Lethal Agent
Page 32
Rapp shook his head. “I’m okay.”
“Irene said she’d come tomorrow, when you’re feeling a little stronger. She’s working on a project she says you’re going to like.” Claudia patted her daughter’s head. “Say good-bye.”
“Bye, Mitch! I’ll tell them to hurry with that Xbox!”
They disappeared and were quickly replaced by the slightly sunburned face of Scott Coleman. He’d been in a similar hospital bed after his run-in with Grisha Azarov and he seemed to be enjoying the tables being turned.
“You look like shit.”
“Fuck you. How are the guys?”
“Good. Wick’s just down the hall bouncing off the walls. He didn’t catch it, but they want to keep him for another week to make sure. Mas made it over the border and he’s home with a broken hand and a dislocated shoulder. Bruno’s still in Mexican prison, but the diplomats say they’ll spring him in the next couple of days. Doesn’t really matter. The head of the most powerful gang there died in a freak drowning accident involving a toilet and Bruno’s hands around his throat. Word is he’s pretty much running the place.”
Rapp just nodded as a broad grin spread across Coleman’s face.
“He was there, you know.”
“Who was where?”
“We tracked those calls from Halabi to somewhere near Hargeisa. They’d been holed up in a cave system there. By the time we found it they’d already taken off, but we had heavy overhead coverage and the Agency guys were able to run the timeline backward and piece together their movements from satellite photos. It wasn’t easy. The weather was crap and the convoy kept breaking up and reforming.
“Is this story going somewhere?”
Coleman’s grin widened further and he slapped a color eight-by-ten against the glass. The lighting was garish, a powerful flash in the darkness that illuminated a bearded man with part of his head missing. Rapp lifted himself off the pillows, forgetting the lines attached to him and locking on the image of Sayid Halabi.
“Don’t worry,” Coleman said. “I told him it was from you.”
EPILOGUE
ARLINGTON
VIRGINIA
USA
CHRISTINE Barnett used a key to unlock the office she kept in the southern wing of her Georgetown home. It was her private sanctum—a place that even her husband was prohibited from entering on the rare occasion he was in town. And now she needed it more than ever.
Barnett had barely slept in weeks, instead lying in bed hovering somewhere between dream and reality. Endless scenarios, dangers, and opportunities raced through her mind. The faces of allies and enemies floated in the darkness. She had lost control of her universe for the first time in her career and didn’t know how to get it back.
Over the past weeks her poll numbers had plummeted enough to put her in a dead heat with her nearest primary challenger. Dramatic video of Mitch Rapp fighting his way across the border and then being surrounded by the army was still on every channel. The homeland security agencies she’d spent so much time railing against were now being deified by the American public.
Suddenly heroism and patriotism were generating better ratings than personal attacks and partisanship. The rage and negativity that she’d used to fuel her rise through the political ranks was faltering. The American people were looking for something new.
But what?
Kevin Gray wasn’t returning her calls, and without him, her campaign’s damage control strategy had never fully formed. More important, though, were his meetings with the FBI. She still hadn’t been able to find out why he’d been interviewed or what had been discussed. It seemed unimaginable that he would have said anything about the leaks. He was smart enough to know that punishments for such things tended to be doled out to people on his level, not hers. But could she be sure of that?
No.
Her quest to become president was no longer about her thirst for power or the immortality that would accompany being America’s first female president. It was about survival. She needed the full support of her party, the White House’s ability to manipulate the press, and the authority to remove Irene Kennedy and her loyalists. Once ensconced in the Oval Office she would be untouchable. Until then she was vulnerable.
An increasingly familiar sense of fury and helplessness began to rise in her. She tried to swallow it, knowing that she wouldn’t sleep at all that night if it hit full force. Six hours of staring into the darkness wasn’t something she could afford. Her day started at 5 a.m. and wouldn’t end until after midnight. During that time, she couldn’t put a single foot wrong. One ill-considered word, one awkward pause, one unguarded facial expression . . . That’s all it would take to put the White House forever out of her reach.
She sat down behind her desk and flipped on the lamp, squinting against the glare to take in the opulent room. As her eyes adjusted, they were drawn to something unusual in a rocking chair near the wall.
“Late night,” Mitch Rapp observed.
Her body tensed and she drew in a breath to scream, but it got caught in her chest. His hair was close cropped and his normally full beard was short and neatly trimmed. The dark eyes were sunken and bloodshot, but still carried the intensity she’d grown to hate over the years. For some reason, though, it wasn’t his stare that made the bile rise in her throat. It was the surgical gloves covering his hands.
She swallowed and finally managed to get out a panicked shout. “Help! Come up here now!”
The pounding footsteps of Secret Service agents on the stairs didn’t materialize. All she could hear was her own breathing and the creak of the antique chair Rapp was rocking in.
“I didn’t slip by them,” he said. “They let me in.”
Barnett remained frozen. This couldn’t be happening. Even Mitch Rapp wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t kill one of the front-runners in the U.S. presidential election.
“What do you want?” she heard herself say. “The directorship of the CIA? Homeland Security?”
He just rocked.
“Secretary of defense? Just tell me.”
“I know you leaked the anthrax story that almost got me killed.”
“That’s not true! Who told you that?”
There was no way Rapp had proof. Even if Gray had talked, it would just be his word against hers. The laptop he’d used was brand-new and was now in pieces at the bottom of a landfill. The open-source operating system it ran had been confirmed secure by her husband’s top people—some of whom he’d hired away from the NSA.
“There’ve been a lot of leaks over the years,” Rapp continued. “And it’s been hard not to notice that quite a few have helped you and hurt your opponents.”
“Those have all been investigated and no one has ever even suggested that I was involved,” Barnett said, starting to overcome her initial shock. She had to think clearly. Her life might depend on it.
