Executive Treason (28 page)

Witherspoon felt Mycroft’s hands brush his crotch. “Well, breakfast did sound good, but….”

“My sentiments exactly.” Mycroft said softly. He pushed closer. Witherspoon responded by pressing right into his companion’s hand. He let out a quiet sigh.

“Why don’t you lay down on the bed like a good boy?”

Witherspoon obeyed.

“Just relax. Well, not completely. And I’ll be right with you.”

Mycroft went to his suitcase, which lay on the stand provided by the hotel. He opened it up, with the top blocking Witherspoon’s view. “I’ve got a little surprise for you, Donald.”

“Oh?” Witherspoon leaned forward on the bed a little.

“No, back down you go. I want you to be perfectly still.” Mycroft busied himself. “What’s that on your neck? A little cut?”

“Yes. Shaving this morning.”

“What a shame. Such a pretty face, too.”

Witherspoon was feeling very comfortable and safe. He all but forgot that he was running for his life less than thirty minutes ago.

“What do you have, Terry?”

“You’ll see,” the British visitor said seductively.

Witherspoon thought he heard the sound of something being screwed together.

“What is it?” he repeated.

“Something to die for, Donald.”

Witherspoon flashed on a funny notion. Everything Mycroft said had been provocative and sexy. But not this time. An uneasy feeling came over him.

Mycroft’s hand rose from behind the suitcase. Something long and cylindrical emerged.

“Something naughty?” Witherspoon asked.

“Naughty indeed,” Mycroft replied in a soothing voice. A fraction of a second later, he pulled the trigger on his 9 mm Heckler & Koch P7 pistol. The MX 12 Reflex Suppressor stifled the sound of the bullet, which created a hole directly between Donald Witherspoon’s rather dead eyes. It produced less blood than Witherspoon had shaving.

Mycroft returned the gun to the suitcase and closed the top. He wore thin leather gloves, which he’d slipped on before attaching the silencer. He’d keep them on until he was far from the hotel. There would be no fingerprints, and no trace of a Terrence Humphrey Mycroft. He never stayed in the room. It was merely a backup.

He’d intended to take out Witherspoon with less fanfare, but the encounter with the Secret Service agent required a change in venue. And the assassin was always prepared.

The White House
Monday, 2 July

“Can you possibly visit Boston without killing someone?” the president asked.

Roarke shrugged off a laugh. Yes. Two men in two years. Both hired killers, both dead because they were after Katie. But now Witherspoon was also dead. This one went into Depp’s column, not his. “You can’t blame me for Witherspoon,” Roarke said.

Roarke explained how a hotel maid discovered Witherspoon’s rather ventilated body late in the day when she went in to turn down a bed. Police were all over the room in a matter of minutes. The victim definitely was not the woman who had checked into the Wyndham. They quickly ID’d him as a Donald Witherspoon, resident Back Bay, Boston. But the woman? The police sent out an APB for a 35-year-old, lanky blonde from Sante Fe, New Mexico, who checked in with a MasterCard. They couldn’t have known that they were looking for someone who didn’t exist.

Roarke learned about Witherspoon’s death shortly after his plane landed at Reagan National. Earlier in the day, he had alerted the Boston Police that someone may try to kill Witherspoon. Someone did. They told him what happened and where, but that they were looking for a woman. Roarke tried to set them straight, but the hotel clerk was insistent that the guest was a woman.

“So why was it necessary to kill Witherspoon?” Taylor asked.

“Because he colored outside the lines. And because Depp can’t walk away from money.”

“But why?”

Roarke explained his theory. “Witherspoon probably learned she was helping me again. With or without—and I’m inclined to believe without approval—I think he ordered a hit on her. It failed.”

“Thankfully,” Morgan Taylor added.

“Thankfully,” Roarke sighed. “But the secret got out. Somehow. Not me. I kept it out of the news. I even stuck Katie in a safe house for a couple of days in Lexington. Still….”

“Haddad,” the president said to himself.

