"I never reveal my clients, you know that. But out of curiosity, why do you dislike the Saudis so much?"

"As bad as the communists were, they pale in comparison to the Saudis."

Abel laughed. "How so?"

"The Saudis think that G.o.d is on their side, and people who think G.o.d is on their side are capable of the most inhumane acts."

Abel was intrigued. He'd never heard his friend talk about religion this way. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the great leaders of Mother Russia-Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin-managed to kill twenty million people, and as far as I know, they were atheists."

"That number is greatly exaggerated."

"Cut it in half then. A mere ten million."

"I will not defend Lenin and Stalin. They were awful creatures, but these Saudis and their maniacal brand of Islam will be the end of us all."

Abel did not want to wander too far from the task at hand. If there was time later they could continue their jousting. "I will tell you one thing and one thing only about my client. His motivation is as pure as it is rotten and is as old as man himself."

"Your client is a prost.i.tute?"

Abel smiled. "No."

Petrov reached for the vodka. "Revenge."

"Yes."

After his gla.s.s was full Petrov asked, "Revenge for what? Did someone dare gaze upon one of his daughters without her veil on?"

"I never said he was a Saudi."

"Why does he want revenge?"

"Someone killed his son."

"Someone important?"

Abel shook his head. "Someone who is very dangerous."

"Ahhh...I think I see. You need a killer to kill a killer."

"Precisely." Petrov seemed finally satisfied. Abel wondered if his old friend was getting a conscience in his old age.

"And this person is good."

"Yes."

"Anyone I've ever heard of?"

"I am done answering questions. I have already told you too much. Give me my name and then we can get back to talking about the atrocities committed by communism."

Petrov snarled at him like an old dog who had been poked by a stick. "I have a name and a phone number for you. A woman will answer. She is French. I am told she is quite beautiful. She will act as the go-between."

"And the shooter?"

"I know very little about him. I like it that way, and I a.s.sume so does he. My source tells me he is relatively young and very well rounded with the various tools of the trade."

"Would you say he's aggressive or cautious?"

"I would say aggressive," laughed Petrov. "He's done three jobs for me in the last seven months and G.o.d only knows how many others."

11.

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA.

T he motorcade turned off the highway and pa.s.sed the lone, white guard post that had been added in 1993 after several employees were killed on their way into work. The two Suburbans and black armor-plated Cadillac limousine continued onto the narrow tree-lined drive and over a rise without slowing. They appeared to be in a hurry. Once over the rise, an intimidating security checkpoint came into view. All visitor traffic was directed to the right by large, easily readable signs. Other signs warned people that this was their last chance to turn around without risking arrest and prosecution. If they missed the signs, the men in black Nomex jumpsuits carrying submachine guns provided further warning that this place was not part of the local sightseeing tour. he motorcade turned off the highway and pa.s.sed the lone, white guard post that had been added in 1993 after several employees were killed on their way into work. The two Suburbans and black armor-plated Cadillac limousine continued onto the narrow tree-lined drive and over a rise without slowing. They appeared to be in a hurry. Once over the rise, an intimidating security checkpoint came into view. All visitor traffic was directed to the right by large, easily readable signs. Other signs warned people that this was their last chance to turn around without risking arrest and prosecution. If they missed the signs, the men in black Nomex jumpsuits carrying submachine guns provided further warning that this place was not part of the local sightseeing tour.

The motorcade stayed to the left and came to an abrupt stop in front of the yellow painted steel barricade. Men with guns were everywhere and there were more of them behind the greenish tinted bulletproof Plexiglas of the blockhouse. Three of the guards who had been talking when the surprise visitors came over the hill immediately spread out. No one had to tell them; it was part of their training. Cl.u.s.ters made for easy targets. This wasn't Hollywood. There was no racking of the slides and flicking of safety switches. When these men were on duty they were hot, which meant they had a round in the chamber, and the only safety was their forefinger.

The motorcade was immediately flanked on one side by four of the black-clad men. Despite the gray overcast morning they were all wearing dark shooting gla.s.ses to cover their eyes. Their weapons remained pointing down, but fingers caressed trigger guards while eyes tried to peer beyond the heavily tinted windows of the vehicles. These types of motorcades were commonplace, but they were always expected-on the list and fully vetted. This one was not, and the men and women of the security force did not like surprises.

A captain came out of the blockhouse with a look of slight irritation on his face and approached the pa.s.senger side of the lead vehicle. The tinted window came down only to reveal a tinted pair of sungla.s.ses. The captain, an eight-year veteran of the force, asked in a not-so-friendly tone, "May I help you?"

The man pulled out a black leather case and flipped it open to reveal his credentials. "Secret Service." He jerked his thumb back toward the limo and said, "We have Director Ross. He's here on official business."

