Vince Flynn - Act of Treason

The big man’s right arm came in straight like a battering ram. Rapp stepped quickly to his left and swept his right arm up and around in a clockwise motion grabbing Milinkavich’s right elbow. Using the man’s own momentum Rapp pulled him closer and turned him away at the same time. He brought his right leg up and then sent his foot crashing down on the completely exposed outside of Milinkavich’s right knee. There was hideous crunching noise as ligaments snapped and the knee collapsed inward. Milinkavich hopped once on his left leg and then fell to the floor screaming in agony.

Rapp stood over him, ready to strike another blow, his jaw clenched in anger. He was pissed that this idiot had forced them to go down this road. “Where were you born?” Rapp yelled.

“ Minsk. I was born in Minsk.”

“And who do you work for?”

“The KGB.”

Rapp kicked him in the bad knee and the Belarusian howled in pain. “You mean the BKGB.”

“We are one and the same.”

“The hell you are.” Rapp kicked him in the knee again. “I’m done fucking around with you, Yuri.” Rapp bent down and looked him in the eye, noted the shocked expression on his face. “That’s right, you dumb fucker. I know your name. I know all about you. I know you’re not Russian. I know you never worked for the KGB, and I know you were one corrupt motherfucker when you worked for the BKGB. My friends at the KGB told me you got fat working for the Minsk mob.” Rapp mixed facts with suppositions to build his case and chip away at Milinkavich’s confidence.

“I need a doctor,” the man wailed in pain.

“You aren’t going to get shit until you start answering my questions.” Rapp stomped on the bent knee, and shouted over Milinkavich’s cries, “Who do you work for?”

“The Minsk mob!”

“And who do you answer to?” Rapp brought his foot up and held it in the air.

“Aleksandr Gordievsky.”

Before this morning Rapp would not have recognized the name, but he’d just read it in the file Langley had sent over. Aleksandr Gordievsky was none other that the former communist party chairman of Belarus and the current mob boss of the entire country.

“And why were you on Cyprus?”

“To kill the man.”

“Which man?”

“Deckas. The Greek.”

“Why?” Rapp yelled.

“I don’t know.”

Rapp lifted his foot.

“I swear.” Milinkavich put his hands up. “I do not know.”

Rapp’s foot came crashing down. “Bullshit!”

Milinkavich screamed in agony and tears began spilling from his eyes.

“You want me to kick you again?”

“No!”

“Then tell me why you were sent to kill him.”

“All I know,” the big man gasped for air, “is he was hired to do something and he fucked up.”

“He was hired to kill someone,” Rapp wanted to be clear on this.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“I do not know.”

“You want me to kick you again?”

“No!” he screamed. “No, please I have no idea.”

“When did your boss start doing business with the Arabs?”

A look of real shock fell across Milinkavich’s face. “Arabs?”

“Arabs…Islamic Radical Fundamentalist…terrorists.”

“Mr. Gordievsky would never work with such people.”

The look on his face was believable, but the words weren’t. “Bullshit.” Rapp stomped on his knee again.

Milinkavich screamed and then began sobbing. “I am serious. He is Eastern Orthodox. Very involved in the church. He thinks Islam is the invention of Satan. He would never do business with them.”

All Rapp’s senses told him Milinkavich was telling the truth, but it didn’t add up with what he already knew. Rapp needed to be careful. If he began asking blind questions, he could end up weakening his position. The better thing to do at the moment was to leave and try to confirm what he’d just been told. Then if he found out the man was lying to him, he would come back and the interrogation would begin with renewed vigor.

“I’m going to call my friends in the KGB and find out if you’re telling the truth. And you’d better hope they corroborate your story, or I’m going to come back in here and things are going to get real ugly. In fact when I come back, you are going to tell me from start to finish everything you know about Deckas. And I mean everything. When you first heard of him. How many jobs he’s done for you. Everything. You do that, and I’ll get you set up with painkillers. You decide to lie to me some more and I’ll snap your other knee.”

Rapp stepped over Milinkavich and closed and locked the heavy door. He climbed the steps up to the main floor and then walked past the break room and up to Coleman’s office. When he entered Coleman was on the phone signaling for Rapp to stay quiet.

“Irene,” Coleman said, “I have no idea where he is.” He listened for a bit and said, “I’ll have him call you as soon as I hear from him. I have to go now.”

“What did she want?” asked Rapp. “She all pissed off about Gazich?”

“No. I asked her that. She said she’s not worried. She knows he’s the guy.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“She says she has something she needs to show you.”

“What?”

“She wouldn’t say. All she said was it was very important that she see you as soon as possible.”

“She didn’t even tell you what it was about?” Rapp asked.

“All she said was that it might cause you to look at something in a different way.”

Rapp took a second to guess what that might be.

“What are you going to do?” Coleman asked.

“I’ll call her back.”

“When? She was pretty adamant.”

Rap looked at his watch. It was almost noon. “This afternoon. I need to call an old contact at the KGB, and then I want to see just how full of shit this Milinkavich is.”

“What about Dr. Hornig?”

Rapp had already thought about getting her involved. She was a shrink the CIA used to interrogate high-value prisoners.

“This guy might be a pathological liar, Mitch.”

“Yeah, I know.” Pathological liars were the most difficult people to interrogate. Plus Rapp didn’t have the stomach to keep kicking the crap out of the guy. “I’ll talk to Irene about it this afternoon, and then I’ll let you know.”

Mark Ross strolled down Peacock Alley, where Washingtonians and visitors went to see and be seen. The Willard Hotel had been a Washington landmark since before the Civil War. Ross basked in the recognition of the dozens of people who were enjoying afternoon tea. It was a walk that had been done by the likes of U.S. Grant, Mark Twain, and many other famous and infamous figures. Digital cameras snapped, people reached out just to touch him, and a few of the really brazen stopped him for a photo. The prize for sheer audacity, though, went to a woman in a blue dress with a ridiculous red hat topped with a white feather plume. She stepped in front of Ross, blocking his path and waving her cell phone. Her daughter was on the phone, and she was a huge fan of the soon-to-be vice president. Ross disguised his irritation and played along. His Secret Service detail looked on disapprovingly from fifteen feet away. Ross had been forced to give them another lecture after having already snapped at them earlier in the day. They needed to give him some freedom. No one was looking to assassinate a vice president-elect.

The party’s faithful were taking over the town. Planeloads, trainloads, and busloads were arriving by the hour. The first official function was tonight and then it was a whirlwind of breakfasts, lunches, and balls. The big affairs were reserved for Saturday night: eleven separate black-tie balls. There wasn’t a hotel room in town that wasn’t booked. It was really going to happen. He was going to be vice president of the United States of America. Ross could hardly believe it. He couldn’t remember the first time he’d dreamt of rising to such political heights but he’d been young. Usually the dream focused on the top job, but he did remember a time when he was away at boarding school and he read a book about Teddy Roosevelt. There was a man of destiny. T.R. was one of the greats. He remembered a fellow democrat criticizing the old Bull Moose president for being a bully. Ross responded by telling him, “Bully or not, his face is on Mount Rushmore.”