by Vince Flynn
Kennedy watched the president and president-to-be talk one on one. She couldn’t help thinking of the photos Baker had shown her less than twenty-four hours ago. Based on the way Alexander had acted over the last few months, Kennedy doubted he knew of his wife’s infidelities. But she had seen stranger things. Washington was replete with torrid tales of the rich and powerful and their strange marital arrangements. Her instincts told her Alexander was genuinely bereaved, but she’d been fooled by politicians before. Thomas Stansfield, her mentor, had taught her that the good politicians were better than any actor in Hollywood. They were real stage actors; performing in front of a live audience three or four times a day. And they often did it on the fly.
With Alexander, though, there was something about his pain that seemed very real. Kennedy wondered how much of her assessment was formed by wishful thinking. The alternative made her shudder. The best part of her wanted to believe that he was a good man. A man she could support. That was back on the table now. Kennedy could see clearly now what President Hayes had been up to. What he’d been trying to do for her and for the CIA. With Vice President–Elect Ross in Europe, Hayes saw his opening and used it. Ross and Kennedy did not get along. Alexander had virtually turned over the national security piece of the puzzle to his running mate, the former director of National Intelligence. Alexander was focusing on the domestic and economic teams and Ross the defense and intelligence. Translation: Kennedy would be out of a job shortly after the two were sworn in.
What Hayes was trying to do was show Alexander that Kennedy and her people were really effective at what they did. Not the type of people you simply threw overboard because your running mate doesn’t like them. A running mate who happens to have a massive narcissistic complex. While all of these kudos felt good for a change, Kennedy saw a potential problem. The president should have seen it as well, but he probably thought the ends would justify the means. The problem was Mitch Rapp. He’d sooner get a colonoscopy than deal with the Justice Department. Add to that the media firestorm that was sure to follow, and he was sure to be in a foul mood for months to come. She could try to lay it all at the feet of the president, but Rapp would be so upset that an operation was dragged into the public eye he would feel the need to spread his anger around.
Kennedy stood and took a step toward Hayes and Alexander. They stopped talking and looked up.
“I’d better inform Mitch of the change in plans. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to go down to the Situation Room and call him.”
“We’ll come with you,” announced Hayes. “I’d love to congratulate him.”
“And I’d like to thank him,” Alexander added.
Kennedy winced ever so slightly and said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. At least not at the moment.”
Alexander looked confused and asked, “Why?”
President Hayes laughed. “Mitch does not like the limelight. He’s going to hate all of this.”
“You’re right, sir.”
Hayes seemed to take great joy in the fact that all this would bug Rapp. Alexander was frowning like he didn’t get it.
Hayes looked at him and said, “He’s not like us. We hang all of our awards on the wall for everybody to see. His medals and commendations are kept in a safe out at Langley, and I’ll bet not once has he ever gone to look at them. Am I right?” he asked Kennedy.
“Yes, sir. You are.”
“Have you met him?” Hayes asked Alexander.
“No. I’ve heard a lot about him, though.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear. Especially if it comes from your vice president’s mouth.”
Kennedy decided this would be a good time to exit. “As soon as I’m done I’ll come back and give you an update.”
She turned and left the room, cutting through the secretary’s outer office and then down the stairs and past the White House Mess. She stopped outside the secure door of the Situation Room and grabbed her bar-coded and laminated badge that was clipped to the lapel of her jacket. She stuck it under the scanner next to the door and listened to the click. A small camera above the door monitored her every move. When the door clicked she entered and was greeted by a fresh-faced man in civilian clothing with an obvious military bearing.
“Major Hansen, I presume.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Another marine, she thought. They were always throwing around Ma’am instead of Ms. She didn’t take the use of the antiquated phrase personally. It was a byproduct of being yelled at by their drill instructors for three straight months while they tried to make it through Boot Camp or Officer’s Candidate School.
“Would you please contact the Global Ops Center and have them get Mr. Rapp on the line for me. I’ll take it in the conference room.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Anything else, Ma’am?”
She considered telling him to stop calling her Ma’am, but figured the call was more important. “Just the call, please.”
Kennedy went into the conference room and set her purse down on the table. While she waited for the call to be connected she tried to guess on a scale of one to ten just how upset Rapp would be. She considered the possibility that this might be one of those rare occasions where she would need to bite back. It wasn’t her style, and it could be a dangerous proposition when dealing with Rapp. Often the best way to manage him was to let him blow his lid and get it out of his system. If it wasn’t something that was her direct fault she could often ride it out in silence and then make him feel bad for losing his cool. She hoped that would be the case this morning.
The large, white, secure phone rang once. Kennedy grabbed the handset and identified herself. The voice on the other end asked her to hold and then a moment later a woman came on the line. It was Agent Brooks. Kennedy asked for Rapp and then waited.
About thirty seconds later a tired, gruff voice came on the line and asked, “What’s up?”
