"What should I do with him?" asked Muhammad.

"I think you should let me deal with him."

Muhammad nodded. This was the answer he had expected. "Keep a discreet eye on him. When the time is right you will know."

20

Rapp pulled into the underground parking garage beneath the Old Headquarters building at Langley, and parked next to Kennedy's armored Lincoln Town Car. The spaces in this relatively small underground garage were highly prized. One of the misfits in the Counterterrorism Center had informed Rapp of this a few years ago. Apparently there was some recently promoted deputy director over in Science and Technology who was furious that Rapp was using his executive parking spot. Rapp couldn't care less-about the parking space or the upset bureaucrat for that matter. He did care, however, about the private elevator that allowed him to bypass the main lobby and people who might want to bend his ear. That was one of the first things Rapp had noticed when he was brought in from the field. People worked at a different pace at headquarters. They had a lot of time to talk, attend meetings, and surf the Internet. Rapp's loner attitude was directly at odds with anything that involved socializing. He prided himself on spending as little time as possible at headquarters and when he was there he did his best to avoid conversation.

The private elevator that went directly from the garage to the director's office suite helped significantly. Rapp got in and slid his ID into the card reader. No buttons needed to be pressed. The elevator either went all the way up to the seventh floor or all the way back down to the garage. The elevator started to move, and Rapp looked up at the tiny camera mounted in the corner. He held his right hand up in front of his face and flipped the bird. Just before the elevator stopped, Rapp stepped to one side and grabbed the butt of his shoulder-holstered pistol. The doors slid open and Rapp was confronted with a mirror image of what he might look like in another fifteen years. The man was even standing like him with one hand resting on his own holstered pistol. His name was Vince Delgado. He was the head of Kennedy's security detail, and he and Rapp loved to give each other crap.

"Good morning, Vanessa," Rapp said crisply.

"Good morning, Michelle."

"Is she in her office?"

"No, she's up on the roof having tea and crumpets, ya dumb ass."

"Cranky this morning, you old codger? Still not getting any?"

The fifty-two-year-old Italian American from Philadelphia laughed loudly. "Now that's not true, Mitch." He stepped closer to Rapp, and after looking over both shoulders said, "You should have seen me last night. There's this new gal I met at the club. I was like a rock star. I'm amazed I can walk this morning, because I'll tell you right now she's in traction." He looked once again toward Kennedy's office door and stepped even closer to Rapp. "Listen to this."

Rapp's arm shot out like a traffic cop. "Stop." He closed his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to erase the picture big hairy Vince Delgado was attempting to scar him with.

Rapp walked toward Kennedy's door and then knocked on it.

"Hey, are we still shooting this afternoon?" Delgado was a former Recon Marine and phenomenal shot, which was in part how he and Rapp had got to know each other so well.

"Yep," answered Rapp. "I'll see you there at two."

Rapp entered Kennedy's office and found her sitting at her desk focusing intently on an opened red file. "Morning."

"Good morning," Kennedy answered without taking her eyes off the top secret document.

"How's Tommy?" Rapp was referring to Kennedy's eight-year-old son.

"He's busy, but he misses you, of course. He just asked about you last night."

"Does he have a game Saturday?" Tommy was playing his first year of tackle.

"Yes. Eleven a.m."

"I'll be there."

"Good." Kennedy took off her reading glasses. "Make sure you bring Anna with. He likes to show her off."

"Oh…he's getting to that age now." Rapp raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think he's been the same since he saw her in a swimsuit last summer."

"I don't think I've been the same either."

Kennedy slid her chair away from her desk. "He's definitely changing. Very brand-conscious all of a sudden. He has to have his hair a certain way…this shirt is cool, this one is lame and on top of all that…he's gotten quite mouthy."

With a straight face he asked, "Did you ever think maybe it's your management style?"

"You're a very funny man."

Rapp shrugged. "All kids go through phases."

"Apparently. What's your excuse?" Kennedy looked at Rapp and thought, not for the first time, how nice it would be to have a man at home to help. Not Rapp of course. They were more like brother and sister. But it was impossible to miss the way Tommy was drawn to him, or the tone Mitch would use when Tommy was out of line and the way her young son would instantly react. Her prospects, however, were not good. Working sixty plus hours a week did not leave much time to date, and the fact that she was the director of the CIA tended to intimidate men a bit.

"Now you're the comedian," Rapp said.

Kennedy nodded. She was wearing a stylish yet conservative brown jacket with matching pants. She crossed her left leg over her right and asked, "What's on your mind?"

Rapp plopped down in one of the side chairs. "I need you to talk me off the ledge."

"Oh no… what now?"

"Ross."

Kennedy closed the file on her desk. Conflict was a part of her job, especially post 9/11. A power grab was afoot, and she needed to be very careful. She had high hopes for a smooth relationship with the new director of National Intelligence. She respected Rapp, but his insolent attitude, and bull-in-a-china-shop demeanor, could easily put her and Ross at odds. "I would think he hasn't been at the job long enough to cross you."

"Well, you're wrong."

"What did he do?"

"For starters he had one of his people call over to the Pentagon and request Scott Coleman's personnel file."

"And?"

"The Pentagon sent over the sanitized version, and Ross didn't buy it. He or one of his deputies called back and tried to browbeat some captain into handing over the full file, especially anything involving any work he may have done for the CIA. The captain directed them to the Joint Special Operations Command, who in turn kicked it all the way up to General Flood."

"Did Flood give them what they wanted?"

"Are you kidding me? The only people who are more pissed than us about National Intelligence is the Pentagon. Flood told them, in a not so polite way, that unless he got a phone call from the president telling him to release the file they could go to you know where."

Kennedy in fact did. General Flood was in his final months as chairman of the Joint Chiefs and he seemed to be taking great pleasure in telling certain people exactly how he felt about them. "Did they go to the president?"

"Not that I know of, and I doubt they'll bother."

"Why would Ross be so interested in Coleman?" Kennedy set her reading glasses down on her desk. "Has he been up to anything that I don't know about?"

"No. He's clean."

"The timing of this is not good."

"I agree, and there's one more problem. The IRS showed up on Coleman's doorstep yesterday. They want to see all of his books."

Kennedy brought her hands together and formed a pyramid under her chin. The frown lines on her forehead deepened. "What in the hell is he up to?"

"He's either picked up some intel that we're reconstituting the Orion Team or he's on a fishing expedition."

Kennedy's mind ran through a half dozen possibilities. She wondered if Ross would be so bold as to have her office bugged. As paranoid as it sounded, it wouldn't be the first time that an intelligence overlord had decided to spy on the home team. Ross had been on the job less than a month. She doubted he could move that fast, but she still made a note to have Delgado's group sweep the office.