The Assassin

by Andrew Britton

  “Is it always like this?” the younger woman asked. “I mean, it’s still pretty early for a Saturday night.”

  Ford pointed up at the ceiling. “Somebody’s hosting an event for Hillary upstairs,” she whispered conspiratorially.

  “Hillary who? Not Clinton.”

  “Of course, darling.” Ford was mystified. “Who else?”

  “Hillary Clinton? Here? You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious. She can’t exactly skip out on her own fund-raiser, can she?” Ford raised an eyebrow, taking in her niece’s amazed expression. “Try not to look so impressed, Sam. People are watching, and half the Senate will have stopped in before the night is out. You’re bound to see somebody more important than her.”

  Crane nodded and tried some of the wine. Something about the other woman seemed off, and then it became clear; she was getting tipsy. It should have been obvious from the start, but it was so out of character that Crane didn’t catch it right off the bat.

  Samantha Crane smiled to herself, feeling a weight lift; this was going to be easier than she’d thought. After days of gentle prodding over the phone, she was finally going to get the answers she needed.

  Rachel Ford was on a first-name basis with the maître d’, which made all the difference. He found them a table in short order, and although it was far from the best in the house, it was a vast improvement over the cramped, standing-room-only space at the bar. Better yet, the small table was set apart from the others, so they could talk freely. They ordered crab cakes and grilled zucchini, and the wine continued to flow. It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to work, and Ford brought up the laptop. “You got it back today, didn’t you?”

  “We did. Our techs are working on rotating shifts for the next twenty-four hours, but I have the feeling you could save them a lot of trouble.”

  The other woman seemed to hesitate. “I only got the whole story today. The people in Operations were doing their best to keep me out of the loop, and they nearly succeeded.” Her voice turned hard. “I swear those people are all the same. You can take them out of the field and stick them in headquarters, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference—”

  “I agree,” Crane said quickly, not wanting to hear another lengthy exposition on the politics of Langley. “But you said you found out what was on the laptop?”

  “I did, but I can’t tell you a thing, sweetie. You’ll have to wait for the Bureau results. I’m already on thin ice with the director. He knows I told you we had it in the first place.”

  “What? How did he find out?”

  “It had to be Harper,” Ford said without thinking, her face tightening in anger. “That bastard has been doing his best to—”

  “Harper?” Crane pounced on it immediately. “That’s the same guy who showed up with Kealey in Alexandria. I called and told you about that after the raid, and you changed the subject, remember?” There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. “Aunt Rachel, who is he?”

  The other woman seemed to waver, but not for long. “He’s the DDO, Sam. He’s the man in charge of the operations directorate, and you can forget I told you that. It’s highly classified.”

  Crane nodded slowly, a satisfied smile spreading over her face. “I knew there was something about him. It didn’t make sense from the start. For one thing, Agency lawyers don’t show up at Bureau raids.”

  Ford nodded, her face twisting into a scowl. “He’s been trying to undermine my position for months. After a while it became too much, so I did a little digging of my own, just to see if I could get some leverage.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Nothing.” Ford drained her glass and shook her head, barely suppressing an incredulous laugh. “The man is an asshole, but he’s amazingly clean.”

  “You just said he’s the head of the DO,” Crane protested. “That means years and years of fieldwork, right? Those guys are used to working outside the lines. He can’t be totally clean. There has to be something there. A marital infidelity, for example, or a questionable bank deposit…”

  “Nothing,” Ford repeated. “I looked at the money angle, of course. He owns a brownstone on General’s Row, and when I found out, I thought that must be it. I mean, a government employee can hardly afford a place like that, right? But as it turns out, the answer is simple: he did well in the stock market back in the eighties, then bought at the right time. He’s actually quite wealthy, though most of his money is tied up in the house.”

  “Interesting,” Crane murmured. “If he’s that rich, I wonder why he still shows up for the daily grind.”

