by Vince Flynn
So now it was just a matter of finding a good local coach and maybe getting a little cortisone in his knee. After that, he could start down the path of answering the question of how fast he could get.
Unfortunately, that path also led to a more complicated question. Would it be enough? Home. Family. Racing. Building out the gym. Cocktails with the neighbors. And then there was the long view. If he was setting a course to actually survive into old age, what then? Knee replacements? Prostate problems? Breaking the thumbs of Anna’s first boyfriend for bringing her home past curfew? Fuck. Golf?
Too much reflection for one day, he decided. Introspection was a skill he was going to have to work up to. Rain was forecasted for the afternoon and he wanted to get in a quick workout before it rolled in. Then maybe a piece of the pie Claudia had cooling in the kitchen.
A very small piece.
His phone rang and he reached out a greasy hand to check the identity of the caller. After a quick wipe of his fingers on his shop apron, he picked up.
“Hello, Irene.”
“How’s Africa?”
“Sixty degrees and sunny. For the next few hours anyway.”
“And the ladies?”
“All good.”
“I’m happy to hear it. What about you?”
“Living the dream.”
“Should I believe that? Probably not. Now tell me. What did you think of the president?”
Rapp considered the question for a moment. “I think Mike has him pegged. Smart, ambitious, charismatic. And he likes the chair.”
“I understand that you had an opportunity to meet Catherine, too.”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“My general impression is that she’s not a woman to be fucked with.”
“Agreed. Perhaps even less so than her husband. If I had to guess, I’d say that she’s positioning herself to follow in his footsteps. She’ll only be fifty if he serves two terms.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“So, do you see yourself as having a part in their administration?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this is all about them and not the country. To some extent, they’re all like that, though. Are the Cooks worse? Or was I just used to Josh Alexander? I was pretty young when I first met him.”
“And now you’re older and wiser.”
“Or just more cynical. But the country needs someone to lead it out of the ditch it’s run itself into. And that’s going to take some power. Maybe Anthony Cook is the right man for the job.”
“Or precisely the wrong one,” Kennedy countered. “Power’s like a drug. In the right dose, it saves lives. Too much, though, and it becomes deadly.”
“I guess the next three and a half years will tell.”
“You sound a bit disconnected for a man who was standing in the Oval Office a couple of days ago.”
“I’m trying.”
“My understanding from Mike is that they were both quite impressed by you.”
“They’re impressed by what they think I can do for them.”
“And what is that exactly?”
“Am I being interrogated? Because that’s what it feels like. What about you, Irene? I’ve known you half my life and it’s pretty clear you don’t like or trust them. Are you staying?”
“I don’t know. At some point a decision is going to be forced on me, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Well, here’s something I’m sure of. When you go, I go. But for now, I’m happy to sit on the sidelines. If the Cooks blow up, I don’t want it to be in my face.”
“You want it to be in mine.”
He laughed. “If those are my two choices, then yeah.”
“It sounds like you have some time on your hands. And if that’s the case, maybe you’d have a few minutes to talk to a friend of mine.”
“About what?”
“He has a problem you might be able to help him with.”
Rapp looked at the bike he was working on. He wanted to say no, but it wasn’t going to happen. Like Scott Coleman, she’d always been there for him. Even when she should have run away screaming.
“Sure. When?”
“If he was at your house in a half an hour, would that work?”
Again, he laughed. “I hate being predictable.”
“You are never that,” she said and then disconnected the call.
He tossed his phone back on the workbench. So much for his afternoon training session.
* * *
The arrival of Irene Kennedy’s friend wasn’t exactly what Rapp expected. Not that he’d had anything particular in mind, but a motorcade of three SUVs so heavily armored that they blurred the lines between civilian and military wasn’t it.
“I guess it could have been worse,” Claudia said as they stood together on the front porch. “You could have bought me one of those.”
“They were back-ordered,” he joked.
“Thank goodness. The other parents at Anna’s school already think I’m crazy.”
“Speaking of Anna…” he said as the motorcade glided to a stop inside the courtyard.
“The dogs are with her in her room. I told her she had to stay there until everyone leaves.”
The first men out of the vehicles were serious pros. Probably former operators from Eastern Europe, though Rapp didn’t know any of them personally. He doubted any were much older than thirty. Once they’d had a chance to familiarize themselves with their environment, another man stepped out using a hand to shade his eyes against the sun. He was early sixties, with a full head of hair starting to gray and stylish glasses. Despite his age, he looked reasonably fit, with a runner’s build beneath casual jeans and a white linen shirt.
Claudia let out a long breath. “I better go dig out the good china.”
She disappeared inside as the world’s first trillionaire started toward the house. One thing that had to be said about Irene Kennedy: she had an interesting group of friends.
“Mitch,” he said, extending a hand. “Nick Ward. It’s a real pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Rapp said, taking it. The grip wasn’t as overbearing as he’d have expected from someone with Ward’s bank account, and his easy smile was more sincere than the ones plastered around Washington. A man who no longer had anything to prove.
