a long time ago. It was vague because Rickman had been talking so fast and flying off on tangents and then circling back.

Kennedy noticed the look on Rapp’s face and asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Something Rick said to me years ago… probably fifteen-plus. I don’t remember all of it, but it was about clandestine operations and how they should be set up and run on multiple levels. It was about recruiting high- placed assets. That it wasn’t enough to just recruit them. To increase our chances for success, secondary and tertiary operations needed to be launched that would distract the watchers.. the guys who would be keeping an eye on our asset to make sure he wasn’t spying for the other side. He was very animated when he made the point that to increase our chances of success we needed to disrupt those people.” Rapp’s face brightened as it started to come back to him. He snapped his fingers. “His idea was to frame the watchers, for example by making it look like they themselves were spies… set up real accounts in their names and if our asset was uncovered make the information public so the watchers would be distracted defending themselves. He advocated sleeping with the person’s spouse and a slew of things… anything that would trip the watchers up.”

“So you’re saying that’s what another intelligence agency was doing to us by using Herr Obrecht?”

“Possibly… they set up this bullshit story with this banker and they spoon-feed the info to the FBI to throw us off our game. And it almost worked. If Wilson had gotten a toehold, you and I and a lot of other people would be spending a shitload of time with the Feds right now, trying to prove our innocence.”

“If your theory is right,” Kennedy said, “then what’s their endgame? What are they trying to distract us from? And what does a theory Rickman had fifteen years ago have to do with it?”

Rapp grabbed his glass of vodka and took a drink. He thought about the last week and its roller-coaster of emotions. The “oh shit” fear when they’d found out Rick was gone, the horror and panic over the release of the interrogation clip, and the absolute relief many of them had felt when they’d found the camera and learned that Rickman was dead and his secrets were safe. That was the feint, Rapp realized. “You’re not going to want to hear this,” Rapp finally said, looking at Kennedy. “Rick’s not dead. They just wanted us to think he was dead.”

“You have no proof… it’s just your gut!”

“I told you already. I didn’t buy the idea that the same people who hit the safe house could have accidentally killed Rick and then conveniently left behind that camera for us to find.”

For Kennedy it was a frightening proposition. “This is all conjecture.”

“You feel comfortable not acting on it?”

She thought about that for a long time. “No, I don’t.”

“Then I’d better get my butt to Zurich ASAP.”

“Are you up to it?”

“I feel fine.”

Kennedy looked at Lewis for his opinion. “Just don’t hit your head,” the doctor warned Rapp.

“Zurich’s a safe city. I’ll be fine.” Looking back to Kennedy he asked, “Surveillance?”

“I have a team in place.”

“How aggressive?”

“Not… I don’t want to spook him.”

“Good.”

Kennedy glanced at Hurley. “You up for the trip?”

“Let me see. I can either stay here and listen to my oncologist try to talk me into taking rat poison or I can go to Switzerland and beat the shit out of some banker. Tough call.”

“Stan,” Kennedy said in a tone that showed she was not amused.

“Of course I’ll go.”

“Good.” Turning her attention back to Rapp she said, “One more thing. I want you to talk to Gould before you leave.”

Rapp was caught off guard. “Why?”

“He knows something about Obrecht and I think he’s holding back.”

“And you think he’s going to open up to me?” Rapp suddenly looked agitated. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get my team in the air ASAP.”

“Your team is already assembled… well, mostly assembled. Scott is handling something for me, but he’ll be there by the time you’re ready to take off.”

Rapp frowned. “You spun up my team without talking to me?”

“I know this hard for you to grasp at times, but I’m in charge.”

Rapp didn’t want to be in the same room with Gould. “So you’re ordering me to talk to him?”

“That’s right.” Kennedy slid a file across the table. “Read through this quickly and then go down stairs and find out what he knows about Obrecht. There’s also a USB stick in there. It has some surveillance footage Gould took of the area by the veterinary clinic right before the assault. I think you will find it interesting. You and Stan should watch it together.”

Rapp didn’t care about the file or the footage. “How rough can I get?”

Kennedy inhaled sharply and thought about it. “Use your judgment.”

“And if I decide to kill him?”

Rapp’s dark eyes gave Kennedy an unsettling feeling. He was her friend and at times it was easy to forget that at his core he was a killer. She cleared her throat and said, “I don’t want you to kill him.”

“Why?”

“For reasons that I can’t explain right now. You’ll have to trust me.”

“Reasons you won’t explain, you mean.”

“However you’d like to take it, but it is worth reminding you two,” Kennedy said, pointing at Rapp and then Hurley, “that you’re not in charge. I’m calling the shots, and for now I say he lives. Are we clear?”

Rapp wasn’t even sure he wanted to kill the man. His emotions were all over the board when it came to Gould and his wife and child. There’d been only a handful of times where he’d castigated himself for not killing Gould when he had the chance. It was Anna’s memory that had kept him from doing it and he had come to terms with that strange twist of fate. That decision had been made with the naive assumption that Gould would retire and take care of his family. Learning that the reckless idiot had squandered his chance at a second life had Rapp second- guessing his decision. Kennedy might be his boss, but Gould owed Rapp his life. When the time is right, Rapp thought, I’ll be the one to decide if he lives or dies.

Rapp leaned back and crossed his legs. “For now, I’ll do it your way.”

“Good. Something that’s not in the file… I placed Claudia and Anna in protective custody.”

Rapp got that faraway look in his eyes. “Where were they?”

“New Zealand.”

“How’d you find them?”

“She and I have stayed in touch.”

Rapp was surprised and then he realized he shouldn’t have been. Kennedy was thorough. “How old is the girl?”

“Anna is three.”

The fact that the mother had named her after Rapp’s deceased wife had screwed up Rapp’s thinking in ways he could have never predicted. He had spent months tracking Gould and his wife down, with the absolute conviction that when he found them he would kill both of them without hesitation, and then when the moment finally came, and he confronted the mother and the baby girl, it all fell apart. It was as if his wife’s soul had seized him and told him killing them would serve no purpose other than to orphan the baby girl. For a man who had spent more than fifteen years killing people it was the most foreign sensation imaginable.

“Gould had been hiding from Claudia the fact that he was still in the game,” Kennedy said. “He’s trying to act like he doesn’t care, but deep down he’s scared to death that she’s going to leave him once she finds out. It will be your best source of leverage with him.”

Rapp nodded but was thinking of his own ways to exert leverage. A gun to the fool’s head just might be the simplest course of action. The only problem with that tactic, Rapp knew, was that once he got started he might not be able to control himself.

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