Rapp retrieved the missile from Ruyintan’s body, balanced it on his shoulder, and started toward the crashed helicopter and Derek.
In spite of everything, he began to smile.
For once in his life, Stan Hurley had been wrong.
You could save the day with only a half-empty pistol.
EPILOGUE
NORTHERN VIRGINIA
SIX WEEKS LATER
IRENE Kennedy watched her son thunder across the lacrosse field.
Though he had a preteen’s lanky awkward appearance, Tommy’s performance wasn’t that of a kid still in braces. While she was far from an aficionado, Irene’s interest in lacrosse had increased in proportion to her son’s. She wouldn’t be offering coaching tips anytime soon, but Irene had sat through enough games to know that her son was something of a savant. If he kept up the effort, Tommy would probably be able to attend college on an athletic scholarship.
This was not a development she, or Tommy’s academic father, had foreseen.
For a moment, Irene was lost in the cadence of the play as her focus narrowed to just her boy and the opposing goalie. Spinning around two defenders, Tommy broke free and opened up a line to the goal. His stick snapped and the ball rocketed toward the net. Irene found herself on her feet, screaming in a manner not commensurate with her position as director of the world’s most important intelligence agency.
The rubber ball clanked off the post, and the moment was gone.
“Shit,” Irene said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“You’re starting to sound like a soccer mom.”
Irene turned to see Rapp standing beside her. She offered her cheek to be kissed but kept her attention on the field.
The game wasn’t over.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s not polite to sneak up on people?”
“I didn’t sneak,” Rapp said. “I checked in with your security detail and stomped my feet the whole way. You were too entranced watching Tommy take a shot on the goal to notice.”
“Rack,” Irene said. “It’s called a cage or a rack.”
“Very good,” Rapp said with a laugh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were enjoying yourself.”
“Of course I’m enjoying myself,” Irene said. “My son’s on the field.”
“Better get used to that,” Rapp said. “Tommy’s got the gift.”
Irene let Rapp’s words wash over her, surprised at the feeling of warmth they engendered. But as tempting as it was to bask in the joy accompanying the summer day, Tommy’s success, and Mitch’s unexpected appearance, she tempered the feeling. The man standing next to her might be a close friend, but he was also one of her most valuable employees.
An employee who’d been incommunicado for the last six weeks.
“Haven’t seen you around the office lately,” Irene said.
If anyone else had said the same words, Rapp might have become defensive. Since she’d been the one to speak them, he just nodded, acknowledging the observation in the same spirit with which it had been offered.
“Been busy.”
“I’ve noticed.”
The entire Middle East had noticed.
Irene hadn’t been overly surprised when FAIRBANKS had turned up dead. The financier had American blood on his hands, and his assassination had been officially sanctioned by the CIA and White House. Rapp had never been one to let an authorized killing gather dust.
But other jihadis began to follow suit.
Lots of them.
Iranian Quds Force officers, Hezbollah operatives, even a couple of Iraqi Shia militia members. Though none of the killings bore the signature of an American-sponsored assassination, taken in toto, even a fool could discern the message behind the string of killings.
And the Iranians were not fools.
There was just one problem—she hadn’t ordered the hits.
“Have the right people gotten the message?” Rapp said.
Irene thought about her answer.
Though they did their best to treat her otherwise, the parents of Tommy’s teammates knew that Irene was not just another lacrosse mom. The men and women who worked and lived in the national capital region were perhaps less impressed with security details than their countrymen who populated the so-called flyover states, but Irene was not another minor cabinet member. She was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and one of the administration’s most recognizable faces. As such, her fellow lacrosse moms and dads tended to afford Irene a certain amount of space, especially when hard-looking men or women engaged her in hushed conversations.
Men like Rapp.
After verifying that no one was within earshot, Irene turned back to Mitch. “Moradi has followed in Ashani’s footsteps by opening a diplomatic back channel with me. The specifications for the missiles’ guidance system were part of the first batch of intelligence he provided. It’s some sort of acoustic cuing system. I’m told the scientists at Redstone Arsenal are already hard at work engineering countermeasures.”
