work. Give Bob Woodman my compliments,” Rapp said, hovering his thumb over the disconnect button.
“It’s just blind luck that we intercepted it,” Alexander rushed to say. “NASA stumbled on it. And it’s even luckier that one of the random samples they took was from the package containing anthrax.”
He could feel Claudia’s eyes drilling into him. “That’s very interesting, sir, but with all due respect, what’s it to me?”
“We’re not going public,” the president said, clearly committed to dragging this out for some reason. “The hope is that we can trace the drugs back to the traffickers Halabi’s using.”
“Good luck,” Rapp said, but again Alexander spoke before he could disconnect the call.
“You understand my position, don’t you, Mitch? A few days ago, Halabi’s anthrax was nothing but a bunch of propaganda videos on the Internet. On the other hand, I see Christine Barnett as a clear and present danger to the country. Now the situation’s changed. We’ve been attacked with a biological weapon and it’s not going to be the last. All other considerations—including doing something that could inadvertently help Barnett get into the White House—are secondary. And that’s the kind of playing field you work best on.”
“Is it? Next year you’ll be playing golf and signing a multimillion-dollar book deal. Irene and I will be running from five different Senate investigations.”
“Maybe. But you’re not going to turn your back on your country. And neither am I.”
Before he could answer, Claudia did it for him. Her shrill scream nearly shattered his eardrums in the tiny bunker.
“He doesn’t want your fucking job!”
Both he and the president fell into stunned silence as she climbed the ladder and disappeared through the hatch.
Alexander was the first to speak. “Is that true?”
Rapp sat back down. In many ways everything Claudia had said to him that day was right. America was tearing itself apart with hate and rage that had no basis in reality. Christine Barnett would be the next president of the United States and come out gunning for Rapp, Kennedy, and anyone else she couldn’t control. What Claudia couldn’t see, though, was that America’s core was unchanged. The United States was a country of extremes. It had moods. Phases. Eras. But in the end, it always eventually got its shit together and remembered what it was.
“Mitch? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. But I’ve got a question.”
“Ask it.”
“How much is it worth to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“We had a conversation just like this one a while back. You made it clear that it was my neck on the chopping block, not yours. I’m not in the mood to play that game again.”
“I assume you have demands?”
“You assume right. I want a pardon.”
“You haven’t done anything yet.”
“Then just start it with ‘I pardon Mitch Rapp’ and end it with your signature. The middle can be blank. And you should probably leave a fair amount of space.”
When Alexander spoke again, his voice had turned a bit cold. “Anything else?”
“A letter saying that you were kept fully informed of my actions and approved of all of them.”
“Are you actually going to?”
“What?”
“Keep me informed.”
“No.”
“Then how can I sign documents like that?”
“That, sir, is not my problem.”
CHAPTER 23
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
USA
THE road’s dirt surface was rutted to the point that Rapp could barely get the SUV to forty miles per hour. In the east, the rising sun was illuminating the mountains and creating a blinding glare on his windshield. The desert in this part of California didn’t look much different than Yemen beyond the addition of a few scattered cactus and Joshua trees.
After another ten minutes and two dry river crossings, a building started to separate itself from the heat shimmer to the north. No photos had been available, but it was pretty much as Claudia described—a dilapidated wood and stone structure that had served various purposes over its sixty-year history: storage facility for the forest service, barracks for construction crews, and a temporary holding facility for captured illegal immigrants. Now some of the windows were missing glass, part of the roof was bowing, and the chain-link fence surrounding it was streaked with rust.
The two Mexican traffickers caught at the San Ysidro mall were being held there, but they couldn’t be kept incommunicado for much longer. The cartels had eyes and ears everywhere and this would already register as unusual to them. A few more days would blow past unusual and move into the territory of suspicious.
There was a partially collapsed wall about twenty yards from the fence and he pulled into