The Last Man (11 page)

“Not my classified information.”

After nodding a few times, Rapp stood. “So there’s not going to be any cooperation?”

“I told you the deal. You two don’t move without talking to me first. We’ll see how you behave and then we’ll revisit the cooperation.”

Looking at Sickles, Rapp asked, “Have you briefed her on how serious this is?”

“She understands the situation and she also knows about your reputation. We’ve worked long and hard on reintegration and none of us are too happy to see you barge in here and begin destroying everything we’ve accomplished.”

Rapp stared at Sickles for a long moment. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing. He pointed at the station chief, snapped his fingers, and then hooked his thumb toward the door. “You’re done. Get out the hell out of here. I’ll come find you in your office when I’m done.”

“You have no right to—”

“Darren,” Rapp yelled, “shut your mouth. I have every right. I have the DCI’s full backing on this and I swear to God, if you’re not out of this room in the next five seconds you can kiss your pension good-bye. As it is, your ass is in hot water. Joe Fuckin’ Rickman got snatched on your watch. Do you have any idea how bad this is?”

“I . . .”

“Never mind. Just get the hell out of here. We’ll talk about this in your office. Go . . . now . . . move it.”

Sickles had tried to call Kennedy three times this morning and Kennedy had not taken any of his calls. Maybe Rapp was telling the truth. The station chief got up and left the room without saying another word.

When the door was closed again, Rapp looked at Poole and said, “If you’d prefer to leave as well you won’t hear me complain.”

“I’ll stay.”

“Fine.” Turning his attention back to Vinter, Rapp said, “You might think you’re connected . . . you might even think you’re important and in certain circles you might be, but not this time around.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah . . . Let me explain how this works. We’re the guys they call in when the shit hits the fan. Go ahead and call your boss when we’re done. She’ll tell you the same thing. In fact I’m pretty sure she’ll tell you to do what we ask and then get the hell out of our way.”

Vinter shook her head. “The secretary of state has complete confidence in me. After I tell her what you did to Commander Zahir this morning, you’re the one who’s going to be praying they let you keep your pension.”

“You go ahead and make that call, but just remember, I warned you. This reintegration crap is a circle jerk and everyone who’s anyone in D.C. knows it. It’s a gimmick so we can declare victory and get the hell out of here. Joe Rickman getting snatched is serious shit and they all know it. You see, his head is full of a lot of nasty secrets that will embarrass your boss and a lot of other heavy hitters back in D.C. They don’t like being embarrassed, so your little circle jerk is going to take a backseat to my problem for a while. I don’t really care if the papers print nasty stuff about your boss or anyone else, but I do care about all the agents that work for us who will more than likely end up dead if we don’t find Rick and find him quick.”

“You have no idea who you’re screwing with, Mr. Rapp.”

“Actually, I have a really good idea. You’re some spoiled brat who’s gotten her way her entire life.” He pointed at her wedding ring and added, “Your husband is miserable. Some poor browbeaten son of a bitch. You probably keep his balls in a little box on your desk, and based on your selfish attitude this morning I’d say there’s a pretty good chance you’ve been having an affair with the colonel here. The point is I don’t give a shit who you are, but you’d better care who I am and understand that I’m the meanest son of a bitch you will ever meet. That’s why the president sent me over here. Because he wants results and he knows I won’t put up with people like you. So you go ahead and call your boss and anyone else you need to and after they’ve all told you what I’ve just told you, you will hand over every shred of information you have regarding Joe Rickman and the scumbags you had him making deals with. And if you don’t, I can guarantee you will be the one on the next flight out of here.”

Chapter 11

Jalalabad, Afghanistan

He lay on the floor wearing only a pair of U.S. Army–issue boxer shorts, curled up in the fetal position, his face and body battered to a pulp. Joe Rickman tried to open his eyes, but they were either too swollen or too caked with dry blood to yield. He had never felt such pain. Never even imagined that it could be so bad. His trainers back at the Farm had warned him, and he had nodded as if he understood everything they were saying at the time, but they said he didn’t. Anyone who hadn’t been through it could never really understand just how bad it was. Now Rickman understood. He’d kept it together so far, but just barely. There had been a few moments when he was on the verge of calling it quits. He told himself that they would know when to stop. After all, Rickman had always known when to call his people off.

