The Survivor (26 page)

“I tend to agree. Have you considered Ahmed Taj?”

“Yeah. He’s a lot more interesting.”

“How so?” Kennedy said, wondering if Nash recognized he was being tested and just wasn’t letting on. She hoped that was the case.

“I’ve met the guy a couple times and I’ve read all the files we’ve got on him. Everything points to him being weak. I’m starting to wonder, though. Durrani’s death would have created quite a power vacuum at the ISI. We should have seen a lot of fireworks but we didn’t. I’ve seen successions in my kid’s Boy Scout troop go harder than that.”

Kennedy remained silent, taking another sip of her tea.

“So do you think I’m totally off base here, Irene? Maybe Chutani’s got a better handle on the ISI than I’m giving him credit for.”

“No. Unfortunately, I find myself nursing the same suspicions. Our analysts have been telling me for years that Taj is too feeble to control the ISI, and in the same breath they tell me that the ISI is becoming increasingly effective. Somewhere there’s a disconnect between theory
and reality. If you discard the conventional wisdom that Taj is just a figurehead, it’s amazing how quickly the picture comes into focus.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Nash said. “Because I’d rather see those files in the hands of al Qaeda than the ISI.”

Before she could respond, an alarm sounded on her laptop. She felt her heart rate accelerate. That particular chime was set to sound only when an email arrived from Joe Rickman.

“Rick?” Nash said, noticing her sudden pallor.

She nodded and opened her inbox as he moved to a position where he could look over her shoulder.

The attachment was another video. Kennedy felt her mouth go dry when she started the playback.

“Hello, Irene. I’d say it’s good to see you but I can’t see you because you had me killed.”

He was sitting with his boots on the desk again, wearing the same clothes he had in the last communiqué. Knowing Rickman, he’d recorded these all in one caffeine- and amphetamine-fueled push.

“I hope it drives you nuts trying to figure out how I got all this intel. Take my advice and don’t bother. I’m just smarter than you.” He paused dramatically, letting the seconds tick by. “Freaking out yet, Irene? Want to know what I’ve got? ’Cause this one’s way bigger than Sitting Bull. I mean, who really gives a crap about the Russians? Nothing but a bunch of vodka-swilling losers.”

“I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d been there when Mitch splattered this prick’s brains all over the wall,” Nash said.

Kennedy motioned for silence.

“Okay, I guess you’ve waited long enough,” Rickman said. “I sent the Iranians a detailed file about how their ambassador to the U.K. is on your payroll. Names, dates, bank account numbers. Even a few nice glossy eight-by-tens.” He smiled and reached for a remote on his desk. “Have fun.”

“Is that true?” Nash said when the image went black.

Kennedy was too stunned to answer. It was absolutely true. Kamal Safavi was their highest-placed Iranian asset, a man well versed in both his country’s
fledgling nuclear weapons program and its increasingly severe political power struggles.

“What time is it in London, Mike?”

He glanced at his watch. “Around midnight.”

Kennedy shut down her email and pulled up Safavi’s information. She clicked on the text button and sent him an innocuous message that he would recognize as a warning. The contingency plan they’d created was for him and his family to immediately proceed to a safe house, where they’d be met by her London station chief. The question was whether Rickman had left time. Would he have seen it as more destructive to let the United States take the man and weather the -inevitable Iranian demands for his return? Or would he want the ayatollah to take him and extract everything he knew about the CIA’s Iranian operations?

“Where’s Mitch?” Kennedy asked.

“We still don’t know. He said he had some personal business to deal with and took one of the Gulfstreams we have hangared in Europe.”

“During this?” Kennedy said, letting a rare flash of anger show. “You’re supposed to keep track of him, Mike. And the Agency’s planes aren’t his private limousines.”

“Then that’s a conversation you should have with him, Irene. Because sometimes he gets a look on his face like he’s trying to decide whether it would be more efficient to argue with me or just kill me. As far as I’m concerned, he can do whatever he wants with those planes.”

Kennedy’s line buzzed and she picked up. Ken Barrett, her London station chief, was on the other end. He’d been copied on the text she’d sent.

