CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
USA
“IRENE?” Mike Nash stuck his head into her office. “You wanted to see me?”
She waved him inside and he dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk.
“You look terrible,” she said.
He let out a slightly bitter laugh. “Thanks a lot. You do, too.”
“I guess neither of us has slept much since Mitch and the others went missing.”
He just looked down at the floor.
“Well, you’ll be happy to hear I have some good news, Mike.”
He kept his eyes locked on the carpet. Of course, he already knew what her news was. He’d told the Saudi government to send Kennedy the photos of Rapp that had been taken in Saudi Arabia. She would have received them about an hour ago.
Kennedy slid an eight-by-ten across her blotter and he picked it up, furrowing his brow as he looked down at the now-familiar image. He had to play this extremely cool. Irene Kennedy was the queen of the lying game. One nervous foot tap, out-of-character comment, or errant bead of sweat and all their history together wouldn’t mean shit. The alarms in the back of her mind would explode.
“What is this?”
“That was taken five days ago at Riyadh airport.”
Nash furrowed his brow a little deeper. He’d spent a fair amount of time considering how to react when this moment came. “That’s impossible!” was the obvious go-to. But would he really say that? Where Mitch Rapp was concerned, everything was possible.
“Son of a bitch,” he decided on, letting a fair amount of anger slip into his voice. “He’s been alive all this time? He just left us twisting in the wind?”
“So it would seem.” He could feel her eyes on him but didn’t look up.
“What about the guys?”
“Unknown.”
Finally, he met her gaze. “He hasn’t been in contact with you?”
“No.”
Truth? A lie? He was here to find out what she knew, but that was never easy. The likelihood that Mitch hadn’t found some way to let her know he was alive seemed far-fetched. The main question remained, though. Had Rapp stumbled onto Isa’s involvement and gone after him in an attempt to figure out where Nicholas Ward was being held? Or was this another one of Kennedy’s elaborate games? If she discovered someone mucking around in her mainframe, she’d be laser focused on finding out who and how. But faking the kidnapping of one of the most important men in the world? That was a pretty bold move for a woman who had lost her power base in the White House. Unfortunately, bold moves were something she and Mitch were known for.
“The Saudis suspect him of killing a mid-level operative named Bashir Isa and two of his associates,” she continued. “They found his body in the desert and the other two in his house.”
“Do we have any idea where Mitch is now?”
“My counterpart at the GID believes he got on a private jet outside of Riyadh two days ago and headed toward Africa.”
“Not home, I assume.”
She shook her head.
“Can we trace the jet?”
“No. It seems to have been conjured from thin air and then disappeared back into it.”
He chewed his lower lip and looked down at the photograph again. Best to meet Kennedy’s eye as little as possible.
“Thoughts?” she said.
“You don’t need my help on this one, Irene. Appearing and disappearing jets without any Agency involvement? That has Claudia’s name written all over it. Have you talked to her?”
“Only to offer my condolences about Mitch’s disappearance.”
Finally, he tossed the photo back on her desk. Now was the appropriate time to run his fingers through his hair. Two-handed felt right, given the circumstances.
“My wife’s talked to her probably every day since then. But not to Anna. Claudia said she hadn’t broken it to her yet. Now we know why.” He paused for a moment, creating the illusion of building anger. “That prick! We already ordered the food for his wake and we’re past the time we can get a refund. When he gets back, I’m billing his ass. And you know what else this means? Mitch wouldn’t leave Scott and the guys hanging. They’re out there somewhere, too.”
“I don’t know if we can be sure of that,” Kennedy cautioned.
“Yeah, but you’ve got to admit there’s a good chance,” he said, transforming his rage into hope accompanied by just a dash of joy. “A hell of a lot better chance than there was yesterday.”
He let a slow smile spread across his face. “And to think. I was gonna go over and mow his stupid lawn. You know what I’m going to do instead? Let the goats loose in there.”
