Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(9)

It was hard to discern whether he was intentionally ignoring her question or just having a hard time tracking on it. “Mike’s dead,” he said flatly. “And in all likelihood, Rapp tortured him first. If that’s the case, he knows everything about our involvement with the Saudis. With Ward. And he knows what we sent Mike to Africa to do. Right now, he and Kennedy are standing in that fortress he built planning their next move.”

“You need to calm down, Tony. Even if everything you say is true, we don’t know what that next move is. This is our town and our country. Ours. Not theirs.”

“I’m not willing to be so dismissive, Cathy. If we let them disappear, they’ll reconnect with Coleman and his team. And that’s not all. They still have allies all over—”

“If Mike’s out of the picture, then Nicholas Ward is probably still alive,” she said, trying to stop him before he completely disappeared into the rabbit hole he was heading down. “We’re going to have to figure out how to handle that when it becomes public. There’s also the problem of no longer having a credible candidate to take over the Agency. Mike was going to be a popular appointment that would provide some cover for the ones that—”

“Politics? Are you really talking about politics while Rapp and Kennedy strategize about how to get to me?”

“I think it’s unlikely that’s what they’re doing. I admit that Rapp isn’t one to forgive, but Kennedy calculates everything she does. And a rash move against us isn’t going to pencil out to her.”

“Tell that to Christine Barnett.”

Christine Barnett had been their party’s leader before her very unexpected suicide. Conspiracy theories and suspicions abounded, but no one had ever been able to turn up anything that contradicted the official story.

“Speculation, Tony.”

“Speculation? Christine thought she was the second coming of Jesus and she was eight points ahead in the polls. Then, right when she’s about to get everything she’s ever wanted, she kills herself? Don’t insult my intelligence. Or your own.”

“More reason not to go after Kennedy and Rapp half-cocked, Tony. Right now, you’re in the most secure place on the planet, with a literal army dedicated to your safety. We have the luxury of stepping back and taking a breath.”

Another unfamiliar expression flickered across her husband’s face. Suspicion?

“That’s easy for you to say, Cathy. Rapp’s not coming for you. He’s coming for me.”





CHAPTER 3


WEST OF MANASSAS

VIRGINIA

USA

RAPP’S cell phone began to vibrate and he pulled it from his pocket.

“Problem?” Kennedy asked from inside the closet. She was searching Claudia’s drawers for something called an obi belt while polishing off her second glass of wine. It was more than he could remember seeing her drink in their entire relationship. And why not? Neither of their prospects looked particularly sunny. And his had just taken a turn for the worse.

“I just got a breach warning. The power’s been cut to the subdivision’s main gate.”

“I’d hoped you could be on your way before this happened. I imagine the president’s anxious to talk to you.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Can I assume you have a plan for something like this?”

He did. The default state of that gate was locked, so cutting the power wasn’t going to accomplish much. The incursion team would know that, though, and were probably just using the move as a diversion. In all likelihood, they had people in position all around the property and in the woods behind it. While the specific security measures built into his house weren’t widely known, the general level of it was an open secret. They wouldn’t want to risk a frontal assault and instead would purposely trigger an alarm in an effort to flush him out. And it was going to work. In the most literal and infuriating way imaginable.

“Yeah,” he said at a volume that caused his voice to get swallowed by the room’s white-noise generator. “Could you let Claudia know what’s happened and put her stuff in FedEx for me?”

“If I’m not in prison,” Kennedy said, pouring herself another glass. And not her normal two fingers. If the operators closing in on his property didn’t move fast, they’d find her passed out on the sofa.

Rapp scrolled through images from the neighborhood’s security cameras, pausing on one that depicted men in tactical gear coming over the southern perimeter fence. Through the rain, it was hard to see detail, but it wasn’t necessary. There was no point in trying to get a head count. They looked like swarming ants.

It’d take about seven minutes to reach his property, where they’d dig in. If he didn’t make an obvious break for it, they’d lay in an old-fashioned siege. Time, supply lines, and numbers were on their side.

He started for the door but before passing through the hallway he turned back toward Kennedy. “It’s been interesting.”

She smiled and raised her glass. “That it has.”



The rain was really pounding when Rapp stepped outside. If anything, it was coming down harder than when they’d arrived. Even with the powerful security lights, the perimeter wall was just a haze. Puddles had overflowed their customary depressions in the flagstone courtyard and water was rushing toward strategically positioned drains. Once again, he’d gotten lucky. Surveillance drones would be grounded by the weather, and dogs—much more dangerous than humans in these kinds of situations—would be neutralized. He was concerned about the number of men waiting for him in the woods behind his house, though. Was it twenty? Fifty? A hundred? As Kennedy was fond of pointing out, the president of the United States had a lot of resources. Far more than the terrorists and old enemies that the house was designed to turn back.