End of Enemies (14 page)

He looked at Takagi. Takagi nodded.

The man jammed the tip of the knife into the wood beside his little finger, and rocked it sideways.

There was a sharp
crunch-pop
and blood gushed from the severed stump. The man let out a stifled cry. On shaking legs, he rose to his feet, swayed slightly, then picked up the cutting board and placed it on Takagi's desk blotter.

Takagi nodded. “Go.” The man turned and left the room.

Takagi considered the situation. He knew little about Tanner aside from his military background and current employer, an exporter/importer in the United States. There was nothing to suggest he was anything more than an ordinary vacationer. Nothing, that is, except his actions at the hotel.

Was it all coincidence? Perhaps, perhaps not. Takagi was tempted to settle the matter, but another murder—especially of an American—would raise too much suspicion. Ohira's murder had been necessary. It had left many unanswered questions. Who had he been working for, if anyone? Could there be a compromise?

Takagi dismissed this. Like so many men of wealth and power, he considered himself untouchable, and in Japan this was the virtual truth.
No,
he decided, there was no compromise. The ship would depart soon, and once the facility was destroyed there would be no trail left to follow. He was safe.

“Watch him,” Takagi said to Noboru. “As long as he remains a simple vacationer, he is to be left alone. If his interests change, however, I expect you to handle it personally. Do you understand?”

Tange Noboru nodded.
“Hai.
”

For a long time after Noburo left, Takagi stared out the window and considered his decision. Was there a connection beyond Ohira's chance encounter with Tanner? Had he overlooked—

Stop this
!
he commanded himself. Doubt? Hiromasa Takagi, doubting himself? He jabbed the intercom button on his desk. “Susiko! Come in here!”

The door opened and a young girl entered. She was sixteen years old, beautiful and delicate, with short black hair framing her face. Her eyes were liquid brown, doelike. Susiko had been fourteen when Takagi purchased her from a courtesan in Kyoto. Then, as now, she was perfect. A child-woman.

I
am in control,
Takagi thought, staring at her. “Disrobe,” he commanded.

Eyes downcast, Susiko shed her robe. Her breasts were pert and just budding. In accordance with Takagi's instructions, she was smooth-shaven.

“Come here.”

Susiko walked around the desk and stood before him. He reached up and fondled her right breast. The girl trembled but made no sound. She was frightened. He relished it. He felt himself hardening. He caressed her nipple between his thumb and index finger, paused, then pinched down. She cried out and collapsed to his feet.

“Tell me what you want,” Takagi murmured.

Shoulders trembling, she stared at the floor. “Please, I—”

“Tell me what you want!”

“You,” she choked. “I want you.”

He gently cupped her chin and lifted her face. He slapped her; a red welt appeared on her cheek. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you.”

Takagi smiled and nodded. “Very good.”

Washington,
D.C.

“For Christ's sake, Judith, how many times do I have to tell you: Your ass is too big for that dress!” Herb Smith yelled from the bathroom. “You're not a goddamned supermodel, you know.”

Judith Smith bit her lip. “Well, I just … I just thought—”

“Put on something else, and hurry up. The car will be here in five minutes.”

Judith nodded, blinking away the tears. “Okay, Herb.”

She went into the bathroom, careful not to slam the door lest it draw another bark. She snatched tissues from the counter dispenser and dabbed her eyes.
My eyeliner
…
I can't ruin my
…
“
Your ass is too big.
You're not a goddamned supermodel.
”
How would Marsha tell her to handle that? Maybe she wasn't a model, but she was certainly attractive, wasn't she? But Herb said—

“Stop it,” she said, staring at her reflection. “Stop it. You deserve better—”

“Judith, quit talking to yourself and get ready. I will
not
be late because you can't fit your ass into a five-hundred-dollar dress!”

“Okay, Herb, I'm coming.”

She stared into the mirror. The woman she saw was so different from the one of twenty-five years ago. Young Judith had been bright and confident and madly in love with a promising Georgia state senator who had won her heart on their first date. Less than a year later they were married, and that's when everything changed. She soon realized Herb had campaigned for her just as he campaigned for office: with ruthless pragmatism. She was simply window dressing, and he'd chosen her as he would choose a pair of shoes.

As the years went by and she worked at the marriage, certain that her dedication would change him, Judith made a fatal mistake: She began to believe it was her fault She wasn't trying hard enough. She wasn't attentive enough. She wasn't this, she wasn't that. She tried harder. And thus the cycle began. Smith grew more abusive; she took the blame. He controlled, she submitted.

What had it felt like to be that younger woman? Was she gone? Judith wondered. Was
this
who she was? Marsha Burns didn't think so, and neither did her friends—her real friends, that was, not the Washington gossips. She'd over-heard the conversations:
“She's damaged goods.
Even if she managed to find the courage to leave that drunken,
philandering husband of hers,
who would have her
?”
Judith knew about the drinking, the affairs, all the hushed-up gropings of young staffers. She even knew about the bimbo he had tucked away in that studio apartment in Georgetown. Despite all that, it terrified Judith to think of herself as anything but Mrs. Senator Herbert Smith.

