The Survivor (11 page)

Gadai laid a dossier on Taj's desk and the ISI director opened it. He immediately recognized the name of the Italian law firm.

“We already looked into them, no? They were helping Rickman create anonymous financial trusts with money he'd siphoned off from the CIA's Afghanistan operation. To benefit his children, if I recall correctly.”

“You do,” Gadai said. “After we confirmed that his connection with the firm related to personal affairs, we moved on.”

Taj felt his grudging admiration for the CIA man grow further. More of Rickman's complex web. He hadn't hidden his personal activity as carefully as he could have, calculating that anyone who found the firm he used would assume that it wouldn't also be involved in his plot against the Agency.

“Then you have him? You know the identity of the lawyer?” Taj said, trying to keep his voice even despite the excitement he felt.

“I'm afraid it isn't that easy, Ahmed. It's a very large firm, and Rickman didn't use the same lawyer that he used for the trusts.”

“What about the managing partner? Can we interrogate him?”

“He's a very public and very well-connected man in Italy. Also, I very much doubt he would know anything. While we understand the importance of the files, this arrangement would be unremarkable to the firm. Essentially just a schedule of electronic documents to be sent if certain criteria are met. It's unlikely the attorney handling the details would even know that his client is dead. And it's almost certain that he would be in the dark as to the contents of the files.”

This time, Rickman had displayed his cleverness by taking a page out of Taj's own book. Make everything too commonplace to attract attention. It was infuriating. He was within a hair's breadth of closing his fist around Irene Kennedy's delicate throat.

“So, you're telling me that we have to investigate hundreds of individual lawyers whose careers are predicated on confidentiality in
hopes that they left some clue about a client they never met? That's unacceptable, Kabir.”

The younger man smiled, his eyes shining with an arrogant light that Taj was very familiar with. Gadai knew something but had withheld it for effect.

“Don't make me wait, Kabir. I've indulged your sense of drama in the past, but my patience is at its end.”

“My apologies, Director. Our research suggests that this firm has a dedicated division that handles these kinds of arrangements—scheduling, payments, requests for information, notifications . . .”

“How many people are in this division?”

“It's largely automated. Most of the work is done by computer or—”

“How many!”

Gadai opened the dossier again, shuffling to a photo of a plump woman with dyed blond hair. “Isabella Accorso runs the entire enterprise with a single administrative assistant.”

Taj picked up the photo and examined the woman's face. She was probably in her mid-thirties, wearing a blouse that clung to her breasts in an obvious attempt to facilitate the faceless, nameless sexual encounters so enjoyed by Western women.

It was hard to believe that this female had the keys to America's heavily guarded intelligence apparatus. That she unwittingly possessed more information on the CIA's operations than anyone outside Langley's executive offices.

“What do we know about her?”

“She's divorced. Clean. No drugs or illegal activity. No affairs or significant financial problems.”

Taj just glared at him. Again, his assistant's expression suggested there was more.

“She does have a daughter, though. A sixteen-year-old who attends public school. Quite an attractive young woman.”

“Can I assume she's accessible to us?”

Gadai smiled. “Easily.”

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you get it put back together?” Rapp said as he walked into the Farm's basement bar.

Hurley was standing next to the pool table with the ubiquitous drink in his hand while Scott Coleman was beneath the elaborate scale model with a screwdriver.

“Just finishing,” the old man said, lighting a cigarette. “The little twit outdid himself.”

He was right. It was an impressive effort even by Marcus Dumond's standards. The computer genius had used a drone-mounted camera to take more than a thousand high-definition photos of Leo Obrecht's property. After stitching them together in Photoshop, he'd fed them to the railroad-car-sized 3-D printer at Langley.

Rapp had been expecting a two-foot-square monochrome model with enough detail to make some general strategy decisions. What he'd gotten was a full-color model so large it had to be cut into three sections to jam it down the elevator shaft. Resolution was detailed enough to differentiate individual plants in Obrecht's garden.

The portion of the model that represented the house was built in detachable layers so that each floor could be removed in order to
examine the layout of the one beneath. The only thing missing was furniture—an omission that Dumond seemed genuinely embarrassed about. He still hadn't been able to crack the banker's encryption and tie into his security cameras.

“Voilà,” Coleman said, connecting the last section and crawling out from under it.

Rapp let his eyes drift from the mansion grounds out to the mountainous forest surrounding it. Every tree and rock, every road and stream, was faithfully represented. While he was normally suspicious of technology, this was an advance he could get used to.

Hurley set his drink down on a section of open meadow already covered with rings from his glass. “I remember when we'd have planned this op on the back of a napkin.”

“The world moves forward, Stan,” Coleman said, stepping back to admire the model.

“You're wrong,” the old man replied, cigarette smoke rolling from his mouth as he spoke. “The world stands still. All that changes is the window dressing.”

“That's why I've always liked you, Stan. Your sunny disposition.”

“What do we know about the place?” Rapp said before Hurley could formulate an expletive-laced response.

“The estate itself is about a hundred acres, and beyond that is a whole lot of rugged, heavily forested public land,” Coleman said. “I have Wick over there watching the place, and I can tell you that we'd be better off trying to break into Fort Knox.”

“Does the public use the area for recreation?”

The former SEAL shook his head. “No trail system. What you see on the model are just game trails or natural features.”

“The good news,” Hurley said, “is that Obrecht is no different than all the other royalty wannabes. He doesn't want to mix with the unwashed masses. It's miles before you get to his first neighbor.”

Coleman agreed. “There's just the one road. It's twenty-one miles long from where it turns off a two-lane rural highway. Obrecht's at the
end. The nearest house is nine miles south, and the owners aren't using it right now. One caretaker. Guy's older than Stan and just as deaf.”

