a coffee on a park bench, he watched the flow of people around the massive apartment and business complex. At a street side café, he had a long lunch, read the Washington Post and took in the surroundings. With two bottles of water, he sat on another park bench, read a Vanity Fair and conducted his own surveillance of the area. Having completed his recon of the blocks surrounding the Watergate Complex, he parked his Ford Edge on Twenty-Fourth Street near the George Washington University Medical School.
He wasn’t worried about video surveillance given the dark beard he was wearing along with the lightly tinted dark-rimmed glasses. What he was concerned about was alternative ways out of the area and the contingencies he could count on. For two hours he observed the security of the Watergate East complex, assessing the quality of the security personnel in the building and the local police presence. The building security was of good quality, not the rent-a-cop you typically found. The personnel looked like they could handle themselves, particularly if they came as a team. The video surveillance was robust with cameras visible everywhere.
The most interesting development was the presence of the FBI. He noticed it in the afternoon, when two men entered the building wearing pullover sweatshirts with slight bulges in their backs. Kristoff got up to follow the two men, who were admitted to the building by security without having to use a key card. The two men went up to the eighth floor. Kristoff observed them enter an apartment just down the hall from Connolly’s.
That little tidbit of information locked his plan in.
After he returned from conducting his reconnaissance, he wiped down the condominium and packed his small overnight bag for when he climbed back up. Once he was done with Connolly, he would walk three blocks to his car and simply drive to Reagan National and take his flight to Paris. From there he would disappear, this time for good. This was his last kill for his boss.
The lights in his condominium unit had been off for an hour. The sun had set in the west and there was no moon. It was dark. The lights in the condo below had been off for at least a half hour. He peered over the edge of the balcony for the condo. Given the unique architecture of the Watergate Complex, the apartment Kristoff was repelling from was slightly cantilevered over the eighth and ninth floors below. He secured a mooring hitch knot to the balcony and once again looked over the edge.
* * *
“Detective McRyan, former Special Agent Wire, you have the green light,” Attorney General Gates said. “Connolly’s attorney will meet you at the Watergate. Connolly is there although the attorney hasn’t been able to reach him yet but he will by the time you get there.”
Mac took the pictures of Kristoff, put them in a manila folder and slid them into his backpack.
“Speck and Berman are going with you,” Mitchell added.
“Fine by me,” Mac answered but then he looked to Agents Speck and Berman, “but follow my lead on this because you’re the ones he’ll make the deal with, not me.”
“Good cop?” Berman asked with eyebrows raised.
“Bad cop,” Wire answered.
* * *
Kristoff pulled his gloves tight and then slowly let the black rope down to the level of Connolly’s balcony. He climbed over the ledge, set his feet against the cement pillars of the balcony and pushed away from the building and repelled down to the ninth floor balcony, landing his feet on the balcony rail. He pushed out slightly and dropped his feet to the balcony floor, setting his feet between the small vertical cement pillars. His feet set on the bottom of the balcony, he leaned down and to his right to check the lighting for Connolly’s apartment. The bedroom was dark and the light towards the living room area was dim but he could see the unmistakable flashing of television light.
Once again he set his feet, exhaled and pushed himself out from the balcony and let the rope slide easily through his hands as he swung underneath the ninth floor balcony and landed lightly on the iron railing for the balcony of Connolly’s condo and then froze. He was sensing for movement inside from Connolly.
There was no movement.
He eased himself down to the balcony floor and listened again. The only movement he noticed was from Connolly’s neighbor to the right where a small party was taking place. From