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Hurley swore under his breath and took a seat in front of a computer terminal at the end of the corridor. He wasn’t exactly from the digital era, and it took him a few moments with the mouse to find the right application. Finally, he turned back to Rapp.
“I’ve still got the image, but it’s not recording. You need to leave him alive, Mitch. But if you can’t, do it close range and sloppy. That way we can tell Irene he went for your gun.”
Rapp reached for the door, trying to shut off his emotions as it swung open. This wasn’t about him or his past. It was about his job and the countless people who would die if he failed to do it.
The former French Foreign Legionnaire was sitting sideways on the cell’s only cot, his back against the concrete wall. He was just a bit shorter than Rapp with longish dark hair tucked behind his ears. The bruising on his face from their last meeting had mostly faded but a line of stitches was still visible on his right cheek.
“Are you here to kill me?”
Despite being a French national, there was no hint of an accent.
“That’s up to you.”
“Are Claudia and Anna all right?”
His wife and daughter. The reason Rapp hadn’t put a bullet in the man years ago.
“What do you care?”
The calculatedly disarming smile Gould always wore faded. It seemed likely that he didn’t want to go too deeply into the subject of family—the thing he’d stolen from the armed killer standing in front of him.
“I care,” he said finally.
“When I had a gun to your head, you told me you were getting out. That you were going to be the husband and father I couldn’t be.”
“I needed the money,” he said reflexively.
“Don’t lie to me, Louis. We track your bank accounts—even the ones you thought were so well hidden in the UAE. You wanted back in the game and now you sit there and tell me you care. Did you think about what would happen if you screwed up? Did it ever occur to you that the men who hired you would go after your family? Or did you overlook that?”
He remained silent. Glaring. Inside, Rapp was daring him to get off that cot. Hurley was willing to lie but it would be so much easier if Gould really did make a move.
“Irene had to track them down in New Zealand and put them in protective custody in Greece,” Rapp continued. “If she hadn’t, your wife and daughter would be dead now.”
Gould gave a submissive nod. “Thank you.”
It was exactly the right body language and tone to stave off a confrontation that Gould knew he couldn’t win. To say the man’s reaction was calculated, though, would be an oversimplification. It was a natural facet of his survival instinct. He could become whatever he needed to be.
Many people had called Rapp a psychopath over the years, but they had no idea what they were talking about. He did what was necessary to protect innocent people from fanatics. If that threat ever disappeared, he’d put his guns in the attic and find another line of work. Gould killed for very different reasons. Money, certainly. But there was more. Like so many assassins for hire, he had a pathological need to dominate those around him.
Having said that, there was no denying the skills he possessed. The general consensus in the profession had long been that Gould was top four. And Rapp’s killing of the second best six months ago moved the Frenchman into a podium position.
“Leo Obrecht,” Rapp said simply.
“Did you get him?”
“He wasn’t a priority.”
“Until now.”
Rapp nodded.
“What do you want to know?”
The last time they’d discussed this subject, Gould had been less than forthright. It had been impossible to conduct an effective interrogation because Rapp hadn’t known anything. Now, though, the CIA had finished compiling a file on the banker. The job of teasing lies from truth would be significantly easier.
“The security at his mansion is a lot tighter than you described.”
“I told you what it was last time I was there.”
