“You’d leave me a message, and I’d call you back, or try Stan’s number next time.”
“He’s no better than you are. He never answers his phone. I’m not even sure he has a phone, now that I think of it.”
“I call him all the time.”
Kennedy eyed him. “I’m never going to get anywhere with you on this, am I?”
Rapp shook his head. “Listen, before we get too far off track, did you know that this meeting was going to be about a big PR offensive?”
“Of course not,” Kennedy answered. “I know better than to waste your time.”
“So, if he’s as smart a guy as you say he is, how could he possibly think I’d go along with something like this?”
Kennedy picked up a small tube of hand lotion. “I think he was a bit desperate.” She squirted a dollop the size of a quarter into her palm and began rubbing her hands together. “The president has good instincts. He can see where this is all headed. We haven’t even finished burying all the dead from last week and in certain circles he’s being labeled as weak on terror. You have to remember, he ran on a rule-oflaw platform, and now we’ve been hit.”
“And so the brave thing to do is launch a PR offensive.”
“Theirs is a different world, Mitch.” Kennedy shrugged. “The president told me himself that he is really frustrated with the FBI.”
“Why?”
“Because they have come up with nothing. They know very little about the men who carried out the attack. And the three men who are still at large. They’ve vanished.”
“Well, don’t get mad at the FBI. They’re operating within the very constraints the president campaigned on.”
“And that,” Kennedy said, “I suspect is why he wanted to sit down with you and Mike.”
“But Dickerson waved him off,” Rapp said.
“Correct, and to be honest, I’m not sure it wasn’t wise counsel.”
“God forbid the president get a little dose of reality. Maybe sign an executive order that allows us to really go after these guys.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Mitchell.”
“If I could wish for anything it would be some damn support from the White House and the Hill.”
“As foreign as it seems, that’s what Gabe was trying to offer you, but for reasons that I completely understand you would prefer to not have your image splashed across the world media outlets.” Kennedy hit the space bar on her computer to take it out of sleep mode. “The PR offensive isn’t a bad idea. You’re just the wrong guy for it. You know as well as anyone that it would be nice to get some of our esteemed senators and representatives to back us a bit more. It has been a long time since…”
Rapp stopped listening. His mind was wondering off down a path that involved a bird in his hand and two in the bush, or was it a stone and two birds? Whichever it was he saw an opportunity.
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Kennedy asked.
Rapp shook the dazed look from his eyes and said, “Sorry, I was just thinking of something else.”
“Were you guys drinking last night?” Kennedy thought of Hurley and his colorful history and said, “That was a stupid question. You were at Stan Hurley’s lake house… of course you were drinking. Where is Mike, by the way?”
Rapp thought about his roadside confrontation with Nash and wondered how he would explain to his boss that one of her most valued operatives was experiencing a mental collapse.
“Don’t tell me he was too hung over to see the president.”
It sounded like as good a story as any, so Rapp gave it the nondenial denial and shrugged his shoulders.
Kennedy shook her head in disappointment. “Do I even want to know what goes on down there?”
Rapp thought of Adams and said, “Probably not.”
“How bad can it be?”
Rapp was tempted to tell her it involved hookers and a bunch of drugs, but he didn’t want to push her over the edge. “Some cards, some drinking, some harmless talk. That’s all it ever is.”
Kennedy gave him her schoolmarm frown.
“Hey… this isn’t exactly the easiest job in the world,” Rapp said defensively. “There’s nothing wrong with blowing off a little steam.”
“I agree. Just make sure that’s all it is.” She maneuvered her mouse and opened up her email. “Speaking of PR… the last thing we need right now is some TV news crew to catch you guys doing God only knows what you do down there.”
Rapp found the idea preposterous. Hurley had more damn security than some federal buildings. If any reporters were dumb enough to ignore all the signs and wander onto the property they would end up running for their lives from Hurley’s pack of dogs. “The last person you need to worry about is Stan Hurley. He’s smarter than all of us and he’s been doing this for a hell of a lot longer.” Rapp thought of the inevitable confrontation between Hurley and Nash. If Nash didn’t snap back 100 percent, and do it quickly, Hurley would want him gone. Not killed necessarily, but he would want him transferred out of the clandestine service and probably out of the CIA entirely. Rapp looked a few days into the future and saw a way that he might be able to defuse the conflict. “Speaking of PR… maybe Gabe’s idea wasn’t so bad after all.”
Kennedy looked surprised. “Really?”
“Not for me,” Rapp added quickly. “I’m thinking of Mike.”
Kennedy thought about it for a second. “Why Mike?”
“He’s perfect. Former Marine officer, gorgeous wife, four cute kids. Dickerson could do wonders with something like that.”
Kennedy’s hazel eyes narrowed. “What are you up to?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Fifteen minutes ago you thought it was the craziest thing you’d ever heard, and now all of the sudden you’re offering up Mike.”
“You’re always telling me I need to be more open-minded… that’s all this is.”
Kennedy studied him for a long moment. She wasn’t buying it. “You’re up to something. I know it.”
CHAPTER 25
RAPP was thinking on the fly. He wasn’t about to explain to Kennedy that Nash had come unhinged in the last twelve hours. She was too perceptive, and she would want to know what the catalyst had been. She would also assume it was something that had taken place at Hurley’s lake house and she would be right. Rapp could fabricate a hell of a lie that would stand up to a lot of digging, but there was one weak point. Sometime in the next three days she would have Nash standing in front of her desk just as he was now. She would begin to probe, and if Nash was still in his volatile state and mad at Rapp, he was likely to say a few things that would cause a lot of trouble. Rapp would have to get to him in the meantime and prepare him, but for now, he had to give Kennedy a plausible reason for his newfound respect for Dickerson’s plan.
There wasn’t a cover story worth a damn that wasn’t somehow grounded in truth, and Kennedy knew him too well, as was evidenced by her suspicion. Rapp started speaking and before he knew it, the answer was on his lips. “I think Mike is having a hard time with what happened last week.”
“So your answer is to thrust him into the spotlight and end his career as a clandestine operative.”
Rapp shrugged and tried to play down the obvious. “It wouldn’t be ended. There’s still plenty of work for him to do around here. He just wouldn’t be involved in some of the more risky operations.” Rapp watched her eyes burrow through him as if she were trying to read his soul.
“Something happened last night,” Kennedy said.
This time it was a statement, as if she knew for certain something had gone on. Rapp sighed and said, “He’s burnt out, Irene. This shit has really gotten to him. I’m not sure he ever fully recovered from the injuries he
