"I know." Clark paused to let the tension build. He looked thoughtfully out the window as if he were struggling over the idea of getting Steveken involved. Finally he looked at his visitor and said, "It could turn into a media circus."
Steveken blinked. He distrusted the media. He was acutely aware that it was an insatiable beast that was often indiscriminate in its destruction. Working in a field where it was best to keep a low profile, the press was something he'd gone to great lengths to avoid. Trying to think a few steps ahead he asked, "Depending on what I find, is there a chance that I'd be called before your committee to testify?"
"No." Clark shook his head. "But there is a chance you'd be called before the House Intelligence Committee."
Now Steveken was confused. "Why?"
"It's a complicated story, and one that I'm trying desperately to stay out of." Clark sighed and then continued. "I've given the President my word that I'm going to support the confirmation of Dr. Kennedy as the next director of the CIA, and I'm not going to go back on that word. Having said that, however, I have some reservations about Dr. Kennedy." With a stern expression he added, "That is not to leave this room."
Steveken acted offended. "It goes without saying."
"Well, most of those reservations have been planted by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Rudin." Clark noted the frown the name brought to Steveken's face and quickly added, "I know I know the man is a major pain in the ass, but he means well." Clark leaned forward. "Rudin swears that Kennedy is as corrupt as they come. He's extremely passionate about it."
"Then why doesn't he investigate her? He has the power to do it."
"He does indeed. Several weeks ago he called Kennedy before his committee and attempted to ask her some tough questions." Clark took a sip of coffee.
"And?"
"And he got dragged up to the White House by the Speaker of the House and read the riot act by the President himself."
"Oh. The President doesn't want any trouble with his nomination." "Exactly. And as I've said, I gave Hayes my word. I'm not going to go back on it and besmirch Kennedy's reputation during the confirmation hearing all because Al Rudin has a bur up his ass. But at the same time, I would like to avoid backing this nomination if Kennedy has something in her past that could embarrass me."
"So you'd like me to quietly dig around, and see what I can turn up."
"Exactly." Clark sat back and slapped his thighs.
"That shouldn't be a problem. I'll get started this morning."
"Great." Clark smiled uncomfortably and then added, "There is one more favor I need to ask of you."
"Shoot."
"You won't technically be working for me."
"Who will I be working for?"
"Congressman Rudin."
Steveken frowned. "Excuse me for being so blunt. Hank, but the man has a reputation as being a real ass."
"I know he is, but he means well. I promise I'll tell him to be on his best behavior or you'll walk."
The frown had not left Steveken's face. "Does he know what my rate is? I mean the guy has a reputation of being the cheapest politician on the Hill."
"Don't worry about your fee. I'm going to take care of that."
"No." Steveken was embarrassed. "I can't charge you. You've done enough for me."
"No, I insist, Norb, and I'm not going to argue about it with you. You're worth every penny and then some."
"Hank I don't feel right taking-"
Clark held up his hand and cut him off. "Don't say another word. I don't want to hear it. I'm paying you and that's the end of it. All right?" Clark believed that the best way to keep someone loyal was to pay them well.
Steveken nodded. "All right. But I'm not going to take any crap from Rudin."
"That's fine," smiled Clark. "Now there are a couple more things. I have a contact for you at Langley. He's very high up, and I think he'll be willing to help."
"Who is it?"
"Jonathan Brown. Do you know who he is?"
Steveken mumbled something and said, "The former federal judge?"
"Yes."
"He had a reputation as a real prick when he sat on the bench."
"That doesn't surprise me. He's a by-the-book kind of guy."
"Then he's not going to tell me anything."
"Don't be so sure," cautioned Clark. "He's seen some things at Langley that have troubled him greatly." "Has he told you?"
"No. He knows if he tells me there's no turning back."
Steveken seemed to struggle with the whole thing. "I don't see why he'd open up to me."
"Because he has a conscience. All he needs right now is for someone to give him the chance to do the right thing." Clark backed off a bit and added, "Now that's assuming Kennedy has done something egregious. Maybe it's someone else, maybe it was Stansfield, but the point is I want to make sure before I vote for Kennedy that I'm not going to get egg on my face."
Steveken accepted the answer. "I think I understand."
"Good." The senator stood and so did Steveken. "Do you know where Wolf Trap Park is?"
"No."
"It's out by the Leesburg Pike."
"I'll find it"
"Good. Brown walks his dog in the park every night when he gets home from work, usually around six. I suggest you bump into him tonight." Steveken wondered how Clark knew this, but decided not to ask. "How should I approach him?"
After thinking about it for a moment, Clark said, "Tell him you're working for Congressman Rudin. Tell him the congressman is very worried that the wrong person is about to be made director of the CIA. Tell him that anything he provides will be kept off the record. His name will not get dragged into this." Clark placed a hand on Steveken's shoulder. "The congressman is just looking for something to get an investigation going and throw a wrench into the confirmation hearings."
"Don't worry. Hank. I'll handle it."
"I know you will, Norb. And if nothing turns up, that's great. I like Dr. Kennedy, and I think she'll make one hell of a director. I just want to make sure she's not going to embarrass me before I cast that vote next week."
