by Vince Flynn
Staring out the side window at the passing trees, Nash asked, “What in the hell are we doing?”
Rapp merged onto the parkway and said, “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, sport.”
“This.” Nash made groping gestures with his hands, “This crap . . . last night and this morning.”
After glancing at him Rapp returned his attention to the road. They were 99 percent sure the car was clean, but they had their work phones on them, and although they were encrypted, the technology existed for an outfit like the National Security Agency to turn the phones into listening devices. Rapp chose his words carefully. “Maybe we can carve out a little time this afternoon to talk about it.”
Nash wasn’t so easily deterred. “I didn’t sign up for this.” Under his breath he mumbled, “I’m not a cold-blooded killer.”
Rapp thought he’d heard him, but wasn’t sure. “What was that?”
“You heard me,” Nash said.
“It’s hard to understand someone when he’s slouched over like a teenager and mumbling to himself.”
“I said,” Nash spoke with exaggerated clarity, “that I’m not a cold-blooded killer.”
“That’s interesting . . . because I’d swear I saw you pop a few guys when we were over in the Kush.” Rapp was referring to the operations they’d run in Afghanistan.
“That’s different.”
“How so?”
“They were the enemy.”
“And what would you call this guy . . . our ally?”
“How about a fellow American?”
Rapp sighed. He did not want to talk about this right now, but he needed to figure out what in the hell was wrong with Nash and he had to do it before he put him in the same room as the president and God only knew who else. “Threats both foreign and domestic,” Rapp said, quoting the oath they’d both taken. “Everyone likes to forget about the domestic part. Just because you’re an American doesn’t automatically make you one of the good guys.”
“Well . . . just because he disagrees with us doesn’t make him an enemy.”
“So he can break whatever law he wants?”
“We’re not exactly angels.”
Rapp’s patience was fading. “I think you’re tired. This conversation is over.”
Nash chuckled and said, “This has nothing to do with me being tired, and everything to do with the fact that you don’t want to face the truth.”
“Mike, I’ve been doing this shit since I was twenty-two. I’ve been accused of a lot of things but sticking my head in the sand is not one of them.”
“Well . . . there’s a first time for everything.”
“Is this how you ran your command in Corps? Was it a debate club?”
“Don’t compare this to the Corps. I would have never considered kidnapping a fellow Marine.”
Rapp had heard about enough. He didn’t like the fact that they were veering into specifics. He glanced over at Nash’s bloodshot eyes, shook his head, and said, “I don’t think you’re going to attend this meeting.”
“I don’t think that’s your decision to make.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
Nash scoffed. “Oh . . . you’re never the problem . . . not Mitch Rapp. It’s always someone else’s fault. You wanna write my attitude off to a lack of sleep, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. I can tell you right now being tired has nothing to do with it. What we’re doing back there . . . to one of our own . . . it’s just wrong.”
Rapp checked his rearview mirror and then yanked the steering wheel to the right. The car moved onto the shoulder.
“What are you doing?”
“Pulling over.”
“We don’t have time,” Nash said with alarm. “We’re late.”
“Well, you should have thought of that before you decided you wanted to have a bitch session.” Rapp brought the black Charger to a sudden stop and threw the gearshift into park. As he unbuckled his seat belt, he said, “Leave your phone in the car.” Rapp checked the mirror, waited for a car to whiz by, and then got out and circled around the trunk. He had a .45 caliber Glock on his left hip in a paddle holster and as he stepped onto the grass he rested his left hand on the butt of the weapon.
Nash reluctantly got out of the vehicle and said, “Come on, Mitch, this is bullshit.”
“What would be bullshit, would be putting you in front of the president and whoever else he’s bringing to this meeting.”
“I’m not the problem here, Mitch.” Nash pointed at himself and then, turning his finger on Rapp added, “I think you need to take a long hard look at yourself.”
“You are so fucking out of line right now, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Why . . . because I have a conscience . . . unlike you and Stan, who pretty much do whatever the hell you want, whenever you want, to whoever you want?”
“You’re cracking up, Major,” Rapp said, using Nash’s Marine Corps rank. “Combat fatigue. You haven’t slept, you look like shit, and you’ve lost all discipline.”
“Discipline,” Nash spat the word back at Rapp. “Coming from you that’s just ripe. Your entire career has been one insubordinate move after another.”
“You used to talk to your battalion commander like this?”
“Stop with the Marine Corps analogies, all right. This is nothing like the Corps.”
Rapp took in a deep breath. What little patience he had was gone. “I’m giving you two options. You either take two personal days . . . five days . . . I don’t care how many days you need to sort this mess out, but you take ’em, and don’t come back until you get your head screwed back on.”
“What’s my second choice?”
“You resign right now.”
