The Third Option Read online

  As they looked at bikes, Rapp asked her if they still ran the loop on Saturdays. The woman said it had grown more popular than ever. Freiburg was in Tour de France country. The loop was a route that went northwest to the ancient fortress city of Breissach and then across the Rhine into France. From there, the cyclists would race down the French side of the river and cross back over at Mullheim, Ottmarsheim, or Basel, Switzerland. On a good Saturday, hundreds of brightly clad Swiss, French, and German cyclists raced the loop. Rapp was looking forward to the fact that the border guards let the packs of riders cross over without checking their passports. He remembered this part of Europe being very open, even during the Cold War. From Freiburg, France lay just fifteen miles to the east, and Basel was less than fifty miles to the southwest. The border crossings were low-key because of the heavy volume of people who lived in one country and worked in another. But, as Rapp had seen in other countries, there was no doubt that the security at crossings could be ratcheted up at a moment’s notice.

  After reviewing the selection of bikes, he chose a classic mint green used Bianchi. He also purchased saddlebags, a fanny pack, and a riding outfit complete with shoes, a small white cap, and a pair of Oakley racing glasses. Using the backpack that he had already purchased would not work. He would stick out like a sore thumb. Rapp paid for everything in cash. He wanted to hold off on using the credit card as long as possible. The woman showed him to a tiny bathroom in the basement of the shop, and Rapp put on his new outfit. Into the innermost pocket of the fanny pack he put the gun, one extra clip of ammunition, a silencer, and his stash of francs, deutsch marks, and pounds. In the outer pocket he put his French passport and several hundred francs. Everything that was to be discarded was put back into the backpack. He kept his new clothes.

  When he got back upstairs, the riders were getting ready to leave. Rapp rolled up his clothes into tight balls and shoved them into the saddlebags of his new bike. He told the helpful young woman that he would be back in one minute. Holding up his backpack, he said he had to give it to a friend. Waddling in his hard-soled black biking shoes, he disappeared around the corner. A half block away, he found a trash can, lifted the top bag, and shoved the backpack in. There were better ways to do this, but he was short on time.

  Back at the bike shop, the pack of thirty-plus cyclists were starting to pull away. Rapp thanked the young French woman for her help and wheeled his Bianchi out onto the cobblestone street. Two blocks later, he caught up to the rear of the group and settled in. Rapp was much more than a cycling enthusiast. He no longer competed professionally, but it wasn’t many years ago that he had been one of the world’s top ranked triathletes. He had won the Ironman in Hawaii and posted three top five finishes in what was the sport’s greatest annual event. Then his work with the CIA had picked up considerably, and the hectic and unpredictable schedule had forced him to give up competition. But he still swam, jogged, and biked at least five days a week.

  It was 9:36 when they rolled out of town. Rapp stayed at the back. His legs felt good, but his chest hurt a little. The pain made him think of the previous night’s events, and he began to try to analyze what the hell had happened. Who could have been behind the Hoffmans’ little stunt? The chances that the Hoffmans had acted alone were all but impossible. Rapp had never met them; he could see no motive they would have for killing him. A very select few knew of his relationship with the CIA, and even fewer knew about his recent mission. He knew of one for sure and assumed the other two. The person in the easiest position to arrange for the Hoffmans to take him out was the one person he thought he could always trust. Rapp didn’t like it one bit. It shook his faith to the core, and it ran counter to everything his instincts had ever told him, but the shitty reality was that Irene Kennedy was suspect number one. Rapp didn’t want to believe it. He wanted desperately to believe anything else, but for the moment there wasn’t any other answer. He would have to get back to the States and find out for himself. And he would start with the Hoffmans. He would need help in tracking them down, but he knew just the person to ask.

