pretty good. She had a staff meeting in fifteen minutes, and then after that, the working group back at Langley was to give her a full report on the potential extent of the damage that could be caused by the Rickman affair. Then she had a meeting with Nadeem Ashan from the Pakistani Intelligence Service. She liked Ashan and hoped that he was here to offer some information and assistance, but knowing the ISI, his motives lay more in self-preservation.
"This police officer," Kennedy said to Hayek, "I'm not sure I understand his relevance."
Coleman answered for Hayek. "We ran into him at the safe house. He's one of Darren's reintegration projects. Abdul Siraj Zahir . . . a real piece of shit. Long story short, he barges into the safe house and starts making threats, Mitch pulls on him." Coleman looked quickly over both shoulders to make sure no one else could hear him and then added, "Mitch tells the guy he's going to blow his head off."
Kennedy shook her head ever so slightly and frowned.
"I know it doesn't sound good but when it happened it didn't seem so bad. At any rate there's some back and forth and then Mitch decides he'll let this guy live if he works for us and finds out what happened to Rick." Despite not wanting to, Coleman decided he needed to give her the full context. "Mitch gave the guy forty-eight hours to come through with some information or he was going to put a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bounty on the guy's head."
"And Mitch asked me to put a trace on his phone," Hayek quickly added. "Langley has been recording his calls and following his moves for the past two days. Only, I forgot about it until about fifteen minutes ago."
"And?" Kennedy asked.
"He's been trying to get hold of Mitch. He's left him five messages since last night."
"Saying?"
"Basically, 'Don't kill me. I have some information for you.' The guy sounds scared."
"Well, if the guy has information, call him."
Hayek shook her head. "I think Mitch needs to make the call. If I or anyone else calls, he's going to want to renegotiate."
"I agree."
"Does Mitch even remember the guy?"
"I don't know," Coleman said, "but I could probably talk him through it."
Kennedy thought about her other problems. "And Wilson?"
"I have two people on him."
"All right. Brief Mitch and make the call. If anything important comes out of it, call me."
Rapp didn't remember Zahir at first. But after Coleman described the man's shoe-polish-black beard and his snug gray-blue police uniform, he got the visual. The context of their meeting was a little more complicated. The previous night Coleman had explained to Rapp why they were in Afghanistan. Rapp had only a vague recollection of Rickman. When Coleman explained to Rapp how he had threatened the local police commander, Rapp's eyes got big. "I said that?"
Coleman laughed. "You sure did."
"Do I speak this way to people very often?"
"When they happen to be," Coleman said, "scumbags like Zahir, the answer is yes."
It seemed as if each hour Rapp was learning more about his past, and by association, himself. He had a basic overview of who he was but the details were always a little shocking. It was eerie coming to grips with the stark reality that he had murdered people. There were no oh-my-god-I'm-a-monster type moments. It was more or less, that's who I am, I need to keep filling in this puzzle and when it's done I can sit back and judge my actions in their totality, or not. That was the other abnormal thing about this process of getting to know himself again: The second time around you saw things that you might have missed on the first go-round.
"So I threatened to put a five-hundred-K bounty on this guy's head."
"Yes . . . and you threatened to stick a Tomahawk missile up his ass as well." Grinning, Coleman added, "I know it sounds harsh, but it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. He's a real piece of shit. I think you made that pretty clear to him as well."
"So I call him back and find out what he has."
"Yes, but you're probably going to have to be a bit of a prick. Do you think you're up to it?"
"I don't see why not."
"All right. We have him marked in Jalalabad." Coleman looked over Hayek's shoulder at the blinking red light. "Hmm . . ."
"What?" Rapp asked.
"It looks like he's just a block away from the safe house." He tapped Hayek