The Survivor (31 page)

“So let’s say our guy is on that list,” Rapp said, putting down his magazine. “How do we narrow it down?”

“I send out a phishing email.”

Rapp’s suspicion of technology had made him somewhat ignorant of it. In his mind, it was better to just stay away from things that evolved on an hourly schedule and could be grasped only by teenagers.

“Like the ones you get pretending to be your bank and asking for your password?”

“Exactly. We’d send a file from that Italian law firm’s server to -everyone on the list. The guy we’re looking for would try to decrypt it, but I’d make it so it comes up corrupted. Whoever responds and asks for us to resend it is the person we’re looking for.”

“And you’d be able to trace that email?”

“If I’m ready for it and you were serious about giving me access to a whole lot of the NSA’s bandwidth, yeah. I can trace it.”

Kennedy was the first to raise an objection. “Fifty seems like a lot, Marcus. You hackers communicate, don’t you? In private chat rooms and forums? Isn’t
it likely that someone will mention getting this email? And that other people will say they did, too? Won’t that raise suspicions?”

“It’s definitely a risk. But it’s the best thing I can come up with.”

“Why can’t we narrow it down?” Rapp said.

Everyone looked over at him. “How?” Nash asked.

“Rick would pick the best one.”

“I agree,” Kennedy said. “But that’s a subjective concept. What’s ‘best’?”

Rapp stood and took the list from her, spreading it out on the Ping-Pong table before motioning Dumond over. “Rick never made a move without knowing all the angles. He researched everything to death and had more contacts in more places than anyone in the Agency.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at,” Dumond said.

“How many of these people are you friends with or have you collaborated with in the past? Rick would know we’d give you the lead on this, so it seems pretty unlikely that he’d hand the job to someone you’re close to. Mark off all your friends.”

“Hey, Mitch . . . like I told you, the people on this list are pretty bent. I wouldn’t hang out with guys who’d do something like this.”

Rapp turned toward Dumond and the hacker again let his eyes drift to the floor.

“Look at me, Marcus.”

“Mitch, I—”

“You know what kind of people I deal with every day?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbled.

“Then you’ll believe me when I say that I couldn’t give a fuck about a bunch of people running around stealing credit card numbers. What I care about—all I care about—is you putting me in front of this guy.”

Dumond reluctantly pulled out a pen and began marking through names. It turned out to be more than Rapp would have guessed. When he was finished, there were only about twenty names left.

“Mitch is right,” Kennedy said. “But let’s take it one step further. How many of the remaining people have you hurt, Marcus? Blocked,
stolen from, or made look foolish? How many hate you enough that they’d fight you every step if you ever tried to get to them?”

He scanned through the list. “Maybe four.”

Rapp tapped the page with his index finger. “Then that’s where we start.”

•  •  •

Rapp followed Irene Kennedy into her office and closed the door behind him.

“What do you want to talk to me about?”

Normally Rapp avoided headquarters like the plague, and that day he’d been forced to take the full tour—public elevators, the basement, and more crowded hallways than he could count. As a man who valued anonymity beyond all other things, being gawked at and backslapped by half the Agency wasn’t going down well.

“Please have a seat.”

He would have preferred to stay close to the door, but there was a weight to Kennedy’s tone that suggested the meeting was going to be neither quick nor easy.

“What is it?” he said, doing as she asked.

“I have a meeting with the president scheduled for later this afternoon.”

“Let me guess. Kamal Safavi?”

Tensions between the United States and the Iranians continued to escalate, with accusations being flung from both sides. Tehran had completely shut down diplomatic relations, and President Alexander was talking about a new round of sanctions. In the meantime, the fledgling cooperation between the two countries with regard to controlling the Sunnis was dead in the water.

“Iran’s one item on the agenda.”

“What are the others?”