  Her aunt was pouring the last of the wine. Setting the bottle back on the table, she said, “I don’t know, but he may need the equity sooner than he thought.” A little smile crossed her face. “As it stands, he’s on borrowed time at the Agency.”

  Crane perked up, sensing important information. “What do you mean?”

  In a self-satisfied tone, the other woman started to go over the day’s events, including the suspensions of Ryan Kealey and Naomi Kharmai, the latter of whom she described as a mid-level analyst in the CTC. She also explained Harper’s tenuous position as the head of the DO, but the story was missing one thing: the cause for the shake-up. Crane was listening absently, trying to figure it out. Then it hit her.

  “All of this wouldn’t have anything to do with the break-in at the German Embassy, would it?”

  Ford suddenly looked uncomfortable. She toyed with the stem of her wineglass for a moment, then looked up and said, “I heard you were trying to get assigned to the case. Is that true?”

  “It’s important, and there’s a lot of pressure to solve it quickly. Whoever gets it will—”

  “You don’t want it,” Ford said, cutting her off. The alcohol seemed to have temporarily lost its effect, as her tone was completely serious, and she looked worried. “Trust me, darling, it’s career suicide. That one will never be solved, and once you get your name on the paperwork, I won’t be able to get you out of it. When the case is still open a few months from now, the Bureau is going to start looking for a sacrificial lamb. Someone’s neck will be on the chopping block, and I don’t want it to be yours.”

  “You know something, don’t you?” Crane’s eyes opened wide, and she leaned forward in her seat, her voice taking on a demanding edge. “Come on, tell me the truth. Did the Agency have something to do with the break-in?”

  “Don’t ask me that, Sam.” Ford shot her a pleading look, then glanced around hurriedly, as if realizing for the first time that they weren’t alone. “Just stay out of it, okay? And you can keep that hurt look to yourself. It won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Aunt Rachel, I just—”

  “Samantha, stay out of it.”

  “Okay! God, I was only asking….”

  “Promise me.”

  “Fine.” Crane slumped back in her seat and looked away, folding her arms in frustration. “I promise.”

  Ford’s expression softened immediately. Reaching over, she placed a hand on the younger woman’s arm. “Darling, you have to trust me.” She hesitated, then went on. “I know I never told you this, but before your mother died, she made me promise that I would look out for you if anything happened to her. Believe me, that’s all I’m trying to do.”

  Crane lowered her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was brittle and barely audible. “She didn’t die, Aunt Rachel. Nothing happened to her. She killed herself. There’s a difference.”

  Ford cringed, instantly wishing she could take back the words. “I know, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Still, the point is the same. I gave her my word.”

  “If you want to look out for me, you can tell me what your people found on Mason’s computer.”

  Ford sighed in exasperation. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? Why does it matter, anyway?”

  “It matters because I don’t think the trail ended with Anthony Mason. He was working for somebody els
e, and I want to know who it was. His laptop is my best chance to figure it out.” Her eyes shined. “Don’t you see? Mason was dealing in some heavy stuff, so whoever he was working for must be huge. Getting that guy could make my career.”

  “Sam, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ford said, shaking her head sadly. “This goes way beyond Anthony Mason.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know about the ties between Mason and Arshad Kassem, right?”

  The younger woman looked puzzled. “Of course, Harper told me about the Iraqi connection the morning of the raid in Alexandria. That guy Kealey mentioned it, too. It didn’t seem too solid to me, but what does that have to do with the laptop?”

  “I can’t really get into it. Suffice to say, you’d be amazed.”

  “Aunt Rachel, I’m on your side, remember?” Thinking quickly, Crane shifted forward and lowered her voice. “Think about what happened here. If the CIA had pushed its way into a Bureau operation and stolen evidence from a crime scene while you were on the oversight committee, would you have let it pass?”

  Ford shook her head slowly, obviously torn. “No.”

