by Flynn Vince
Kennedy didn’t speak for a long time, and then she said, “You know it’s not too late for you, Mitch? You’re in your early forties.”
“You mean to find someone else. Settle down, have a bunch of kids.” Rapp shook his head. “Not so sure it’s for me. Besides, someone has to do this job, and I don’t see too many guys with my skill set ready to step into the breach.”
“I’m sure I could find someone else.”
With a confident grin, Rapp asked, “And do you think they could do it as well?”
“I doubt it.” Kennedy reflected on the subject and began to see that maybe Rapp was coming at it from the right place. “So your solution, as far as Mike is concerned, is to let Dickerson turn him into the CIA’s poster boy?”
“I haven’t worked out the details yet, but, yeah… that’s pretty much the plan.”
“And you think he’ll go along with this?”
“Not sure, but we don’t have to give him a choice in the matter.”
Kennedy shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll like it.”
“He probably won’t at first, but I think he’ll come around pretty quick.”
Kennedy winced. “I don’t know, Mitch… He’s not as stubborn as you, but he’s pretty close.”
“When he sees how proud Maggie and the kids are…” Rapp smiled, “all will be forgiven.”
“I’ll think about.”
“Good.” Rapp checked his watch. “I gotta get going. I need to-”
Kennedy stopped him. “Yes, you do. You need to get out to Dulles. Your friends have requested a meeting.”
“Which friends?”
“Your counterparts from across the pond.”
“Oh.” These neutral-site, face-to-face meetings were a recent development. “How much time do I have?”
“If you don’t want to keep them waiting, you need to be wheels up in fifty minutes.”
Rapp swore to himself. He always kept a go bag packed in his car, so that wasn’t a concern, but he needed to talk to Scott Coleman and get him to sweep Lewis’s office.
“Anything I can help with?” Kennedy offered.
Rapp almost laughed at the question but before he could reply there was a muted knock on the door and then it opened. Rapp looked over to see six-foot-three Chuck O’Brien enter the room. The ruddyfaced director of the National Clandestine Service had been with Langley for thirty-three years, and if Rapp was reading his clenched jaw and austere expression right, they were about to get some bad news.
“Sorry to intrude,” O’Brien covered the distance in a few long strides and pulled up next to Rapp, “but some info just got kicked up to me.”
“What’s that?” Kennedy asked.
“Apparently, Glen Adams decided to take a little unauthorized trip.”
“Huh?” Rapp asked, more than a little surprised that the alarm bells were already being sounded that the CIA’s inspector general had gone missing.
Kennedy asked, “Where to?”
“ Venezuela,” O’Brien answered. “He landed in Caracas about an hour and a half ago. Left JFK late last night.”
“ Caracas?” Kennedy asked with a puzzled look on her face. “Why Caracas? Does he have any relatives down there?”
“Not that I know of.”
Kennedy slowly turned her gaze to Rapp. “Any idea why Glen Adams would take an unannounced trip to Venezuela?”
Rapp unflinchingly returned his boss’s stare, shook his head twice, and said, “How the hell would I know? We’re not exactly drinking buddies.”
CHAPTER 26
FORTUNATELY for Rapp, Scott Coleman wasn’t big on sleep. The retired Navy SEAL had returned home from the operation in New York at 4:00 A.M. and after three short hours of sack time he’d gotten up and started his day. By the time Rapp called, Coleman had already hit the gym and gotten in a five-mile run. Coleman confirmed that he could meet Rapp at one of their usual spots in twenty minutes. Rapp grabbed his go bag from the trunk of his sedan and took a quick shower in the men’s locker room of Langley ’s fitness center. Ten minutes after leaving Kennedy’s office he was in his car and heading west.
Rapp exited the main gate, got onto Dolley Madison Boulevard, and grabbed his phone. After searching his address book he found the mobile number for Maggie Nash and punched the call button. Through his Bluetooth earpiece he listened to the line ring.
On the fifth chime a familiar upbeat voice answered, “Maggie Nash.”
“Hi, Maggie… it’s Mitch. How are you?”
“Fine,” she answered in a cautious voice.
Maggie was a great person and Rapp had always gotten along with her. He knew immediately by the uncertainty in her voice that she had talked with her husband. “You spoke with Mike?”
“Yes.”
Rapp had to multitask. He had to get Maggie to see things from his perspective and he had to make sure he made it to his next meeting without the wrong person or group following him. Fortunately, he had grown up only a few miles from Langley and knew the winding residential streets as if he’d laid them out himself. It was the ideal terrain to detect surveillance. With all the parks and creeks there were a lot of dead-ends and if it turned out the FBI was following him he could always fall back on the fact that there were hundreds of foreign spies in Washington who would love to know what he was up to. Being security conscious, and aware of America’s enemies, was a big part of his job. That was both his reality and his cover, but the sad fact was that he was now more worried about his own government following him than the Chinese or the Russians.
“Did he tell you we had a little problem this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Maggie, I don’t expect you to take any side other than your husband’s, but I’d like you to hear me out on a few things.”
“I’m listening.”
