Vince Flynn - Protect And Defend

Rapp entered the reception area and found Stilwell and Ridley standing behind a desk looking at a large flat-screen monitor. Rapp held up a photo of the man whose left nut he had just cut off and said, “There’s no way in hell this guy is a cop.”

Ridley pointed at the screen and said, “I just got off the phone with Chuck O’Brien, and I think he’s right.” Ridley pointed at the screen. “You’ve lost it.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about,” Ridley pointed at the screen in front of him, “you cutting off that guy’s testicle. You think we’ve only got one work station to keep an eye on the prisoners?”

“Oh…don’t tell me you’ve gone soft too.”

“It has nothing to do with going soft, although I’m not so sure about your methods…it’s about the fact that this is a U.S. military base. This isn’t some dark facility in the Stans. The military keeps records, they keep track of who comes and who goes, and these GIs gossip more than a bunch of goddamn sorority sisters. Then there’s the press, and I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when that guy ends up with a lawyer someday.”

“That guy is never going to end up with a lawyer,” Rapp said forcefully.

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, I sure do, because after I’m done cutting his dick off, I’m going to drag him into one of those other cells and I’m going to blow his brains out right in front of the other two.”

“Mitch,” Ridley screamed, “you can’t do that. We have a team of interrogators on the way up from Baghdad. These guys are the best in the business. They will get every last ounce of information out of them.”

Rapp folded his arms across his chest. “Great, why don’t we just grab some lunch and a cup of coffee, kick back, shoot the breeze, and give these pros some room. That sounds like a hell of a plan. Then a week or a month from now when they finally squeeze the information out of these guys we can try to get Irene back. In the meantime I’m sure they’ll treat her like a queen.”

“It’s not going to take them a month.”

“It’s not going to take me more than an hour.”

“Mitch,” Ridley sighed, “I personally don’t care what you do, just so long as you don’t leave any permanent marks on these guys.”

“I personally don’t give a shit what you think, Rob. We’re not in Washington. We’re in a fucking war zone where our boss, the director of the CIA, the person who knows every damn spy we have in every damn country, has just been kidnapped. You think those guys are flying in a team from Damascus. A team that’s going to make sure they won’t leave a mark.” Anguish gripped Rapp’s face and he screamed, “They’re going to torture the shit out of her, Rob, and I’m not going to sit here and debate with you what I can and can’t do.”

Rapp took the six Polaroid photos and threw them down on Stilwell’s desk. “Scan those into the system and see if you can find a match. Where’s Marcus?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find him.”

Stilwell picked up the photos just as the phone started to ring. He grabbed the handset with his other hand and said, “Chief of base, Mosul.” He listened for a moment and then looked at Rapp. “Yeah, hold on.” He held the phone out for Rapp. “It’s the White House…the president wants to talk to you.”

Rapp thought about not taking the call for a second. Most of his career had been based on asking for forgiveness rather than permission. But this was the president, not one of his colleagues from Langley. Rapp thought of the conversation they’d had on Air Force One. He didn’t get the sense Alexander was the type of man who would try to put a leash on him. Even so, Rapp reluctantly stuck out his hand and took the phone.

The warning came in while the majority of Washington was asleep. The duty officer in the White House Situation Room received the call from the CIA Global Ops Center shortly after 5:00 a.m. Within minutes phone lines were buzzing around the capital and beyond. There were plans in place for such things. Security details were rousted, motorcades were sent out early, and key players in the National Security arena were told to get to their respective offices immediately. Secretary of Defense England was the first Cabinet level official to receive the bad news.

A former Merrill Lynch executive and the head of their London office, England rose at 5:00 a.m. every morning so he could spend some time monitoring the European markets before heading in to the Pentagon. He was sitting at his desk in his study when the call came in. The ring, two quick chimes followed by a third, longer one, was distinctly different from all of the other phones England’s job required. At this early hour, England instantly knew the ring was a harbinger of bad news. As he eyed the secure telephone unit, his mind ran down a list of hot spots that could warrant the predawn call. Almost immediately his thoughts turned to Kennedy and her meeting. He picked up the phone, listened to the voice on the other end, and simply said, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

England called his office and told the duty officer to roust the Joint Chiefs. He also directed the woman on the other end, that in twenty minutes, he wanted to talk to someone in Mosul who could give him an on-the-ground assessment of what had happened. Irene Kennedy may have been CIA, but Mosul was the domain of the Defense Department. He knew of Kennedy’s meeting with her Iranian counterpart, but knew none of the details other than the disquieting fact that the Iranians had been adamant that no U.S. military personnel be present.

England raced upstairs, showered, threw on a suit, and grabbed his electric shaver. By the time he came back downstairs his full security detail was waiting in the driveway. England jumped in the back seat of the armored, black Suburban and started running the electric razor over his mostly gray stubble. His thoughts turned to Kennedy almost immediately. All he had been told by the situation room duty officer was that Kennedy’s motorcade had been hit in Mosul. The director of the CIA was believed to be alive and taken hostage. Everyone else had been wiped out.

England liked Kennedy. He liked her style, the way she kept things brief and to the point. Washington, England had found, was a town with an inordinate amount of people who liked to hear themselves talk. Kennedy was a breath of fresh air, highly intelligent and as well versed in Islam and the Middle East as anyone he’d ever met. He had grown to depend on her input.

England was an old acquaintance of the president. He had no government service on his record-military or otherwise. As the president had told him at the time of his nomination, he wanted England for his analytical mind and his ability to not just win an argument, but get others to agree with him. He’d also spent decades trying to anticipate trends, constantly looking into the future, and attempting to predict how things would play out. As his vehicle moved through the predawn streets of DC, he tried to do the same now with this crisis. Unfortunately, the first thought that entered his mind were the tapes of Muslim extremists decapitating their prisoners. The beheading of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency would be a powerful piece of propaganda.

England pushed his personal feelings aside and played out parallel permutations in his mind. As harsh as it sounded, the quick beheading of Kennedy might not be the worst thing for America. The celebration among the Islamic radical fundamentalists would more than likely be short-lived. Europe, Australia, Japan, Russia, and possibly even China were certain to see in the end the beheading of a woman and the mother of a child, not the leader of America’s chief spy agency. Such a barbaric move by the terrorists could end up harming them in the long run.