by Vince Flynn
“So what is all this going to accomplish?” Nash asked. “You trying to put yourself up on the cross? I don’t get it.”
“I’m not into the martyr thing,” Rapp grinned. “You know that. What I’m trying to do is bring this thing to a head.”
“Why?” asked Ridley. “Why now?”
“Because I think we’re going to get hit. And I just told you, I’d rather choose the time and place of the fight. Have you noticed that not a single senator has bothered to ask me why I would take such a gamble running an op like this?”
The other three men shared a look and said, “No.”
“It’s because they’re so stuck in their own world. We’ve allowed them to depict us as a bunch of goons who smack prisoners around because we get some sick, sadistic thrill out of it. They hold us accountable, but we never hold them accountable.”
“How in the hell are we going to hold them accountable?” O’Brien asked in his raspy voice.
“By telling them about these other two cells and letting them know the third one is on the loose.”
“And what are you going to do when they ask for the details about this plot? The whole damn reason we haven’t told them so far is because they always want to know the details. Are you going to tell them the Brits farmed it out to the Thais—and they tortured the shit out of them?”
“You’ll see when we go back in there.”
“What are you waiting for? You’ve already gone through two thirds of them.”
Rapp smiled. “I’m waiting for Lonsdale.”
“Why her?” Nash asked.
“Because she chairs Judiciary, and that’s where this whole thing is headed.”
One of the committee staffers poked their head in the door and told them it was time. Rapp said they’d be right along, and then as soon as the door was closed, he looked each man in the eye and said, “You guys all have deniability, so stop looking so damn defeated when you’re in there. You’re warriors…be proud of what we do.”
CHAPTER 44
SENATOR Lonsdale hurried down the hallway as quickly as her black leather Marc Jacobs pumps could carry her near perfectly proportioned frame. Her rail-thin chief of staff was galloping beside her, his long, lanky stride doubling his boss’s. They crossed over from the Hart Senate Office Building to Dirksen. Technically they were two buildings, but they existed as one, with every floor of the two buildings connecting. Lonsdale and Wassen went through the senator’s private door. Wassen stopped to have a word with the two executive assistants, but the senator kept moving.
She went straight into her large office and closed the door. This one was drastically different from her office in the Capitol. It was almost as big, but where the other one was ornately decorated, this one was utilitarian. There were no marble or plaster reliefs, just Sheetrock and carpeting. The furniture reflected the space. Everything was very linear and slightly modern.
Lonsdale kicked off her pumps and grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lighter from her top-left desk drawer. She flicked the switch on the special ventilation unit she’d had installed and fired up her first cigarette. The smooth, warm smoke filled her lungs and she felt herself begin to relax. It took every bit of her reserve to sit there silently for two hours while her colleagues maneuvered. There was Joe Valdez, whom she had never been impressed with, serving up one retarded question after another. She could see that, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he was going to try and get a piece of the action, but the way she had it figured he was fifth on the list, and she wasn’t going to give him jack shit.
A couple puffs later she looked down and scanned her call sheet. Most of the names weren’t important enough to call back today, but there were a few she would have to get to tonight when they wrapped things up. For now she wanted to get herself in the right frame of mind for her shot at the den of liars. Pretty much everyone had gone over their allotted fifteen minutes, and Lonsdale planned on doing the same. She figured as chairman of the Judiciary they would all expect her to go after them, and fifteen minutes wasn’t nearly enough to question the five of them.
An unmarked manila folder lay on the desk. She opened it and began reading the list of potential questions her staff had put together for her based on the first round of questions. By the time she’d finished reading them, she was finished with the cigarette. She stabbed it out in the crystal ashtray, where it sat there crooked and tattooed with red lipstick. Lonsdale hesitated and then decided to grab another one. She’d just finished lighting it when Wassen entered the room. As always, he closed the door behind him.
“Five minutes.”
She nodded and exhaled a cloud over her shoulder toward the ventilation machine.
“Second one?” Wassen asked with a curious eye.
“I didn’t know you were counting.”
“I’ve noticed an uptick lately,” he said in a disapproving voice.
Lonsdale’s pretty little nose scrunched up, and it looked for a moment like she might stick her tongue out at him. Wassen unnerved her at times, probably because no one knew her better. Since the death of her husband thirteen years ago, he had been her constant companion. He was like a father, husband, and girlfriend all rolled into one.
“Big deal,” she said as she took another drag. “I’m still only smoking a pack a week.”
Wassen knew it was closer to two, but there wasn’t time to argue about it right now. “Did you review the questions?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“They’re fine.”
“Any idea who you’re going to start with?”
“Kennedy,” she said as she turned and looked at herself in a full-length mirror on the wall. “I’m going to light her up and then go after Rapp, and if I have time I’ll take Nash apart.”
“Sound strategy.”
Lonsdale ran a hand along the front of her black Theory ‘Rory-Tailor’ jacket and matching pants. She spotted a few wrinkles and frowned.
Wassen read her mind and said, “Don’t worry about it. No cameras.”
