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Brooks looked up to see Special Agent Skip McMahon enter the small reception area. He was a big man with an even larger presence. He looked Brooks over from head to toe, frowned, shook his head, and then looked at the director’s gatekeeper.
The diminutive woman sitting behind the desk said, “Good morning, Skip. Go right in. She’s expecting you.”
McMahon mumbled something unintelligible and entered Kennedy’s office closing the heavy door behind him with a thud.
Brooks looked down at the floor and wondered how she had let Rapp put her in this situation. Here was a man she’d been ready to strangle with her bare hands less than forty-eight hours before, and now he had talked her into putting her entire career on the line. He was Mitch Rapp, though. An honest-to-god, living, breathing legend. He had Kennedy’s ear, he had saved the president’s life, and it was said that Hayes would do anything for him. She’d worked with him in the field, one of the few covert operatives at Langley who could make such a claim. Even if it was more like watching him than working with him, the experience was invaluable. Rapp promised her that while things might be uncomfortable for a day or two, in the end she would want to be on his side. They’d found the man responsible for the attack on the motorcade, and they were going to go public with it. The CIA was actually going to get some credit for a change.
With her entire career ahead of her, Brooks thought this sounded like a pretty good deal. She would forever be linked to an important manhunt even if all she did was act like arm candy for Rapp. At least she thought it all sounded like a pretty good deal. Now she was starting to wonder. Special Agent McMahon had been predictably upset when Brooks had delivered the prisoner to him at Andrews Air Force Base. He’d been expecting Rapp, and he’d been expecting more than a shot-up, drugged man on a stretcher. McMahon must have asked her ten times where Mitch was, and every time she told him she didn’t know. And the truth was she didn’t. Brooks had left Andrews and returned to her apartment in Alexandria for the first time in almost a month. She turned off her phones, just as Rapp had told her to do and laid down for a nap. He’d told her all the action and lack of sleep would catch up to her and she would sleep like a baby. He was right again. She took a six-hour nap. When she woke up it was dark and her message light on the home line was blinking. She turned on her Agency-issued mobile phone, the one that she had been told in training to never turn off. There were thirteen messages. Each one was progressively worse. It started with her supervisor, then his boss, and then her boss and Jose Juarez, the deputy director of the Clandestine Service. He stated very clearly that he expected to see Brooks in Director Kennedy’s office at 7:00 a.m. on Monday or her relationship with the CIA would be terminated.
Brooks found the use of the word terminate very unsettling. Especially when uttered by the head of the Clandestine Service. Interestingly enough, though, Rapp had predicted all of this. Even the 7:00 a.m. meeting. Brooks was turning all of this over in her mind when Jose Juarez came marching into the reception area.
Juarez was six feet tall with thick black hair and an even thicker black mustache. Born in Honduras, his parents immigrated to America when he was nine. Juarez graduated from high school in Miami and joined the Marine Corps. After four years of exceptional performance he was accepted into Officer Candidate School. Shortly after he had accepted his commission, the CIA discovered him and borrowed him for a little conflict they had in Central America in the mid-eighties. Juarez had performed so well the CIA offered him a permanent position.
Brooks had never served in the military but she jumped to her feet upon seeing the spy boss. Juarez’s jacket was already off, his top button of his white button-down shirt was already undone, and his sleeves were rolled halfway up his arms. He marched straight for Brooks and stopped two feet away, his thick black eyebrows scrunched into a frown.
“What in the hell is your problem?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t…”
“I don’t want to hear you’re sorry. I asked you what your problem is.”
“Sir, if I may. Rapp told me…”
“Is Mitch Rapp your boss?” Juarez barked.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Sit your butt back down.” Juarez pointed at the chair. “If the director wants to see you, I’ll let you know. My advice is that she fire your ass and ask the FBI to investigate you.” Juarez turned around and went back to the reception desk. He stuck out his hand and said, “Sheila, pad of paper and pen please.” When the receptionist had given him what he wanted Juarez marched back to Brooks and said, “You may want to update your résumé.” He dropped the pad and pen in her lap and then entered Kennedy’s office.
Brooks looked down at the yellow legal pad and then up at the two stone-faced sentries. The receptionist finally acknowledged her presence by saying, “That Mitch Rapp is a real charmer, isn’t he?”
Brooks looked at the woman. She was approximately fifty. A little overdone. Hair a bit too red, and makeup a bit too heavy.
“Excuse me?”
“Didn’t you spend a month in Europe with him?”
“It was hardly a vacation.”
The woman smiled and said, “I’ll bet.”
Brooks looked down at the blank piece of paper, her mind struggling to reconcile the severity of the situation with this older woman’s lustful fantasy. Brooks was way out of her league, without any sign of this thing turning out well for her. Sure, Rapp would be fine. He was Mitch Rapp. He had a career of successes he could point to, but she was just some little peon who would be labeled an insubordinate malcontent for the rest of her career. How could Rapp have possibly expected her to withstand this kind of pressure?
26
WASHINGTON, DC
Stu Garret exited the Willard lobby onto Pennsylvania Avenue and turned immediately to his left. It was five to seven in the morning. He was tired and crabby. A night owl even as he approached sixty, Garret didn’t like to get out of bed before 9:00 or 10:00 if at all possible. But this morning he couldn’t sleep. There was simply too much on his mind. He needed to make a call. A gust of wind hit him square in the face and he swore out loud as he clutched for the fur-lined hood of his puffy down jacket.
“Six more days and I’m done with this shit hole,” he grumbled to himself.
Garret pulled the hood over his head and zipped the jacket all the way up under his double chin. Born in Detroit, he left when he was eighteen and never returned. He hated the weather, and the people. Detroit was for losers, and Garret wasn’t afraid to tell that to people. Especially his clients. The place was a shining example of how unions and special interest groups could come together to suck a city dry by driving off its tax base.
Southern California was the place to be. San Diego in particular, where Democrats were liberal on social issues only. Fiscally, they were as conservative as any northeastern Republican. The people who flocked to San Diego sunk their money into real estate. Very expensive real estate. They had worked too hard for their money to watch property values plummet due to the governance of a few bleeding-heart liberals. Abortion, gun control, and the environment were all hot-button issues across America, but in San Diego real estate was the big overarching issue. People’s entire life savings were tied up in their homes, and after living in sunny San Diego, retiring to Arizona or Florida made no sense. Garret couldn’t wait to get back to San Diego and his toys.
Garret took quick strides and kep
t his head down. His retainer for the campaign had been a million dollars. That was just for him. He was a one-man gun for hire. Stu Garret, the political savant. By the time the campaign was over he’d burned through the retainer plus another million. On top of that his contract called for a million-dollar bonus if they won. Garret was flush with cash. He’d now managed two separate presidential campaigns and won both. Candidates across the country were reaching out for his advice. He’d even received a few calls from abroad. He was at the top of the heap. People were lining up to hand him large retainers. For the first time in his career he considered bringing someone else on board.