“Beautiful place you have here.”
“Thanks. We’re set up out back. Will that work for you? It’s pretty nice in the sun.”
“Sounds great. Thank you.”
Rapp routed him through the house, stopping briefly for an introduction to Claudia. When they exited onto the patio, he pointed Ward to a weathered table in the grass.
“I appreciate you agreeing to see me,” he said as he took a seat. “Particularly on such short notice.”
“I have a hard time saying no to Irene.”
Ward grinned. “She seems to have that effect on people. Including me.”
“You know her?”
Claudia appeared and instead of answering, Ward chatted amiably with her as she laid out a few hors d’oeuvres and a coffee service.
“What about your men, Nick? Can I get them something?”
He shook his head. “They only eat and drink things they’ve packed themselves. It seems kind of paranoid to me, but I don’t interfere.”
She nodded, gave him a quick smile, and hurried away. It took a lot to intimidate her, but the richest man in history apparently rated. It was more than the money, though; it was the man himself. What he’d created. What he’d accomplished. What he’d dedicated the latter part of his life to. Love him or hate him, he was impressive as hell.
“So, what is it I can do for you?” Rapp asked, pouring them each a cup of coffee.
“Can I assume you’re aware of what happened to David Chism and his people in Uganda?”
“Just what I’ve seen on the news. You had a facility there and it was attacked by Gideon Auma. If I remember right, he ki
lled the facility’s director and burned the place to the ground with your people inside.”
“No bodies have been found and Auma’s people are still in the area. Until a couple of days ago, they were actively calling out David’s name.”
“Remind me. How long ago did this happen?”
“Six days.”
Rapp took a sip of his coffee and looked past Ward toward the colorful bougainvillea climbing the wall. “Take it from a guy who’s done it, Nick. Surviving in the jungle with what I assume was no food or equipment isn’t easy. Particularly for people who’ve spent their lives in labs and universities.”
“Actually, David worked with Doctors Without Borders in some of the most dangerous countries in the world, and Jing Liu grew up on a farm with no electricity or running water.”
“Look,” Rapp said. “If we were talking about three days, I might feel different. But six? You’re clinging to hope that isn’t there.”
“The good thing about being a man in my position is that you have the resources to cling to anything you want.”
Rapp leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “You’re about to ask me to fly to Uganda and find your people, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“This seems like a job for the government, Nick. Africa Command could coordinate with the Ugandans and send enough people to clear out Auma’s men. Some problems can be solved by a small group of highly trained men. With others, you’re better off having five hundred and heavy equipment. This is probably in the second category.”
“I don’t disagree, Mitch. I talked to the president personally only a few days ago. In fact, Irene was at the meeting.”
“And?”
“I left the White House without any promises, but it’s my understanding that a small force was sent into the jungle two days ago. As far as I know, though, they have no support and no solid intelligence.”
“Where did you get that information?”
He shrugged. “I hear things.”
Rapp wondered if it was from Kennedy. The fact that she’d sent Ward to see him suggested strongly that she wanted him to get involved. And that she wanted to keep her distance.
“I’m not sure I’m the best man for the job, Nick. My record isn’t great when it comes to saving medical researchers from terrorists.”
“Victoria Schaefer,” the man responded. “An incredible tragedy. But the way you stopped those terrorists from getting YARS across the Mexican border was incredible. And I understand you contracted it. That you almost died.”
Rapp neither acknowledged nor denied what Ward had said. The entire episode was beyond top secret. The public had been fed a story about ISIS trying to smuggle radioactive materials into the United States and credit for stopping the shipment had gone to border patrol.
“You’re surprised I know about that,” Ward said. “You shouldn’t be. Irene Kennedy is a woman who always has a backup plan. She was confident that you’d succeed, but not absolutely sure. And in the face of that kind of uncertainty, who gets a call?”
“You and David Chism,” Rapp responded.
“Exactly. David was already well into putting together a team to deal with a YARS outbreak when you made it unnecessary. And I think that highlights his importance pretty well. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that he’s the most important person in the world right now. Make no mistake, the number one threat to humanity is pandemic.” Ward leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. “I don’t know when it’s coming, but I guarantee that it is. And this time it could cost billions of lives. David is our first—maybe only—line of defense.”
A skeptical frown spread across Rapp’s face.
“You don’t believe me?” Ward said.
“I’m sure he’s smart, but he’s still one man. There are hundreds of pharmaceutical companies and thousands of scientists working on this kind of thing.”
“There are hundreds of intelligence agencies and thousands of operatives working across the globe. And yet you’re widely regarded as being unique.”
“If I was susceptible to flattery, I would have been dead a long time ago, Nick.”
“It was worth a try.”
“Right.”
Ward leaned back in his chair again. “David found something that all coronaviruses have in common. Based on that, he might be able to create a vaccine that would protect people against all of them—right down to the common cold.”
