“And that’s why I’ll never leave here.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you do. How about I offer you the deal of the fucking century? You give me your word right now that you’ll just let this go. That you’ll forget about me, the Cooks, the Saudis, Ward, and all the rest. That you’ll go back to the Cape, race your bike, spend time with your new family, and never set foot back in the US. Do that and I’ll give you a ride to the airport.”
Rapp remained silent.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” Nash said, shaking his head slowly. “But I want to tell you something. I’m going to make you a hero. All the shit you’ve done that no one knows about? I’m going to tell them. You deserve that.”
Rapp walked to a rock outcropping, tracked by the men covering him. He sat and rested his elbows on his knees. “I got an interesting text on the way here.”
“I meant to ask you about that.”
“Like I told you, Ward’s people are still a few weeks out from putting names to the network of burners you were using. But he has put together some of the towers they connected to.”
“So?”
“So, he noticed something interesting. That one of those phones connected twice to the same tower I do when I’m at home in Virginia.”
Nash’s brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of what he’d just heard. Rapp decided to help him out.
“Apparently, Nick Ward’s memory is better than mine. I don’t recall telling him that the man I was meeting today lived in my neighborhood. But he did.”
“I don’t understand,” Nash said, backing away a few more steps and glancing at his backup to make sure they were all still in position.
“I didn’t, either. The video from Irene telling me to meet her in the middle of nowhere. The old password from Belarus that anyone high up enough in the Agency could get hold of. The mole who was too smart for anyone to identify. But then the cell tower put it all together for me.”
This time when Nash looked at the men covering Rapp, he did so with the intensity of someone who realized something had gone very wrong. It took only a moment before his body language revealed that he’d figured out what that thing was. It was already over when the men removed their goggles and face coverings.
Nash looked away before he could meet Scott Coleman’s eye. Understandable in that Coleman was probably his best friend in the world. Joe Maslick and Bruno McGraw—also present—rated pretty high, too.
“What did you find in the forest?” Rapp asked.
“Seven mercs,” Coleman said.
“All dead?”
“All but the one we left alive to interrogate. They were solid operators. Too dangerous to play around with.”
Rapp nodded and the silence in the clearing began to stretch out. Finally, he broke it.
“I’m giving you a five-minute head start, Mike. For old times’ sake.”
Rapp took not-so-careful aim and fired a single round into the trees. The sound of the shot was deafening and the snap of the bullet as it cut through the foliage would be terrifying. Which was the goal.
Thirty minutes into the chase, the grade of the forested slope had increased to probably five percent. Barely noticeable to him, but a significant obstacle for Nash. Things would have been different during his time as a Marine, but those days were long past. He’d largely abandoned his cardio workouts for weightlifting and ballooned to a solid two hundred and ten pounds. Good for stabilizing the damage done to his spine back when he’d still been a man of honor, but not so great for uphill running.
Rapp adjusted his aim a few degrees to the left and fired another round. He’d herd Nash up the incline for as long as possible. Even after years of kissing political ass and polishing desk chairs, the man wasn’t to be underestimated.
Rapp started forward again, making some effort to be quiet but not going overboard. The same explosion that damaged Nash’s back had also damaged his hearing. It was unlikely that he’d be able to separate the rhythm of human movement from the sound created by the intermittent breeze.
This would be a historically satisfying end for the son of a bitch. Humans had evolved not that far from where they were now with very few physical advantages. They weren’t fast. Or strong. They lacked sharp claws or big teeth. Their only talent was an ability to keep going, wearing down prey until they finally stopped, stunned and unable to defend themselves.
Rapp wasn’t going to involve himself in hand-to-hand combat with a desperate former Marine who outweighed him by almost forty pounds. No, Nash would end up on his fucking knees—gasping for air and waiting for the bullet that would kill him. Or maybe that wasn’t entirely accurate. The truth was that the loyal soldier Rapp had known for so long was already dead. He had been for some time. The bullet would just make it official.