“And if I choose neither?” Nash asked with a forced lack of interest.
“Then I’ll fire your ass,” Rapp responded without hesitation.
“This is bullshit. I’m not the one with the problems. Maybe you should be the one taking a few days off.”
Rapp was on the verge of snapping. He’d seen this type of behavior before. Perfectly healthy guys who succumb to the stress of a job that can grind up and spit out the most hardened warrior. Hurley had warned him a week ago that Nash had been showing signs of fatigue.
Nash’s wife had called Hurley and shared some things that she probably should have kept to herself. Rapp thought of that conversation and asked Nash, “Tell me, when was the last time you had a hard-on?”
Nash frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Rapp stared at him. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Fuck you.”
Rapp shook his head. “You can try to make this about me and what happened down at the lake, but you know that’s a lie. The only reason your plumbing doesn’t work when you’re thirty-eight is because you got some shit going on in your head.”
Nash’s face flushed with anger and he took a step toward Rapp and clenched his fists. “Don’t make this about me. I didn’t sign up for this shit. No one told me I’d be involved in kidnapping and murder . . . least of all of a fellow American. I don’t care how much you hate—”
Rapp was already alert to the fact that Nash might take an illadvised swing at him, so when he heard him getting a little too close to divulging what had gone down the night before, he took a quick step forward, and his left hand shot out like a battering ram. The palm strike landed in the center of Nash’s chest, rolling his shoulders forward and nearly breaking his sternum. The blow sent Nash backpedaling for a few feet and onto his butt.
Rapp closed the distance and remained in a combat stance. “If you’re dumb enough to get up, I swear I’ll put you in the hospital.”
Nash was clutching his chest and had the look of a feral animal on his face.
Rapp could tell he was calculating odds. “You’re so damn tired you look like a strung-out junkie. I don’t wanna see your face for at least two days. I want you to go home and sle
ep . . . and spend some time with your family, and if after two days you still can’t get your emotions under control . . . then I want your resignation.”
“And if I don’t do what I’m told,” Nash said clutching his chest, “what are you going to do, kill me? Hurt my family?”
Rapp was in a state of semidisbelief. “You know damn well I’d never touch your family.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Let’s be clear on one thing.” Rapp stepped closer. “If you break that oath you took . . . I wouldn’t dream of hurting your family.” He lowered his voice and added, “But I will kill you. It won’t be easy, and it’ll probably haunt me for the rest of my life, but this is bigger than our friendship.”
CHAPTER 20
CIA HEADQUARTERS
RAPP parked in the underground garage and proceeded to the director’s private elevator. Kennedy had made arrangements for him to use it when he wanted to get into and out of the building without being seen and stopped, which was often. Rapp wasn’t a big fan of headquarters and stayed away as much as possible. Due to the unique nature of his job, however, he couldn’t always pick up the phone and tell Kennedy what he was up to. They had both been trained by Thomas Stansfield, a World War II icon, to never assume that a secure phone was secure just because a technician announced it was. The history of espionage was riddled with stories of great nations’ assuming their communications were safe only to find out after being trounced by their enemy that they had been compromised. There were times, however, when logistics, distance, and operational constraints necessitated a phone call. The key at that point was to keep things vague, but if you were in the process of doing something that might land your hide in jail, then you’d better sit down and have the talk in person.
Rapp entered the elevator, pressed the top button, and as the doors began to close, he thought of Nash. Decking him hadn’t bothered Rapp a bit. They were not analysts; they were front-line operatives who lived in a physical world of sparring and training. Judo, karate, wrestling, kickboxing, they practiced it all. Rapp himself was a devotee of the Gracie style of jujitsu and Nash, having been a state high school wrestling champ, was no pushover. Rapp knew more tricks and had never been bested by the slightly younger Nash, but the fact that Rapp had been able to knock him on his ass with one well-delivered palm strike said more about Nash’s mental state than one might imagine. If Nash ever came to his senses, he’d probably thank Rapp for knocking him on his ass. That’s the way Marines were wired. They could get pissed as all hell in the middle of a fight, but after things had calmed down, they would laugh at their own stupidity. They weren’t the type to be obsessed with the past. What was eating away at Rapp was the fact that he never saw it coming. Nash had been his recruit. The guy was a natural. Tough as nails, yet relaxed enough that he wouldn’t look like a robot the way a lot of the military guys did when they tried to transition into other careers.
Not more than two weeks ago Nash would have been the first guy in line to punch Adams’s ticket, and now he was wringing his hands like one of those blowing-in-the-wind politicians on the Hill. Rapp had seen a few guys burn out and crash land. Their line of work wasn’t exactly stress-free. More often than not they would bounce back after a little R&R, but occasionally a guy would end up in a free fall like some druggy who’d taken a bad acid trip. Rapp could only think of one time when that had happened and the guy had to be put down like a rabid dog. He didn’t even want to think they might end up there with Nash. Rapp knew his wife and kids well. Nash was a good family man and a friend, and unfortunately he also knew too much.
