Separation of Power (38 page)

It was during his third bottle of Anchor Steam that Steveken came full circle with his logic and pondered the possibility that Brown was using reverse psychology on him. After all, who in their right mind tells a former special agent not to look at something? It’s in a fed’s very fiber to want to find things out, to crack the unsolved case. By the time the eleven o’clock news came on, Steveken had pretty much decided that whatever was in the package wasn’t
worth knowing. This was the type of stuff that you could get subpoenaed over. And getting subpoenaed wasn’t good for future business. There was also the chance that things could get really ugly. It was not outrageous to assume someone would be willing to kill to keep the information in the package from becoming public knowledge, and if he didn’t know what was in the package, there was no reason for anyone to want to kill him.

For a brief moment he had thought of looking into the envelope and then transferring the material to a new envelope, but decided against it. There was also the option of discarding the package into the nearest Dumpster and telling Rudin he’d come up empty. As far as Brown and Rudin were concerned, he was impressed with neither. A sense of professionalism, however, and his gratitude to Clark, made him decide not to dump the package. Finally, at 11:30 he called Congressman Rudin and told him he’d come up with something. Rudin wanted him to come over to his row house on Capitol Hill immediately. Steveken told him he’d meet him at 7:00
A.M
. at the Silver Diner on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington. As he predicted, Rudin wanted to meet someplace closer to his house. Steveken, emboldened by the three beers and a growing dislike of Rudin, repeated the name of the establishment and the time and then hung up.

He arrived the next morning at 6:30
A.M
. with a copy of the
Post
and the package. As was fitting for the meeting, he picked a corner booth and sat facing the door. Steveken was in jeans, a blue ski jacket and
a Penn baseball cap. He was one of only eight customers in the place and the youngest by a good twenty years. When the waitress showed up he ordered a pot of coffee, a large glass of orange juice, a side of hash browns, a side of links and a tall stack of blueberry pancakes.

Steveken drank his orange juice and scanned the paper. Below the fold on the front page was a headline that read
Historical Confirmation Hearing Begins.
Under it was a picture of Dr. Kennedy with her right hand raised. The article was pretty standard background-type stuff. It said Kennedy joined the CIA after her parents were killed in the U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut back in 1983. It encapsulated her career with the Agency, and talked about her successes since becoming the director of the Counterterrorism Center. It mentioned that she had overwhelming support on the Hill with the noted exception of Congressman Albert Rudin of Connecticut, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Fortunately for Kennedy, the article pointed out that Rudin had no say over whether or not she would be confirmed.

His pancakes and sides arrived and he went to work on the food. He intended to be done by the time Rudin arrived. Steveken came to the conclusion that Kennedy was probably a pretty decent person. Losing your parents to some crazed car bomber would be no fun at all. He found himself looking at the package and again wondering what was inside. His thoughts were interrupted by the obnoxious sound of someone loudly clearing his throat.

Steveken looked up and saw Rudin standing in front of the hostess stand, with a white handkerchief. He placed it over his large nose and began to blow. Every patron in the place turned to see who was making so much noise. Steveken shook his head and shoved another stack of syrup drenched pancakes into his mouth. He made no effort to alert Rudin to his presence. The man was ten minutes early, and Steveken hadn’t finished his meal yet.

With only eight people in the place, Rudin eventually found him. He sat down in the booth and unzipped his puffy down jacket. Not bothering to say good morning, he asked, “So, what do you have for me?”

Steveken ignored his request and asked, “Why do you hate Irene Kennedy so much?”

Rudin looked shocked. “What are you talking about?”

“Kennedy . . . Dr. Irene Kennedy.” He held up the paper and showed Rudin the photograph. “Why do you hate her so much?”

Rudin glared at the young man and said, “You told me last night you had something for me. Now hand it over. I’m a very busy man.”

The waitress was headed their way so Steveken flagged her down. He pointed to Rudin. “What do you want?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Nonsense.” Looking up at the waitress, he said, “Bring him the same thing you gave me.”