  As they rounded a turn, Rapp got his first glimpse of the Rhine and straight ahead the old Celtic fortress of Breisach. The town was situated on an eighty-meter-high rock plateau that was one of the earth’s most natural military positions. From the ridge the road fell off into the valley. The riders went into full crouches and pumped their legs. The speed of the group topped forty miles per hour. Riding at the back, Rapp drafted off the riders in front of him and searched for the bridge that would take them over the Rhine. He didn’t like what he saw. The row of vehicles backed up at the checkpoint stretched for what looked to be at least a mile. Stay cool, he told himself. You don’t look anything like the person they’re searching for, you have a visa and a European Union identity card that no one knows about, and you’re traveling in a group.

  Rapp dropped his bike into the lowest gear and picked up the pace. He easily passed nine cyclists and settled into a spot closer to the middle of the group. Three minutes later, they were on a shoulder passing the cars that were in line to cross the bridge. Rapp took a drink from his water bottle and kept his eyes peeled for anything that might be useful if he had to turn around and head back. The group began to slow, but not much. Rapp used the opportunity to spin his fanny pack around so he could get into it if he needed to. For either the passport or the gun.

  A group of French cyclists passed them going the other way. Most of the cyclists waved, but a few shouted taunts back and forth across the roadway. Up ahead, Rapp saw a border patrol officer standing on the shoulder and waving his hands for the cyclists to stop. The lead cyclist began shouting at the man while they were still some fifty yards away. Rapp couldn’t understand what he was saying but noticed that he was pointing back at the pack of French cyclists who were racing off in the other direction. A second officer appeared and intervened. By the time they reached the bridge, the officers were gesturing for them to continue through. As Rapp passed them, he heard the second officer shout encouragement. Thank God for national pride.

  When they reached the other side, Rapp breathed a huge sigh of relief. The hard part was behind him. The peleton moved west for a quarter of a mile. Rapp allowed himself to fall to the back of the pack, and when they turned to the south, he peeled off and went straight. A road sign told him that Colmar was twelve kilometers ahead; most of it, he knew, was uphill. Rapp put his head down and picked up the pace. His first priority was to find a computer, and then he had a train to catch.

  Death was coming. It had been, of course, since the day he was born on his parents’ farm outside Stoneville, South Dakota, in 1920, but now it was upon him. Death had its bony fingers wrapped around his small, frail body and wasn’t about to let go. It was the natural progression of things. A beginning and an end. Surprisingly, this didn’t bother him. He had lived a long life. Much longer than most. He had seen and heard things that very few others had. The sacrifices he had made for his country would be remembered by few, and again this didn’t bother him. His life had been lived in the shadows, and as the Information Age exploded, he had grown increasingly comfortable with his relative anonymity.

  Thomas Stansfield was a private man, as was fitting for the person who ran the world’s most famous, and infamous, intelligence agency. He had chosen to die at home surrounded by his daughters and grandchildren. The doctors had tried to talk him into surgery and radiation therapy, but Stansfield declined. The best they could give him at his age was another year or two, and that was if he survived having three-quarters of his liver removed. There was a good chance that he would never recover from the surgery. His wife, Sara, had passed away four years ago, and Thomas missed her dearly. Her death, more than anything, probably contributed to his decision not to fight. What was the sense? He had lived seventy-nine good years and was for the most part alone. The other big reason not to fight was his daughters. He did not want them to have to put their lives on hold for two years to watch him gradually wither a
way. If he were younger, things might be different, but he was tired. He wanted to die in privacy, with his mind and dignity intact.

  A hospital bed had been moved into the study on the first floor of his home. The modest three-thousand-square-foot colonial sat on two wooded acres overlooking the Potomac River. In the spring, they could sit in the backyard and watch the water rush over Stublefield Falls, but now, in the fall, it was barely a trickle. Stansfield sat in his favorite leather chair, and looked admiringly out the window at the fall colors. How appropriate it was to die this time of the year, he thought. At least, Robert Frost would think so.

  Sally, his eldest daughter, was in town from San Diego taking care of him. His other daughter, Sue, was to arrive on Wednesday from Sacramento. Their plan was to stay with him to the end. The five grandkids had been out two weekends before to spend some time with Grandpa before he was too far gone to enjoy it. The oldest was seventeen, and the youngest was five. The weekend had been painful but necessary. There had been a lot of tears.