“You’re not going to like this,” Kennedy started, “so I’m going to get right to the point. The president just told the president–elect that you found Gazich and are on your way back to the States.” Kennedy paused knowing it was the next part that would upset him. In a voice lacking conviction she said, “Alexander wants the man put on trial. When you land you’ll be met by the FBI and they will take custody of the prisoner.” There was a five second pause before Kennedy got her reply.
“Have you people lost your fucking minds?”
Kennedy took a deep breath and said, “No.”
“This guy is a terrorist. A hired assassin. A foreigner with I don’t know how many passports and aliases. I kidnapped him, for Christ sake.”
“And?”
“And,” Rapp screamed, “think big picture. Think tactics and techniques. I don’t want the FBI asking me a bunch of questions about how I run my operations.”
“We’ll be able to limit that.”
“Bullshit! You know you won’t. If they put him on trial that means the piece of crap gets a lawyer, and that means I get to spend a week in some conference room getting deposed by a bunch of socialists who do pro bono work for fucking Amnesty International.”
“Mitch, you know I won’t let that happen.”
“You can’t promise that. A year from now, when this all goes down, you’re not going to be in a position to protect me. You’re gonna be writing a memoir and giving speeches for a hundred grand a pop.”
Kennedy was expecting him to be upset, but not this upset. “Mitch, I don’t see the problem. You said you were a hundred percent sure this is the guy. You must have some pretty good evidence against him.”
“Not the kind of evidence you use in court!”
Kennedy detected something in his voice. “Did you torture a confession out of him?”
“No,” Rapp muttered.
“That didn’t sound convincing.”
“I did not torture a confession out of him.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Rapp muttered something again
, swore, and then said, “I shot him.”
“We can deal with that. I’m sure you had cause.”
“I shot him four times.”
“And he’s alive,” Kennedy snapped.
“I wasn’t trying to kill him.”
Kennedy placed her hand over her forehead. “Oh god! Please don’t tell me you kneecapped him. Please don’t tell me you’ve been torturing him.”
“No!”
“Then why in the hell did you shoot him four times?” she barked. “You’re supposed to be an expert marksmen.”
“Oh…fuck. You’re killing me. If I have to listen to another desk jockey question what I do in the field I’m going to go postal.”
“I’m killing you? Are you kidding me? Mitch, you need to help me. You need to explain to me why you shot the prisoner four times, because when you land the FBI is going to take this guy into custody, and they sure as hell are going to ask.”
“Trust me, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“You work behind a desk and I work in the field.”
“Mitchell!” she snapped.
“He was armed, I was in his backyard, there were other people involved, and I was operating without backup.”
“Where were the others?”
“They got delayed at the airport.”
“And you couldn’t wait for them?”
“No.”
“Or was it that you didn’t want to wait for them?”
“Yeah, Irene. I wanted to be the lone cowboy so I could get all the credit. I’ll tell you what. Maybe I’ll have the pilot drop us down to five thousand feet, I’ll open the cargo door and kick this piece of crap into the ocean and you can all kiss my ass.”
“Mitch, I’m not saying you did any of this to try and get credit, what I’m doing is…”
“Second-guessing me from thousands of miles away.”
“I’m not second-guessing you. I’m trying to find out what happened so we can figure out what to say to the FBI.”
“It was like I said; it was his home turf, he’d already killed two people and I didn’t have time to wait around for backup so I moved in and took care of the situation.”
“Why did you have to shoot him four times?”
“This guy’s good. I was flying solo, so I needed to put him out of commission fast.”
“What do you mean put him out of commission?”
“I needed to cripple him.”
Kennedy thought about what that meant for a moment.
Filling the dead air, Rapp said, “This isn’t the type of guy who surrenders when you shout, freeze.”
“So you shot first and asked questions later.”
“Basically.”
“Where did you shoot him?”
“Once in each knee.”
“That’s only twice. You said you shot him four times.”
“And then in each hand.”
“So you crucified him.”
“No. If I’d shot him in the feet I would have crucified him.”
Kennedy was starting to figure out how bad this would look. “Don’t you think you might have gone a bit overboard?”
“Irene, I’m going to say this one more time. I’m the one out here risking my ass to hunt this guy down. I’d just seen him kill two men in the span of about ten minutes and neither of them had a chance. This guy is good. I was the one on-site. I was the one who had to make the decision, and anyone who wants to second-guess me can go fuck themselves.”
“Including me?”
“Yes, including you, and President Hayes and President–Elect Alexander and anyone else who wants to armchair quarterback me. In fact, I’ll tell you what. The next time this shit happens you can all get off your bureaucratic asses, pick up a gun, and head out into the real world and see how you fare. You try taking a guy like Gazich, and he’ll put a bullet in your head before you finish uttering freeze.”
Kennedy clutched the phone in one hand and had the other one on her hip. She was staring straight ahead at the wood paneled wall and asked, “Are you done?”