“I have people on the way to the safe house, Dr. Kennedy. Do you want me to send anyone to the ambassador’s residence?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Maybe Rickman had timed this to provoke a confrontation between the CIA and the Iranians on -London’s streets. What she didn’t need to do was to create a violent incident in the backyard of America’s strongest ally.

“Quietly,” she said finally. “No
one does anything but watch unless I give the order. And call Charlie. We need to bring MI6 in on this.”

Kennedy hung up and dialed Mitch Rapp’s cell number. Until now, she’d left him alone. He rarely disappeared like this, so it stood to reason that what he was doing was important to him. She couldn’t wait any longer, though. Wherever he was, his vacation was over.

Her stomach tightened with each ring but finally the line clicked and Rapp’s voice came on.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“Greece.”

“Get to London. Now.”

I
RANIAN
A
MBASSADOR’S
R
ESIDENCE

L
ONDON

E
NGLAND

K
AMAL
Safavi remained as still as possible, trying not to wake his wife in bed next to him. It was just after midnight and he’d been lying awake for almost two hours. The meeting at the Foreign Office that day had gone predictably badly. MI6 had reports—correct as far as he knew—that Iran had just accepted a delivery of advanced centrifuges from North Korea.

Based on his country’s history with America, he could understand and sympathize with his masters’ paranoia regarding the West. The affronts that so consumed them, though, now existed only in history books. They needed to be concerned the future. They needed to acknowledge that the nuclear program they believed would keep Iran safe was strangling the country’s economy. Paralyzed by their misguided fears of an American attack, Iran’s government was dooming its population to a death by a thousand cuts.

So much foolishness and hate served no purpose. Iran was a -rational and stable island in a region that was in the process of tearing itself apart. Only the shortsightedness of their respective politicians prevented the two countries from laying the foundations for an era of cooperation.

It was a sentiment that Irene Kennedy shared. She was an eminently reasonable woman who saw the potential of normalizing relations between Tehran and Washington. She understood that Iran’s youth had little memory of the shah or the revolution. They wanted freedom and prosperity. They wanted to occupy a place of respect in the world.

There was a static-ridden cry from his nightstand, and he glanced over at the baby monitor as it went silent again. His young daughter was dreaming. But about what? A future of unbounded opportunity? A life in a society that treated her as an equal? Peace and security?

Probably not. That was his dream. For her. For all of his people.

A moment later, a more urgent sound emanated from the direction of his nightstand. For a few seconds he was disoriented by the shrillness, unable to remember what it meant. His confusion didn’t last long, though, and he snatched up his phone to scan the text on the screen.

“Get up!” he said, throwing the covers to the floor and leaping from bed.

In the dim glow of the alarm clock, he saw his wife’s eyes flutter open.

“What is it?” she said, reaching for the lamp by her side of the bed. “Is it Ava? Is she awake?”

He grabbed his wife’s wrist before she could get to the switch. “Don’t turn it on. Just get up and put your robe on. Quietly. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” she said, alarmed. “What are you talking about?”

He had never told her or anyone else about his relationship with Kennedy. He’d thought it was safe. That it was important. Now all he could feel was guilt for what he’d done. His family was in danger. And for what? The idealism that his father had warned him about so many times as a youth.

“There’s no time to explain,” he said in a harsh whisper. “We have to leave. Now!”

Safavi ran in bare feet to his daughter’s room, finding her fast asleep.
He lifted her carefully. They had to be silent. Their staff consisted only of a woman who did the cooking and cleaning, and an aging security man who spent most of his time shuttling them around the city. He could afford to wake neither.

“Kamal, you’re scaring me,” his wife said, appearing in the doorway. “What’s happening?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he whispered. “Now we have to get to the car. It’s parked right out front.”

“But I need to get dressed. I don’t even have shoes. We—”

Fortunately, his daughter was still small enough to hold in one arm, and he clamped his free hand around his wife’s bicep. The apprehension on her face turned to fear when she felt the force of his grip.

