by Vince Flynn
“You were just going to sneak in and sneak out?”
“Yes.”
“And I would be left in the dark.”
“Your judgment would be left intact.”
“And the marks on the prisoner? How would I explain that?”
“That was not intended. He tried to bite me.” Rapp looked up at the monitor, as did the two officers. Haggani was still tied to his chair. His blood-streaked face looked horrible. Rapp grimaced and offered, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“It looks bad, Mr….?” The general left the question unfinished.
Rapp wavered and then thought, What the hell, I’m in deep enough already. “Rapp…Mitch Rapp.”
“You work for the CIA?” Garrison asked.
“That’s right.”
“You’re a spy,” Leland said.
“Counterterrorism specialist.”
“What exactly does that entail?” the general asked.
“It involves dealing with people like that.” Rapp pointed at the screen.
“Dealing,” the general repeated the word, “that’s pretty vague.”
“We walk in different circles, General. I don’t expect someone who puts on a uniform like yours to ever fully condone what I do. You guys have to have your rules…your discipline. You need that to remain an effective fighting force. Me…I’m the guy who sneaks out under the wire late at night and crawls up next to these guys and cuts their throats.”
“Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?” Leland folded his arms across his chest, a look of contempt on his face.
Rapp cocked his head and studied the captain. He couldn’t care less what this wet-behind-the-ears officer thought of him, but with the intent of buying more time for Nash and the others, he supposed he should engage him. “I sleep like a baby, Captain. How about you?”
“It’s because of people like you that we’re losing this war.”
With a raised eyebrow Rapp said, “I wasn’t aware that we’re losing it.”
“This is about hearts and minds, and you know it. Not torturing prisoners so we can get false confessions out of them.”
“False confessions…that’s what you think this is about? That man sitting in that room right there; do you even know who he is?”
“It doesn’t matter who he is or what he’s done. As an officer of the United States Air Force, I am sworn to uphold the Geneva Conventions.”
“You’re also sworn to protect and defend the United States of America. So which comes first, the Geneva Conventions or your fellow citizens?”
“They coexist equally.”
“I’m sure they do in your little perfect world, Captain, but out there in the real world, on the other side of the wire, things aren’t so academic.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Rapp.”
“Really…I love being told how things are by some prick in a clean uniform who thinks he has all the answers. Tell me how it is, Captain. Tell me how many terrorists you’ve killed. Tell me how many times you’ve been shot.”
Leland shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his chin stuck stubbornly out. “General, I think we’re wasting our time. May I please put him under arrest and have him thrown in lockup?” Leland’s hand slid down to the top of his thigh holster.
“Captain,” Rapp said in a casual voice, “I’ll break your wrist before you ever get that thing out of the holster.”
“Relax, Captain,” Garrison said. “I want to hear him out first. So,” he said, looking at Rapp, “this classified information you were talking about?”
It really was classified information, and Rapp now had to decide how far to go with these two. Telling the captain to leave would have technically been the right thing to do, but Rapp didn’t want to free him up to check on the others. He would have to give them a heavily sanitized version of what was going on.
“About a month ago an al-Qaeda cell was intercepted on its way to the United States. A second cell was intercepted a few weeks later. We were very alarmed to find during interrogations that these cells were highly trained in commando tactics. They had researched their targets thoroughly. They’d preshipped their weapons, and I’m not just talking guns…. I’m talking high-end explosives, fuses, remote detonators…the works. They could’ve done some serious damage. At any rate, during the interrogations…”
“You mean torture,” Leland said.
Rapp looked at the senior of the two officers and said, “General, with all due respect, if he says another word I’m going to knock him out. And trust me when I say, I’ll never be punished for belting some smart-ass, low-level officer who was interfering with me trying to stop a terrorist attack on the United States. And make no mistake about it…either of you. This operation…my little midnight visit to your base…is about acting on solid intel that a third cell is still out there.” Rapp paused to let the revelation sink in. “That’s right, there’s another group. We estimate eight to ten men, all highly trained.”
“What do you want with these two,” General Garrison asked, “when you already have the other men in your custody?”
“The men we have are only foot soldiers. None of them were involved in the recruiting or planning of the attacks.”
Garrison nodded and then pointed at the twin monitors. “And these two?”
“Both of them are high up. In fact right before you came walking in, al-Haq was talking about making a deal.”
Garrison looked at the ground for a moment and then asked, “So what do you expect me to do?”
“Go back to bed. Act like this never happened. I’ll be gone in the morning, and hopefully I’ll have enough information to run down this third cell and intercept them before they deploy.” Even as Rapp said it he knew it wouldn’t happen. Still, he had to go through the motions.
The base commander looked over at Leland and then said, “Give us a minute to discuss.”
“Sure. It’s your command, General.” Rapp stayed firmly planted between them and the hallway that led to the exit.
General Garrison led Captain Leland to the far corner and asked in a hushed voice, “Your thoughts?”
“I don’t like it. I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him. I think he’s a liar.”
“I didn’t ask if I should date him, Captain. A little more nuanced opinion is what I’m looking for.”
