“IRENE?” Mike Nash stuck his head into her office. “You wanted to see me?”

She waved him inside and he dropped into one of the chairs in front of her desk.

“You look terrible,” she said.

He let out a slightly bitter laugh. “Thanks a lot. You do, too.”

“I guess neither of us has slept much since Mitch and the others went missing.”

He just looked down at the floor.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear I have some good news, Mike.”

He kept his eyes locked on the carpet. Of course, he already knew what her news was. He’d told the Saudi government to send Kennedy the photos of Rapp that had been taken in Saudi Arabia. She would have received them about an hour ago.

Kennedy slid an eight-by-ten across her blotter and he picked it up, furrowing his brow as he looked down at the now-familiar image. He had to play this extremely cool. Irene Kennedy was the queen of the lying game. One nervous foot tap, out-of-character comment, or errant bead of sweat and all their history together wouldn’t mean shit. The alarms in the back of her mind would explode.

“What is this?”

“That was taken five days ago at Riyadh airport.”

Nash furrowed his brow a little deeper. He’d spent a fair amount of time considering how to react when this moment came. “That’s impossible!” was the obvious go-to. But would he really say that? Where Mitch Rapp was concerned, everything was possible.

“Son of a bitch,” he decided on, letting a fair amount of anger slip into his voice. “He’s been alive all this time? He just left us twisting in the wind?”

“So it would seem.” He could feel her eyes on him but didn’t look up.

“What about the guys?”

“Unknown.”

Finally, he met her gaze. “He hasn’t been in contact with you?”

“No.”

Truth? A lie? He was here to find out what she knew, but that was never easy. The likelihood that Mitch hadn’t found some way to let her know he was alive seemed far-fetched. The main question remained, though. Had Rapp stumbled onto Isa’s involvement and gone after him in an attempt to figure out where Nicholas Ward was being held? Or was this another one of Kennedy’s elaborate games? If she discovered someone mucking around in her mainframe, she’d be laser focused on finding out who and how. But faking the kidnapping of one of the most important men in the world? That was a pretty bold move for a woman who had lost her power base in the White House. Unfortunately, bold moves were something she and Mitch were known for.

“The Saudis suspect him of killing a mid-level operative named Bashir Isa and two of his associates,” she continued. “They found his body in the desert and the other two in his house.”