assassin squinted as he watched a man hurry down the steps. His fingers quickly adjusted the camera and brought the picture in tight on the man. The hair on the back of the assassin’s neck bristled with a combination of excitement and fear. His job had just gone from complicated to dangerous.
Most of his targets over the years had been businessmen or government officials who were either too corrupt or too pious. Usually men in their fifties or sixties who were out of shape, their senses almost completely dulled by women, drugs, booze, and a life of luxury. They were often surrounded by bodyguards who were well past their prime. The man he was now staring at on his screen was far from past his prime, and even if had lost a step he was perhaps one of the most dangerous animals on the planet. It had been a few years since the assassin had last seen the CIA operative, but the details of his near death experience were forever seared into his psyche. He still moved with that rare mix of athleticism, grace, and menace. He stopped next to a soldier and spoke a few words. The assassin watched as Rapp’s head turned from side to side, surveying the landscape for any threats.
His first encounter with Rapp had been eerily similar. Even back then there was a part of his deeply embedded survival instinct that told him this wasn’t someone to be messed with. The challenge, however, proved too great to resist, and the assassin was lucky to be alive. Reason would dictate that Rapp was here to protect the prospective target. The assassin ran through a quick list of possibilities. A mid-level CIA official would not garner a $3 million payday, and it was unlikely that Rapp would be wasting his time riding shotgun for such a person. It was possible that it could be an Afghan official, but again the price was too high. The image of the woman popped into his mind almost without effort. Irene Kennedy was the director of the CIA, and she and Rapp were very close. That would make perfect sense.
It had to be Irene Kennedy, the director of the CIA. The assassin suddenly got the feeling that he had made a huge mistake. As a general rule the CIA was not an organization you wanted to cross swords with, precisely because they had men like Rapp who would hunt you to the end of the world to settle the score. The price also seemed a little low for someone like Kennedy.
For a long moment the assassin considered his options. If the target was Kennedy, the smartest course would be to pack up his gear and catch the next flight out of Kabul. It wouldn’t matter where, just so long as it was as far away from here as possible. If it came to it he would return all of the money and eat his expenses. He needed the money but it wasn’t worth it. The odds for success with Rapp involved decreased by at least half, and there were other issues that complicated the matter. It would take no longer than five minutes to pack his gear. He picked up the HTC One phone that his employer had left him. With one simple text he would find the identity of the target. The agreement had been such that once the identity was revealed the assassin could not back out. He was tempted to run but he was more curious to find out the identity of the target. The assassin tapped out his message: The convoy has arrived. I am in position.
He hit Send and then sat back and watched Rapp enter the embassy grounds through a gate. So far the client had been good about getting back to him. It had been a strange dance up to this point, but one that had a certain logic to it. The contract had rolled out in a graduated manner. The basic terms were agreed on, but the target was not to be revealed until he was in country and in a position to act.
Five minutes passed, and then ten, and the assassin was growing uncharacteristically anxious. He went to the bathroom and heard the phone beep as he was washing his hands. When he came back into the bedroom he opened the text and stared at the icon for an encrypted file and then tapped it. A split second later a photo of Mitch Rapp engulfed his screen. The assassin dropped the phone on the bed and almost opened the shades, before he caught himself.
“How in the hell…” he blurted out as he began to sweat. He told himself to calm down and think this through very carefully. There had to be a way out of this. $3 million was not enough money to take on someone like Rapp. $10 million wasn’t enough, and even if it was, there were other factors to consider. The assassin ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and walked into the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror and asked himself how he had gotten into such a ludicrous situation. It was the money, of course, and the thrill of the hunt. Domestic life had become extremely boring, but it was better than being dead.
“What are the odds?” he asked aloud. The question steered his mind in a mystical direction and he now focused on a powerful word that was thousands of years old. It was karma, of course. It was the only thing that could explain the odds. What he had done years ago had almost certainly led him to this place. He owed a debt and it was time to repay it in full. With absolute conviction, the assassin knew what he must do. He went back into the bedroom and forwarded the encrypted file to his laptop, where he began to review Rapp’s dossier. It was incredibly detailed. So detailed, it caused the assassin to worry about who had hired him. There were very few organizations that could put something like this together.
He flipped back to the surveillance screen and found Rapp talking to another man inside the embassy compound. The odds were staggering, but the payoff would be far better than jus the $3 million. A smile of anticipation spread across the assassin’s face. This would be perhaps the most fulfilling contract of his career. The trick, of course, would be to get close enough to Rapp without alerting him first. If Rapp detected him, he would be dead before he had a chance to collect on his debt.
Chapter 10
The conference room was located off one of the interior corridors on the sixth floor of the embassy. It was State Department turf, which Nash didn’t like, but Kennedy wanted him to make this one effort to play nice and get these people to understand what was at stake. If they didn’t get in line after that, he was supposed to turn Rapp loose. The idea that Nash could control Rapp in the first place was ludicrous. He made that exact point to Kennedy, but she remained obstinate on the matter. She wouldn’t go into detail about why they had to go through this little dance, but as director of the CIA, Kennedy did not always feel that she had to explain every order she gave. She operated on a level that was way beyond Nash’s understanding, influenced by people and organizations that he fortunately didn’t have to answer to. Add to that the fact that she was the smartest person he’d ever worked for, and he decided to simply carry out her orders.
That was all back in Washington. Over here in Afghanistan, however, he was once again questioning the wisdom of her strategy. To say that Rapp wasn’t suited for this kind of thing wasn’t entirely fair. A more accurate description would be to say that these other people weren’t suited for the War on Terror. Rapp was more driven than any person he’d ever encountered, and that took a lot of getting used to. His lack of patience was a by-product of that drive and his intimate knowledge of the enemy. While others debated a problem from every conceivable angle, often arguing over degrees, Rapp analyzed the same problem with a rapidity that was astounding and then chose a course of action or decided not to act. His default setting more often than not, however, was to act. Rapp understood that kinetic energy was more apt to bring about a desired result than sitting around waiting for the enemy to move first. If they got through this meeting without Rapp punching Sickles, Nash would consider it a major accomplishment.
Darren Sickles, the station chief, had assured Nash that the room was secure. Nash received the information as if he was satisfied and then followed his own protocols and quietly had a member of his team sweep the room for devices. Sickles found out about it shortly before the meeting was to commence and told Nash that he was offended. With Kennedy’s orders paramount, he offered Sickles a halfhearted apology and said something to the effect that you can never be too careful. There was a very good chance Nash would put Sickles’s reaction in a report when this saga was over. Kennedy preached vigilance when it came to making sure lines of communication were secure. No one in the community had a right to be offended by someone taking extra care to make sure a room was clean. That Sickles felt the need to let Nash know he was offended was juvenile.
Nash was growing used to it, however. When he was called on to run the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center at the relatively young age of thirty-nine, it had pissed off a whole bevy of professionals who had more experience than he did. Nash gave it all as little thought as possible, but there were certain individuals whom he had to act more guarded around, and Sickles had just added his name to that list.
Nash stepped off the elevator and was surprised to see Rapp standing in the hallway by himself. “I just lost a hundred dollars.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t think you’d show.”
