University, which according to Rapp’s legend was his alma mater. The fast growth of the population and the transient nature of the workforce gave Rapp a near ideal cover.
The best way to protect a legend, though, was not to sit around and answer questions. You needed to turn the tables and be the one asking the questions. Rapp had found out Bob had helped build Target Corp into the successful company that it was today and that now he was retired with a boatload of stock options and a wife who wanted to live in Paris and travel across Europe. Bob wasn’t so keen on the idea, but then again she’d raised the kids and held the family together while he was off expanding one of America’s most successful retail chains.
Over the ensuing months Rapp would occasionally bump into McMahon and his wife, Teresa, or Tibby as she was known to her friends. More often than not Bob, bored out of his mind, would jump at the chance to, as he put it, talk to someone who was normal. They invited him over for dinner and Rapp was trying to figure out a way to get out of it when Bob pointed up and showed Rapp where their apartment was located. It was directly across the street from the front entrance to Rapp’s apartment. Even back then Rapp realized that this place could come in handy. The rest was easy. He showed up for dinner with a bottle of wine and some flowers and while they were busy finishing the meal Rapp made an imprint of the key.
He and Greta walked through the dark apartment to the living room and the window that looked down onto Rapp’s stoop. They stopped a few paces from the window and Rapp said, “We don’t want to get too close.”
“I know, you told me. Even though the lights are off, they might be able to see us.”
Rapp angled to the left so he could see down the length of the diagonal street where the surveillance van was parked.
“How do you know these people won’t just show up at their apartment?”
Rapp kept his eyes on the van. “Because the only thing Tibby loves more than this apartment is the fact that her first grandchild was born last week. They flew home for two weeks. Bob hopes longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Forever, I think.”
Greta moved behind him and looked around his shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
“That van, halfway down the block.”
“The black one?”
“Yep.”
“You think there are men in it?”
“Pretty sure.” Rapp’s eyes were scanning the roofline across the street.
“So what do we do?”
“You’re going to go stand on the other side of the window so you have a good view of anyone approaching from the east, and we’re going to wait for the show to start.”
CHAPTER 31
BRAMBLE was about to shove his fist through twenty-five grand worth of electronics. Why the hell was Hurley pulling him? They were on the same page. He was as gung ho to catch the little fucker as Bramble was. Rapp was an arrogant, reckless little prick and Bramble had asked for point and Hurley had given it to him. He’d been waiting for more than a year for his chance and he sure as hell wasn’t going to fold up shop and go sit in some hotel bar and wait for orders.
That meant Stansfield had been given some information that they weren’t privy to, or someone had intervened on Rapp’s behalf. Bramble rapped his scarred knuckles on the small metal shelf that created the base of the surveillance console and sifted through the possibilities. His mind stuck on one person. She was a royal pain in the ass and Bramble couldn’t understand for the life of him why she had anything to do with their unit. He’d heard she was smart, but he had yet to see any proof of it. All she did was get in their way and thwart Hurley at nearly every turn. She was the one who had found Rapp, recruited him, and forced him onto the team. Bramble couldn’t understand it, and in a moment of frustration he’d asked Hurley why he put up with the stupid cunt.
Hurley’s reaction had been swift and decisive. He stepped toward Bramble without a hint of violence and kicked him so hard in the groin that Bramble collapsed into the fetal position and stayed there for five full minutes. After that, he never brought Irene Kennedy up to Hurley again. She continued to meddle in their training, selection, and deployments, though, and Bramble watched with increasing irritation as she seemed to have her way with every major decision. The only reason was that she worked at Langley and had Stansfield’s ear. After they were all placed on the sidelines and Rapp was given free rein to start taking out targets, Bramble was on the verge of quitting. He’d rather freelance, or move out to Hollywood and start tagging a little ass while pretending to protect some teenage superstar from imagined killers. He’d heard there was a lot of money to be made, but he also suspected he’d end up killing someone. It was one thing to smoke some turd in a Third World shithole. That was like going on safari. Do it in the United States, though, and he was likely to end up behind bars.
Fortunately, Hurley had talked him out of it. He assured him that Rapp would stumble, and more than likely, he’d stumble in a spectacular fashion, and when that happened they would move in and clean up the mess. And by clean up the mess, Bramble took Hurley to mean that he would be allowed to kill the little shit and end this dumb- ass experiment.
Bramble had heard the arguments between Hurley, Kennedy, and that faggot shrink Lewis. Kennedy had created this problem, and Lewis and God himself Thomas Stansfield had abetted her. The shrink was worthless. If any of them needed to talk about their feelings they were in the wrong line of work. Kennedy was nothing more than a glorified desk jockey with a hold over Hurley that he couldn’t understand. And Bramble had spent far too much time trying to figure it out. The only thing he could come up with was that Kennedy had caught Hurley doing something so embarrassing that he had no choice but to back down every time there was a confrontation. Ultimately though, it was Stansfield who was the problem. He was a damn relic from way back when. Rumor was he’d been OSS during World War II and had parachuted into France and then Norway, and Bramble could give a shit. So the guy knew how to cross-country ski, operate a ham radio, and live off pine needles and tree bark—big deal. The fossil needed to be put out to pasture and let guys like Hurley run the show.
None of it made any sense to Bramble, not then and especially not now. Based on what had happened over the past thirty-six-plus hours, Hurley’s order to stand down seemed downright stupid.
