Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(49)

“When did the message come in?”

“Maybe three weeks ago?”

Rapp’s jaw clenched. “How many days exactly?”

There was a short pause before the Russian spoke again. “Nineteen.”

“Shit,” Rapp muttered, counting backward. That was the day after he’d killed Gustavo Marroqui. Someone with serious intelligence capability had taken note of the fact that the Guatemalan had been neutralized and moved down the list of Claudia’s enemies. Any hope that the attack on the house was a coincidence or bad luck had just imploded. This had Darren Hargrave’s name written all over it. And that boot-licking son of a bitch didn’t take a dump without Anthony Cook’s blessing.

“I didn’t want to get involved, Mitch. But Cara made the point that if our positions were reversed, you’d pick up the phone. It took a while, but this morning, I decided she was right.”

“Did you respond to the message?”

“I’m sorry. I told them no.”

“Same day that you got it?”

“Yes.”

A string of curse words in no fewer than five languages went through Rapp’s mind, but this time he kept his mouth shut. If Azarov had remained silent as to whether he was interested, it could have bought some time. But with a hard no, Hargrave would have already moved on to the next person who wanted Claudia dead.

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Grisha. I appreciate the call. If you ever need anything, I’ll remember you made it.”

“I’ll forward you the dossier. Good luck. To both of you.”

The line went dead.

Rapp grabbed the handles of the empty wheelbarrow and sent it careening across the grass. “Fuck!”





CHAPTER 23


SOUTHWESTERN UGANDA

THE sun was up, but still low on the horizon when the chopper landed. Rapp jumped down to Nicholas Ward’s helipad with a duffel slung over one shoulder. Claudia and Anna were looking on from a safe distance and the young girl raised her arms as he approached. Rapp took the hint and scooped her up as the aircraft lifted off again.

“I didn’t think you were ever coming back. We’re going to see gorillas! Do you want to come? I bet there’s room still. It’s a big truck and we rented like the whole thing.”

“Sounds fun, but I’m going to have to skip this one. I’ve got some work to do.”

“Mom says she’s going to see if Ahmale can come next weekend. Nick isn’t ever even here and he says we can use his pool anytime we want. He works even more than you. I saw him on TV yesterday. He’s really boring when he’s on it. Not like in real life.”

“Anna, Mitch has been dealing with the house all week and traveling all night,” Claudia said. “The least you could do is walk yourself.”

She rolled her eyes and wriggled from his grip.

“In fact, why don’t you run ahead and make Mitch your special cereal. He hasn’t had breakfast yet.”

Anna perked up at that. Apparently she’d learned to create quite a concoction out of muesli, milk, yogurt, and local fruit—typically served in a coconut shell that leaked. Claudia waited until she’d disappeared up the trail before taking a position blocking his path.

“Why are you here, Mitch? You weren’t due for a few more days and you’re supposed to be meeting with our architect.”

He pulled out his phone, retrieved the dossier Grisha Azarov had sent, and handed it to her. She scrolled for a few seconds, the blood draining from her face.

“This is not good…. Not good at all.”



Irene Kennedy finished going through Azarov’s email and then handed the phone to Scott Coleman so he could do the same. They were sitting across from Rapp and Claudia in the shadow cast by their bungalow. Everyone remained silent while the former SEAL studied the dossier and then tossed the cell on the table.

“I only see one explanation for this,” Rapp said.

“I know,” Kennedy said. “But I think it’s too soon to come to any hard conclusions.”

“Seriously?”

“Look, I eradicated all the information about falsifying Claudia’s death and creating her new identity from the CIA’s database. In fact, we went so far as to have Marcus create a worm to find and delete any reference to it.”

Whenever Kennedy resorted to stating the obvious, it was in an effort to give herself time to think. Rapp knew that, but his anger had reached the point that he wasn’t willing to play along.

“There’s no way to eradicate that many files that’s even close to clean, Irene. Even if Marcus’s worm worked perfectly, that just replaces one set of problems with another. You end up with incomplete narratives, references that don’t go anywhere, and reports that don’t make sense. And that’s ignoring the fact that a lot of the people who helped us make her disappear still work at the Agency. Sure, we picked ones we could trust, but where do their loyalties lie now? I hope you know, because after what happened with Mike, I sure as hell don’t.”

“No system is foolproof,” she admitted.

“And this is just the kind of sleazy, backstabbing operation that Darren Hargrave would come up with.”

“It also makes sense that Grisha would be high on his list,” Kennedy conceded. “The information about his run-in with Louis is well documented in the CIA’s database but your relationship with him isn’t. That information was so sensitive that we never recorded anything about it. There was never a file to delete.”