  “Well, in this case, it was my crime scene and your people doing the stealing. If Harrington hadn’t been there, I would have been in charge, and it would have been my career in the toilet. Frankly, I think I deserve the truth.”

  Ford considered these words for a long time, but she couldn’t fault her niece’s logic. Finally, she nodded her agreement. “Okay, I’ll tell you everything.”

  Crane brightened immediately. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you—”

  “On one condition,” Ford clarified. “You keep it to yourself until your own people get a break on the laptop. Wait until they give you a name… It won’t take long.”

  “And what’s the name?”

  Ford hesitated one last time, but she had said too much to back out now. “Mason was being run by a man named Thomas Rühmann. He’s an Austrian arms broker living in Berlin, where he’s using the name Walter Schäuble. If your technicians are any good, they’ll get the Rühmann identity off the hard drive, but not the location. And there’s something else: I have it on good authority that Kealey is going after him.”

  The dam broke. Ford talked for twenty minutes, reiterating the initial link between Arshad Kassem and Anthony Mason. To this, she added everything the director had told her earlier — the same information Harper had done his best to keep from her. She went over the links between Rashid al-Umari and Will Vanderveen. She described their involvement in the bombing of the Babylon Hotel, and she mentioned the possibility of an Iranian connection. She went into al-Umari’s background, and she brought up the possibility that the most recent attack in Paris was somehow related. The only thing she left out was the Agency’s involuntary role in the embassy break-in. Crane appeared stunned by the scope of the conspiracy.

  “When did you find out that Vanderveen was still alive?” she asked when Ford was done. She didn’t need to ask who he was; a year earlier, the former U.S. soldier had been near the top of the FBI’s most wanted list.

  “Nearly two weeks ago.”

  “What! Why hasn’t it been circulated?”

  “It has been circulated, but only at the highest levels. The Bureau wasn’t told until a few days ago. Don’t you see? The president wanted to keep this quiet, and that meant limiting the number of people in the know.”

  “Well, you could have told me.”

  “You didn’t need to know, darling,” Ford replied, somewhat disingenuously. “However, the decision has now been made to release the information on a wider scale. He should be back on your top ten in a matter of days, so I didn’t see the harm in giving you a little heads-up.”

  Crane was thinking hard, her brow furrowed in concentration. “There’s one thing I still don’t get. How is Kealey going after Rühmann if he’s out of the Agency?”

  “Apparently, he’s taken it upon himself to finish the job. Ryan Kealey is a man of some means himself. He booked a private plane this afternoon. It leaves Upperville for Berlin at seven a.m. tomorrow.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Ford smiled. “I have my sources, too, Samantha. The Agency has long cultivated relationships with patriotic, wealthy landowners in Virginia, Maryland, and the District, all of whom have airfields on their property. All it took was a few innocent calls.”

  “Hmm.” Crane swirled the contents of her glass thoughtfully, then came back to reality. “It’s an interesting story, I’ll give you that. I have to tell you, though, that the Agency is definitely wrong about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Iranian connection. I don’t know why al-Umari was chosen to play a role in Baghdad, given his background, but the hard-liners in Tehran are definitely behind it. All of it. The Iraqi insurgency is not capable of carrying something like this off.”

  Ford frowned. “You sound pretty certain.”

  “Well, I should be.” Crane lifted her glass and smiled knowingly. “You see, I’ve been working directly with the informant in New York for the past month.”

  CHAPTER 36

  POTSDAM, GERMANY

  The following afternoon, Will Vanderveen and Yasmin Raseen crossed the Luisenplatz in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate, angling toward an outdoor café on the far side. The temperature was hovering at 60 degrees, the air heavy and still beneath towering storm clouds. Having arrived earlier than intended, they had passed the time by seeing the sights. They’d strolled through the gardens of the Orangery in Sanssouci Park, admired the Marble Palace on the Holy Lake, and stopped for coffee in a redbrick café in the Dutch Quarter. The lengthy trek gave them the chance to look for signs of surveillance. Nothing seemed out of place, which meant they had guessed right in London: the surveillance had been placed on Khalil and not on them.

