voice was filled with doubt. “You’re not going to like this, Mr. Brown, but I don’t think you have the faintest idea what Thomas Stansfield does and doesn’t do. He runs that agency like a dictatorship.”

  Brown was on the defensive. “I have found Director Stansfield to be honest and fair.”

  “That’s because you haven’t bothered to dig too deep.”

  “Listen,” Brown stuck his hands out in an attempt to slow Rudin down. “If you have evidence of such illegal action by either Director Stansfield or Dr. Kennedy, bring it to me, and I will make sure explanations are given.”

  “Bring it to you! Do you think I’m an idiot? If I had any evidence, I’d haul their asses before my committee, and I’d sic the Justice Department on them.”

  Clark could tell Brown was about to snap. As a former federal judge, he was not used to being addressed in such a manner. Clark grabbed Rudin’s arm again and said, “Take it easy, Albert.”

  “Yes, ple
ase do,” added Midleton. “Your behavior is embarrassing.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that horse shit, Charles.” Rudin wheeled around and faced the secretary of state. “You wipe your ass just like the rest of us. Just because you’re not on the Hill anymore doesn’t mean you’re any better than the rest of us.”

  Rudin had overstepped his bounds. Midleton hadn’t become secretary of state by letting people run him over. He spun his chair around and faced Rudin. “I have always been better than you, you emotional little hack, and I always will be better than you. Now, I suggest you keep your tongue in check, or I will have a little meeting with the party leadership and demand that you be stripped of your pathetic little committee.”

  This was almost too good to be true, Clark thought. If only his colleagues could see it. It was time to settle things down, though, and get back to the plan. Clark grabbed Rudin’s shoulder with one beefy hand and pulled him away from Midleton before he could do any more damage. “Albert, calm down and shut your mouth for a minute.” Rudin tried to speak, but Clark stopped him. “This is coming from one of your best friends. Just shut your mouth. I understand why you’re upset. So does Charles, and I think Jonathan does, too, but you’re not doing anybody any good by taking this out on the wrong people.”

  Again, Rudin tried to speak, but Clark held up a finger and silenced him.

  “If you are right about Kennedy and Stansfield, and I’m not so sure you are, then we need to work with Jonathan to try and get to the bottom of this. We don’t need to beat him up over something he had no control over.”

  “If I may,” Midleton interjected. “I see some potential conflicts over separation of powers.”

  “Listen.” Clark sighed as if he wanted nothing to do with any of this. “My position has always been clear on this issue. I think the CIA is a very important part of this nation’s national security. My friend and I disagree on this.” Clark gestured to Rudin. “The last thing I want to see is the CIA weakened by hearings.” Clark looked Midleton in the eye and prepared to address his real concern. “I like President Hayes. He’s a good man. I mean no harm to his administration, and I think you know that, Charles. You and I sat across the aisle from each other for years. Have you ever known me to put party politics before national security?”