“Kamal, you—”

“Silence!” he whispered as he dragged her toward the stairs.

Light from the courtyard filtered through the windows, providing enough illumination to navigate through the furniture arranged in the entryway. Kennedy had warned them in time. They were going to make it.

The door was suddenly thrown open with enough force to nearly rip it from its hinges. Safavi’s wife screamed as three men ran into their home, shouting in Persian.

A forearm hit him in the face and he held his daughter tight, trying to protect her as he was slammed to the floor.

“No!” he shouted as she was torn away from him.

His wife continued to scream and he turned his face toward her as his hands were secured behind his back. “Don’t hurt her! She doesn’t know anything!”

The man didn’t listen, grinding a knee into her back as she was bound with flex cuffs. Their driver appeared at the end of the hallway but stopped short when he recognized the intruders as being from the embassy’s security team.

Ava was wailing now, her shrieks echoing eerily through the house. Safavi couldn’t breathe with the weight of the man on top of him, but
he barely noticed. His wife was sobbing, still having no idea what was happening. He had done this. He was responsible for the terror his wife and child felt.

An arm snaked around Safavi’s neck and he felt himself being dragged backward. Their maid appeared and ran instinctively toward the man holding Ava, but was hit in the side of the head with a pistol butt. She collapsed to the floor and went completely still.

The arm cutting off his air tightened as they exited into a light London rain. Only then did the man holding him speak. “The ayatollah is looking forward to seeing you and your family, Kamal.”

L
ONDON

E
NGLAND

P
ULL
over.”

The traffic was almost nonexistent on the dark London high street. To his right, Rapp could see a narrow alleyway swirling with the blue flash of a police cruiser’s lights.

“Here?” the cabbie said. “But the address you gave me is another six blocks.”

Rapp had decided to take a taxi instead of getting someone from the CIA to pick him up at the airstrip. His goal was to slip in and out of Britain with as little fanfare as possible. The Istanbul operation was still bringing down a fair amount of heat, and the EU’s intelligence community was starting to suspect him in the death of an Islamic -propagandist in Spain two months earlier. Entirely true, but proper protocols hadn’t been followed, so Kennedy was doing everything she could to shift the blame to the Mossad. Its director owed her and he seemed amenable to taking responsibility.

Rapp retrieved a fifty-pound note and held it out for the driver. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

The vehicle rolled to a stop near the sidewalk and Rapp got out without looking back. The dark overcoat he’d found on the plane was
enough to keep the rain off, but not enough to hold back the damp cold. He flipped up the collar, partially for warmth, but mostly because London was the most videotaped city in the world. Constant adjustments to the angle of his head kept his face in shadow as he moved across the cobblestones.

The uneven surface ended at a street that ran through a posh neighborhood lined with turn-of-the-century buildings. Normally, it would have been quiet at such a late hour, but that night almost every light was on and he could see people standing at their windows looking down into a crowded street.

Rapp turned toward a set of yellow barriers blocking off the area in front of an especially impressive stone building. There were twenty or so civilians talking among themselves near the police line, and he kept his distance, skirting the far edge of the rain-soaked barricade.

“Sir!” a cop shouted, starting toward him with a nightstick in his hand. “This is a restricted area.”

“Shut up.”

The man paused for a moment, confused by Rapp’s reaction, but then started running at him. He got within five yards before one of the two men Rapp was striding toward waved him off.

“Charlie,” Rapp said, keeping his hands in his jacket pockets as he stopped in front of a man wearing an impeccable Burberry trench coat and bowler. Charles Plimpton was one of MI6’s top men, and he reveled in his role as a British spy. When he’d started out, he’d been vaguely competent, but now political aspirations had set in. Apparently, his wife was the second cousin to King Arthur’s maid or something. She felt entitled to a higher station in life.

“I wish I could say that it’s good to see you, Mitch. But whenever you arrive in my country, disaster follows.”

The other man was Ken Barrett, the CIA’s London station chief. He had the more appropriately disheveled look of a man woken in the middle of the night: wrinkled jeans, a hooded parka, and waterproof boots.