“Who?”

“A name. Go on.”

“So Witherspoon steps out of line, and whoever the hell he’s working for finds out.” He picked up a pen on the president’s desk and worked it through his fingers. “Just like he finds out about everything,” he continued. “And in comes our friendly assassin to clean up the mess. This time he posed as a coffee grinder in a Starbucks opposite the law offices.”

When Roarke finished telling the story, Morgan Taylor let out an exhausted breath. “Oh, Jesus.”

“We’ve got to find this guy,” Roarke said. “He’s positively incredible. He can turn into anybody—a man, a woman. And fast.”

“A real chameleon.”

“A viper. He sheds one skin and puts on another. All different. All distinctive. And all believable.”

“Like an actor?” Taylor asked.

“Someone with phenomenal acting skills.”

“And a killing machine,” the president said.

“Effective, professional, efficient,” Roarke said. “He knows how to complete a mission.”

Neither Roarke nor the president had taken seats since their conversation began. They were barely two feet from one another. No microphones, like the ones used by Nixon, were there to record the next part of the conversation.

“I’m going after him, boss. I swear to God I’m going to hunt him down.”

“That’s still going to leave the man who is making your assassin very rich. He’s the one we really need to find.”

“Have Mulligan do that. I want the killer.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten how I like to do things,” Taylor scowled. “Everybody’s going to work together. No Lone Ranger shit. Do you have that?”

Roarke nodded.

“Good. There’s enough crap flying around here now. I don’t need you off doing your own thing. You report everything to me.”

“And you tell me what you know?”

The president was taken back by such a direct comment. “What?”

“The name. I believe it was Haddad.”

Morgan Taylor let a slow smile spread over his face. He snorted and took his seat, and motioned for Roarke to sit from across the desk.

“Okay, smart-ass, sit down. I’ve got a little time to kill before I head out to Andrews.”

“Where’d we get his name from?”

“Not pertinent to this discussion.”

Roarke knew not to press. If Taylor had wanted, he would have told him. “Does he have a full name?”

“Matter of fact he does. Haddad. Ibrahim Haddad. Miami, Florida. Of late, but not recently.”

“What a surprise.”

Andrews Air Force Base
Suitland, Maryland

Colonel Peter Lewis had the credentials. And he had the stomach. The credentials required him to have more than 2,000 hours in the cockpit, an unimpeachable career record, and worldwide flying experience. The stomach prepared him for being called at the last minute to fly the President of the United States anywhere at a moment’s notice.

It had been quiet for a while. Too long, thought the pilot of Air Force One. He liked being in the air better than on the ground. He felt in control there. He walked around the great plane with the 89th Airlift Wing’s chief maintenance officer. “We’re wheels up at sixteen fifty-five. We looking good, Rossy?”

“Always,” answered Lt. Eric Ross. He cocked his head toward the twin 747 some 200 yards away. “Same for two-niner,” indicating that SAM-29000, the twin 747 in Hangar 19, was ready as well. “We’ll roll her out in thirty minutes.”

“You swap out the nose tires on our bird?” Lewis hadn’t liked the feel the last time he landed Air Force One.

“Yes, sir. You’ll be riding with the Michelin Man. Smooth and comfy.”

When Colonel Lewis heard it from Rossy, he believed it. The lieutenant was the best. He ran system checks twice a day and again right before any flight. What he couldn’t personally get to, his men did. The next full review was scheduled for 2010, when the twin planes logged twenty years in service. But as far as Lt. Eric Ross was concerned, 2010 came each and every morning.

Still, Lewis kicked the tires. Old habits die hard for the colonel of Air Force One. “It’ll be good to have Top Gun back aboard.” Top Gun was the handle the Secret Service gave to Morgan Taylor, in honor of his years as a fighter pilot.

“Yes, sir.” Ross was just as surprised by Taylor’s return to the White House as everybody else. He knew the president had more than a basic understanding of Air Force One.

