The President eyed the director of the CIA with great curiosity.

Since diplomacy was far from Mitch Rapp's area of expertise, the President was very curious about what his top counterterrorism operative had in the works. Two navy SEALs were dead, a family of Americans were still held hostage and his presidency was on the brink of scandal.

Right now, the idea of retribution seemed very appealing.

TWELVE.

The little girl sat huddled in the corner, wrapped in a white robe, clutching herself tightly. David was sweating profusely under the black hood that covered his face. He grabbed one of Hamza's legs and arms and pulled him to the center of the bed.

Hearing a m.u.f.fled sob, he looked up to check on the girl. Her face was covered by the oversize white folds of the hotel robe. He felt a genuine ache in his heart at the agony she was suffering. He knew it wasn't just physical pain. Even worse, anguish and nightmares would probably follow her for the rest of her life.

David guessed that she couldn't be more than ten years of age. Right about now guilt and self-recrimination would be working their way into her innocent mind. She would begin to wonder what she had done wrong to warrant such treatment. The Muslim world dealt very harshly with s.e.xual stigmas where women were concerned. In David's patriarchal society the distinction between a woman who willingly commits adultery and one who is forcibly raped is often lost. The honor of the family, which really means the honor of the father, is above all else.

David looked down at the poor frightened kid in the corner and struggled over what to do with her. He knew he should have never untied her. He should have simply shot Hamza in the back of the head, dispatched the two bodyguards and left. If he'd stuck with his original plan he'd be long gone by now; miles of safe distance between himself and the crime. The maid would show up in the morning and find the young girl, and she would be taken to a hospital. Everything would have turned out just fine for her.

As much as he "wanted to believe it, though, he knew that was far from what would really happen. The maid would have called the police, who would very quickly discover they had a dead Iraqi general on their hands. The media would find out shortly after that, and this little innocent girl would get swept up in the maelstrom that would follow.

The police and reporters would talk to her parents and the entire neighborhood would find out that the young girl had been s.e.xually a.s.saulted.

Through no fault of her own she would be shunned and treated as a pariah for the rest of her years.

David wasn't about to let that happen. When he'd started down this dangerous path years before, he'd made a promise to himself. David hadn't grown up in the camps, but his mother had been sure to bring him along whenever she visited the various clinics. She wanted him to see firsthand the squalor that Palestinian people were forced to live in.

His mother, unique in more ways than he could ever count, used the long car rides to and from the camps to enlighten her only son on the politics of the most contested region in the history of mankind.

The camps were a breeding ground for discontent, corruption and anti-Semitism. The Jews were blamed for everything, both real and imagined, consequential and inconsequential. They were the evil greedy Zionists who had stolen the land away from the Palestinian people. The propaganda was insidious but his mother had been very careful to teach David about the complicated history of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Jews. In her mind there was more than enough blame to go around.

For a brief period in 1948 the Palestinians actually had a state, but instead of taking what the United Nations had legally mandated, they decided to attack the fledgling country of Israel with the help of five Arab armies. The decision proved disastrous. Israel trounced the Arab armies, seized the land that had been set aside for the Palestinian state, and deported most of the Palestinians who hadn't already left.

David's mother liked to point out that it was a little disingenuous of their people to cry that Israel had stolen their land. She was fond of asking him, "If we had won the war back in forty-eight, do you think we would have allowed the Jews to keep their land?" She never waited for him to answer. The reply was always a resounding, "No. The Arab armies would have killed every last Jew."

"The Jews are racists," she used to tell him, "but the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Iraqis and the Saudis are all worse. The Jews hate us because we've given them no reason to like us, but what excuse do our Arab brothers have? They have none. We are beneath them, that is the way they feel. They have kept our people in these camps and stoked the flames of hatred toward the Jews to serve their own corrupt governments. We are servants to them. A useful tool in their campaign to keep their subjects' anger focused not on them, but on the evil Jews."

His mother's teachings had made David wary of all propaganda.

