by Flynn Vince
Dickerson was a professional handicapper and Rapp was a wild card-the aberration that his formula couldn’t account for. Dickerson was used to assessing his chances for success in a game where people played by a certain set of unwritten rules. The players all moved along a path where their incentives were money, power, and notoriety. Rapp had more than enough money, and as far as power was concerned, it could be easily argued that he represented the very essence of physical supremacy, at least in the individual sense. Put him up against pretty much any guy in town, and you’d be a fool not to put your money on Rapp.
The thing that had really thrown Dickerson, though, was Rapp’s outright refusal to become a national hero. Dickerson’s substantial fees were generated by ambitious men and women who couldn’t compute turning down such an offer. Many of them wouldn’t bat an eye at manufacturing tales of bravado, if they knew they could get away with it, and more than a few had done just that over the years. Passing on an opportunity to bask in the lights, cameras, and microphones of the national media was unthinkable. It would be like a sex addict saying no to a weekend in bed with a Playboy centerfold.
There was another reason, Rapp knew, that Dickerson didn’t look too happy. He had recognized Rapp for what he was-a Molotov cocktail that could ignite a conflagration that would bring down a presidency and put a party on a course for a few decades of permanent minority status. It was why Dickerson had argued against the president’s attending the meeting in the first place. Even so, Dickerson was acutely aware of both the risks and rewards that were circling the president. An attack had gone down on his watch, and he hadn’t raised a finger in protest of the very people Dickerson represented. Apparently being nice to the terrorists wasn’t working out so well.
“And you wonder why I don’t like coming in here,” Rapp said as Kennedy closed the office door on her guest.
Kennedy began walking across the office toward her desk. “Should I be offended?”
“Has nothing to do with you, boss. You know that. It’s just that I’ve got a few things that need my attention, and I just wasted the better part of the morning sitting here listening to I’m not sure what.”
“Gabe is a good person to have on your side.”
Rapp shrugged. “Maybe if you want to get booked on Oprah, but from where I’m standing, he doesn’t appear to offer a lot.”
“You could have been a little more subtle. Maybe a simple thanks but no thanks.”
“A guy like that would see that as a yellow light. He’d hit the gas. The only way to stop him is to make your intentions crystal clear. Maybe even make him think you might come unhinged.”
“Well, you accomplished that.” Kennedy looked at the blinking message light on her phone and decided it could wait. She needed to go over a few things with Rapp first and she could tell by his fidgeting that he didn’t plan on staying long. Lifting her gaze she focused on Rapp’s face and asked, “Where were you last night?”
Rapp didn’t waver. He looked her straight in the eye and said, “I was down at Stan’s place. We had a few things to go over.”
Kennedy nodded. “And you didn’t bring your cell phone?”
“I had it with me.”
“But you turned it off and took out the battery.”
Rapp shrugged as if to say, what do you expect. “Call me paranoid.”
“No doubt… and if I need to get hold of you?” Kennedy asked.
“You’d leave me a message, and I’d call you back, or try Stan’s number next time.”
“He’s no better than you are. He never answers his phone. I’m not even sure he has a phone, now that I think of it.”
“I call him all the time.”
Kennedy eyed him. “I’m never going to get anywhere with you on this, am I?”
Rapp shook his head. “Listen, before we get too far off track, did you know that this meeting was going to be about a big PR offensive?”
“Of course not,” Kennedy answered. “I know better than to waste your time.”
“So, if he’s as smart a guy as you say he is, how could he possibly think I’d go along with something like this?”
Kennedy picked up a small tube of hand lotion. “I think he was a bit desperate.” She squirted a dollop the size of a quarter into her palm and began rubbing her hands together. “The president has good instincts. He can see where this is all headed. We haven’t even finished burying all the dead from last week and in certain circles he’s being labeled as weak on terror. You have to remember, he ran on a rule-oflaw platform, and now we’ve been hit.”
“And so the brave thing to do is launch a PR offensive.”
“Theirs is a different world, Mitch.” Kennedy shrugged. “The president told me himself that he is really frustrated with the FBI.”
“Why?”
“Because they have come up with nothing. They know very little about the men who carried out the attack. And the three men who are still at large. They’ve vanished.”
“Well, don’t get mad at the FBI. They’re operating within the very constraints the president campaigned on.”
“And that,” Kennedy said, “I suspect is why he wanted to sit down with you and Mike.”
“But Dickerson waved him off,” Rapp said.
“Correct, and to be honest, I’m not sure it wasn’t wise counsel.”
“God forbid the president get a little dose of reality. Maybe sign an executive order that allows us to really go after these guys.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Mitchell.”
“If I could wish for anything it would be some damn support from the White House and the Hill.”
“As foreign as it seems, that’s what Gabe was trying to offer you, but for reasons that I completely understand you would prefer to not have your image splashed across the world media outlets.” Kennedy hit the space bar on her computer to take it out of sleep mode. “The PR offensive isn’t a bad idea. You’re just the wrong guy for it. You know as well as anyone that it would be nice to get some of our esteemed senators and representatives to back us a bit more. It has been a long time since…”
Rapp stopped listening. His mind was wondering off down a path that involved a bird in his hand and two in the bush, or was it a stone and two birds? Whichever it was he saw an opportunity.
