“It’s Rapp,” Nash said with a sigh. “He ended communication with the team.”
“How do you know?” Irene said.
“Because the CCTV camera feed we hacked showed him dropping his earpiece into his coffee.”
This time Irene suppressed her smile for a different reason.
She loved Rapp like a brother, but he was without a doubt the most stubborn human being she knew. Rapp was never obstinate just to be difficult, but when it came to helming operations, he tolerated no second-guessing. As someone who’d worked alongside the operative for years, Nash should know this.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say Nash did know this and therein lay the problem. During the preoperational brief, Nash had presented a request from the tech team to try out the hacking software and a new low-profile comms system on an active mission.
Rapp’s mission.
Irene understood that the ask was partially driven by operational need, but she suspected that the vehemence with which Mike advocated for the request stemmed from a desire to show his new constituency that he wasn’t just another knuckle dragger who would automatically defer to his former comrades. Irene appreciated the mindset but thought Nash’s approach was poorly executed.
There were missions and then there were missions.
Rapp had made his bones stalking targets across Europe. As the times and target sets had changed, he’d made adjustments to his modus operandi and now employed a team of sorts. But this all came with the caveat that once a target package was approved, Rapp had the final say on how the hit was executed. With this in mind, Irene had expected Nash’s request to go down in flames.
Here again Rapp had surprised her.
After listening to his friend speak, Rapp had agreed with one large asterisk—as the man on the ground, he reserved the right to terminate surveillance for any reason. It appeared that her top counterterrorism operative had exercised this prerogative shortly before his encounter with Ruyintan.
“Sounds like something you need to take up with Mitch,” Irene said.
Nash nodded, his puppy-dog eyes hardening.
When Rapp had first suggested that Nash transition from the clandestine to the white side of the business, Irene had gone along for the ride. On the surface, the proposition killed two birds with one stone. It gave the press, and more importantly the American people, a genuine hero and rallying point for the war on terror. But more importantly, it arrested Nash’s noticeable downhill slide and probably saved his marriage. Now, almost two years after the transition, Irene found herself contemplating something she almost never second-guessed.
Her judgment.
“I know, I know,” Nash said, his tone contrite, “but I’m still trying to understand how the new organizational chart plays out in real life.”
Irene paused.
This was an aspect she hadn’t considered. Yes, Nash was Rapp’s boss on paper, but anyone who had even a passing relationship with Mitch Rapp knew that no one told the world’s best clandestine operative what to do. Nash had a point. It was difficult to exercise your authority if you didn’t know where its boundaries actually lay.
She had herself to blame for this lack of clarity.
“I understand,” Irene said, “and I appreciate that this is new territory. Going forward, I want you to assume that you and Mitch are peers. Try to work out your differences without my intervention. If that’s not possible, I’ll play referee. Okay?”
“Sure,” Nash said.
“Good,” Irene said, “because I need your expertise.”
“On what?” Nash said.
“Rapp.”
CHAPTER 15
“HOLY shit,” Nash said.
Irene wasn’t one for the casual use of profanity, but in this case, she agreed with her deputy’s assessment. In some ways, Rapp was the equivalent of a stealth bomber. He penetrated the enemy’s defenses and serviced targets too well protected for any other weapons system. But with this incredible capability came equally large problems when things went south.
And things had definitely gone south.
“From an operational perspective, you know him better than anyone,” Irene said, drawing Nash back into the conversation. “Given what’s happened, what will he do next? I need to prep the president and respond to the events in Afghanistan. But first, I need to understand what Mitch is thinking.”
The pair were in the seating area of Irene’s office. She was a bit of a minimalist, and this was reflected in her office’s décor. Rather than the extravagant settings favored by many of her foreign counterparts, Irene made do with one long couch set with its back to her office’s window, a rectangular, glass coffee table, and four chairs, two across from the couch and one at each end of the coffee table.
Nothing had changed from the previous discussion besides their location, but Nash’s transformation was remarkable. Now that they were discussing operational versus personnel issues, the Marine’s confidence had returned. It was this man rather than the mouse who had hesitantly entered her office earlier that Irene needed. The old Nash was still in there. It was Irene’s responsibility to draw him out.
“Rapp’s course of action is obvious,” Nash said. “He’ll go to Afghanistan.”
“Even if that means losing his shot at FAIRBANKS?” Irene said with a frown.
Nash nodded, seemingly oblivious to his boss’s doubt. The Marine’s gaze lingered over her shoulder, but Irene doubted Nash was admiring the picture of Tommy on her desk.
His mind was in Pakistan.
“Rapp plays the long game,” Nash said. “He got to FAIRBANKS once. He’ll be able to get to him again. Rapp will view this as a postponement, not a cancellation. Making his terminal list is the equivalent of a stage-four cancer diagnosis. You’re going to die. It’s just a question of when.”
Irene refrained from commenting on the morbid analogy.
The clandestine service from which Rapp, and until recently Nash, hailed was staffed with hard men and women expected to do hard things. Besides, Nash was right. When it came to snuffing out the enemies of his nation, Rapp was relentless. Irene thought of another analogy that was perhaps better suited to describing an encounter with her top assassin—playing Russian roulette with a bullet loaded in each chamber.
Sometimes miracles happened and people survived cancer.