  Today Sally had helped him get dressed for a visitor. He was wearing a pair of tan slacks, a light blue button-down, and a gray cardigan. His white hair was parted to the side and combed back. Iowa was slugging it out with Penn State on the TV, but Stansfield wasn’t paying attention to the game. He was worried about a phone call he had received. He wanted to put everything in order before he passed. The grandkids were taken care of. Trusts had been set up for college and grad school if they chose, but nothing else. There would be no sports cars or boats, no toys to make them weak. The house would easily fetch a million, not bad considering he had bought the land for two thousand dollars back in 1952. And there were other investments, of course. A person would have had to be a fool not to have capitalized on some of the information that had come across Thomas Stansfield’s desk over the years. The daughters would get the bulk of the estate, and he didn’t worry for a moment about whether the money would be used wisely.

  What did worry Thomas Stansfield was the CIA. Things were not in order, and they were beginning to show signs of being worse than he had thought. No one outside Stansfield’s family had been allowed to look behind the curtain he had pulled across his life. There was one exception, and that was Irene Kennedy. Stansfield thought of her as his third daughter. She was, he believed, the most talented and crucially important person working for the CIA. This made her a big target for a lot of people, and Stansfield was worried that when he was gone, his enemies would do their best to destroy her.

  SALLY ESCORTED DR. Kennedy into the study and then closed the door on her way out. Irene approached Stansfield’s chair and kissed him on the forehead. This was a new thing for them, since the cancer had been discovered. At the time, they had quietly mused over death’s habit of bringing one’s true feelings to the surface. Kennedy took the chair across from her boss and asked him how he felt.

  “Pretty good, but let’s not worry about me. There’s nothing we can do about that.” Stansfield studied her for a moment and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Kennedy wasn’t exactly sure where to start, and after a brief hesitation, she said, “The operation we were running in Germany last night…”

  “Yes.”

  “Things didn’t go exactly as planned.”

  “How bad?”

  “Mitch hasn’t reported in yet, and the BKA has put out a continent-wide bulletin on three individuals they believe are responsible for the death of Count Hagenmiller.”

  “This was expected.”

  “Yes, it was, but some other things have transpired.” Kennedy went on to describe the fire and the strange piece of information they had intercepted from the BKA—that it appeared Rapp left the mansion after the Hoffmans and had to steal a car to get away.

  When she was done, Stansfield said, “It sounds to me as if something didn’t go according to plan. My guess is that Mitch told the Hoffmans to make a break for it and he’d lay down a diversion.”

  Kennedy nodded. “That’s what I thought at first, but Mitch hasn’t checked in, and I just recently received a message from the Hoffmans. They”—Kennedy shook her head—“said the target was achieved, but an asset was lost in the process.”

  “Mitch.”

  With a sad, slow nod, Kennedy said, “Yes.”

  “What about this third individual the BKA has on tape?”

  “We haven’t been able to get any further information on that.”

  Stansfield sat back, a little surprised. He would have thought Irene fully capable of verifying the report through several channels. “Why?”

  “There’s another problem that has arisen. When I arrived at the CTC this morning, Tom Lee informed me that Secretary Midleton was looking for me.”

  This caused the frail Stansfield to sit up a bit in his chair. The secretary of state had no business calling his director of counterterrorism without going through him first. “What did Mr. Midleton want?”

  “It appears he and the count shared the same passion: fine art.”

  Stansfield looked out the window, making the connection. He knew that the arrogant secretary of state was very proud of his private art collection. Stansfield remembered a profile that had been done by the New Yorker discussing the renaissance man’s fifty-million-dollar collection. “Why would he call you?”

  “The message said that he knows we had the count under observation and that any information we can give the German authorities would be greatly appreciated.”

  “How would he know we had the count under surveillance?”

  Kennedy shrugged at the obvious. “It would appear we have a leak.”

  “Or a mole.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Not at the moment, but Tom Lee was as disturbed by it as me. He said he was going to look into it.”