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Kennedy asked.
Rapp shook the dazed look from his eyes and said, “Sorry, I was just thinking of something else.”
“Were you guys drinking last night?” Kennedy thought of Hurley and his colorful history and said, “That was a stupid question. You were at Stan Hurley’s lake house… of course you were drinking. Where is Mike, by the way?”
Rapp thought about his roadside confrontation with Nash and wondered how he would explain to his boss that one of her most valued operatives was experiencing a mental collapse.
“Don’t tell me he was too hung over to see the president.”
It sounded like as good a story as any, so Rapp gave it the nondenial denial and shrugged his shoulders.
Kennedy shook her head in disappointment. “Do I even want to know what goes on down there?”
Rapp thought of Adams and said, “Probably not.”
“How bad can it be?”
Rapp was tempted to tell her it involved hookers and a bunch of drugs, but he didn’t want to push her over the edge. “Some cards, some drinking, some harmless talk. That’s all it ever is.”
Kennedy gave him her schoolmarm frown.
“Hey… this isn’t exactly the easiest job in the world,” Rapp said defensively. “There’s nothing wrong with blowing off a little steam.”
“I agree. Just make sure that’s all it is.” She maneuvered her mouse and opened up her email. “Speaking of PR… the last thing we need right now is some TV news crew to catch you guys doing God only knows what you do down there.”
Rapp found the idea preposterous. Hurley had more damn security than some federal buildings. If any
reporters were dumb enough to ignore all the signs and wander onto the property they would end up running for their lives from Hurley’s pack of dogs. “The last person you need to worry about is Stan Hurley. He’s smarter than all of us and he’s been doing this for a hell of a lot longer.” Rapp thought of the inevitable confrontation between Hurley and Nash. If Nash didn’t snap back 100 percent, and do it quickly, Hurley would want him gone. Not killed necessarily, but he would want him transferred out of the clandestine service and probably out of the CIA entirely. Rapp looked a few days into the future and saw a way that he might be able to defuse the conflict. “Speaking of PR… maybe Gabe’s idea wasn’t so bad after all.”
Kennedy looked surprised. “Really?”
“Not for me,” Rapp added quickly. “I’m thinking of Mike.”
Kennedy thought about it for a second. “Why Mike?”
“He’s perfect. Former Marine officer, gorgeous wife, four cute kids. Dickerson could do wonders with something like that.”
Kennedy’s hazel eyes narrowed. “What are you up to?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Fifteen minutes ago you thought it was the craziest thing you’d ever heard, and now all of the sudden you’re offering up Mike.”
“You’re always telling me I need to be more open-minded… that’s all this is.”
Kennedy studied him for a long moment. She wasn’t buying it. “You’re up to something. I know it.”
CHAPTER 25
RAPP was thinking on the fly. He wasn’t about to explain to Kennedy that Nash had come unhinged in the last twelve hours. She was too perceptive, and she would want to know what the catalyst had been. She would also assume it was something that had taken place at Hurley’s lake house and she would be right. Rapp could fabricate a hell of a lie that would stand up to a lot of digging, but there was one weak point. Sometime in the next three days she would have Nash standing in front of her desk just as he was now. She would begin to probe, and if Nash was still in his volatile state and mad at Rapp, he was likely to say a few things that would cause a lot of trouble. Rapp would have to get to him in the meantime and prepare him, but for now, he had to give Kennedy a plausible reason for his newfound respect for Dickerson’s plan.
There wasn’t a cover story worth a damn that wasn’t somehow grounded in truth, and Kennedy knew him too well, as was evidenced by her suspicion. Rapp started speaking and before he knew it, the answer was on his lips. “I think Mike is having a hard time with what happened last week.”
“So your answer is to thrust him into the spotlight and end his career as a clandestine operative.”
Rapp shrugged and tried to play down the obvious. “It wouldn’t be ended. There’s still plenty of work for him to do around here. He just wouldn’t be involved in some of the more risky operations.” Rapp watched her eyes burrow through him as if she were trying to read his soul.
“Something happened last night,” Kennedy said.
This time it was a statement, as if she knew for certain something had gone on. Rapp sighed and said, “He’s burnt out, Irene. This shit has really gotten to him. I’m not sure he ever fully recovered from the injuries he suffered over in the Kush.” Rapp was referring to an operation they had run in Afghanistan nearly a year ago. The intel had been solid. A high-value target was staying in a village on the border. They had gone in with a Special Forces team right at dawn. Everything was looking good and then the house they were about to raid blew up, killing two troopers and nearly killing Nash. “The docs are still picking shrapnel from him, and his wife tells me he wakes up every morning with an ear-splitting headache. Then last week he sees his secretary and a bunch of his coworkers gunned down by some gun-toting jihadists. Considering what he’s been through, it’s a wonder he can get out of bed in the morning and face the world.”
