A traditional red barn appeared on his left and shortly thereafter the white stucco wall surrounding his house began to emerge. Dim spotlights illuminated the copper gate, but also something else. A lone figure sitting on the ground next to it.
Claudia.
She didn’t seem inclined to get up as he approached, so he stopped and stepped out of the vehicle. Despite the cloud cover, it was a beautiful night. There was a light breeze from the north and temperatures were hovering in the mid-seventies. Even so, she had her arms wrapped around her knees, pulling her thighs to her chest as though she was freezing. His headlights combined with the spots, reflecting off tears running down her cheeks.
He wasn’t sure what to say. She’d been in this business a long time and knew the realities of his world. The likelihood of him living long enough to buy a set of golf clubs and retire to Florida was fairly low.
“You did everything you could,” he said, finally.
“Which was nothing. No one returned our calls, Mitch. And the few who did gave nothing but excuses.”
He pressed his back against the wall and slid down next to her. “At the end of the day, I’m at the sharp end of these operations. And I’m comfortable with that.”
“Comfortable being abandoned by the country you spent your life fighting for?”
He considered her question for almost a minute before speaking again. “It’s nice out there at night. You wouldn’t believe the stars. And the quiet.”
She just stared straight ahead, unable to meet his eye.
“In a way, I like it,” he continued. “Being alone is simple. I like the freedom of knowing that I don’t have anyone to rely on and no one’s relying on me. There’s a clarity to it that you can’t get anywhere else.”
She laughed and wiped at her tears. “You should never tell a psychiatrist that. They’ll lock you up.”
“Probably,” he said. They sat in silence for a few minutes before she spoke again.
“It was a trap, Mitch. Halabi went after you specifically.”
“Seems like.”
“What terrifies me is that he didn’t want to kill you. That he was willing to lose good men to capture you. I try not to, but I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if he’d succeeded. What he would have done to you.”
Rapp shrugged. “There’s no point in dwelling on things that could have happened. You take what lessons you can from them and you move on.”
“And what did you learn out there, Mitch?”
He looked over at her. “I feel like we’re beating around the bush here. If you have something to say, say it.”
“Okay, I will. It’s getting bad here, Mitch. America’s changing. I think maybe you don’t see it, because it’s your country. But I do.”
“It’s just politics,” Rapp said dismissively. “I’ve been dealing with this crap my entire career.”
“No. It’s more than that. You weren’t here to see the brick wall Irene and I hit trying to get help for you. Most people believe that Christine Barnett will be America’s next president and they’re focused entirely on dealing with that fact. A lot of good people are getting out and a lot of bad ones are moving up. People are paralyzed. They don’t know who they should ally themselves with. What positions they should take. No one can figure out exactly what she wants.”
“Power,” he said, standing and holding a hand out to her. “That’s all any of them want.”
CHAPTER 15
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
USA
WHEN Irene Kennedy entered the Oval Office, the meeting’s other attendees were just settling into the conversation area at its center. President Alexander was the first to notice her and he strode toward her with a hand outstretched.
“Irene. It’s good to see you. As always.”
His years in Washington had done nothing to diminish the southern gentleman in him, though they both knew he was lying. When they got together outside of their normal schedule, it meant something had gone wrong. A nuclear threat. A terrorist threat. A Russian leader gone mad. Or, in this case, a psychotic fundamentalist building a biological weapon.
“I think you know Senator Barnett?”
The handshake between the two women was coldly mechanical and accompanied by what must have been Barnett’s thousandth attempt to stare her down. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kennedy was forced to interact with her much more than she would have liked. Barnett was a woman whose only true human emotion seemed to be ambition. She was interested solely in information that could advance her status, increase her personal wealth, or destroy the careers of her rivals. Everything else was just noise to her. And that laser focus had worked. It was almost certain that she would be the next leader of the free world.
“And I assume you’ve met Colonel Statham?” Alexander continued, picking up on the tension between the two women and trying to diffuse it.
“Of course,” Kennedy said, turning with a genuine smile toward the army officer. Despite being a bit overweight and barely five foot four, he was in many ways the Mitch Rapp of deadly diseases. Statham had spent his career seeking out the most terrifying pathogens Mother Nature could dish out. Everything from Ebola to plague to rabies. He had endless stories about things like extracting a foot-long worm from his own leg, being swept over a waterfall while trying to reduce his runaway fever in an Asian river, and being chased through the bush by a hippopotamus. Not surprisingly, he was extremely popular at cocktail parties.
“Gary,” she said as he took her hand warmly. “I thought you were in Africa.”
His eyes lit up at the mention. “We’re working on an Ebola vaccine. Just initial testing, but it’s promising.”
“Are we ready?” Alexander said, clearly feeling one of the microbiologist’s infamous digressions coming on.
“Yes, sir,” Statham said.
“Then you have the floor,” he said, motioning for everyone to sit.
“I didn’t bring the ISIS videos because I figure everyone’s watched them too many times already. My team’s gone over them with a fine-toothed comb and, combined with the Agency’s analysis, I think we have a pretty good idea of what happened.”
“And?” Christine Barnett said, already starting to sound impatient. Undoubtedly, she was looking for ammunition for another attack on the administration of the man sitting next to her.
Despite this, neither Alexander’s expression nor his body language even hinted at his deep hatred for Barnett. He’d resigned himself to the fact that she would likely be his successor and he was committed to doing his best to make sure she was prepared for the job.
And while Kennedy admired his effort, she also understood that it was a waste of time. The presidency demanded less a specific skill set or background than it did a type of person. Unfortunately, Christine Barnett would never be that woman.
“Doctors Without Borders was working on an outbreak of a very dangerous SARS-like virus in the village,” Statham continued, unflustered. “The three medical personnel that Halabi snatched had stopped the spread and had victims corralled in a building that they’d converted into a treatment facility. It’s clear that ISIS knew about it and they sent extremely well-trained and well-prepared troops. Even our Delta guys were impressed by their plan and how it was carried out.”