AllFreeNovel
Share Us
9
CHESAPEAKE BAY, MARYLAND
R app sat in a worn leather chair, his mutt, Shirley, at his feet and a pen in his left hand. He’d been writing furiously for the past hour, page after page, idea upon idea. Many were crossed off, others were circled and connected like some strange flow chart. The dry birch in the fireplace crackled and popped as he jotted down his sixth page of notes. At least as many pages had already been torn from the pad and thrown on the pyre. He was not writing down his thoughts for the sake of keeping a record, but rather to help play out the potential pitfalls of the job that lay ahead. The opportunity he had been given was fraught with potential problems, but the prospects were impossible to resist. Like everything else he did, the key was to not get caught. The difference this time, though, was that everything was on a much bigger scale. Instead of targeting individuals, he would be targeting groups. The expanded operation needed to be approached like a battle plan—looked at from every vantage point, and then tested and retested to make sure he hadn’t missed something. And there could be no hard copy of anything. That’s what Thomas Stansfield had taught him.
The deceased former director of the CIA was famous for not carrying a pen, and was known to admonish subordinates who took notes during high-level meetings. He liked to tell his people, “We’re in the business of collecting secrets, not giving them away. If your mind isn’t sharp enough to remember what was said, you’re in the wrong line of work.”
Stansfield didn’t really fear America’s enemies. He respected them for their tenacity and despised them for their ruthlessness, but he always knew capitalism would defeat communism. What Stansfield feared were the opportunists on Capitol Hill, the politicians who eagerly awaited any chance to take the stage and act out another drama. They were the real enemy. The enemy from within. Men who could ruin your career and reputation with one theatrical sound bite. Stansfield had many maxims and one of them was that it was impossible for a man with an inflated hubris not to have an Achilles’ heel.
Rapp had heard a rumor once that Stansfield used a network of retired OSS and CIA people to run surveillance on key senators and colleagues. These were men who had fought alongside Stansfield against the Nazis, and then the Russians during the height of the Cold War. Men who hadn’t lost an ounce of their conviction, and were bored with retirement. Men who were happy to practice their trade on such easy targets. The files that Stansfield had amassed were rumored to be extremely damaging. They were his insurance policies against those who chose to put their own careers ahead of national security. Rapp made a note to talk to Kennedy again about their old boss’s files and a separate note to take out a similar insurance policy.
Stansfield’s other precaution involved eliminating any paper trail. When conducting operations that ran afoul of the American legal system he liked to tell those around him, “Notes are the noose that will be used at your execution. If possible, record nothing, and burn everything.”
Rapp took those words to heart and many others that the WWII vet had handed down. Stansfield had been a member of the famed Jedburgh teams that were infiltrated behind enemy lines in Norway and France in order to collect intelligence and harass the Nazis. That was exactly what Rapp planned on doing. They needed to adopt a more multipronged attack. Direct action, assassination, seizing funds, placing pressure and demands on states that were less than vigilant in the fight, that was all fine, but to truly confuse and harass the enemy would require a full-blown clandestine operation. An operation that only Rapp would know the full extent of.
He tore off another sheet, crumpled it in his hand, and tossed it into the fire. Not even Kennedy would be fully briefed on what he had in mind. It was time to knock the enemy off balance and get them to doubt themselves. Get them to turn on each other. An extension of what they’d just done in Canada. Expose the pious hypocrites for who they were. Undermine the authority of the zealots and get them to think they had spies in their own camp.
Shirley lifted her head from the rug and a second later Rapp heard a noise outside. He checked his watch, as Shirley ran over to get a look at the source of the noise. It was a little before eight in the evening. That would be his wife returning home after one of her marathon workdays. As the NBC White House correspondent, she started her days early with the morning news and ended late with the evening news. As long as nothing dramatic was going on at the White House, the middle of her day tended to be pretty easy. She usually took an hour to work out and was not afraid to take lo
ng lunches that usually involved shopping. Rapp didn’t think it possible for one woman to own so many pairs of shoes, handbags, outfits, necklaces, and anything else to do with fashion, but then again he’d never known anyone quite like Anna. She was the most beautiful “bag lady” he’d ever laid eyes on. The closet in the guest room was overflowing with purses designed by people with foreign names that he’d grown to think of as fashion terrorists.
He’d asked her once the price of one of the bags and she replied a bit defensively, “I don’t ask you how much your guns cost, do I?”
Rapp had responded that unlike her, he used his guns more than once, and unlike the purses, the guns tended to stay in style for more than a season. He remembered being very proud of himself right up until she gave him that look. Anna Rielly had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. They could be as calm and enticing as a mountain lake on a hot summer day and as angry and violent as a rogue wave bearing down on an unsuspecting boat. Her father once told him it was her Irish temper. Whatever it was, Rapp liked receiving the first look and dreaded the second. It didn’t take long for him to figure out that his wife didn’t think him anywhere near as funny as he found himself. He’d also learned that winning these little skirmishes with witty lines inevitably led to him getting his ass kicked in the major battles. This conclusion brought about a new creed: When Anna was happy, he was happy. When Anna was mad, life was less than fun. When Anna was mad at him, life was miserable.
Rapp glanced over his most recent page of notes and stabbed his pen at a certain line, tapping it over and over. He heard the key in the door but didn’t look up. He could tell by Shirley’s soft bark and the excited tapping of her paws that it was Anna. Tomorrow morning he had a meeting with Kennedy, and he wanted to get this figured out before she began dissecting his operational plan. He heard the handle turn and looked up in time to see his wife enter with her large, striped Kate Spade shoulder bag. It was the only bag she used on a regular basis, which was a good thing, because it cost more than any handgun he owned—even the custom-built ones. In her other hand was a purse and a shopping bag.
“How was your day, honey?” he asked.
“Fine.” She dropped her large bag on the floor and stuffed the shopping bag in the front hall closet.
Rapp shook his head. He could tell by the pastel color of the bag that whatever she had bought wasn’t for him. “Got a little shopping in?”
“No.” She took off her jacket and gave him a wry smile. “Kill anyone?”
“Not today, honey, but I’ve got a few hours left. What’s in the bag?” He pointed toward the closet. Rapp wasn’t going to let her lame attempt at hiding her habit go unnoticed.
She was already halfway into the living room. She stopped and gestured at the front hall closet. “That bag?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I called you two hours ago. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
Changing the subject was the first sign of guilt. He knew because he did it all the time. “I’ve been working on something.” Rapp pointed at the legal pad on his knee. “What’s in the bag?”
“Did you forget that we had a meeting tonight with Philip?”
Philip was their interior designer. A confused expression fell across Rapp’s face. “I didn’t know we had a meeting tonight.” Even as he said it he began to have a faint recollection of some such thing.
She put her hands on her hips. “For a spy you’re a terrible liar.”
Rapp felt the table being turned. “Anna, I’m not lying. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t say you didn’t know. It’s on the calendar,” she pointed to the kitchen. “I told you before I left this morning, and I left you a message on your phone an hour before the meeting.”
Now he remembered. “Oh, that meeting.”
She gave him the look.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. They were building a house in Virginia, just outside the beltway on two very private acres, and it had become a full-time job that he didn’t have the time for. “What did I miss?”
“Carpet selections. That’s what’s in the bag, by the way.”
