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"If I had brought my idea to Stan he would have called me a moron and told me to shut my mouth."
The young recruit was probably right. "Stan is very good at this type of thing. This is not his first dance."
"So I've been told," Rapp said, unimpressed.
"You have some problems with Hurley, I hear."
"Who doesn't?"
The point was more accurate than not. "Still ... he has a lengthy resume."
"I'm sure he does, but the entire thing was more complicated than it needed to be. The whole idea here is that we are supposed to get in, get it done, and get out without anyone noticing we were there. If we'd stuck with Stan's plan, we would have followed the guy around for five days and come to the same conclusion that was right there in the Brit report, and our odds of screwing up somewhere ... being noticed ... would have increased fivefold at least."
He was probably right, but Stansfield didn't tell him so. He would have to deal with Hurley later. "When did you read the report?"
"When I got to the safe house."
"That first night."
"Yes."
"And you decided that night that you would handle it on your own?"
"No ... I saw the possibility, that was all."
"And when you decided to go to the park armed the next morning?"
"I thought there was a chance. I wanted to see with my own eyes and then decide."
"But when you left the safe house you were prepared to kill him if the opportunity presented itself?"
Rapp hesitated and then admitted the truth. "Yes."
Stansfield took a sip of the coffee and slowly set the mug on the table. "Any other reason why you chose to act on your own?"
"How do you mean?"
Stansfield gave him a knowing grin. "I was your age once ... a long time ago. I was asked to do certain things for my country, and until I actually did them, I wasn't sure I had it in me."
Rapp looked down and studied the pattern in the gray-and-black carpeting. It was not in his character to be this open with someone he'd just met, especially on a subject like this, but there was something about this guy that made it difficult to be anything but forthright. "I wanted to kill him," he finally said.
"Revenge?"
Rapp shrugged his shoulders in a noncommittal way.
"Remember ... we recruited you for a reason. I know what you went through. I know how you were affected by Pan Am Lockerbie."
"Revenge, justice ... I don't know. I just know when I left for the park that morning I wasn't sure, and then as soon as I laid eyes on him I wanted to kill the bastard. I was sick of all the planning and talking. It made no sense that it had to be so complicated."
Stansfield took off his glasses and looked at Rapp with his gray-blue eyes. "Any other reason that may have pushed you over the edge?"
Rapp looked at the carpeting again. He hadn't even admitted the next part to himself. At least not fully. Without looking up he said in a soft voice, "I was afraid I wouldn't have the guts to do it."
With the understanding of someone who had walked the same path, Stansfield gave him a sympathetic nod. It had been a long time since Stansfield had killed a man, but he remembered the doubt that gnawed at him until he pulled that trigger for the first time. "How do you feel now?"
"How do you mean?"
"Now that you have taken a human life?"
