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Back Enemy at the Gates Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 4
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  10. 6
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  50. 46
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  52. 48
  53. 49
  54. EPILOGUE
  55. More from the Authors
  56. ABOUT THE AUTHORS
  57. Novels by Vince Flynn

Rapp crouched, grabbing the man by the hair and lifting his head enough to examine his face. There was a string of spit connecting the side of his mouth to the concrete and his eyes fluttered sightlessly, but he was immediately recognizable.

Gideon Auma. God’s representative on earth.

28

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, DC

USA

WHEN Mike Nash entered the Oval Office, the president was sitting behind his desk, poring over a document in front of him. Not the Resolute Desk, which had been there during their last meeting, but a new one constructed from steel, glass, and polished wood. Catherine, who was reading over his shoulder, straightened and unleashed a smile that seemed to get warmer every time they met.

“It’s good to see you, Mike.”

“Thanks for fitting us in,” Nash responded as she indicated the seating area at the center of the office.

Us wasn’t entirely accurate as he seemed to be the Agency’s only representative in the room. “Is Irene stuck in traffic?”

“No,” the president responded, walking to his customary chair in the conversation area. “There wasn’t any reason to tie you both up.”

Nash nodded and lowered himself onto a sofa across from Washington’s new power couple. More and more he was flying solo at these kinds of meetings and he wasn’t exactly sure why. It was almost as if Kennedy was knowingly allowing herself to be pushed out of the government’s inner circle. She’d always been one step ahead of everyone else in this town, but now the combined brainpower of Anthony and Catherine Cook was providing serious competition. Was she struggling with the reality that she might no longer always be the smartest person in the room? Or was it more than that? Was it possible that she was reaching her expiration date? It happened to everyone eventually. At some point, the changes just came too fast and hard to keep up with.

Whatever it was, she seemed to be purposely inching her way toward irrelevance. While everyone else inside the beltway would kill their own children for two minutes of face time with the Cooks, she was retreating from them. And the more she worked herself out of her job, the more he appeared to be working himself into it. Or better said, sucked into it. Like some black hole. Dark. Irresistible. Inescapable. What was the term he’d learned helping Rory with his astronomy homework? Event horizon. Once crossed, there was no coming back.

“I’m sorry to rush you, Mike, but there’s only so far I could rearrange my schedule,” the president said. “I understand this has something to do with Nicholas Ward again?”