Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(81)
“Not hungry?” Esparza said, shoveling some pineapple in his mouth.
Rapp just shook his head and continued to watch the guards through dark sunglasses. They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him and most didn’t look smart enough for tricks. If he was the target, he’d be getting furtive glances and Esparza wouldn’t be sitting so close.
“Things keep getting worse for your friend Irene Kennedy. Our informants say there are a lot of rumors floating around Washington that she knew about your financial dealings and might have been involved.”
“She can handle it. In the end, Irene always comes out on top.”
“The story about what you did to those DEA agents still hasn’t broken. Maybe I should send CNN my drone footage. Throw a little gas on the fire.”
Rapp just shrugged. “Why am I here? Problems with the Arabs?”
There was a flash of anger in Esparza’s eyes. He was a man accustomed to deference, but he was also a man backed into a corner. A corner that he thought Rapp could get him out of.
“If you’re worried about losing that package again,” Rapp continued, “I could take it over the border myself. I’ll guarantee its delivery.”
He made certain to sound bored at the prospect of acting as a delivery boy, but beneath his vague frown, he felt very much the opposite. If he could make contact with even one of Halabi’s men in the United States, Kennedy could put multiple surveillance teams on him. Combined with penetration into phone and Internet communication, they could have eyes on the entire network within a week.
“Fuck the Arabs,” Esparza said. “I should lose their shit again on purpose. Teach those whiny little assholes that they can’t start crying like women every time the cops get lucky.”
“Why don’t I have a conversation with the guy that came in yesterday? I could give him a lesson on the facts of life.”
“He’s gone,” Rossi said, searching Rapp’s face for a reaction to his statement. The former CIA man didn’t give him anything, keeping his expression dialed to bored irritation while running through a string of screamed curses in his mind.
“Back to the Middle East?” he said, sliding an empty plate toward him and scooping some bacon onto it.
“We’re not that lucky,” Esparza replied. “Those assholes won’t stop riding me about their lost product. They’re bringing men into a private airstrip about an hour from here. That asshole went to pick them up. He wants us to smuggle them into the U.S. to keep an eye on my distribution network.”
Esparza slammed his fork down on the tabletop as his voice became a shout. “Piece of shit! He’s bringing in men to watch my operation? They don’t know dick about what I deal with here. They just run around the desert picking poppies and fucking goats. I have to deal with border security, the cops, the FBI, the DEA, and those pricks at the IRS. And if that wasn’t enough, now I’ve got NASA poking its nose into my operation. Fucking NASA! What do these assholes think they’re going to do about that? Attack Cape Canaveral on camels?”
Esparza’s face had turned bright red and the sweat was starting to run down his forehead when he finally fell silent. The question seemed rhetorical but his intense gaze suggested that an answer was required.
“I don’t know,” Rapp said honestly.
Halabi would have already had a network in place for the first shipment of anthrax. Why bring in more people now? It was a huge risk with no apparent payoff.
“That’s it?” Esparza said. “I don’t know? You told me you were the world’s great expert on these people.”
“I can’t read their minds, Carlos. When he gets back, hand him over to me. I’ll get you your answers.”
Esparza contemplated Rapp’s clean-shaven face for a moment and then slid a manila envelope across the table. “We have bigger problems than a bunch of towelheads spying on my operation.”
“What?” Rapp said, ignoring the envelope and instead stabbing a slice of pineapple with his fork.
“Damian Losa is trying to put the screws to me on this mall thing. He and my other partners already made enough off that deal to pay back their investment but now they want more.”
Rapp opened the envelope and thumbed through its contents. Pictures of Losa, his houses, his security. Bios on his bodyguards, information on his family and the school his kids went to. Even a copy of the itemized bill for armoring his Range Rover.
“Not an easy job,” Rapp said, speaking on automatic as his mind tried to make sense of Halabi’s latest move. “Losa’s got more security than the president.”
“I’m paying you a lot of money and you don’t do anything but eat my food and kill my men. Time to step up.”
“You want it to look like an accident? Or would you ra—”
“I want a fucking fireball! I want people scraping him and his family off the sidewalk with a toothpick. I want to send the message that anyone who screws with me is a walking dead man.”
“I don’t do families.”
“You work for me.”
“It’s unprofessional, Carlos. And I have a reputation to protect. If you want his wife and kids taken out, get one of your other people to do it. His oldest son’s nine and his wife wears three-inch heels. You must have someone who can shoot straight enough to hit targets that slow.”