He refused to allow hatred to drive his ambition. He would never allow himself to turn a blind eye to the truth. He would never allow himself to become just another cold-blooded killer. That was why he didn't just shoot Hamza and leave the poor girl to be discovered in the morning. David truly was a unique man. He was a pragmatist with a heart. The girl would be brought with him now, and an explanation and some cash would be given to her father later.

He finished tying the general's wrists and ankles to the bed and then hovered over him for a moment. General Hamza had spent the better part of thirty years inflicting pain on people, destroying lives and ruining dreams. A bullet in the head was too good for him. Hamza needed to experience the fear he had so perversely meted out to so many souls. David wanted to see real fear in the man's eyes.

He pulled his knife from its leather scabbard with his right hand and slapped Hamza's cheek with his left. The Iraqi thug's jaw hung loose. Reaching in with his thumb and forefinger David grabbed the tip of Hamza's tongue and pulled it taut. The general started to stir.

David tightened his grip and angled the tip of the four-inch blade into Hamza's mouth. A quick upward slicing motion and a good seventy percent of Hamza's tongue was severed from his mouth. With perfect timing, the general's eyes shot open just in time to watch David tear the rest of his tongue out.

The Iraqi general, his eyes ablaze with fear and agony, let out a low guttural moan that because he no longer had his tongue never quite elevated itself to a scream. Immediately, he began to slash about like a landed fish in the bottom of a boat. He struggled against his bonds, trying to break free, struggling to comprehend what was happening. His last memories were deliciously good ones, and now he was tied to this bed with some masked man sitting on his chest dangling a piece of meat in front of his face. Making matters worse, his mouth was on fire with a pain that his brain could not identify. A warm liquid trickled down his throat and caused him to gag when it dribbled into his windpipe.

Suddenly, the pieces fell into place. In a panic, Hamza lifted his head off the pillow and tried to speak. All that came out were a jumble of primitive noises. The masked man sitting on top of him wasn't holding a piece of meat, he was holding Hamza's tongue.

David dropped the fleshy organ onto Hamza's bare chest and reached into his own pocket. He grabbed a pack of crisp counterfeit hundred-dollar bills and waved them in front of the general's face. He didn't need to speak. Neither did the general, although he tried. There was instant recognition in his eyes. David crumpled a dozen of the new bills into a ball and with the tip of his blood-soaked knife he pried open the general's lips. He crammed the wad in and then added two more fistfuls of money until Hamza's mouth was overflowing with bills.

Moving quickly, he shoved another pillow under Hamza's head and then got off him. Taking a moment to relish the s.a.d.i.s.tic b.a.s.t.a.r.d's fear, David looked down at him and shook his head in disgust. He wondered if this butcher of Saddam's had ever granted someone a reprieve, if he had ever felt an ounce of guilt over his actions or pity for the people he had so brutally tortured. As David looked into Hamza's fearful eyes he knew the answer was no. Monsters like Hamza were wired differently. Their brains worked in ways normal people could never understand.

David felt no shame in what he was about to do. He felt no pity for Hamza. This would be justice in its purest form. Hamza would die in a manner commensurate with his crimes of brutality. David tossed the rest of the hundred-dollar bills onto the bed. They lay strewn about from one side to the other. Hamza looked down at the bills and tried to signal something with his eyes. David ignored him and walked to the foot of the bed, holding the knife up in the air. He stopped in between the general's spread legs and looked down. Placing one knee on the bed, he reached out with his gloved hand and grabbed Hamza by his genitals. The general's entire body convulsed in fear. Straining against his bonds he thrashed his head from side to side, a hideous noise rising up from his chest only to be stifled by the b.l.o.o.d.y bundle of worthless bills in his mouth. David did not hesitate or waver. He pulled hard with his left hand and reached out with the knife.