“Fuck you,” Hurley said.

Rapp returned his attention to the model of the banker's property. It was a common mistake made by men like Obrecht. The best security was to be packed in with a hundred neighbors who knew the rhythms of the area and would notice any change. Those kinds of densely populated subdivisions also tended to have solid police coverage with short response times.

“What's the story with the fence?” Rapp said.

“It's more of a wall,” Coleman replied. “A little less than a foot thick, constructed of cinder blocks covered with adobe. We talked to the contractor who built it and he said the whole thing is reinforced with concrete.”

“Height?”

“About twelve feet. One main gate about fifteen feet wide and one small delivery door. Both look like they could stop a tank. Add to that floodlights, cameras, hardened positions along the wall, and you've got the makings of quite a party.”

“What about the men?”

“We're out of luck. The former special ops people Obrecht originally had in there are all gone. The guys he replaced them with look to be Middle Eastern and Eastern European.”

The personnel change was bad news. Their best bet had been to get to the Western contractors protecting Obrecht through their military contacts. Most were former special forces and that was a very small and very interconnected fraternity.

Coleman seemed to read his mind. “So, we can't get them to hand Obrecht their resignation and open the gate for us, but I knew one of the GSG 9 guys he canned. He gave me good intel on stuff in the house that didn't make it to the architectural plans. The highlights are that all the glass is bulletproof and Obrecht has a safe room in the basement.”

“How
many men does he have now?”

“Twelve that we can individually identify. It's possible that there are more inside who never come out, but I doubt it. Also five civilians. A butler, a cook, and three maids.”

“Dogs?”

Coleman shook his head. “We hav—”

The door to the bar opened and Louis Gould stepped through, followed by Mike Nash. The assassin had been cleaned up and was wearing a donated pair of slacks and a blue dress shirt. No shoes, though, in case he was stupid enough to try to run.

Coleman started to stretch out a hand but stopped under the force of Rapp's glare. Gould had saved his life in Afghanistan and while he knew it was just because the assassin couldn't afford to lose a good gun, there was no denying that he owed the man. There was also no denying that he wouldn't live long if Rapp ever had reason to question his loyalty.

“I don't think introductions are necessary,” Nash said, trying to cut through the tension. He had a gift for such things, but this time it didn't work. Rapp remained silent, tracking Gould as he approached the model on the pool table.

“Wow,” he said, leaning over it. “They always said you guys had the best toys. Now I believe it.”

No one dared respond as Rapp continued to stare at the man. Gould was the only person he had ever felt conflicted about in his life. Sometimes he found himself wanting to trade places with him—living out a quiet retirement surrounded by his family. Other times he wanted to make Gould's wife a widow and leave his daughter fatherless.

For now, though, they needed him.

“Welcome aboard,” Rapp said, finally.

The other men in the room relaxed and Gould nodded respectfully. “Thanks, Mitch.”

“Now start earning your keep,” Hurley growled.

“Okay,” Gould said, folding his arms across his chest. “The wall is a
lot stronger than you think it is. It goes down three feet and Obrecht had the cinder blocks filled with cement. The windows are bulletproof, and he's got a safe room in the basement.”

Coleman had already covered those bases, but the fact that Gould wasn't starting out with his normal string of lies was promising.

“What about dogs?” Rapp said. Coleman hadn't had a chance to answer the question.

“I'd bet against it. Obrecht got attacked by one of his father's Dobermans when he was a kid. You can still see the scars on one side of his jaw. He's terrified of them.”

Rapp glanced at Coleman, who gave a subtle nod, confirming the information.

“What's he got by way of guards?” Gould asked.

“Twelve men,” Coleman said. “All serious operators.”

“That's more than he's had in the past. You must have spooked him. Can you get to any of them?”

“He canned all the Americans and Brits,” Hurley said.

Gould nodded. “He figured you might be able to turn them. That's the problem with Leo. He's not an idiot.”

“How secure is the safe room?” Rapp asked.

“It's set into the bedrock in the basement. Foot-thick steel walls, separate oxygen supply, separate heating and cooling systems. You could burn the house down around it and Obrecht would never break a sweat.”

“So at the first sign of a breach, Obrecht's going to lock himself in there and wait us out,” Rapp said. “Scott, what about his communications?”

“We'll jam his wireless and cut his hard lines, but the amount of firepower we're going to have to use to get in there isn't going to go unnoticed no matter how far away and deaf his neighbors are. We can clip into the police station's line and head off any phone traffic but that's only going to buy us another fifteen minutes or so.”

They all fell silent, staring down at Dumond's model. Finally, Gould spoke. “Since I've
passed all the tests about bulletproof glass and dogs, let me tell you something you
don't
know. The safe room isn't all Obrecht has in that basement.”

He grabbed a pool cue and pointed to the base of a wooded knoll southeast of the wall. “There's an entrance to an escape tunnel that comes out here.”

Rapp looked at Coleman, who shrugged. “It's not on any plans, and his former guards don't know anything about it.”

“Obrecht doesn't trust anyone. The safe room's good for the most likely threat—that some crook he works with decides he knows too much. The tunnel is there in case his own guards or a government comes after him. I got lucky and stumbled across it while I was probing for weaknesses in his security. The access is hidden inside a small natural cave.”

Mostly lies, of course. Obrecht used that tunnel to smuggle in contraband that he wanted to make absolutely certain authorities never discovered. Usually attractive young boys snatched from the streets of third-world countries, but occasionally also criminal associates like Gould.

“I can have my guys take a look,” Coleman said.

Rapp gave a short nod, authorizing it. “Can we get into the tunnel from that cave?”