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“I have Waldvogel flying over with him. He’s going to tell him I was forced to make other travel arrangements.”
“And if he digs?”
“The Brits wanted to meet with me about something.”
“And if he checks with the Brits?”
“He’ll find out that I had breakfast at the British Embassy this morning.” Kennedy’s eyes narrowed, revealing tiny wrinkles.
“He could probably verify that if he wanted to.”
“And he can go right ahead.”
“We’re having breakfast at the British Embassy?”
“That’s right.”
“May I ask why?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.”
They rode in silence for a while and then Stansfield wrote, “You need to convince Mitch to talk to me.”
“I can’t even get him to talk to me.”
Stansfield tapped the pen on what he’d already written.
“I know. I’ve been trying to figure something out, but he doesn’t exactly trust us at the moment.”
“He’s going to have to start, Irene, or I’m going to be left with no other choice.”
She took him to mean that he would issue a kill order. She’d seen it done before. A dossier would be put together, a price would be determined, and then the usual suspects would be contacted. Certain assets within Langley would also be used, but this type of stuff was usually handled with outside contractors. Rapp was good. He could probably last for a year or two, longer if he was willing to undergo plastic surgery, and there was a better than fifty-fifty chance that he would eliminate the first man or two who were sent to deal with him. She was suddenly reminded of what Dr. Lewis had said to her only a few days earlier. If there comes a time where you need to neutralize him, you’d better not screw up. Because if he survives, he’ll kill every last one of us.
The thought sent shivers up Kennedy’s spine. What if she’d already lost control of Rapp? What if Victor was telling the truth? She refused to believe it. She knew better than anyone. He wasn’t just another one of Hurley’s heartless killers. She needed time and she needed to convince Stansfield. Lewis could help with the latter. Looking at her mentor, Kennedy said, “I need you to talk to our good doctor this morning. He has some observations you need to hear.”
“In regard to what?”
“Who.” Kennedy grabbed the pad and pen and wrote down Victor’s name.
“Fine,” Stansfield said. He knew what was going on here. His two chief lieutenants were both going to champion their men. He should have never let it get this far. There was too much bad blood between Rapp and Bramble. He should have cut one of them loose a long time ago, and despite the current evidence against Rapp, it was Bramble whom he would have dumped. He was Stan’s man, though, and what Stan wanted he almost always got. Unfortunately, what Stan wanted right now was a dead Mitch Rapp.
Stansfield stretched his legs and leaned against the door’s armrest. He couldn’t allow his personal bias to interfere. Rapp was far more likable. Bramble was an obtuse brute, but he had his purposes. If Rapp didn’t come in and tell him exactly what he’d been up to, Stansfield would be left with only one choice. He would have to order the execution of perhaps his best operative.
CHAPTER 37
THE crane moved the heavy magnet into position and then the cable was played out and the rusty steel disk dropped until it was a few feet from the van. The magnet was turned on and the rear tires of the van levitated off the ground until the roof was pinned against the steel disk. The power was increased and slowly the front end, weighted down by the engine, began to inch upward. When the roof was firmly immobilized to the underside of the magnet, the big diesel engine on the crane revved and belched black smoke and then the thick steel cable moaned until it had the van twenty feet off the ground and swinging toward the industrial-sized compactor.
Bramble watched as the van was not so gently placed inside the three-sided metal box. The magnet disengaged, leaving the van in place, and moved clear. Steel jaws swung into place above the van and the crushing began, top to bottom first for a few feet and then the sides. It went back and forth like that for several minutes. When the van was finally smashed into a four-by-four-foot cube, Bramble noticed a red liquid leaking from the base. It was expected. There were two bodies inside, after all. Th
ere should have been three, but Borneman had been lost along the way.
The man next to Bramble held out his hand and said something in his gruff native Serbian tongue. Bramble didn’t understand a word of any of the Slavic languages, but he didn’t need to. They had an agreement and the man wanted to be paid. Bramble had already counted the money, twenty-five hundred dollars in advance and twenty-five hundred when they were done, and the guy was going to throw in a piece-of-shit two-door Renault that he would drive back to Paris.
Bramble had wiped the prints from his gun and left it in the van to be crushed with all the other evidence, the bodies, the surveillance equipment, and most important, the recording of him shooting the man he thought was Rapp. It had all appeared to be going perfectly. Rapp was dead, and he’d dealt with Borneman and McGuirk. All of that he could have explained to Hurley. They were pulling out when Rapp ambushed them. He killed Borneman and McGuirk and then Bramble jumped in and put a bullet in the back of Rapp’s head, end of story. But then those two Frenchies showed up. Bramble still had no idea who they were. More than likely cops, or maybe French Intelligence, either way it wasn’t good. Bramble was still proud of the shot. He bet there weren’t more than a dozen men on the planet that could have hit that first guy square in the face, as he had. They’d been stupid in how they came after him, no cover, and they were standing too close together. In Bramble’s mind they had gotten what they deserved.
Bramble handed the man the rest of the cash, and the dirty mutt gave him the keys to the Renault. In his broken French, Bramble did his best to convey the fact that he’d be back in two days, and if what was left of the van wasn’t melted down he’d be sticking some people in the compactor. He’d never come back, of course, but Bramble only knew of one way to conduct business—threaten.
Limping, Bramble walked across the yard toward his subcompact piece of shit. He folded himself into the driver’s seat, inserted the key, and gunned the little four-cylinder engine. The car was a stick shift and under normal circumstances Bramble wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but he had a bullet hole in his right calf and a bullet lodged in the brawny triceps muscle of his right arm. Driving one-handed was not possible, so he engaged the clutch, bit down hard, and jammed the stubborn stick shift into first gear. The bald front tires spun on the gravel and then bit, and the car lurched forward, Bramble acutely feeling every bump and pitch.
