of America. Kennedy's network of spies was crumbling with each tick of the clock, and they were only in the infancy of this crisis. She wondered how many of these brave individuals understood what she knew, that Rickman had only just begun telling secrets. The video was just the first installment of a plague that would cripple the CIA.
As she looked at the faces around the conference table, and the ones on the large screen relaying the image from Langley, she wondered how many of these people understood what was at stake. They were all smart, or they wouldn't have risen to such important posts, but there was a learning curve during a catastrophe. It was extremely easy to be myopic. There were specific tasks that needed to be performed and more than a few people were afraid to look up and see just how bad things could get. Kennedy couldn't afford to bury her head in a bunch of files. It was her job to steer this ship away from the shoals, and right now she was beginning to wonder if it was possible.
"You okay?"
Kennedy turned to look at Rapp, who was studying her with his dark eyes. There were times, like now, when that gaze unnerved her. She swore he could look into a person's soul and smell fear.
Proving her point, he said, "I know this looks hopeless right now, but we'll catch a break sooner or later."
"I wish I shared your confidence."
He leaned in even closer. "Right now it's all about damage control. The bleeding will eventually stop, and when it does, we're just going to have to bust our butt to get back in the game."
Right now Kennedy didn't feel like the bleeding would ever stop, and if it did, she wasn't so sure she would have a job. Looking at Rapp, it occurred to her that she still hadn't talked to him about Gould. There were obviously still some memory issues or she was pretty certain he would have brought it up. More than likely he would have demanded to see him. Maybe she could ask Coleman to go over it with him before Dr. Lewis arrived in the morning. At least Gould was cooperating. Nash was meticulously rebuilding the last four years of the man's life, with special attention paid to his financial transactions and employers. Kennedy found it hard to swallow that it had been purely coincidental that Gould had been hired for the second time in four years to kill Rapp. And then there was Wilson. The Clandestine Service was by necessity an organization staffed with people who were the opposite of Dudley Do-Right. Rapp had done plenty of business with banks specializing in secrecy, from Switzerland to Cyprus, to Gibraltar, and all the way to Singapore, all of it authorized by Kennedy. The question was, how did Wilson find out, and who had wanted him to find out?
The door to the conference room was yanked open and Sydney Hayek entered, out of breath and carrying a laptop. Kennedy's assistant, Eugene, was on her heels.
"I'm sorry to barge in like this," Hayek announced, "but I found something that I thought you'd all want to see immediately." Hayek followed Eugene to a console full of electronics at the far end of the room. She handed him the laptop and he connected several cables and then switched one of the flat-screen monitors over to the laptop feed. Eugene handed her a remote and left the room, closing the soundproof door on his way out. Even though he was Kennedy's personal assistant, he knew he didn't have the clearance to see everything.
Hayek took a brief moment to gather herself, looking around the table at Kennedy, Rapp, Schneeman, and Nash, and then at the larger gathering on the screen. "You're all aware of the house we found in Jalalabad. It turns out we have a DNA match for Joe Rickman."
"I heard that room was a mess," Nash said. "How sure are you that it's a match?"
Hayek rocked her head from side to side, not sure where she should begin, so she just started. "I'm one hundred percent sure. The DNA match is ninety-nine-point-nine percent, but we have other evidence." She looked at Kennedy. "There was a camcorder in the basement. It was smashed and the memory card was missing. This type of camera, however, also has an internal flash drive." The questions started in earnest, but she raised her voice and her hands and talked over