Lewis turned the page on the clipboard he held in his hand. “This is not a social visit. We’re in and out of Honolulu in four hours.”

The flight plan was set. Rossy had been briefed on the itinerary, the number of passengers, and any special requirements for the trip.

“Pretty light in the cabin.”

“Right. No press. Just…” Lewis turned two pages to the manifest, “…the chief of staff, sec defense, the press secretary, and J3.”

J3?
thought Rossy. That stepped up the importance of the flight another notch. J3 was an extremely well-respected and important member of the president’s team: a holdover from Taylor’s last administration. J3 was the nickname of General Jonas Jackson Johnson. The general, the biggest, toughest officer he’d ever encountered, headed USASOC, America’s largest command component of SOCOM, U.S. Special Operations Command. SOCOM answered to the president. It had a wide range of worldwide activities, from covert counterterrorism activities to highly visible military operations.

“Any idea who they’re all meeting with?” the lieutenant asked. It was an out-of-line question.

“Not for me to reason why.” The colonel stopped himself from reciting the rest of the phrase.

“Four hours.”

“Real fast. We’re back by twenty-two oh five tomorrow. Just a warm-up. Taylor’s got a bigger one coming up soon. Sydney’s on the schedule for August.”

Lt. Ross glanced up at the underbelly of the jet, hardly giving the comment a second thought. “Yeah, I saw that, sir. I’ll be ready.”

Katie’s apartment
Boston, Massachusetts
that night

“I can’t ask you. And I won’t,” said Roarke over the phone.

“Won’t what?” Katie asked. The bugs had been removed.

“I won’t ask you to look at Marcus’s old phone files or his computer,” Roarke said.

“You’re right, you can’t ask that.”

“I didn’t. I can’t.”

“Good. Just so long as we’re clear on that,” Katie added.

“Completely. Because it would violate your company’s lawyer-client privilege to see if Marcus ever spoke to an Ibrahim Haddad who lived in Fisher Island, Miami.”

Katie rested the pewter Jefferson cup she was drinking from on her coffee table. Now with Witherspoon dead, she was back in her own home. For safety’s sake, an FBI agent still guarded her building from a car on Grove Street. She cradled the phone on her neck and rummaged through her briefcase for a yellow pad and clicker pencil.

“Absolutely a clear violation, even though the lawyer in the relationship is dead,” she said while writing the name down. Abraham Haddid.

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not checking. Because I’d be wrong to ask, and you’d be wrong to check on any Ibrahim, with an I, Ibrahim Haddad. H-A-double D, A, D.”

She crossed out what she had written, getting the correct spelling this time. “No matter how you spell it, it would be unethical.”

“And I completely understand that, even considering he may have been involved in a seditious act, punishable under Federal law. You just can’t do it.”

“That’s right. But it’s surprising no one thought of this before,” she offered.

“Yeah, you’d think,” Roarke added.

“Of course, you know it would take a court order. The firm would have to vet the files, making sure only the pertinent ones were pulled. All of that could take a great deal of time.”

Katie created a quick chart with arrows.

HADDAD — Marcus/Witherspoon

She looked at it and decided somebody else was needed. The somebody on Scott’s mind. She added it at the end.

HADDAD — Marcus/Witherspoon<—ASSASSIN

Finding Haddad might help him find the assassin. “I’m glad you understand the law,” she stated.

“That’s why I wouldn’t ask you to consider this,” he responded. “Anyway, where could Marcus lead us? He’s dead.”

“Exactly.” She circled the word
ASSASSIN
.

“Then we understand each other?”

“Precisely. We’re in complete agreement on this, Agent Roarke.”

“One hundred percent, counselor?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Now tell me what you’re wearing.”

CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia

D’Angelo put down his coffee mug on the left side of his desk, away from the computer hard drive. He pressed the power button and waited for his start-up programs to load.

