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"I would need you very close to me," Kennedy said. "As you know from your own experience, most of our decisions must be made on very short notice."
"I would love to run the Orion Team, but I'm not so sure I like the idea of working in the CTC."
"Why?" Rapp shrugged. "I'm just not all that excited about punching the clock. I know enough about this place to know that I'd end up " He struggled to find the right phrase. "I'd be stuck in meetings all day. It would drive me crazy. I'd end up telling some desk jockey to shove it up his ass."
Kennedy smiled at the delicious thought. They could' probably use a little of that around here, but she knew it wouldn't go over real well. "I'm not worried about that. Yes, you might have to keep your temper in check and watch what you say, but Mitchell, you're used to doing that. When you were undercover you couldn't just speak your mind. You had to practice restraint."
"Oh, so I should act like I'm being inserted behind enemy lines." Rapp cracked a smile. "Do you have any idea how stressful it is when I do that? I can't let my guard down for a second."
"My point is that you are surely capable of practicing a little restraint."
"I'm fully capable, but my point," Rapp stabbed himself in the chest with his forefinger, "is that I'm not so sure I want to." Turning away, he looked out the window at the gray morning sky. "I'm not sure what I want to do, period."
Kennedy studied him for a long moment and then asked in a knowing tone, "Mitch, what else are you going to do with your life?"
"I don't know." Almost as an afterthought he hearkened back to his conversation with Anna. "Maybe I'll stay at home and raise the kids."
"What kids?" asked an amused Kennedy.
"The kids I plan on having someday."
"Isn't there something else you have to take care of first?"
"Like what?"
Grinning, Kennedy answered, "Like getting married."
"Oh, yeah. I'm working on that." Rapp smiled at the thought of his plan to get engaged.
Kennedy couldn't hide her joy. Mitch deserved some happiness. "Any details you'd like to share with me?" With a smirk, he replied, "I have to share them with someone else first."
"Of course." Kennedy held the thought for a while and then, changing back to the original subject said, "Don't worry about the mundane stuff that goes on around here. I can protect you from most of it. And what I can't well you know how to handle yourself. I'm sure I'll have to smooth some things over from time to time, but that's to be expected." Kennedy changed gears and went ahead with the assumption that Rapp had nowhere else to go. At least nowhere else that would provide the same challenges. "I'll start you out with an annual salary of sixty thousand, and you'll get another hundred and fifty for running the Orion Team. Tax free, of course, and deposited into your offshore account."
Rapp nodded. Money wasn't the overriding issue, but it was at least nice to know he'd be taken care of. "What would my official position be?"
"I'm working on that. We could easily put you in the CTC as an analyst, but I'd like to give you something with a little more clout. Possibly special assistant to the DCI on Middle Eastern affairs."
"I still need to think about it. When would you want me to start?"
"Today," Kennedy said with a straight face.
"That's not going to work. I need some time to take care of a few things, and Anna and I are going to Italy for seven days."
This was not good news to Kennedy. She stood and walked over to her desk. Grabbing a videotape, she returned to the sitting area and put it into the VCR. With the remote control in hand she stepped away from the TV and pressed play.
On the screen a woman stepped from an elevator and started down the hallway. Rapp had already watched the tape a dozen times. The woman looked innocent enough, shoulder length blond hair, a little taller than average, her figure concealed by a roomy sundress. Bangs and large tinted glasses obscured her face, and she was careful to keep it directed away from the security camera. She was a pro. Halfway down the hall the woman stopped and knocked on an office door. The building was Funger Hall, l
ocated on the campus of George Washington University. The door was opened. You couldn't see who she was visiting, but both Rapp and Kennedy knew it was Peter Cameron, the man who had tried to have Rapp killed in Germany.
Kennedy pushed the fast forward button and sped through a section of the tape where the corridor was empty. Suddenly the blond-haired woman reappeared in the hallway and went in the opposite direction toward the staircase. Just as she reached the fire door, almost on cue, the elevator doors opened and two men stepped into the hallway. The woman briefly glanced over her shoulder. Kennedy froze the tape and zoomed in on the face.
"Any idea who she is?"
Rapp stared at the grainy image. He remembered the whole thing very well. It had been less than two weeks since he'd stepped off that elevator with Scott Coleman. They had only moments' earlier discovered the identity of the man who had failed to kill Rapp in Germany and then attempted to lure him into a trap at his own home. The man was Peter Cameron, and by the time Rapp and Coleman made it to his office he was dead. A sharp object had been shoved through his ear and into his brain. Cameron's death had been extremely painful, but quick.
In response to Kennedy's question about the girl, he shook his head and said, "No." It was a lie. He knew the second they found Cameron's dead body who she was. The way she moved, the way Cameron was killed, it all pointed to one person. Her name was Donatella Rahn and Rapp owed her much.
"I'm having Marcus run a search on her against known assassins."
