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Rapp folded his arms across his chest. He saw no reason to lie. “She thinks you could be useful. If you help us get Obrecht, she wants me to put you on retainer and send you home.”
Another slip in his mask, this one more obvious. It was an offer that any sane man would take. Stay aboveground, be reunited with his family, and continue in the business he needed to feel alive. The question was, just how sane was Louis Gould?
Rapp pulled the door behind him open.
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer, instead stepping silently into the hall. Hurley turned and looked at him, an expression of mild disappointment on his deeply lined face.
“What?” Rapp said. “You told me not to kill him.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d listen. I freed up the next three hours for cleaning his brains off the wall. Now what am I going to do with my afternoon?”
“Hey!” Gould shouted as the door clanged shut. He ran up to it and peered through the open slot three-quarters of the way up. “Come on, guys, don’t leave me like this. I’ve been in here forever. The boredom’s killing me. You got a magazine? A newspaper? I’ll take anything.”
Hurley grabbed a Washington Post and shoved it through the slot before sliding the hatch shut. “Now shut up.”
He looked at Rapp. “I could turn the fire sprinklers on in there. We could say it was a malfunction.”
“No. Leave him alone. Give him some time to think about his options.”
“Suit yourself. In the meantime Irene wants to talk to you.”
“She’s here?”
Hurley shook his head. “Her office.”
“She wants me to go back to Langley? I was just there this morning.”
“Insisted on it.”
Rapp let out a frustrated breath but then managed a shrug. “I hear Marcus is having trouble with the map we’ve got him working on. I guess I can use the trip to straighten him out.”
• • •
Screw you very much, you old geezer.
Louis Gould gathered up the papers scattered across the floor, keeping his expression passive for the cameras.
By all reports, Stan Hurley had been quite a badass back when people still told time with a sundial. Now, instead of playing bingo at the nursing home, he got to play the tough guy. How big a man would he be without that steel door between them and Mitch Rapp backing him up? He’d be peeing in his diaper.
Gould retreated to his cot with the newspaper and began leafing through it, making sure he displayed nothing but bland interest despite the adrenaline Mitch Rapp’s visit had sent coursing though him.
Rapp was the pinnacle. Most people had become resigned to the fact that he was unkillable. Gould was one of the few people on the planet who had tried and lived to tell the tale—and even he had to admit that he’d been lucky. Twice.
Rapp wasn’t just unkillable, he was in many ways unstoppable. Gould kept track of whatever details were available about the CIA man’s hits, and there were a couple that even he couldn’t figure out. One in Damascus in particular. The takedown had been vaguely doable but getting out alive afterward seemed impossible. Everything he knew about this business, which was more than just about anyone, suggested that Rapp should be getting picked over by buzzards somewhere near Syria’s border with Lebanon.
Gould spent the next few hours reading every story in the paper Hurley had provided in case he was asked about them later. Not that it was at all likely, but he hadn’t lived this long by not being thorough.
Finally, when every other section was piled on the cot next to him, he turned to the pages that had been his target the entire time: the classifieds. Going straight for them would have been suspicious and he maintained his bored expression as he leafed through them.
Based on the increased security Rapp had mentioned, Leo Obrecht knew the CIA was after him. That Swiss jackass had undoubtedly thought that getting involved in framing Rapp for corruption would make for a nice ego trip. Now he’d be hiding behind his guards, sniveling like a little girl and looking for a way out.
Obrecht would have detailed reports on what had happened in Kabul and that meant he knew Gould was being held by the Agency. His degenerate little mind would come to the conclusion that the CIA might try to recruit Gould to help them get their hands on his old -handler. And in that, he would see an opportunity.
On the third page, Gould found what he’d been searching for—-a familiar logo printed in the corner of an ad for a personal assistant. He glanced up at the camera bolted near the ceiling and sagged a little farther into the cot before starting to read.
The candidate must be ready to fill the position immediately. Work will be done primarily at the owner’s home in Switzerland. Personal and work history will be verified through Interpol. We are looking to take the most obvious route to finding a good fit. The successful candidate can expect a salary of 150,000 euros. Please send resumes to [email protected]
