THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
USA
THE monitor next to the president’s desk was playing the same video that had been looping at Langley since it appeared on the Internet a few hours ago. Still, Irene Kennedy and Mike Nash feigned concentration as a slightly out-of-focus Gideon Auma demanded ten billion dollars in ransom.
A filthy and haggard Nicholas Ward was standing near him, his expression almost catatonic as he stared blankly into the camera. David Chism, partially obscured behind the African, appeared to be in a similar state.
“And to be certain that everyone understands I’m serious…” Auma continued in his oddly elegant accent. Kennedy knew what was coming but still tensed when he turned and fired a round into Chism’s chest. The young man collapsed out of frame as his killer turned his attention back to the camera.
“When I have received payment, I will provide instructions on where you can collect Nicholas Ward.”
Anthony Cook used a remote to pause the video and then swiveled his chair toward his two guests.
“What do we know?” he asked, meeting Nash’s eye and then letting his gaze wander to Kennedy. “Has he provided instructions yet?”
“No, sir,” Kennedy responded. “Under the direction of the FBI, Nick’s assistant has tried to contact his satellite phone, but it appears to be turned off and isn’t currently trackable.”
“So, we have no idea where Auma is or where Ward is being held?”
“Based on the foliage visible in the background, we’re reasonably sure he’s still in Ugand—”
“You’re telling me you managed to narrow it down to the country where he was kidnapped?” Cook said sarcastically.
“The framing is pretty tight,” Nash interjected. “Auma’s psychotic, but he’s smart and well educated. He hasn’t kept himself and his army hidden for this long by making careless mistakes.”
“Have you gotten people into Ward’s camp to see if there’s anything we can learn?”
“No, sir,” Kennedy said. “We’re working on it, but every time we get someone close, they’re fired on. We have managed to go through the hangar where we believe Ward was taken but didn’t find anything that could lead us to him.”
Cook didn’t seem any happier than she was, but likely for different reasons. She was sitting in the Oval Office spinning a web of lies that she wasn’t sure she could control. Without fully understanding what kind of access their mole had, contacting Rapp was too dangerous. And now he seemed to have gone off script. The plan was for this operation to have been carried out in a much quieter manner. The story fed to the news agencies was to have been that Auma was killed in an attempt to kidnap Nicholas Ward. Rapp would question him, get whatever information he had, and the African would disappear forever. Clean, undisruptive, and completely plausible. A far cry from the story being plastered over every news site in the world and putting Ward’s stock prices into free fall.
It was hard not to consider the possibility that this was real. It was improbable but still feasible that the mole they were chasing had discovered the changes Kennedy made to Ward’s file. If that was the case, it was also feasible that Coleman and his people really had been overrun at the compound and Rapp had been ambushed at the hangar. And that Nicholas Ward was in the hands of a madman.
Fortunately, the deeper she looked, the less likely that scenario seemed. While her analysts hadn’t been able to find anything in the video that seemed outright fake, there were curiosities. The first and most obvious was that it was too succinct. Whenever a camera was pointed at Gideon Auma, he never failed to ramble endlessly about his power, God’s love for him, and whatever other delusions he was having on that particular day. The second—noticed by a young analyst with a particularly sharp eye—was that his sleeves didn’t seem to behave naturally. She’d made a show of laughing off the observation but once pointed out, it became impossible to ignore. No matter how much Auma moved his arms, the cuffs stayed in place. Almost as though they’d been glued there. The obvious hypothesis was that this had been done to hide something. And the only thing she could think of was marks from being bound.
In light of that, the most likely scenario was that Rapp hadn’t been able to get everything he wanted from the terrorist. He needed to extend this drama, probably to use Auma to lead him up the chain somehow.
“Today, Irene. I want people at that compound today.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, knowing full well it would be impossible. She needed to find a team she could trust to report only to her, and they had to be made up of people from outside the CIA. Not just because of the mole, but because what they found there would likely have to be kept from the president. It wasn’t a political risk she wanted to expose any of her people to. If someone was going to be fired and prosecuted for this, it would be her and her alone.
“Can I assume that there’s still no sign of Mitch Rapp and his team?” Cook said.
“That’s correct, sir.”
He nodded, but his face was an empty mask. “Do you think there’s any chance he’s in the jungle? Hiding out like David Chism did?”
“I doubt it, sir. He and his people have satellite phones. They would have contacted me.”
Another nod, another blank expression at what he likely would take as news of Mitch Rapp’s death. “So where do we stand? If Auma hasn’t contacted Ward’s people yet, he will soon. Can I assume that we’ll be ready for that call when it comes?”
Kennedy glanced at Mike Nash, who had been working directly with the Bureau on this.
“This is a complicated situation for Auma,” he said, taking over the briefing. “Obviously, it can’t be done in cash. It’d be multiple transport planes full of it. That means wire transfers. And since Auma isn’t stupid, he’s going to want them laundered through banks we have no penetration into. Places like Syria, Iran, North Kor—”
“All of whom will take a cut,” Cook pointed out.
“Yes, sir.”
“So not only will Ward’s organization be funding one of the most brutal terrorists in Africa, but they’ll also be funneling money into virtually every one of our worst enemies. It seems to me that we need to come up with some way to get him back without actually paying the ransom.”
“Agreed. But that’s easier said than done.”
Cook took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “David Chism is dead, which is probably going to set back the development of his vaccines twenty-five years. And Ward…” His voice faded for a moment. “I consider Nicholas Ward critical to America’s future and the health of our economy. It’s strange to say that about a single man, but he’s probably responsible for sixty percent of the advances going on in tech right now. And those are the industries that are going to keep us on top for the next century.”
“Yes, sir,” Kennedy and Nash said, almost in unison.
“Find something. Find a way to get him back.”
“And if there’s no way to do that without paying?” Kennedy asked.
“Unacceptable.”
“But also potentially unavoidable.”
“I’m confident that you can do better,” Cook said.
They both mumbled their understanding and stood, knowing that the meeting was over. Kennedy nodded respectfully in the man’s direction and started for the door with Nash close behind. The president didn’t bother to stand.
“I guess that fortune really does favor the bold,” Catherine Cook said, appearing from the door leading to a private space connected to the Oval Office.
“You heard?”
She took the seat Irene Kennedy had abandoned moments ago. “Chism’s dead and one way or another, Nicholas Ward’s done.”
“Not just Ward and Chism, Catherine. Mitch Rapp. That could make us a lot of friends in the Arab world. Friends that no American president has ever had before.”
She nodded. “I have to admit that I’m not unhappy to see him go. I think he could have been a useful tool, but maybe a harder one to control than I initially thought. He wasn’t as blunt an instrument as he appeared.”
“What he was, though, was a big part of Kennedy’s power base. Not only is this going to be a major emotional blow for her—to the degree that bitch has emotions—but it’s going to significantly weaken her political position. Her ability to virtually guarantee the success of her operations is right now lying dead somewhere in the Ugandan jungle.”