Vince Flynn - Consent To Kill

Kennedy paused and looked over her shoulder with utter confidence. "Yes, we are. I'm exhausted. While the three of you were busy trying to appease questionable allies, I flew halfway around the world and accomplished in one morning what a hundred lawyers from the Justice Department and another hundred State Department officials have been trying to do for the past two years. I'm going home, and I'm going to bed."

"Stop," Ross said. "You need to bring him in."

"Sorry…can't do it. He's out of my control."

"That's a lie! You don't want to bring him in."

Kennedy stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She turned slowly and said, "Mark, Mitch Rapp has done more to secure this country against terrorism than everyone in this room combined, and if you ask the president he will tell you the same thing. Maybe you should start helping him or at a bare minimum get out of his way."

"The man is reckless, Irene. He needs to be brought under control."

"Good luck…but while you're at it you might want to think about whether or not you want to be on Mitch Rapp's bad side."

"Is that a threat?"

Kennedy shrugged. "It's a fact. They killed his wife. There's no controlling him. He's going to kill anyone who had anything to do with this and if he finds out that you're siding with the Saudis while we have clear evidence that Saeed paid twenty million dollars to have him killed…well…let's just say I wouldn't want to be on your security detail."

Kennedy opened the door and left.

N o one moved. Ross stood like a statue in front of the couch and just in front of the president. His cheeks were red and his fists balled up tight. He blinked several times, as he struggled with whether or not to take Irene's threat seriously.

"She just threatened me! She can't do that."

Everyone in the room had a law degree. Such was the state of politics. Attorney General Stokes, however, was the only one who had seen the inside of a courtroom. He shook his head and said, "She gave you an opinion as to what Rapp might do. It wasn't a threat."

That was not the answer or support that Ross expected from his friend. He turned to the president and said, "I can't work with her anymore. Something has to be done."

"Sit down, Mark." President Hayes crossed his legs and looked at his newest Cabinet member. The onset of his illness had given Hayes cause to become more reflective. Gone was his yearning desire to drive and shape the debate. It had been replaced by a tactic that he found far more productive. He would sit back and listen. Let the monumental egos of his advisors battle it out. Over the last forty-eight hours he had come to the conclusion that Ross was in fact the wrong man for the job, but replacing him was pretty much a nonstarter. A man like Ross would not go quietly. He would leak to the press like a sieve. He would make it his personal mission to destroy Kennedy. She didn't deserve that, and Hayes didn't want her distracted. Her job was too important. It was time to rein in the egos and remind them who they worked for.

Hayes cleared his throat and said, "I'd like to be very clear on something. If it wasn't for Mitch Rapp, I believe this city would have been destroyed by a nuclear explosion six months ago. That means pretty much everybody in this room would have been killed." Hayes took a moment to make eye contact with each person. "The lengths to which he went to stop that terrorist attack…" Hayes shook his head and his voice trailed off. "You don't even want to know what he had to do, but let's just say it wasn't pretty. We owe the man our lives, and that is no small thing."

"I know that, but…"

The president held up his hand and in a firm voice said to Ross, "Don't interrupt me. All of us are either elected or appointed. That means our time in our particular position is limited. Cabinet members last on average about three years. Presidents and VPs, we get four, and we're really lucky if we get eight. People like Kennedy and Rapp, they've devoted their entire lives to the war on terror. They were fighting it before most of us even knew there was a war." Hayes paused and folded his hands over his knee. "I for one think they deserve our support on this one."

"But, Bob," Ross said, "it's more complicated than that. We have alliances and relationships that are at stake here. We cannot have an employee of the CIA running around blowing people up."

"We can't?" Hayes asked provocatively, with an arched brow.

"No!" answered an appalled Ross.

Hayes sized up Ross while he slowly nodded his head. He stopped, pursed his lips, and said, "Do you know what I think…I think we are the United States of America and we need to start acting like it."

The three Cabinet members stared back at him not sure what to say. The vice president knew better than to speak.

"If the Saudis want to make an issue out of this, they will lose. Mark, I want you to call Prince Rashid, and tell him that I'm extremely upset. You may tell him exactly what Irene said. If we find that he had any knowledge of his friend placing a bounty on one of my top counterterrorism people, I will personally sign the executive order that authorizes his assassination."

"Mr. President," said an uneasy secretary of state, "he is a member of the royal family. The king would be extremely upset."

"The king hates his half brother," the president said with a frown. "He knows Rashid would love nothing more than to become king and undo everything he has worked for. I will call the king myself and discuss the situation. I will guarantee by tomorrow all of this will be a nonissue."

Hayes stood and buttoned his coat. Everyone jumped to their feet, Ross a little slower than the rest, Hayes noticed.

"Mark, do you have a problem with any of this?"

"No, sir," he replied without enthusiasm.

"Good. And, Bea," Hayes said to his secretary of state, "when you talk to the Swiss foreign minister, tell him I appreciate his cooperation on this issue. If he persists in raising a stink, tell him I'm going to make it my personal goal in life to call every billionaire I know and tell them to divest any holdings they have in the Swiss banking industry."

The secretary of state swallowed hard and nodded.

Hayes walked over to his desk and checked his appointment book. He glanced up. No one had moved. He picked up the handset of his secure phone and said, "If you'll excuse me, I need to make a call to the king."

It was Tuesday morning, and the surveillance team had been in place for a little less than twenty-four hours. So far there was no sign of Erich Abel. They'd spent most of Monday trying to get a better feel for just who the man was and watching the apartment. That's what they were best at-waiting and watching, and of course not being noticed. They obtained an updated photo off his driver's registration as well as twelve years of driving history. Not a single ticket or parking violation in all that time, which said a lot about the man. They ran his credit report and found out where he banked in Vienna, and what credit cards he used. The credit cards were checked for activity and to no one's surprise they hadn't been used in nearly two weeks. They checked phone records, for the apartment, the office, and any mobile phones they could link to him. Back at Langley a team of specialists were poring over the numbers he'd called, trying to connect them to a company or a person. There were a lot of Saudis on the list.

Late Monday afternoon they'd sent a man into the apartment. It was a nice building that fronted Stadt Park just south of old Vienna's inner ring, no more than a mile from his office. There were fifty-two units in the building. It didn't totally reek of money, but it was definitely high-end. There was a doorman and security cameras, so they had to be creative. They sent two agents through the front door posing as a couple. They were lost, and looking for an old friend who they thought lived in the building. Thirty seconds into the charade the male agent remembered the correct name of the building they were looking for. A name that just happened to sound like this one, but was in fact the name of a building three blocks away. When the doorman stepped outside to point them in the right direction, two men with a lock pick went through the back door.