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Rapp picked up on it and asked, “What?”
“It would be best if you gave me what you have. I will see if I can get a match.”
Rapp gestured with his hands as if to say, no big deal. “I think I can take care of that. This relative,” he continued, “sister, mother, father?”
“Brother,” Cheval answered.
“Where’d you find him?”
“This stays here.”
“Of course,” Rapp said.
“One of my teams picked him up in Casablanca.”
“Moroccan?”
“Yes.”
“Active investigation?”
Cheval shrugged her slender shoulders as if to say, “who knows?”
Rapp gave her a disbelieving frown. Cheval ran the DGSE’s Directorate of Intelligence. Anything on the covert side of the business fell into her purview. “How can that be?”
“My operative who brought this to my attention,” she paused, “how do I say this?” After a moment of searching for the right description, she smiled at Rapp and said, “He reminds me a lot of you.”
Rapp grinned. “Tall, dark, and handsome . . . highly intelligent. Women hanging on his every move.”
“Don’t forget delusional,” Butler added with a wry smile.
Rapp chuckled.
Cheval smiled and said, “He does not follow directions well.”
“Ahhh,” Butler said while nodding at Rapp. “He has authority issues. I think I know the type.”
“Yes, that is the phrase. He has authority issues. Very difficult to manage. Unnerving at times.” Cheval smiled at Butler and he nodded as if to say, “I share your pain.”
Rapp laughed at both of them. “Well, if he’s so difficult, why do you put up with him?”
The question had a solemn effect on Cheval. “You know why I put up with him?”
“Because he gets things done,” Rapp said with a bit of pride in his voice.
“That is correct. He is extremely effective, but . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Let’s just say I know how Irene feels.”
Rapp was well aware that Kennedy and Cheval shared a history that went all the way back to Beirut nearly thirty years ago. “You’re afraid he’s going to land you in jail one day.”
“No.” Cheval shook her head.
“Then what?”
“Every time he leaves the country, I wonder if he will return.”