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“Are you going to ask for an investigation?”
“I’m going to leave that up to the attorney general and my former colleagues on the Hill.”
“Is it safe to say that your administration will be looking for a new person to run the CIA?”
Ross liked the ring of “your administration.” He could get used to that. He looked at Rich with a very serious expression and said, “Director Kennedy and Mitch Rapp should make sure their résumés are up to date.”
Rich smiled as he wrote down the exact quote. When he was done he pulled out his mobile phone and checked the time. It was 4:51 in the afternoon. Looking at Ross he said, “Excuse me for a second. I need to call my editor and tell her to hold a spot on the front page.”
Ross nodded and kept his delight in check. The article would cause a feeding frenzy. He only wished that he could be there to see the expression on Kennedy’s face when she read it.
39
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Rapp was cruising down Georgetown Pike in a rented white van at five miles an hour over the posted speed. It was almost 7:00 in the evening, which meant he was late for his meeting with Kennedy. He wasn’t crazy about getting together in her office, but she’d insisted. What she had to show him could not leave the building. That bit of information got Rapp’s imagination working overtime. It also helped him make up his mind that he would transfer Milinkavich to Dr. Hornig.
After a long afternoon of Milinkavich changing his story over and over and sobbing like a child, Rapp decided that he didn’t have it in him to interrogate the man properly. Coleman couldn’t stand being in the presence of Hornig, so Rapp rented another van and drove the Belarusian himself. The drive from Baltimore to an off-budget CIA facility in Northern Virginia took longer than expected, and then Hornig wanted to talk. She wanted to know every intricate detail of the subject. Rapp told her what he had discovered and handed over audiotapes of the interrogations he’d already conducted, and left as quickly as he could.
He turned off the Pike and approached the main gate of the CIA. Normally a rental car would cause problems, but the security officers recognized Rapp and after a speedy check of the cargo area, he was waved through. Rapp parked in the visitors’ lot near the main door and hustled up the steps and into the lobby. Straight ahead to the right were the security desk, metal detectors, and turnstiles. Rapp hung his badge around his neck and stayed to his left, walking past the undersized statue of Wild Bill Donovan, who was more or less the patron saint of the CIA. Just past the statue Rapp turned left into a small vestibule and then to his right up a couple steps to a small landing. Directly in front of him was the director’s private elevator. Rapp grabbed his badge and held it in front of the scanner. A moment later the door opened and he was on his way to the seventh floor.
The outer office was empty of all support staff. Even Kennedy’s bodyguards were nowhere to be seen. Rapp knocked on the heavy office door twice and then entered. Kennedy was behind her desk with the phone to her left ear and twirling her reading glasses in her right hand.
Kennedy gave Rapp a slight smile and said to the person on the other end of the line, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. He’s standing right in front of me.”
Rapp mouthed the words, Who is it?
Kennedy let her chair spring forward. “Hold for a moment please.” She hit the hold button on the black phone and looked up at Rapp. “It’s Tom Rich from the Times.”
“Little fucking traitor. What does he want?”
“The Times is running a story on us tomorrow. He’d like to give us a chance to comment.”
Rapp checked his watch. It was 7:04 in the evening. They’d be putting their East Coast Edition to bed pretty quickly. “What’s the story about?”
“Basically that you grabbed the wrong guy on Cyprus. Justice, the FBI, State, the Greek government, they’re all mad at us and you and I are out of a job next week and may be facing formal charges.”
“What did you tell him?”
“No comment.”
“Good.”
“He also said he heard you were AWOL. Possibly had fled the country to avoid prosecution.”
“He’s making shit up.” Rapp pointed at the phone. “Put him on speaker.”
Kennedy hit the blinking button and said, “Tom, I have Mitch Rapp here in my office. Anything you’d like to ask him?”
“So you’ve come in from the cold?” The reporter’s voice sounded amused.
Rapp had met Rich once before at a social function. Rapp’s deceased wife had introduced them. She was NBC’s White House correspondent and the two ran in the same circles from time to time. “What a surprise. I would have never guessed a big lefty like you to be a Le Carré fan.”
“He’s my favorite. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold… it doesn’t get any better than that, and besides you know I’m independent. Like all good reporters, I know how to keep politics out of the story.”
“Yeah, right.” Rapp noted the levity in Rich’s voice. Like all egocentric reporters he was probably already working on his Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech.
“Listen, I’m kind of short on time, but I was wondering if you would like to comment on a story that I’m working on for tomorrow’s paper?”