When his sign-on page came up, he typed in his password. It also happened to be his childhood dog’s name. Moments later, the overnight e-mail dumped into his file from the secure CIA server. The one that quickly caught his attention had no body, just a subject from a web address he immediately recognized:

Want to take a trip? Ira. “Yes!” Vinnie D’Angelo yelled. No one heard him, however. After the first day, he beat everyone else in to work. The CIA agent immediately dialed a classified phone number, which connected him to an office in Israel.

“Shalom,” the voice answered after one ring.

“D’Angelo,” was the simple reply.

“Well, hello,” Wurlin said. “I expected I’d be your first call of the day. Do you ever sleep?”

“I sleep. Usually when I’m staring at our surveillance reports on the Mossad. You think you can give our boys something interesting to write about?”

Wurlin laughed. “You’re only seeing what we want you to see.”

D’Angelo suspected there was a good deal of truth in the remark. The Mossad was one of the world’s most effective spy agencies—somedays, the best. “Well then, tell me something I don’t know.”

Now Wurlin added a solemnity to his voice. “There is a man. He can be found in Damascus. He may have information you seek. He worked inside the Capitol under Hafez Al-Assad. I’ve been told he was privy to who came and went and, to some extent, who said what. He has indicated that he remembers certain things that you might find important.”

“Why?” It was always important to understand the motivation of people who felt compelled to reveal national secrets to a foreign government. Money was the worst reason. It made everything suspect.

“He believes that fundamentalists are going to do great harm to Syria…that for Syria to survive as a modern Islamic state, it needs Western friends. You’re about to become one.”

He doesn’t want money. “When can we meet?” D’Angelo asked. He clicked on his desktop calendar.

“You will meet this man in Damascus in three days. Have you been there before, Vincent?”

“No,” D’Angelo quickly stated, never wishing to volunteer information. Even to Wurlin.

“Well, there is a great deal for you to see. You’ll especially want to take in the Omayyad Mosque.”

Lebanon, Kansas

Elliott Strong was clearly the most influential talk-radio host in the nation, conservative beyond definition, successful beyond the competition. Nobody on the left could touch him. But there was nothing new about that.

Liberal or progressive hosts pretty much faced an uphill struggle. Their primary challenge: attract like-minded listeners to talk radio, and away from news, classical, oldies, and rock stations.

Generally speaking, they weren’t as good as their ultra-conservative counterparts at manipulating the facts and turning public opinion in their favor. Only a few influential voices emerged. No superstars like Limbaugh or Strong. Why? Because too often they used humor, a poor defense against hate. They appealed to logic, easily dismissed by the opposition. When a progressive host succeeded in building a constituency, he or she, became a target, systematically ridiculed, criticized, demeaned, and, if possible, destroyed. Many didn’t have the stomach for it. Most willingly stepped out of the line of fire.

Strong loved letting his rage fly. “Look, I know you liberals don’t like me. You’ve taken great pains to label me the king of hate radio. You think by calling me that you’ll rally support for yourself. You think that hate will get your leftist buddies in Congress all worked up. You go on and on, whining how Elliott Strong needs to be muzzled. Well, my friends, let me tell you. It’s not going to work. Hate’s not the issue—truth is, and I’m the king of truth. You come to me for the truth. I’m here to give it to you. It doesn’t get any simpler than that, not if you care about your country. So listen to old Elliott, the real heir of America,” he said mocking the progressive radio network.

“Now, let’s talk about the truth. Here’s what the liberals and the centrists are doing.” Strong stepped up the pace. “They’re attacking me, which I really don’t give a damn about. But I do care that they’re trying to discredit a true patriot—General Bridgeman. When liberals can’t defend their own flimsy positions, and they can’t admit that all they care about is tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend, they go after the messengers. Well, Mister Taylor”—Strong rarely called him president and always stretched out Mister—“we do have a message for you: You and your imperial cabinet don’t represent the American people. You do not represent the majority. Give America back to the people. It’s not yours!”

Strong felt he had stirred the pot enough for a while. “Let’s go to the phones.”

