Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(20)

“A truce.”

He studied her silently for a few seconds. “Terms?”

“None. He wants to be left alone. If the president doesn’t make any moves against him, he’ll show the same restraint.”

“So, the great and terrible Mitch Rapp is just going to turn the other cheek, huh?”

“He’s not as volatile as people make him out to be, Director Hargrave. And he has a family now.”

Her successor considered that for a few moments. “Well, he might not have terms, but I think we would.”

“Such as?”

“That he and his people stay in plain sight and none of them ever set foot in the United States again.”

“When you say ‘his people,’ who are you referring to?”

“Scott Coleman and his team.”

“Impossible. They have lives here and nothing to do with the relationship between Mitch and the president. The government certainly has the ability to watch them when they’re on American soil, but it’s a waste of time and resources. Even if Mitch wanted to harm Anthony Cook—which he very much does not—he’d be reluctant to involve the people close to him.”

“What about Rapp, then?”

She let out a long breath. “I imagine I can convince him to stay out of the US as long as the Cooks are in power. As far as being in plain sight, he’d likely agree to not actively try to evade surveillance. If your people were to lose him for whatever reason, they could just call and he could tell them where he is. Also, I think it would be reasonable to allow him a three-month window to wind down his affairs here.”

“No way in hell. Let his girlfriend deal with it.”

Once again, Kennedy found herself disoriented by what was happening. Without Mitch Rapp, there likely wouldn’t even be an America. After a domestic terrorist brought down the country’s power grid, it had been he who’d captured the man and figured out how to get the electricity flowing again. In the absence of that, America would have collapsed into hunger, cold, and violence. Anthony Cook had admitted as much in a recent meeting.

“I’ll have to ask him,” Kennedy said finally. “But I think he’ll agree.”

“Then I’ll do the same with Tony.”

She reached for the bag next to her chair and stood. “Thank you.”

He pulled a file folder from a stack to his left, refusing to further acknowledge her.





CHAPTER 9


NEAR FRANSCHHOEK

SOUTH AFRICA

RAPP glanced at the heart rate monitor on his handlebars and saw a number that was a little concerning. One hundred and eighty-three. The big-screen TV in front of him depicted his avatar surrounded by other cyclists on a dead flat road. The video game allowed him to connect his bike trainer to real-time races that drew competitors from around the globe. This one had started fairly slow, but at the thirty-mile mark, a small group that included a few young pros had broken away. In a moment of temporary insanity, he’d decided to go with them.

His training program—a document that he generally treated as having been delivered on stone tablets—had him scheduled for a hundred miles at a moderate heart rate of one hundred and thirty-five. Going out on the open road where he could be easily taken out by a rifle shot or even a car, though, hadn’t seemed like a great idea. So, while this virtual race wasn’t ideal, it was a lot healthier than numbing his anger and frustration with whatever he could find at the back of the liquor cabinet.

The simulated road steepened, and the trainer increased its resistance in response. Rapp shifted and stood, sweat cascading to the floor despite the outbuilding’s bay doors being thrown open to the sixty-degree air outside.

One hundred and eighty-seven beats per minute.

On-screen, a kid who rode for a Belgian team came around him and went up the road. No one was crazy enough to try to follow. Rapp was still carrying too much weight in his shoulders and chest to even consider it. And then there were the years. Every one of them harder than he cared to remember. Instead, he stayed in the middle of the chase group as the pace took its toll and it began shedding riders.

One hundred and ninety-one beats per minute.

There had been a time when that number wouldn’t have been all that alarming. Now, though, he had to recognize that if the pace got much harder, a sixty-two-kilo kid riding in his basement in Antwerp might do what so many before him had tried: kill Mitch Rapp.

His lungs felt like they were full of battery acid and the pain in his legs had numbed in a way that suggested they were going to shut down pretty soon. Less than half a minute to the top of the climb. He just had to hang on for thirty more seconds.

One hundred and ninety-three beats per minute. His coach was going to read him the riot act when she saw this data file. Maybe he could get Marcus Dumond to hack into it and forge a nice six-hour endurance ride.

The Metallica blaring over his earbuds was suddenly replaced by an old-fashioned ringtone. Irene Kennedy’s number appeared on the phone attached to his bars, but neither that nor the fact that his peripheral vision was starting to go blank was enough to make him give up. Leaning forward and closing his eyes, he sprinted for the summit. Only when the group started down the other side did he pick up.

“Yeah,” he panted as riders flowed around him and disappeared up the road.

“Mitch? Are you all right?”