"I understand." "Good. I told Congressman Rudin you'd stop by his office this morning. Can you swing over there?"
"Yeah. I'll do it right now."
Clark slapped him on the back. "Thanks, Norb." He was about to say good-bye and then he added, "And one more thing. My name stays out of this at all costs. All I did was refer you to Rudin. I never paid you a penny for this job. Right?" Clark winked and the two men shook hands.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
Milan, Italy, Thursday afternoon
Marc Rosenthal had killed the enemies of Israel in a variety of ways, by knife, by bullet, even by poison once, but his instrument of choice over the years had been explosives. There were several reasons for this. To start with he found it practical. Explosives enabled him to maximize damage while maintaining his cover. A machine gun could be just as lethal in the right hands, but to stand in the open and hose down a group of people was to open oneself up to return fire. And that was just the start. Such an act made escape very difficult. No, Rosenthal liked bombs. He could study the habits of his targets and get the device into place before they arrived.
He'd pulled off some bold operations during his years with Mossad. Rosenthal knew that during a time when Mossad had had a streak of bad luck, he was one of the few bright stars. That was in great part due to the keen instincts of Ben Freidman. Freidman had sent Rosenthal into the occupied territories to gather information. The baby-faced Jew had proven to be so effective at penetrating the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas that Freidman couldn't resist using Rosenthal to strike back. The first bomb Rosenthal planted took out several midlevel lieutenants of the organization, but it was his second bombing that proved to Freidman that Rosenthal was an astonishingly brave warrior. The second bombing took place at a streetside cafe in Hebron. Rosen that had planted the device in the bottom of a trash can early th
e same morning and then that afternoon he met several of his Hamas compatriots at the cafe for lunch. During the meal Rosenthal got up and went to the bathroom. In his pocket he carried a pen that doubled as a trigger for the bomb. Before leaving the bathroom he depressed the pen cap and threw it into the garbage. The bomb was now on a twenty second delay. Rosenthal then walked back and sat down at the table. He had picked his spot carefully. Between him and the bomb was a palm tree in a concrete planter. Rosenthal calmly counted the time and at eighteen seconds he bent over as if to pick up something he'd dropped.
The blast instantly killed three of the four men he was dining with and two other patrons. Rosenthal escaped with a severe concussion, some lacerations from the flying debris and some hearing loss. The fact that he himself had almost died in the bombing served to cement his standing as a soldier of Hamas.
It was this bold move that allowed him to get close to Hamas leader Yehya Ayyash. Rosenthal was brought into the inner circle, and five months later on a bright sunny day he took a call for Ayyash on a cell phone that had been modified by the technicians back at Mossad. When Rosenthal handed Ayyash the phone, he walked away and left the group. Once again he had a pen in his pocket, but this time there was no delayed fuse. Rosenthal never looked back. He pressed the top of the pen with his thumb and the explosion was instantaneous. The shaped plastic charge in the phone tore intoayyash's head and killed him. That was the end of rosenthal's undercover work in the occupied territories. He was hated by all of Palestine.
Freidman had taken significant interest in honing Rosenthal's skills as an assassin. The director general of Mossad had significant experience in the arena. In 1972 eleven Israeli athletes were taken hostage during the Munich Olympics by the Palestinian group Black September. Two of the athletes were killed right away when the terrorists burst into their dormitory at the Olympic Village. The terrorists demanded the release of 234 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Golda Meir, Israel 's prime minister at the time, refused to release the prisoners because she believed it would only invite future disasters. After a tense five-day standoff, the German authorities made their move at the airport while the terrorists were transferring their hostages to a plane. The rescue operation was a disaster. The nine remaining hostages were all killed, as were six of the eight terrorists. To add insult to injury, the two surviving terrorists were later released.
Ben Freidman had been at the airport that dreaded day in 1972. He had been standing next to one of his idols, Zvi Zarnir. Zamir had been the director general of Mossad at the time, and after the massacre in Munich, it was Zamir who had convinced the prime minister that it was time to take the gloves off. Golda Meir directed Zamir to hunt down the masterminds behind Black September and kill them. Over the next nine months the blood flowed and Ben Freidman proved himself to be one of Mossad most efficient assassins. His first hit was barely a month after the massacre of the Olympic athletes. Mossad wanted to send a signal to everyone, and their first target was wael Zwaiter, a PLO representative in Rome. On October 16 Freidman came up behind Zwaiter, put two bullets into the back of his head and left him for dead on the street. Not even two months later Freidman was part of a team that killed Mahmoud Hamshari by placing a bomb in the phone of his Paris apartment. The bomb was detonated by remote control and the PLO representative was decapitated.
Blood continued to flow and Freidman's crowning achievement came on April 13, 1973. He was part of a select force of Mossad agents and Army commandos that launched a raid into the heart of Beirut. The targets that night were three of the PLO's most senior officials. Muhammad Nayar, Kamal Adwan and Kamal Nasser were all gunned down in their homes. The success of the raid had implications far beyond the deaths of the three leaders. Information seized during the raids led to the assassination of three more terrorists with ties to Black September. The success of the raid was short-lived, however.