The elevator stopped and the second the doors opened, Rapp sensed something was up. Two of the director’s bodyguards were standing post, both of her assistants were on the phone, and there wasn’t a single Secret Service agent in sight. Even if the president were running late, a couple of the advance guys should already be here keeping an eye on things. Rapp was about to ask Steven, one of Kennedy’s personal assistants, what was going on when the young man pointed toward the office door and gave Rapp the signal to go in. Rapp banged his fist on it a few times and then entered.
The corner suite ran from right to left, with a sitting area straight ahead, then the director’s desk, and beyond that a large conference table. To the right were the director’s private bathroom and the door to the deputy director’s office. Instead of the six to eight people Rapp expected, there were only two—his boss and a man he had never met but knew by reputation. He was handsome as hell. Short-cropped hair that was equal parts black and white and walnut-colored skin that didn’t have a blemish or wrinkle.
Rapp had never much cared for the seventh floor at Langley. In fact he couldn’t think of a single time where he had looked forward to making the trip up to the rarified top floor of the Old Headquarters Building. It wasn’t that he disliked the people. Irene Kennedy was like family, and her predecessor, Thomas Stansfield, was one of the finest men he’d ever known. The clandestine guys were all good and the intel people were sharp as hell, but this floor more than any other in the business served as a portal to politics, and a whole host of issues that had nothing to do with running an effective intelligence agency.
The man sitting in Kennedy’s office was proof of that. Gabriel Dickerson placed his coffee cup on the saucer that was sitting on the glass table and stood. He extended his right hand and with a warm smile said, “Young man, it is an honor to finally meet you.”
Rapp could not match the sentiment, so he simply nodded. His first impression was that Dickerson was taller than he would have thought, especially since he had to be close to eighty. Rapp was six feet tall and Dickerson was every bit that plus a couple of inches. The second thing Rapp noticed wasn’t the least bit surprising. Dickerson had a smile and charisma that could charm the lollypop out of the sticky mitts of a five-year-old. Whether he’d been born with all this charisma or had learned it on a used-car lot, Rapp didn’t know and didn’t really care, but he knew he’d better damn well be careful, because Gabe Dickerson was to politics what Rapp was to the intelligence business. Their tools were different, of course, but they were both experts at getting things done behind the scenes. While Rapp dealt with problems in an often unpleasant and violent way, Dickerson was known to be every bit as ruthless. The big difference was that while Rapp used his fists and a gun, Dickerson used his Rolodex and a small cadre of litigators, publicists, and political operatives to destroy his enemies or curry favor for his clients.
“Where is Mr. Nash?” Dickerson asked.
“He couldn’t make it,” Rapp said as he glanced at Kennedy, who was still sitting on the couch.
“That’s a shame,” Dickerson continued in his deep basso voice, “I was very much looking forward to meeting both of you. I heard about what you did last week and wanted to thank you personally.”
Rapp’s right eyebrow shot up a notch. “Last week?”
“The attack on the Counterterrorism Center. I heard if it weren’t for the quick thinking and heroics of you and Mr. Nash, things would have been significantly worse.”
It’s already starting, Rapp thought to himself. No one in this damn town can keep a secret. “Don’t believe everything you hear, sir. You know how rumors get rolling around here . . . take a little truth, exaggerate it to suit your needs, and then spin the hell out of it.”
Dickerson let loose a deep, infectious laugh. “You have it all figured out. You could work for me.”
Before Rapp knew it he was smiling and he thought to himself, Damn, this guy is good.
“You’re a brave man, Mr. Rapp . . . charging a group of men like that.” Dickerson shook his head in semidisbelief, “I don’t think too many men could have pulled that off.”
“Like I said, you can’t believe everything you hear in this town.” Rapp’s desire to keep his name out of the press was paramount, and a guy like Dickerson got a great deal of his power and influence by whispering juicy secrets in people’s ears.
“I didn�
��t hear anything,” Dickerson said in defense. “I read it in the FBI’s official report. Six terrorists entered the Operations Center in a single-file line and began systematically executing personnel. Mr. Nash engaged the terrorists from a balcony that overlooks the Ops Center, striking the first man in the line once in the helmet and three more times in the side . . . all .40 caliber rounds. You then proceeded to charge the line of men while Mr. Nash kept the first man distracted. You shot the second man in the throat, the third man in the nose, the fourth man twice in the neck, the fifth man once in the face, and then the last man twice in the small of his back . . . all with a 9mm Glock.
