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She was saved from having to answer by the president’s assistant poking her head in. “Sir? Director Nassar has arrived.”

Alexander stood behind his desk. “Show him in.”

Nassar looked a bit less smug and significantly more tired than the last time they’d met. He shook hands with Alexander but decided to dispense with that pleasantry when turning to face Kennedy. “King Faisal wants to know what your involvement with Mitch Rapp is and what is being done about him.”

“Could you be more specific, Director?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. His involvement with the terrorist attack in Monaco and the kidnapping—perhaps even murder—of Prince Talal bin Musaid.”

She allowed an intentionally unconvincing expression of shock to cross her face. “You’re suggesting the man in that nightclub was Mitch Rapp?”

“There’s videotape!”

“Really? And is that videotape conclusive?” she said, quoting Nassar’s own words when he’d been faced with the existence of photographic evidence that bin Musaid was financing terrorists in Morocco.

“We believe it is,” Nassar said, a brief flash in his eyes registering the insult. “We—”

“Director, why don’t we sit for a moment?” the president interrupted.

He led them to a seating area and they all settled in. Alexander should have been enjoying turning the tables on the Saudi. Instead he was calculating every possible way Rapp’s actions could blow back on him. It wasn’t lost on Kennedy that it would be far better for him if the former CIA agent disappeared forever. As Stan Hurley had been fond of saying, dead men tell no tales.

“I demand that we dispense with these games immediately,” Nassar said. “Everyone in this room knows that the man in that video is Rapp.”

“I know no such thing,” Kennedy retorted. “And even if it is, the man in that video is killing the terrorists and appears to be trying to save the prince.”

“Save him? He threw His Highness into the street, where he was gunned down like an animal!”

“Gunned down by the men in the pursuing car. Perhaps the prince was already dead. I think it’s fair to say that it would be quite disturbing to have a dead body in one’s passenger seat.”

“Disturbing? Don’t be absurd! A man like the one in that video wouldn’t be bothered by the presence of a dead body in his car.”

She just shrugged.

Nassar pulled two photos from the portfolio he was carrying and handed them to her.

“Since you’re not satisfied by the quality of the pictures captured from that video, Director Kennedy, perhaps you’ll find these more convincing.”

Each depicted a bloody corpse secured to a chair. She tapped the top one. “Ahmed el-Hashem.”

“We were very sorry to hear about your assistant ambassador’s death,” the President interjected.

“I’m sure you were,” Nassar remarked in an openly disrespectful tone. “He was tortured—likely for information—and then executed with a single shot to the head from what my people are saying was probably a Glock. The second man, Mahja Zaman, suffered the same fate.”

“Mahja Zaman?” Kennedy said. “Who is he?”

“A Saudi businessman.”

She pulled out her phone and Googled the name as he continued. It was just for show, though. She was extremely familiar with Mr. Zaman.

“He was killed at a Brussels hotel, as was one of the hotel’s security people. Further, the murderer—who fits Mitch Rapp’s description—incapacitated two more security guards on his way out of the building before being driven away by a Caucasian woman.”

“Do you have photographic evidence?” Kennedy asked.

“Rapp disabled the cameras when he killed the security guard.”

“So, a six-foot, bearded, dark-complected male in his forties. That narrows it down to about a quarter of a billion people.”

“Don’t be a fool! You know as well as I do that this is Mitch Rapp’s doing! He believed that Prince bin Musaid was involved with ISIS, and he’s interrogating and murdering men he perceives to be connected.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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