Consent To Kill

"Details." It was a command, not a request.

"What the press doesn't know yet was that Khalil was found with a wad of cash stuffed in his mouth and the word munafiq scrawled in his own blood on the wall of the building he was propped up against."

"Hypocrite," Ke

"Coleman found out some interesting stuff last week. Not all of Khalil's worshipers were happy with him. There was a growing dissent in the community over his call to jihad and his recruiting of young men to go overseas and fight. And there was one other thing. Something Muslims, among other people, find deplorable."

"What's that?"

"He was a porn freak."

"What?"

Rapp pulled the memory stick Coleman had given him out of his pocket. "Scott snuck into his apartment and copied his hard drive. The thing was filled with porn. A lot of bondage, S amp;M, and some underage stuff that could have got him in major trouble."

"You're not serious?"

"Of course I am." Rapp held out the stick. "Plug it in. Take a look at it."

Ke

"He also had magazines. A lot of really sick stuff."

"And you think the police and the press will automatically rule us out because of some porn fetish?" She shook her head. "I don't know, Mitchell, it sounds pretty thin to me."

Rapp glanced at the floor and then looked out the window. "There's one more thing."

"What's that?"

"His body was, uh…" Rapp let out a sigh, "hacked up a bit."

Her hands moved to her hips and a deep frown covered her face. "Why?"

"I didn't want it to look so professional."

She shook her head.

"Irene, trust me. I know how cops think. This thing will be classified as a revenge crime. They're go

Ke

She stood with her back to him looking out the window at the bright fall colors of the Potomac River Valley. After a long moment she shook her head and asked, "How was your meeting?"

Rapp, relieved that they were off the subject, said, "Unusual. Why didn't you tell me what they wanted?"

"I wanted your honest reaction."

"You wanted them to catch me off guard," Rapp corrected.

"You could say that," replied Ke

Rapp was looking out the window, staring off into space. The fact that he and Senator Hartsburg had agreed on a pivotal issue was enough for him to question his senses, but that was only the begi

"You don't think they're trying to set you up?" she asked.

"No." Rapp kept staring out the window. "They might hate me, but I can't imagine them going through all of this just to take me down." He paused and then added, "Plus, they know I'd kill them before I'd ever let them string me up at some hearing."

Ke

"I could maybe see Hartsburg being zealous enough to set me up, but not Walsh."

"I agree." She set her cup down on the coffee table. "I know what you're going through. I went through the same thing last week when they came to me. You spend all of this time in an adversarial relationship with them and then when you end up on the same side of an issue, it causes you to stop and question your own judgment."

Rapp looked at her. "That's exactly it. Kind of a thanks, but no thanks…do me a favor and get off my team."

"There's a key to understanding their motivations. Have you figured it out yet?"

"No."

Ke

"How to structure it…how to fund it…how to kill them if they double-cross me."

She nodded slowly, deciding he really did mean that he'd kill them if they set him up. "I don't think they're going to double-cross any of us."

"I wish I could share your confidence, but I just can't bring myself to trust Hartsburg."

"The bomb changed everything, Mitch."

Rapp gave her a skeptical look. The bomb she was referring to was part of a plot by Islamic radical fundamentalists to incinerate Washington, DC. If it hadn't been for Rapp and a handful of dedicated government employees, Senators Walsh and Hartsburg and the majority of their colleagues would have been killed by the detonation of a fifteen-kiloton nuclear weapon.

The tumblers fell into place for Rapp and he said, "Self-preservation."

"It's their strongest instinct."

Rapp thought about that for a moment. Politicians were an amazingly resilient breed. He supposed on some Darwinian level she was absolutely correct. "Whatever works. I just want them one hundred percent on board."

"So what do you think of their proposal?" Ke

"It's basically an expansion of the Orion Team. Which as we've discussed has been greatly underused."

The Orion Team was a covert operations unit that had been founded by Ke

"Except this time we would have them on our side." By them Ke

"I might be missing something here, but explain to me why that's a good thing."

"I was part of the Orion Team," Ke

Rap nodded. "I see your point. I just want to make sure they are beholden to us, and not the other way around."

"Absolutely." Ke

"Yeah, one." Rapp held up his BlackBerry. "Mutually assured destruction."

"MAD."

"Exactly." Rapp pressed a few buttons and began replaying the conversation that had taken place in the Congressional Library. After a few seconds he stopped the recording and smiled. "I hope you're not disappointed?"

"I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn't."

Rapp snapped the BlackBerry back onto his belt clip. "And I don't want any armchair quarterbacking."

"I already explained that to them."