He had sat through countless interrogations and had never lost a single subject. Rickman’s methods, and those of his colleagues, were a bit more clinical, though. Before an interrogation started they met and put a script in place. What questions were to be asked and what methods they would use to inflict pain. Rickman was never one to get his hands dirty, of course. He didn’t even like his people getting their hands dirty. That was why he was such a big fan of electricity. It was nice and clean. No blood to mop up when everything was done. His team appreciated it as well, as they were the ones who had to clean up the room. It wasn’t as if you could grab a janitor and bring him to the secure detention facility to clean up the blood from a rough session that in the eyes of some of his fellow countrymen was blatantly illegal.

Rickman’s captors were obviously less concerned about the mess. The people in this part of the world were far more accepting of torture. In a sense, these animals had followed their version of a script. They had spared his feet and genitals and, for the most part, had slapped rather than punched him in the head. Most of the beating had been inflicted with a rubber hose and open palms, methods that were designed to elicit pain without causing life-threatening injury. At least that’s what he kept telling himself as each blow landed. Even during the height of the beating, Rickman had kept a careful inventory of where and how they were hitting him. Fortunately, they had restrained themselves from striking him in the head too many times. Other than a heart attack, the easiest way to lose a subject during interrogation was to create hemorrhaging in the brain.

Rickman tried his eyes again and got one of them partially open. The eyelid fluttered to life to reveal his dank surroundings. He was in a cellar of some sort with a dirt floor. White sheets were draped along the walls. His hosts had spray-painted the word Infidel in black across one of the sheets. They had made sure to follow their script while filming his beating and kept the word Infidel in the frame just behind him.

The place reeked of urine. That was the first thing Rickman thought of when they’d brought him here, and he was repulsed by it. He was a neat freak and the idea of being held captive in such a foul place gave him almost as much anxiety as the impending session. After the beating started, however, the smell quickly became the least of his problems. And now he cared even less, since he was pretty sure he’d added to the potpourri during his beating.

Rickman tried to lift his head, but it hurt too much, so he lay there and tried to take an inventory of his pain. Nearly every inch of his body was aching, but there were a few areas that stood out. Chief among them were his ribs. He was pretty sure a few of them were broken or at a bare minimum bruised. The majority of the session had been conducted with Rickman’s arms strung above his head to some contraption on the ceiling—his flanks exposed to the brutal blows. Even when they weren’t beating him, his shoulders screamed with pain as if they were going to be ripped from their sockets.

Rickman gathered the strength to roll from his side onto his back. He winced as shards of pain shot through his rib cage. Slowly he turned his head toward the door. The video camera was mounted on a tripod. The red light under the lens told him it was still recording. That was good. Record all of it for all he cared. He heard movement and voices outside the door. Rickman tensed with the anticipation that the beating would begin again. The door opened, throwing more light into the room. The man turned off the camera and stood over Rickman. He was wearing a gray knee-length shirt with gray baggy trousers that the locals called Perahan Tunban. He squatted and held a bottle of water to Rickman’s swollen lips.

“It will go much easier if you tell them what they want to know. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“I guess I’m into pain. What can I tell you?”

The man frowned and shook his head in a sad manner. After a long moment he fished a bottle of pills from his pocket and took off the cap. He tapped out two pills into the palm of his hand and then shoved them one by one into Rickman’s mouth. “These will help.”

Rickman tried to spit them out, but the man covered his mouth with his hand and said, “Don’t be a fool.”

A little bit of water and the pills slid right down. The man stood and walked back to the door. He opened it and waved another man in. The new man was carrying a small black bag.