“The Russians. Fahran Hotaki. The fact that someone has the Rickman files and there’s no way for us to be certain they haven’t accessed them. What Rick knew and how he got that information . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Rapp didn’t envy her.
There was nothing politicians liked to do more than Monday morning quarterback decisions that they themselves wouldn’t have the guts to make. As long as things were going well and they were getting reelected, they were content to stay in the background. But when things got tough, they didn’t just abandon the sinking ship, they drilled holes in the hull on their way out.

“Is that all?”

“No. I assume the subject of my resignation will come up.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’m afraid not. We had a lot of history with President Hayes, but the situation with Alexander is completely different. He wants to do the right thing but at some point politics wins.”

“So we have the walls coming down around us and they’re going to install some political hack to make it look like they’re reining us in? If he gets in my way, Irene, I swear I’ll put a bullet in the back of his head.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

“I’m not joking. If anyone tries to stop me from turning this situation around, they’re going to have serious problems. The choice between some wound-up bureaucrat and one of our guys in the field is pretty easy for me.”

“I think we can avoid it coming to that. With all the gridlock and posturing that goes along with getting a new director confirmed, a temporary head of the Agency will have to be named. I think the president will strongly consider any recommendation I make.”

“I feel like you’re giving up too easily, Irene. You almost sound okay with this.”

“I’m not giving up, but there’s blood in the water and I’ve made more than my share of enemies in Washington. It would be stupid for me to go to this meeting unprepared for the president to ask me to step down.”

“Who then?”

“You’re too controversial and I assume you wouldn’t take the job anyway.”

“I’d
rather put a gun in my mouth.”

“Then Mike Nash.”

Rapp didn’t respond, instead leaning back in his chair and staring past Kennedy through the window behind her.

“He’s the American hero you insisted on making him, Mitch. Any politician who takes a stand against him will run a serious public relations risk.”

While Rapp wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the idea, Kennedy was likely right. Nash had the resume, and despite a tendency toward moral paralysis, he was no coward. When it came time for things to get bloody, he could be counted on to be there.

“Mike wouldn’t be permanent and I don’t think he or anyone in Washington would want him to be,” Kennedy continued. “The goal here is to put someone in my chair who can keep the politicians off your back long enough for you to resolve the Rickman problem.”

Rapp still didn’t respond.

“Mitch? I need you to say something. If you can’t work with him—technically
for
him—you have to tell me who you’d prefer.”

“Fine.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I might have to knock him on his ass a couple of times, but I can work with him.”

“
For
him,” she repeated.

“I said fine.”

She was visibly relieved. “Like I said, I hope it won’t come to that, but we have to be ready.”

“Yeah,” Rapp said, trying to swallow his anger. Putting Irene Kennedy out on the street with everything that was going on would be unimaginably stupid. The problem was that unimaginably stupid had become a job requirement in Washington.

C
ENTRAL
A
FGHANISTAN

I
T
was good to be out of the city.

The air blowing through the missing door was still hot despite the sunset fifteen minutes before. Dust rising from the road swirled inside the cab, attacking Fahran Hotaki’s eyes and working its way into his mouth, but it didn’t bother him. In fact, he found it strangely nostalgic. A reminder of his life before the war. Of days spent tending livestock and raising children.

He had no photos of his village or his family. Cameras, as well as phones and computers, had been of little use to him then. They’d become part of his life only after he’d joined the fighting.

Living a life cut off from the outside world was appealing in so many ways. The unchanging rhythm of it, the intimate familiarity with everything that made up his universe. He’d known nothing of economic swings, the Internet, or nuclear weapons. Nothing of tensions between nations, pandemics, or environmental disasters. There had been only him, his people, and the vast, empty land around them.

It was a level of simplicity that should have been easy to preserve—one that would make his country of little interest to outside forces.
For some reason, though, Afghanistan could never just retreat into its primitive, insular culture.

Would-be conquerors had come in seemingly endless waves since the dawn of history. In his lifetime, Afghanistan had endured the Russians, the Taliban, countless foreign terrorist groups, and now the Americans.

