The Mark of the Assassin

by Daniel Silva

  One of Vandenberg’s three secretaries poked her head in the office. “Coffee, Mr. Vandenberg?”

  “Thanks, Margaret.”

  At seven-thirty the senior staff filed into his office : the press secretary, the budget director, the communications director, the domestic policy adviser, the congressional liaison, and the deputy national security adviser. Vandenberg liked meetings quick and informal. Each staff member carried a notebook, a cup of coffee, and a doughnut or bagel. Vandenberg presided. He moved quickly around the room, getting updates, giving instructions, dispensing with problems. The meeting broke up on schedule at seven-forty-five. He had fifteen minutes before his meeting with Beckwith.

  “Margaret, no visitors or phone calls, please.”

  “Yes, Mr. Vandenberg.”

  Paul Vandenberg had been at James Beckwith’s side for twenty years—on Capitol Hill and in Sacramento—but this would be their most crucial encounter ever. He opened the French doors and stepped out onto the sunlit patio, breathing the chill October air. The media droned on about his power, but even the jaded Washington press corps would be shocked by Paul Vandenberg’s real influence. Most of his predecessors had believed it was their job to help the President arrive at decisions by making certain he saw the right people and read the right information. Vandenberg saw his job differently: He made the decisions and sold them to the President. Their meetings never strayed far from the script. Beckwith would listen intently, blink, nod, and scribble a few notes. Finally he would say, “What do you think we should do, Paul?” And Vandenberg would tell him.

  He hoped this morning would go the same way. Vandenberg would write the script and choreograph the scenes; the President would deliver the lines. If they were damned lucky, and if Beckwith didn’t fuck it up, they just might get a second term.

  Elizabeth Osbourne stood on the corner of 34th and M streets, dressed in a colorful warm-up and running shoes. It was still early, but traffic poured over Key Bridge into Georgetown. She bent over and stretched the back of her legs. A man in a passing car blew his horn and puckered his lips at her suggestively. Elizabeth ignored him, resisting the temptation to make an obscene gesture of her own. Carson arrived first, scampering down the short hill from Prospect Street. Susanna arrived a moment later.

  They waited for the light to change, jogging lightly in place, then headed down to the C&O Canal. They crossed the canal over a narrow wooden footbridge and started running along the tree-lined towpath. Carson trotted ahead of them, barking at birds, chasing a pair of terrified squirrels.

  “Where’s Michael this morning?”

  “He had to get to work early,” Elizabeth said. She hated lying to Susanna about Michael’s work. They had met at Harvard Law and remained close friends over the years. They lived a few blocks apart, ran together, and saw each other regularly for dinner. Their relationship had grown closer after Susanna’s divorce from Jack. He was a partner at Braxton, Allworth & Kettlemen, and Elizabeth found herself in the unenviable position of serving as unofficial mediator while the two disentangled their lives.

  “And how’s Jack?” Susanna asked. Their conversations always got around to Jack at some point. Susanna had been madly in love with him, and Elizabeth suspected she loved him still.

  “Jack’s fine.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s fine. Tell me he’s miserable.”

  “All right, he’s a lousy lawyer and a complete asshole. How’s that?”

  “Much better. How’s his little cookie?”

  “He brought her to an office cocktail party last week. You should have seen the dress. God, I’m jealous of that body, though. Braxton could barely keep his tongue in his mouth.”

  “Did she look cheap? Tell me she looked cheap.”

  “Very cheap.”

  “Is Jack being faithful?”

  “Actually, the gossip mill says he’s been having an affair with one of our new associates.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me. I think Jack’s physiologically incapable of fidelity. I give his marriage to the cookie three years at the most.”

  The trees broke and they entered bright sunshine. Elizabeth removed her gloves and her headband and stuffed them in the pocket of her jacket. A mountain bike roared past them like a bullet. To their left, on the river, a Georgetown crew pulled gracefully upstream against the gentle current.

