Rapp called them at the appointed time, and told them he was across the street. This seemed to both unsettle and irritate them, which was just fine with Rapp. The most difficult part had been deciding to sit down with them in the first place, and then there was trying to find a place they could all agree on. They wanted him to come to one of their offices. They were the type of men who were used to getting their way, and on top of that Rapp trusted neither of them, so he flat-out told them no. They wanted the meeting which meant he would set the conditions, and the sooner he got it over with the better. This was a favor to Kennedy and nothing else.
It took little imagination to envision at least one of them trying to record the conversation. People bugging each other was a fact of life in Washington, DC. The problem for Rapp was that he no longer trusted what little tact he had left. He'd grown so callous, he was capable of saying anything. The one man, he was ambivalent about, the other, he despised. With nothing to lose, Rapp knew the odds of things getting heated were better than even. In truth, the thought of getting a few things off his chest was what appealed most to him. That was more of an afterthought, though. The real reason he had agreed to meet these men was Kennedy. He'd called her first thing on Sunday morning and left her a message. The problem was no longer a problem. Nothing more specific than that.
As of Sunday morning there had been no news of Khalil's body. That was Sunday, however, and today was Monday. The story was everywhere now, and Kennedy wasn't happy. There wasn't much she could do though, until he was standing in front of her in her spacious corner office in Langley. Things like this were not discussed on the phone no matter how secure you thought your lines of communication were. So in an effort to forestall that confrontation, and hopefully give her some time to cool down, he had called up the two men she wanted him to meet with, and here he was in a part of town that he rarely visited, getting ready to meet with two men he had no respect for.
There was very little, if anything, that was soft about Rapp. His angular jaw was set in a very determined way and his dark brown eyes could portray a frightening intensity. They were the type of eyes that missed nothing, and revealed, only to those alert enough, that the man behind them was extremely dangerous. His jet black hair was starting to gray a touch at the temples, and his face was lined with a ruggedness that came from spending long hours outdoors exposed to the elements. A thin scar ran down his left cheek and along his jaw, a constant reminder of the dangers of his trade. He stood six feet tall and weighed 185 pounds-almost all of it solid muscle. He possessed the rare combination of strength and quickness that was usually reserved for strong safeties in the NFL, but instead belonged to a cunning and calculating killer.
Rapp had no problem admitting it, even if those around him didn't want to. Contrary to what many might think, he slept like a baby. What he did was not complicated. He killed terrorists, plain and simple. Men who had either slaughtered innocent civilians, or had very publicly sworn to do so. It was not a job he had sought. He did not grow up pulling the wings off butterflies or torturing kittens. His life had been family, school, friends, lacrosse, football, and a suburban smattering of religion, which meant they went to church twice a year-Christmas and Easter. The thought of killing someone had never entered his mind until Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland. On that cold morning 259 innocent souls had perished, thirty-five of whom were fellow Syracuse University students, and one of whom was the love of Rapp's life. Shortly after that, and unknown to him, his recruitment into this mysterious and treacherous world of international espionage had begun.
Rapp was dressed in a gray flannel suit, white shirt, and striped tie, all of which his wife had picked out for him. As always, he was armed. Rapp had gone over the room thoroughly with his BlackBerry. The small device doubled as a mobile phone and Internet browser. In addition to that, the Science and Technology people at Langley had retrofitted the small black box to detect and scramble listening devices. The eight-by-twelve-foot room was clean. Rapp sat in one of the six wooden chairs, put his feet up on the table, and clasped his hands behind his head.
The two men arrived five minutes late, which was good since Rapp had told them he would wait no more than ten minutes past the appointed hour. Upon hearing the door handle turn, Rapp rose and casually slid his left hand under the fold of his suit coat. To the untrained eye, it looked as if he was smoothing his tie. The move was reflexive in nature and not done out of fear. In his line of work you never knew who was coming through the door, and it was much easier to draw a gun standing than sitting.
