Vince Flynn - Consent To Kill

Once off the roof he walked around to the back of the house. He stopped on the back deck for a moment and looked out at the bay. There were a couple of smaller boats not far from shore. He thought they were probably fishermen. Gould leaned over the railing. It was almost a straight drop down to the water. There were two boats tied up: a ski boat and a fishing boat with a deep v-hull. He walked up to the glass French doors and looked inside at the kitchen area. Going inside was a nonstarter. A guy like Rapp would have the place wired with every type of security device known.

Gould completed the circle of the house and ended up where he started. The air-conditioning unit was located between the propane tank and the house. Right next to where the cooling hose entered the house was the fresh air vent for the heating and cooling system. It was a six-by-six-inch galvanized cover that angled out from the house so that there was a three-by-six-inch opening at the bottom. Gould got down on one knee and with a needle-nose pliers removed the screen from the inside of the vent. He went back to the truck and got the extension cord and the remote receiving unit he'd picked up at Radio Shack. He plugged the remote receiving unit into an outdoor outlet, checked to make sure it was in the off position, and then walked to the end of the driveway. The dog followed him. He pointed the handheld remote at the garage, pressed the button once, and walked back. Gould was satisfied to see the remote receiving unit was now in the on position. He flipped it back to the off position and grabbed the extension cord.

The French Foreign Legion had taught him a lot of things, and one of them was how to make improvised explosive devices. Gould cut off the female end of the extension cord and stripped away the insulation. He twisted the two exposed wires together and then fed the cord into the fresh air vent on the side of the house. He figured eight feet was enough and plugged the male end into the remote receiving unit. Now things got a little tricky. Gould uncoiled the two high-pressure hoses, fed them into the vent with the extension cord, and then taped off the opening with plastic. There was only one thing left to do. He took the two forty-pound propane tanks from the truck, hooked them up to the high-pressure hoses, and opened the valves.

The dog came up and dropped a dirty tennis ball at his feet. Gould picked it up and threw it toward the road. The dog came roaring back and Gould gave the ball another good chuck. He checked his watch. It was ten after eight. He figured it would take about five more minutes to empty the tanks. Between throws of the tennis ball, he grabbed all but two of the gas cans and carried them over to the side of the house. Gould dropped down to one knee and listened to see if the propane was drained from the tanks. The hissing noise was gone, so he closed the valves and carefully extracted the high-pressure hoses from the side of the house. Gould quickly sealed the plastic with more duct tape, and then lined up the rectangular gas cans between the house and the large propane tank.

With a rubber-handled crescent wrench, he crawled under the big metallic tank and began to slowly loosen the gas line that ran from the bottom of the tank, underground, and into the house. With every half turn he'd stop and listen. He didn't want the connection too loose or the neighbors might smell it and call in a gas leak, or possibly Rapp and his wife. He wiggled the line a bit and gave it one more quarter turn. A soft hissing noise came from the connection and Gould caught a slight whiff of liquid propane. He remained there for a few minutes to see if it remained constant. It did, so he crawled out from under the tank and unscrewed the caps on each of the gas cans.

If all went according to plan, the gas cans would be knocked over by the initial explosion. The cascading fuel would reach the underside of the large tank almost immediately. The fireball from the house would ignite the gas which in turn would mix with the slow leak from the large tank. The secondary explosion would obliterate the extension cord, the remote receiving unit, the gas cans, and probably the entire house. With no evidence left, all fingers would be pointed at the Chesapeake Bay Propane Company.

Rapp came out of his drug-induced sleep feeling groggy and disoriented. After a moment he realized he was in a hospital room. He looked down the length of his body at his knee. His leg was there, but he couldn't feel anything. It was propped up in the air and covered with a blanket. Her touch was so gentle he didn't even notice at first that she was holding his hand. He slowly turned his head and looked into his wife's beautiful green eyes. Rapp blinked several times and looked around the room. The shades were drawn. He had no idea how long he'd been out. When he looked back at Anna, she smiled her perfect smile and asked him how he felt.

"Thirsty," he answered in a hoarse voice.

She raised the bed up a few degrees and gave him some water through a straw. "The doctor says you did great."

Rapp looked around the room again. "What time is it?"

"A little before eleven."

"In the morning?"

"Yes."

Rapp rubbed his eyes. "When can we get the hell out of here?"

She smiled. "I told them you wouldn't want to wait around."

"Can you open the shades?"

Rielly got up and pulled back the heavy gray plastic curtains.

Rapp squinted. He had the twisted look on his face that belongs to an extremely hungover man who is forced to endure the bright midday light without sunglasses. Anna knew there was no way they could keep him in bed for two more hours so she left to find his doctor. They came back a few minutes later and the doctor pulled back the sheet covering Rapp's legs. He carefully unwound the Ace bandage and removed the ice pack. Rapp looked at his knee. It was yellow from the betadine they'd used to sanitize it for surgery. Rapp was surprised that it wasn't more swollen and said so. The doctor explained that the surgery had gone very well. He'd cleaned out the cartilage and removed two bone spurs that were the likely cause of most of the discomfort.

"Can you feel anything, yet?" the doctor asked.

Rapp wondered which answer would get him home quicker. "A little bit."

"Does it hurt?"

Rapp shrugged.

The doctor nodded. "Since you've been running around on this thing for as long as you have, my guess is you have a pretty high tolerance for pain. Your wife said you'd like to get home as soon as possible."

"Yeah."

"How do you feel?" the doctor asked.

"Fine," Rapp lied. He had a splitting headache and was slightly nauseated.

"Your wife says you don't want to take anything stronger than Tylenol Three."

Rapp nodded.

"Good, but if you change your mind, call and we'll get you something better."

"The Tylenol will be fine."

"I'll get the nurse to give you a five-day supply. You're in great shape, so I think you're going to recover quickly."

Rapp sat up a little more. "When can I start running again?"

"I'd like to see you give it up altogether, but since I know that isn't going to happen, you should wait at least a month."

"A month?" Rapp asked, obviously not happy with the answer.

The truth was two weeks, but the doctor dealt with guys like this all the time. No matter what he told them, they'd divide by two. "You can do some light biking in four days, and you can try swimming as long as it doesn't hurt, but I really want you to lay off the running for at least four weeks. The first step though is to stay off it for the next forty-eight hours and you have to ice it every other hour." He looked at Anna. "When he goes to bed tonight, elevate the knee with a couple of pillows and put ice on it. Try to get up at least once and change the ice pack. Above all, though, make sure he stays off it and he keeps it elevated."