  “What happened yesterday at the doctor’s?” Susanna asked, broaching the subject cautiously.

  Elizabeth told her everything; there were no secrets between them, only Michael and his work.

  “Does he think in vitro will work?”

  “He doesn’t have the faintest idea. It’s like throwing darts at a board. The more you learn about infertility treatment, the more you find out they really don’t know too much.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. I just want it over and done with. If we can’t have children, I want to get it behind us and move on with our lives.”

  They ran in silence for a few minutes. Carson came back, dragging a three-foot-long branch he had pulled from the trees.

  Susanna said, “I want to violate an unspoken rule of our friendship.”

  “You want to ask me about a case our firm is handling?”

  “Not a case, really. A client. Mitchell Elliott.”

  “He’s Braxton’s client. As a matter of fact, I’m having dinner with him tonight.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes, he’s in town. Braxton ordered me to attend.”

  “I know he’s in town because he had dinner at the White House last night. After dinner, Paul Vandenberg drove him back home, and the two had a long private stroll along California Street.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Because I was following them.”

  “Susanna!”

  She told Elizabeth about the assignment she had been given by her editor, about what she had learned so far about Mitchell Elliott and his questionable contributions to Beckwith and the Republican Party.

  “I need your help, Elizabeth. I need to know more about the relationship between Braxton and Elliott. I need to know if Braxton is helping him in any way or if he has any role in facilitating the flow of money.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Susanna. I can’t betray the confidence of one of our clients. I’d be fired. God, I’d be disbarred!”

  “Elliott’s dirty. And if Braxton is helping him, he’s dirty too.”

  “I still can’t help you. It’s unethical.”

  “I’m sorry to impose on our friendship, but my editor’s on my ass about the piece. Besides, people like Mitchell Elliott make me sick.”

  “You’re just doing your job, poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. You’re forgiven.”

  “Can I call you tonight for a fill on what went down at dinner?”

  “That I can manage.”

  They reached Fletcher’s Boat House. They stopped, stretched for a moment, and headed back toward Georgetown. A tall man wearing a dark blue warm-up suit ran past them in the other direction. He wore sunglasses and a baseball cap.

  The man on the towpath was no ordinary jogger. In his right hand he held a sensitive directional microphone. Strapped to his abdomen was a sophisticated tape recorder. He had been following Susanna Dayton from the moment she stepped outside her house. It was a pleasant assignment: a crisp autumn morning, beautiful scenery, and the women ran quickly enough to give him a decent workout. He ran about a hundred yards past the wooden footbridge at Fletcher’s Boat House. Then he turned suddenly and increased his pace, his long strides quickly eating up the ground between himself and the two women. He slowed and settled in about thirty yards behind them, the microphone in his right hand pointed directly at the two figures ahead.

  Paul Vandenberg always got a brief chill when he set foot in the Oval Office. The President entered the room at precisely eight o’clock. Five men followed in rapid succession. James Beckwith’s predecessor strove for diversity in his c
abinet, but Beckwith wanted his closest advisers to be like himself, and he made no apologies for it. The men took their places in the seating area of the office: Vice President Ellis Creighton, National Security Adviser William Bristol, Secretary of State Martin Claridge, Secretary of Defense Allen Payne, and CIA Director Ronald Clark.

  The President technically presided over senior meetings like this one, but Vandenberg served as master of ceremonies. He kept the agenda, directed the flow of conversation, and made sure the discussion didn’t drift.

  “The first order of business is the proposed strike against the Sword of Gaza,” he said. “Ron, why don’t you begin.”

  The CIA director brought maps and enlarged satellite photographs. “The Sword of Gaza has three primary training facilities,” he began. “In the Libyan desert, one hundred miles south of Tripoli; outside the town of Shahr Kord in western Iran; and here”—he tapped the map one last time—“in Al Burei in Syria. Hit those three sites and we can deal them a serious psychological blow.”

