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“That’s not a lot to go on, Mitch. Elite white soldiers in their thirties casts a pretty wide net.”
“One more thing to add to his profile, Irene. This guy’s an athlete. Maybe he stopped competing when he was young, but at some point, people noticed him.”
“So, gifted white male teens playing some sport in some country. Not that helpful.”
“Yeah, but again, we know that the Russians are involved. So I’d start with the former Soviet athletics program. Records still exist and people who worked in it are still alive. Maybe we?
??ll get lucky.”
CHAPTER 21
ABOVE SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA
U.S.A.
“WE’RE on our final approach,” Rapp said into his headset. “Could you give us runway lights?”
No response. They were coming in between two heavily wooded mountains, the outlines of which were barely visible in glow of the moon. The colonel whose name Rapp still didn’t know had managed to scrounge up one of the Air Force’s Gulfstream IIIs but, ironically, pilots had been in short supply. That left Rapp and his rusty flying skills in the right seat.
“I repeat. We are on our—”
“I can’t find the fucking switch,” a familiar voice interrupted. “Hang on. I think it’s behind this bush. Yeah, I’ve got it.”
Two rows of lights appeared to the north, outlining a runway that had been used probably no more than ten times since the Cold War. The pilot banked toward it and steepened their descent.
“Some genius,” Rapp said into the mike hanging in front of his mouth.
“What, I’m an electrician, now?”
“We’ll be on the ground in two. Try not to touch anything else until then. I’d rather not put this thing into the trees.”
“No problemo, man.”
Rapp glanced back into the cabin. The luxurious seats he was used to in the CIA’s G550 were conspicuously absent, replaced with a few frame-and-canvas benches bolted to the rear bulkhead. Joe Maslick had piled some blankets and cushions next to the warhead and was sound asleep with his head propped against the nosecone.
“Mas! Get your ass up. We’re landing.”
The former Delta operator jerked awake.
“Is that thing secure? We don’t need it chasing us around in here when we touch down.”
“We’re good,” he grumbled. “But there are better things to wake up next to.”
Rapp faced forward again and watched the approaching lights. Surprisingly, Maslick’s comment made him think of Claudia Gould. He tried to shake it off by telling himself that any relationship between them was doomed, but her image wasn’t so easily dismissed.
His relationships had always been a study in extremes. Maybe Claudia was the right balance. But was it worth the inevitable pain? The responsibility? The constraints? And more than that, was it fair? Anna was dead. Hurley was dead. Scott was likely dying. The people closest to him didn’t do well and Claudia was responsible for more than just herself. She had a young daughter who needed her.
The wheels hit the ground and a set of headlights flashed to their eleven o’clock. Rapp pointed them out to the pilot before trading his headset for a phone and heading back into the cabin. Irene Kennedy’s private line rang a good five times before she picked up. When that happened it usually meant she was in the midst of the three hours a night she managed to sleep.
“Have you landed?”
“Just touched down,” he said, helping Maslick unstrap the warhead. “What’s the update on Scott?”
Rapp expected the long silence that always preceded reports of the death of a friend, but the news turned out to be slightly more upbeat.
“The calf was all soft-tissue damage and the shot that hit him in the shoulder shattered his collarbone but isn’t anything a metal plate can’t fix. The dislocation was worse than the bullet wound. The head injury was more serious than we initially thought. Beyond the concussion, he has some hairline skull fractures.”
“And the knife?”