The captain nodded and folded his hands behind his back. "Did you guys forget your manners?"

"Huh?" the agent asked, not getting the question.

"Simple protocol...call ahead...let us know you're coming." The captain rocked back and forth on his heels while he a.s.sessed how far he should push this.

The agent gave him the courtesy of lowering his gla.s.ses an inch so the top two-thirds of his eyes were visible. "The director is a busy man, but I hear you loud and clear. The problem is we didn't even know we were coming out here until five minutes ago. We were leaving the new counterterrorism facility and he told us to come straight here. I'm just following orders."

The answer seemed plausible. "All right. Roll the windows down, get your creds out, and we'll make this as quick and painless as possible." The captain pointed at the lead Suburban and three men appeared from the blockhouse, one with a dog. The dog and his handler began circling the vehicle while the two men began inspecting credentials. The captain hesitated for a second and then went back to the limo. He waited patiently by the back pa.s.senger window for a three count, staring at his own reflection. He waited two more seconds and then rapped on the window with his knuckles.

The window came down revealing two white men talking on phones. One was in his fifties and the other appeared to be about ten years younger. The captain recognized the older man as Mark Ross, the new director of National Intelligence.

The younger man placed his phone flat against the lapel of his suit coat and said, "Could we speed this up, we're on a tight schedule."

"Absolutely," replied the captain. "Who is the director here to see?"

"I'm afraid that's privileged information."

The captain could already see this suit was going to be real fun to work with. "I need to see IDs, and we need to check the trunk. Then I'll have you on your way."

The man gave him a look that said, are you kidding me? "I said we're in a hurry."

The captain stayed calm and polite. "If you'd called ahead some of this could have been avoided, but unfortunately you didn't. Identification please." The captain stuck out his hand and waited. He collected the younger man's ID and wondered whether or not to push it with Director Ross. He decided not to when he realized Ross was talking to the president. He took the single ID back to the blockhouse to make a copy and run a quick check, while the men continued searching the vehicles. He didn't like any of this, but technically, he supposed the new director of National Intelligence was his boss. Less than a minute later he came back out, looked briefly at the limo, and then spoke to the agent in the lead vehicle.

"You guys under high alert or something?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You've got a lot of muscle with you to be driving around DC. Four guys in each Suburban and two more in the limo. That's about what the president travels with when he comes out here."

The agent pulled his gla.s.ses down again and said, "I don't ask questions...you know what I mean?"

Smiling, the captain replied, "To a point. I'm going to have the Suburbans wait over here in this parking lot on the right, and the limo may proceed to the main building."

"That'll work for me."

KENNEDY REMAINED ABSOLUTELY unreadable as Rapp went through his pitch. He had seen her stoic behavior unnerve subordinates, especially the younger ones-the ones who needed constant feedback and supervision. Rapp needed no cheerleading. He and Kennedy had been doing this for a long time. Normally, she would have been a bit more responsive to what he was proposing, but Rapp had brought someone to the meeting, so she remained her polite but professional self. unreadable as Rapp went through his pitch. He had seen her stoic behavior unnerve subordinates, especially the younger ones-the ones who needed constant feedback and supervision. Rapp needed no cheerleading. He and Kennedy had been doing this for a long time. Normally, she would have been a bit more responsive to what he was proposing, but Rapp had brought someone to the meeting, so she remained her polite but professional self.

"The Pentagon, State...they're all throwing money around like a sailor in a wh.o.r.ehouse. We need to do the same thing."

Kennedy glanced at the other man in the meeting, who happened to be a retired naval officer, and then looked back at Rapp. "Throw money around like a h.o.r.n.y sailor?"

"Absolutely." Rapp smiled. "The more money the better. That'll make it harder for the General Accounting Office and all those oversight pukes to track what we're really up to."

"Could you possibly come up with a better metaphor than the sailor/hooker one?"

"I agree," said the retired officer.

"How about a Marine in a wh.o.r.ehouse?" Rapp looked at the blond-haired man sitting next to him. "Does that work for you?"

"Absolutely. Marines are pigs." Scott Coleman laughed. The former Navy SEAL was in an unusually good mood, and it had everything to do with what Rapp was telling them.

Kennedy ignored the banter and got back to more pressing issues. "So, in essence, what you're advising is that we take Scott's company and use it as a logistical front for the new and expanded Orion Team?"

"Yes."

"That's been tried before and it blew up in the CIA's face."

"When?"

"The Vietnam War. You've surely heard of an outfit called Air America."

"I was in diapers at the time. Different time, different war, different world."

"I'm not so sure," Kennedy persisted.

"Air America got busted, because they got too big, and a couple of corncob generals at the Pentagon didn't like the CIA having their own air force. That combined with the press, the general mood on Capitol Hill, and the public's att.i.tude toward the war...it all contributed to their cover being blown."

