Esparza started laughing again, this time sounding less enraged and more incredulous.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re either crazy or you’ve got balls too big to fit on a plane.”
“Probably a little bit of both,” Rapp said honestly.
CHAPTER 30
ABOVE CENTRAL MEXICO
NORMALLY Rapp slept like a baby on planes. Today, though, he was in an economy class seat wedged between a woman who weighed north of three hundred pounds and a man who let out brief, choking snores every twenty seconds or so. If he’d been on a C-130 over Afghanistan, he’d be spread out on a pile of cargo netting, dead to the world.
It wasn’t just the seat, though. That imaginary C-130 would land in a country where he’d spent much of his adult life. In the Middle East, he knew the players, had access to highly trained backup, and spoke the language. He understood the culture and had a deep understanding of his enemy’s capabilities and motivations.
When he touched down this time, he’d have none of those advantages. His Spanish was barely good enough to order a Coke. And worse, this wasn’t one of the simple search-and-destroy missions he’d become so good at over the years. Killing Carlos Esparza wasn’t the objective. In fact, the opposite was true. He needed to ingratiate himself with the man. To use him to learn about the ISIS network and follow it back to Sayid Halabi.
Unfortunately, endearing himself to people had never been Rapp’s forte. Kind of the opposite, actually.
Not that any of this was likely to matter. Esparza was probably just flying Rapp to Mexico so he could put a bullet in his head personally. The timing was kind of a shame. He finally had the blank presidential pardon he’d always dreamed of, and instead of taking it out for a spin, he was going to end up buried in the jungle.
And while that was all bad, it wasn’t enough to keep him awake on a plane. No, that went deeper, to a question that was easy to ask but hard to answer.
What the hell was he doing there?
He’d given Claudia’s diatribe more thought than she’d probably give him credit for and come to the conclusion that she was largely right. Christine Barnett was going to be the next president of the United States and she’d use that position to destroy him and anyone else who refused to kneel.
Best-case scenario, Rapp would survive this mission and be forced out of government service by her. Much more likely, though, was that Barnett would dedicate a significant amount of government resources to seeing him and Kennedy enjoying adjoining cells in a maximum security prison.
And it wouldn’t exactly be hard. Rapp had just killed—technically murdered—two drug smugglers, and forced his brother to create a web of illegal transactions that spanned the globe. Even if Steven sat down in front of a Senate panel and demonstrated that it was all smoke and mirrors, it wouldn’t be enough. Rapp would end up being used as a weapon in Christine Barnett’s war against the intelligence and law enforcement communities that she saw as a check on her power.
The plane finally touched down, and Rapp remained in his seat while the rest of the passengers rummaged around in the overhead bins. He’d leave the plane without the carry-on he’d brought. It was just a prop to make him look less suspicious to the people at the airline desk. At this point, his only meaningful possessions in the world were a fake passport, a GPS watch, a phone, and a wallet containing five hundred U.S. dollars and a couple of high-limit credit cards.
When Rapp stepped into the terminal of Angel Albino Corzo International Airport, he immediately noticed the man flicking his gaze nervously from his phone to the crowd. He likely had nothing but a hazy drone photo to work with, so Rapp decided to help him out. He adjusted his trajectory toward the casually dressed Mexican and pointed to the exit.
“That’s me. Let’s go.”
The man led Rapp out of the building and they crossed to the parking area under clear skies and temperatures in the mid-nineties. Rapp’s thin linen shirt was already starting to soak through by the time they reached a large black SUV parked at the far end of the lot.
Tinted windows made it impossible to see inside, but when Rapp climbed in the back, he found pretty much what he’d anticipated. Two men who looked like former Mexican soldiers frisked him and shoved him