Rencke sat down cross-legged in a chair. “I thought you guys would dink around until we ran out of time. Your Homeland Security people mean well, ya know, but they’re not doing any good. No time. No time. The bad dogs are already here, so sealing borders won’t do, Jack. And blocking Washington won’t do any good either. They’re not attacking here, and they won’t use airplanes again. We’re safe. No one has to run for their hidey-holes.”
Berndt had had dealings with Rencke on several occasions, but each time, like now, the experience was something new and novel. The man was a genius, but he was probably the most eccentric individual Berndt had ever met. “Has Mac gotten back from France yet?”
“About a half hour ago.”
“Have you talked to him this morning?” Berndt asked. “About coming here?”
The crazy animation suddenly left Rencke’s face. He no longer looked like some kid high on speed. “I understand your position, Mr. Berndt. We all do. But the name of the game is stopping the bad guys before they hit us again. Mac is going to do his thing, no matter what the president orders or how hard the Bureau tries to stop him, because that’s the way he operates. In the meantime, the Company is there to serve the administration. Of which you are a senior member. Which is why I’m here.” He handed the file folder across to Berndt. “Prince Salman.”
“Mac thinks that the prince and the terrorist Khalil are one and the same man,” Berndt said. “He told us about it, but the president doesn’t share his view.”
“We have confidence that Mac might be right.”
Berndt was skating on thin ice, going directly against a presidential order that the Saudis were strictly off limits. This was realpolitick. Oil was power. Without it, the U.S. would all but cease to operate. Almost every other consideration was secondary.
But the nation could not endure another 9/11. Especially not an attack on children, who after all were one commodity that was more precious than anything pumped out of the ground.
“How high a confidence?” Berndt asked. “One hundred percent?”
Rencke shook his head without hesitation. “Eighty percent. Our data are mostly circumstantial.”
It’s what Berndt was afraid of. If he was going to make a successful case to the president for going after Salman, he wanted more than that. His career was on the line. The president had warned McGarvey that continuing on a collision course with the Saudi prince would possibly be construed as treason. Berndt would be an accessory.
“Circumstantial evidence is a hard sell,” Berndt observed.
“Not this stuff. You gotta listen, because no matter what’s the truth, Salman is here in Washington. And every time Salman shows up somewhere, Khalil is right there. Don’t ya see? It doesn’t matter if they’re the same dude; they’re practically using the same travel bureau.”
Berndt suddenly had a bad feeling that today was going to be one hundred percent worse than yesterday, which had been no picnic. “What’s he doing here? Are they going to hit us in Washington?”
Rencke shook his head. “Khalil isn’t here to direct the attack. He came to face McGarvey. Something that would have happened in Corsica if the FBI hadn’t interfered in Monaco.”
“McGarvey’s under house arrest—”
“Yeah, right,” Rencke interrupted. He got to his feet. “You’d better cross your fingers and hope he doesn’t stay home like a good boy.” At the door Rencke stopped and gave Berndt a baleful stare. “We’ve got another bloodbath coming our way, Mr. National Security Adviser. Do what you can to convince the president who’s behind it. Short of that, don’t tie our hands.”
“Good luck.”
“You, too,” Rencke said, and he left.
Berndt opened the thick file folder that Rencke had brought him and began to read. After only two pages, he picked up the phone and called Calvin Beckett, the president’s chief of staff. The call rolled over on the second ring to Beckett’s cell phone. He was in his car just coming down West Executive Avenue.
“Good morning, Dennis. Did you spend the night?”
“Yeah. I wanted to see the overnights from State as they came from our embassies,” Berndt said, tiredly. “We’re getting plenty of sympathy but no offers of assistance. No one wants to be next on the list. They don’t want to end up getting hit like they did in Madrid because they were our ally.”
“From their standpoint, it makes sense,” Beckett said, crossly. He sounded peckish. Like everyone else in the loop he was probably not getting much sleep. “What have you got?”
“McGarvey is back.”
“Good,” Beckett said. “No one was hurt, I presume. And I hope he’ll listen to the good advice he’s getting this time and stay the hell out of it.”
Berndt looked at the timetables for Prince Salman and Khalil that Rencke had laid out like a spreadsheet. “There was a shooting, but apparently it was a photographer who got in the way.” Berndt hesitated. He’d read that report from Paris at five this morning. Fred Rudolph over at the Bureau had been kind enough to fax him a copy. “But the shot wasn’t fired from McGarvey’s pistol or the gun the Swiss cop was carrying. Someone else was there.”
Beckett was suddenly very interested. “So who was it?”
“Probably Khalil. He wants revenge for Alaska.”
“Shoot-out at the OK Corral. At least it happened somewhere else—” Beckett stopped. “But that’s not why you called.”
“I’m calling a meeting for the NSC at ten. The president needs to know about this.”
“He’s coming down at seven-thirty. Tell him then,” Beckett said.
Berndt glanced out the window. It promised to be a beautiful day. At least weatherwise. “There’s a good possibility that Khalil is here in Washington. And that’s not all. I think we finally have a convincing argument that the Saudis are up to their necks in this thing.”
Beckett took a moment to answer. “When we were accused of being behind the curve on 9/11, there weren’t a whole lot of people who knew even half of it,” he said, resignedly. “We’re under the same gun now.”
“Ten o’clock?”
“Ten,” Beckett said. “I just hope that you have some concrete suggestions in addition to your dark possibilities.”
FIFTY-ONE
The elegant three-story brownstone off Thirty-second Street in Georgetown had belonged for five years to a Saudi business institute under the name Middle East Center for Advanced Studies. In the climate of Washington it had gone all but unnoticed by the FBI. In reality the house was used by Saudi intelligence for operations deemed too sensitive to be conducted out of the embassy.
Khalil got out of the Capitol City Cab a few minutes before eight and stood for a moment at the security gate savoring the idea of what was coming in the next seventy-two hours. Not only would another major blow be struck against the infidel, but Kirk McGarvey would die.
The man was everything Osama had warned him to be. Watching the life drain from McGarvey’s eyes would be a pleasure of inestimable measure.
Under martial law Washington had turned into a fortress. Yet customs at Dulles didn’t raise an eyebrow when he presented his British diplomatic passport in the name of Donald Baden Powell, nor were any questions asked. The authorities aboard the commercial flight from Hamilton and on the ground were looking for Arab males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. A tall, well-dressed diplomat from the island of Bermuda did not fit the profile.
Traffic was heavy on the main thoroughfares, but back here on Scott Place there wasn’t even pedestrian traffic for the moment. Once the cab left, he was alone, tasting the air in the enemy capital.