“Yeah…I’m done. In fact as soon as I land, I’m on the next plane out.”
“What do you mean the next plane out?”
“The next plane out. The first plane I can get on that will get me as far away from Washington as possible.”
“You can’t do that, Mitch. You need to be debriefed by us, and then the FBI is going to want to talk to you.”
“Well, tough shit. I did the hard part. The rest of you can figure out how you’re going to run your circus because I’m not going to be a part of it.”
“You can’t do…” The line clicked and then went dead. Kennedy stared at the white handset for a second and shook her head. In all her years she had never known anyone who could so thoroughly annoy her as Mitch Rapp.
The main door to the conference room opened and the president entered with Alexander.
Hayes saw Kennedy holding the phone and asked, “Is that Mitch? Let me talk to him. I’d like to pass along my thanks, and I’m sure Josh would as well.”
Kennedy shook her head. “We’re having some technical problems.”
“Well let’s get them fixed. These guys down here are whizzes when it comes to that.”
“Maybe we should wait awhile. It sounded like he had his hands full.”
Hayes looked at Alexander and then back to Kennedy. “Fine. Maybe Mitch can stop by this week, and we can thank him personally.”
Kennedy looked the president in the eye, and uttered a polite but untruthful reply. “I’m sure he’d appreciate that, sir.”
20
41,000 FEET, NORTH ATLANTIC
R app was leaning forward, both hands placed flat against the bulkhead as if he was trying to push the plane through the air. His eyes were shut. His head down. Coleman and Stroble were up, standing in their stocking feet in the galley. They had been awakened by Rapp’s heated conversation with Kennedy. With sleep still in their eyes they looked at Rapp tentatively, unsure of what had him so pissed off. Brooks was standing in the aisle next to her seat, a look of deep concern on her face.
Coleman looked at Brooks for a clue. She shrugged and shook her head.
“Mitch,” Coleman asked, “what happened?”
Rapp didn’t bother to open his eyes or raise his head. “The politicians are involved.”
“How bad?”
“Bad. The FBI is going to meet us when we land and take our guy into custody.”
“Didn’t we pretty much always know that was a possibility?” Brooks asked.
Coleman looked at her and quickly shook his head from side to side.
Rapp dropped one arm and looked at Brooks with a withering stare. “Yes, it was a possibility,” he said with an edge, “but considering how things went down in Cyprus, I would have advised against handing him over to the FBI, or at a bare minimum I would have made sure we had a week with him to make sure we interrogated him properly.”
Brooks nodded sheepishly and then looked at the ground.
“They’re going to meet us at the airport?” a surprised Coleman asked.
“Yes.”
“How in the hell did the FBI find out so fast?”
“Hayes told Alexander that we caught the guy who killed his wife. Alexander wants him put on trial. He wants the whole world to see that we caught the guy.”
“But we don’t have any hard evidence against this guy.”
“I know. They jumped the gun.”
“So they’re going to meet us at the airport?” Coleman asked again. “When we land.” He looked at his watch. “In less than two hours.”
“That’s right.”
“What about media?”
“Who the fuck knows?”
“This isn’t going to work,” Coleman said with real concern.
“Why?” Brooks asked. “What do we have to be ashamed of? We did their job for them.”
“You’re not thinking of the big picture.
News like this is huge. I’d bet my left nut that the phone lines in Washington are burning up right now. Everybody is going to try and get in on the act and either take part of the credit or act like they were in the know.”
“I still don’t see the problem. This is a huge success for us. For the Agency.”
Coleman laughed. “I don’t work for the Agency, and I sure as hell don’t need any publicity.”
“Well the Agency does.”
“That’s debatable,” Rapp said.
“Come on, Mitch. We’re the redheaded stepchild. I’ve heard you say it a dozen times over the past month. We need some good press.”
“You’re assuming the press is going to treat us well.”
“Well, why wouldn’t they?”
“Every news story has its cycle. And when it’s about the Agency, no matter how good it looks at the beginning, it eventually gets ugly.”
“Come again?” Brooks said in a skeptical tone.
“It all comes down to our methods. They’re vegetarians. We’re meat eaters. We’ll never see eye to eye. This plane, our tactics, the way we deploy, the way we put a black bag over someone’s head in the middle of the night, sneak them out of a country without anyone knowing…it will all come under scrutiny.”
“I think you’re being a bit paranoid.”
“I think you’re naïve.” Rapp looked at his watch. “We don’t have a lot of time, so here’s what we’re going to do. Our Russian friend here.” Rapp pointed over his shoulder at the slumbering oaf in the corner. “Have any of you told anyone else that he exists?”
Coleman, Stroble, and Brooks all shook their heads.
“Good. He doesn’t exist.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Brooks asked.
Rapp’s patience was wearing thin. “This would be a good time for you to watch and learn.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
“Brooks, look me in the eye, so there’s no doubt between any of us that you understand what I’m about to tell you.”