“But I’m not—”

Steveken held out his hand and silenced the congressman. He repeated the order and shooed the waitress away. With an arched brow he looked at Rudin and said, “You don’t do this much, do you?”

“Do what?” he snapped.

“Clandestine meetings. You come in the door and start honking your nose so everybody in the whole joint turns around to see who’s making the racket. You sit down and tell the waitress you don’t want anything. Well, if you don’t want anything then why in the hell are you here?” Steveken waited half a second to see if Rudin had anything stupid to say and then added, “This is classified information.” He held up the package and saw Rudin’s eyes get as big as a pervert’s in a strip joint. “Pull your head out of your ass, and get with the program.” On the outside, Steveken looked very serious, but inside he was laughing.

Rudin had seen the treasure and couldn’t take his eyes off it. He mumbled, “Sorry,” and stuck his hand out for the envelope.

Steveken set it back down on the booth seat and said, “Under the table dummy. People are looking.”

“Oh.” Rudin put his hand under the table.

“Not yet,” said Steveken. “We have to go over a couple things first.”

“Like what?”

Steveken stabbed his fork into a sausage link and shoved half of it into his mouth. He washed it down with some coffee and asked, “Why do you hate Kennedy so much?”

It was obvious that Rudin didn’t want to answer the question, but it was also obvious that he needed to play along until he got what he wanted. “She’s a liar, and I don’t like public servants lying before congressional committees. It’s very bad for a democracy.”

“You mean a republic.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Steveken wolfed down his last two bites of pancakes and wiped his mouth. As he looked at Rudin he made a final decision concerning how he would handle things. “I want to be very clear about this. I don’t know what’s in this package. I haven’t looked because I don’t want to get involved.” He flashed Rudin the inside of his jacket and said, “I’m taping this meeting as proof. Whatever you have up your sleeve, I don’t want to be involved in it. I got this from Jonathan Brown. You have any questions, you go to him.” Steveken slid the package under the table and Rudin eagerly snatched it. Sitting back, he watched the congressman tear open the top and sneak a peek at the contents. He wasn’t actually taping anything, but that wasn’t important. Rudin would believe the threat. He’d given Brown up out of a sense of fair play. If he wanted to destroy Kennedy he should have to show his face.

The waitress dropped off Rudin’s orange juice and coffee. “Your food’ll be up in a minute.”

When the waitress left, Steveken got up and grabbed his paper. Rudin looked at him and asked, “Where are you going?”

“I’m a busy man, Albert,” he pointed at his own eyes and then at Rudin, “but I’m going to have my eye on you.” He started to walk away.

Rudin called after him, “Hey, you forgot to leave some money.”

Steveken smiled and said to himself, “No, I didn’t.”

S
urly was probably the best word to describe Ben Freidman’s mood. He’d just left his wife and was on his way into the office. He’d sent a katsa to Milan to look into the disappearance of Rosenthal and his people, and that trusted agent was back. Unfortunately, it sounded like she had little to report. As the armor-plated Mercedes raced through the suburb of Ramat Aviv, Freidman looked out the window at the ocean and wondered how in God’s name three highly trained agents just disappear. The problem, Freidman knew, was that they didn’t just disappear. There was only one logical explanation after this long: Donatella had killed them. This presented a challenging problem for the head of Mossad. Three kidons can only go missing for so long, and then people start asking questions.

The Mercedes turned away from the ocean and rocketed up a steep hill toward a bland six-story concrete building with antennae bristling from the roof. The driver had radioed ahead and the popup barrier at the gate was down. The car raced through the entrance leaving the Uzi-toting security personnel in a cloud of dust.

When Freidman reached his office he found the katsa that he’d sent to Milan waiting in his outer office by herself. Freidman rushed past her like a tank racing toward the front lines. Without a word, he waved for her to follow. When she entered his inner sanctum he closed the door and sat behind his desk. The katsa did not sit. She stood practically at attention in front of his desk. Freidman yanked open his top drawer and retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

He puffed on the cigarette and offered the pack up to the woman. She declined with a shake of her head. “So, tell me, Tanya. What did you discover for me?”

