“Do I have your attention now?” Ruyintan said.
“Perhaps.”
The Iranian chuckled.
His laugh brought to mind the rasp of snakeskin sliding across old bones.
“I think this technology might be of interest to your friends in Iraq,” Ruyintan said, “but what happens next is up to you.”
“What do you mean?” Rapp said.
“Further discussions will be held face-to-face.”
“Where?” Rapp said.
“The Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. Tomorrow, seven p.m.”
“With you?” Rapp said.
Another raspy chuckle.
“My part in this is done,” Ruyintan said. “A coworker will handle things from here.”
“Who?”
“Azad Ashani. Do you know him?”
Farid Saeed did not.
Mitch Rapp most certainly did.
CHAPTER 14
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
IRENE Kennedy stared at her phone, unsure of which number to dial.
This was not because the director of the Central Intelligence Agency was indecisive.
While her deeply analytical mind made her a cautious person, she helmed an organization charged with lying, stealing, and cheating on behalf of the nation it served. In the rough-and-tumble world of espionage, Irene had found that the British Special Air Service’s motto of Who Dares Wins was a much more apt way of describing how she conducted business than the carpenter’s adage of measure twice and cut once. But sheer audacity was no substitute for operational planning even when it came to her most willful kinetic operative.
Occasionally, Mitch Rapp even agreed.
Tucking a length of auburn hair behind her ear, Irene put herself in Rapp’s shoes.
The best assassin to ever graduate from Stan Hurley’s school for wayward boys was not impetuous. That he’d reached middle age in a profession that favored the young spoke to something more than just his physical aptitude for violence. Early in his career, Rapp had evaded both the CIA and the French DGSE and police after an assassination in Paris went wrong thanks to an American traitor. That he’d survived the combined dragnet of one national law enforcement organization and two intelligence services was impressive. That he’d done so while fighting delirium from a gunshot wound sustained during the ambush stretched the telling to near-superhero levels.
Mitch Rapp would not go off half-cocked, but once the man settled on a course of action, he executed it ruthlessly. Irene had learned long ago that she aided Rapp most effectively by acting in a support role rather than attempting to command and control him.
But in order to help Rapp, she first had to understand what he intended to do.
“Irene, do you have a minute?”
Irene looked up from her desk to see Mike Nash standing hesitantly in her doorway.
As always, Irene was struck by the physical semblance between Nash and Mitch. Though he was five years younger and an inch shorter than Rapp, the two could have been siblings. They had same square jaw, muscular build, and overall demeanor. Mike had brown hair to Rapp’s black, but until recently the two men had also shared the same brash operator confidence.
This was no longer true of Nash.
Now the former Marine looked like a seven-year-old who’d just been caught playing with his father’s power tools. Unfortunately, this stark transformation could also be laid at the feet of Mitch Rapp.
“You’re a deputy director now, Mike,” Irene said. “I always have a minute for you.”
She smiled as she spoke, trying to soften the rebuke.
Mike had spent his entire career in the field and was still coming to terms with the notion that he was part of the head shed. Where before his interactions with the CIA director had usually been buffered by Rapp, Nash was now a member of the Senior Executive Service. The promotion was perhaps the military equivalent of jumping rank from sergeant to general—a transition that was unheard-of outside the context of war.
Then again, the United States was at war even if many of the politicians charged with governing the nation pretended otherwise.
“Right,” Nash said, crossing the threshold into Irene’s office. “The operations team tagged with monitoring Rapp’s meet experienced some technical difficulties.”
Nash stared at Irene expectantly, willing her to read between the lines.
Irene knew what her newly minted deputy was driving at, but she refused to take the bait. She understood that the former paramilitary officer felt like a fish out of water and could sympathize with his predicament. Her own transition from agent runner to management hadn’t been without the occasional bump in the road, but if Nash intended to be taken seriously by the suits who inhabited Langley’s seventh floor, he had to dispense with the timidity and start leading.
“I’m sorry, Mike,” Irene said. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
No smile accompanied her words this time.