“Sorry, sir.” Leland paused, set aside his personal feelings of dislike, and said, “In these situations, what gets command in trouble is never the crime. You have done nothing wrong, sir. What gets command in trouble is the cover-up. Usually the old boy network…academy grads looking out for each other.” Leland exchanged a brief look with Garrison. Like they shared an unspoken bond. The general gave him no such look in return. “It starts out innocently enough, because no one thinks they are going to get caught. They usually do, though, and when that happens it’s never pretty. Instead of one career being ruined it ends up being two, three, four…sometimes dozens.”
“Your point being…if I go back to bed and act like nothing happened, eventually someone will find out I knew he was here.”
“That he impersonated an officer, tortured a prisoner, and God only knows what else.”
“So you think we should lock him up?”
“Yes!” Leland said with conviction. “You have done nothing wrong, sir. Your only concern should be to follow regulations.”
“But what about this third cell?”
Leland didn’t like that the general wasn’t recognizing how dangerous this could be to not only his own career but Leland’s as well. “What about Senator Lonsdale? How do you think she will react when she gets wind of this? And trust me, sir; it is not if, it’s when, and when she does, she is going to want your balls on a platter. She said as much before she left. Your career will be over, sir.”
Garrison looked back across the room at the man from the CIA. He was right. It would have been better if he’d never gotten out of bed. He glanc
ed at the two monitors, watched the two fanatics sitting in their chairs. This whole thing was a mess. “And how,” he asked Leland, “do we live with ourselves if what he says is true…if we get hit with another attack?”
“He has no proof of that, sir. That’s what these spooks do. They run around chasing shadows. Crying wolf.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not right.”
Leland sighed in exasperation. “That is not our job to decide.”
“So you think I should lock him up.”
“Yes, sir. It’s the only responsible thing for you to do.”
“And then what?”
“It will get kicked up the chain of command, and they will deal with it.”
Garrison thought long and hard about it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was making a mistake, but he saw no other way. “Fine,” he said with no enthusiasm, “place him under arrest and notify Centcom.”
“Yes, sir.” Leland was beaming with satisfaction as he snapped off a salute.
“And, Captain, I want this kept quiet. No gossip. For now it stays between the two of us and our security detail in the other room. The Pentagon and the president might have an entirely different take on this than you do.”
“I doubt it, sir.” Leland turned to go arrest Rapp.
“One other thing, Captain.”
Leland stopped and looked back at his CO.
“Don’t look so damn pleased with yourself. Before this is all over, I have a bad feeling we’re both going to wish you had never gotten me out of bed.”
CHAPTER 16
WASHINGTON, D.C.
THERE hadn’t been many dates and no real relationships to speak of. The ones with any sense simply stayed away and the ones who pursued her made her nervous for the simple fact that they should have had more sense. Then there was the very real fear that she would be set up by a foreign intelligence service. It had been done before, using a woman’s heart, or in a man’s case something else, to put them in a compromising situation. So there were background checks, surveillance by Langley’s counterespionage gang and probably the FBI as well. She questioned none of it. To do so would have been reckless.
Irene Kennedy had resigned herself to the simple fact that she would probably never find true love and almost certainly never remarry. The first go-around had gone badly, as they pretty much always do when referred to in the past tense. She rarely looked back on it with any deep regret. It had started out well enough. He was interesting, handsome, and very intelligent. Her mistake had been underestimating his relationship with his mother. The woman treated her son as if he were still eight years old. He was a mama’s boy who thought only of himself. Looking at it after the fact, Kennedy could see she enabled his behavior. She was a pleaser. She loved him and wanted to make him happy. It was three years into their marriage when she gave birth to their son Thomas that things took a turn for the worse. When confronted with the hard truth that her husband wouldn’t change a diaper, handle a feeding, or get up with Thomas in the middle of the night, it was hard to deny the simple fact that the man was a selfish prick.
It would have been another story if he’d been the breadwinner and she’d been a stay-at-home mom, but it was the opposite. He was a college professor who acted as if he was God’s gift to the intellectual elite of the world. Kennedy soon grew tired of the inequities of the partnership. The tipping point came one Saturday afternoon when she found herself mowing the lawn with young Thomas sleeping in a baby backpack, while the professor was off working on his dissertation. It took nearly two years for the divorce to be finalized, but it was then that she knew it was over, when she knew she no longer loved the man.
Still, she never regretted the marriage, for the simple fact that it had given her a son whom she adored. Kennedy had made it a priority to make sure her son did not turn out like his father. The only real challenge came every summer when Thomas would spend a month at his father’s family summer retreat on Nantucket. It was really the only time he spent with his father since he was now teaching in France. There were lots of tennis and golf and sailing. He never changed, though. He was a good kid who got good grades and stayed out of trouble. Her mother helped a lot, and then there was Rapp.
Kennedy reached for her glass of wine and looked through the open French doors of the semi-private room. Her date was late. As she took a sip of the pinot noir, she thought of the influence Rapp held over her son. He was a complex man…no, that’s not right, she thought to herself. He’s probably the least complex man I know. Rapp’s line of work was complicated, rare and very dangerous, but to Kennedy he was perhaps the most transparent man she had ever known. There were plenty of people at Langley who were tacticians; those who dreamt up grand, complex plans that would weaken or destroy the enemy, plans that would harvest intelligence and give them an advantage over their enemies. Invariably, Rapp would pick these plans apart. As someone who had spent almost his entire career in the field, he was painfully aware that there was a direct relationship between the complexity of a plan and its chances for failure.