“Judith, if you're not down here in one minute, I'm leaving without you!”

“Okay, Herb, almost ready.”

Judith peeled off her dress and selected another from the closet. It was her least favorite, but he approved of it. It presented the right image, he said. She smoothed it over her hips, took one last look at her makeup, and hurried downstairs.

Down the block from the Smith home, Ibrahim Fayyad watched the couple climb into the limousine. He checked the photo folder on his lap. There was no mistaking Herb Smith: the paunch, the ruddy skin, the thinning hair idiotically combed over his balding pate. The man was a pig. His wife, however, was another story. She was a handsome woman.

He watched the limo pull out of the driveway and disappear down the street. He pressed the Talk button on his portable radio. “Ibn, you have them?”

“We have them. We are following.”

Fayyad nodded to Hasim in the driver's seat. “Let's go.”

The Smiths' backyard was invitingly dark with the nearest neighbor a hundred yards away behind a tall fence. It took Fayyad less than a minute to pick the lock to the back door and another thirty seconds to bypass the alarm system. Once inside, he stood still, letting his eyes adjust. The house was dark except for a small bulb over the stove.

Fayyad told Hasim to wait in the kitchen.

He walked through the dining room and into the living room. The decor was predominantly feminine. All her choices, Fayyad suspected. The senator could not be bothered. As long as the correct image was portrayed, he would not care. Fayyad touched nothing but closely studied the photographs and paintings. Each one told him something about her. All the paintings were impressionist, most of them Monets. No pictures of children. According to al-Baz's brief, the marriage was childless.
Why
?
he wondered.
And what effect did that have on her
?

Ibrahim Fayyad knew the opposite sex. He knew their bodies, but that was simply a matter of mechanics. A woman's heart was captured with more than good looks, charm, and bedroom skills. What a woman wants more than anything is to have her soul laid bare before her lover and have him cherish her without reservation. You must know a woman's heart, her dreams, her fears. Once you understand these, you play them in concert; need and hope and fear all swirling together until they blossomed into love.

Those with low self-esteem were the most vulnerable, as were abuse sufferers, whose need for validation was immense. This would be the case with Judith Smith. The challenge would be to overcome her resistance. She had probably gotten good at quashing her feelings, and Fayyad would have to break through that wall. Behind it, he knew, would be a torrent of emotion.

He walked upstairs. At the top of the landing, he stopped and closed his eyes. He could smell her perfume. He turned right, used his foot to push open the door, and stepped into to the master bedroom. It was decorated in country-style powder blue. The bedspread was adorned with tiny yellow daisies. He grazed his fingertips over it

He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and went to work.

He examined everything of hers, from her dressed and her jewelry to her undergarments. Judith was full-figured, he saw, only slightly plump, her hips still trim from not having given birth. Her bras and panties were white cotton. No lace, no color. Nor did she own any lingerie. Her robe was a simple white terry cloth; it smelled of soap and sandlewood lotion. Fayyad wondered if the Smiths still had sex. Probably, he decided, but only when the senator needed release or when he felt the need to reassert his ownership of her.

In her nightstand drawer he found a small cedar box. He picked the lock. Inside was a cloth-bound diary filled with Judith's neat, flowing script. The last entry was two days ago. He pocketed the diary, closed the box, and broke the lock. The senator would be blamed.

Also in the drawer was a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings and brochures about the Washington art community: gallery openings, shows, reviews, fundraisers. Judith sat on several committees, one of the articles reported. Fayyad quickly scanned the rest, including one that included a short biography of her interests and tastes.

Next to the scrapbook was a day planner. She was meticulous. Every lunch date, appointment and social event was noted. He examined every page for the past three months, as well as the upcoming three, taking careful notes as he went.

He returned the scrapbook to the drawer, scanned the bedroom for anything out of place, then smoothed the bedspread and pulled the bathroom door closed to its original position. He was turning to leave, but he stopped.

He walked to the senator's side of the bed and opened his nightstand drawer. Inside were a pair of bifocals, a pulp detective novel, and a bottle of nasal spray. Near the back he found a neatly folded handkerchief. Fayyad opened it.

What he found surprised him. He slipped the item in his jacket pocket and then headed downstairs.

Langley

Judith was excited. She'd never been to CIA headquarters and, like most civilians, she expected an aura of intrigue to be wafting through its corridors. She was slightly disappointed to find the glass-enclosed lobby fairly ordinary except for the memorial wall and an imposing bronze statue of Wild Bill Donovan.

According to Herb, this dinner was given every year by the CIA for select members of the intelligence community and Senate IOC. As chairman, Smith was the guest of honor. Having listened to enough of her husband's anti-CIA diatribes, however, Judith suspected Dick Mason would rather punch Herb than socialize with him.

With practiced ease, Judith followed the senator through the crowd, exchanging greetings and smiling. She knew most of the faces, and she disliked half of them. Even so, she laughed and mingled, the perfect actress. Sometimes she hated that part of herself, wondering if her own act made her as two-faced as the rest.