  Beckwith furrowed his brow. “Why only psychological, Ron? I want to deal them a crippling blow.”

  “Mr. President, if I may be blunt, I don’t think that’s a realistic objective. The Sword of Gaza is small, elusive, and highly mobile. Bombing their training sites will make us feel good, and it will give us a modicum of revenge, but I can say with reasonable certitude that it will not put the Sword of Gaza out of business.”

  “Your recommendation, Ron?” Vandenberg asked.

  “I say we hit the sons of bitches with everything we can muster. The strike needs to be surgical as hell, though. The last thing we need is to blow up an apartment building and provide radical Islam with five hundred new martyrs.”

  Vandenberg looked at Defense Secretary Allen Payne. “That’s your job, Allen. Can we do it?”

  Payne stood up. “Absolutely, Mr. President. Right now we have the Aegis cruiser Ticonderoga on patrol in the northern Persian Gulf. The Ticonderoga’s cruise missiles can take out those training camps with devastating accuracy. We have satellite imagery of the camps, and that information has been programmed into the cruise missiles. They won’t make a mistake.”

  “What about the camps in Syria and Libya?” the President asked.

  “The John F. Kennedy and its battle group have moved into position in the Mediterranean. We’ll use the cruise missiles against the base in Syria. Libya is the group’s main base of operations. That camp is the largest and most complex. To put it out of business will require a larger strike. Therefore, we would use Stealth fighters based in Italy for the job.”

  The President turned to Secretary of State Martin Claridge. “Martin, what impact will a strike have on our policy in the Middle East?”

  “Difficult to say, Mr. President. It will certainly inflame Islamic radicals, and it will certainly stir things up in Gaza and the West Bank. As for Syria, it will make it more difficult to bring Assad to the peace table, but he’s been in no hurry to get there in any case. It will, however, also send a powerful message to those states that continue to support terrorism. Therefore you have my support, Mr. President.”

  “The risks, gentlemen?” Vandenberg asked.

  National Security Adviser William Bristol cleared his throat. “We must accept there is some risk that Iran, Syria, or Libya might decide to strike back.”

  “If they do,” said Defense Secretary Payne, “they will pay a very heavy price. We have more than enough force in the Mediterranean and the Gulf to deal any one of those nations a serious blow.”

  “There is another threat,” said CIA Director Clark. “Retaliation in the form of increased terrorism. We should certainly place all our embassies and personnel worldwide on a very high state of alert.”

  “Already done,” said Secretary of State Claridge. “We issued a secret communication last night.”

  Finally, Beckwith turned to Vandenberg. “What do you think, Paul?”

  “I think we should hit them and hit them very hard, Mr. President. It’s a measured response, it’s decisive, and it shows resolve. It demonstrates that the United States government will take steps to protect its people. And politically, it will be the equivalent of a ninth-inning grand slam. Sterling will have to support you. To do anything else would appear unpatriotic. He’ll be paralyzed, sir.”

  A silence fell over the room as everyone waited for the President to speak. “I think the Sword of Gaza represents a clear danger to the citizens and interests of the United States of America,” he said finally. “They have committed an act of cowardice and barbarism against this nation, and they need to be punished. When can we hit them?”

  “Whenever you give the order, Mr. President.”

  “Tonight,” he said. “Do it tonight, gentlemen.”

  Vandenberg looked down at his notes. He had orchestrated it well, and the President had reached the intended decision and was comfortable with the position. Vandenberg had done a good job.

  “Before we adjourn, gentlemen, we have one other piece of business,” Vandenberg said. “Mr. President, would you like to tell them about it, or shall I?”

  Calahan played the tape for Mitchell Elliott in the library of the Kalorama mansion. Elliott listened intently, his forefinger lying across his nose, his eyes fixed on the trees in the garden. The quality was good, though dropouts made parts of the conversation nearly inaudible. When it was over, Elliott sat motionless. He had planned it all so carefully, but a reporter asking too many questions could undo it all.