  “Can you trust Mr. Lee?” asked an always cautious Stansfield.

  “I think so, but I will, of course, do some checking on my own.”

  “Good. Have you told the president about Mitch?”

  “No. I’d like to know exactly what’s going on first.”

  “I agree. I assume you haven’t used our contacts at the BKA because you don’t want to draw any more attention to the CTC.”

  “Yes. I’m trying to collect as much passive information as possible.

  The NSA is keeping us busy with intercepts. So far, our plan is working. Most of the people in the CTC think Saddam had Hagenmiller killed. A couple even think the Israelis may have done it. The Hagenmillers were Nazis during World War Two, and they were selling very sensitive equipment to one of Israel’s most dangerous enemies. There was plenty of motive. I think some of my more streetwise people might suspect that we had a hand in it, but they’re not saying anything, nor will they.” Kennedy frowned. “If people find out that we had him under surveillance, it won’t look good.”

  “I agree. I will take care of Secretary Midleton. How are you going to find out about Mitch?”

  “The Hoffmans are due back in the States this evening. I’m going to fly to Denver and debrief them personally.”

  “Who are you bringing?”

  “No one. I’ve dealt with them before. I can handle it myself.”

  Stansfield gave her a look of admonishment. Kennedy had very limited field experience.

  Kennedy read her boss’s expression and said defensively, “This is my mess, and I’ll be the one to clean it up. Besides, the fewer people we get involved, the better.”

  Stansfield shook his head. “The last thing you need right now is to leave town and draw attention to yourself. Besides, contract agents like the Hoffmans tend to get a little jumpy when an operation goes badly. I will send some people to take care of it.”

  Kennedy conceded the point. “What would you like me to do?”

  Stansfield thought about it for a moment. “Hope that the Hoffmans are wrong and Mitch is alive.” Stansfield saw by Kennedy’s expression that his words didn’t have their intended effect. “Don’t w
orry about Mitch. This is what he’s best at. He’ll find his way back to us all by himself.” The director of Central Intelligence inched forward in his chair, and his gray eyes peered into Kennedy’s. “I want you to find out where Secretary Midleton is getting his information, and I want you to do it as quickly and quietly as possible.”

  RAYS OF SUNLIGHT floated through the kitchen window of Liz and Michael O’Rourke’s Georgetown brownstone. Liz O’Rourke pecked away at her laptop. A glass of cranapple juice sat on her left, and on her right was a structurally unsound stack of documents and files that looked as if they might plummet to the floor any minute. Her yellow Lab, Duke, was lying in front of the patio door, napping in the warm sunlight. The former newspaper reporter was at peace. Everything about the setting was perfect except the absence of coffee. And considering the fact that she was five months pregnant, it was a happy trade.

  Liz was working on her first book. It was titled America’s Most Corrupt Politicians. Since her husband of less than a year was a U.S. congressman, she was using her maiden name, Scarlatti, not that Michael would have objected to using O’Rourke. She just thought it was the prudent thing to do. With the help of a friend who was a literary agent, she had inked a deal with a New York publisher based on a ten-page book proposal. The side job, as she referred to it, made quitting the newspaper an easy decision. Her husband came from some fairly big money. Liz didn’t need to work, but she wanted to. At thirty-one, she knew if she stopped cold turkey, she’d go nuts.

  She was wearing a pair of gray sweats and a small blue New York Yankees T-shirt that barely covered her belly button. The little baby-T drove Michael nuts. He loved it when she wore it around the house, but if she so much as stepped out to get the newspaper in it, he gave her a concerned fatherly look. Liz was just finishing a paragraph when she heard the jingle of Duke’s dog tags. Peeking over the top of the laptop, she saw her husband’s best friend staring at the front door. The sound of keys in the lock caused him to yelp and jump to his feet. Down the hall he went. The dog was named after John Wayne, and now there was talk of another. She feared that the next one would be called Vince after the legendary Packers coach. Liz’s big problem with this was that her father was named Vince, and she really didn’t think he’d take well to sharing his name with the family dog.