All the lines were lit up. He’d have another entertaining show, heard across the country and online around the world.

Andrews Air Force Base
Suitland, Maryland

Air Force One gently lifted off the ground with President Morgan Taylor in the forward compartment of Level 2. He’d said his hellos to Rossy, Colonel Lewis, and the rest of the crew before takeoff. Now he wanted to get caught up on his reading. Taylor brought aboard a file from the CIA. It was marked Libya. Operation Quarterback, Post Game.

In it were copies of materials extracted from the raid in Tripoli, and a summary of opinion collected by Jack Evans.

Original documents were in Russian and Arabic. Taylor perused the English translations. He was most interested in information pertaining to Russian sleeper spies trained at Andropov Institute under the Red Banner 101 program. The names Teddy Lodge and Geoff Newman were highlighted throughout the document. The president skipped them now. He wanted to re-read the sections that dealt with other sleeper spies still at large in the United States. The documents indicated the presence of men and women trained to advance in state legislatures, Fortune 500 corporations, the media, federal bureaus, Congress, and the courts.

There were five different references. Nothing specific anywhere. Evans had gone to former KGB agents now residing in the U.S. for information. Either no one had anything or they weren’t talking. The U.S. Ambassador to Russia made specific inquiries to the FSB, but the intelligence chief of the new Russian spy agency claimed to have no knowledge of other sleeper spies.

And yet, here was the red flag in the recovered documents. Elected officials, businessmen, who knows? Nearly a President of the United States.

Taylor wondered whether he had any latitude under the Patriot Act to intensify a national search.

The Pentagon
Arlington, Virginia

“Okay, Penny. What do you have?”

“Nothing you’re going to get anymore.”

Ordinarily, Roarke enjoyed the playful, sexual tension from his former partner. Not today. He’d been through too much recently. He nearly lost Katie, and Depp got away.

“Right,” he grunted over her shoulder.

She swiveled around in her chair, away from the computer screen. “You’re no fun anymore.”

“Sorry. Can we just get to what you’ve found?”

Captain Walker took Roarke’s hands and looked deeply into his hazel eyes. “Scott, I know you better than almost anybody in the world. I know when you’re hurt and when you’re angry. I even know when you’re ready to kill. But before I tell you what I’ve found, which you’ll want to discuss with your friend Parsons, let me ask you one important question.”

Her warmth broke through his concentration. He didn’t say yes, but he gave her a trusting smile.

“You don’t have to go after him, Scott. You have so much more in your life now. We can give all this to someone else. Let the FBI track him down, bring him in, or take him down. You finally have someone you love, someone who makes you happy. Why don’t you just go to her?” Penny choked on her own words and squeezed his hands, showing how much she cared. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. But now there’s someone more important than me.”

Penny could still touch Roarke, almost as deeply as Katie. He nodded, stifled an affirming sigh, and smiled at her.

“You know, I’m a very lucky man. You’ve reminded me. I promise you, if I need help, I’ll call for the cavalry. I want to get Depp, and if both of us walk away alive, all the better.” He let go of her hands. “Does that help?”

“No, you asshole,” she chided him. “But I’m sure it’ll be the best I’ll get from you! Now here, take a gander.”

The captain swiveled her chair back around and punched up a master file she’d assembled. “I’ve sent each of the pictures and backup information I’m about to show you over to your buddy. He’ll do more with it than I ever could. But if you want my two cents…”

“I do,” he interrupted.

She smiled again. “I thought I’d never hear those two words from you,” she said, speaking into the computer screen.

“Oh, you’ll trick some innocent fool into saying them, someday,” he added. “Besides, I think Parsons wants to meet you.”

“Oh? Tell me more.”

“Later. Show me what you have,” he appealed.

“Okay, like you’ve said, we’re looking for a man highly trained in the fine art of killing. He’s also an accomplished actor, probably professionally or collegially trained. Proficient in makeup and dialects.”

“Right, and…”

“I followed up on schools, then I thought, how do you go from acting to military service?”

