“Absolutely,” Kennedy said. She’d been working under the assumption that Wilson was dead. And in her experience conversations with dead men tended to be extremely illuminating.
She stood but didn’t immediately come out from behind her desk when Wilson appeared in the doorway. He was normally put together with a sterile meticulousness that very much embodied who he was. The hesitant gait, filthy clothing, and blackened eyes of the man entering her office were completely unfamiliar.
“Dr. Kennedy. Thank you for meeting with me without an appointment.” He offered his hand but then seemed to realize how grimy it was and withdrew it.
“Are you all right, Joel? Should I call a medical team?”
He shook his head and she pointed him to a seating area at the corner of her office. He sat and she handed him a bottle of water before taking a position across from him.
“My understanding is that you and Director Nassar’s men were attacked in South Sudan. Could you tell me what happened?”
“We tracked Rapp there through some emails he sent to Claudia Dufort. I don’t know who attacked us. But it wasn’t him.”
She was intrigued. Historically, Wilson blamed Mitch for everything bad that happened to him. “How do you know that?”
“Because he saved my life. One of Nassar’s men—who wasn’t really one of his men—tried to kill Mitch. When I yelled at him to cease fire, he turned on me. If Mitch hadn’t shot him, I’d be dead.”
“Joel, I want you to slow down. What do you mean it wasn’t one of Nassar’s men?”
“We questioned him. I think he was ISIS. But I don’t know if that means he infiltrated Saudi intelligence or if Nassar knew the whole time.”
He pulled a phone from his pocket and almost dropped it trying to place it on the coffee table between them. She’d seen this before in her career. The man was broken. He’d spent his entire life as a narcissist who believed that he was always right—always on the side of the virtuous. Now reality had imploded that self-image. Most people in his condition never recovered from the cognitive dissonance. A rare few managed to absorb their new position in the universe and adapt. Which category did Joel Wilson fall into?
“There are pictures on there of all of Nassar’s men and a recording of our interrogation of the one who survived.”
She picked up the phone and began flipping through the photos as he continued.
“Nassar was playing me. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes. He was counting on my hatred of Mitch to blind me to everything else that was happening. And he was right.”
Kennedy set the phone down and appraised the man. His head was hanging loosely on his shoulders with a blank stare focused on the carpet.
“In this business, it happens to us all eventually, Joel. The question is what you do about it.”
“I want to help,” he said without hesitation. “I want to find out if Nassar is connected with ISIS. And if he is, I want to take him down.”
It was an interesting offer. Even more interesting, though, was whether it was an offer that Mitch Rapp had anticipated. Had he consciously forgone killing Wilson at the risk of allowing the FBI man to continue his vendetta? It was a level of restraint and strategic thinking that she wouldn’t have necessarily attributed to her old friend.
There was no question that Wilson was a gifted investigator. In some ways it was his weakness. His ability to see the big picture was compromised by his obsession with fine detail. In this case, though, it was those fine details that needed attention. The big picture was her job.
“Is that a sincere offer, Joel?”
He finally met her gaze. “Of course it is.”
“Does anyone know you’re here?”
“What? Why?”
“Answer the question.”
She could see the wheels of his mind turning. He was wondering if she was involved with Rapp and desperate to hide that involvement. More to the point, he was wondering if answering in the negative would end with him buried in Langley’s basement.
Finally his body sagged. “No one knows. I came here first. I haven’t talked to anyone.”
She pressed a button on a phone sitting next to her and her assistant reappeared.
“Jamie, I need to make sure that there’s no record of Agent Wilson leaving Juba or arriving in the U.S. Also, call General Jayyusi in South Sudan. Ask him if he’s spoken with Aali Nassar. If so, ask him if it’s not too late to have him confirm Agent Wilson’s death and to destroy the bodies that were left behind.”
Wilson didn’t even react to what she was saying. Apparently he’d decided that he deserved whatever fate she had planned for him.
“That’s not going to be cheap,” Jamie said. “Is there any limit to what I can pay him?”
“No. But I want you to be clear that we’re buying an exclusive. If I hear that he’s sold any of this information again, I’ll be . . .” Her voice faded for a moment as she chose her next words. “Inconsolably disappointed.”
“I think he’ll understand your meaning. Anything else?”
“That’ll do for now.”
She disappeared and Wilson watched the door close as though he were in a gas chamber.
“What about Mitch?” she said. “Do you know where he is?”
Wilson shook his head. “He left me a long way outside of Juba. Last time I saw him, he was driving back toward the city.”
It seemed clear that Rapp had seen the same thing in Joel Wilson that she did. He could have killed the man with little fear of repercussion. Instead, he’d left him with a phone full of intelligence and the freedom to use it as he pleased.
“What are you going to do with me?” Wilson said, becoming uncomfortable with the silence drawing out between them.
“For now, I think it’s in our best interest to let the world think you’re dead. Of course, we’ll call Director Miller and tell him that’s not the case. If it’s acceptable to you, I’d also like to ask him to let me use you to lead the effort to identify the men on your phone and their connection to Aali Nassar. I have good intelligence analysts, but what we need here is an investigator.”
He just stared at her, stunned.
“You were expecting something else?”
“Yes . . . no. I mean, I’d love to be involved in getting Nassar.”
“Then why don’t you have one of my assistants send for some clothes for you and show you where the showers are. In the meantime I’ll assemble your team.”
CHAPTER 54
Riyadh
Saudi Arabia
THE basement had been lined with cubicles, and the overhead fixtures were dimmed, causing each workstation to glow with the light of its computer monitor. Ironically the secret to effective intelligence analysis was the sharing of ideas, but in this case that kind of an exchange was impossible. Aali Nassar’s goal was neither truth nor accuracy. What he needed now was to conjure an alternate reality so convincing that it persuaded even the analysts who had created it.