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“Where is this man?”
“I handed him over to Dr. Hornig this evening.”
“You were having a hard time getting him to talk?”
“No. He talked all right. We just couldn’t separate the truth from all of his bullshit.”
“So what does the Belarusian mafia have to do with all of this?”
“That’s a good question. The guy we have in custody, his name is Milinkavich. He claims he was sent to Cyprus to kill Gazich for screwing up some contract he’d been hired for. I asked him if they did a lot of work with the Saudis and I got an interesting reaction out of him.”
“What was that?”
“He says his boss, Aleksandr Gordievsky, who runs the Belarusian mafia, hates Muslims. Says the man is Eastern Orthodox and, I quote, ‘thinks Islam is the creation of Satan.’ He claims they would never work for the Saudis.”
Ke
“There’s some stuff that’s not adding up.”
“Such as?”
“Gazich, not that you can trust the guy, claims that he did exactly as he was told. That he didn’t screw anything up. It was the people on the other end of the operation who gave him bad intel.”
“How so?”
“Gazich says a half a minute or so before the explosion he received a phone call that told him the target was the second limo. So I figure that the Secret Service must have shuffled the limos after they left the conference. Someone is standing on the street, they watch the candidates get in the second limo and they make the call to Gazich. Then the motorcade starts to roll, and a block later the Secret Service has the second limo move up to the lead position. They do that stuff all the time. You can easily see where the terrorists screwed up.”
“It sounds like it all adds up, though.”
Rapp shook his head. “I talked to Rivera. She says they didn’t shuffle the limos.”
“They didn’t shuffle the limos?” Ke
“Nope, which leads me to believe that Gazich is lying.”
The sick feeling in Ke
“Why would you say that?”
Ke
40
Ke
Again, Rapp focused on the face, and ignored the beautiful body. The high cheekbones, the thin nose, the long, wavy, chestnut hair tangled and partially obscuring the right side of her face. There was something definitely familiar about the woman. Rapp blocked out every feature except the eyes, nose, and mouth. Suddenly everything clicked. He pictured the woman with her hair up in a kind of loose ponytail, dressed stylishly yet conservative, playing the role of a candidate’s wife. It was Jillian Rautbort. The president-elect’s wife. Rapp’s focus intensified as he remembered the sorrow he’d felt for the political couple after the attack. Jillian Rautbort wasn’t much older than A
These photos now forced Rapp to call those painful memories into question. Was it an act? Rapp had a hard time believing it. His job depended on being able to judge people in a split second. Picking friend from foe in a foreign land where the wrong decision could mean his life. Alexander’s pain seemed so genuine. If he’d been faking it, the man was an absolute monster.
Rapp’s eye settled on the man in the photos for the first time. The collage started with the two standing and then with Jillian riding the man on a lounge chair next to the pool. The guy was big. Jillian Rautbort looked tiny on top of him. Where Jillian was completely naked, the man still had on most of his clothes. His pants were pulled down to mid-thigh. There was something oddly familiar about him as well. Rapp noticed something coiling from the man’s left ear. His eyes opened a bit wider and he began searching the other photos for the same coil. He found it in two other photos.
“Jesus Christ,” Rapp said softly.
He looked at the photos where the man was on his back. Specifically the right side of his belt line. He expected to find either a radio or a gun. The photo wasn’t clear enough, but something was there.
Without taking his eyes off the photo Rapp said, “Please tell me this guy is not a United States Secret Service agent.”
“Unfortunately he is.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I wish I was.”
“Who is it?”
“Special Agent Matt Cash.”
Rapp looked at the photos again, from left to right. “When were these taken?”
“Labor Day weekend at her parents’ Palm Beach estate.”
“How did they come into your possession?”
“Cap Baker. He bought them from an unknown individual for what was probably a large sum of money.”
“Can you believe him?”
“I think so. He claims he had no intention of using them. His candidates were ahead in the polls.”
“Then why did he buy them?” Rapp asked a bit skeptically.
“He says the campaign was flush with cash and he thought the best move would be to take them out of circulation. He thought there was a slight chance they could be released and might cause sympathy for Alexander.”
Rapp laughed. “Yeah, right. When did he buy them?”
“Mid-September, I think.”
“A lot could’ve happened between then and the first Tuesday in November. His candidate could have fucked up in one of the debates and overnight his lead would have vanished. These photos were his insurance policy.”
“I agree.”
“So why did he decide to give them to you?”
Ke
“Alexander’s campaign manager?”
“Yes. They despise each other. In early October, Baker decided to give Garret something to really sweat over, so he took three of the photos, wrote, ‘You’ll Never Win,’ on the back, and had them delivered to Garret’s hotel room in Dallas.”
“Did Garret know they came from Baker?”
Ke
Rapp put his hands on hips, looked down at the photos, and then shook his head. “Did Special Agent Cash happen to be in the second limo on the day of the attack?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful.”
Ke