It took four slices, and there David stood with General Hamza's genitals in his hand. He held them before the Iraqi's horrified eyes and then simply dropped the b.l.o.o.d.y mess on his chest along with his tongue. Standing over him, David contemplated finishing him off, but decided against it. It was unlikely anyone would visit the room before morning and by then Hamza would surely have bled to death. It was more fitting to let him slowly die while staring at his lifeless s.e.x organs, unable to scream for help, unable to move a limb to stem the bleeding. He would know the same helpless horror of his victims. And if someone came earlier and managed to save him, that wouldn't be all that bad either; Hamza would spend his remaining days a castrated, p.r.i.c.k less mute.

THIRTEEN.

The high billowing clouds had moved on and the midmorning sun was poking its way through the trees of the Rose Garden.

The President sat behind his desk, elbows planted on the armrests of his Kevlar lined leather chair. His hands were clasped in front of his chin, the crisp white sleeves of his dress shirt forming a pyramid before him. He was engrossed in what he was being told by his guest.

Mitch Rapp, his dark suit coat open and his hands on his hips, strode back and forth across the blue rug of the Oval Office. The man moved with an athletic grace that hinted at his many talents. As he walked he laid out the operation for the President. Director Kennedy and General Flood sat in silence while Rapp paced behind them.

Rapp had been talking without interruption for nearly five minutes.

He was about to go over the final part of the plan, but decided at the last minute to pause. Looking down at the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Rapp said, "General, if you would like to excuse yourself from the room at this point, I would completely understand."

The general scratched his chin and in a surprisingly lighthearted tone replied, "I think I've got an idea where you're going with this, and I'm guessing you're not worried about offending me."

Rapp grinned.

"General, I'm not sure it would be possible for me to offend you with words alone."

With a laugh, the general said, "As long as you leave my wife and children out of it, I'd say you're right. I a.s.sume you're offering me a chance to excuse myself from the really nasty part of this, in case it goes south."

"That would be correct."

There was a fairly long pause before the general answered and then he said, "My wife likes to accuse me of having selective memory."

Looking up at Rapp he added, "You know what I mean?"

"I think I do." Rap smiled and then turned back to the President.

"As long as I'm over in the Philippines, I think it would be a good idea to stop by and visit General Moro."

The President shifted uncomfortably in his chair. A voice in the back of his head was telling him to just nod, tell Rapp to have a good trip and then get on with his day, but another part of him wanted to know more.

"And what will you be discussing with General Moro?"

Rapp stopped with his shoulders squared to the President and looked down at his shoes for a moment.

"Sir, does the first lady ever accuse you of having selective memory?"

"Ever since the day I met her, and truth be told she's right. But that's not the point." The President spun his chair a quarter turn and looked out the window.

"Mitch, I'm not comfortable having you stick your neck out this far."

"Don't worry about me, sir. That's what I'm paid for."

The President nodded.

"Yeah, I know you are, but that doesn't give the rest of us the excuse to say we were kept in the dark every time something goes wrong."

"Sir," said Kennedy with great sincerity, "that's the way it has to be."

"Well, that doesn't mean I have to like it, and to be honest, I'm not so sure eliminating General Moro will do anything other than satiate our short-term need for blood."

Rapp frowned at the President's words. In his tactical mind blood l.u.s.t had no bearing on whether Moro deserved to die or live.

"Mr. President," Rapp said in a voice that was neither pleading nor condescending, "General Moro is a traitorous b.a.s.t.a.r.d who is directly responsible for the death of two United States Navy SEALs. And if you're worried about offending President Quirino, I can a.s.sure you that after she finds out Moro was a paid informant for both the Chinese and Abu Sayyaf, she'll be thanking us for getting rid of him."

The President tapped his finger on his lips a few more times and then leaning forward and grabbing a file announced, "Let me think about all this, and I'll get back to you."

Rapp didn't have to be a seasoned Washington bureaucrat to recognize a brush-off. Not one to give in so easily, he stood his ground and asked, "When will you have an answer for me, sir?"

Hayes eyed Rapp cautiously for a second and said, "In a couple of days."