Rapp smiled, but in a way that was so devoid of humor that it came off as more of a baring of teeth. Barnett went motionless as though she were faced with wild animal.
“You had us going for a while,” Rapp admitted. “The NSA threw everything at those leaks and no one could trace them.”
“Getting to the bottom of this will be one of my administration’s top priorities,” Barnett said. “There’s nothing more important than the safety of this country and the men and women who ensure that safety.”
This time his smile was even wider, causing Barnett to silently curse herself. She’d been a politician so long that she couldn’t shut it off. The platitudes that were so popular with her millions of followers would be a joke to someone like Rapp.
“Do you want to know where you went wrong, Senator?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Kevin Gray. Brilliant guy, but a creature of habit. He always gets those new laptops at the same place. The Best Buy a few miles from his house. For the last two years, he’s been buying ones custom built by us.”
Barnett’s mind b
egan to spin as she tried to make the calculations she was famous for. How many leaks had she ordered over that time frame? How many had been carried out by Gray? Why hadn’t Kennedy released this information long ago? Was it possible that Rapp was bluffing? Or had Kennedy been squirreling away the evidence to be used if Barnett ever reached the White House?
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “I don’t believe Kevin would do that.”
The only plausible way out was to shift the blame. To assert that Gray had acted alone. He already had the reputation as one of the most ruthless and ambitious campaign strategists in Washington. She could use that to create a portrait of a man who would do anything to win.
“If you provide my committee the evidence you have against him, we’ll give it a full, bipartisan vetting. And if we find out he’s leaked classified information, I’ll be the first one to recommend prosecution.”
Rapp reached into his jacket and Barnett’s bladder almost let go. When his hand reappeared, though, it wasn’t holding the infamous Glock, but instead a mobile phone.
“Like I said, a brilliant guy,” he said, tapping the screen. “Brilliant enough to know you’d throw him under the bus.”
“Ma’am, Rapp’s dead and—” she heard Gray’s recorded voice say over the phone’s speaker.
“He’s not dead! That son of a bitch has more lives than an alley cat. He’s alive and they’re not telling us. That means he’s out there, still working on this operation. Waiting.”
“Waiting? Waiting for what?”
“For me to win the primary. Then, at just the right moment, he’s going to reappear and save the day. Alexander and Kennedy will be heroes and I’ll be standing there looking like a fool.”
“Senator, the idea that Mitch Rapp is involving himself in some kind of complex political game is—”
“He sees me as a threat. Just like Kennedy. They’re going to use this to come after me. We have to find out what’s happening in Mexico. We have to get ahead of it.”
“We have no way of finding out what’s happening. No one’s going to tell us anything, and if we try to twist arms at the intelligence agencies, it’s going to go public and blow up in our faces.”
“Not the American government. We can use our contacts in the Mexican government. They want us to get off their backs regarding immigrants and drugs, right? Well, as president, I can make that happen. And all I ask in return is a little cooperation and information.”
“Now hold on, Senator. If Rapp’s alive, it’s possible that he’s actually still on the trail of ISIS. We—”
“I’m not going to sit on my hands and see that son of a bitch shooting it out with terrorists on television!”
He fast-forwarded the recording.
“Call them, Kevin. Call the Mexicans. Quietly. Find out what’s going on. We can still head this off. If there really is something happening down there, we might be able to get the Mexican authorities to deal with it and keep Rapp and Kennedy from getting the win. If it works out, we might even be able to take some credit. Show the American people that I can stop threats before they make it to the United States.”
By the time Rapp turned off the recording, enough blood had drained from Barnett’s head that she had to steady herself against the desk. She wasn’t just going to lose the primary. She was going to be held up as a traitor. She was going to be marched into court in handcuffs and convicted of treason. The fear she used to keep her enemies and allies in line would disappear. For the first time in her career the blood in the water would be hers.
Rapp stood and reached into his jacket again, this time retrieving a bottle of pills that he threw to her. She caught it and looked down at the label. Painkillers backdated to a minor surgery she’d had two years ago.
“That’s a present from Irene Kennedy. It’s the easy way out. For you and the country.”
He went to the door but paused with his gloved hand on the knob. “Take the gift, Senator. Because if you don’t, we’re going to do it my way.”
And then he was gone.
Barnett stared down at the bottle for a long time. Finally, she opened it and reached for a bottle of water near the desk lamp. She gagged on the first pill, terror causing her throat to constrict. After that, it was easy.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
#1 New York Times bestselling author VINCE FLYNN (1966–2013) created one of contemporary fiction’s most popular heroes: CIA counterterrorist agent Mitch Rapp, featured in thirteen of Flynn’s acclaimed political thrillers. All of his novels are New York Times bestsellers, including his stand-alone debut novel, Term Limits. American Assassin was released as a major film in 2017.
KYLE MILLS is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nineteen political thrillers, including Red War for Vince Flynn and The Patriot Attack for Robert Ludlum. He initially found inspiration from his father, a former director of Interpol, and still draws on his contacts in the intelligence community to give his books such realism. Avid outdoor athletes, he and his wife have lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for more than twenty years. Visit his website at KyleMills.com.
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Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Vince-Flynn
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Facebook.com/EmilyBestler @EmilyBestler
Novels by Vince Flynn
The Last Man
Kill Shot
American Assassin
Pursuit of Honor
Extreme Measures
Protect and Defend
Act of Treason
Consent to Kill
Memorial Day
Executive Power
Separation of Power
The Third Option
Transfer of Power
Term Limits
And by Kyle Mills
Red War
Enemy of the State
Order to Kill
The Survivor
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ISBN 978-1-5011-9062-9978-1-9821-3660-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-9064-3 (ebook)