The woman’s posture and demeanor spoke of military training. She was small with dark features and wore no makeup. “I found some things at the safe flat, but other than that, there was no sign of them.”

“And the woman I told you to check on?” Freidman ran one of his meaty hands along the top of his bald head.

“I called her office and they said she was out, so I took the opportunity to stop by in person. I pretended that we were old friends and that I was just passing through Milan for the day. I put on a big show about how disappointed I was and asked if I could leave a note. While I was leaving the note I asked where she was off to this time. They told me they didn’t know. She called in abruptly on Friday to say she needed to take some personal time.”

Freidman puffed on his cigarette and tried to piece things together. Friday would have been the day after Rosenthal was supposed to have hit her. She was on the run and Rosenthal, Yanta and Sunberg were all dead. Damn, she was good. Freidman chided himself for not sending more people, or better yet, doing it himself. Donatella would have trusted him. He could have got her to let her guard down and then taken her. The problem was he had rushed into it and now the mess was compounded.

“Did you check her flat?”

“Yeah. It was spotless. Nothing unusual or out of the ordinary.”

Freidman thought for a while longer and finally said, “All right. Thank you for looking into this for me.”

“No problem, sir. Am I excused?”

“Yes, but I want you to keep quiet about this entire matter.”

“Yes, sir.” The woman turned and left the office.

Freidman spun his chair around and looked out at the blue water of the Mediterranean. There would be an official investigation, one way or another, and it would look much better if he were the one to launch it. He would have to make Donatella out to be a psychotic who had betrayed Israel by freelancing. He could even go the CIA and apologize for Donatella killing Peter Cameron. He could say that she had broken away and was doing freelance work.
Yes,
he told himself,
that was the path to take.
Always mix fact with fiction for the most believable story.

I
F HE WAS
in town, and it was Saturday, he was doing one of two things: either playing golf or getting a massage. Since the temperature was still below freezing he had opted for the massage. When he pulled up the long drive of the club in his Jaguar XK8 coupe shortly after nine, he spotted three brave souls standing on the first tee. Huddled in stocking caps, they were a testament to golf’s addictive nature.

Hank Clark had two overriding principles or philosophies in life. The first was to never allow any single thing or person to control him, and the second was to succeed at any cost. He could have adopted a puritan lifestyle and banned all vices from his life, but that would have been too easy. Clark had seen alcohol destroy his mother. He knew what it could do to a person, to a family, but instead of running from it, he was determined to conquer it. Clark’s competitive nature could not stand boredom, and it detested simplicity and complacency. Life was to be lived, not wasted cowering in a corner avoiding every vice as if it might jump up and drag you down into hell.

Clark took things on, but always in a well thought out way. He’d been an all-conference pitcher for the ASU Sun Devils. That was when he learned to control his emotions and outthink an opponent. Where a football player is taught to get pumped up and attack the ball carrier, Clark learned to think clearly, get his
competitor to expect one thing and then deliver something else. He was a master at blindsiding people without them ever knowing he had a hand in their demise.

As he lay facedown on the massage table, he was trying to figure out how to take these last few steps. He was so close, but this was where it would get tricky. The important thing to keep in mind was to let things happen. Not to force anything. The wheels were set in motion, the game was rigged and the odds were in his favor. All he needed was for Albert Rudin to make one last-ditch effort to derail the Kennedy nomination, and based on the conversation he’d had with Deputy Director Brown he could expect to hear from Rudin shortly. The package had been delivered last night and Clark knew that Steveken wouldn’t disappoint him. By now Rudin had his grubby little hands on the info and he was probably close to having a coronary. With that satisfying thought Clark began to doze off. The waterfall music played softly in the background and Lou the masseur was kneading away at his legs. Life was good.