Vince Flynn - Consent To Kill

Rapp had no problem admitting it, even if those around him didn't want to. Contrary to what many might think, he slept like a baby. What he did was not complicated. He killed terrorists, plain and simple. Men who had either slaughtered innocent civilians, or had very publicly sworn to do so. It was not a job he had sought. He did not grow up pulling the wings off butterflies or torturing kittens. His life had been family, school, friends, lacrosse, football, and a suburban smattering of religion, which meant they went to church twice a year-Christmas and Easter. The thought of killing someone had never entered his mind until Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland. On that cold morning 259 innocent souls had perished, thirty-five of whom were fellow Syracuse University students, and one of whom was the love of Rapp's life. Shortly after that, and unknown to him, his recruitment into this mysterious and treacherous world of international espionage had begun.

Rapp was dressed in a gray flannel suit, white shirt, and striped tie, all of which his wife had picked out for him. As always, he was armed. Rapp had gone over the room thoroughly with his BlackBerry. The small device doubled as a mobile phone and Internet browser. In addition to that, the Science and Technology people at Langley had retrofitted the small black box to detect and scramble listening devices. The eight-by-twelve-foot room was clean. Rapp sat in one of the six wooden chairs, put his feet up on the table, and clasped his hands behind his head.

The two men arrived five minutes late, which was good since Rapp had told them he would wait no more than ten minutes past the appointed hour. Upon hearing the door handle turn, Rapp rose and casually slid his left hand under the fold of his suit coat. To the untrained eye, it looked as if he was smoothing his tie. The move was reflexive in nature and not done out of fear. In his line of work you never knew who was coming through the door, and it was much easier to draw a gun standing than sitting.

The two men were an unusual pair. One tall and bone-thin, with a hawkish nose, the other short and round, with the nose of a boxer who had lost one too many fights, which according to his bio, Rapp knew to be the case. Senator Bill Walsh was six and a half feet tall and hailed from Idaho. He was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It was Rapp's guess that it was he who had requested this meeting. Though infinitely more appealing than the other man in his demeanor, he was also very difficult to get a good read on. His companion was Senator Carl Hartsburg of New Jersey. Barely five eight, Hartsburg grew up in Hoboken, where at one point he was the local Golden Gloves champ. The story on him was that he wasn't that great a fighter, but he could really take a beating, hence the missing cartilage in his nose. Both men were in their mid-sixties, almost thirty years Rapp's seniors.

Hartsburg spoke first and a bit testily. "The Congressional Library. We could have just as easily met across the street in my office."

Rapp had picked one of the many study/meeting rooms at the Congressional Library on Capitol Hill.

"Neutral turf is more appealing," replied Rapp.

Walsh extended his hand. "Thank you for taking the time to meet with us."

Rapp shook Walsh's hand and when he was done didn't bother to extend it to the surly Hartsburg, who returned the favor. After taking a seat, Rapp pressed a series of buttons on his BlackBerry before laying it flat on the table.

Hartsburg looked at the device. "What in the hell is that for?"

"To make sure you're not recording me."

"A jamming device?"

Rapp nodded.

"Good," Hartsburg growled, "because I can tell you right now the last thing I want is a record of this meeting." Under his breath he added, "I'm not even sure I wanted this meeting period."

Rapp folded his arms across his chest and studied the senator, wondering if his grumpy mood was real or an act. Turning to Walsh, he asked, "So why in the world would two big shots such as yourselves want to meet with someone like me?"

Hartsburg frowned and said, "I keep asking myself the same question."

"Carl," Walsh said in a disapproving tone to his colleague. Looking across the table at the no-nonsense Rapp, he cut to the chase. "We are concerned, Mitch…concerned that with all of this rhetoric, and the expansion of Homeland Security and the new director of National Intelligence, that we're not doing enough to protect America."

"You won't get any arguments from me."

"We didn't think so. That's why we wanted to meet with you." Walsh flattened his palms on the table and hesitated. "What is your frank opinion on the restructuring of the intelligence community, and the creation of the new director of National Intelligence?"

Rapp took a moment to gauge the sincerity of the senator's question. He doubted they were going to get an honest answer from anyone else so he said, "I think it's a misguided, ill-conceived, overreaction brought on by a bunch of politicians who are in a hurry to act like they're doing something…anything…so that when the next attack comes they can say they did everything in their power to stop it, when in reality all they did was get in the way of the people who were really defending the country."

Hartsburg scoffed, "You think it's easy…our job?"

"Easy doesn't factor into it for me, Senator. I'm talking about right and wrong."

"Well, I'd like to see you go on national television and stand up to pressure from groups like the 9/11 widows. See how far you get with your black-and-white attitude." Hartsburg wagged an accusatory finger at Rapp. "The press would eat you alive."

Rapp raised an eyebrow. "Did you bother to tell those widows that their husbands died because none of you had the balls to order Osama bin Laden's assassination? Did you tell them that your two parties have spent so much time trying to embarrass each other over the past two decades you've turned the CIA into another inefficient, money-sucking Washington bureaucracy?"

Hartsburg glared at the man from the CIA. "That's a bunch of crap. You clowns out at Langley have squandered billions, and it sure as hell isn't our fault."

"You think they died," Rapp ignored the senator's attempt to shift, "because we didn't have a director of National Intelligence?"

"The CIA…"-Hartsburg pointed an accusatory finger at Rapp-"and the rest of the damn alphabet soup is a disaster."

"And whose fault is that? You two have each been in Washington thirty-plus years. Your job is oversight. You know that little part in the oath you took…to protect and defend? It's your job to lead and make sure the damn alphabet soup works. Not to criticize them after the fact, especially when all you've done is distract them for the last decade and a half by forcing them to implement your politically correct social projects."

"Your corner of the universe is tiny." Hartsburg held his thumb and forefinger in front of Rapp like the pincers of a hermit crab. "You have no concept of the big picture."

"That's where you're wrong, Senator," Rapp said with anger creeping into his voice. "There is no bigger picture than National Security. You guys want to legislate social change…go do it over at the Department of Education or Health and Human Services, but don't fuck around with Langley."

Hartsburg tapped his finger on the table. "Have you seen Langley's budget lately? We're talking billions of dollars, and I'd like to know what in the hell we're getting in return."

Rapp threw his arms up in frustration. "You guys amaze me. You bitch about the money that's being spent, and then your solution to the problem is to add more bureaucracy…more layers…slow things down even more. Spend more money. Stovepipe the shit out of everything, so twenty different supervisors and department heads have to sign off on each bit of intelligence before the president even has a prayer of seeing it. You think that's going to solve our problems?"