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“Cut the bullshit.” Rapp’s voice took on a harder edge. “I’m going to call you back in one hour. In the meantime, I suggest you calm down and gather your thoughts. My offer is simple. You tell me what I want to know, specifically who hired you, and I’ll let you live. And if you have half a brain, you won’t tell your employer about this call.” Rapp paused, giving Cameron a second to think about things, then added, “If you screw with me in the slightest way, I’m going to do to you what you did to the Jansens. Except I’ll be much closer than you were. I promise you, the last thing you’ll feel before you die is my warm breath on the back of your neck.”
The line went dead. Cameron was left standing in the middle of his office staring at his phone—shaking. “How in the hell did he find me?” Cameron felt the urge to run. He needed to get out of his cramped office. He shoved the phones back in his briefcase and grabbed his laptop. He left everything else where it was and locked the door behind him. He needed to find someplace safe. A place where he could think things through and figure out what he was going to tell Clark.
It had been more than an hour. Eighty-seven minutes, to be exact. Rapp paced in frustration from Dumond’s kitchen through the dining room and into the living room. He stepped over a lime-green Nintendo Game Boy that was on the floor in front of the fifty-two-inch TV and looked out the window. Rapp’s new companion, Shirley, came up beside him and rubbed her neck against his leg. Rapp scratched the top of her head. Kevin Hackett and Dan Stroble, two of Coleman’s men, were supposed to be arriving any minute. They were bringing more firepower in case they needed it. That had been Coleman’s idea, and Rapp didn’t argue. Rapp felt more than secure with his 9-mm Beretta. Anyone who was foolish enough to try to take them down would lose a lot of men.
Rapp checked his watch. It was twenty past four in the afternoon. The rain had started to fall again in a slow, steady trickle. He had tried the Professor’s phone five times, and each time he had received a recorded message telling him the customer was not available. Something was wrong. Coleman had listened to the first call on another extension and had agreed with Rapp. The Professor sounded scared, and he was lying. He knew exactly who Rapp was and what had happened in Germany and Colorado.
Now Rapp feared they may have lost the man. They may have spooked him into disappearing entirely. Rapp worried about how long this would take to tie up. He was going to see it through to the end, no matter how long it took, but if this Professor decided to disappear, it could be years, and it would mean using the Agency’s legitimate assets, something Rapp was loath to do.
Coleman approached Rapp at the window and said, “I hope he didn’t decide to tell his employer about the call.”
“Yeah, I know.” Rapp watched the drops falling in a puddle that had formed between two heaved sections of sidewalk. “They need to know what we know.”
“How do you mean?”
“If he’s with his employer right now, they’re trying to figure out just how much we know.”
“Well, based on the conversation you had with him, he should be able to figure out that you don’t know who he’s working for.”
“And we have to hope that he doesn’t pass that on to his boss, or he’s going to end up just like the Jansens.”
“Yeah.” Coleman agreed. “You know, there’s something we haven’t discussed enough.”
“What’s that?”
“Motive. Who and why? You have a lot of enemies, Mitch.”
“Most of my enemies are the same as yours. They live in the Middle East, and they don’t have the type of clout to penetrate that operation I was running in Germany.”
“So who is it?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m leaning toward someone here in D.C.”
“What about the Israelis?”
Rapp shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. As I look back on what happened in Germany, I’m starting to think that I wasn’t the target.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Think about it. The Jansens had ample opportunity to kill me. Why did they wait and shoot me after I had killed the count?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Because they wanted me to be fingered for the hit.”
Coleman thought it over for a second. “Then why are you ruling Israelis out? They get you to do their dirty work and make sure none of the heat comes down on them.”
“No.” Rapp shook his head. “The Israelis are never afraid to take a little heat. Especially if they can prove the person they killed was in bed with Saddam.”
“Yeah…I suppose you’re right.”
“Whoever did it wanted me exposed. They didn’t want personal vengeance.”
“How can you be sure? You’ve been involved in some pretty serious shit over the years. You probably couldn’t begin to count the enemies you’ve made.”
“No, I couldn’t, but you’re missing the point. Someone had the clout to penetrate that operation in Germany. That is no easy thing. It would take a person in a pretty powerful position to have accessed that information.” Rapp pointed at himself. “If I was the target, why dust me in
Germany? Why not have the Jansens kill me here in town, out at my house? Why not have this Professor put a bullet in my head from two hundred meters like he did to the Jansens?”