by Flynn Vince
The sun finally hit the horizon, causing an immediate drop in temperature and improvement in visibility. Waiting for full darkness was an option, but it seemed unnecessary. He hadn’t seen any sign of exterior guards and night versus day would have little meaning once he passed into that cave.
“We’re on,” he said into his throat mike.
“Copy that,” came Coleman’s response.
Rapp angled left, moving silently across the rocky terrain until he reached a stone wall about twenty yards from the cavern entrance. Staying low, he crept along the wall’s base until he reached its edge. Still no sign of ISIS enforcers. Behind him, the terrain was similarly empty, but that was to be expected. Coleman and his team would remain invisible until they were needed. It was impossible to anticipate the environment inside the cave, and Rapp was concerned that it could get tight enough to make a force of more than one man counterproductive.
When he finally slipped inside, the only evidence that it was inhabited was the churned dirt beneath his feet. He held his weapon in front of him as he eased along a passage about three feet wide and ten feet high. The familiar weight of his Glock had been replaced with that of an early-model Mission crossbow. His weapons tech had modified it for stealth, pushing the decibel level below eighty-five at the bow. Even better, the pitch had been lowered to the point that it sounded nothing like a weapon. Even to Rapp’s practiced ear, it came off more like a bag of sand dropping onto a sidewalk.
Crossbows weren’t the fastest things to reload and there hadn’t been much time to train with it, but he still figured it was the best tool for the job. The quietest pistol he owned—a Volquartsen .22 with a Gemtech suppressor—was strapped to his thigh, but it would be held in reserve. While it was impressively stealthy, the sharp crack it made was too loud and recognizable for this operating environment.
The darkness deepened the farther he penetrated, forcing him to move slowly enough for his eyes to keep pace. Based on what had happened last time he’d chased Sayid Halabi into a hole, it made sense to prioritize caution over speed. Mas might have forgotten his shovel.
A faint glow became visible at the end of the passage and Rapp inched toward it, avoiding the rocks beneath his feet and staying on the soft earth. As he got closer, he could see that the corridor came to a T. The branch going right dead-ended after a few feet but the one to the left continued. A series of tiny bulbs wired to a car battery was the source of the glow.
One of the downsides of LED technology was that it made hiding out in caves a lot easier. A single battery could provide light for days. But it also created a vulnerability. Power supplies tended not to be as widely distributed and redundant as they used to be.
Rapp reached down and flipped the cable off the battery, plunging the cavern into darkness.
Shouts became audible almost immediately, but sounded more annoyed than alarmed. Rapp could tell that the voices belonged to two male Arabic speakers, but picking out exactly what they were saying was difficult with the echo. Basically a little name-calling and arguing about whose turn it was to fix the problem. When all your light came from a single improvised source, occasional outages were inevitable.
One of the men appeared a few seconds later, swinging a flashlight in his right hand but never lifting it high enough to give detail to his face. It didn’t matter. From his youthful gait and posture, it was clear that it wasn’t Halabi. Just one of his stooges.
Rapp aimed around the corner and gently squeezed the trigger. The sound profile of the crossbow and the projectile’s impact were both outstanding. Unfortunately, the accuracy at this range was less so. The man was still standing, seemingly perplexed by the fletching protruding beneath his left clavicle.
Rapp let go of his weapon and sprinted forward, getting one arm around the Arab’s neck and clamping a hand over his mouth and nose. The man fought as he was dragged back around the corner, but the sound of their struggle was attenuated by soft ground. Finally, Rapp dropped and wrapped his legs around him to limit his movement. There wasn’t enough leverage to choke him out, but the hand over his face was doing a pretty good job of suffocating him. The process took longer than he would have liked and he was gouged a few times by the protruding bolt, but the Arab finally lost consciousness. A knife to the base of his skull finished the job.
Rapp slid from beneath the body and was recocking the crossbow when another shout echoed through the cavern.
“Farid! What are you doing, idiot? Turn the lights back on!”
Rapp yelled back that he couldn’t get them working, counting on the acoustics to make it difficult to distinguish one Arabic-speaking male from another. He loaded a bolt into his weapon and ran to the battery, putting the flashlight facedown in the dirt before crouching. The illumination was low enough that anyone approaching wouldn’t be able to see much more than a vague human outline.
A stream of half-baked electrical advice preceded the sound of footsteps and then another young man appeared. He didn’t seem at all concerned, once again proving the grand truth of all things human: people saw what they wanted and expected to see.
Rapp let the terrorist get to within fifteen feet before snatching up the crossbow. This time he compensated by aiming low and left, managing to put the projectile center of mass. No follow-up was necessary. The man fell forward, landing face-first in the dirt.
Certain that he wasn’t getting up again, Rapp reconnected the battery. He was likely going to need the light. Things had gone well so far but, in his experience, good luck never came in threes.
Support for that hypothesis emerged when a man who was apparently distrustful of the sound of falling sand bags sprinted around the corner. Rapp’s .22 was in an awkward position to draw, so instead he grabbed one of the bolts quivered on the crossbow.
