“The highest in the building,” Kennedy said, “by a good margin.”
“The two of you combined,” Lewis said, pointing at Hurley and then Rapp, “might match him.”
“Doc, I’m sure he’s smart as shit, but my experience with guys like that is that they don’t cope real well with life.”
“That’s a fair point. There were a few things I picked up during our session. A potential sense of isolation, difficulty in coping with people, especially those outside his immediate circle. As you said, coping issues.”
“But,” Kennedy quickly added, “coping issues are not unusual for our people when they’ve been abroad for extended periods of time. The two of you have experienced it many times. You come back after enduring some pretty hard stuff and you have no patience for people who want to complain about the mundane.”
Actually, Hurley had a very low tolerance for people in general. “Any chance he went native?”
“We don’t have even close to enough information to say that, but he definitely began to withdraw over the past year.” Lewis was quick to add that he wasn’t passing judgment on anyone. “Looking back on things, it’s much easier to see a pattern. Sickles lost all control of him. It’s almost as if Rickman had become Darren’s boss, or at least stopped answering to him.”
“Irene,” Rapp said, “I really hope you hammer Darren. He’s an incompetent ass and a damn embarrassment.”
Kennedy was getting a lot of advice from a wide range of people regarding what she had to do in the wake of the disaster in Afghanistan. “We’re debriefing him right now. I want to make sure I know everything he knows and then I’ll make the decision on his employment.” She didn’t want the conversation to stray from the point, so she said, “Back to Rick… we don’t have anything definitive, and I’m not sure we will, but I’ve got three of my best analysts going over everything. If he made a mistake they’ll find it.”
Rapp shook his head like he wasn’t buying it. “They won’t find anything. He didn’t make mistakes. He always covered his tracks unless he wanted anyone looking to find something.”
“Like the banker,” Hurley said. He took a gulp of Jack Daniel’s and added, “Is that guy on your approved list, and if he is, what in the fuck is he doing talking to the FBI?”
Langley had a list of private bankers they used to handle funds for black operations. The banks were spread around between Switzerland, Cyprus, Gibraltar, the Caymans, Singapore, and a few other places. The banks and the bankers were thoroughly vetted before they were approved for business. Kennedy was the only person in the building who had possession of the complete list. She shook her head. “No… he’s not on the list.”
“What about the bank?” Rapp asked, thinking that maybe Obrecht had spied on one of his colleagues.
“No. We’ve never done business with this bank or anyone who works there.”
“And you’ve seen this affidavit?” Hurley asked.
“Yes… this afternoon. If we can believe Agent Wilson, and I’m not sure we can, Obrecht claims he did business with both Mitch and Rick. Helped them open several accounts and received deposits of several million dollars in cash. There’s also a safety deposit box.”
“Contents?” Hurley asked.
Kennedy shook her head. “It doesn’t say.”
“And, Mitch, you swear you’ve never seen this guy?”
“Never. I have no idea who he is.”
Hurley looked at Lewis. “Could it be the head injury?”
“It’s too soon to say, but his recall seems to be pretty good. We have yet to find an instance where once he’s reminded of something it doesn’t trigger the recall.”
“I’ve never seen the guy, and besides,” Rapp said looking at Kennedy, “I’ve disclosed all my financials. You’ve seen how well my brother’s done for me. I don’t need to steal money.” Rapp’s brother was a brainiac on Wall Street and had taken Rapp’s savings and turned them into a very nice portfolio.
“You better not have disclosed all your financials,” Hurley said in his typical gruff tone. “Have you learned nothing from me?”
“Stan,” Kennedy said in a chiding tone.
“Stan, nothing,” Hurley shot back. “We’re out there putting our nuts on the chopping block. We don’t get any hazard pay. You know the rule, if we come across some ill-gotten gains along the way they go into our rainy-day fund.”
This was all old-school. Kennedy hated it when they talked this way around her. On a certain level she understood where they were coming from, but it was something she could never condone. “This is the type of talk that gets a man like Wilson all lathered up.”
Hurley slapped his hand through the air, rejecting the complaint. “We’re not stupid. The majority of the stuff we come across gets kicked into the various accounts we’re talking about to help fund these ops, but you can’t begrudge my boys’ taking a little commission along the way. It’s the only insurance we have if we need to run.”
“Well, you shouldn’t need to run.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Hurley was getting angry. “Try to tell that to this idiot Wilson and that cock sucker Ferris. Shit.” Hurley set his drink down and grabbed a pack of unfiltered Camels. As he lit the cigarette he caught the look of concern on Kennedy’s face. Hurley exhaled a cloud of smoke into the lights above the table and said, “Listen here, princess. I have cancer. I’m going to die. A couple more of these aren’t going to matter.” Hurley took another drag and then felt bad for the rebuke. Kennedy was like a niece to him. “I’ve had an amazing life. No regrets… at least none that I’m going to tell this group… well, maybe I’ll tell Mitch before I croak, but I don’t want to see any long faces. We’re all dying. The fact that I’ve made it this long is amazing.” Hurley held up his glass. “To a full life.”
They all touched glasses. Kennedy wiped a single tear from her cheek and laughed. “It is pretty amazing that you’ve lived this long. You’ve been smoking those things for as long as I can remember.”
“Before you were born,” Hurley added with a wink and a swig of Jack Daniel’s. “Started at fourteen back in Bowling Green.” Hurley got this faraway look on his face as he thought of his childhood, stint in the military, and then the glory years of working for the CIA behind the Iron Curtain. He had lived a blessed life. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and said, “Back to this banker. I assume we’re digging deep.”
“I have Marcus on it, as well as a few other things. So far nothing to go on but we do have something that… ah, is a little odd.” Kennedy looked almost sheepish as she turned to Rapp. “Something we need to discuss, actually.” She didn’t know exactly how to do this, so she just said it. “Does the name Louie Gould ring a bell?”
The glass of vodka was half full. Rapp looked into it and for a moment considered throwing the whole thing back. Instead he pushed it toward the center of the table and said, “I remember him.”
“You remember what he did?”
Rapp didn’t flinch. “He killed my wife.”
Kennedy swallowed hard and asked, “Do you remember what happened with him in Kabul?”
“That part’s a little fuzzy. I remember seeing him right before all hell broke loose and then nothing.”
Kennedy had been trying to figure out the odds of this strange coincidence. “Would you care to take a guess where Gould does his banking in Switzerland?”
“Herr Obrecht.”
“That’s right. He is Mr. Gould’s private banker.”
“You’re shitting me.” Hurley was out of his chair. “This whole fucking thing is really starting to stink.”
Kennedy was used to this kinetic behavior. Hurley, like Rapp, was not good at sitting still for very long. She likened it to sharks that never stop moving. “Gould has other bankers that he uses, but Obrecht is one of his main ones.”
Hurley paced to the refrigerator, exhaled a cloud of smoke, took a drink, and then came back to the table. “You know what this is starting to look like?”
Kennedy nodded. She’d thought it through.
“A well-planned, multi pronged attack. Layered like the Russians used to do. Confusing as all shit until you got rid of all the deceptions and the feints and focused on their objective.”
“And what’s the objective this time?” Kennedy asked.
“The hell if I know. I mean we know, in a general sense, that this was designed to cripple us, but we don’t know the specifics yet.”
Rapp frowned and shook his head. A memory was coming back to him. A conversation he’d had with Rickman
