“No way in hell.”
“Who is she?” Claudia asked.
Kennedy seemed reluctant to say the name aloud, so Rapp was forced to do it for her. “Sadie Hansen. Also, Sadie Griffith. And Hanna Larson. And Hailey Tolstoy. Have I missed any?”
“At least five,” Kennedy said.
Sadie was a young, beautiful psychopath who also suffered from manic depression, possibly a touch of Asperger’s, and a compulsion for shoplifting. On the other hand, she also had the best situational awareness Rapp had ever seen and seemed impervious to fear or panic. But more in a suicidal way than a courageous one.
Sadie was a British national recruited and quickly abandoned by MI6. The Agency picked her up a while back over Rapp’s objections, but then he’d had to eat crow when she’d proved critical to resolving a devastating attack on America’s power grid. Kennedy was fond of saying she was no worse than her other, even more infamous, recruit: an angry kid with no appreciable skills named Mitch Rapp.
“Sadie’s an inch taller and about five pounds lighter,” Kennedy said. “Right now, her hair’s longer and blond but it’s about the same texture so that’s an easy fix. So are her skin tone and eye color. Plus, she’s good at accents.”
“Probably because she’s schizophrenic,” Rapp said.
“The medication’s done wonders.”
He let out a long breath. “So, let me get this straight. You’re proposing that Sadie and I go back to the house in South Africa, and we use her to draw in Legion.”
Kennedy nodded. “Also, we bring in Bebe as your new live-in help.”
Bebe Kincaid was yet another misfit—a former FBI agent with an honest-to-God photographic memory. That, combined with the fact that she was overweight, middle-aged, and blessed with extraordinarily unmemorable features, had made her the best surveillance operative in the business. The problem? Her inability to forget made it increasingly difficult for her to differentiate recent memories from distant ones. And that was driving her slowly insane.
“So, we keep Sadie inside the walls and let Bebe go out,” Rapp said.
“Exactly. If anyone’s watching you, she can be counted on to notice.”
“What about Anna?” Rapp asked.
“She’d stay here with Claudia. Based on the state of the house, it’s perfectly reasonable that you wouldn’t bring her back with you. The idea is that you’d be working on getting renovations started. Not really a safe or healthy environment for a girl her age.”
Claudia, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during this, finally spoke up. “No. I don’t want someone standing in for me. What if she gets killed?”
“Then Legion moves on,” Rapp said. “We still have a lot of problems, but at least one’s off the table.”
“That seems callous, even for you,” Claudia said.
He shrugged. “It’s just Sadie. I doubt she’d care.”
“No reason to speculate,” Kennedy said. “We can ask her. In fact, Claudia, why don’t you do it? Give her a full reading of the risks and ask her if she wants the job. She’s a private contractor, so if she doesn’t, she can say no. If she does, she can name her price.”
CHAPTER 29
CAPE TOWN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
CAPE TOWN
SOUTH AFRICA
RAPP stood with his back against the wall of the arrival hall, studying the people flowing past. Some were meeting loved ones, others went straight for the doors, and still others were collecting around the rental car agencies. So far, he’d only noted a single familiar face—one of the American surveillance operatives keeping tabs on him. Infuriating, but likely harmless in the short term.
Legion, on the other hand, wasn’t so benign. It was almost certain that they’d had someone watching him since his return home, but who? One of their team? Members of a local gang? A legit private eye? There was no way to know, but he’d be surprised if they made a move that day. The chances of them going for something like an improvised rifle shot were around zero. Making their assassinations come off as accidental or natural was a big part of their secrecy protocol.
He’d been back for three days, removing remaining rubble, getting the rest of the plumbing and electricity rigged to work, and buying up a patchwork of furniture from local showrooms. The last thing on his list was to get the annoying rattle out of the dishwasher. He suspected it was a bullet being thrown around by the spray arms but so far hadn’t been able to locate it.