calling for help. Despite being caught off guard, Adams had already vowed that he would make Rapp pay. He would say what he needed to say to win his release, and then he would raise hell.
No sane person would ever kill him. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. He was the inspector general of the CIA, for God’s sake. The media would dig. The Hill would demand answers. It would simply be too difficult to cover up. That’s what his highly rational brain kept telling him, but there was another voice in his head. One that was far less confident. One that had been warning him with increasing seriousness that Mitch Rapp was a man capable of extreme violence.
Adams was again trying to reassure himself that all would be fine, despite his deep forebodings, when the door opened. He recognized the lined, worn face immediately, and notwithstanding the fact that he didn’t care much for the man, he felt a huge sense of relief that he was here. Regardless of their differences, Stan Hurley was an old family friend, a covert ops legend, and maybe the only man Rapp would listen to. Adams was confident he could get the old man to sympathize with him.
“Uncle Stan,” Adams said in a hope-filled voice, “thank God you’re here.” He stood and moved forward, his arms open, ready to embrace one of the meanest cusses he’d ever known, but before he could get close enough, something hard poked him in the stomach. He froze.
“Sit down,” Hurley ordered.
Adams looked down to see the rubber tip of a cane pressed into his belly. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing… sit.” Hurley nudged him back and pointed at the chair.
Adams slowly retreated and took his seat. “Uncle Stan, there’d better be a hell of a good explanation for this.”
“Really?” Hurley said with skepticism. “I was about to say the same thing.”
“This is crazy; I’m the inspector general of the CIA. I can’t be kidnapped in the middle of the night and interrogated like this.”
“The fact that you’re sitting here is proof that you’re wrong on both counts.”
Adams frowned and said, “This isn’t Prague circa 1968. Neither Mitch Rapp nor anyone at the CIA, for that matter, has any right to abduct me.”
“I suppose from a purely legal standpoint you are correct.” Hurley’s admission gave Adams a shot of confidence. “You’re damn right I am. Everyone makes mistakes, but this one is a whopper.”
“It sure is.”
“Well,” Adams studied the face of his father’s best friend in a vain attempt to gauge his true intention, “as a favor to you… I’d be willing to look the other way on most of this, but I’m going to need some reassurances.”
“Such as?”
“For starters… Rapp and his band of goons need to promise that nothing like this will ever happen again.”
Hurley gripped the back of the chair with his free hand. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. His mind flashed through a movie reel of Glen Adams’s life. He hadn’t put much thought into whether he liked the kid until he was in high school, and then only because his friend was worried that his boy didn’t quite get it. As Hurley looked at the younger Adams he thought how right his friend had been to worry.
Hurley finally spoke. “And you think all of this is a mistake. You’re here through no fault of your own?”
Adams knew this was where he needed to be careful. “I know you’ve been out for a while, so I don’t expect that you’ve kept up on everything that’s been going on, but let’s just say, Rapp stuck his nose into something that doesn’t concern him.”
Hurley almost laughed, but managed to keep a straight face. “Really?” Hurley said as if he were intrigued. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
CHAPTER 10
ADAMS ’S mind was moving at light speed trying to plot the correct course that would allow him to sucker this old codger into thinking Rapp had made a monumental mistake. He couldn’t remember the exact date, but as best he could recall Hurley had been out for at least fifteen years. There was no doubt he kept tabs on certain things, but most of his old sources would have dried up. The key, he decided, was to stay as vague as possible and keep things current.
Adams averted his eyes and seemed to study the dented and scratched surface of the metal desk. “This thing I’m working on… I’m afraid I can’t talk about it.”
Hurley looked at him with his bloodshot but shrewd eyes. “So if I call Director Kennedy right now, she’ll tell me you were on official CIA business?”
Shaking his head, Adams replied, “She wasn’t involved in this.”
“Tell me who to call then. Give me a name.” Hurley folded his arms across his chest as if he were settling in for a long wait.
“Stan, you’re not read in on this.” Adams shifted in his chair. “Hell, you don’t work for Langley anymore. I can’t discuss this with you.”
Hurley snorted. “I know more shit about our black ops than the president, so stop wasting my time and start answering my questions, or we’re going to test that little euphorian theory of yours.”
“And what theory would that be?”
“The one about torture… how you like to tell all your buddies in the press that it doesn’t work. That it’s nothing more than a recruiting tool for al Qaeda.”
Adams looked dumbfounded. “Well, that’s true.”
“And how in the hell would you know?” Hurley leaned over the chair. “Have you ever interrogated someone? Had to get rough with him to save lives?”
“You know the answer to that. I’m the inspector general of the CIA.”
“What about those twenty-three months you spent in the clandestine service that you like to brag about? A whole five of them in the field. And even then the only time you left the embassy compound was to play golf or try to get laid.”
“I’m not going to relive all that with you,” Adams said with a forced smile. “Let’s just agree that there are two sides to every story.”
“Yeah… like the truth and then the stuff that isn’t the truth. Like your little dinner date last night.”
“What about it?”
“According to Mitch you were in the process of committing treason.”
“Mitch Rapp is a professional liar.”
“It might be a good idea if you didn’t try to make this about Mitch. You either start answering me honestly, or I’m going to bring him in here, and you know as well as I do that he cares even less about your feelings than I do.”
“Fine… fine,” Adams said, backpedaling. “But there’s only so much I can say.”
“What were you doing in New York last night?”
“Having dinner with an old college friend.”
“Discussing?”
Adams hesitated. He had to be careful not to catch himself in a lie. “I respect you, Stan. I always have, so I’m going to say this as politely as I can. I don’t answer to you. I don’t answer to Mitch Rapp. I answer to the president and the oversight committees on the Hill. That’s it.”
Hurley exhaled a sigh of frustration. “I don’t seem to be getting through to you.”
“I feel the same way,” Adams said in disappointment. “I understand how difficult this business is, so I’m willing to look the other way this one time, but this offer is not going to last very long. I’m tired and I have a busy day of appointments. I’ll give Rapp one chance to let me walk out of here. And I mean right now. One chance.” Adams held up his index finger.
Hurley started to laugh. “You don’t understand what’s going on, do you?”
“I understand that in about two hours people are going to start wondering where I am, and once that happens it is going to be very hard for me to look the other way on this. So, for the last time, let me go and I’ll forget all
