"And how did they take it?"

"Listen, Mitch, you have a certain reputation in this town that has grown beyond even your own remarkable achievements. The secrecy regarding your past, the untimely death of two politicians who were involved in blowing your cover…it has all added up to an almost mythical reputation. When people mention your name they do so in whispers, and then only after they've looked over both shoulders. You get credit for things I know for a fact you had nothing to do with."

"How can you be so sure?" Rapp gave her a devious look.

"Because I know you weren't even on the same continent let alone in the same city when some of this stuff happened. But nonetheless people like a good conspiracy and you play into that perfectly." Kennedy rolled her eyes. "Rugged good looks, a beautiful wife who works for NBC, and none other than the president of the United States as your biggest champion. Add to that the aforementioned deceased politicians and what they leaked to the press, the press referring to you as an assassin…our first line of defense…and there isn't a person on Capitol Hill who doesn't get a little nervous around you."

"Good." Rapp far preferred his old anonymity, but if some of the less-than-savory politicians in this town were afraid of him, that wasn't such a bad thing. "Here's the bottom line. I'll do this, but I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to pick the targets of opportunity, and I'll take suggestions from you and only you. If they have any suggestions of their own they can give them to you and I'll take them under advisement, but I will hold veto power. If I think something is too risky or not important enough…I'll pull the plug."

"I can make them live with that. What else?"

"I'm going to handpick all my people."

Kennedy nodded. She had assumed he would make both requests.

"And we're going to do more than just take out known terrorists."

"How so?" Kennedy asked curiously.

Rapp smiled. "I've been working on something, but I'm not ready to show you yet."

"Would you like to give me a hint?"

"Let's just say that I'm planning on fighting this war on more than one front, and I don't plan on playing by anyone's rules."

"Like your little operation you just ran north of the border?"

Rapp nodded.

Kennedy knew him better than anyone, and that included his wife. She gave him a concerned look and said, "Let me give you some advice. Be very careful about what you do when it involves our allies. Nothing short of getting caught here in America by the FBI will get you in trouble quicker than raising the ire of one of their foreign intelligence services."

Rapp grinned. "I don't plan on getting caught."

"No one ever does, Mitch." She shook her head. "No one ever does."

"I know…I know. But I've managed to get by all these years…I don't plan on screwing up now."

"Just be careful and move slowly."

Rapp shook his head. "Time is a luxury we don't have. Senator Hartsburg is a hack, but he's right about one thing."

"What's that?"

"We have to hit them before they hit us."

8

The identification in his wallet said his name was Harry Smith. It was not his given name, simply a standard precaution. He'd watched the target for the last forty-eight hours, day and night. He slept after the man went to sleep and woke up before the target got out of bed. He was younger, in far better shape, and had the element of surprise on his side. He'd trained himself to last days on end with little or no sleep. He was acutely aware of his physiological needs, and this job wasn't even close to taxing them. The job, in fact, was beginning to bore him.

The target was a Turkish financier with a penchant for high-risk ventures-especially those involving illegal arms sales. He owned several banks in his native country and held minority interests in another half dozen banks around Europe. Lately the man had been spending a lot of time in London, and the assassin had a pretty good idea why. There was barely a street corner left in the increasingly Orwellian city that wasn't monitored by a camera. In the world of contract killers, a business where your anonymity was your currency, London was a town that was bad for business.

This particular part of London had an unusually high concentration of surveillance cameras. The Hampshire Hotel was situated on Leicester Square just a short hop from a cluster of government buildings with serious security needs. They included the National Gallery, the Ministry of Defense, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. He reasoned the Turk had picked this hotel for that very reason. The area was saturated with police and other security types. The assassin, however, was not deterred for even a second. The men and women charged with securing these sites were worried about terrorists, not businessmen. All he had to do was look the part, don the urban camouflage, and he could come and go unnoticed.

His partner didn't quite see things his way. She wanted to turn down the job, but he had been insistent. Virtually every city of note in the world was adding security cameras by the droves. To survive in the industry they had to adapt. She preferred retirement to adaptation, but they were too young for that. Harry was thirty-two and Amanda was just thirty. Amanda was not her real name, but for the sake of operational security it was the only name he'd used for the last week. The key to longevity in their line of work was the details, little things like high-quality forgeries, dummy credit card accounts, and the discipline to stay in character whether you were alone or not.

At the current pace of business it would take another five years before they reached the financial level he deemed appropriate for retirement. They already had several million, but he was not interested in merely getting by. He got into this line of work because he was drawn to it, because he could be his own boss, and because, if he played it smart, he would make a lot of money. He had the talent, but talent alone was never enough. When the stakes were this high, skill had to be accompanied by an ardent drive-a need for perfection.

He was not only drawn to this work, he enjoyed it. Yes, he enjoyed it, and he had never admitted that to anyone, not even her. When talk turned to getting out of the business, he always stressed that they needed to make more money first, but he knew a big part of it was that he wasn't willing to let go. His greatest fear was not of getting caught. He was too confident in his talents for that. His greatest fear was of losing her because he wouldn't be able to walk away. Like a gambler drawn to the craps table, he had become a slave to the thrill of the hunt.

Excluding the current job there was normally an exhilaration to stalking a man that was unmatched. The sheer level of training and expertise it took to even enter the arena at this level was mind-boggling. He was an expert marksman with both the short and long barrel. He knew exactly where to stick the blade of a knife to obtain the desired result, which was usually death, but occasionally his contract called for maiming the person and nothing more. He knew how to use his fists, elbows, knees, feet, and even forehead to incapacitate or kill. He could fly both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, and he was a predatory genius when it came to surveillance and counter surveillance.

Now here he was standing across the square from the Hampshire Hotel, bored out of his mind. A $200,000 contract was on the table that he was an hour or less from fulfilling and he was yawning. He looked at the front entrance of the opulent hotel, stifled yet another yawn, and said, "Come on, fucker. Let's get this over with."