Act of Treason

17

Rapp’s eyes fluttered and then opened. He checked out his surroundings, not sure where he was for a moment, and then things fell into place. He rubbed his face and then stretched his arms over his head. Behind the cockpit was a small cabin with seating for twelve. Old, gray, worn leather first class seats had been installed in two rows. Four seats on the port side, four in the middle, and four on the starboard side. No personal DVD players or entertainment of any kind. It was a bare-bones operation. What it lacked in ambiance it made up for in space. Plenty of legroom and the seats reclined to a comfortable napping position.

Rapp sat in the back row on the port side. He checked his watch and for a second couldn’t remember if he’d changed it before they’d left Germany. He must have. As was his custom, the arrow on the red and black dial on the outside of the submariner was pointed at 11:00. That was the time they were due to arrive in DC. A little more than two hours from now. The layover in Germany had lasted a little longer than intended. They’d stopped to take on a load of cargo so as to cover their tracks, and then the warning light for the portside cargo door wouldn’t shut off even though a visual inspection showed the door to be seated properly. They sat on the tarmac for almost three hours while they waited for the faulty warning light to be switched out.

That was when the big Russian woke up. The only thing they’d gotten out of him so far was a fake name. Rapp knew it was fake, because Dumond had run it through Langley ’s database and come up with a dossier for Aleksandr Zukof. Everything was wrong. Age, height, weight, eye color. Everything except the black hair, and the fact that Zukof was a former employee of the KGB.

Rapp’s instinct was to pummel the big idiot for lying to him, but caution got the best of him, and he decided he should at least wait until they were back in the air. Even with the broken jaw, the Russian tried to speak. Rapp was running out of energy and patience. Brooks sensed this so she shot the Russian up with another dose of Thorazine and sent him back to la-la land. By the time they were wheels up, and pointed west toward home, Rapp was too tired to do anything other than sleep. That was over three hours ago.

Rapp unbuckled his seat belt and stepped into the aisle. The years of pushing his body to the limit were catching up to him. His lower back, his knees, his hips; everything ached. He was hit with a flash of vertigo and grabbed the leather seatback in front of him to steady himself.

Brooks was sitting in the seat, working on a laptop. She felt her seat move and looked up. “May I help you?” she said with a bit of attitude.

Rapp knew he’d been unduly hard on her, but he hadn’t decided yet if he was going to apologize. This was a hard business. The CIA in general was one thing. It was more like IBM than most people realized. But the Clandestine Service was a different thing all together. It was more like Wall Street. Timid artists and wilting flowers need not apply. If you needed a lot of positive reinforcement to motivate you to do your job, you were at the wrong place.

“Would you like some coffee?”

She stared at him for a long moment before she answered. “Sure.”

There was a small galley at the front of the cabin. Next to it were two sleeping berths. Stroble was sleeping in one, Coleman the other. Blue privacy curtains were drawn across each. Rapp quietly opened one of the metal cupboards and grabbed a packet of coffee. He dropped it in the top of the machine and pressed the green button. Rapp stretched and cracked his neck while he waited for the coffee to finish brewing. When it was done he poured two cups and brought one back to Brooks.

Brooks set her laptop on the seat next to her and took the white mug. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Rapp sat on the armrest of the seat directly across the aisle.

“You see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“What?” Rapp frowned.

“Manners…I say thank you…You say you’re welcome.”

He rolled his eyes and said, “You know, you didn’t do a bad job over the last month.”

“Whoa…slow down there, partner.” She arched her brows in a show of mock surprise. “That’s a hell of an endorsement. Is that how you’re going to write it up in my file. ‘Didn’t do a bad job.’”

“Listen, you need to understand this is not an easy job. I don’t…”

“Stop!” Brooks put her hand up cutting him off. “This isn’t about me. That’s what I finally realized. When I threw the wine in your face I was still thinking about me. I was frustrated with the way you had treated me. The way you ordered me around like a little kid. Like I was some brainless rookie.”

“I did…”

“Let me finish. You’re Mitch Rapp. The living legend…bla…bla…bla. I was really impressed for the first month. Intimidated beyond belief, and then something clicked when we were on Cyprus. It wasn’t me. It was you.”

“You’re going to have to get a little more specific.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong other than the fact that I didn’t stand up to you earlier.”

“Listen…you have a lot to learn.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with you for a moment, but you need help.”

“What?” Rapp didn’t know if he should laugh or be offended.

“My dad was a little bit like you…well, no one is really quite like you, but he was similar in the sense that he was a horrible communicator. He was a fixer. He had to do everything himself. Never thought anyone could do as good of a job as he could.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy.”

“Yeah.” Brooks stared off into space for a second. “You would have liked him.”

“He’s not around anymore?”

“No. We lost him five years ago. Massive heart attack.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks. He was a good man. Very faithful to my mother and us kids. Just couldn’t communicate for shit. What about your dad?”

“Died when I was little.”

“Was he in the business?”

“No.” Rapp shook his head. “He was a suit. Good man, though.”

“You see, this is good.”

“What?”

“Talking.”

“Talking is overrated.”

Brooks smiled and her eyes lit up. “You’ve got some issues, and you’re not going to solve them by keeping things bottled up.”

“We all have issues.”

“You really have issues. Your wife died over a year ago, and I’ll bet you haven’t talked to a single counselor about it.”

Rapp’s face turned hard. “Watch your step. You never met my wife, and you don’t know me well enough to talk about this.”

“Fuck you.”

Rapp cocked his head to the side as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I learned it from you. No bullshit, speak the truth, and get the job done. That’s you. You don’t respect people who are incompetent, you don’t respect people who waste your time, and you really don’t respect people who are intimidated by you.”

“And?”

“I’m speaking the truth and you know it. You just don’t want to admit it. Big tough Mitch Rapp can’t go see a shrink and talk about his problems because that would be a sign of weakness and the one thing you despise more than anything in others is weakness. So your solution is to repress. To bury the pain and all you’re doing is making it worse.”

Rapp dropped his head into his right hand and mumbled, “Oh…fuck. My head hurts.” He’d had virtually the same conversation with Kennedy on Christmas Eve. “Why do you women always have to psychoanalyze me?”

“Because we all secretly want to be your mother or your lover.”

Rapp lifted his face out of his hand. “Huh.”

“I’m teasing…kind of. But let’s not get off the subject. You need to talk to someone about what happened to your wife.”

“You need to watch your step.”

Brooks defiantly shook her head. “No. What are you going to do? Hit me? Throw me out off the plane? I don’t think so. You need help. You’re just too scared to admit it.”

“I don’t need any help.” Rapp stood.

“Keep telling yourself that. You might actually believe it someday.”