He was right. She set the half-finished cigarette in the ashtray and grabbed a small makeup bag from the credenza behind her desk. She took a brush with powder and began dabbing her face. “Can you believe Joe Valdez is a United States senator?”
“Not the sharpest tack in the drawer.”
“And then that bitch Patty Lamb. She’s going to try and wrestle this thing away from me and get it in front of Homeland Security.”
“Let her try,” Wassen said as he checked his watch, “it’ll never happen.”
Lonsdale put the makeup brush away and plucked at the neck of her white spandex T-shirt to get some of the skin-colored powder off. She began lining her lips and said, “It’s going to come down to Ted Darby and I.”
“Yes it will, and you’ll both end up holding hearings. There’s no way you’re going to wrestle it away from him, and there’s no way he’s going to wrestle it away from you.”
She thought about the chairman of the Armed Services Committee while she finished lining her lips. “I suppose you’re right.”
“We need to get back. You don’t want them to start without you and let someone else go after them as hard as you will.”
Lonsdale put out her cigarette and said, “Right you are, Ralphy.”
She gave herself a quick spray of perfume and put on her pumps, and they left. Her personal assistants were standing when she walked through the small lobby. Both wished her luck and told her to go get them. Lonsdale kept a pleasant yet determined look on her face and shook her fist in the air as she walked past them and into the wide hallway. As they strolled back to the committee room, more people wished her luck. This was the big show on Capitol Hill today and everyone knew she would be the one to go for the throat.
Lonsdale was in fact one of the last people to make it back to the committee room. She took her seat and peered down at the CIA employees. Her face slowly transformed into a disapproving frown and then
she began to sadly shake her head. Senator Safford called the meeting back to order and before turning things over to Lonsdale reminded the witnesses that they were still under oath.
“Senator Lonsdale,” Safford said as he slid his reading glasses up onto his shiny forehead, “you may begin.”
Lonsdale thanked the chairman and took a moment to look down at her notes even though what she was about to say was not written down. She deliberately removed her stylish black reading glasses and said, “Director Kennedy, I think that your performance as director of the Central Intelligence Agency has been an embarrassment to this country from the day you took over. Your tenure has been one disaster after another, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why you won’t simply resign.”
The objections erupted from the other side of the table. Even Lonsdale’s fellow party members were shaking their heads and mumbling to each other. Safford banged his gavel until silence was restored and then admonished Lonsdale. “We are here today to gather information, not to indict and convict on incomplete evidence.”
Lonsdale stayed on the offensive, saying, “I’m not even talking about illegal activities. I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m talking about gross incompetence. This is not our first go-around with Mr. Rapp. This committee has been telling Director Kennedy for some time that she needs to keep Mr. Rapp on a shorter leash. Apparently she has intentionally ignored us, or she is incapable of managing her people. You choose,” she said, looking directly at Kennedy. “Either way, she needs to go.”
The objections erupted yet again, with Senator Gayle Kendrick leading the charge, “I would like to remind my colleague from Missouri that Director Kennedy has devoted nearly twenty-five years of her life to the service of this country and she deserves to be treated with respect, regardless of one’s political beliefs.”
“So you want us to just blindly respect people because they’ve been a bureaucrat for twenty-five years without taking into account the abuses and illegal activities they’ve condoned and participated in?”
“You see,” Kendrick said to the chairman and vice chairman, “this is what she’s going to do when she gets this in front of her committee. She’s going to turn a hearing into a trial, and she’s going to act as the judge even though she already has her mind made up.”
“That’s not true,” Lonsdale said without much conviction.
“You know it is. All you want to do is crucify her in front of a nationally televised audience.”
“My committee will go where the facts take us,” Lonsdale replied with a steely look.
“You will do great harm to an organization that is trying its best to protect us from our enemies.”
“I would like to remind the senator from Virginia that we are a nation of laws. And it is our job to make sure those laws are obeyed.”
“And I would like to remind the senator from Missouri that nowhere in the Constitution does it say we should go out of our way to afford those protections to our enemies.”
The committee members erupted again with the two sides shouting at each other. Safford gaveled the room back to silence, and then without being told to proceed, Lonsdale said, “I think we can all agree that striking an officer in the United States Air Force is a crime. Now, Mr. Rapp, would you agree with that statement?”
A faint smile formed on Rapp’s lips.
“Do you find this humorous, Mr. Rapp?”
“No, ma’am. I find your directness rather refreshing.”
“I would appreciate that same directness from you when you answer my questions.”
“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
“Crimes committed,” Lonsdale, repeated, “are you in agreement, Mr. Rapp, that you have broken several laws?”
“We are not in complete agreement, but I can respectfully see where you would think that I have committed a crime, or several crimes.”
Lonsdale was slightly surprised by Rapp’s apparent willingness to answer her. “Well, let’s just start with the first one. Striking a United States Air Force officer…is that a crime?”
Rapp had already denied striking Captain Leland but answered Lonsdale’s question anyway. “I agree that it is a crime, but I did not strike the man.”
