Page 84 of Denied Access
The key to discovering that something lay in Moscow. True, eliminating Petrov and potentially Hughes wasn’t a sanctioned Orion mission, but that was just semantics. When the full scope of Petrov’s meddling wasdiscovered, Irene and Stansfield would be clamoring for someone to put a bullet in the former KGB officer’s head.
Surely he could make Rapp see this.
“Listen,” Stan said, placing his palm flat against Rapp’s chest, “I know how you feel, I—”
“You don’t have a fucking clue how I feel.”
Stan felt Rapp’s pectoral muscles tense beneath his fingers. “No? You think I’ve never been betrayed? Or had to choose between my personal and professional lives? I have multiple ex-wives, and too many former lovers to count. Good women who would have made great life partners had I been in another business. I’m not in another business and neither are you. This is the job.”
Rapp slapped his hand away. “There’s more to me than just this job. I’m not you.”
And with that, the future of the Orion program walked out the door.
CHAPTER 45
ICANtalk now,” Rapp said, putting his cell back to his ear after he’d shut the safe house’s door.
“That didn’t sound good,” Greta said.
“Just work stuff, darling. Tell me again why you’re worried.”
“You know that feeling you said I’d get? The one where my subconscious is trying to tell me I’m in trouble? I’m getting it.”
Greta sounded calm.
Dispassionate.
Like she was complaining about freeway traffic on her drive home from the office rather than the true purpose of her call.
Men who might be trying to kill her.
“Where are you?” Rapp said.
The moment he asked this question, Rapp knew everything would have to change. The protection afforded Greta by his ignorance would be gone. There could be no continuing his Russian adventures with Stan until the situation with Greta was sorted.
He didn’t care.
He’d been powerless to stop the men who’d killed Mary.
He wasn’t powerless now.
“Zurich. In the mountains just outside the city limits.”
He’d guessed as much. Carl Ohlmeyer might be a fantastic banker, but he wasn’t a spy. The impulse to keep Greta close would have been almost impossible to ignore.
“Are you currently in danger?”
Rapp hustled down the steps leading to the street. The safe house was in a rougher part of town. This was great for maintaining the operational privacy that came with staying off the beaten path, but a bit more problematic when it came to hailing a cab.
“No. Or at least not yet. I spend most of my time indoors and our food gets delivered, but something feels… off. A tension among my bodyguards that wasn’t there before. The team quiets down whenever I’m around, but I’ve heard them arguing more and more frequently. Something’s not right.”
Rapp angled west, away from the dingy apartment building and toward a park he’d seen while completing a surveillance detection route, or SDR, on the way to the safe house. While Reumannplatz was still a far cry from Martyrs’ Square in Beirut, there was no denying the grittier feel to the neighborhood. Graffiti tags covered the concrete barriers denoting the entrance to the U-Bahn and pedestrians gave wide berth to the clusters of angry-looking men clumped at street intersections. Three such men detached themselves from where they’d been leaning against a bus shelter’s glass walls and headed toward him.
“What changed to make you call?”
Greta sighed. “It’s too quiet. Before, I could always hear the off-duty men joking or teasing each other. You know?”
Rapp did know. He’d spent a disproportionate amount of his teenage years and early twenties in locker rooms or riding on team buses. Men, especially the types of men drawn to physically demanding sports and vocations, liked to bust each other’s balls.