It occurred to Rickman that he was a doctor. That was a good sign. His captors were taking this seriously. The man dropped to one knee next to Rickman and placed a stethoscope against his chest. After that he slapped on a blood pressure cuff and then dilated both eyes with a penlight. After no more than two minutes the doctor announced that he was strong enough to resume the interrogation.

The doctor left, two new men entered the room, masks pulled on to conceal their faces. The camera was turned back on and the man in the baggy gray pants nodded for the two men to continue. A rope ran through a pulley on the ceiling and was tied to Rickman’s wrists. The two men yanked on the rope and pulled Rickman into a standing position.

“This time you will answer my questions . . . yes.”

Rickman looked at the man through his one good eye and spat a glob of blood into his face. The beating commenced immediately. Strangely, the blows didn’t hurt as much this time. He told himself to stay strong. It wouldn’t be much longer. It couldn’t be, or he might die, and he doubted these men would want that. Discipline was paramount.

Chapter 12

Kabul, Afghanistan

Everyone made mistakes. It was how you handled them that counted. Own up to them, make a few adjustments, and move on. At least that was the way Rapp had been taught. Anything short of that was counterproductive, self-serving, and typically dishonest. Rapp didn’t like having his time wasted under normal circumstances, but in a crisis like this it unnerved him when people couldn’t at least set aside their issues, grab a bucket of water, and help put the damn fire out. Act like Sickles and deny that a mistake had been made and that little pressure cooker inside Rapp’s head got so hot he became explosive.

There was a distinct possibility that Rapp might break the station chief’s jaw and Nash knew it. He also couldn’t blame him, but at this point it might or might not solve their problems. There were certain guys at Langley who were old school and would be more than willing to take a beating if it saved them from being dragged back to Langley, but Sickles wasn’t one of them. He would love nothing more at this point than to claim victimhood, and Nash couldn’t allow that to happen.

Rapp stopped outside the secure door that led to the CIA’s suite of embassy offices. He looked at Nash and said, “Tell me again why you think we need him.”

“He knows these people. He’s worked with Rick for the last two years. He has to have some info we could use. We ship him back to Langley and he’s going to become significantly less cooperative.”

“I don’t give a shit. We ship him back to Langley and he’ll realize real quick I’m not the only who’s pissed at him. His career is over unless he gets some religion real quick, and even then I’d stuff him in some cubicle.”

Before Nash could respond, Coleman approached and said, “Hubbard called. He talked to that veterinarian in J Bad.”

“And?”

“The vet says he never put the dog down. Told Hub he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it, so he referred Rick to another vet here in Kabul. Better animal hospital.”

“So was Hub wrong or misinformed?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“He told us the dog was put down by a vet in Jalalabad. Did Rick tell him that or did he just assume?”

“I don’t know.”

“Get him on the phone. I want to talk to him.” Rapp pivoted and faced Nash. “You’ve got about a minute to convince me. We need to be out there, not in here. We need to be kicking down the door of every scumbag we can find and maybe if we get a whiff that Iran is behind this, we need to return the favor.”

“I’m as pissed at him as you are. He broke our first rule. He forgot who he works for. It’s not State . . . it’s us. But you said it yourself. The clock is ticking. This trail is going colder by the second and let’s face it . . . Rick’s got the brains, not the brawn. If he hasn’t already broken it won’t take much longer. We need Darren to give us everything now. Not two or three days from now when he’s back at Langley and Irene finally makes him see what a jackass he’s been.”

Rapp didn’t like it, but Nash was right. “Then put all the cards on the table and give him two clear choices: He either gets his shit together and remembers which team he plays for or he’s done. This is his last chance.”

Nash nodded and said, “I think you should be the one to deliver that message.”

Before Rapp could reply, Coleman handed him the phone. “Hub . . . did Rick tell you that he had Ajax put down by the vet down there in Jalalabad or did you just assume he did?” Rapp listened as Hubbard relayed his answer and then said, “Text me the info on the vet here in Kabul. I’m going to have a talk with him.” Rapp handed the phone back to Coleman and before he could return the problem of Darren Sickles, Nash asked a question of his own.