Rapp preferred the simple, direct approach, which usually involved firing a bullet into the back of someone’s head. That was the stark truth, and Kennedy spent a fair amount of time trying not to think about it. Her mother, though, had expressed her concerns. When Rapp’s wife was killed several years ago, Kennedy’s mother had come to her and stated in unequivocal terms that she thought it extremely reckless that her daughter allowed her grandson to spend so much time in the company of a CIA assassin. Kennedy hated the word. Hated the idea that someone who had sacrificed so much could be dismissed and tarnished by a simple word. Put Rapp in a uniform and give him a rank, and he would be a hero. They’d have pinned so many medals on his chest, he’d tip over. He wasn’t part of the military, though, so certain people looked down on him, even her own mother.
Kennedy couldn’t blame her. Her mother did not understand how anyone could do what he did for a living. Kennedy smiled as she thought of how her mother would react if she knew the whole story—if she were given access to Rapp’s file. Even worse, how she would react if she read her own daughter’s file. At least with men like Rapp and Nash the anthropological evidence was in plain sight. One look at them and it was obvious that they were hunters. Her own daughter, on the other hand, had not a hint of predacity in her entire appearance or demeanor. She was the epitome of high-powered Washington class. Her clothes were always stylish but never over-the-top. She showed just enough skin to retain her femininity and never so much as to be thought a slut. Her smooth, shoulder-length hair was the perfect accent to her narrow face and button nose.
Never was there a hint that beneath the disarming, pleasant smile lurked a woman whose patience was gone. A woman who now, on an almost weekly basis, gave men like Rapp and Nash the approval to break laws, to lie to congressmen and senators, to kidnap and torture, and, yes, to kill. It was never cavalier or done for the perverse pleasure of doing it simply because she could. The decisions were made with great care and consideration, but nonetheless they were made, and Kennedy had to live with them, had to live with the lies. She knew Rapp could handle it, but she was increasingly worried about Nash. Where Rapp kept to himself, especially since the murder of his wife, Nash was forced to confront the lie. Married, with four kids, he crossed over on a daily basis, back and forth from suburbia to the black-ops world of counterterrorism—soccer and lacrosse games followed by late-night interrogations and the occasional liquidation.
They’d come up with plenty of words to help them cope with their less-than-noble deeds; detainee, as opposed to prisoner, opened up the door for extreme interrogations, which, of course, had a much nicer ring than torture. A suspect underwent rendition, as opposed to simply being kidnapped. All of the political speak drove Rapp nuts. He blamed it all on the lawyers, and he was probably right. The truth was they were in a dirty business that was populated by some less-than-reputable people. Rapp liked to remind everyone, “We’re not cops. We�
��re not soldiers. We’re spies, and spies do nasty shit to nasty people.”
Nowhere in their charter was there anything about fighting fair. The enemy certainly didn’t, and their people treated them like heroes. In America you were forced to sit through meetings like the one she’d just finished at the Justice Department. Meetings with people who didn’t know the first thing about the silent war that was being waged. Your reward for your sacrifice was to be hounded by some politically appointed prick like this Wade Kline. At a bare minimum your reputation got trashed in the press, or worse, you ended up indicted and drowning under a mountain of legal bills. Kennedy’s anxiety rose as she thought of Rapp and Nash and what they were up to. One slip-up and the vultures would pounce.
Her date appeared at the top of the staircase with an apologetic smile on his face. Kennedy wasn’t the slightest bit irritated that he was twenty minutes late. She pushed back her chair to stand, but her date rushed over and gestured for her not to bother.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he bent over to kiss Kennedy.
She offered her cheek and said, “Don’t worry, any chance I get to have a moment alone is one I’ll gladly take.”
The man laughed genuinely and took his seat directly across from Kennedy. He unbuttoned his suit coat and retrieved a pair of reading glasses from his inside pocket. William Barstow ran an investment firm in town and had been divorced for a little more than a year. Kennedy had never met the ex or the two kids and was in no rush. She’d sat next to Barstow at a fund-raiser for the Kennedy Center, and he’d made her laugh. It might sound like a small thing to most people, but there wasn’t a lot to laugh about in her life. As the event wrapped up, Barstow asked her out, Kennedy said why not, and now they were five dates into what was so far a pretty easy relationship.
They were at the Ruth’s Chris Steak House on Connecticut Avenue. The service was excellent, as was the food, but more important, it was one of a handful of restaurants in town that had a good working relationship with Langley. Not far from embassy row, the place was often used for meetings and was rumored to be wired to the hilt. Kennedy liked it because it had a room on the second floor that had two glass walls which at least gave the illusion that you were part of the busy restaurant. It was far less stifling than some of the other private rooms in town, the ones where you felt like you were seated in a closet. Her security team was familiar with the place and could sweep it and employ their countermeasures with relative ease.