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whiff that you’re screwing with me, you’re done. You have enough enemies as it is, if I put a bounty on your head, they’ll be lining up to collect. Hell, it’s probably cheaper than wasting a missile on your ass.”
    Hubbard came back with Zahir’s phone and gave it to him. He handed a plain black flip phone to Rapp. Rapp held it up and said, “This is how we’re going to talk to each other. I’ll be able to track you with both phones, but this is the one we’ll use to communicate.” Rapp gave him the phone. “I’m going to call you in two hours and if you don’t answer the phone you’re dead. If you answer the phone and tell me you haven’t discovered anything you’re dead. Do you understand how this is going to work?”
    Zahir reluctantly stuffed the phone in his pocket and nodded. “What do I call you?”
    “Harry,” Rapp said, giving him one of his aliases. “Now get out of here and find out what happened to Joe Rickman.”
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    Bethesda, Maryland
    Joel Wilson impatiently tapped the fingers of his right hand on his right thigh while he was driven through the dark streets of the sleepy Maryland neighborhood. It was a few hours before dawn, and the thought of waking his boss this early was less than appealing, but Wilson had learned the hard way that the stodgy old fool needed to be kept in the loop. It was becoming an increasing source of irritation for Wilson, whose unbridled energy did not often jell with the slower pace of Samuel Hargrave, the FBI’s executive assistant director for national security. To those outside the Bureau, the job title meant little, but within the FBI it was a position that had grown significantly in stature after 9/11. Hargrave was in charge of Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence and the Directorate of Intelligence and Weapons of Mass Destruction. He dutifully reported to the top man at the FBI and beyond that he kept an extremely low profile, and demanded the same of his people—another sore spot with Wilson.
    In Wilson’s succinct opinion, Hargrave was a relic from the FBI’s Cold War days, a man who was no longer suited to handle the multiple threats of this faster-paced world. He reminded Wilson of that bushy eye browed law professor in the movie Paper Chase. He was a real pain in the butt who spent his life looking to catch the tiniest of mistakes while losing sight of the big picture. The man loved to point out every flaw no matter how small. He was the most anal-retentive, crotchety jerk Wilson had ever worked for. If only the fool would drop dead of an aneurysm, Wilson could get on with saving the country from the various threats that were circling.
    Wilson believed that his job was the most difficult and demanding at the Bureau. He was the deputy director of Counterintelligence, which meant that he, not the CIA, was the tip of the spear. It was simple. The biggest threats to the nation were the foreign intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations that were looking to attack and weaken America. It was Wilson’s job to stop them, and those Americans who might be aiding the enemy.
    Hargrave was everything a boss shouldn’t be. He was an obstacle to every decision and operation that Wilson tried to launch. Wilson’s frustration had grown to the point that he began to cut Hargrave out of the decision process, only to be severely reprimanded by the director of the FBI himself. It was the lowest point of Wilson’s otherwise sterling twenty-one-year career with the Bureau and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Wilson’s boss, the man who ran the Counterintelligence Division, had been on leave for four months after a back surgery that didn’t go as planned. Wilson had been asked to step in and take over as acting director. It was one of the three most coveted jobs at the FBI, and Wilson didn’t balk at the opportunity. He took over as if he’d been running the place for several years, and not long after he ran afoul of