“I care a great deal about you and the kids. I think of Mike as a brother. I’d risk my life to save him and he’d do the same for me.” Rapp cut down Vincent Place and turned onto Elm Street two short blocks later. The truth was he had already risked his life to save him and Maggie knew it. “I’m worried about him.”
Maggie sighed and emotion flooded her voice, “I don’t know what happened between you two this morning… he wouldn’t talk about it, but I do know he is extremely upset and because you guys live such a screwed-up life, and can’t talk about anything that you do, I don’t have the slightest idea how to help him.”
Rapp turned on to Chain Bridge Road, relieved that Nash had at least informed her that there was a problem. “Maggie, I need you to listen to me and I need you to understand that this comes from the heart. I’m damaged goods. I’m good at my job and that’s about it. I’ve given up on ever having a normal life. But-”
She cut him off, “Don’t say that, Mitch.”
“Please let me speak. If I don’t say this right now I don’t think I ever will. I see you and Mike and your kids and I see the life I could have had with Anna. I blew it. I thought I could do both. I thought I could keep the two lives separate. Continue to do all the stuff I’d done for a decade and half. All the nasty shit I can’t talk about.”
“Mitch, you can’t blame yourself.”
“Anna knew it, Maggie. She begged me to get out of the field, let a new crop of guys take the fight to the bad guys, and I told her I would, but I never did. I kept telling myself, one more operation. One more bad guy to take down. I made excuse after excuse. I even lied to her about the crap I was involved in because I knew she’d freak. I thought I could keep the two lives separate, and it was all a bunch of bullshit. And you know it, Maggie. I saw what you and the kids went through last year when he almost died, and then this crap last week…” Rapp’s voice trailed off as he thought of their dead colleagues. In a remorseful tone, he said, “This is no business for a family man.”
Maggie sighed. “You don’t have to convince me.”
“Good. Then here’s what we’re going to do.”
“We… as in
you and I?”
“Yes.” Rapp checked his mirrors.
“Mitch, I love you and I respect what you do. I admire your courage. I admire Michael’s courage and commitment to what he believes in, but I hate your jobs and Michael knows it. I have tried to get him to quit, and he has yet to listen to me. What makes you think this time is going to be different?”
“Because we’re not going to give him a choice in the matter.”
“So… what are you saying? Are you going to fire him?”
“No. The opposite. I’m going to promote him.”
“To what? For all I know you’ve been promoted a dozen times and it hasn’t changed a thing.”
“This is going to be different. I’m going to do you a favor, Maggie. I’m going to give you and your kids the life you deserve.”
“That sounds great, Mitch, but I still don’t get how you’re going to pull it off. He’s not a quitter. You try to promote him out of the clandestine side of the business and he’ll turn you down.”
“I might need your help on this, but in the end he’s not going to have any choice in the matter. You’re just going to have to trust me. You know Gabriel Dickerson?”
“Of course I do. Everyone in D.C. knows who Gabriel Dickerson is.” Maggie worked for a prominent PR firm in town.
“Did Mike by chance tell you anything about last week… what happened at the office?”
“You mean the attack?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah… I mean we know Jessica died. We went to the funeral.”
She was referring to Nash’s assistant. “He didn’t talk about any heroics?”
“No. He never talks about that stuff.”
Rapp was relieved. At least Nash still knew how to keep his mouth shut. He began telling her a little bit about what her husband had done, leaving out his own part in the heroics and focusing on Nash. Then, in broad strokes, he told her about Dickerson’s plan. That the CIA needed a hero. That America needed a hero. And then he fudged a bit and told her the president wanted to give Mike a medal. That he wanted to do it at a public ceremony at the White House and they wanted Maggie and the kids there. Her husband would finally be rewarded for his sacrifices and Maggie would no longer have to live the lie, because he would be outed. Rapp made her promise not to tell anyone, especially her husband.
“You know how these politicians work,” Rapp warned her. “This morning they think this is a great idea. Dickerson is championing it for the president, but it’s never a done deal until it actually happens.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I’ve been burned plenty of times.”
Rapp could hear the hope in her voice. “Maggie, there’s a lot of fucked-up guys like me out there who don’t have a family to take care of. Let them take their turn stepping into the breach. Mike’s done his part. Go home… support him… make sure he gets some rest and don’t breathe a word of this to him. You know him… if he gets wind of this he’ll stop it dead in its tracks.”
CHAPTER 27
RAPP took a quick left and then a quick right. He backed into a private drive halfway down Pathfinder Lane and stopped under a massive elm tree. The leafy canopy of the tree would frustrate any airborne surveillance. One of Rapp’s high school buddies had lived on the street, and he knew the driveway serviced only a couple of houses. The street jogged at both ends so it wasn’t used to cut through the neighborhood like some of the other side streets. Rapp checked the clock on the dashboard and settled in to see if any American-made four-door sedans came skidding around the corner.
He thought about his conversation with Maggie and stared at his phone for a long moment. A sliver of guilt crept in as he wondered if he could deliver on the promises he’d just made. After a beat he knew he could. He knew he had to. He would call Dickerson and make it happen. Feeling better about it, Rapp punched in Stan Hurley’s number on his secure BlackBerry to get an update. After three rings the scratchy voice of Hurley answered. Rapp didn’t bother to say hello. “So… were you right?” Rapp asked in reference to Hurley’s prediction that Adams had used Max Johnson to bug Lewis’s office.
