The engines started to spool up and he reveled in the dull whine as it increased in volume. Over the years, that sound had come to elicit a powerful psychological response in him. It meant safety. Survival. Escape. When the plane started to move, he dropped onto the couch and closed his eyes.

What the hum of private jets didn’t always mean, though, was success.

He was leaving behind two dead men—one who’d had too much concrete in his mouth to talk and the other who hadn’t been able to provide much more than the obvious observation that this thing went pretty far up the chain. Singh’s burner would likely prove useless and his cell was probably unsalvageable. Possibly the most useful thing he’d learned by risking his ass in Saudi Arabia was that Fendi made a pretty comfortable pair of sneakers.

The plane lifted off and Rapp realized he didn’t have any idea where it was going. Trying to find out would be risky with comms potentially compromised and there wasn’t much he could do about it anyway. Best to just peel off his fat suit and see where Claudia took him.

42

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, DC

USA

ONCE through the White House gate, Mike Nash was almost immediately waved down by a Secret Service agent. He eased his SUV to a stop and rolled down the passenger window.

“ ’Morning, Mike,” the man said, leaning his forearms on the sill.

In fact, it was more like the middle of the night—not a great time to be suddenly called into a meeting with the president. Particularly when the call came from an anonymous secure phone that Cook wasn’t supposed to have and that virtually no one knew about. A device he used to coordinate things that he never wanted to appear in the papers.

“Oval Office?” Nash responded by way of greeting.

Predictably, he shook his head. “The residence. There’s an escort waiting for you.”

He was tempted to ask whether Kennedy was on the list, but it was just a nervous tic. If she were going to sit in, the call would have come through official channels.

The man stepped back, and Nash accelerated again. He could feel the event horizon of that black hole hovering right in front of him. The compulsion to turn back was incredibly strong, but not strong enough. Now that he was this close, the pull of the Cooks’ gravity had become inescapable.

As promised, an escort met him out front and, after a perfunctory greeting, led him to the second floor. There she pointed to a closed door before disappearing without another word.

The Treaty Room, Nash knew from being a bit of a history buff. It had been used for various purposes over the years, but most notably by William McKinley to sign the treaty ending the Spanish-American War in 1898. Or was it 1899? Shit. He was just stalling now.