“And that’s a big deal?”
“One of the biggest in history. I mean, you dealt with a bioattack but that’s not the real threat. The real threat is something rising up naturally. Out of a Chinese wet market. Or from someone eating bush meat. Or humans going into a cave where humans haven’t been before. You experienced this directly. If something as deadly as YARS were to get out into the population, it would be game over.”
That wasn’t an exaggeration, Rapp knew. He’d just lived through a blackout that had killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and that would have killed a few hundred million more if it had continued. What would happen in a serious pandemic? One that took out huge numbers of people in their prime? The machinery that kept modern civilization afloat would fail. And it would happen in the blink of an eye.
“Okay, you’ve convinced me that your man is important. But he’s also almost sure to be dead. And, while the president might be willing to send people to wander around a jungle full of Gideon Auma’s men, I’m not. I take the safety of my team seriously. To me, this sounds like all risk and no reward.”
Ward nodded thoughtfully. “I concede that there’s a good chance that David’s dead. But Gideon Auma doesn’t seem to think so or he’d have pulled out. And the idea that I want you and your men to go wander around the jungle hoping to get lucky is flat-out wrong. I don’t operate that way and I wouldn’t expect you to. What I’m asking you to do is devise a safe, effective plan and then execute it.”
“You’re talking about a lot of money to chase a ghost. Equipment and good people don’t come cheap.”
Ward smiled and reached for his coffee. “Everything’s cheap to me, Mitch.”
9
ABOVE SOUTHWESTERN UGANDA
THE CIA’s Gulfstream G5 wasn’t a bad way to fly, but it wasn’t the only way. As hard as it was to believe, it had been six months since Rapp had last been on a chopper—freezing his ass off and bleeding all over everything. This time he had no bullet wounds, temperatures were in the high seventies, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He was sitting on the floor of the cabin with his legs hanging out, savoring the hurricane of rotor wash.
He’d been surprised by how enthusiastic Claudia had been about him accepting Nick Ward’s offer, but now he was starting to understand. He’d tackled changing his life with the same all-or-nothing, sheer-force-of-will approach that he brought to everything in life. Maybe that wasn’t the answer here. Maybe trying to turn himself into a devoted family man, bike racer, and gentleman farmer overnight was overly ambitious. Normality wasn’t something he’d experienced since college, and it might be better to ease in.
“We’re coming up on the hospital,” the pilot said over Rapp’s headphones. “I’ll swing around so you can get a good look.”
“Roger that, Fred.”
The deep green of the mountaintop they were skimming suddenly dropped away, leaving hundreds of feet of air beneath his boots. He squinted into the sun as they banked to follow a red scar of a road winding through the valley below.
The terrain wasn’t that different than what surrounded his house in Virginia, though the flora seemed significantly denser. They weren’t far from Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and based on what he was seeing, it was accurately named.
Even at altitude, David Chism’s research campus was hard to miss—a black stain on the otherwise unbroken green of the landscape. A few charred walls were still standing but it didn’t look like it would take much more than a stiff breeze to collapse them. Some of the site had been exc
avated in what Rapp had been told was a thorough search for bodies. Apparently, a hidden safe room had been found intact but empty.
The takeaway was that Chism and his people hadn’t died in the fire. Based on a couple of eyewitnesses, he would have had to run into the flames and out the back in order to escape. It had been night and the rain was reported as heavy, making it possible for him to reach the forest without being seen. Possible. But plausible?
“You ready to move on, Mitch?”
“Yeah. Nothing much to see. Go ahead and take us into camp.”
The helicopter banked north, heading for one of the tallest peaks in the area. In the distance, Rapp could just make out Lake Edward, which was split about evenly between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
When they reached the mountaintop, Fred Mason swung around in a wide circle. He’d been Rapp’s go-to pilot for a long time and knew that his passenger would want an overview before they set down.
As expected, Scott Coleman had chosen an ideal location for their base of operations. The sides of the mountain were unusually steep and covered in the dense tangle of foliage that was so ubiquitous in the region. The peak, in contrast, was rocky, relatively flat, and contained only a few widely spaced trees. Three choppers were already on the ground and canvas tents of various sizes had been erected, as had solar panels and diesel generators.
Roughly twenty men were setting up equipment, transporting supplies, or had been strategically posted around the clearing. Coleman always ran a tight ship, and this was no exception. It looked like he was only a few hours from having the camp fully online.
Mason landed under the watchful eye of the perimeter guards and Rapp jumped out. Coleman was standing by but didn’t approach, instead waiting for Rapp to emerge from the swirling dust before falling in alongside him.
“Give me a sitrep.”
“We’re in better shape than I would have thought at this point. Twenty-three guys on-site and another twelve en route.”
“Really?” Rapp said, not bothering to hide his surprise. Mercenaries were a dime a dozen, but ones they were willing to work with were rare. Probably no more than fifty worldwide and always booked.
