“Look at yourself. You’re not twenty-five anymore. You’ve been stabbed, shot, blown up. And nobody cares. Everything you’ve done, everything Irene’s done. Barnett sees your success and the loyalty people have to you as a threat. She’ll drag you in front of congressional hearings and twist your words and actions. Politicians who’ve never sacrificed anything for America will question your patriotism. Their followers will post lies about you on the Internet and the Russians will amplify them. Then the media will smell ratings and join in. They’ll call you and Irene traitors and cowards and demand that you be prosecuted.” She waved a hand around the room. “How is your fancy bunker going to protect you from that? Halabi doesn’t need to kill you or anyone else. He just needs to keep fanning the flames that have taken hold here. Then you’ll destroy yourselves.”
“That was quite a speech,” Rapp said when she finally fell silent. “Been practicing long?”
She ignored his jibe and dropped onto a box of dried pinto beans. “This is a battle you don’t know how to win, Mitch. For the first time in your life, it’s time to retreat. Let’s go so far away that you’ll be forgotten. You’ve earned that.”
“Listen to what you’re asking, Claudia. You want me to let myself be run out of my own country by a politician and a terrorist.”
“It’s over!” she said, the volume of her voice rising in the tiny space. “Not only have you been told to back off, there are guards parked in our neighborhood enforcing it! And Irene’s next. After her, it’ll be everyone else. Everyone who won’t bow down and kiss Christine Barnett’s ring.”
“What do you want me to say, Claudia? That you hitched your wagon to the wrong man? I’ve been telling you that from day one.”
“Don’t you dare try to take the easy way out of this conversation.”
“Then what? You tell me what you want to hear.”
“I want to hear about our future, Mitch. I want to hear about the path forward that you see but I’m blind to. Where will we be in a year’s time? Here? Barricaded in this room? Sitting with Irene in a Senate hearing? Meeting with the team of lawyers trying to keep you out of jail?”
His phone rang and he glanced over at it. The number was immediately recognizable but not one he would have expected to see. President Alexander’s encrypted line.
“Don’t even think of picking that up while we’re fighting.”
She would have been surprised to know that it never crossed his mind. While Claudia could be a monumental pain in the ass, she was one of the few people in the world who actually gave a shit about him. She wasn’t there to bask in his notoriety or for protection or to use him as a weapon. She was just . . . there.
“We could have a life, Mitch. If you get bored, you can do some jobs with Scott. You could finally get your knee worked on. Heal. Maybe do a triathlon again.” She leaned forward and gazed intently at him. “I admire everything you’ve done. You’re the best at what you do. Maybe the best who ever lived. But there has to be an end to it one day. And that day seems to have come.”
A ringtone sounded, but this time it wasn’t his cell. He glanced at a bank of security monitors and saw one of the FBI agents charged with surveilling him. He was standing at the front gate, repeatedly pressing the call button. After thirty seconds or so, it became clear that he wasn’t going to give up.
Rapp stood and opened the intercom. “What?”
The man’s expression turned a bit sheepish. “The president requests that you take his call, sir.”
Then he got in his SUV and drove off. But not back to his normal post at the edge of the road. Instead, he and his colleagues disappeared down the hill.
Rapp’s cell started ringing again and this time he picked up. Claudia normally left the room when Irene or the president called, but this time she stayed put.
“Yeah.”
Normally, his greeting would be one more respectful of the office, but on that particular day he couldn’t conjure it.
“Has Irene briefed you on the latest developments?” Alexander asked.
“Why would she? I’m out and you posted guards to make sure I stay that way.”
Alexander ignored the comment. “The DEA found a shipment of anthrax mixed in with the drugs they confiscated at that mall in San Ysidro.”