Vince Flynn - Order to Kill

“Hey, you know, since you’re… I mean, since your food’s probably bad, I’m getting together with some friends tonight at Patrón’s. You should come down and get a bite to eat. Maybe have a drink. You seem like you could use a few.”

“Thank you for the invitation, Cara, but I’ve been traveling for the last thirty hours and I think I’m just going to go to bed.”

“Yeah, I understand. Maybe some other time.”

“Maybe.”

She finally turned to leave and he watched her go, waiting until the sound of her car faded before he carried one of the coolers to the bathroom and emptied it into the tub. Krupin thought of everything.

Another ten minutes work and Olga was on ice. She’d keep until he figured out how to dispose of the body and mattress without running the risk of piquing anyone’s interest.

After cleaning the bedroom, he wanted nothing more than to lie in his hammock and drain a good bottle of bourbon. Instead, he stripped off his bloody clothes and put on a pair of running shorts. There were only two hours of daylight left, so he grabbed a headlamp from the shelf next to his running shoes.

Mitch Rapp was coming. Not today and probably not tomorrow. But soon.

HIGHWAY 81

VIRGINIA

THERE were two more hours until sunrise and the dead-straight road was empty of taillights. Rapp was pushing Craig Bailer’s modified Corvette hard, but it seemed to be handling the stress with ease. The stereo had been replaced with controls for a fire suppression system mounted to the roll cage, so the only thing audible was the roar of the V8 and the slight whistle of aftermarket turbochargers. Joe Maslick’s bulky frame was crammed into a passenger seat that Bailer had jury-rigged specifically for this trip. Typically, he hadn’t said a word since they’d left.

The radar detector sounded, prompting Rapp to glance down at the vehicle’s speedometer. One hundred sixty miles per hour. In the rearview mirror he saw a police cruiser’s lights go on, already distant enough to be just a pinpoint. A moment later, they went dark again. He’d called in a number of favors and cleared the path to Walter Reed, where Scott Coleman was on life support. The Vette’s plate number had been given to Maryland and Virginia police, with instructions that under no circumstances was it to be pulled over.

Rapp tried to concentrate on the missing fissile material and how it tied back to Pakistan, but found it impossible. Scott Coleman had been at his side for almost his entire career. The former SEAL was patriotic, unwaveringly loyal, and courageous. But he was more than that. He was a man who somehow had never allowed himself to be sucked into the darkness that constantly swirled around him.

The death of Rapp’s mentor Stan Hurley was still a fresh wound but in many ways a different one. Hurley had been, first and foremost, a killer. A man filled with rage at the injustices of the world and consumed with visiting misery on the people who caused them. He’d died the way he wanted to-the way he had to: full of bullet holes, with his enemy bleeding from a fatal wound that he’d inflicted. For some reason, it wasn’t the future Rapp had seen for Coleman. More than any of them, he deserved something better.

He considered calling Kennedy for an update but immediately abandoned the idea. If Coleman was dead, Rapp wasn’t ready to hear the news. The thought of spending the next two hours crawling along at seventy miles an hour was for some reason unacceptable. At least now there was urgency. A goal to push for. Even if it turned out to be an illusion.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and glanced over to see Maslick pointing to the fuel gauge. Even at normal speeds, Bailer’s Vette wasn’t exactly economical. Being driven like this, it was going through gas like there was a hole in the tank.

“Five more miles on the right!” Maslick shouted over the roar of the engine. “The GPS is showing a station less than a quarter mile off the highway. We should be able to get in and out in under four minutes.”

• • •

The end of the whitewashed hallway had been cordoned off and was empty except for a lone man in a dark suit. One of Irene Kennedy’s security detail.

“Is he still alive?” Rapp said, skirting the barriers that had been set up.

“Last I heard, Mitch.”

Rapp wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Whether he wanted to see his friend struggling to cling to the last few moments of life or if he’d just rather see him gone. He told himself that it didn’t matter. Everyone ended up the same way eventually.

Kennedy appeared from a door to his right, wearing a meticulously pressed gray suit jacket and skirt, but looking tired. Her dark hair was pulled back, making the sadness on her face even more stark.

“I’m glad you made it.”

“Where is he?”

She led Rapp down the corridor to a transparent wall that looked in on one of the hospital’s intensive care units. With the bandages on his head and a respirator covering much of his face, Coleman was almost unrecognizable. A small patch of blond hair and an exposed arm full of needles were the only things left to identify one of America’s greatest and most loyal warriors.

Maslick stared through the glass for a few seconds and then just walked away, his broad shoulders sagging in a way that actually made the man look small. He’d lost his best friend, Mick Reavers, in a firefight only a few months ago. The price of America’s war on terrorism had begun to weigh heavily on him.

Rapp saw motion in his peripheral vision and glanced right to see a figure approaching with two cups of coffee. For one of the few times in his life, he wasn’t able to hide his surprise.

Claudia Gould put down the cups and rushed forward, throwing her arms around him. “I’m so sorry about your friend, Mitch.”

He just stood there, unsure how to react. Kennedy watched carefully from a few feet away. There was no question that she was the one who had called Claudia. The two women had a long and complicated relationship that had only gotten stronger after Hurley had killed Claudia’s husband. But why bring her here now?

“I know how close you and Scott are,” she said, pulling away but keeping her gaze on him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a hesitant step back.

“When we met again, I thought I would be telling you all about your house and the horrible amount of your money I’m spending. It seems stupid now.”

The strange thing was that he wanted to hear about the house. He wanted to go with her to see it and to listen to the endless details of how she’d chosen things he had no interest in at all.

“How’s Anna?”

“She misses her new home and her new friends, but Irene’s son has been spending time with her and she’s quite taken with him.”

“I’ll get the two of you back to the Cape, Claudia. I promise.”

“I know.”

The silence that followed dragged out until Kennedy reached for Rapp’s arm and gave it a gentle tug. “Could you excuse us for a few minutes, Claudia? I need to talk to Mitch.”

“Yes. Of course,” she said, suddenly looking a bit uncomfortable. “Should I… Should I stay here?”

“I’d appreciate that. Please let us know if there’s any change.”

Her discomfort was understandable. It seemed almost certain that at some point she’d created a dossier on Coleman. History, habits, address, family ties-all designed to give her husband an edge if he ever came up against the man. Now she found her world turned upside down. The people she had once spent time calculating out how to kill were now her protectors.

Rapp followed Kennedy down an empty hallway. “Any new information?”

“On Scott’s condition? No. He’s on intravenous antibiotics but the doctors don’t think they’ll work. They keep telling me he won’t make it another hour, but he keeps proving them wrong.”