  “She’s trouble, Mr. Elliott,” Calahan said, removing the tape from Elliott’s elaborate stereo system.

  “Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do at this point except watch and wait. What kind of coverage do you have on her?”

  “Room bugs in the house and one on her telephone.”

  “That’s not good enough. I want one on her car as well.”

  “No problem. She leaves it on the street at night.”

  “And her computer, too. I want you to go in every chance you get and copy the contents of her hard drive.”

  Calahan nodded.

  “We need to keep a closer eye on her while she’s at work. Get Rodriguez on a plane right away. He’s going to work at the Post.”

  “What does Rodriguez know about journalism?”

  “Nothing. That’s not the kind of job I have in mind for him.”

  Calahan looked perplexed.

  Elliott said, “Rodriguez grew up in the roughest neighborhood in Bakersfield. He speaks Spanish like a boy from the barrio. Take away his six-hundred-dollar suits and that fancy hairdo, and he’ll look like a Salvadoran farmworker. Get him a false green card and find him a job on the cleaning service used by the Post. I want him inside by tomorrow night.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I want everything on her: financial, her divorce, everything. If she wants to play hardball, she’s playing in the wrong league.”

  Calahan held up the tape. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  “Destroy it.”

  10

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Elizabeth Osbourne thought, If there’s anything worse than a Washington dinner party, it’s going to a Washington dinner party alone. She arrived at Mitchell Elliott’s Kalorama mansion fifteen minutes late. She left her Mercedes with the valet, a boy who looked barely old enough to drive, and headed up the walkway. Michael had telephoned late in the afternoon to say he couldn’t get away because something big was going to break. She had tried to find an escort but couldn’t, on such short notice. Even Jack Dawson, Susanna’s ex-husband, had turned her down.

  Elizabeth pressed the button, and a solemn bell tolled somewhere inside the imposing house. A trim man in a tuxedo opened the door. He helped with her coat and glanced outside expectantly, looking for her partner. “I’m alone tonight,” she said self-consciously, then immediately regretted it. She thought, I don’t have to explain myself to a fucking butler.

  The butler informed her that drink
s were being served in the garden. She followed the center hall into the house. French doors gave onto a magnificent terraced garden. Gas heaters burned the chill from the autumn night air. Elizabeth stepped outside, and a waiter presented her with a glass of cold Chardonnay. She drank half of it very quickly.

  She glanced around at the other guests and felt even more embarrassed. She was surrounded by the elite of Washington’s Republican establishment: the Senate majority leader, the House minority leader, a smattering of lesser members, and the upper echelon of the city’s lawyers, lobbyists, and journalists. A famous conservative television commentator was holding forth on the banks of the lap pool. Elizabeth awkwardly drifted into his orbit, clutching her wine like a shield. Beckwith was in trouble, the commentator pronounced, because he had betrayed the Party’s conservative principles. His audience nodded slowly; the Oracle had spoken.

  Elizabeth glanced at her watch: eight o’clock. She wondered whether she could make it through the evening. She wondered who would be the first to comment on the fact she was alone. Someone bellowed her name. She turned in the direction of the sound and saw Samuel Braxton floating toward her. He was a brilliant and ruthless lawyer, warehoused inside a lineman’s body gone soft with age and prosperity. His latest acquisition, a big-breasted blonde named Ashley, hung on his beefy arm. She was wife number three or number four; Elizabeth couldn’t recall for certain. They had sat next to each other at a dinner party while she was still Ashley DuPree, waiting for her divorce to become final so she could “make an honest man of Samuel.” She was Huntsville rich. Her family made money from horses and from cotton, some of which was stuffed inside her head, masquerading as a brain. She suited Braxton’s needs perfectly : an upper-class pedigree, money of her own, and the body of a Playboy centerfold despite her respectable thirty-eight years.