Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(46)

Now, though, it all seemed ridiculously inadequate. At this point his best-case scenario was that Sayid Halabi had weaponized anthrax and that Rapp was number one on his hit list. Worst-case was . . . What? Sayid Halabi was a terrorist piece of shit, but it would be a mistake to deny that he was a brilliant and ambitious one.

So now Rapp had biofilters in place and the already confined space had been turned claustrophobic by boxes of provisions stacked to the ceiling. Still, he only had enough to keep the three of them fed for five months and his goal was six. So much for the shower. And he might have to give up the minigun. It wasn’t the most mobile or practical weapon in his arsenal and took up a lot of space. Having said that, there were some problems that could only be solved by six thousand rounds per minute.

He heard footsteps above and reached for a beer while Claudia came down the ladder.

“You here to help?”

“I don’t think I’m qualified,” she said. “But I know a very good psychiatrist who is.”

“Funny.”

“Every reasonable report I’ve seen says that the anthrax isn’t a large-scale threat, Mitch. I agree that he’ll try to target you if he can, but it looks like you’re preparing for the apocalypse down here.”

Rapp took a pull on his beer. “I don’t trust him. Anthrax is easy to produce. He could have hired a third-year biology student to make it. But he didn’t. He took Gabriel Bertrand. My gut says there’s more to this than the anthrax.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that the U.S. isn’t ready. If Halabi’s figured out a way to hit us with something big—something biological—what’s our reaction going to be? The politicians will run for the hills and point fingers at each other. And the American people . . .” His voice faded for a moment. “They faint if someone uses insensitive language in their presence and half of them couldn’t run up a set of stairs if you put a gun to their heads. What’ll happen if the real shit hits the fan? What are they going to do if they’re faced with something that can’t be fixed by a Facebook petition?”

“Then what are we doing here, Mitch? I have a house in South Africa that no one knows about. Let’s go there. Make a life for ourselves and never come back.”

“What are you talking about?”

There was a glint of sympathy in her eyes that bordered on pity. Like she was talking to a child who’d lost his favorite toy.

“The country you love is gone, Mitch. Christine Barnett is going to be the next president and she hates the CIA. She hates you.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but she kept talking. “Look at yourself. You’re not twenty-five anymore. You’ve been stabbed, shot, blown up. And nobody cares. Everything you’ve done, everything Irene’s done. Barnett sees your success and the loyalty people have to you as a threat. She’ll drag you in front of congressional hearings and twist your words and actions. Politicians who’ve never sacrificed anything for America will question your patriotism. Their followers will post lies about you on the Internet and the Russians will amplify them. Then the media will smell ratings and join in. They’ll call you and Irene traitors and cowards and demand that you be prosecuted.” She waved a hand around the room. “How is your fancy bunker going to protect you from that? Halabi doesn’t need to kill you or anyone else. He just needs to keep fanning the flames that have taken hold here. Then you’ll destroy yourselves.”

“That was quite a speech,” Rapp said when she finally fell silent. “Been practicing long?”

She ignored his jibe and dropped onto a box of dried pinto beans. “This is a battle you don’t know how to win, Mitch. For the first time in your life, it’s time to retreat. Let’s go so far away that you’ll be forgotten. You’ve earned that.”

“Listen to what you’re asking, Claudia. You want me to let myself be run out of my own country by a politician and a terrorist.”

“It’s over!” she said, the volume of her voice rising in the tiny space. “Not only have you been told to back off, there are guards parked in our neighborhood enforcing it! And Irene’s next. After her, it’ll be everyone else. Everyone who won’t bow down and kiss Christine Barnett’s ring.”

“What do you want me to say, Claudia? That you hitched your wagon to the wrong man? I’ve been telling you that from day one.”

“Don’t you dare try to take the easy way out of this conversation.”

“Then what? You tell me what you want to hear.”

“I want to hear about our future, Mitch. I want to hear about the path forward that you see but I’m blind to. Where will we be in a year’s time? Here? Barricaded in this room? Sitting with Irene in a Senate hearing? Meeting with the team of lawyers trying to keep you out of jail?”

His phone rang and he glanced over at it. The number was immediately recognizable but not one he would have expected to see. President Alexander’s encrypted line.

“Don’t even think of picking that up while we’re fighting.”

She would have been surprised to know that it never crossed his mind. While Claudia could be a monumental pain in the ass, she was one of the few people in the world who actually gave a shit about him. She wasn’t there to bask in his notoriety or for protection or to use him as a weapon. She was just . . . there.