“If I call you before the Senate Judiciary committee, will you answer that same question, or will you plead the Fifth?”
Without hesitation, Rapp said, “I will honestly answer your questions, Madam Senator.”
There was a quiet rumble of voices as Lonsdale’s colleagues shared their surprised opinions. “So,” Lonsdale pressed, “you will not take the Fifth.”
“I have no desire to take the Fifth, ma’am.”
“Let’s leave desire out of this,” Lonsdale said. She was used to working with lawyers and got the feeling the word would provide Rapp with some wiggle room. “You’re telling me right now that you will freely testify before my committee and will not invoke your Fifth Amendment rights?”
“Yes, I am.”
The shock caused by Rapp’s openness swept over all of them. Every senator took a moment to look at each other and share their surprise. No one was more astounded than Lonsdale. She’d had it in her mind for some time now that she would have to drag Rapp before her committee and beat his brains out while he stubbornly refused to incriminate himself, which in a way was just fine with her. CIA employees had a nice history of looking guilty while they pleaded the Fifth. This sudden change, however, was even better.
Lonsdale directed her glare at Kennedy and said, “How about you, Director Kennedy? Will you testify before my committee or will you be exercising your Fifth Amendment right?” Her voice dripped with disdain.
“Like any American citizen I will reserve my right to exercise the Fifth Amendment.”
Lonsdale shook her head in an overdisappointed manner. She looked back to Rapp. “So, Mr. Rapp, if I ask you about your interrogation of Abu Haggani, an Afghani in the custody of U.S. forces, you will not take the Fifth Amendment?”
“I will answer your questions, ma’am.”
Rapp’s responses were so unexpected that Lonsdale wasn’t sure where to go. Sensing this, her chief of staff leaned forward and touched her shoulder. Lonsdale turned toward Wassen, who cupped a hand over her ear.
“No sense in bringing anything up here where they can classify it. Keep your powder dry until you get them in front of your committee.”
Sound counsel as usual, Lonsdale thought to herself. She nodded and then looked over at Bob Safford and said, “No, further questions, Mr. Chairman.”
CHAPTER 45
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
NASH homed in on the tennis ball hanging from the rafters of the garage like an F-18 pilot focusing on a rain-swept carrier deck. The garage was designed for two cars, but not two cars, three bikes, a couple of strollers, an old trike, scooters, razors, skateboards, and every stick and ball known to mankind. The tennis ball kissed the windshield and Nash threw the gearshift into park. Safe in my garage, he thought. Maybe I’ll just stay here the rest of the night. But as much as he’d like to just check out for a few days, he wanted to see the kids.
He climbed out and went around and got the groceries out of the back. At the back door he set one bag down and checked the handle. It was unlocked. His blood started to boil. He’d told the whole damn family a hundred times that the doors were always to be locked. He opened the door and carried the groceries through the mudroom and into the kitchen, where he found his ten-year-old son sitting a mere foot from the TV eating a bowl of cereal. Nash set the groceries down and went back to the mudroom, where he closed and locked the door and then opened his pistol safe. He pulled the black paddle holster and gun off his hip and stuck it in the safe.
By the time he got back to the kitchen his fourteen-year-old daughter, Shannon, was waiting for him with Charlie in her arms. She looked just like her mother. Beautiful ivory skin with thick, shiny black hair. “Hi, Dad.”
Nash kissed her on the cheek and asked her how her
day was. Rather than answer him, she extended her arms and handed him Charlie. “Mom was supposed to be home twenty minutes ago. I’m late for play practice.”
Just like that, she was gone with her backpack out the mudroom door.
Nash looked into the smiling eyes of young Charlie and from across the room heard, “I think he has a bomb in his pants.”
Nash looked over at the ten-year-old, who was glued to the TV. Reluctantly, he turned Charlie around and sniffed his backside. With a sour face, Nash said, “Oh God, that stinks.”
“I told you,” the ten-year-old said after downing another spoonful of cereal.
“Your mother teach you how to change a diaper yet?”
“Nope”—Jack shook his head—“that’s women’s work.”
Nash wanted to laugh, but resisted the urge. “You better not let your mother hear you say that.”
Jack slowly turned toward his father, his mouth half open. “Who do you think I got that line from?”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re ten. You talk like that around your mother, and you’re likely to get your butt swatted.” Then under his breath he said, “And I’ll really get in trouble.”
“I learned it from you, Dad.”
Nash carried Charlie through the kitchen and as he passed, his ten-year-old mumbled, “I’m surrounded by traitors.” He continued into the living room and set Charlie down on the floor. Kneeling next to him, he grabbed some wet wipes and a fresh diaper from the bookshelf. Charlie lay on his back with his feet up making motorboat noises with his lips. Nash laughed at his little tuft of fine blond hair. Other than that, he was pretty much bald. Nash got everything ready and then went in. He unsnapped the inseam on the kid’s bib overalls and undid the old diaper. A heinous mix of rotten vegetables and diarrhea wafted out from under the freed diaper.