Chapter 47
RAPP glanced at the ambassador.
From a tactical perspective, she wasn’t much to look at. A middle-aged woman with shoulder-length hair that was beginning to gray. A bit overweight, but still pretty, with a kind face and high cheekbones.
An altogether ordinary visage.
Until you got to her eyes.
Mariam Al-Hamad’s brown eyes radiated intelligence and maybe something else.
For that moment, Rapp felt the weight of her persona and understood why a woman like Mariam would be viewed as a threat by Islamic radicals.
The moment he shared with the ambassador was fleeting, but he now knew what he saw in her eyes.
Competence.
Competence and grit.
This was a woman who would refuse to back down or allow herself to be bullied.
Rapp looked past the ambassador and smiled, locking gazes with an imaginary person.
Then he swept the room searching for someone, anyone, who might indicate that his missive to Hurley had gotten through.
Hassan had encouraged Rapp to find his way to the hotel via a circuitous route that would put time and distance between any potential surveillance team and the mosque.
Rapp had been only too happy to oblige, adding a last-minute stop at a record store.
This was the location he’d told Ridley to provide to Hurley for a potential crash meeting.
He’d even given his mentor a way to contact him via a more traditional dead drop by taping a message to the inside of the tank of the men’s toilet.
The stop had been a waste of time.
Neither Hurley nor anyone else from the Central Intelligence Agency had been waiting with a message. After verifying that the toilet’s tank contained nothing but water, Rapp had reluctantly concluded that his message had not made it to Hurley.
He was on his own.
His instructions from the Hezbollah operative had been a bit more detailed than the message he’d crafted for Hurley.
As per the annotation on Rapp’s invitation, he was part of a select few who were authorized to get a picture with the ambassador during the receiving line after the event.
As such, his seat was in the VIP section, which consisted of the first two rows of chairs.
Rapp was to mingle with the crowd until Mariam made her way toward her spot at the table located at the front of the room.
After she was seated, Rapp was to act like he was headed toward his chair, shoot her, and then exit through either of the doors flanking the table.
From there, he was to flee through the hotel’s kitchen via a service door that would be propped open thanks to a sympathizer working as a dishwasher.
Once outside, he would duck into a waiting sedan and be spirited from the scene.
The plan wasn’t up to the Orion team’s exacting standards, but as assassinations went, it wasn’t bad.
Since the audience had been vetted, and the VIP section even more so, there was every reason to believe that the majority of the ambassador’s security detail would be focused on exterior threats rather than the attendees.
So far, the Hezbollah operative’s assumptions had proven correct.
The security presence inside the room was minor.
A body man stayed within arm’s length of the ambassador, while a second member of her protective detail lingered at the rear of the room near the bathrooms. The rest of her security detail was focused on the chairs behind the VIP section and monitoring the hotel’s lobby.
Rapp’s escape plan also seemed to be wired correctly. He’d cased the hotel before entering and found the sedan he’d been promised lingering in an alley behind the building. Upon entering the lobby, he’d checked his egress route and verified that the service door to the kitchen was indeed ajar.
Everything was perfect.
Everything except how he was supposed to prove his bona fides to Hassan without murdering an innocent woman.
“Ladies and gentlemen—if you’ll please take your seats. We’re about to begin.”
The announcement came via the room’s sound system.
Rapp turned to see a stunning blonde with a microphone in her hands standing opposite the table.
Presumably, this was the Italian journalist who’d voluteered to interview the ambassador.
In response to her gentle cajoling, the crowd noise quieted to a murmur as the smartly dressed attendees began moving toward their chairs.
On the far side of the room, the ambassador ended a conversation with two men in stylish suits.
Then she started up the walkway between the rows of chairs, smiling at attendees and waving as she went.
Her eyes lingered on Rapp as she drew even with him, and her lips compressed into a thin line.
A moment later the smile reappeared as she made eye contact with someone else.
Rapp turned, intending to move to his seat.
He didn’t get the chance.