“And you?” Kennedy asked with a bit of amusement in her voice.
“What about me?”
“It could be argued that you’ve suffered through the same events.”
“I wasn’t wounded on that operation in the Kush, and I didn’t know those people at the NCTC like he did.”
“But you’ve been wounded before.”
“And I’ve always bounced back.”
“That’s debatable.”
Rapp knew she was referring to his lengthy absence after his wife had been killed. “Listen… I think it would be a mistake for you to try to compare Mike and me. For starters I’ve been at this a lot longer, and I think I have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m committed. I-”
“You don’t think Mike is committed?” Kennedy asked, cutting him off.
Rapp’s frustration was apparent. “Are you going to let me talk or are you going to keep interrupting me?”
Kennedy put on a pleasant smile and said, “By all means, continue.”
“I’m not saying Mike isn’t committed. I’m saying his life is a little more complicated than mine. He has certain obligations that I don’t have.”
“His family?”
“Yes. I think this job is really taking its toll on his personal life.”
“We are all aware of the pressures that go with this job.”
“It’s deeper than that, Irene. It’s not just the job… it’s the way the job has crept into his life.” Rapp paused for a beat and tried to honestly put his finger on what was going on with Nash. Shaking his head he said, “I think maybe I scare the hell out of him.”
Kennedy was surprised by Rapp’s statement. “Why would Mike have reason to be afraid of you? Has he done something you’re not telling me?”
“No… it’s not that. He hasn’t done anything that I know of. I think he’s afraid he’s going to become me.”
“Interesting.”
“He has a family to go home to at night, and he has to somehow shut down this portion of his brain that deals with all this crap. He has to be a father and a husband. Try to teach those kids the difference between right and wrong. Live up to the ideals of Maggie and reassure all of them that everything is all right and will be all right… when he knows damn well the world is a scary place. At some point it creeps into your head that you might not make it home.” Rapp paused as he thought of an image he had blocked from his mind. “Just last week he looked down and found his secretary lying on the floor with her brains blown all over the carpeting. Something like that is going to haunt a man for a long time.”
Kennedy made a steeple with her hands and asked, “And how do you cope with it?”
Rapp sighed. She’d been trying to get him to discuss his wife’s murder for years. “I don’t know. I just do.”
“I think it’s a little more involved than that.”
Rapp shrugged. “I’m not normal. I’m wired different.”
“So you say,” she said in an accusatory tone.
Rapp saw his chance to counterattack. “How do you deal with it?”
“With what?”
“The pressures of the job. You ever sit down and talk to a therapist?”
Kennedy inclined her head and took on a stern look. “That is none of your business.”
It wasn’t easy to read Kennedy, but Rapp thought he saw something in her eyes. A flash of anger and a look that told him to back off. It was probably as close as he would get to an admission that she had seen a therapist, and in all likelihood it was Lewis. “It’s interesting how at this juncture everything becomes a one-way street. As my boss and my friend,” Rapp stressed, “you’ve been very vocal about the fact that I need to sit down with a professional and talk about my pain over the loss of Anna.”
“Yes, I have, but don’t try to change the subject. This isn’t about me. It’s about you and Mike.”
Rapp was willing to let her off the hook for now. This was about Nash. “It’s apples and oranges. For starters… I go home to an empty house. I don’t have to confront the lie every time I walk through the door.”
“The lie?”
> “Telling your kids to be good… don’t cheat in school… play life by the rules… and, oh, by the way, I just broke five federal laws today and killed a man. That kind of shit weighs on a guy after a while.”
“It doesn’t weigh on you,” Kennedy focused her gaze more intently, “just a little bit?”
Rapp was surprised that he actually paused to think about it. As crazy as it was, no one had asked him this question in a long time. “Which part of the job?”
“All of it, but let’s start with the part that most people would have a hard time with. The killing.”
Rapp shook his head. “It’s never bothered me. The guys I’m whacking aren’t exactly upstanding citizens.”
Kennedy had read every after-action report he’d written and verbally debriefed him on the ones that were too sensitive to put in writing. She knew Rapp wasn’t big on detail or blowing his own horn, so more often than not she got a very abbreviated version of what had gone down. “You’ve never accidentally killed an innocent bystander?”
“Define innocent… if you’re talking some rent-a-bodyguard who’s hired to protect some piece of shit, he’s not exactly innocent in my book. You wanna play tough guy mercenary, you’d better understand the bullets are real.”
Kennedy nodded. They’d covered some of this territory before.
Rapp considered it further, took a kernel of an emotion and decided to blow it up. Turn it into something Kennedy would get. “The only thing that weighs on me is not having his life.”
“What do you mean, ‘his life’?”
“I’d leave this shit in a heartbeat if I could turn back the clock and have Anna back. When he’s in town, he goes home to that family and they’re his. Those kids love him and the dumb shit takes it for granted. When you don’t have something,” Rapp caught himself and added, “when you’ve had something that meant more than anything in the world to you, and it was taken away… it’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to do this shit when the price is that high.”
