Vince Flynn - Consent To Kill

Claudia didn't budge. She looked at him with an icy stare and said, "Sit down."

Gould's head snapped around. "What?"

"You heard me. Sit down right now."

Gould placed a hand on the back of his chair, but refused to sit.

"Where do you want to go?" Claudia asked.

"Back," he said as if she was a moron. "We have to go back and finish this."

"No, we don't. We are done. We have the money and we are retiring."

"No." He shook his head emphatically. "We go back and finish the job."

"Why?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"The right thing to do," she mocked him. "Don't you think it's a little late for that?"

"What in the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You killed an innocent woman, and now you're talking about doing the right thing." Her brow furrowed and she began shaking her head. "Have you really become so sick that you believe yourself noble…that right or wrong has anything to do with this?" She lowered her voice and through tight lips said, "We kill people."

"I know what we do, but we have a code we have to follow."

"We used to. We're done. How does this change anything? We are retiring. You promised me. We are going to raise a family."

"They will come looking for us."

She laughed. "They would not even know where to begin. They know nothing about us, and we know everything about them." She pointed at her computer. "A single message telling them to leave us alone or we will kill them will solve the problem."

Gould shook his head. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Claudia tilted her head and looked at him as if she was searching for some clue deep in his mind. "Fine. We'll do the right thing. Let's send the money back."

"No…we're going to finish the job."

"It's about him, isn't it?"

"Who?"

"Rapp. You want to prove you are better than him."

"Pack up your stuff. Let's go."

"You were never going to retire, were you?" She was too angry to cry. "Go." She pointed toward the door. "At least you won't have me or your child to slow you down."

Gould shouldered his backpack and stared at her with angry eyes. "I'm going to finish this, and then I'll come find you."

"Don't bother. I don't think I want to see you ever again."

Her words hurt and they gave him a split second of pause. "What about the baby?"

"I think the baby would be better off without you."

Gould had never been more hurt by anything in his life, but he was too proud to let Claudia know. He simply turned and walked away.

The car, a black Infiniti Q35, belonged to a friend of one of the embassy employees. It was a little small for Tayyib's six-foot-three-inch frame, but given his mission he figured it suited him well enough. The car had been waiting for him in a parking ramp several blocks from the movie theater. Tayyib and three other embassy employees had pulled up to the theater fifteen minutes before the start of their movie and stood in line for tickets, popcorn, and refreshments. Thirty minutes into the show, the keys and a slip of paper were handed to Tayyib. He got up as if he was going to the bathroom and never came back.

The U.S. and Saudi governments had an unofficial understanding that they were not supposed to spy on each other. Tayyib, and every other serious intelligence officer, knew this agreement was a sham. He ordered his own people to keep a close eye on American intelligence officials when they visited Saudi Arabia, and he assumed the Americans would potentially do the same-although Tayyib knew from experience the Americans were far more worried about offending the Saudi royal family than the Saudis were about offending Americans.

Too much was riding on this operation to take any shortcuts, so Tayyib drove around for more than an hour to make sure he wasn't being followed. Finally at 9:47 he headed for the meet. Tayyib had dealt with this individual on only one other occasion, and the man had performed exactly what had been asked of him. At that time, a crisis had caused the Saudi intelligence officer to seek the man's aid. A Saudi citizen had been arrested in Virginia and was charged with importing ten million dollars' worth of heroin. He was in federal custody awaiting trial when word got back to Tayyib that the man was trying to strike a deal with federal prosecutors. In exchange for a reduced sentence, the man would provide proof that the Saudi Intelligence Service offered direct aid and training to al-Qaeda in preparation for the 9/11 attacks. Accusations made by a man who dealt in illegal drug trafficking would normally carry little weight, but this particular man had in fact been one of Tayyib's officers. He knew far too much and would do great damage if he was allowed to speak to the Americans. When Tayyib informed Prince Muhammad bin Rashid of the problem, the prince made it clear what needed to be done.

Tayyib's greatest asset had always been his resourcefulness. He had not grown up a violent person. Other than the occasional fight with his brothers and cousins, he'd never so much as raised his voice in anger. He had an excessively calm personality. Even on the soccer field where his size and speed would have allowed him to bully others he held back. He'd grown up in Riyadh, a city of some three million people where crime was as rare as rain. It wasn't until Rashid had gone to work for the Intelligence Service that he began to see why Saudis were so law-abiding. The legal system in Saudi Arabia was unbelievably harsh. Police beat confessions out of suspects, judges rarely offered leniency, and the prisons were wicked.

The prisons in Saudi Arabia and America were both very dangerous places, but for different reasons. In Saudi Arabia it was the guards the prisoners had to fear, whereas in America, it was the other inmates. Tayyib had an acute understanding of this because he had been involved in a top secret program regarding American inmates. For years Muslim charities had been providing funds, materials, and guidance to help convert American inmates to Islam during their stay behind bars. What most people didn't know was that Saudi intelligence officials had been keeping track of these new converts with the hopes that if need be these non-Arab men would join their fight. These men were tracked as they were released from jail and steered toward mosques where they could continue to get the proper Wahhabi indoctrination into Islam.

It was during a meeting with one of the Muslim charity workers that Tayyib learned of a group called Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13. The fastest-growing segment of the American prison system were Hispanic men. Tayyib could not understand why it was that they had not a single Hispanic recruit in the two years he'd been involved with the program. The man explained to him that the Hispanic prison population was overwhelmingly Catholic and that they were very organized and extremely violent. He cited two cases where African-American Muslims had been beaten to death for trying to convert MS-13 gang members. Tayyib did some research into the group and found out that the FBI now considered them to be the number one organized crime threat in America. The group had started in El Salvador and had spread across America like a cancer. Outside of New York City, the group's strongest presence was in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.

The most difficult part had been making contact with the group. Like most street gangs they had an unofficial uniform. They gravitated toward pro sports jerseys. Their group colors were blue and white, the same as the Salvadoran flag, and they liked the numbers 13, 67, and 76. Tattoos of MS-13 were big, and they kept their hair buzzed short. Tayyib found out they had a strong presence in Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia. With little time to spare, he was forced to take some risks. He drove to a particularly bad part of Alexandria in broad daylight and found two young men standing outside an auto repair shop. One was wearing a North Carolina tank top and the other a University of Michigan one. The numbers on the jerseys matched the profile as did the short hair and the tattoos. Tayyib pulled up to the two men and did not get out of the car. He handed them an envelope. It contained $10,000, a note, and a phone number. Tayyib told the men to give the package to their boss. Within the hour he received a phone call and met face to face with the local gang leader. More money exchanged hands, a deal was struck, and Tayyib's former employee was found dead in his cell the next day. When Tayyib met the man to pay him the rest of the money, he made it clear that he might again need his services and asked for the best way to get ahold of him. The man came right out and gave him a name and a number.