Just two months after Mossad had experienced one of its greatest successes it experienced its worst nightmare. The disaster occurred in the sleepy Norwegian ski village of Lillehammer. A team of Mossad agents was sent to investigate a possible sighting of the terrorist All Has san Salameh. The inexperienced group incorrectly identified the target and then proceeded to kill Ahmed Bouchiki, a Moroccan waiter. If that wasn't bad enough, six of the team members were subsequently captured while trying to escape. The men and women were put on trial and five of the six were jailed. The international outcry was deafening, and Mossad was officially ordered to get out of the assassination business.
But unofficially, they stayed very much involved in the dirty business and Ben Freidman continued to be one of Mossad's best. He had used those years of experience to train Rosenthal. They studied why certain operations succeeded and why others failed. The Lillehammer fiasco was easy to dissect. After all, they'd killed the wrong man. Everything started with the misidentification of the target. The entire mess could have easily been avoided with some thorough checking. After that there was one other glaring flaw; there were too many agents involved in the operation. This was the result of too much oversight from Tel Aviv. Freidman knew that for a mission to be successful, the man or woman pulling the trigger had to have as much autonomy as possible, but they must always remember to not embarrass Israel.
It was for that reason that there would be no explosives this time. It was one thing to set off a bomb in Gaza or Jerusalem. As strange as it might seem, the people of the Middle East were used to such things. But a bomb in Milan would draw too much attention. The authorities and the press would start to dig and eventually fingers would be pointed at Israel. There were better, quieter ways to handle the situation. Donatella Rahn would have to be killed up close. Preferably a silenced bullet delivered to the back of her head.
Before leaving Tel Aviv, Rosenthal had thoroughly read Donatella's file. He had seized on her heroin addiction and thought that there might be a way to fake her death with an overdose. As convenient as the plan sounded at first, Rosenthal had to be realistic. She was not some waif of a model. She herself was a skilled assassin. There would be no realistic way to subdue her without a struggle. And a struggle would mean noise and possibly witnesses. In addition, a struggle would leave marks on her body that wouldn't be consistent with an overdose. No, the heroin overdose was too complicated; there were too many spots where it could blow up in their faces. They needed something uncomplicated.
Rosenthal had been trying to pick a spot all afternoon. He could always do it on the crowded street while she walked home from work. Rosenthal was an expert at blending into a crowd. His diminutive size made it very easy for him to move almost unnoticed. It would be relatively simple for him to stalk her, put a bullet into her heart and keep walking. The only real risk was another pedestrian getting in the way or trying to chase him after he pulled the trigger. It was a risk that he was willing to take if he had to.
As Rosenthal looked out the window of the rented car, he had some thing else on his mind. In front of him was the building where Donatella's flat was located. He'd been sitting there for half an hour and had just witnessed a UPS driver deliver a package. It got Rosenthal thinking. The best place to do it would be her apartment. She would have her guard down, and they would have time to clean up and sanitize the apartment when they were done. The apartment it would be. He started to prepare a mental checklist of the things he would need. After another five minutes of watching he told Sunberg to take him back to the safe flat.
The White House, Thursday morning
President Hayes was in the Cabinet Room watching his secretary of commerce slug it out with a group of lobbyists that represented the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, and Amnesty International. The argument was over whether or not the U. S. should continue to grant most favored nation status to China when it came up for review in a few months. In Hayes's mind it was a worthless debate. There was only one way the U. S. would revoke China 's most favored nation status and it had nothing to do with the high-priced lobbyists sitting around the large,
highly polished conference table. China would have to cause an international incident. Even something so brazen as being caught stealing secrets from American businesses might not be enough. They would have to take military action against Taiwan, and that wasn't going to happen. The Chinese were ecstatic with their new highbred economy. Where the former Soviet Union was in shambles, trying to make the transition from a closed socialist economy to an open one, the Chinese were flourishing. They offered something the Russians couldn't. Stability.
Hayes looked on with mixed feelings of sympathy and disrespect as the union representatives and lobbyists tried to state their cases. He had sympathy for them because they were truly passionate, but he also loathed them precisely because they were so passionate about a dead issue. Unemployment was at a thirty-year low. The alarmists from the unions had said that NAFTA would cost millions of jobs and it hadn't. Wages were up. Continued open trade with China was good for the American economy and hence the American people. The human rights people had a slightly better point, but in the end isolationism was no way to get China to treat its people better. The key was continued trade. Get them to open their economy first and then their minds and hearts. Hayes felt the meeting was a waste of his time, but in Washington you always had to have your eye on the next election. These people represented a big portion of his base. He needed to lend them a sympathetic ear lest they go looking to back a different Democratic candidate. The President sat in his chair with hands folded neatly in front of him and nodded as the woman from Amnesty International recited a slew of statistics about the number of people unjustly incarcerated in the world's largest country.
When the door opened Hayes was relieved to see Michael Haik enter. The wiry national security advisor came around the table and apologized to the President's guests. He then bent over and whispered something into the President's ear. Hayes nodded several times and then looked to the people sitting across the table.