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Anna pressed her body up against his and pinned him to the counter. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his ear. “Why don’t we go upstairs and have a little fun? I think being pregnant makes me frisky.”
Rapp wavered for a second as the pleasure part of his brain scrambled to come up with a position that might work. The pain part of his brain screamed at him to ignore any such thought. The knee simply hurt too much so Rapp smiled awkwardly and gently pushed her away. “I don’t think I have time. I’ve got to shower and get moving.”
Anna took another step back and closed her robe. “You’re a liar, Mitchell.” Flashing a fake smile, she asked, “Do you want me to call a doctor and make an appointment, or will you be man enough to do it yourself?”
He hesitated, trapped in his lie. “I’ll take care of it,” he offered weakly.
“No, you won’t,” she said as she finished tying her robe. “I’ll call Liz. She and Michael know the best orthopedic surgeon in town.” Anna grabbed the phone to call her best friend. “Morning or afternoon?”
Rapp looked down at his knee. It was starting to swell. “You’d better see if he can get me in this morning.”
33
DEALE, MARYLAND
G ould took the front wheel off the mountain bike and lifted the back hatch of the Ford Explorer. The bike went in first and then the wheel. Claudia was sitting on a nearby park bench wrestling with another wave of nausea. Gould consulted his watch. It was 7:36 in the morning, and what had started off as a promising day was now an unmitigated disaster. He looked over at Claudia with an anger that he usually reserved for people who had threatened him. They were at the city park and there was no one around, but still this was not the place to have this conversation. Her illness had already brought them enough unwanted attention.
He yanked her bike off the ground and flipped the release for the front wheel. The bike was light but even so, Gould tossed it around like it was a kid’s trike. He’d purchased both bikes the evening past at yet another massive sports superstore across the highway from the hotel they’d found in Bowie, a suburb of DC. There were a few motels and bed and breakfasts closer to Rapp’s, but they didn’t offer enough anonymity. Gould already imagined Rapp calling the handful of bed and breakfasts near his house to see if a couple fitting their description had checked in. He was just that type of man, Gould supposed. Very thorough. Gould was not one to come unnerved, but meeting Rapp had sent a chill down his spine that he hadn’t felt since he’d been surrounded by an angry mob of machete-wielding Hutus in Rwanda while he was serving in the Foreign Legion.
The man had been less than a mile from his home, the one place where Gould expected to find him with his guard down, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Gould hadn’t even noticed him at first. He was helping steady Claudia. She had started to feel queasy as they approached Rapp’s house, but the first wave passed so they continued on. They had made it to his house and then turned around and were on their way back to town. That’s all they had planned on doing—a simple drive-by. Gould wanted to get the lay of the land and confirm what his eyes could only guess in the dark of night. He also wan
ted to explore the possibility of making it look like an accident. The German was offering an extra million dollars, and while Gould wasn’t crazy about the added risk, he would at least give it consideration. Claudia pulled over abruptly about a half mile past Rapp’s house and began throwing up. At this point Gould was still calm. They had seen both cars in the driveway, and it was before 7:00 in the morning. Claudia would get this over with in a few minutes and they would move on, no one the wiser to their presence.
The last thing Gould had expected was to come face-to-face with his quarry. Then Gould heard something and looked over his shoulder, and there in the flesh was Mitch Rapp. He had gotten very close, too close, and had done so without intentionally stalking Gould. It was supposed to be the other way around. His only saving grace were the sunglasses that covered his eyes. Eyes were by far the most difficult feature to change. Behind the shield of tinted glass, Gould watched Rapp’s every move with keen interest. He saw how the American’s left hand remained poised just above the pack he wore around his waist. Gould had zero doubt what was concealed in the pack, and he also had zero doubt that Rapp could draw and fire the weapon in the time it would take most people to blink. He also knew it was almost a certainty that Rapp would hit his target.
While the chance encounter was not something that Gould would have preferred, everything up to this point was manageable. Rapp had seen him, but thanks to loose-fitting clothes, the helmet, and the sunglasses there really wasn’t much to go on. Rapp asked him a question and Gould was forced to answer. Still, everything was fine. Gould spoke such flawless English that there was no way for Rapp to glean that he was French. Then Claudia decided to open her mouth and ruin everything.
They got in the truck and drove back to the hotel in silence. Claudia reclined her seat as far as it would go and covered her eyes. When they got to the hotel they entered through one of the side doors. Claudia dropped onto the bed with her workout clothes still on. She kicked off one shoe and then the other. She let out a moan and covered her head with one of the fluffy pillows.
“Close the curtains, please,” she said from under the pillow.
He yanked the fabric shut with such force that he practically pulled the whole thing off its rails.
She cracked one eye and lifted the pillow. “What are you so upset about?”
He stopped his pacing and stared at her. “Why in the hell did you open your mouth back there?”
“Back where?”
“On the street. In front of Rapp.”
She pulled the pillow down and muttered something.
“What in the hell were you thinking?”
“I was sick. I didn’t even know it was him.”
“Do you realize what the stakes are? Do you have any idea what you did by speaking back there?”
“You are overreacting,” she groaned.
“The hell I am. If we fail, you don’t think he’s going to remember that couple he ran into one early morning? The woman with the French accent, and the man she was with?”
“He didn’t see our faces.”
“He didn’t need to. All he needs to do is put out a general physical description of us and then stipulate that the woman was French. How many male/female teams do you think there are?” He stared at her waiting for an answer that he never got. “Not a lot to start with, but add the fact that he now knows the woman is French and he’s narrowed the search down to only a few people.”
“Then let’s quit. Let’s just walk away from it and keep the German’s money.”
