Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(86)

“What’s so important that it couldn’t wait for morning?” Cook said, neither standing nor offering him a seat.

“I have information on Mitch Rapp and Legion.”

Far too much information, in fact. He’d spent the drive there trying to find some way to spin the situation in his favor. Unfortunately, the more he thought about it, the more disastrous it became.

“Is Claudia Gould dead?” Catherine asked.

“No,” Hargrave responded, digging a series of eight-by-ten photos from his portfolio. “But we believe that Legion made an attempt on her.”

“And?” Cook said.

“It appears to have failed.”

Catherine was staring at him from her position to his right and he was pretty sure the bitch was smiling. Just a hint at the corners of her mouth.

He put one stack on the president’s desk and reluctantly gave another to the first lady. She didn’t seem to have much interest in it, though. The fact that he’d failed was all that would be important to her. Details were of no consequence.

“The first photo shows an ambulance entering Claudia Gould’s property and was taken early this morning South African time. Shortly thereafter, it left for a local hospital. Both Rapp and the woman we believed to be Claudia Gould were on it. Bebe Kincaid followed shortly thereafter.”

“The woman you believed to be Claudia Gould?” Catherine said.

“If you’ll wait, I’ll get to that,” Hargrave said, concentrating on keeping his tone even.

“I look forward to it.”

“They were both admitted to the hospital with suspected food poisoning. Not long after, they disappeared, and another ambulance arrived at their house. It reversed up to the outbuilding where Rapp keeps his exercise equipment and was there for less than five minutes before being returned to the hospital by Kincaid. Rapp and the woman we believed to be Claudia Gould went to the house for about an hour and then returned to the outbuilding, where they stayed for about fifteen minutes. They then went back into the house for approximately forty-five minutes.”

“Is this going to go on for much longer?” Catherine asked, her husband seemingly content to let her speak for him. “Because I’m still not hearing about the woman you believed to be Claudia Gould.”

“Please let me finish describing the series of events and then we can discuss what’s behind them.”

“My apologies,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “By all means continue.”

“After that, Rapp returned to the shed and stayed for about thirty minutes. Finally, he backed up to the outbuilding in his SUV, drove to a mall, parked in the underground lot, and went inside to buy a few things. After that, he went home. Bebe Kincaid took a cab to the airport and got on a commercial flight back to the US but is currently laid over in Frankfurt. Rapp drove the woman we believed to be Claudia Gould to a remote airstrip north of Cape Town. Our people weren’t able to follow him all the way to the strip without being spotted, so they hung back. He was there for about fifteen minutes and then returned home. A private jet registered to one of Nicholas Ward’s companies flew to an airstrip in upstate New York, where they dropped a bound woman on the tarmac.”

He watched Cook flip through the photos, finally finding the one depicting a woman using a box cutter to free herself from a significant amount of duct tape.

“And this isn’t Claudia?” the president said.

“No, sir. We tracked her back to an apartment in Manhattan. Her real name is Sadie Hansen. She’s done various contract jobs for the CIA in the past. Obviously, she also has more than a passing resemblance to Claudia Go—”

“So, Rapp was using her to draw Legion in without putting Claudia in danger,” Catherine interrupted.

“That’s our conclusion.”

“Did it work?” the president asked.

“We believe so. It seems likely that Legion somehow managed to get tainted food to them and then was going to finish the job at the hospital.”

“But Rapp played them,” Catherine said. “He captured their operative and used an ambulance to bring him back to the house for interrogation.”

“That’s the most logical conclusion,” Hargrave admitted. “But there wouldn’t be anything to learn. The way Legion operates creates a veil of secrecy that goes both ways.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Catherine said. “Legion is likely buried under Rapp’s shed. We’re now at war with a man who’s no longer distracted by trying to protect his partner. What do you think, Darren? Should we dredge up another enemy from her past? One that Rapp hasn’t already killed, intimidated, or recruited? Third time’s the charm, right? Isn’t that what they say?”

“I don’t—”

“Where is Rapp now?” Cook said, cutting him off.

“On a commercial aircraft. He’ll be landing at the Entebbe airport in Uganda in less than an hour.”

“Can we get to him there?”

“No, sir. We don’t have sufficient assets on the ground and because of everything he’s done for the Ugandan government, he’s extremely well protected there. If the past is any indication, he’ll be escorted through passport control by the military and taken to a waiting helicopter that will then fly him to Nicholas Ward’s compound.”