Rapp shook his head.

"That won't work, sir. Once the story breaks on the Amba.s.sador and Petry, our ability to move on Moro will be compromised."

Hayes again leaned back in his chair and exhaled.

"Listen," he said in a no-nonsense tone, "from what you've told me this morning, this General Moro deserves to rot in a cell for the rest of his life, but as far as a.s.sa.s.sinating him goes I'm not so sure. The fallout could be very ugly and to be honest with you, we really need the Philippine government with us in this fight. So as I said, I'm going to need a few days to consider our options." Having spoken his piece, Hayes spun his chair away from Rapp and opened the file he'd grabbed off his desk.

Rapp watched him with curiosity, and then looked down at Kennedy for guidance. She stood and motioned toward the door with a jerk of her thumb. She looked at General Flood and did the same thing. Reluctantly, Rapp followed her orders and began to leave the famed office wondering how many other people over the years had felt his same sense of frustration. As he placed his hand on the doork.n.o.b, he heard Kennedy say to the President, "Sir, I need to have a word alone with you."

Rapp grinned ever so slightly as he looked back at his boss.

Kennedy, despite her subdued demeanor, could be surprisingly persuasive.

He felt confident that by the time she left the office they would have the approval they were looking for.

FOURTEEN.

David's demeanor was calm though perhaps slightly distracted as he walked down Via Dolorosa, pa.s.sing from the Muslim Quarter of the Old City to the Christian Quarter. It was a walk he'd taken countless times. In his youth he did so without a care in the world, but as he grew older he began to see things, to notice the dangers that lurked in the entry ways of the storefronts, in the eyes of the old men selling fruit and nuts on the street and the women running errands. There were spies and informants everywhere. It was in the thirteenth year of his life that innocence had been beaten from his body. He still carried scars from that day, both physical and mental, but he never spoke of them.

The eyes of the street spies no longer intimidated David as they had in the years after the beating. He was above reproach by such people.

If he chose he could have any one of them killed with a single order, but that was not who Jabril Khatabi was. His parents had raised someone infinitely more judicious. He used his power with great care, discretion and patience. Now more than ever he needed those three traits.

More than twenty years past, he had been walking down this same street in Jerusalem when he had been s.n.a.t.c.hed in broad daylight and thrown into the trunk of a car. His own people thought he had been collaborating with the Jews. Back then they had been wrong. David had been nothing more than an innocent boy, walking through the Old City on his way to meet his mother at the hospital. Today all was different. If the PLO or Hamas, or Hezbollah or any one of a dozen groups had any idea what he was up to they would torture him until he begged to die.

Casually, he took a right onto Bab El Jadid and eyed the checkpoint up ahead. The Old City was surrounded by a fortress like wall constructed by Suleiman the Magnificent in A.D. 1540. Through this wall there were just seven gates. It was through these gates, over the centuries, that the conquerors had controlled who and what came and went from the city.

In the last century alone the city had been guarded by four countries; the Turks, the Brits, the Jordanians and now the Israelis manned the ramparts. Soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces, dressed in green uniforms and bulbous helmets, checked the IDs of everyone trying to enter and leave the city. David remained calm as he continued toward the gate and his meeting just beyond.

There were many informants lurking about on this stretch of his journey. The Arab eyes were always watchful, reporting everything they saw or suspected to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The distrustful eyes of his brethren haunted him, reminding him of the need for his mission to succeed. The Palestinian people needed to bury their hatred if they ever truly wanted peace for their children, but in history's most oxymoronic way they would first have to wage war.

At this appointed hour, however, David suspected that there were also at least an equal number of Jewish eyes about. They wouldn't know who he was or the importance of the errand that he was on, though, for he was far too valuable to be trusted with any but Mossad's best and bravest.