She just sat there, undoubtedly wanting to give him time to assimilate what he’d heard, but also to examine his reaction. This was the most dangerous part of their conversation because he was feeling pretty much the opposite of what he was trying to portray. But he still didn’t have the information he’d come here for. How would he approach this if he really were just now finding out about Rapp being alive? The answer was simple. Directly. He wouldn’t believe that Kennedy was in the dark and he wouldn’t get sucked into a verbal sparring match. That was her wheelhouse, and she was the queen of it.
“The one thing you’ve never been good at, Irene, is playing dumb. So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to tell me what’s going on or are you just going to keep stringing me along?”
She remained silent, but with the question out there, she couldn’t stay mute forever. The CIA directorship could be a pretty lonely place and it was getting lonelier for her every day. Would she allow herself an ally?
Kennedy reached for her tea and it was in that simple action that he knew he’d passed the test.
“Oh shit,” he said slowly. “You knew. You knew the whole time.”
She took a sip and then put the mug back down. “Yes.”
“Then I’m going to ask you again. Straight up, now. Scott and the guys?”
“They’re fine. As are Ward and David Chism.”
He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, letting his bodyweight sag onto them. Fortunately, relief and resignation read about the same from a body language standpoint. He really was deeply grateful that Coleman and his boys were okay. They could still be saved. But the Cooks were going to explode when they got confirmation that Ward’s and Chism’s deaths were all just an elaborate illusion. As usual in this shit business he’d gotten dragged into, the worst-case scenario was the one playing out.
“What the hell’s going on, Irene?”
“We had an incursion into our computer system. Marcus found it entirely by chance. Whoever’s responsible has extremely high-level access and the ability to cover their tracks to the point that even Marcus ran into a blank wall.”
“What did they get?”
“Information on Nicholas Ward.”
“That’s it? They were deep in our system and that’s what they went after?”
She nodded. “It seems that the information made its way to the Saudis and then to Gideon Auma so that he could attack Ward’s compound.”
Nash’s jaw tightened. “The Saudis. Remind me again why we don’t bulldoze that entire country into the Red Sea?”
Her only reaction to his question was a barely perceptible smile.
“Can I assume that Mitch was in Saudi Arabia trying to figure out the identity of our mole?”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
“I doubt it, or he would have contacted me. With the mole still out there, we’re only communicating when it’s absolutely necessary. It’s impossible to be one hundred percent certain of any of our technology at this point.”
“Does the president know about any of this?”
“No. The possibility of a leak was too high.”
“Shit. He’s going to blow a gasket. Your chances of keeping your job just dropped to somewhere around zero.”
“My job security is my business. Besides, I don’t see me getting fired as being all that bad for you.”
“I don’t want your chair, Irene.”
Strangely, that was the truth. He didn’t want it. But with the storm he saw brewing, it looked more and more like he needed it.
“Maybe we can spin this in your favor. The Saudis have a lot of money and are about as morally flexible as anyone on the planet. If there’s anything the Cooks love, it’s someone powerful they can control. If we can prove the Saudis went after an American citizen who also happens to be the richest man in history, then they’d have something to hold over the royalty. It might be a shiny enough gift to make them overlook the rest.”
“But the Cooks wouldn’t use that to push back against the Saudis,” Kennedy said. “They’d just want to blackmail them in an effort to further consolidate their power.”
“You really can’t stand them, can you, Irene?”
“My feelings about them are irrelevant.”
“Okay. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. What I think we can both agree on is that it’d be helpful to find out what Mitch knows. Until then we have no idea where we stand, let alone where we’re going.”
“Agreed.”
“If you’re worried about comms, then why don’t I get on a plane and go see Claudia. No phones, no email, and it’s thousands of miles away from Langley. We can have a quiet conversation and I’ll see if I can get a face-to-face with Mitch.”
She considered the idea for a few seconds before nodding. “When can you leave?”