The two men were an unusual pair. One tall and bone-thin, with a hawkish nose, the other short and round, with the nose of a boxer who had lost one too many fights, which according to his bio, Rapp knew to be the case. Senator Bill Walsh was six and a half feet tall and hailed from Idaho. He was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was Rapp's guess that it was he who had requested this meeting. Though infinitely more appealing than the other man in his demeanor, he was also very difficult to get a good read on. His companion was Senator Carl Hartsburg of New Jersey. Barely five eight, Hartsburg grew up in Hoboken, where at one point he was the local Golden Gloves champ. The story on him was that he wasn't that great a fighter, but he could really take a beating, hence the missing cartilage in his nose. Both men were in their mid-sixties, almost thirty years Rapp's seniors.
Hartsburg spoke first and a bit testily. "The Congressional Library. We could have just as easily met across the street in my office."
Rapp had picked one of the many study/meeting rooms at the Congressional Library on Capitol Hill.
"Neutral turf is more appealing," replied Rapp.
Walsh extended his hand. "Thank you for taking the time to meet with us."
Rapp shook Walsh's hand and when he was done didn't bother to extend it to the surly Hartsburg, who returned the favor. After taking a seat, Rapp pressed a series of buttons on his BlackBerry before laying it flat on the table.
Hartsburg looked at the device. "What in the hell is that for?"
"To make sure you're not recording me."
"A jamming device?"
Rapp nodded.
"Good," Hartsburg growled, "because I can tell you right now the last thing I want is a record of this meeting." Under his breath he added, "I'm not even sure I wanted this meeting period."
Rapp folded his arms across his chest and studied the senator, wondering if his grumpy mood was real or an act. Turning to Walsh, he asked, "So why in the world would two big shots such as yourselves want to meet with someone like me?"
Hartsburg frowned and said, "I keep asking myself the same question."
"Carl," Walsh said in a disapproving tone to his colleague. Looking across the table at the no-nonsense Rapp, he cut to the chase. "We are concerned, Mitch…concerned that with all of this rhetoric, and the expansion of Homeland Security and the new director of National Intelligence, that we're not doing enough to protect America."
"You won't get any arguments from me."
"We didn't think so. That's why we wanted to meet with you." Walsh flattened his palms on the table and hesitated. "What is your frank opinion on the restructuring of the intelligence community, and the creation of the new director of National Intelligence?"
Rapp took a moment to gauge the sincerity of the senator's question. He doubted they were going to get an honest answer from anyone else so he said, "I think it's a misguided, ill-conceived, overreaction brought on by a bunch of politicians who are in a hurry to act like they're doing something…anything…so that when the next attack comes they can say they did everything in their power to stop it, when in reality all they did was get in the way of the people who were really defending the country."
Hartsburg scoffed, "You think it's easy…our job?"
"Easy doesn't factor into it for me, Senator. I'm talking about right and wrong."
"Well, I'd like to see you go on national television and stand up to pressure from groups like the 9/11 widows. See how far you get with your black-and-white attitude." Hartsburg wagged an accusatory finger at Rapp. "The press would eat you alive."
Rapp raised an eyebrow. "Did you bother to tell those widows that their husbands died because none of you had the balls to order Osama bin Laden's assassination? Did you tell them that your two parties have spent so much time trying to embarrass each other over the past two decades you've turned the CIA into another inefficient, money-sucking Washington bureaucracy?"
Hartsburg glared at the man from the CIA. "That's a bunch of crap. You clowns out at Langley have squandered billions, and it sure as hell isn't our fault."
"You think they died," Rapp ignored the senator's attempt to shift, "because we didn't have a director of National Intelligence?"
"The CIA…"-Hartsburg pointed an accusatory finger at Rapp-"and the rest of the damn alphabet soup is a disaster."
"And whose fault is that? You two have each been in Washington thirty-plus years. Your job is oversight. You know that little part in the oath you took…to protect and defend? It's your job to lead and make sure the damn alphabet soup works. Not to criticize them after the fact, especially when all you've done is distract them for the last decade and a half by forcing them to implement your politically correct social projects."
"Your corner of the universe is tiny." Hartsburg held his thumb and forefinger in front of Rapp like the pincers of a hermit crab. "You have no concept of the big picture."
