The turning point came after the second call from Atlanta. The CDC Hazardous Material team found the truck, and it was really hot. As predicted, there was paperwork pertaining to the trip from Mexico to Atlanta. The truck's location was not far from the truck stop and upon arriving the Hazmat team quickly located the trailer. It was also contaminated but even more telling was the pile of discarded clothes, lead aprons, and radiation badges that they found behind a nearby construction trailer.
Reimer had relayed all of this to McMahon and Rapp. The team identified the source of radiation as Pu-239, or plutonium, the primary isotope used in reactor fuel and weapon-grade nuclear material. On a more positive note, Reimer was saying that, as predicted, this device was extremely unstable and throwing off a ton of radiation, which would make it easy for the sensors around D.C. to pick up.
It was after Reimer's call that McMahon had surprised Rapp. Rapp knew the veteran agent was capable of looking the other way, but what he had just proposed went way beyond looking the other way. This was breaking the law, something that Rapp was not in the slightest bit opposed to, but there would be no turning back if they decided to move forward. It would be a definite career ender for McMahon and maybe even for Rapp himself. Knowing all that, Rapp still decided to go for it. Too much was at stake to not take the risk.
Only one thing gave him pause. He could deal with accusations and deflect media scrutiny, but not if they had him on video tape. One phone call to Marcus Dumond, the CIA's resident computer hacker, allayed his concerns. A short while later Rapp and McMahon were flying Route 123 toward Fairfax.
It was after 10:00 and the area around the federal courthouse and county jail was pretty quiet. McMahon drove his FBI sedan around to the rear of the building and honked his horn. One of the big garage doors opened and they entered the sally port where prisoners were transferred to vehicles. The port was empty with the exception of one man, and he did not look pleased to be there.
McMahon and Rapp got out of the car and walked over to the man. McMahon stuck out his hand, "Joe, I appreciate this."
The man shook his head. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"If I'm wrong, which I'm not, I'll take all the heat." McMahon pointed to Rapp. "Joe, meet Mitch Rapp. Mitch, this is Joe Stewart, U.S. Marshal's office."
The two men shook hands. "Thanks for sticking your neck out like this," Rapp said.
"Yeah, well, I've known Skip for a long time and I know he wouldn't ask if it wasn't serious."
"It is, trust me."
"We'd better get going then." The Marshall led them over to a heavy steel door. After a second it buzzed and they were let in. A Fairfax County deputy was waiting for them. Stewart looked at the younger man and said, "We need Ahmed al-Adel. You've got him in solitary."
"What for?" the deputy asked.
Stewart was short, but imposing. He glared at the young deputy and said, "Don't worry yourself with what for. He's a federal prisoner. When I say go get him, you just go get him."
The deputy backed down immediately. Rapp stepped forward. "I'll go with."
The deputy shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Another heavy door was buzzed and Rapp and the deputy entered. As they walked down the hallway, the deputy looked over his shoulder and said, "Hey, aren't you that Mitch Rapp fellow?"
Rapp shook his head. "Nope. You're not the first person to say it though. I'm with the Justice Department." Rapp didn't actually think this would work as an alibi, it was just better than having to answer all the man's questions about what it was like to work for the CIA and kill bad guys.
They went down a flight of stairs and through another locked door into a quiet and darkened cell block. At the very end of the passage the deputy unlocked a cell and before he opened the door Rapp said, "I can take it from here."
The deputy hesitated. "I have to put cuffs on him. It's the rules."
Rapp smiled confidently. "Don't worry about the cuffs. I can handle him."
The deputy didn't move. "I could get in big trouble."
Rapp shoed him away. "Don't worry about it. Go back upstairs. I can take it from here."
The deputy studied the face of the man standing in front of him. He'd already noticed the bulge of the weapon slung under the guy's right arm and the thin scar on the side of his face. He was athletic and in his mid-thirties. This guy was Mitch Rapp, not some lawyer from the Justice Department.
The deputy relented and left. He knew what to do. Brian Jones was twenty-two years old and had worked at the jail for not yet a year, but in that short time he'd learned to hate the hotshot Feds who came and went almost as much as the loudmouthed animals they housed behind the thick steel bars. Jones walked back upstairs and went into the security room where he monitored the prisoners via their new digital camera system. A short while later the man claiming he wasn't Rapp came upstairs with the prisoner. He had the man by the scruff of his orange jumpsuit. The prisoner looked scared, and if that was in fact Mitch Rapp, he was absolutely right to be scared.
Jones watched on the monitors as al-Adel was put in the backseat of the sedan and Rapp got in with him. The big jerk, Deputy U.S. Marshal Joe Stewart, talked to the other man for a second and then they shook hands and the tall guy from the FBI got in the car and started backing up. Fairfax County Deputy Sheriff Brian Jones punched the button to raise the garage door and as soon as the sedan was clear he closed it. A second later his entire video surveillance system crashed and his monitors went black.
Deputy Jones didn't move and didn't dare touch a thing. He just held his breath hoping the system would reboot itself. Five seconds passed, then ten, then twenty, and then finally the cameras started coming back online. Jones wiped the sweat from his brow and sighed in relief. The system had been installed around the time Jones had started, and it had never malfunctioned like that before. The timing of the crash made him a little suspicious, so he logged into the system and began checking the archives. Everything was stored digitally.
Roughly five minutes of surveillance footage was gone. Erased from the server.Lawyer, my ass, he thought to himself.Just who in the hell did they think they were coming into his jail and pulling this shit? Jones grabbed his wallet and found the card. He had been planning to call the man anyway. The Mouth of the South was famous. He'd passed his cards around the detention center telling deputies that he was going to be looking to hire out a lot of off-duty security for the trial. Fifty bucks an hour for sitting around and reading paperback novels on his days off sounded pretty good.
Jones bet the Mouth of the South had no idea his client had just gone for a ride with the CIA. He thought about how nice it would be to make fifty bucks an hour. If he let the Mouth know what was going on, he'd have the inside track on that off-duty job for sure. Jones was already counting the money he'd make as he dialed the number.