Vince Flynn - The Third Option

«You look like you've been in the sun.»

«I've been traveling.»

«Business or pleasure?»

Rapp grabbed his cup of coffee with both hands and said, «Business.»

«How did it go?» asked Dumond a little tentatively.

«Not so good.» Rapp took a sip. «How have things been at the center?» He was referring to the Counterterrorism Center.

«Same old shit.»

«Nothing unusual in the last three days?»

«No.» Dumond frowned. «Nothing that came across my screen.»

«How about Irene? How's she been acting?»

«Same as always. She's Irene.»

«Nothing at all?»

«Mitch, the woman probably doesn't even moan when she has an orgasm. Hell, she's probably never even had an orgasm.»

Rapp frowned at Dumond, and before he could say anything, Dumond added, «I'm sorry. I like Irene, but you know what I mean. She's a cool customer. The building could be burning down, and she'd just keep on going like she always does.»

Rapp knew what he meant. «You haven't noticed anything?»

Dumond leaned back. «Well, shit, Mitch, there's always something. Maybe if you told me what your business was about, I might be able to tell you more.»

He thought about it for a moment. For now, he decided he would keep Dumond in the dark about Germany. «I assume you still have that case I gave you?»

«Yep. I haven't touched it just like you told me. «Well, in truth, he'd touched it, he'd sat on it, and he'd looked at it. He'd wondered over and over what was inside the cold metal case. His mind almost always settled on a combination of guns and money. Mitch Rapp was a bad dude, and he wouldn't waste his time asking people to keep a locked metal case of clothes.

Rapp turned his wrist up and checked the time. «It's still at the four-plex?»

«Yeah, just around the corner.»

«All right, let's go.»

Mario Lukas awoke on Tuesday morning at five. He was not a good sleeper, hadn't been for as long as he could remember. He figured it was just one more thing in a long list of liabilities associated with his profession. It's not always easy for a hired killer to relax. And at Mario's level, it's not the feds you worry about, it's the other shooters. You spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder wondering if someone is going to come after you for revenge, or if you might get double-crossed by someone you thought was a friend, or if an employer has decided you are too big of a liability to let live.

When Mario rolled out of bed in the predawn hours, this was what was on his mind. The person he knew as the Professor was not to be trusted. Mario had watched the man closely while they were in Colorado. Villaume had told him to do so, and Mario didn't like what he saw.

Operations like the one they had just done in Colorado were never good. Mario thought they were kind of like screwing a married woman. If you ended up getting seriously involved with her, you shouldn't be surprised if you woke up one day and found out she was doing the same thing to you that she did to her first, second, or third husband. In essence, the Professor had hired the couple in Colorado to do a job, and then he had them killed. He had also hired Mario, Villaume, and Juarez to do a job, and now what was there to prevent him from hiring another set of killers to take them out? This was why he couldn't sleep.

Mario swung his feet onto the wood floor of his Spartan one-bedroom apartment. He sat there for a minute scratching himself and waiting for the lightheadedness to fade. Then standing, he started for the bathroom, his back and legs stiff. The tiny apartment came furnished with only the necessities, which was fine for Mario. He didn't like collecting things. He'd been living in apartments like this for thirty of his fifty-some years. Even Mario wasn't sure how old he was. He'd had so many aliases over the years and lived in so many different places, he'd forgotten if he was fifty-five or fifty-six. Everything he owned could be placed in the trunk of his car. With what he did for a living, it made no sense to accumulate too many things. On a moment's notice you might have to pick up and disappear. He couldn't help but think that this was one of those times.

When he was done in the bathroom, he walked to the door and got his newspaper. He grabbed a jug of orange juice from the refrigerator and a glass from the cupboard. As he started to read the paper, he thought of an old associate who had tried to talk him into buying a house one time. The man had tried to sell him on the idea that they could use the tax writeoff. Mario reminded him that since they were paid in cash, the writeoff would do them no good. That acquaintance had disappeared, never to be found again.

Villaume was the only true friend Mario had ever had and the first person he had met in the business whom he could unquestioningly trust with his life. Villaume had helped him look toward retirement. Mario had always kept his money in a series of safe deposit boxes. Villaume had taken that money and put it into offshore bank accounts where it was now handled by a money manager. The return was so good that he could retire today if he wanted. In light of the job in Colorado, he thought it might be a good idea at least to take a little time off.

At 6:25, he got ready for his walk to the neighborhood bakery. Having lived in France for more than twenty years, Mario hated American coffee. It had taken him more than a week to find a place that served good cappuccino, but he had prevailed. It was a little bakery six blocks away. Before leaving, he stuck a 9-mm pistol in the front of his pants. Leaving his dark shirt untucked. he put on his jacket and hat and left.

JEFF DUSER WAS on speed. Sitting in the driver's seat of the gray Dodge Durango, he tapped out a tune on the steering wheel as his eyes darted back and forth between the two side mirrors and the rearview mirror. He was wearing a dark brown suit and a tan trench coat. In the breast pocket of his suit were credentials that identified him as Steven Metzger, a federal agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Duser still kept his hair short-buzzed and flat on top but not skinned on the sides like he'd had it when he was in the Marine Corps. He had joined the Marines when he was eighteen. It was either Parris Island or jail. The local cops in Toledo, Ohio, had his number. The police chief had personally driven him to the recruiting station on his eighteenth birthday.

Duser thought he'd found a home in the Marine Corps. That was until the Corps got soft on him. If the politically correct politicians thought they were going to force him to let faggots serve in his unit, they had another thing coming. He had openly encouraged and participated in the hazing of suspected homosexuals. A particularly green private right out of boot camp had taken the platoon's first sergeant's words a little too seriously: After an evening of beer and prodding, the private went back to the barracks and beat a fellow Marine to death. The subsequent investigation exposed Duser's role and many of his other shortcomings. He was court-martialed and run out of the Corps. From there he'd found his way into private security and then contract killing.

Wally McBride sat in the front passenger seat, a silenced Steyr TMP submachine gun on his lap. Duser and his people had a crate of the weapons stashed at a warehouse in Richmond. They had gotten them in one of the shipments they had hijacked from a gun dealer who was importing them from Austria. The weapon was compact. Even with the sound suppressor attached, it was easily concealable. They had meticulously filed the serial numbers off the weapons and then swabbed them with acid. Duser didn't have many rules, but there was one he was adamant about. If you used a weapon to kill someone, it was dumped in the ocean as soon as possible.