"That's where you're wrong, Senator," Rapp said with anger creeping into his voice. "There is no bigger picture than National Security. You guys want to legislate social change…go do it over at the Department of Education or Health and Human Services, but don't fuck around with Langley."
Hartsburg tapped his finger on the table. "Have you seen Langley's budget lately? We're talking billions of dollars, and I'd like to know what in the hell we're getting in return."
Rapp threw his arms up in frustration. "You guys amaze me. You bitch about the money that's being spent, and then your solution to the problem is to add more bureaucracy…more layers…slow things down even more. Spend more money. Stovepipe the shit out of everything, so twenty different supervisors and department heads have to sign off on each bit of intelligence before the president even has a prayer of seeing it. You think that's going to solve our problems?"
"I think the CIA is a monumental waste of federal tax dollars, and something has to be done to wake them up."
A sudden calm came over Rapp's face. He leaned back and said, "Senator, this might surprise you, but I couldn't agree with you more."
Rapp's admission left both men silent. The two politicians shared a brief expression of confusion and then Walsh asked, "What's your biggest beef with Langley?"
"Three thousand people are killed in one morning and no one loses their job… Are you fucking kidding me?" Rapp looked at one senator and then the other. "Guilty or not, people should have lost their jobs. And I'm not just talking the CIA. I'm talking FBI, Pentagon, National Security Council, White House, Capitol Hill…across the board. The entire 'cover your ass' culture you guys and your politically correct cronies have created needs to be turned on its ear."
"Well, now it's my turn to agree with you," Hartsburg said to Rapp, giving Walsh an accusatory look.
"We made a decision," said Walsh defensively, "that we weren't going to scapegoat anyone for what happened. Nine-eleven was a long time in the works and both parties share the blame."
"I'm not talking about your precious political parties. I'm talking about the dead weight who got in the way of the people trying to do their jobs."
"I know that, and I know you don't have any stomach for politics, but that deal had to be made or the two parties would have destroyed each other in the aftermath."
Rapp frowned. "And that would be a bad thing?"
"Contrary to what you think, Mr. Rapp," said Hartsburg, "we care about this country. I can assure you that is the only reason I'm sitting in this room with you right now."
"If you could right the ship," said Walsh, sounding more eager than when the meeting had started, "how would you do it?"
Rapp studied the senior senator from Idaho with suspicion. "You're asking me…a person who has absolutely no experience in management, and no desire to join the club?"
"Yes, but you've got more practical experience in the field than perhaps anyone else in Washington."
Rapp considered the question carefully and said, "Well, it's not very complicated. You've got a top-heavy bureaucracy over there. An inverted pyramid. Less than one percent of the people on the payroll do real field work. Hell, before 9/11 you had more people working in the Office of Diversity than you had on the bin Laden Desk."
"So what's the solution?"
Rapp shrugged. "You do what IBM or GE or any other well-run corporation does. You get rid of the deadweight. You tell every department head their budget is going to be cut by ten percent. You offer early retirement, you give people severance packages, and you wish them good luck. And then you start to rebuild the Clandestine Service from the ground up."
"As much as it pains me to admit it…you and I," Hartsburg said as he pointed at Rapp and then himself, "see more eye to eye than I would have ever liked to admit."
"So what's holding you guys up? You run the damn committee… You hold the purse strings."
"We're working on it, but trying to change an entrenched Washington bureaucracy is not easy," Walsh said. "In the meantime we're more concerned with a short-term solution. A stopgap measure, if you will."
"Like what?"
Walsh shared an uncomfortable look with Hartsburg, started to speak, stopped, and then made one more effort at it before he looked again to his more blunt colleague for help. Hartsburg retrieved a copy of the Washington Post and laid it down on the table. Beneath the fold on the front page was a story about the brutal murder of an Islamic cleric in Montreal. The senator stabbed his stubby finger at the article and asked, "Did we have anything to do with this?"
Rapp's face didn't change a bit. "Not that I know of."
Hartsburg leaned in and with a look of fire in his eyes said, "That's too bad."
Rapp didn't show it, but he couldn't have been more shocked by the senator's words.