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“And anyone else he deems a threat.”
“Are you thinking of anyone in particular?”
“Mitch.”
“Mitch Rapp,” said McMahon. “What in the hell does Ross have against Rapp?”
“It’s a long story,” said Kennedy, not wanting to answer the question. “Cap, I know you have a plane to catch, so cut to the chase.”
“I think it would be a good idea to bring in a fresh set of eyes on this.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean you’d like to let the bull into the china shop and see what he breaks?”
“Oh, that’s a tempting visual, but it’s not what I had in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of an assassin’s assassin. Someone who knows the ins and outs of this world.”
“It’s not a bad idea.”
What Baker and McMahon didn’t know, and what Kennedy was not about to tell them, was that she already had Mitch Rapp on the case. She had known about the mystery man in the red hat for almost a month, and Rapp and his team had been working quietly to find out who he was, and more importantly, who had hired him.
3
LIMASSOL, CYPRUS
H e was six inches taller than her and ten years older. “I think you should kiss me,” she said softly.
Mitch Rapp ignored her and watched the door to the café across the street.
“If we were really lovers you wouldn’t be able to take your hands off me.” She slid her chair closer to his and placed a hand on his thigh. She ran her hand through his long black hair. Streaks of gray were coming in on the sides. For three straight weeks she’d studied him. She knew every wrinkle and scar and there were quite a few of the latter. Some visible. Some buried in his psyche. She had no proof the mental scars were there, but they had to be. No body lived the type of hard life he’d lived and came out unscathed.
She lifted her sunglasses off her nose just enough to reveal her hazel eyes. They were more green than brown, which she thought might be part of the problem. His ex-wife—no, that wasn’t right, his deceased wife—had the most stunning green eyes. Cindy Brooks made the mistake of calling her the ex one night and he’d made her sleep on the floor. Brooks had been with the Agency for only five years, and she considered it a huge honor to work side by side with a living legend like Mitch Rapp. At least she had when she was first given the assignment.
“Listen, hard-ass.” Her words were harsh but hushed. The expression on her face was pure feigned adoration. “You handpicked me for this. I’m supposed to be your wife. We’re on our honeymoon. When people are on their honeymoon they kiss a lot, they talk, they hold hands…they act like they love each other.”
“Your point.” Rapp turned toward her, but kept his eyes on the café. He was wearing a pair of black Persol sunglasses that allowed him to see out, but no one else to see in.
“No one is going to believe our cover because you keep acting like I don’t exist.”
“People fight on their honeymoon all the time.”
“We fought yesterday.”
“We were in Istanbul yesterday. None of these people know we were fighting.”
“I’m sick of dealing with your foul mood.” She took her hand off his leg and leaned back. After a moment the smile on her face disappeared. “Fighting it is then.”
Brooks stood with such quickness that it surprised even Rapp. Her chair tumbled over and she put her hands on her hips. “My mother,” she yelled, “told me I shouldn’t marry you!” She reached out and grabbed her glass of wine from the table.
Rapp looked up at her from behind his sunglasses. His jaw tight with tension, he whispered, “Sit down! You’re making a scene.”
“I know I’m making a scene!” she yelled. “I want to make a scene! You’re an ass.” Then with a great flourish she took her wine, doused Rapp’s blue polo shirt and khaki pants, and stormed off down the street.
Rapp sat there motionless. The people at the surrounding tables all looked on in amusement. It had been a bad year. The worst year of his life. He went to bed every night blaming himself for her death, and woke up every morning hoping it had all been a nightmare. But it wasn’t. The unborn baby she was carrying, the
other children they would have undoubtedly had—a lifetime of dreams and memories gone in an instant and he never saw it coming. That was the other problem. The thing that ate away at him from the inside out. He had let his guard down. He had allowed her to change him, to give him hope that he could be something different. Something other than a killer.
He supposed there was a chance she would have succeeded in changing him, but it was small. His was a vocation that was very difficult to walk away from. Especially with so much on the line. He was unwilling to let go of his past. There was always one more job, one more operation to handle. She’d told him to let someone else man the ramparts for a while. He’d seen the younger guys, though. He’d even helped train a few of them and they had a lot to learn before they were anywhere near as good as he was. At thirty-nine he was at his peak. His knees and back were not what they once were, but he still had no problem keeping up with the rookies, who in some cases were nearly half his age. The years of experience were what really made the difference.
If he could do it all over again, the decision would have been easy. He would have given it all up for one more day with her. The hunt for her killers was the only thing that got him through the first nine months. After that, he’d tried pills for a while. At first they worked. At least they helped him sleep. But after a month they started to make him crazy, so he threw them all away. That was when he dropped out. He flew to Paris, made a stop in Switzerland, and then disappeared for two months. He drank profuse amounts of alcohol and went on an opium binge in Bangkok that lasted for a week. He even slept with a couple of women along the way, but the brief flings only worsened his guilt. Finally, in late October, he woke up one early evening in his hotel room in Calcutta and turned on Sky News. That was how he heard about the attack on the motorcade. He looked at his puffy red face and bloodshot eyes in the mirror and knew he had reached the tipping point. He either went back to the States and got back to work, or he would drink himself to death. Rapp was a lot of things, but nothing more so than a survivor.