The terrorist had been a little too enthusiastic in his approach and his momentum bounced him off one of the cave’s walls. Rapp took advantage of his compromised balance and lunged, driving the bladed head into his throat.
Not pretty, but effective enough to drop the man. As he fell, though, a small pipe sprouting wires rolled from his hand.
Not again.
Rapp used his boot to kick the IED beneath the man’s body and then ran in the opposite direction, making it about twenty feet before diving into a shallow dip in the ground. The explosion sent hot gravel washing over him and he heard a few disconcertingly loud cracks from above, but that was it. The rock held. He rolled onto his back, pulling his shirt over his mouth and nose to protect his lungs from the dust. The smart money would be to turn tail and call in a few bunker busters, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. If Halabi was there, Rapp was going to see him dead. Even if they entered the afterlife together with their hands around each other’s throats.
The sound of automatic fire started up outside but Rapp ignored it, pulling the Volquartsen and using a penlight to continue deeper into the cavern. Coleman and his boys could handle themselves.
The cave system turned out to be relatively simple—a lot of branches, but almost all petered out after a few feet. The first chamber of any size contained a cot and some rudimentary medical equipment—an IV cart, monitors, and a garbage can half full of bloody bandages. All of it looked like it had been there for a while.
The second chamber appeared to have been set up for surgical procedures but wasn’t much more advanced than something from World War I. A gas cylinder that looked like it came from a welder, a tray with a few instruments strewn across it, and a makeshift operating table streaked with dried blood.
And that was the end of the line. The cave system dead-ended just beyond.
“Shit!” Rapp shouted, his voice reverberating down the corridor and bouncing back to him.
The son of a bitch had been there. They’d brought him to treat the injuries he’d sustained in Iraq and to give him time to heal. A month ago, Rapp might have been able to look into his eyes, put a pistol between them, and pull the trigger. But now he was long gone. Sa
yid Halabi had slipped through his fingers again.
CHAPTER 2
AL MUKALLA
YEMEN
SAYID Halabi carefully lowered himself into a chair facing a massive hole in the side of the building he was in. Shattered concrete and twisted rebar framed his view of the cityscape stretching into the darkness. A half-moon made it possible to make out the shapes of destroyed vehicles, collapsed homes, and scattered cinder blocks. No light beyond that provided by God burned anywhere in sight. Power had once again been lost and the city’s half a million residents were reluctant to light fires or use battery power out of fear that they could be targeted by the Saudis.
It hadn’t always been so. In 2015, al Qaeda had taken advantage of the devastation brought by Saudi Arabia’s air war in Yemen and mounted an attack on Al Mukalla. Government forces had barely even gone through the motions of fighting back. After a few brief skirmishes they’d run, abandoning not only a terrified populace but the modern weapons of war—battle tanks, American-made Humvees, and heavy artillery.
After that stunning victory, a glorious glimpse of what was possible had ensued. Strict Islamic law was imposed as al Qaeda took over the governance of the city. Roads were repaired, public order was restored, hospitals were built. Sin and destruction were replaced by order and service to God.
A year later, Emirati-backed soldiers had driven al Qaeda out, returning the city to the dysfunctional and corrupt Yemeni government. Since then, nothing had been done to rebuild, and the Saudis’ indiscriminant bombing continued, slowly strangling hope. Hunger, disease, and violence were all that people had left.
A lone car appeared to the east, weaving slowly through the debris with headlights extinguished. Halabi followed it with his gaze for a time, wondering idly where the driver had managed to find fuel and listening for approaching Saudi jets. None materialized, though, and the car eventually faded from view.
The ISIS leader was finally forced to stand, the pain in his back making it impossible to remain in the chair any longer. Three cracked vertebrae were the least visible of his injuries, but by far the most excruciating. Mitch Rapp’s attack on him in Iraq had taken its toll. Beyond the damage to his back, Halabi no longer had full use of his right leg and, in fact, had barely avoided its amputation. His left eye had been damaged beyond repair and was now covered with a leather patch. The shattered fingers on his left hand had been straightened and set, but lacked sensation.
He’d spent months hidden underground, submitting to primitive medical procedures, surviving various infections and extended internal bleeding. All the while wondering if the Americans knew he’d survived. If, at any moment, Rapp would once again appear.
After a time those fears had faded and he began to heal both physically and psychologically. Once he was able, he’d devoted himself to prayer and study. He’d spent endless hours watching newsfeeds from throughout the world, reading history and politics, and studying military strategy. During that time, he came to understand why God had allowed his most devoted servant to be attacked in such a way. Halabi had let his life become consumed with the battle. He’d pursued the fleeting pleasure of inflicting damage instead of dedicating himself to the far more arduous and unsatisfying task of securing a final victory.
Footsteps became audible behind him and he turned to watch his most loyal disciple approach.
Muhammad Attia was an American by birth, the son of Algerian immigrants. He’d expended his youth working at his parents’ general store in New York and seeking the approval and acceptance of the Westerners around him. After high school, he’d attended a year of community college before taking a job as a civilian Arabic translator for the U.S. Army.
As a Muslim American, he’d already experienced the treachery and moral bankruptcy of his parents’ adopted country, but it wasn’t until he’d arrived in Iraq that he came to understand the magnitude of it.
