As the aircraft lifted off behind him, Rapp couldn’t help wondering how much longer Nick Ward was going to let them use his Ugandan compound. Right now, he was in the US dealing with various lawsuits and SEC inquiries relating to the measures they’d taken to keep him alive. When he returned, though, he might not be interested in standing so close to people targeted by a president who already despised him.
“I read that Enzo Ruiz recently died of natural causes,” Claudia said as he approached.
“Sad, isn’t it?”
“Do you have any exposure there that I need to deal with?”
“No. Jordi Cardenas is taking care of the witnesses and investigators. There’s not much reason for anyone to kick up dust over this. What about Svoboda?”
“You didn’t see?” she said, pulling out her phone and scrolling for a moment before handing it to him.
The screen depicted the front page of some tabloid written in Czech. Nearly the whole thing was taken up by a full-color photo of a man hanging from his neck in what looked like a posh hotel suite. His face was purple, and he was naked except for a pair of boxer shorts still hanging on his ankles. A little strategic blurring had been done in an unsuccessful effort to make the image a little less lurid.
“Erotic asphyxiation?” Rapp said, handing the phone back.
“Scott thought it was fitting.”
It was hard to argue the point. “Cops?”
“No. Everyone’s so happy he’s gone, the police have already categorized his death as an accident and closed the case.”
“Where’s everybody now?”
“Scott’s at his place in Greece. Bruno moved on to New Zealand to go fishing. Wick’s at his house in Wyoming and Mas is at home in Virginia.”
Rapp didn’t particularly like having his forces so spread out, but under the circumstances it was marginally better than bunching them up.
“What about Irene? Is she still here?”
“She is.”
“Can you ask her to come by the bungalow? We need to talk.”
The expansive front deck was still in shade, clinging to the morning cold. Anna was asleep inside, though, so Rapp built a fire in the pit and pulled a few chairs up to it. Claudia appeared in the doorway with two cups of steaming coffee just as Irene started up their flagstone path with her customary cup of tea. Rapp gave her a kiss on the cheek before pointing her to a chair.
“It seems that everything’s gone smoothly,” she said, scooting a little closer to the flames.
“Ruiz is dead, but it didn’t solve as many problems as we hoped,” Rapp said, handing her the emails the old man had printed. He watched as she leafed through them, her mouth tightening in a way that would have been invisible to anyone who hadn’t known her for decades. He could decipher the expression easily, though. The shit had now officially hit the fan.
Kennedy let them fall to the ground and just stared straight ahead, seeming to forget everything around her. It appeared that he was the only one who didn’t bother to follow the new generation of private contractors. For everyone else, the word Legion hit like a set of brass knuckles.
She finally removed her reading glasses and rubbed at her eyes with a thumb and index finger. “I don’t think there’s any reason to mince words here. This is a worst-case scenario for us. Not only because of Legion’s reputation, but because we can now pretty much guarantee that the dossier won’t go to any of the people we’ve subverted.”
Claudia nodded. “Once Legion is contracted, he never stops. If the Cooks wanted to put me in jeopardy and keep Mitch occupied, they’ve now officially accomplished that.”
“Irene,” Rapp said. “Can you trace those emails?”
“Impossible. Legion is a little like Gustavo Marroqui. Every intelligence agency in the world has tried to get to them and we’ve all failed.”
“Them?”
“Our best guess is that it’s a team. I’d say three people. Two wouldn’t be sufficient to have carried out the assassinations we suspect them of and with four it becomes hard to maintain the level of secrecy they count on.”
“So, Ruiz was telling the truth. They really are ghosts.”
“Until I read those emails a minute ago, I couldn’t have said with one hundred percent certainty that Legion even existed. Their hits always look like accidents or natural causes, and they’re done so well that it’s possible they are.”
“So that’s it? That’s all we’ve got?”