Mossad, Israel 's vaunted intelligence service, did not suffer the counterintelligence woes of other countries due to the simple fact that their agents were fiercely loyal to both country and cause. They were, however, not entirely out of harm's way. Agents had been kidnapped by Israel 's various enemies and made to reveal valuable secrets. That was more than reason enough for David's contact to hold very close to his vest the ident.i.ty of his most prized a.s.set.

As David approached the New Gate, which had been cut into the wall of the Old City in 1887, he readied his papers. He presented them to a young Israeli soldier and was allowed to pa.s.s. He quickly crossed the street and after once again presenting his papers he was admitted onto foreign soil.

Notre Dame de France was owned by the Catholic Church and housed among many things the papal delegation to Christendom's holiest city. David's excuse for visiting such a place was less awkward than it might seem. He had explained many times to his Palestinian brethren that the delegation also held a branch office of the Vatican Bank. And no one, not even the Swiss, were as discreet when it came to banking matters as the Vatican. The leadership of the PLO did not question David in this regard. As long as he kept raising capital and funding their operations, they had little interest in the intricacies of international finance.

David was met by a youthful priest from Italy and escorted to the second-floor office of Monsignor Terrence Lavin. The short and portly Monsignor tore his spectacles from his face and stood to greet his handsome guest.

"Jabril, how are you, my son?"

David clasped the Monsignor pale fleshy hand.

"I am well, Terence, and you?"

Looking up with his sparkling blue eyes, the older man said, "I would be better if we were having some fine French cuisine downstairs, but I have been told I am not allowed to ply you with food and wine today." The priest looked quickly at the closed door behind him and made a face.

Raising a conspiratorial eyebrow, David shrugged and said, "I would very much like that, but I'm afraid our mutual friend is calling the shots." David enjoyed Monsignor Lavin very much. A true Renaissance man, as they liked to say in the Church, he held advanced degrees in law, finance, theology and philosophy and was a connoisseur of fine wine, good food and cla.s.sical music. David had met him many years ago through his parents and had often looked to the worldly priest to help expand his mind.

"Well," commented Lavin, "we will have to reschedule when you have some time." The priest grabbed a file from his desk and said, "The business that we supposedly discussed today." He handed it to David.

"I've prepared a report of your holdings with us and how they've performed over the last month. The standard stuff. Take a look at it before you leave, in case your friends decide today is the day they feel like being educated. "With that Lavin led his visitor to a dark-stained, heavy wood door behind his desk and opened it.

David thanked him and stepped into the shadowy windowless room. The Vatican took their security as seriously as any great nation.

They had secrets that needed to be kept, relationships that needed to be cloaked and enemies that were none too fond of them. David had come to this room many times. Located on the interior of the second floor, its four walls were covered with ma.s.sive old tapestries that he guessed hid counter-bugging devices. Like much of Jerusalem it smelled old. On this day, as on many others, the stale odor made him think of death.

An old wisp of a man sat silently at the far end of the table. A yellowed lamp in the corner cast a faint glow. The man's name was Abe Spielman. David had known him now for twenty-two years. Father Lavin had introduced them to each other, and David had never bothered to ask if that introduction was of the priest's own volition or if Spielman had pushed for it. Lavin had always acted as if it were his idea, but now that he was older and a bit wiser, David would have to guess that it was Spielman who had wanted to meet him. It would be very much in character with the old man. He was infinitely patient and had a knack for judging both people and situations far in advance of others.

Abe Spielman was a spy. At eighty-one he'd slowed down quite a bit, and if people took that to mean he was less than sharp that was fine with him. He had spent an entire career trying to get his adversaries to underestimate him, and to a great extent he'd succeeded.

You wouldn't know it by looking at this gentle grandfatherly figure, but there had been a time when Abe Spielman had been a warrior of the finest order, both for Britain in World War II and then again during his country's fight for independence in 1948. His bravery throughout those heady days was legendary.

It was after the War of Independence that Spielman retreated into the shadows and went to work for his new country's intelligence service.

He went on to become one of Mossad's most highly decorated operatives, but only a few people actually knew of his exploits and most of them were dead or near death.