Pursuit Of Honor Read Online Free PDF Page A

remembered, as he looked down at the smooth morning water, how she and her brothers liked to ski first thing in the morning. He thought of all those family photos that hung on the knotty pine walls of the cozy family cabin. Shots of Anna as a little kid, all legs, like a fawn, skiing knock-kneed on two old boards-her golden brown skin and the freckles around her nose. Those amazing green eyes that still haunted him every night. He’d never known anyone as beautiful, and would have bet everything he had that he never would again. He had decided after several years of mourning that it was hopeless to think otherwise. There’d been a couple brief relationships, but he still wasn’t over her, so each woman was doomed from the start.
    The squeak of a screen door caught his attention and Rapp looked over at the main house. It was a story and a half with three big dormers on the second floor and a wraparound porch that covered three sides. The four-inch siding was painted white, and the trim around the windows and the doors matched the green asphalt shingles on the roof. The owner stepped out onto the porch and struggled with the zipper on his khaki jacket. After a moment he got it started and then stepped forward with the help of a cane. His name was Stan Hurley, a seventy-eight-year-old veteran of the CIA. He’d been officially retired for nineteen years, but unofficially he was still very involved. The irascible Hurley had handled much of Rapp’s training those first few years after he graduated from Syracuse University. On more than one occasion Rapp had wondered if the bastard was trying to kill him. Most of that training had taken place right here on the banks of Lake Anna.
    Rapp had been an experiment of sorts. The clandestine men and women at Langley all went through the CIA training facility near Williamsburg, Virginia, known as the Farm. A group of veterans at Langley, however, felt the changing political winds and decided they would have to begin hiding things from the opportunists on Capitol Hill. That was when Hurley left the Agency and set up shop an hour south of Washington, D.C. Rapp didn’t know how many others they had auditioned, but he gathered that Hurley had chewed up and spat out at least three guys before he arrived on that hot, humid summer day almost two decades ago. He knew because Hurley referred to them as Idiot One, Idiot Two, and Idiot Three. He’d say things like, “I spent two days trying to teach Idiot Three how to do this, and then the jackass nearly killed himself.”
    Watching the old prick hobble across the asphalt driveway, Rapp had to admit that he was still a bit intimidated by the man. There weren’t many guys who could give him that kind of feeling. Rapp remembered showing up for training as if it were yesterday. He was in his early twenties, and he thought the best shape of his life after finishing a near-perfect season captaining the Orangemen lacrosse team. There was nothing as humbling as getting your ass kicked by a chain-smoking, bourbon-drinking, sixty-some-year-old man who was all cock and bones. It had happened only a few feet from where Rapp was standing. In the big barn, on the old stinky wrestling mat that Rapp had been forced to manhandle seven days a week for nearly four months.
    Looking back on the situation now, Rapp could see Hurley had been in complete control, but back then, he seriously wondered if he was going to survive. Hurley woke him up at 4:00 A.M. with a cigarette dangling from his lips. When Rapp didn’t get out of bed fast enough, Hurley flipped his military-issue cot and dumped him onto the hard, dusty floor of the barn. He was told that the barn was where he’d be sleeping until he proved himself worthy to sleep in the house. The real trouble started when Rapp came up swinging. In hindsight it had been an extremely stupid move. The geezer was far more agile than he looked. Rapp threw the punch and then next thing he knew he was back on the floor, the