Again, Roarke asked a simple question. “And?”

“Where are you likely to find practical training in both disciplines?”

“I’ll bite.”

“Come on. Think, sweetheart. Acting and military training?”

“Well, not the Army. Special Forces doesn’t have a program of that sort. Neither do the Marines or the Navy. As far as I know, same for the Air Force. I’d have to check if the Pentagon or the NSA has anything.”

“Think….”

“Help me out, captain.”

“ROTC, Agent Roarke. ROTC. He’s in college. The service is helping pay for school. I don’t know, maybe he realizes he’s not going to really make it as an actor. He advances, moves into one of the special forces divisions.”

“How do you run this down?”

“I’m already on it. I cross-referenced ROTC against schools with theater arts departments. I was amazed at how many smaller arts colleges have military programs. About eighty-five schools out of more than seven hundred.”

“Pretty daunting,” he offered.

“Damned straight. I started limiting the years, sending out e-mails to each of the schools, and lighting candles every night.”

“At first?”

“I didn’t get very far. But I realized I was going at it ass-backwards. I needed to run a military search on theater majors who entered through ROTC.” She clicked her mouse on an on-screen icon, and her computer took her to the first of ten pages of names.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed as she quickly scrolled through the pages.

“About twenty-five hundred names in the last fifteen years. From there, it’s just a process of elimination. “I adjusted the search to match your estimates for height and weight.” She went to her pull-down menu and clicked onto another file. The list got shorter.

“Next, I entered tighter age factors. No one younger than thirty, no one older than forty-two. You’ve run into the guy. Safe enough?”

“Safe enough.”

She clicked again, another page came up with fewer names.

“Caucasian.” Another mouse click.

Now there were only a few dozen names. “Still a lot. So I went one by one. I tossed out the upstanding citizens in the group who had a day job and a solid record. I eliminated anyone living at the poverty level, and I chucked the NASCAR driver in the group.”

Roarke gave her a glance that asked why?

“Not available for hits on most weekends.”

Walker clicked on the menu a final time. “Here’s what I ended up with: eight strong possibilities. I sent pictures of seven of them over to your buddy Parsons for further analysis.”

“What about the eighth?” Roarke asked.

“No need. He looked good until I found out the guy died in Iraq.”

This was better news than Roarke expected. Seven solid leads. He was about to congratulate her when he thought of a question.

“Did you cross-check their acting experience in school? Any idea what their teachers might remember about them?”

“Very good question.” Penny paused, then added sarcastically, “Of course I did!”

“Care to tell me?”

“Most of them did better in the theater of battle. A couple had some promise. But what do I know? I always fall asleep at plays.”

Hickam Air Force Base
Honolulu, Hawaii

Hickam Air Force Base shares landing strips with the adjacent Honolulu International Airport. It suffered extensive damage and losses, both personnel and equipment, when Japanese planes rained bombs on December 7, 1941. In October 1980, Hickam AFB was designated a National Historic Landmark for its significance in the first day of World War II, and as a staging area for the ultimate defeat of Japan.

Air Force One was on its final approach, two miles out from Runway 4R, the 9,000-foot runway at Hickam that handled wide-bodied jets. Colonel Lewis was in communication with Honolulu Tower. All other traffic was held up as he gently landed SAM 28000. Nothing took off or landed until the president’s escorts were also safely down.

Once on ground, Air Force One taxied to the Hickam side of the airport and came to a stop. A gangway was rolled up. The presidential retinue quickly appeared at the door. They took in the fresh salt air, then walked down the steps to meet the base commander. After the perfunctory salutes and greetings, the commander ushered them into two waiting limos for a short drive to Pacific Air Force Headquarters. While they made the ride, another 747 landed. Prime Minister David Foss and key members of his government were onboard.

Taylor chose the location—a mid-point, accessible on short notice, with none of the security risks that accompanied a more public visit. The plan was to talk about their next meeting. The one scheduled in Australia.