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“I’m here.”
“Did you bring any masks? It smells pretty bad down here.”
“Yeah, I have some.”
“Good, grab your gear and come on in. I’ll meet you on the first floor.”
“Harry,” the voice crackled over the radio, “our boss is out of that meeting and she’s not very happy with you.”
Rapp’s memory was still a little spotty but he got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time she’d been mad at him. “Tell her I’m ninety-nine percent sure we found the place where Rick was interrogated. That should calm her down a bit. I’ll meet you by the front door.” Rapp flipped the lip mike back up and started for the stairs.
“This is pretty fucking ballsy,” Coleman said.
“What’s that?”
“We’re a block and a half from the safe house. We’re looking all over the planet for him and he was here, just a couple hundred yards away. I hate to admit it, but it’s a pretty fucking smart move. Who would have ever thought of looking this close?”
Coleman’s words triggered something familiar in Rapp’s mind. His brain was still having some issues, like it knew what it was searching for but it was stuck in that pinwheel mode that a computer went into when it couldn’t get out of program.
Coleman could see he’d triggered something. “What are you thinking about?”
“I don’t know. I think something you said is important, but the old noggin still isn’t working quite right.”
“It’ll come.”
Rapp stepped into the other room and Zahir followed him. “Mr. Harry, are you satisfied?”
Rapp stopped on the first step and looked back at the corrupt police officer. He sighed and reluctantly said, “Yes, Abdul, you’ve done a good job.” Rapp climbed two more steps and then thought of something. “Abdul, how did you discover these bodies?”
Zahir wanted to tell him that it was through his contacts, but he was afraid the American would discover the truth. The man was no longer mad at him, so he said, “We received an anonymous call at the police station.”
“Anonymous?”
“Yes.”
That sounded funny to Rapp. They were offering thousands of dollars in cash to anyone who could help them find Rickman. You would think someone would want to collect that money. Rapp shook his head and started up the stairs again with Ashan in tow.
“Mr. Harry, I would just like to say that I am sorry we started off on the wrong foot.”
“Me too, Abdul, but maybe we can start over.” Rapp stopped in the front entryway, sidestepping the robot.
“I would like that.”
Rapp thought of something else. “Good. Now you need to find Mr. Hubbard. Alive preferably.”
Zahir hemmed and hawed and then asked, “Is there a reward?”
Rapp should have expected it. Guys like Zahir never changed. “Fifty grand . . . maybe more, depending on how hard you have to work.”
Zahir smiled. This was a huge relief. He much preferred doing business this way. His joy was short-lived, however.
Rapp pointed the muzzle of his rifle at Zahir’s chest and said, “But if I find out you’re fucking me, or that you had a hand in any of this, you’re dead.”
CHAPTER 40
HAYEK had donned her white paper suit, hood, and booties. She wore her mask and kicked everyone out of the house, including the bomb techs. For more than an hour she thoroughly photographed everything, and in the room where the torture had taken place she took two samples of every fluid she could potentially identify. When she’d been with the FBI, they would have had no fewer than six agents combing over a crime scene like this.
She was well aware that she was likely missing a bevy of potential evidence, but her focus here was very different from that of an agent collecting evidence that would be challenged in a courtroom. Her immediate goal was pretty straightforward—she needed to be able to tell Kennedy with near certainty if Joe Rickman had in fact been in this room.