The Survivor

CHAPTER 10

Mitch Rapp gunned his Dodge through the underground parking garage, finally pulling into an empty spot labeled DAVID SANDERS. He had his own designated space, but never used it. The Charger was weighed down with a lot of armor but not enough to park beneath a sign with his name on it. Better to choose one at random. He assumed that when the people whose spaces he took saw his car, they just found a spot in the outdoor lot, but he’d never bothered to find out. All he knew for certain was that no one had ever been stupid enough to lodge a complaint.

Rapp activated the elaborate car alarm that a friend of Marcus Dumond had installed and walked briskly up the ramp, avoiding eye contact with the people he passed. Once inside Kennedy’s private — elevator, he relaxed a bit. He hated coming to Langley. About half the people working there — the sensible half — used any available excuse to scurry away when they saw him coming. The rest wanted to slap him on the back and drone on about what an honor it was to work with him. The only thing he despised more than people recognizing him was being touched.

“Is she alone?” Rapp said as he entered the director’s suite. All three of Kennedy’s assistants were on the phone, but one gave him an energetic nod and motioned toward her door. Rapp banged on it a few times before entering.

Like her assistants, Kennedy was on the phone, but she stood and offered her cheek to Rapp. He gave it a quick kiss and then dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk. She looked like she’d finally gotten some sleep. The dark circles beneath her eyes had faded, but the deep lines at their edges remained.

She wrapped up her call and slid a manila folder toward him. “I’m sorry to drag you out here, but I thought you’d want to see this.”

He pulled out two eight-by-ten photos taken in low light. The first was immediately recognizable — the naked corpse of Abdul Zahir wired to a chair. Judging by the lack of damage to his body and face, he hadn’t been interrogated. Someone had simply cut off one of his hands and then smashed him in the side of the head with a blunt instrument.

No great loss to the world. Zahir was a violent, backstabbing piece of human refuse even by terrorist standards. Unfortunately, he had been an occasionally useful violent, backstabbing piece of human refuse.

The second photo was of a man lying on a dirt floor with about a third of his face missing. The combination of the damage and his thick beard made it impossible to ID him.

“Who’s this?” Rapp said, holding up the photo.

“That is your friend Abdul Qayem.”

Rapp looked down again at the man who was responsible for sending the better part of an Afghan police precinct to kill him. “Are we sure?”

“Our people did a digital comparison with photos we have on file. Ninety-nine percent.”

“And who sent us these?”

“They’re a peace offering from Ahmed Taj.”

Rapp threw the eight-by-tens back onto her desk in disgust. “Amazing how quickly he was able to track Qayem down when it was suddenly in his best interest.”

“I don’t think we should jump—”

“Where were they?”

“He says his people caught up with them in a small village in Afghanistan.”

“And the ISI went in personally instead of calling in a drone?”

“He said they wanted to take Qayem alive so he could be questioned.”

“That worked out well,” Rapp said sarcastically. “Ten bucks says Qayem knew too much. Maybe it wasn’t just Durrani who ordered that hit on me. Maybe it went higher and people at the ISI didn’t want me to catch up with him.”

“It’s something I’ve considered.”

“Well, then I’ve got another ten bucks that says he was inside Pakistan. Probably Lahore. The S Wing is moving more and more terrorists into the cities to give them cover from our air strikes. About all that’s left in the countryside are the groups that they can’t get a handle on. We kill the people who are a danger to them and then they publish pictures of the aftermath to whip up anti-American sentiment.”

“Ahmed and President Chutani are trying to get control of the ISI.”

“And I’m supposed to feel good about that?”

She held up a hand. “Right now the only thing that matters is that, for better or for worse, Qayem is dead. That leaves Leo Obrecht as our only window into the Rickman situation.”

“So?”

He knew that Kennedy could have just emailed those images to the Farm. But she hadn’t. That meant she had something on her mind other than Qayem. Something that demanded a face-to-face meeting. It wasn’t hard to guess what it was.

She reached for a mug at the edge of her desk and took a sip from it. Twinings Earl Grey, he knew from the dossier he’d created on her when he was just starting out. When she was under a lot of stress, she went with the decaf version.

“Where do you stand with Louis Gould, Mitch?”

“I haven’t killed him yet, if that’s what you mean.”

“Do you think he can help you get to Obrecht?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he’s good. Even by your standards, yes?”

Rapp didn’t answer.

She held the cup in both hands as though she was trying to warm them. “I’m sorry, Mitch. I don’t want to have this conversation any more than you. But if we don’t do something, the situation is going to get worse. Good people are going to die.”

“He’s a sociopath, Irene. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone but himself.”

“Sometimes sociopaths aren’t that difficult to control. You just give them what they want.”

“Yeah. But what exactly is that?”

“His life? To be returned to his family?”

Rapp wasn’t so sure, but he’d already decided he had no alternative to bringing Gould in on this. What he was in no mood for, though, was sitting around the seventh floor talking about it. He stood and started for the door.

“I’m going down to see Marcus. If you get anything else from Rickman, you know how to reach me.”