  Still, since the courier’s revelations at the Savoy, they had taken nothing for granted. For Vanderveen, in particular, every move from this point forward was fraught with danger. Knowing his face was posted at Passport Control was especially daunting; boarding the plane at Heathrow had been an exercise in extreme self-control, and he had been secretly surprised when they managed to pass through the airport in Berlin without incident.

  Shortly after arriving, they acquired the necessary tools through Raseen’s contact in Dresden, a former Stasi officer who’d since turned his hand to more profitable ventures. The man had come through in spectacular form, supplying all that was needed. As it turned out, he was still very much in the game, which made him slightly more trustworthy than he might otherwise have been. They were banking on the fact that he would not risk his reputation — or something worse — by cheating them. Vanderveen had taken a chance and wired the funds from London in advance, not wanting to have that much cash on his person when boarding the plane. The chance had paid off, and for an extra ten thousand Euros, the ex-Stasi officer had supplied them with a late-model Mercedes and a Globalstar SAT-550 mobile phone. The car was now parked on the Charlottenstrasse, and the bulky phone was in his jacket pocket. Everything else they had acquired that morning was packed away in the trunk of the Mercedes, which was not ideal, but it couldn’t be helped, and it wouldn’t be for long.

  When they reached the café, Raseen left his side, took a seat, and waved for the waiter. Vanderveen retrieved the satellite phone from his coat and continued around the square. Since the courier’s death in London, everything had gone according to plan, with one major exception. The previous night, he had placed a call to his contact in Washington, D.C., and there had been no answer. Now he dialed the number again and waited.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Taylor. Where have you been? I called yesterday.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t get away. Have you reached your destination?”

  “Yes. Anything new?”

  “Quite a bit, actually…”

  Vanderveen returned to the table ten minutes later. The f
ood had arrived: sandwiches for him, yogurt and freshly baked bread for her, coffee for two. He took a seat but left the food untouched, and she noticed immediately. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a murmur. “Kealey is already on the way.”

  She stopped buttering a slice of bread and studied him carefully. “So he knows about Rühmann.”

  “So it would seem. He left a private airfield in Virginia at 6:00 AM eastern time, which means he should arrive sometime this evening. He has someone with him, a woman named Kharmai. Undoubtedly, they’ll want to talk with our friend.”

  “And you think they’ll move tonight?”

  Vanderveen thought for a moment. “I think there’s a good chance they will. But that’s not a problem… In fact, it means we’ll be able to leave the country sooner than we thought.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “Try and eat something,” Vanderveen said. “We may not get the chance later tonight.”

  On the return trip around the square, he had stopped at a newsstand to pick up a few papers. As Raseen dutifully tucked into her food, he unfolded a copy of Die Welt and read the cover story. The news from Iraq was predictably dire; the day before, a suicide bombing at the shrine to Imam Musa al-Khadam — one of the holiest sites in Baghdad — had resulted in 45 deaths. According to the Interior Ministry, a secondary device placed in a truck outside the Khadamiya hospital claimed the lives of 32 more as the injured were rushed from the shrine to the hospital in makeshift ambulances. Soon thereafter, angry crowds gathered at checkpoints leading into the Green Zone, and several U.S. military vehicles were fired upon as they tried to leave the American enclave. Sixty-three American casualties had been reported by the Pentagon over the past three days.

  In the European edition of the London Times, however, Vanderveen found a much more interesting article. An investigative journalist in Karbala had uncovered the circumspect sale of an oil refinery east of Samawah. The refinery, originally owned by Rashid al-Umari and the Southern Iraqi Oil Company, had been sold to a conglomerate of Sunni investors, several of whom had direct ties to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The New York Times had picked up the story on the AP, as had every other major newspaper in North America and Western Europe.