his digital camera and began going through the footage he'd taken. He was roughly three minutes in and had picked out two interesting individuals who seemed to pay him a little too much attention. They were also conveniently located at each end of the block.
The assassin was about to explore this further when a text arrived informing him that Mr. Rapp was on the way. Estimated time of arrival was six minutes. He felt his heart begin to quicken - something that hadn't happened in a long time. The assassin took in several deep breaths and then shook his arms loose to try to let out some of the tension. Why put two watchers on the street if they already had eyes on the target? The answer was unfortunately obvious. They were not here to keep an eye on Rapp. They were standing at their posts doing one of two things. The first was simple enough. His success or failure would be reported in near real time to his employer. No real harm, but another sign that his employer had some serious assets at his disposal. The second possibility was more ominous - his employer planned on killing him as soon as Rapp had been taken care of.
Chapter 14
THE silver Toyota 4Runner hadn't been washed in over a month. The windshield had a divot from a rock and a crack that crawled its way along the bottom, dying in the right corner. The front bumper had seen some use but not as much as the rear. Both sides had enough scrapes and dents so that the vehicle fit right in on the wild streets of Kabul. This all made Rapp happy, as he greatly preferred anonymity to large steel-plated vehicles that screamed U.S.A.
Rapp was in back looking out the dirty rear-passenger window at nothing in particular. His mind was revisiting what he'd seen at the safe house that morning. Sydney Hayek didn't think she'd get the preliminary ballistics back for another twenty-four hours, and Rapp was already starting to think he didn't need them. The way the bodies were strewn about the house, the big .45 caliber hole in the back of the one guy's head, and the security system being defeated without the slightest warning, it all looked bad. Throw the dog on top of that and he cringed at the possible outcomes. The real question was why?
Rickman was a strange bird, there was no doubt about that, but it was a big jump from being a little different to being a traitor. Rapp knew he was getting a bit ahead of himself, though. The dog could have been an honest mistake. Hubbard could have easily misheard Rickman or just assumed that he'd put the dog down at the local clinic, but when Rapp got these kinds of feelings, more often than not they turned out to be right. The difference this time around was that he was hoping he was wrong.
Maslick was driving and big Reavers riding shotgun with his bushy dark beard, a pair of wraparound Oakleys, and his standard fuck-off expression on his face. Like a pit bull, he was not the friendliest creature when it came to new faces, but immensely loyal to those whom he knew. Coleman had been his CO when the two men were SEALs and then after they had continued to work together as private contractors for the CIA. Maslick was former Delta Force and had been attached to Rapp's team on and off for three years. Both men had a cool detachment that had been honed by killing enemies who had desperately tried to kill them first. They never looked nervous, but they never stopped surveying the landscape for threats.
Rapp pulled out his phone and checked to see if there were any new emails from Langley that might shed some light on Rickman's location. Kennedy had told him that Rickman was the top priority for the National Security Agency until the president said otherwise. Every conversation, email, tweet, and text within a thousand miles was being translated and crunched by the NSA's Cray supercomputers. They were bound to pick up something. Rapp just hoped it was enough for him to get a solid lead.
"So are you going to tell me why you've got a hard-on for some vet?"
Rapp looked up from his phone and wondered how much he should share with Coleman. It wasn't that he didn't trust him. Next to Kennedy and maybe Hurley there was no one