American Assassin

Chapter 5
KENNEDY returned to the lake house just after six in the evening. She was tired, hungry, and not in the mood for another confrontation with Hurley, but there were certain developments that needed to be discussed. One of the unforeseen and increasingly difficult aspects of her job was the inability to communicate freely with her colleagues. Foreign intelligence agencies that operated in Washington were always a threat, but no longer her biggest concern. Now she had to worry about her own government and a new generation of journalists who wanted to break the next Watergate, Pentagon Papers, or Iran Contra scandal. Combined, they had ended hundreds of careers and done untold damage to national security. It was the new sport in Washington to pound on the very agencies tasked with keeping America safe. Surprisingly, Kennedy was fairly ambivalent about it. As her mentor Thomas Stansfield had told her many times, "Great spies don't complain about the rules, they find ways around them."

She parked the car in front of the house and climbed the porch steps, dreading the thought of going another round with Hurley. Kennedy opened the screen door and entered. The rooms to her left and right were empty, so she went down the center hall to the kitchen. Her feet stopped where the hardwood floor transitioned to linoleum. Sitting at the kitchen table was a bruised and battered Stan Hurley. He had a drink filled with ice and Maker's Mark pressed against a fat lip and a bag of ice held against his swollen right eye. Leaning against the counter directly across from him was Troy Tschida, a thirty-two-year-old former Green Beret and Hurley's right-hand man. Tschida tried but failed to suppress his amusement over his boss's battered physical appearance.

"You think this is funny?" Hurley snarled.

"Absolutely not," Tschida said with dramatic, false sincerity.

"You prick. Wait till I stick your ass in the ring with him. You won't be laughing after he lands a couple punches."

"What happened?" Kennedy asked, genuinely not sure what they were talking about.

Hurley hadn't seen her enter, because the bag of ice was covering his right eye, and he didn't hear her because his ears were still ringing. He turned his head and removed the bag of ice to reveal an eye that was so swollen it was almost entirely closed. The skin above the eye was a shiny bulbous red.

"What happened," Hurley said in a voice rising with anger, "was that f*cking Trojan hoarse you dumped in front of my house this afternoon."

It clicked and Kennedy thought of Rapp. "You're saying my recruit did this to you?"

"Don't f*cking play games with me. I am in no mood." Hurley slammed his glass down on the table and grabbed the bottle of bourbon. He filled it to the brim.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kennedy said sincerely.

Hurley took a big gulp and said, "My ass. He's your recruit. You give me some cut-and-paste f*ckin' jacket on the guy that reads like a ransom note. I know nothing about him. He's here less than a minute and he up and suggests we find out if he has the right stuff." Hurley stopped to take another drink and then in a falsetto voice designed to mimic Rapp said, "Let's speed things up, and find out if I have what it takes to do this."

"My recruit did that to you?" asked Kennedy, still not entirely sure what the man was talking about.

Hurley slammed his glass down again. This time brown liquid sloshed over the lip of the glass. "Yes, God dammit! And don't stand there and act like this is a surprise to you." He pointed an accusatory finger at her. "You planned it. You set me up."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Kennedy shook her head and asked, "Are you trying to say my recruit bested you?"

"Damn close." Hurley turned his attention to his drink and mumbled to himself.

"Your boy had him beat," Tschida interjected with a smile, "but Stan here broke the rules and put the kid's balls in a vise."

"You think this shit is funny?" Hurley barked.

Tschida smiled and nodded.

Hurley looked like he was going to launch his glass across the room at him, and then at the last minute decided to use the bag of ice.

Tschida stuck out his right hand and caught the bag with ease. "Don't be a baby. After all the asses you've kicked around here, it's about time you got a little taste."

"My problem," Hurley shot back, "Is getting ambushed by this young woman here. Someone I helped raise, by the way." Hurley turned his one good eye back on Kennedy. "No military experience, my ass. Where did you find this kid?"

Kennedy was still in a bit of shock. She herself had seen Hurley tie NFL-sized linebackers into pretzels. Nowhere in her research had she found anything that would lead her to believe Rapp was capable of going toe to toe with Stan Hurley. "Stan, you need to trust me. I had no idea he could best you."

"He didn't best me! He almost did."

"Yeah, but you cheated," Tschida said, taking perverse pleasure in the torment he was causing Hurley. "So, technically, he beat you."

It took every last bit of restraint to not throw his glass at the gloating Tschida. Hurley turned his attention back to Kennedy and asked, "What are you up to? Why in hell would you try to sucker me like this?"

"Just calm down for a minute, Stan. I am telling you right now, we found nothing in our research that said he was capable of this." Kennedy gestured at Hurley's battered face. "It was my sincere hope that someday he would be able to do this ... but not this soon."

"Then your research sucks. You don't learn how to fight like this in your basement. Someone has to teach you."

Kennedy admitted, "He's been going to a martial arts studio for the past year."

"That would have been nice to know," Hurley fired back.

"Stan, you have been bitching up a storm that this guy is a waste of time because he hasn't had Special Forces training. You think a year of training in a strip mall is equal to what the army puts guys through?"

"That depends on the instructor."

"And the student," Tschida added.

Kennedy folded her arms and thought long and hard before she spoke. "There is one other possibility."

"What's that?"

"I know you don't like to talk about your age, but is it possible that you've lost a step."

Tschida started laughing so hard his big barrel chest was rising and falling with each chuckle.

Hurley was seething. "I'm going to put your ass in the ring with him, first thing in the morning. We'll see how funny you think this is then."

Tschida stopped laughing.

Kennedy pulled up a chair and sat at the table across from Hurley. "Please tell me what happened."

"You're not jerking my chain?"

Kennedy shook her head.

"You weren't trying to pull a fast one on me? Set me up?"

She shook her head again and said, "No. In fact I was worried that he would be on the receiving end of a beating. Not the other way around."

Even through his anger- and bourbon-induced haze, Hurley was starting to grasp that Kennedy was telling the truth. "Where did you find this guy?"

Kennedy gave him a look that he instantly understood.

"Shithead," Hurley said to Tschida, "go check on those clowns, and if they're screwing around bust 'em out and make 'em snap off a hundred up-downs."

"Got it." Tschida moved out, all business.

As soon as the screen door slammed, Hurley looked at Kennedy and said, "Who is he?"

She couldn't keep him in the dark forever, but she would have preferred to wait a few more days. Setting her apprehension aside she said, "His name is Mitch Rapp."