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“Oh…well, I’m sorry to have been such a burden. I hope no one around here got any paper cuts while I was out getting shot and stabbed.” Rapp turned his head to the side and pointed at the thin scar that ran down the left side of his face.
“Don’t,” she yelled at him. “Don’t play the martyr with me. I have always respected your sacrifice. That is not what this is about. It’s about you being so bullheaded, and sure of yourself, that you just go and do whatever the hell you want whenever you want.”
“I’ve managed to do just fine on my own.”
“Yes, you have. But let me warn you, Mitchell, your luck is running out. You’re starting to piss people off. The fervor that we need to wage this war on terror is already waning. It won’t be long, another two to eight years, and the liberals on the Hill will be back in charge, and mark my words, they are going to launch a witch hunt like we haven’t seen since the Church hearings. They are going to tear this place apart. That’s what National Intelligence is all about. That was the deal they struck. They’re going to use it to run roughshod over the Agency. To make sure cowboys like you are properly supervised and kept on a short leash.”
“Well, then you’ll be surprised to know that it was Senator Hartsburg who advised me to go pay Director Ross a little visit.”
Kennedy regarded him warily.
“That’s right,” Rapp continued, “so while you’re sitting here dithering about what’s happening on the Hill, I’ve got one of the most liberal senators in this whole town telling me the best way to handle Ross is to go light him up face to face.”
“You talked to Senator Hartsburg about this?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Call him.”
Kennedy glanced at her phone, hesitated a second, and then asked, “Why in the world would you go to Hartsburg on something like this?”
“The man’s seen the light. He’s on our side. Ross was the junior senator from New Jersey. Hartsburg pushed him on the president, so I figured now that he and I are such close friends, I’d ask him to give Ross a nice yank on his leash and get him to back off Coleman.”
“And?”
“He told me I should go pay him a visit and make him pee down his pants leg.”
Kennedy frowned. “You’re not serious.”
“Damn straight. Those were his exact words. He told me to do exactly what I did. Said Ross was well aware of the fact that the president was in my corner, and he’d back off the second I confronted him with it.”
“And how did Ross react?”
She was fishing for information. Which meant that whoever told her that he’d met with Ross did not give her the specifics of the meeting. Up until this point Rapp had been pretty sure it had been Ross himself who had called Kennedy. Rapp assumed he reamed Kennedy a good one. And if that was the case, Rapp was raring to go pay Ross a second visit. “He didn’t tell you himself?”
Kennedy shook her head.
“Who told you?”
“I’d prefer not to say.”
This was the problem with two career spies. Neither wanted to give an inch.
“If you want me to tell you how the meeting went, you’re going to have to tell me who told you.” Rapp crossed his arms and waited. He was prepared at this point to walk out of her office rather than give her any more information.
Kennedy thought about it long and hard and then finally said, “Jonathan Gordon called me this morning.”
“Gordon?” Rapp said in a slightly surprised tone. He’d guessed wrong on him. “What did he tell you?”
“Only that he was sorry that the whole thing had to happen. When I asked him ‘what thing’he realized I had no idea what you had been up to. I think that was actually the reason why he called. He wanted to figure out if I had sent you over or if you were acting on your own.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I had no idea that you’d had a meeting with them. He said he really wouldn’t have called it a meeting. I asked him to elaborate, and he said it would be better if I got the story from you.”
“Nothing else?” asked Rapp. “No mention of the Coleman thing?”
