“Yes.”
“What about Azarov?”
“Nothing yet. We’re only using choppers if we have to because of the weather and we’re only using ground patrols if we have to because of the radiation. You said the guy looked like he was bleeding pretty badly and that’s a whole lot of desert out there. My guess is that he’s dead and buried in the sand by now.”
Rapp didn’t respond other than to adjust the ice pack on what had once been the bridge of his nose.
“But, if I’m wrong, don’t worry. We’ve got other lines on the guy and after this clusterfuck we’re pretty confident he’s not going back to Russia. We’ll find him.”
Rapp turned and started toward a line of military vehicles near the west end of the compound.
“Where are you going?” Nash said. “We’ve got a meeting with the Saudis in five minutes.”
“Handle it.”
“They’re expecting you. What do you want me to tell them?”
“Tell them to go fuck themselves. I’m heading home.”
CHAPTER 58
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
U.S.A.
RAPP gunned the Charger, barely making it through the dark intersection before the light turned red. He’d hopped a military transport out of Riyadh and spent the last fifteen hours lying on top of a bunch of flak jackets in the back. Now that he was finally in the last five minutes of his trip home, those minutes seemed to be stretching out forever.
His phone rang and he patched it through the car’s anemic sound system.
“Hello, Irene.”
“I hear you’re back in the States.”
“Yeah. About a mile from my apartment.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s gone, Mitch.”
“What’s gone?”
“The apartment. We emptied it and it’s been rented. You need to turn around and go home.”
The inflection was impossible to miss. “My house is done?”
“I think Claudia’s still working on the punch list, but yes. It’s done.”
For some reason the news hit him with a force that he wasn’t prepared for. He glanced at the clock in his dashboard. A little after nineteen thirty.
“Maybe we should get together and debrief,” he heard himself say. “Are you at the office?”
“I am, but it’s completely out of the question. Claudia’s holding dinner for you.”
That hit even harder. Why? Why did he suddenly want to put the Dodge on a random highway and floor it? Was this fear? After everything he’d just been through, was this what scared him?
“First thing tomorrow morning, then?” Rapp said before he could stop himself.
“No. Tomorrow morning you’re going to sleep in and have a nice breakfast. Then, at eleven, you have an appointment with a plastic surgeon. Claudia has the details.”
“Fine. I’ll swing by after-”
“Actually, you won’t. Because you’ll be on your way to your appointment with a reconstructive dentist. Claudia has-”
“The details,” he finished.
“Exactly. The Middle East and Russia will still be there day after tomorrow, Mitch. Now go have a nice, quiet evening.”
The line went dead and Rapp kept driving straight for another mile before finally summoning the courage to make a U-turn.
• • •
The narrow road wound through dense trees and intermittent farmland before climbing to a flat summit overlooking all of it. Rapp’s twenty-acre lot was along the south edge of what was supposed to be an airy subdivision with ten home sites. That is, until his brother, an obscenely wealthy money manager, purchased the other nine. In case he ever needed a vacation home, he’d explained.
Rapp pulled up to the empty neighborhood’s gate and found that the keypad had been replaced by a thumbprint reader. Not sure what else to do, he pressed his left one against the screen. The steel barrier obediently swung back.
All markers and other clues that the unused lots existed were gone. There was nothing but natural landscaping, pristine asphalt, and dark sky. A traditional red barn appeared on his left, glowing dully in the moonlight. Originally intended to keep the residents’ horses, it now contained what was left of his contractor’s equipment.
The white stucco wall surrounding his house appeared as he crested a small rise, glowing a little brighter with the help of a few hazy spotlights. The copper gate was already taking on a green patina, visible as he pulled up next to the call box. There was a padded envelope on top of it addressed in a childlike scrawl.
4 Mich
Tearing it open, he found a single remote. A push of the button caused the heavy gate to slide smoothly out of sight.
The garage doors were closed, so he parked next to a modern sculpture that looked a little like debris from a plane crash painted with blue Rust-Oleum. It probably symbolized something deep and he made a mental note to tell Claudia how much he liked it.
The house itself was admittedly a bit unusual. It consisted of a single floor with a half basement and had no exterior windows at all. His late wife and the architect had done everything they could with textures, shapes, and roofline to keep it from looking like a prison and they’d largely succeeded. It might have been the most aesthetic bunker ever built.
There was no one to greet him when he came though the front door, so he took a moment to admire the warm lighting and sparsely arranged Asian furniture. A bold painting of a flower to his right looked almost as expensive as the downed Cessna out front.
At the end of the entryway, the left wall transformed into floor-to-ceiling glass looking onto a beautifully landscaped interior courtyard. The house’s living space ringed the courtyard, with virtually every room having access to that central garden. Through the newly planted trees, he could just make out the elegant lines of an industrial kitchen and the raven-haired woman moving through it.
He found a sliding door and stepped outside, crossing to the kitchen on a flagstone pathway. When he entered a similar door on the other side, Claudia yanked a spoon from the pot she was stirring and spun to face him. Clearly, she’d been coached and her reaction to his face consisted of nothing more than a brief flash in her dark eyes.
“Mitch!” she said, tossing the spoon on the counter and throwing her arms around him. The hug was more than a little painful, but he found that he didn’t mind at all.
“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, but I didn’t want anything to burn.”
“No problem,” he said, immediately wishing he’d come up with something a little more suave.
“Well?” she said, spreading her arms wide. “Do you like it?”
“I do,” he said, feeling a little overwhelmed. “Great sculpture out front.”
“Isn’t it fantastic? It’s an Aubarge.”
He nodded as though that meant something to him. “Where’d all this furniture come from?”
“Where didn’t it come from? Do you like it? It’s modern, but not sterile, don’t you think?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say.”
“You were not,” she responded, picking up her spoon and going to work on one of the pots boiling on the stove. She indicated with an elbow toward an open bottle of wine sitting on the counter. “Have a glass. But be warned, it’s a bit cold. I just pulled it from your cellar.”
“I have a wine cellar?”
She switched to the French she was more comfortable with. “Of course! Fully stocked!”
He found a glass and examined the label on the bottle. Not surprisingly, he’d never heard of it, but the fact that it had been produced before he’d learned to read worried him a bit. Through a few bizarre twists of fate and his brother’s financial genius, Rapp had amassed a fair amount of money. Not this much, though.
“Claudia?”
“Yes?”
“First, let me say that the place is amazing.”
“You love it, right?” she said, twisting around to look at him with a broad smile.