“Whatever works for you.”
“It’s been a wild ride, huh, Mitch? The things we’ve done? The things we’ve seen? Even if we could talk about it, no one would ever believe it.”
Rapp just shrugged.
“I stopped to tell you something. And there’s no reason for me to lie anymore, right? So, you should take this seriously. None of this shit matters. Just Claudia, Anna, Irene, and Scott and the guys. That’s it. Everyone else is just waiting to stab you in the back. That’s what I’ve learned traveling the world’s conference rooms. We all die and, in a few years, no one will remember we even existed. Nothing we do means anything.”
“Do you have a point?”
“Yeah. I do. Make peace with the president, Mitch. Even you and Irene can’t stand against what’s coming. I know you don’t want to join him, but at least be smart enough to back away. And while I know you haven’t listened to me much over the years, you should think about what I’m telling you. It’s good advice.”
He raised his sidearm until the barrel was tucked under his chin.
“Mike! No!”
But it was too late. The gun sounded and he collapsed to the forest floor.
CHAPTER 1
WEST OF MANASSAS
VIRGINIA
USA
THE rain just kept coming. In sheets earlier. Then in waves. Now it seemed to go in circles, overwhelming the windshield wipers on Rapp’s rental car and swirling in his headlights. Behind, Irene Kennedy was piloting her own SUV, tracking him at a distance of only a few feet. The vague glow of his house started to be discernable through his fogged windshield, but it didn’t bring much comfort.
He’d just told Maggie Nash that her husband was dead. The carefully crafted bullshit about his heroics hadn’t done much to obscure the fact that she was now a widow with four fatherless kids. Nor had it softened the look in her eyes. The one that said “What the hell was my executive husband with a bad back doing in Uganda? Why is he—like so many others—dead while you just keep on breathing?”
A fair question that he didn’t have an answer for.
The modern, vaguely museum-like concept of the house looming ahead had originally been dreamed up by his late wife. Architecturally cutting-edge from the outside while allowing for no-compromises security to be integrated from the foundation up. When first completed, it had felt a little like a bunker. Not that he’d had a problem with that. There was nothing like being surrounded by thousands of tons of concrete to make him sleep at night. With the addition of Claudia, though, it had actually started to feel like a home. The smell of cement and fresh paint had been replaced with that of baking bread, flowers, and coconut shampoo. The hum of the state-of-the-art HVAC had been replaced with Anna’s breathless storytelling and the banging of pans.
Now, as he closed in, it transformed back into a bunker. Eight million dollars’ worth of dead and empty.
The massive gate opened when he hit a button on his key fob and he kept it depressed to allow Kennedy to tailgate him inside. Additional security lights came on as they pulled up to the front door and jumped out into the rain. A custom-made key got him inside, where he disabled the security system and started a diagnostic. He’d already completed one over his mobile phone but didn’t trust it. Anything connected to the Internet could be hacked. The physical system, though, was built into the walls and subverting it would take more than some clever hackers—it’d take jackhammers.
It showed all-clear just as Kennedy entered the vestibule. She held her umbrella outside to shake it before closing the door again. It blocked out most of the sound of the storm, leaving him with the drone of the HVAC again.
“Claudia gave me a list of things she wants me to bring back to Africa,” Rapp said. “Why don’t you grab a bottle of wine and then meet me upstairs?”
Kennedy nodded silently and started toward the cellar.
“Might as well get a good one,” he called as he jogged up the stairs. “I doubt I have much time and I’m not sure I’ll ever be back.”
In fact, he shouldn’t have been there at all. But leaving Kennedy to talk to Maggie alone seemed like the coward’s way out. He bore a lot of responsibility for her husband’s death and the least he could do was look her in the eye when she got the news.
Rapp entered the master bedroom and used his phone to turn on a white-noise generator that played over hidden Bluetooth speakers. It would obscure any conversation from hidden microphones that were almost certainly not there. Better safe than sorry.