Consent To Kill

71

It was Tuesday morning, and the surveillance team had been in place for a little less than twenty-four hours. So far there was no sign of Erich Abel. They'd spent most of Monday trying to get a better feel for just who the man was and watching the apartment. That's what they were best at-waiting and watching, and of course not being noticed. They obtained an updated photo off his driver's registration as well as twelve years of driving history. Not a single ticket or parking violation in all that time, which said a lot about the man. They ran his credit report and found out where he banked in Vienna, and what credit cards he used. The credit cards were checked for activity and to no one's surprise they hadn't been used in nearly two weeks. They checked phone records, for the apartment, the office, and any mobile phones they could link to him. Back at Langley a team of specialists were poring over the numbers he'd called, trying to connect them to a company or a person. There were a lot of Saudis on the list.

Late Monday afternoon they'd sent a man into the apartment. It was a nice building that fronted Stadt Park just south of old Vienna's inner ring, no more than a mile from his office. There were fifty-two units in the building. It didn't totally reek of money, but it was definitely high-end. There was a doorman and security cameras, so they had to be creative. They sent two agents through the front door posing as a couple. They were lost, and looking for an old friend who they thought lived in the building. Thirty seconds into the charade the male agent remembered the correct name of the building they were looking for. A name that just happened to sound like this one, but was in fact the name of a building three blocks away. When the doorman stepped outside to point them in the right direction, two men with a lock pick went through the back door.

They didn't bother planting bugs to start with. Abel had gone underground, and it was highly unlikely that he would be returning anytime soon. This was an information grab. The agents spent nine hours going through every square inch of the two-bedroom apartment. They took nothing, but photographed anything that might be of consequence; old address books, handwritten notes, files, and photographs. Then everything was downloaded onto a laptop and relayed to the team for immediate analysis. They opened every book and leafed through them page by page. Every appliance was pulled out and inspected, every scrap of food, dry, frozen, or refrigerated, was checked to make sure it was real. Then they went room by room checking the floor, walls, and ceiling for hidden compartments.

They'd done this many times before. Where and how a person lived said a lot about them. These agents, in their fifteen plus years with the CIA, had rarely seen a place so clean, so organized, and so sanitized. There was no doubt about it, this Abel was a professional with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. They'd suspected thirty minutes into the sweep that they wouldn't find any bombshell. Subjects like this were too cautious to keep the important stuff at home. They used safe deposit boxes, or other offsite storage that would be hard to link to them. Shortly past midnight one of them left through the front door while the other stayed and planted a few bugs just in case. He waited twenty minutes and also left through the front door. There was a new doorman on duty. He would think they'd been visiting one of the owners.

Rapp, Coleman, and the guys got to the hotel a little before eleven in the evening. The drive from Riyadh to Qatar had been uneventful. The plane had been waiting, fueled, and ready to go. They were wheels up by six in the evening and on their way to Vienna. Through a fronted travel agency that was actually owned by the CIA six separate rooms had been booked at the Europa. The two connecting rooms were held under a single reservation and were being used as the command post. The other four rooms were under separate bookings that coincided with the fake passports used by the surveillance team. These rooms were used for sleeping.

Milt Johnson was the team leader. Now in his sixties, he was no longer an in-house employee of the CIA. He was a civilian contractor, which for him was just fine, because it meant he collected his full pension plus a salary that was thirty percent more than what he'd made during his last year. Milt typically ran his team in three eight-hour shifts, or two twelve-hour shifts to start with. If things got really hairy, which they usually did, he needed his people rested, because he would have to put them all into the field. The tricks of Milt's craft were fairly standard. They rented the most common cars they could find in the host country, they kept them filled with gas at all times, and he always had at least one man on a scooter or motorcycle. Unless the situation called for it, he never hired people who were too tall or too short, or too pretty or too handsome. His people carried things like reversible jackets, hats, and sunglasses or clear eyeglasses. He always had a makeup artist on hand and he never let his people drink coffee. Coffee meant bathroom breaks and too many bathroom breaks could lead to losing the target. Milt knew firsthand because he'd blown a major surveillance operation one time.

It had been during the mid-seventies, and the United States had had a mole in the Berlin embassy. Milt was part of a team that had zeroed in on the deputy ambassador. He was on the night shift all by himself, drinking coffee like a fiend so he could stay awake. Every hour on the hour he was getting out of the car and ducking into the alley to relieve himself. In the morning, the deputy ambassador was gone, and Milt was left having to explain how the man had slipped out from under his nose. He hadn't had a cup of coffee since.

Milt had worked with Rapp a lot over the years, but until just a few years ago he'd never known his real name. He'd read about the explosion at the house and the death of Rapp's wife. He had been very sorry about it. When Rapp arrived in the hotel room with Coleman, Milt casually took Rapp by the elbow and led him into the connecting room. The rooms were sizable and elegant. It was a turn-of-the-previous-century hotel that had either been kept up remarkably well or completely renovated. There were two double beds, an antique desk, and a massive armoire that doubled as an entertainment center, dresser, and in-room refrigerator.

Milt closed the connecting door and said to Rapp in a somber voice, "I'm very sorry about your wife."

Rapp nodded. He appreciated the sentiment, but didn't want to talk about it. "Thanks, Milt. I appreciate you getting on this so quick."

Milt nodded. He was four inches shorter than Rapp and had gray wispy hair that had receded at least a quarter of the way back from its youthful starting point. "We'll find this guy. Don't worry."

"Anything so far?"

"Nope. And to be honest I wasn't expecting to. I've read his file. These Stasi guys were pretty good, and this one seems above average. He's a smart little fucker but we'll catch him."

"The apartment was a bust?"

"Yep, but we had to cover it."

"The office?"

"First thing in the morning."

"Expectations?"

Milt shrugged. "We might find something, but I'm thinking the banks will be the key. This guy likes nice things. He just bought a brand-new hundred-plus-thousand-dollar Mercedes." Milt smiled. "When he finds out you drained his accounts he's going to come unhinged. If he calls the banks to sort it out, we'll be on him. If he doesn't, he's going to be low on money and he'll have to surface sooner rather than later."

Rapp thought about that. "What about putting the word out? Unofficially of course. Offer a million dollars for him and see if he contacts any of his old Stasi buddies for help."

"I thought about that, but I think we should wait a few days. Let's see where tomorrow takes us and then we'll decide. In the meantime, I want you to get some sleep. You look like shit."

"I feel like shit."

"That's to be expected." Milt put a hand on his shoulder. Sleep was a strange thing. The more you needed it, the harder it was to get. And Milt could see that Rapp desperately needed some sleep. "Mitch, have I ever let you down before?"

Rapp shook his head.

"And I'm not going to let you down now. I'm not going to stop until I find this Abel guy, and then I'm going to find the people he hired. You can count on it. Now go to bed. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a big day."