“Here is a brief excerpt of Gazich’s confession. I can’t play all of it for you because he told us some things that we are still investigating.” Kennedy pressed a button again and a typed transcript appeared on the screen of the audio. A second later, voices could be heard.

“How did you get into the U.S.? Be careful. Take your time to think this one through. You wouldn’t want to lie to me.”

“I flew into New York the day before.”

“Which airport?”

“JFK.”

“The explosives?”

“They were waiting for me.”

“Where?”

“ Pennsylvania.”

“The state?”

“Yes, the state. Now give me my shot.”

“Not quite yet. You’re doing a good job, though. So you pick up the van, drive it down to Washington…when, on Friday?”

“No, I told you I arrived in New York on Friday.”

“So you stayed in Pennsylvania on Friday night?”

“Yes…Yes! The van was waiting for me and I drove it down to Washington early on Saturday morning. I found my spot, I parked it, I waited, and then when the time was right I blew it up. End of story.”

Garret stood abruptly. “This is all bullshit…right? I mean she’s making this shit up. Isn’t she?”

Ross had his arms folded across his chest, his fist balled up and under his chin. Without bothering to look at Garret he snapped, “Shut up, so I can hear what she’s saying.”

“Director Kennedy,” it was Cohen again, “was that tape made before or after the suspect had been shot?”

“What’s your point, Sam?”

“When someone has been shot in both knees and both hands and then interrogated, it’s reasonable to assume that they would say anything to avoid further pain. That’s called coercion. And if Mitch Rapp shot this man before questioning him there’s not a judge in the land who is going to allow this confession into evidence.”

“I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, Sam, but this is a pretty nasty business. You don’t send a Boy Scout out to capture a monster like Gavrilo Gazich. You need to send someone like Mitch Rapp. You don’t yellfreeze, you don’t flash a badge, you disable the man, so you don’t end up like these two guys.” Kennedy pointed the remote at the screen and returned to the photo of the two dead men. “As for your question as to whether or not the confession was coerced, I’ll let the totality of the evidence speak for itself.”

Kennedy put a photograph of Gazich up on the screen. “This is the man who remote-detonated the bomb that killed nineteen Americans this past October. In addition to his confession, we have discovered some key evidence in his home and office that we think will lead us to the people who hired him. I thank you for your time this morning, and I’d be more than happy to take a few questions.”

The room burst into a free-for-all as more than a dozen reporters burst to their feet and began shouting questions.

Ross quietly swore to himself while Garret let loose a string of profanity.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” Garret asked. “Those assholes said they were going to take care of this.”

Ross stood motionless, with his arms folded and his fist looking like he might drive it through his own chin. Slowly but surely he began to tremble and his face turned crimson.

Garret paced back and forth before him. Ranting and raving. “Did you hear what that bitch said?” He stopped and pointed at the TV, as if Ross might think he was talking about someone else. “She said they have information. Information that is going to lead them to the people who hired Gazich! Did you fucking hear her?”

“Yes, I fucking heard her!” Ross snapped and then clenched both fists in front of him like he wanted to pound the hell out of someone. He stepped toward Garret and lowered his voice. “I tell you what you’re going to do, Stu. You are going to get on a plane this afternoon, and you are going to fly over there, and you are going to tell thoseidiots that I don’t care who they have to kill to put a lid on this thing. I want anyone outside the immediate circle dealt with, and I meananyone. And don’t take any shit from them. They promised this guy would be dealt with and they blew it, so I don’t want to hear another word about a pardon until they have erased all possible connections between them and this Gazich guy. Have I made myself clear?”

Garret did not feel like getting on a plane to go anywhere other than California, but he knew Ross was right. They were too close to let this thing fall apart and Green and his associates couldn’t be trusted.

“Yes, you have. I’ll go.”

Kennedy finished loading the dishwasher and dried her hands on a towel hanging from the refrigerator door handle. The clock on the microwave read 10:29. Her son was in bed, and a pot of coffee was ready to go. They would want coffee, even at this late hour. Kennedy walked through the dining room to the formal living room. She looked out the window to see if they’d arrived. A man was out walking his golden retriever. Kennedy recognized the dog before the owner. It was Rookie and Mr. Soucheray, her neighbor.

Even though Kennedy loved her neighborhood, she had considered moving. Potomac Palisades was, in her biased opinion, the nicest area in Washington, DC. It wasn’t the most expensive, or the most exclusive, but that was part of what made it one of the nicest. It was old. Good-sized homes with bigger than normal city yards. Yards that people mowed themselves. Kennedy didn’t mow her own lawn, but instead of hiring a service she had one of the neighborhood boys handle the chore. In another year or two Tommy would be able to take over. Potomac Palisades was not a bedroom community. People knew each other.

Her mother lived less than a mile away in the Foxhall Village neighborhood. Kennedy had tried to get her to live with them, but the woman wanted her independence, and Kennedy respected that. The Palisades ran along the eastern edge of the Potomac river. With its rolling terrain and luscious growth it felt like a sanctuary far from the nation’s center of power. In truth it was a straight three-mile shot from the White House. Four if you wound your way down the Potomac. The only reason she considered moving was out of respect for the quiet neighborhood and the nice people who lived there. The CIA made a lot of people nervous. In Washington the institution tended to be less polarizing. Pretty much everybody knew somebody who worked for the CIA or had worked for the CIA. When you saw those people pulling up to a soccer game or the grocery store in their minivan it took a lot of the mystique out of the job.

Being the director of the CIA was a slightly different matter, though. Shortly after she took over the top job, Langley replaced all the windows in her house with bulletproof glass and installed steel doors and door frames with overlaid wood veneer. They wanted to do even more, like installing a ten-foot privacy fence in back. She put her foot down and told them no. Instead, they landscaped, putting in pressure pads and laser and microwave sensors. A panic room had been built in the basement and the home was swept twice a week for listening devices. A bomb tech and his German shepherd checked her car every morning before she left for work. Next to the panic room in the basement they’d also built a security shack that was the nerve center for the extremely expensive security system. The house was as secure as they could make it without tearing it down and starting over.

After all the security precautions were implemented, another group at the CIA took it upon themselves to do a threat assessment on Kennedy. At the top of their list was the suggestion that she move to a location with a long driveway. The current house was a scant forty feet from the street. Any terrorist with a couple thousand dollars and a rudimentary understanding of chemistry could simply drive down her street and level her house. Welcome to the post-9/11 world. She was a high-value target and her neighbors were understandably uneasy that their peaceful neighborhood might become ground zero.