Vince Flynn - The Third Option

Dumond was shoveling Cap'n Crunch cereal into his mouth while Rapp gave him instructions. «Make sure you don't set off any alarms while you're digging around.»

Dumond looked up, a drop of milk running down his chin. «Relax, Mitch, it's what I do for a living.» Dumond's job was a fantasy come true. He was both sanctioned and paid by the United States government to spend his days hacking.

«Yeah, but this is different. This time you'll be hacking into files at Langley and the Pentagon.»

Dumond grinned, his mouth full of golden Cap'n Crunch. After he had enough of it swallowed, he said, «There ain't nothing different about that.»

Rapp eyed him for a moment. Dumond had a smart-ass streak in him a mile wide. «Don't jerk my chain, Marcus.»

«I'm not. I'm usually in the Pentagon's system at least once a day.»

«And Langley's?»

«I'm on the system.»

«But what about areas where you're not supposed to be.»

«Not every day, but I've been known to look around from time to time.»

«How often?»

«Every day.» Dumond shoved another spoonful in his mouth.

«Does Irene know that you do this?»

«No… not always.»

Rapp shook his head like a troubled father.» Marcus, I'm telling you for your own good, you'd better watch what you're doing. You open up the wrong person's file, and you might suddenly disappear.» Rapp snapped his fingers.

«How are they going to catch me when they don't even know I've been there? Hmm?»

«Marcus, I know you're good, but no one's perfect. You keep screwing around like this, and you're gonna get caught.» Dumond smiled and shook his head in disagreement. Rapp pointed his finger at the younger man and said, «Marcus, I'm not fucking around on this! You're playing a very dangerous game, and sooner or later someone is going to be on to you. And when that happens, you can kiss your ass goodbye, and I don't mean your job… I mean your life.» Rapp turned his finger on himself. «The CIA and the Pentagon, they have dozens of guys just like me. They don't know dick about computers, but they know a lot about killing people.»

Dumond heeded the warning. «All right… all right.» He got up and dumped the rest of his cereal down the garbage disposal. His appetite was suddenly gone.

A few minutes later, they left the four-plex, Dumond out the front and on his way to Langley, Rapp out the back and on his way to a storage shed in the sticks. Rapp walked eight blocks to Wisconsin Avenue and went underground, where he caught the Metro going north. He was wearing the same clothes from the night before – his baseball cap, a sweatshirt, his khakis, and blue tennis shoes. The outfit would be fine until he got to the storage locker. The train was relatively empty since most of the people were headed into the city to work, and he was headed out. Rapp's backpack was on the empty seat next to him, his arm resting on top of it. The train gently rocked as it rolled through the tunnel, and a short while later it was above ground, the bright sunlight spilling through the windows.

The only other person in the car pulled out a cell phone and started talking. Rapp's hand slid over to one of the outer pockets on the backpack and patted it. Dumond had given him a digitally encrypted phone. He told Rapp it was safe to use whenever he wanted and for as long as he wanted. But Rapp, always the skeptic, planned to use it sparingly and only for a few minutes at a time.

The desire to see Anna was overwhelming. He looked out the window as the train rolled north. He knew he shouldn't do it, but he had to. At the very least, he had to hear her voice. Rapp pulled out the phone and turned it on. He quickly punched in her work number and nervously counted the seconds. After three rings her voice mail picked up. Mitch listened to her voice and then, at the beep, he punched the end button on the phone. His spirits plummeted. It wasn't just about not finding Anna. For the first time in his life, Rapp was filled with doubt. Doubt over whether or not he should just walk away. Whether they would even let him walk away. He was so close to where he wanted to be. Why did he have to take that last mission? Why couldn't he just have called it quits? He took his baseball cap off and ran a hand over his short, bristly black hair. He knew the answer to all of those questions, but at this moment he didn't feel like admitting it. All he wanted was Anna. To put all of this behind him and live a normal life.

IRENE KENNEDY ENTERED the conference room on the seventh floor of the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and set her notepad on the table. Lunch would have to wait. This meeting had been sprung on her. The rectangular room was adjacent to the director's office. Bland and functional, it contained a long mahogany table and a dozen leather chairs. The room was swept every morning by the Administration Directorate's Office of Security – the CIA's Gestapo, as it was affectionately referred to by some of the Agency's more than twenty thousand employees. Hidden behind the curtains were small devices that caused the windows to vibrate, making penetration by a parabolic microphone impossible. For obvious reasons, the CIA took its security seriously, and in very few places was it taken more seriously than the executive suite of the seventh floor.

There were five other individuals at the conference table, and none of them spoke to each other. Max Salmen, the oldest of the group, didn't care for the others, with the exception of Irene Kennedy. They were, to him, dangerous mongrels – each a mix of bureaucrat, politician, and lawyer and each nearly incapable of making the correct decision for the right reason. They headed three of the Agency's directorates, and Salmen headed the fourth. As deputy director of Operations, Salmen was in charge of the spies. It was his people who ran the black ops, recruited agents from both friend and foe, kept tabs on counterespionage, and tracked the terrorists. His people were the front-line troops, the case officers, the people out in the field getting their hands dirty and taking the real risks. Salmen had cut his teeth with Stansfield in Europe, and then, as Stansfield had risen through the ranks, the crusty Salmen had come with him. Salmen was Kennedy's immediate boss, although she often reported directly to Stansfield.

The other three people at the table were also deputy directors. Charles Workman ran Intelligence. His people were the bookworms, the Mensa geeks who pored over reams of information day in and day out. Rachel Mann ran Science and Technology, and Stephen Bauman was in charge of Administration.

Of the three, Salmen disliked Workman the most, but Bauman was a close second. To say that he hated Mann would be unfair. Under different circumstances, Bauman thought he would probably like her. She was very bright and for the most part tried to avoid the political backstabbing that Workman and Bauman thrived on, but in the end there was only so much money to go around, and everyone wanted to take it from Operations. If it wasn't for the recent spate of terrorism, Salmen knew his budget would be in serious trouble.

Salmen folded his nicotine-stained hands across his bulging belly and wondered how much longer he could hold on. His days were numbered. He'd been at the Agency since 1964, stationed first in Cambodia and then in Laos, doing things for his government that were still classified. After Vietnam, he moved on to Europe, where he worked in various embassies before becoming the station chief in Berlin. When Stansfield became director, he recalled Salmen and brought him into his inner circle. Now, with Stansfield on his deathbed, things looked bleak. The only reason Salmen put up with all of the bullshit was out of a sense of duty to the people in the field. He needed to protect them. He needed to keep these desk jockeys off their backs. And there was one oilier reason. Stansfield had asked him to stay and keep an eye on things, and, more explicitl, he had asked his old friend to watch Irene Kennedy's back.