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Rapp never flinched, never wavered for a second. He was only ten feet away when Sharif finally looked up. Rapp gave him a friendly nod and then raised his right wrist to look at his watch. A split second later his left hand slid between the folds of his jacket and found the grip of the Beretta. He swung the gun up, the holster acting as a sling, the blue fabric of his running jacket bulging just slightly.
Rapp's finger was prepared to squeeze the trigger when he changed his mind. He wanted to look into Sharif's eyes. He wanted to confront the man. The two men locked eyes for a second. Rapp smiled at him, and then changed directions, took two steps, and casually sat down on the bench next to the arms dealer. Rapp leaned forward and jabbed the end of the silencer into Sharif's ribs.
A look of panic washed over the Turk's face. His mouth was agape, the mobile phone held in his right hand a half foot from his face. A man's voice could be heard squawking from the tiny speaker. Rapp elevated the silencer a few inches and squeezed the trigger. The bullet pierced the fabric of the running jacket, leaving a small hole, and then a millisecond later it shattered the cell phone. Sharif let out a yelp, dropped what was left of the phone, and clutched his bloody hand.
Rapp jabbed the silencer firmly into the man's ribs and in a menacing voice said, "How do you sleep at night?"
"What?" Sharif asked in total confusion.
"You heard me, you piece of shit. How do you sleep at night? Do you think of all the innocent people you've helped kill? Do you think of their faces?" Rapp poked him hard with the silencer. "Do you think of their final seconds ... how they react when a bomb goes off in the cargo hold of a 747 at thirty-one thousand feet?" Rapp saw the recognition and then fear in the man's eyes.
"I don't know what you're--"
"Shut up," Rapp commanded. "I know who you are, and I have no desire to listen to your lies."
"But--"
This time Rapp jabbed the silencer so hard into the man's ribs that Sharif let out a small cry. "I only want to know one thing," Rapp said. "Do you ever think about them? Have you ever felt an ounce of guilt over all the people you've helped kill?"
Sharif shook his head slowly and parted his lips to speak.
Rapp didn't want to hear his lies. He squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet into Sharif's chest. The Turk grunted and clutched his chest with both hands. Rapp stood, lifted his right arm again, as if he were checking the time, and squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession. The bullets spat from the end of the silencer, all three of them striking the arms dealer in the nose. The hollow-tipped rounds were designed to pancake on impact and triple in size. A pink mist exploded from the back of Sharif's head. A good portion of the man's brain was now in the bushes behind the bench. Rapp flipped the safety into the up position and moved off down the path without even the slightest bit of remorse.
CHAPTER 23
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
THE Counter Terrorism Center was tucked away in the basement of the Old Headquarters Building at CIA. It was underfunded, understaffed, under decorated, underground, and pretty much isolated from all the major players in the building by both geography and attitude. Eight diligent souls worked there, and that was counting an overworked administrative assistant and Irene Kennedy, who was loosely attached to the group as an expert on all things Arab and Islamic.
Kennedy had spent her youth moving from one diplomatic post to the next, all of them in the Middle East and all of them save one in Arabic-speaking countries. Her father had diplomatic credentials but in fact worked for the CIA. Kennedy was reviewing a particularly bad translation that had been kicked downstairs by someone on the intel side of the building. The translation was so poorly done that Kennedy finally sat back and looked at her colleague Andrew Swanson. The tall, blond-haired Dartmouth grad was leaning against the wall of her cubicle tugging at his curly hair. He'd been up all night trying to make sense of the intercept.
"You keep pulling your hair like that and you'll go bald," Kennedy said without looking up.
Swanson pulled his hand away and tried to stand still. After a half minute he couldn't take it any longer and said, "The thing doesn't make any sense."
"That's because the translation is wrong." Kennedy scratched a few more notes in the margin.
"I knew it."
Kennedy closed the folder and tapped it with her pen. "I'm going to need the tape."
Swanson groaned in frustration. "Shit."
She looked at the designation on the folder. "What's the problem?"
"It's frickin' NSA."
"I see that."
"I'll be lucky if I get the tape before the Fourth of July."
Kennedy grabbed a Post-it note and wrote down a name and number. She stuck it to the front of the folder and handed the whole thing back to Swanson. "Call Kathy. Tell her I said she owes me and ask if she can messenger the tape over this afternoon."
"And if she tells me to get in line like everyone else?"
Kennedy's phone rang. She looked at the small, rectangular, monochrome screen and saw that it was Stansfield's extension. "She won't. I promise. Now run along and bug someone else. I need to take this." Kennedy grabbed the handset and said, "Good morning, sir."
"Good morning. Would you please come upstairs. There's something we need to discuss."