Kennedy raised an eyebrow. "And how exactly has anything changed?"

"Everybody, including and especially the Pentagon, are using civilian contractors, and they're not just hiring engineers to build bridges, schools, and hospitals. They're hiring firms left and right to provide diplomatic security, food prep services, cleaning services, trucking...you name it, and if it doesn't involve actual combat, the Pentagon is using private contractors."

"Scott?" Kennedy asked.

"I've seen my business grow from about two million a year to over twenty."

"Tell her about Black Watch." Rapp was referring to the private security firm that had been started by one of Coleman's fellow SEALs.

"They're going to do over two hundred and fifty million in business with the government alone this year. They have six thousand acres down in North Carolina that they've turned into a Disneyland for shooters. They have a race track to teach defensive driving, they have a state-of-the-art sniping range and shooting house, their own airstrips, planes, helicopters, armored personnel carriers...you name it. They have equipment that is forward-deployed around the globe. They've even built a d.a.m.n lake to train SEALs on the underwater delivery vehicles."

"Their philosophy," interjected Rapp, "is that they can do it better and in a more cost effective way than the federal government."

"That wouldn't be difficult."

"Well, they're the first people to really try it, and they are succeeding."

Kennedy knew about Black Watch. The CIA already used them to protect certain a.s.sets abroad. There was a very liberal, antiwar minority in Washington who thought of the group as nothing more than a bunch of overpaid mercenaries who were eventually going to give America a black eye. Kennedy thought those people tended to have a naive view of the world. To them, anyone who carried a gun was bad. Even cops.

"So, where I'm going with this," said Rapp, "is that we begin to use a series of companies to..." Rapp didn't get to finish his sentence because the door to Kennedy's office opened. He turned to see two men entering.

"Don't bother getting up," announced the new director of National Intelligence, Mark Ross. Ross was tall, thin, and well dressed, and exuded an air of importance. He marched across the long office trailed by a second, shorter man.

Rapp looked over his shoulder with undisguised irritation. He'd been in countless closed-door meetings in this office, and when the door was closed it was for a good reason-especially this morning. This was a first. People did not simply barge in on the director of the CIA unannounced.

"Irene, sorry to intrude, but I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by." Ross reached the area where they were sitting and let his gaze fall on Rapp. "Mitch," he said, placing his left hand on Rapp's shoulder and extending his right hand. "Good to see you as always."

Rapp nodded. He'd only met the new intel czar twice, both times when Ross was in the Senate. Kennedy had warned him to be cordial to their new boss. Rapp recalled her being unusually cautious about the former senator. Kennedy had explained that it wasn't Ross as much as it was his new job. No one in Washington was quite sure how the new position of director of National Intelligence was going to play itself out, and that uncertainty had caused the political gamesmanship to begin. At the mere mention of politics Rapp tuned her out. He was more concerned about who Ross was and where he'd come from. If Ross was going to politicize intelligence they would b.u.t.t heads big-time.

The skinny on Ross was that he had a firm grasp on national security issues and knew how to motivate people. It also helped that after graduating from Princeton he'd actually worked at the CIA in the Directorate of Intelligence. His claim to fame at the Agency was that right before leaving to get his law degree at Yale he prepared a report on a fringe Iranian religious figure known as the Ayatollah Khomeini. Ross predicted that Khomeini's religious fervor and growing following was likely to lead to a full-blown revolution in Iran. He was one of the only people in the government who read the tea leaves correctly. On the surface Ross had an outgoing manner about him that was interpreted by some as self-a.s.sured and by others as arrogant. Rapp a.s.sumed that like most men who had been members of America's most exclusive club, the U.S. Senate, Ross was a bit of both, depending on the situation. Now Rapp sat uncomfortably in the chair, with the man's hand still on his shoulder, wondering if the former senator had any idea how much he hated being touched. He glanced down at the offending hand and briefly envisioned snapping one of the fingers.

"I see that pretty wife of yours on TV every day," Ross continued. "You're a lucky guy." He took his hand off Rapp's shoulder and looked at the third party in the room. It was obvious by the square jaw and athletic build of the man that he was not your average Langley bureaucrat. He appeared to be a Nordic version of Rapp, and Ross suddenly found himself wondering what he, Rapp, and Kennedy had been discussing.

"Mark Ross," he introduced himself to the blond-haired man. "Director of National Intelligence."

Coleman nodded. If he was impressed he didn't show it. "Scott Coleman."

"You work here at Langley?"

"No, my IQ is too high." Coleman gave him his best s.h.i.t-a.s.s grin.

Ross laughed. "I don't think there are too many people in this town with an IQ as high as Doctor Kennedy's, but I'll go along with your explanation for now. You look ex-military to me. What branch?"

"Navy."

"SEALs?"

"That's cla.s.sified."