Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(48)

After that, he wasn’t sure. Doing a proper job of renovating the house would take at least six months and after that their tentative plan was to return. By then, the press would have moved on, any rumors about Claudia that might have taken hold in criminal circles would have died down, and his truce with the White House would be worn in.

What could possibly go wrong?

The phone in his pocket began to vibrate and he pulled off his work gloves to dig it out.

“Are things still on track?” Claudia said when he picked up.

“More or less. I’m going to have to scramble to get everything ready for the movers, but it’s doable. The boxes and packing supplies are supposed to be delivered today.”

“It’s a lot, Mitch. Are you sure you don’t want me to come and help? Scott’s back and between him and Irene, they can handle Anna.”

“No. I’ve got this. Stop worrying.”

“I’m not worrying. But this is my fault and I’m sitting around the pool while you live in a house with no power and a leaking toilet.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it up to me,” he said. “How are things going on your end? Have you found us somewhere to live yet?”

“No, but I’ll have some options for you to look at when you get back. Obviously, everything has its pros and cons. Do we get lost in a big city like Paris, London, or Istanbul? Or do we want to disappear into something more rural? There are some nice places in Asia, but I’m leaning more toward Latin America. I’d like Anna to learn a little Spanish, which wouldn’t be hard with her foundation in French. And while I admire her devotion to Afrikaans, I’m not sure it’s going to be that useful in the long run.”

“What about my Alaska idea?”

He’d read that it was possible to just get off a train in the middle of nowhere and claim some acreage. They could build a cabin next to a lake and turn off the world for a while. Hunt. Fish. It’d be good for the kid to get some survival skills under her belt.

“I’m ignoring it.”

Her tone suggested that pressing the issue would be futile, so he changed the subject.

“How’s Anna doing?”

“Better. She can’t get enough of the pool, and Scott’s taking her on a gorilla safari tomorrow. But she misses her friends. I’d like to fly in Ahmale, but we’re not very popular with the other parents right now.”

“Have you talked to her about the fact that we can’t come back for a while?”

“No. I think it’s too soon. She’s resilient, but I want her to bounce back a little more before she has to face that. Also, I think it would be better if you were here when we deliver the news. Not that I’m trying to push any of this off on you, but we need to present a united front. Is that okay?”

His phone began vibrating again and he glanced down at the letters on the screen.

GAz.

They were ones he thought he’d never see again and, more important, they were ones he’d never wanted to see again. Grisha Azarov was a Russian assassin he’d come up against a while back in Saudi Arabia. At the time, the man had been pretty much at the top of the food chain. He’d nearly killed Coleman in Pakistan and when Rapp finally faced off against him, it hadn’t been pretty. Rapp had come out the victor, but that victory involved being blown off an oil rig and having to extinguish his burning hair in a sand dune.

In the end, though, Rapp had decided there was no reason to kill the man. His attacks weren’t personal—they’d been carried out at the orders of the Russian government. With his former masters dead, Azarov’s only interests were anonymity and a Californian surf instructor he’d met. Last he’d heard, the Russian had married, gained twenty-five pounds, and developed a fondness for high-quality weed.

“Are you still there?” Claudia said.

“Yeah.”

“Can I take your silence to mean you think I should handle Anna on my own?”

“No. I agree that it’s better if we both do it.” The letters continued to pulse on-screen. Relentless, like the man they represented had once been. “Listen, I’ve got a call coming in. Can we continue this later?”

“Sure.”

She disconnected and he picked up the other line. “Problem?”

“Not for me,” came the accented response. “For you.”

From most people, that would have sounded like a threat. But not from Azarov. He wasn’t the type.

“What are we talking about?”

“I recently received a dossier on one of my old email accounts. It contains a significant amount of information on Claudia. The fact that she’s really Louis Gould’s former wife, her current alias, a photo, her address in South Africa, a description of her car, the places she shops, Anna’s school… You get the point.”

“Do you know where it came from?”

“An anonymous Gmail account. I imagine untraceable.”

“What’s the offer?”

“None. Just a single line asking me if I would be interested in taking her out. My assumption is that whoever sent this is counting on me holding a grudge against her for a run-in I had with her husband years ago. He caused me a lot of problems with Moscow and I had every intention of killing him. But he slipped through my fingers and then your friend Stan Hurley beat me to it.”