Vince Flynn: The Last Man

A man in a dark suit and a dark trench coat approached Ferris’s open door. “Senator, please get out of the car.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

Rapp bent over and showed his face. “Then I’ll gladly drag your ass from the vehicle and cuff you.”

Ferris sighed and got out of the car. “I know who you are,” he said to Rapp. “You have no right to arrest me.”

“You’re right, but he does.” Rapp pointed at FBI Director Miller, who was standing next to a black Suburban, keeping a close eye on things. “If you’d like, you can deal with him, but then everything gets real official and the press will get involved, and based on what I’ve seen, you really don’t want to go that route.”

Coleman stepped in and took the dog from the senator. As he walked away, he removed the bug he’d placed there the previous week.

“This way, Senator,” Rapp said as he led the man toward Kennedy’s waiting Suburban. Ferris joined Kennedy in the backseat and Rapp got into the front passenger seat.

“I don’t want you to speak, Senator,” said Kennedy. “We have recordings of your little meetings with Agent Wilson.”

“Hardly a crime.”

“I said, don’t speak. Earlier this evening, we confiscated your maid’s laptop, which contains some very incriminating emails between you and General Durrani of the Pakistani ISI. By the way, did you know he was shot and killed in his house yesterday?” Kennedy could tell by the surprised look on the senator’s face that he had not heard. “Do you know what else they found in his house? No? Well, it’s not good. The body of one of my Clandestine Service officers, Joe Rickman. I think you’ve heard of him. Apparently, General Durrani was behind kidnapping and torturing him for information that he was going to use against the United States.

“Now, as this starts to sink in, Senator, I want you to think of two paths. One will involve a great deal of embarrassment and an extremely public trial for treason. None of your colleagues will support you, because I will show them the information I have and you will be completely toxic to them. You will probably be spared execution, since we no longer have the stomach for that anymore, but you will most certainly go to jail, and I will make sure it is the kind of jail that a scumbag like you deserves. The second path you may choose is to show up in my office tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp, where you will be debriefed. You may keep your job and your chairmanship and despite your hatred of the CIA you will become one of our most valuable allies of the CIA on the Capitol Hill. Do you understand your two options?”

Ferris swallowed hard and said, “I do.”

Kennedy looked at her watch and said, “All right… you have ten seconds to decide.”

There was only one valid option for a man like Ferris. “I’ll take option number two.” Maybe later he could figure out a way to undo this mess.

“Good,” Kennedy said. “I’ll see you at nine tomorrow morning.”

Rapp opened the door for Ferris, and when they were a few feet away from the Suburban, Rapp grabbed him by the arm and said, “There is a third option.”

“What’s that?”

“I sneak into your house in the middle of the night and I snap your neck.” Rapp stared at Ferris for an uncomfortably long moment and then said, “Good night, Senator.” Rapp walked back to the SUV and climbed into the backseat.

As they were driving away, Kennedy asked, “You still don’t like it, do you?”

Rapp rubbed his eyes. “I would prefer to kill him.”

“I know that’s your default switch for every problem, but sometimes it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“I know. We avoid all the publicity and we now own the chairman of one of the most powerful committees in town.”

They drove in silence for a few blocks, and then Kennedy said, “We have one problem.”

Rapp was staring at his iPhone, checking emails. “We have lots of problems.”

“What do you want to do with Gould?”

“I didn’t think my opinion mattered.”

“Don’t get all sensitive on me. It doesn’t suit you well. You know your opinion matters.”

Rapp thought about it for a second and said, “You know what… I’m tired and I don’t give a shit what you do with him as long as you keep him away from me.”

“If we let him go, do you think he’ll quit?”

“No,” Rapp answered without hesitation. “He won’t quit until he’s crippled or dead.”

Kennedy had to be careful with this next part. Rapp was likely to come unglued. She cleared her throat and said, “What if we put him on retainer?” She watched as Rapp slowly turned his head toward her, waiting for the explosion.

Rapp’s jaw was locked in a grimace and then it slowly started to relax. “I’d say we give him a trial run. He screws up, he’s dead. He finishes the job, we’ll sit down and talk.”

“That was unexpected.” Kennedy didn’t bother hiding her surprise.

“And I know who we’re going to send him after.”

Rapp thought about all of the tight security around the man and how difficult it would be to kill Obrecht. Just maybe, Rapp would get lucky and Obrecht would put Gould out of his misery and save Rapp from the guilt of doing it himself.

“Who?” Kennedy asked, a bit nervous.

“I think our newest Swiss banker would be a nice place to start.”

“Herr Obrecht?”

“Exactly.”