Why would Allah not let this rocky corner of the planet exist in peace? Why must there be constant tests of His people’s faith? How many horrors would God force them to suffer before He was convinced of their devotion?

“Allahu akbar,” Hotaki said over the whistle of the wind. His growing habit of questioning the god he would be meeting later that night was the height of arrogance. Still, he hoped there would be some kind of explanation. He wanted so badly to understand.

The stars were beginning to ignite and he glanced down at the truck’s gas gauge while there was still sufficient light. Less than a quarter of a tank. He could extend the pickup’s range by emptying the bodies from the bed, but it was unnecessary. There would be no return trip.

Hotaki came over a small rise and saw the encampment he was looking for. There were a few modern lights but most of the illumination was emanating from a bonfire in the central square. Behind were the mountains, black silhouettes that seemed to swallow the universe he’d only recently learned about.

Hotaki rolled to a stop and examined the scene below. The village was simple—a rough circle crisscrossed with dirt roads and low stone houses. It was inhabited by a particularly brutal group of Taliban looking to reassert control. In his mind, it made them worse than the others. Outsiders owed Afghanistan nothing. If they had the power to conquer it, they had the right. These men, though, were murderers. Killers of their own people.

He pressed the accelerator and started down the back of the rise, suddenly free of the deep sadness that had plagued him since the death of his family. By the time he reached the curving wall surrounding the village, all that was left in him was hate.

“Stop!”

A man with an AK-47 appeared from the shadows and approached the truck. Hotaki had the headlights off in order to obscure the corpses he was hauling, but it was unlikely that the precaution was necessary. The guard wouldn’t acknowledge even the possibility of danger. Like the men Hotaki had already killed that day, this one was confident in his righteousness and invincibility.

The young man didn’t even have his finger on the trigger of the weapon when he leaned toward the open window. “Who are you?”

Hotaki answered by shoving a broken bottle he’d found on the floorboard into the man’s neck. Surprise more than fear or pain froze him long enough for Hotaki to pull him partially through the window and hold his head as he bled. The dying man began to struggle, but he couldn’t free the gun pinned between his chest and the door. Instead, he swung his fists uselessly, slamming them repeatedly into the cab’s rusting metal as the life drained from him.

When he finally went still, Hotaki released his body and pushed the truck’s accelerator to the floor. The back wheels struggled for traction before catching and propelling him through the narrow opening in the wall.

The village’s men were right where he expected them to be, huddled around the central fire. They turned when they heard the approaching vehicle, but their eyes were adjusted to the glow of the flames and couldn’t penetrate the darkness beyond. None realized what was happening until it was too late. He plowed into them, pulling some beneath his wheels and knocking others into the fire. The ones who managed to avoid being hit scattered.

Smoke filled the cab as the oil-soaked chassis ignited. Hotaki leapt out, using an American-built AAC Honey Badger to spray the men trying to scurry away. It took only a moment for the pickup to be engulfed and his advantage was lessened by the blinding glare.

A round hit his flak jacket from behind, nearly knocking him off his feet. He spun, holding the trigger of his weapon down and sweeping from left to right. The scent of charred human flesh filled his nostrils
as he charged forward, dodging the burning logs his arrival had strewn about. More rounds struck his vest, their force trying to drive him back. His thigh was hit but the bullet missed the bone, weakening but not destabilizing his leg. A sudden burning in his neck and the subsequent taste of blood in his mouth heralded the death blow he’d known was coming, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. Not yet.

He suddenly found himself amid the men. The flash from their gun barrels and the roar of automatic fire were all around him. He realized that his weapon was empty and dropped it, pulling the .44 Magnum from his waistband. He knew he was being repeatedly hit but could no longer feel anything.

Hotaki was vaguely aware that he had dropped to his knees and that his gun was again empty, but still he didn’t stop. His finger continued to pull the trigger, tracking on the shifting shadows created by the firelight. Finally, the darkness descended.