“Judith!”

She turned. “Bonnie! Oh, I'm so glad you're here.” Bonnie Latham was one of her few genuine friends. They had met a year ago at a gallery opening. “Is Charlie here?”

“Yes, somewhere … There he is.” Bonnie pointed across the room to where Herb Smith and the FBI agent were talking. “He hates these things.”

“I don't blame him. Herb's probably grilling him about the Delta bombing.”

“He's going to have to get in line.”

“That bad?” Judith asked, accepting a glass of wine from a waiter.

“You didn't read the story in the
Post
?
Congressman Hostetler's daughter was on the plane.”

“Oh, my God. Is she okay?”

“From what I understand, she'll recover. So, how are you?”

“Wonderful. How're your kids—”

“You don't sound wonderful.”

Judith shrugged. “Just the usual. Nothing to worry—”

Bonnie placed her hand on Judith's forearm. “Do you want to talk?”

“No, I'm fine, really.”

“That's what you always say. We're having lunch this week, no arguments.”

“Okay,” Judith agreed gratefully. “Thank you, Bon.”

“Sure. Now let's go find a quiet corner.”

Across the room, Dick Mason, George Coates, and their wives stood at the head of the receiving line. “Judith Smith looks lovely,” said Mason's wife.

“Too lovely,” Coates's wife replied good-naturedly.

“I concur,” Coates added and got a poke in the ribs.

“Hard to believe he won her,” said Mrs. Mason.

“Harder still to believe he kept her,” Mrs. Coates muttered.

Herb Smith's unsavory lifestyle was one of the best kept non-secrets in Washington. If not for his power, Smith would long ago have been railroaded out of town. Mason would have gladly shoveled coal into the firebox. Ironically, the widespread animus for Smith was countered by a widespread fondness for his wife. Depending on who you asked, Judith's devotion marked her as either a saint or an idiot.

“Ladies, no gossiping,” said Mason.

“Richard, this is
not
gossiping,” replied his wife. “We like Judith.”

An aide approached. “Mr. Coates, the item you were expecting has arrived.”

“Thank you.”

“Kolokov's mystery package?” asked Mason.

“Yep.”

“Let's go take a look. Ladies, if you'll excuse us—”

“Dick, you promised no shop talk.”

“Ten minutes, no more.”

In the elevator, Mason asked Coates, “Any word on DORSAL?”

“Last report I got, Dutch's people were—”

“People? I thought it was just Tanner.”

“Dutch sent him some help. Cahil, Ian Cahil,” Coates said, then noticed Mason's smile. “You know him?”

“You remember the Tromaka Islands thing last year?”

“Yeah…. That was them?” Coates asked, astonished. He'd read the postmortem on SAILMAKER. If not for Tanner and Cahil, the defection of Yurgani Pakov would have never come off, 300 sailors would be dead, and a billion-dollar destroyer would be lying at the bottom of the ocean. “No kidding.”

“No kidding,” said Mason. “You were saying …”

“Depending on what they find in the locker, they'll service the drops and see if they get any response. If not, they'll have to go hunting for this engineer of Ohira's,” Coates said. “By the way, how was it with the boss yesterday?”

The day before, Mason, General Cathermeier, and National Security Adviser Talbot had briefed the president on the Mideast situation.

In Syria, the army exercise now involved five divisions of armor, two of mechanized and standard infantry, and two squadrons of strike aircraft. Assad's government was still mute, having ignored requests for additional information. In Israel, where outspoken members of the Knesset were accusing Syria of trying to upset the peace process, Israeli defense forces along the Golan Heights and in the Northern Military District were on heightened alert, and the IAF was increasing its overflights of the border.

As expected, the wild card was Saddam Hussein. Elements from four Iraqi Army divisions were moving toward the Iranian border. This move would have three effects. One, Saddam, ever paranoid of his arch-rival Syria, would likely redistribute army units toward the Syrian border; two, since some Republican Guard and Baghdad units—Saddam's personal guard—would likely be involved in such a move, the nagging question of whether the Iraqi president was fully in control of the army would finally be settled; and three, U.S. Central Command and regional U.S. forces would have to respond lest they be forced to play catch-up.

The president's decision, based largely on the advice of Talbot, the secretary of state, and the prime ministers of Britain and Israel, was weak, in Mason's opinion.

The
Independence
battle group would be positioned off the coast of Northern Israel, while the
Enterprise
group, including a Marine Expeditionary Force, or MAU, would be routed to the Persian Gulf to bolster CENTCOM forces.

From the start, both Mason and General Cathermeier advised the president to clarify their objectives before dispatching the groups. In failing to do so, they were ignoring what had kept the U.S. out of a quagmire in the Gulf War, namely the Powell Doctrine. Named after then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell who, like many of his contemporaries, had watched the U.S. military flail about in Vietnam, the doctrine demanded three conditions before military force was applied: the objectives must be clearly defined, the force must be overwhelming and decisive, and the achievement of the objectives must be virtually guaranteed.