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“Probably better for us.”
“No doubt. And I have even more good news. We found Colonel Wasem’s body and Bazzi’s backing up our story that it was an accident. Apparently, he couldn’t stand that asshole.”
“And the bad news?”
“That’s a longer list. One of the fissile material containers was breached by a door gun. Not ideal, but nothing that can’t be taken care of by removing and disposing of a few thousand tons of sand. The main site is a whole other story. We’re still trying to figure out how far the radioactivity has spread, but because of the wind it’s going to be pretty bad. Best-case scenario, the cleanup is going to cost three quarters of a billion dollars and reduce the area’s oil production by ten percent for the better part of five years.”
“Tell the Saudis to write a check. What about—”
“Hold on. I’m not done. The Team Four chopper that went down had no survivors and the Pakistanis are already up our asses to get what’s left of their fissile material back.”
“Now are you done?”
“Yes.”
“What about Azarov?”
“Nothing yet. We’re only using choppers if we have to because of the weather and we’re only using ground patrols if we have to because of the radiation. You said the guy looked like he was bleeding pretty badly and that’s a whole lot of desert out there. My guess is that he’s dead and buried in the sand by now.”
Rapp didn’t respond other than to adjust the ice pack on what had once been the bridge of his nose.
“But, if I’m wrong, don’t worry. We’ve got other lines on the guy and after this clusterfuck we’re pretty confident he’s not going back to Russia. We’ll find him.”
Rapp turned and started toward a line of military vehicles near the west end of the compound.
“Where are you going?” Nash said. “We’ve got a meeting with the Saudis in five minutes.”
“Handle it.”
“They’re expecting you. What do you want me to tell them?”
“Tell them to go fuck themselves. I’m heading home.”
CHAPTER 58
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
U.S.A.
RAPP gunned the Charger, barely making it through the dark intersection before the light turned red. He’d hopped a military transport out of Riyadh and spent the last fifteen hours lying on top of a bunch of flak jackets in the back. Now that he was finally in the last five minutes of his trip home, those minutes seemed to be stretching out forever.
His phone rang and he patched it through the car’s anemic sound system.
“Hello, Irene.”
“I hear you’re back in the States.”
“Yeah. About a mile from my apartment.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s gone, Mitch.”
“What’s gone?”
“The apartment. We emptied it and it’s been rented. You need to turn around and go home.”
The inflection was impossible to miss. “My house is done?”
“I think Claudia’s still working on the punch list, but yes. It’s done.”
