She switched to French as she always did when she was irritated. “You can wish all you want, Mitch, but he’s not firing me. I’m running that side of the business now. And it’s a good thing for us, because it pays a lot better than the CIA.”
There was no winning this fight, he knew. Claudia had taken a lot of pressure off Coleman and he had precisely zero desire to go back to coordinating details. Besides, she was better at it—something Coleman was fully willing to admit. The problem for Rapp was getting used to having the woman he was sleeping with on the comm when things went south. Boundaries between their personal and professional relationship were complicated and still in flux.
“Now’s not the time to talk about this, Claudia. Scott and I are going to start down, but it might take a while. Go ahead and feed Anna if she’s hungry. We can do dinner when I get back.”
“Actually, you aren’t coming down and we’re not having dinner together. Look to the north.”
He turned and squinted into the horizon. It took a few seconds but he finally made out a small dot over the mountains.
“There’s a laptop on board with a full briefing. Be careful, okay?”
She disconnected the call and he put the phone away before pointing to the approaching chopper. “So what’s the story, Scott? Are you back or not?”
CHAPTER 2
NEAR DOMINICAL
COSTA RICA
“NOT sleeping again, Grisha?”
Cara Hansen was lying next to him on the damp bed, naked and glistening in the glow of his phone. Normally, she would have pressed up against him but with the air conditioner off she opted to nudge him with a finger instead.
“Quit playing with that thing. There’s no signal and you’re wasting electricity.”
Azarov used the house’s internal network to shut off the lights in the upstairs master bedroom. He left them on to give the illusion that they were still sleeping there, though they’d abandoned it three days ago when the power had gone out across the region. The temperature was a good ten degrees cooler downstairs, but it wasn’t helping him sleep. The only thing that could do that was solid intelligence on why the grid was down and when it would be repaired.
“Sorry,” he said, darkening the screen. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I was barely dozing. Too hot to do anything else. I mean, who do I have to screw in this country to get a couple hours of A/C?”
Technically speaking, that would be him. He’d never mentioned to her that he had three massive Tesla batteries under the house that he was reluctant to tap for more than a trickle of current. It had been cloudy for days, making his solar roof all but useless and the supply of diesel for his generators was becoming unreliable.
The people in the little surf town he lived above had largely shrugged and moved on with their lives. They’d never come to rely on technology like he did. Despite his years living there, he’d never mastered locals’ cheerful fatalism.
“If you were to go to the gas station in the morning, that might be a good way to convince them to part with a little diesel.”
“Funny,” she said, poking him a little harder this time.
He was already struggling to remember how long they’d been together. Technically, the time could be measured in months, but in truth he’d loved her for years.
Originally from California, she was a surf instructor who’d worked part time for the company that maintained the subdivision where he lived. In the beginning, a relationship between them had been impossible. He’d been working as a problem solver for the president of Russia, a man who had an unparalleled gift for discovering what people cared about and then using it against them. So, while Azarov had passed up no opportunity to hire Cara for work around the house, he’d been forced to feign indifference to her presence.
He reached out and ran a hand through her damp hair. “You didn’t have air conditioning before you moved in with me. You’re getting soft.”
“Too much of the good life,” she said, rolling away in an attempt to escape the heat coming off his body.
Without the glow of his phone, the world was swallowed by darkness. Azarov stared in the direction of the windows, watching the vague outline of the flowers that Cara had planted on the other side of the glass. Beyond that was nothing but kilometer after kilometer of jungle dense enough to hide just about anything.
He had left the employ of the Russian government but it was unlikely that he was forgotten. Krupin had never agreed to release him and he wasn’t a man accustomed to being defied. Would he take notice of Costa Rica’s power failure? Perhaps use it to take revenge on Azarov for abandoning him and for failing to deal with Mitch Rapp? An example for anyone else who might dare challenge him?
Or maybe it was even worse. Maybe Krupin had charged his cyber warriors with attacking Costa Rica, a country completely unprepared for such an aggression. Would he cripple the country’s entire southwest to retaliate against a man who had spent years faithfully serving him?
No. That was just paranoia. While Krupin was a megalomaniac who required complete control over everyone and everything in his orbit, he was also eminently rational. Everything he did was in direct pursuit of his own survival and power. Krupin never lashed out in a way that didn’t objectively benefit him or that could blow back. At his core, Russia’s president was a man of calculation. A coward and a manipulator.
Besides, according to Azarov’s sources, he’d already been replaced with a man named Nikita Pushkin. By all reports, the younger man was quite gifted and in possession of the loyalty and sense of duty that Azarov had lost so long ago. All in all it seemed to be an improvement for everyone involved. This boy would be showered with everything he desired, Krupin would have a protector who would gladly die for him, and Azarov was free to explore the concept of happiness and perhaps even pursue it.
Next to him, Cara’s breathing evened out and deepened, but his mind was moving in too many directions to follow her into sleep. What if it was someone else? Someone who was associated with one of the many people he’d killed and had heard he was no longer under Krupin’s protection?
Unlikely. Powerful men, once dead, tended to garner very little loyalty. Their inner circles were generally more interested in fighting to fill the power vacuum left behind.
And that left America. Not Rapp, though. Azarov had helped him move against the Saudis and the CIA man had made it clear that he considered himself indebted. He could be trusted and Irene Kennedy wouldn’t act without his consent.
Scott Coleman and his team? It was his understanding that Coleman had largely healed and . . .
Azarov closed his eyes for a moment, trying to clear his mind. If he was intent on reviewing every enemy he’d made over the years, it was going to be a very long night.
When he opened his eyes again, he reactivated his phone’s screen and relaunched his security app. The perimeter alarms were still active, as were all emergency systems. His batteries still had more than eighty percent of their capacity. Satellite Internet was still technically online but so overloaded that it was all but useless.
Cara slapped lazily at him, hitting him in the chest. Her face was half buried in a pillow and he had to strain to make out what she was saying.
“If you’re going to play with that thing, do it somewhere else.”
It was unlikely that he was going to fall asleep anytime soon, so he got up and pulled on a pair of shorts. Cara attributed his restlessness to the heat and what she referred to as GRM—general Russian moodiness—but that was because she believed him to be a semi-retired energy consultant. And that’s the way it would stay. He couldn’t bear the thought of her knowing the things he’d done. Or of her being afraid. A woman like her should never have to feel anything but joy and security.
He padded toward the door, but stopped when she spoke again.
“You’re not sad again, are you, Grisha?”
“No.”
“And you’re not tired of your girlfriend?”
He smiled. “Not yet.”
“Do you want me to take a swim with you? Would that make you feel better?”
“No. Just go back to sleep.”