“About who he was using?”
“Yeah.”
“Yep,” Hurley answered. “He’s been on the payroll for about two months.”
Rapp wanted to ask him how he was paying him, but was hesitant to get into too much detail over the phone. “Motive?”
“Another member of the Mitch Rapp fan club.”
Rapp looked north and then south. No cars so far. “How so?”
“Can’t say if there was any personal animosity, but my guess is he was intrigued by the idea of taking down a real gunfighter.”
Rapp thought about that. Hurley liked to refer to the clandestine folks as gunfighters. Everyone else was a limp dick or a desk jockey. Theirs was an entirely separate culture from that of the other folks at Langley, and it was not unusual for other groups to harbor acrimony against the spooks in the building. Johnson had spent his entire career within the secure perimeter of Langley. There were probably a handful of times that he’d gone overseas to do a security review of an embassy and the CIA’s personnel, but he’d never participated in a real op. The entire focus of his career had been to protect Langley’s secrets and bust those who didn’t play strictly by the rules. “Any idea what he was using to listen in on the sessions?”
“He’s not certain, but it sounds like it might have been off-site.”
“All right, I’m on it. I gotta go. I’ll call you later.” Rapp hit the end button and thought about the task he was going to give Coleman. Max Johnson, while not exactly an A Team field guy, was nonetheless someone they should not take lightly. What concerned Rapp was that Johnson would be dumb enough to get involved with a guy like Adams. Hurley’s assessment of the situation was as good as any, but they weren’t talking about an impulsive twenty-year-old. Johnson was a thirty-plus-year veteran of the business. He should have known better than to get mixed up in something like this.
Rapp checked the street again. No Crown Vics, Caprices, or LTDs came sliding around the corner on two wheels, so he put the car back in drive and drove over to Lewinsville Park. Rapp had spent countless hours here as kid. He and his neighborhood buddies played every sport there was, and if they weren’t at the park they were down at the pool and tennis club off of Great Falls. Rapp was smiling to himself and thinking about the summer his brother had gotten them banned from the pool when he saw Coleman pulling into the parking lot in his big black SUV. Without saying a word they both left their vehicles and traveled down the path between the bleachers to the synthetic-turf lacrosse field.
It was a typical late April morning for the area. The temp was in the midseventies and the skies were partly cloudy, with the threat of storms off in the distance. Rapp had changed into a pair of comfortable jeans and a long-sleeved shirt for his flight. Coleman had on a pair of khakis, a button-down shirt, and a blue sport coat. The two men faced each other but didn’t look at each other. They were more concerned with their surroundings than making eye contact.
Coleman looked over at the basketball courts. There were four kids playing hoops, young enough that they should probably be in school, and definitely too young to be on the payroll of the FBI or any other organization. He ran a hand through his blond hair and asked, “Don’t tell me we already have a problem.”
Rapp kept his eyes on the parking lot. “Not with the thing you’re thinking of,” he said, referring to the op they’d run in New York, “at least not in the way you might be thinking. Although,” he said, glancing at Colemen, “I did hear something interesting this morning.”
“What’s that?”
“Charlie O’Brien told me that little prick Glen Adams took off for Caracas without letting anyone at Langley know he was leaving the country.”
“You don’t say. I thought you guys had rules about that.”
“Most definitely. You have to notify senior management as well as security.”
“
And he did neither?”
“That’s right. He’s stepped in some real shit.”
“Do they have a line on him?” Coleman asked, already wondering if his guy had been able to disappear. They had agreed that it would be best to have no communication unless there was an emergency.
“You mean Langley?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Rapp said. “Not so far.”
“Is the FBI in on it?”
Rapp shook his head. “Irene wants to keep it in the family… at least for the next six hours. We have some people looking at the hotels, and we’re quietly talking to a few of our contacts in the Venezuelan DIS. If we don’t get some answers quick she’s going to have to bring in FBI and State.”
Coleman nodded. “Do you think he defected?”
“Who knows… as long as the guy doesn’t give away any of our secrets I’d just as soon he hung himself.” Rapp checked out the boys on the court and then finally looked at Coleman. “The name Max Johnson ring a bell?”
Coleman’s blue eyes closed a touch as he tried to remember where he’d heard the name. After a moment he said, “Yeah. He’s one of you guys, or I should say was.”
Rapp frowned. “He was never one of my guys. That would be like me telling you an Investigative Services guy was on the Teams.”
Coleman thought about it for a second and said, “Point taken. But he did work at Langley, right?”
“Yeah. For a long time.”
“Does he know where all the bodies are buried?”
Rapp shrugged. “Hard to say with a guy like him. He’s not the bubbliest fella, but then again those security guys are supposed to make people nervous.”
“You ever have a beef with him?”
“Not that I can recall,” Rapp paused a beat and then added, “but I’ve pissed off so many people over the years I can’t keep track.”