His recruitment by al Qaeda had occurred less than six months into his tour and he spent almost five years as an agent for the organization before being discovered. He’d proved too clever for the Americans, though, and had escaped into the desert before they could come for him.
“Can we change?” Halabi said as the younger man approached. “Are my followers capable?”
“Everything is possible with Allah’s help.”
“But it’s far more difficult than I imagined to garner that help.”
“No man can see into the mind of God. We can only seek to play our small role in His plan.”
Halabi nodded. “Are we ready?”
“We are.”
The stairs had been cleared of debris, but the ISIS leader still needed help getting down them. The darkness deepened as they descended into what was left of the building’s basement. Halabi felt a moment of panic when the door closed behind them and the blackness recalled the agonizing hours he’d spent dragging himself from the cavern in Iraq.
This time, though, the darkness didn’t last. The dim glow of computer monitors coming to life pushed back the emptiness and he found himself standing in front of a series of screens, each depicting a lone male face.
The difference between this ISIS leadership meeting and his last one couldn’t have been more stark. The former Iraqi soldiers who had lined up on the ground in front of him and the traitorous Aali Nassar were all dead now. Taken from him by God not as a punishment but because they were useless. He understood that and so much more now.
With his newfound clarity, Halabi saw his past actions as almost comically misguided. He’d put his faith in men who had already been defeated by the Americans once. They’d had no new ideas. No new capabilities. No knowledge or insight that hadn’t existed for decades. The most that they could hope to do was bring order and discipline to ISIS’s next failure.
A red light flashed on a camera in front of him and the faces on-screen gained resolve. Despite the hardening of their expressions, though, it was clear that none were soldiers. Some were well-groomed and clean-shaven while others had thick beards and unkempt hair. The youngest was barely twenty and the oldest hadn’t yet reached his fortieth year of life. Two—one a pale-complected Englishman—didn’t even speak rudimentary Arabic.
That diversity went deeper than appearance, extending to their areas of expertise. Computer programming. Marketing. Finance. The sciences. Perhaps most important was a young documentary filmmaker who had spent the last year working for Al Jazeera. The only common thread was that all had been educated in the West. It was something he now required of his inner circle.
While a far cry from the brutal and fanatical forces Halabi had once commanded, these men had the potential to be much more dangerous.
“There was a time when I believed that the movement had lost its way,” Halabi said in English, his heavily accented words being transmitted over a secure satellite link. “But now I understand that there was never a path to victory. Osama bin Laden expected his actions in New York to begin the collapse of a society already faltering under the weight of its own moral decay. But what was really accomplished? Punishing but ultimately indecisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A handful of minor follow-up attacks that were lost in America’s culture of violence and mass murder. Bin Laden spent his final years bleating like a sheep and waiting for the Americans to find him.”
Halabi paused and examined the faces on the screens before him. While these men were indeed different from the ones he’d commanded before, the fire in their eyes burned just as intensely. The movement was everything to them. It gave them purpose. It gave them a target for their fury, hate, and frustration. And it gave them peace.
“Al Qaeda failed because their leadership grew old and forgot what motivates young men,” Halabi said flatly.
Osama bin Laden had feared the rise in brutality throughout the region, seeing it as counterproductive to recruitment. Unfortunately, he hadn’t lived to see the truth. To see the slickly produced videos of chaotic, merciless victories. To hear the pumping music that accompanied
them and the computer-generated imagery that enhanced them. To see thousands of young men, motivated by this propaganda, flood into the Middle East. Ready to fight. Ready to die.
“And ISIS did no better,” Halabi continued. “I and my predecessors became intoxicated by the vision of a new caliphate. The Middle East was fractured and the West was tired of fighting wars that couldn’t be decisively won. We deluded ourselves into believing that we were ready to come out of the shadows and stand against the U.S. military.”
He paused, considering how much he wanted to say. In the end, though, this was the age of information. Withholding it from his inner circle would lead only to another defeat.
“It was all a waste of time and martyrs. The moment for that kind of action had not yet arrived.”
“Has it arrived now?” one of the men said, his youthful impatience audible even over the cheap computer speakers. “America is as weak as it has been in a hundred and fifty years. Its people are consumed with hatred for each other. They see themselves as having been cheated by the rest of the world. Stolen from. Taken advantage of. The twenty-four-hour news cycle continues to reinforce these attitudes, as do the Russians’ Internet propaganda efforts. And the upcoming presidential election is amplifying those divisions to the point that the country is being torn apart.”
“It’s not enough,” Halabi said. “The Americans are people of extremes, prone to fits of rage and self-destructiveness, but also in possession of an inner strength that no one in history has been able to overcome.”
The faces on the screens looked vaguely stunned at what they saw as adulation for their enemy. It was one of many lessons Halabi had learned in his time confined to a hospital bed deep underground: not to let hatred blind one to the strengths and virtues of one’s enemies.
“If no one has been able to overcome it,” the British man said, “how can we?”
It was the question that Halabi had been asking for almost his entire life. The question that God had finally answered.