Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(104)

“You look like shit.”

“Fuck you. How are the guys?”

“Good. Wick’s just down the hall bouncing off the walls. He didn’t catch it, but they want to keep him for another week to make sure. Mas made it over the border and he’s home with a broken hand and a dislocated shoulder. Bruno’s still in Mexican prison, but the diplomats say they’ll spring him in the next couple of days. Doesn’t really matter. The head of the most powerful gang there died in a freak drowning accident involving a toilet and Bruno’s hands around his throat. Word is he’s pretty much running the place.”

Rapp just nodded as a broad grin spread across Coleman’s face.

“He was there, you know.”

“Who was where?”

“We tracked those calls from Halabi to somewhere near Hargeisa. They’d been holed up in a cave system there. By the time we found it they’d already taken off, but we had heavy overhead coverage and the Agency guys were able to run the timeline backward and piece together their movements from satellite photos. It wasn’t easy. The weather was crap and the convoy kept breaking up and reforming.

“Is this story going somewhere?”

Coleman’s grin widened further and he slapped a color eight-by-ten against the glass. The lighting was garish, a powerful flash in the darkness that illuminated a bearded man with part of his head missing. Rapp lifted himself off the pillows, forgetting the lines attached to him and locking on the image of Sayid Halabi.

“Don’t worry,” Coleman said. “I told him it was from you.”





EPILOGUE


ARLINGTON

VIRGINIA

USA

CHRISTINE Barnett used a key to unlock the office she kept in the southern wing of her Georgetown home. It was her private sanctum—a place that even her husband was prohibited from entering on the rare occasion he was in town. And now she needed it more than ever.

Barnett had barely slept in weeks, instead lying in bed hovering somewhere between dream and reality. Endless scenarios, dangers, and opportunities raced through her mind. The faces of allies and enemies floated in the darkness. She had lost control of her universe for the first time in her career and didn’t know how to get it back.

Over the past weeks her poll numbers had plummeted enough to put her in a dead heat with her nearest primary challenger. Dramatic video of Mitch Rapp fighting his way across the border and then being surrounded by the army was still on every channel. The homeland security agencies she’d spent so much time railing against were now being deified by the American public.

Suddenly heroism and patriotism were generating better ratings than personal attacks and partisanship. The rage and negativity that she’d used to fuel her rise through the political ranks was faltering. The American people were looking for something new.

But what?

Kevin Gray wasn’t returning her calls, and without him, her campaign’s damage control strategy had never fully formed. More important, though, were his meetings with the FBI. She still hadn’t been able to find out why he’d been interviewed or what had been discussed. It seemed unimaginable that he would have said anything about the leaks. He was smart enough to know that punishments for such things tended to be doled out to people on his level, not hers. But could she be sure of that?

No.

Her quest to become president was no longer about her thirst for power or the immortality that would accompany being America’s first female president. It was about survival. She needed the full support of her party, the White House’s ability to manipulate the press, and the authority to remove Irene Kennedy and her loyalists. Once ensconced in the Oval Office she would be untouchable. Until then she was vulnerable.

An increasingly familiar sense of fury and helplessness began to rise in her. She tried to swallow it, knowing that she wouldn’t sleep at all that night if it hit full force. Six hours of staring into the darkness wasn’t something she could afford. Her day started at 5 a.m. and wouldn’t end until after midnight. During that time, she couldn’t put a single foot wrong. One ill-considered word, one awkward pause, one unguarded facial expression . . . That’s all it would take to put the White House forever out of her reach.

She sat down behind her desk and flipped on the lamp, squinting against the glare to take in the opulent room. As her eyes adjusted, they were drawn to something unusual in a rocking chair near the wall.

“Late night,” Mitch Rapp observed.

Her body tensed and she drew in a breath to scream, but it got caught in her chest. His hair was close cropped and his normally full beard was short and neatly trimmed. The dark eyes were sunken and bloodshot, but still carried the intensity she’d grown to hate over the years. For some reason, though, it wasn’t his stare that made the bile rise in her throat. It was the surgical gloves covering his hands.

She swallowed and finally managed to get out a panicked shout. “Help! Come up here now!”

The pounding footsteps of Secret Service agents on the stairs didn’t materialize. All she could hear was her own breathing and the creak of the antique chair Rapp was rocking in.

“I didn’t slip by them,” he said. “They let me in.”

Barnett remained frozen. This couldn’t be happening. Even Mitch Rapp wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t kill one of the front-runners in the U.S. presidential election.