by Flynn Vince
No.
He had failed to kill God’s greatest enemy on earth because of his own desperate need to take revenge. To see the CIA man broken and groveling not at God’s feet, but at his own.
Halabi understood now that Rapp wouldn’t be caught in that desert, that God had put him beyond the reach of his men as a punishment. Once again, he could feel God’s eyes on him. This time, though, they radiated something very different from the love and approval that he had become accustomed to.
“Pull our men out, Muhammad.”
“All of them? There’s no reason not to leave the local—”
“All of them. It’s no use.”
Attia gave a short, relieved nod before speaking again. “I assume you agree that we have to move out of Yemen immediately? It’s unlikely that Rapp could have interrogated one of my men before killing him, but it’s possible that he’s learned about this place. Can I begin preparations to move our operations to our secondary site in Somalia?”
Halabi nodded and the man turned, disappearing through the door.
More retribution from God. They would trade a mountaintop fortress surrounded by people sympathetic to his goals for a maze of caverns surrounded by men whose allegiances changed like the direction of the wind.
Halabi closed his eyes and once again envisioned the dangerous path to victory. The greatest obstacle ahead wasn’t the U.S. military or Irene Kennedy or even Mitch Rapp. It was his own arrogance.
Finally the ISIS leader pushed himself to his feet and limped to the far wall. There he retrieved a whip consisting of various chains attached to a worn wooden handle. He swung it behind him, feeling the metal bite into his flesh. The blood began to flow and the pain flared, but God remained agonizingly silent.
CHAPTER 14
WEST OF MANASSAS
VIRGINIA
USA
RAPP accelerated out of the trees and onto a flat summit bisected by a newly paved road. Below he could see the widely spaced dots of porch lights and, in the distance, the glow of Manassas reflecting off low clouds.
Their escape from Yemen had been surprisingly uneventful other than the number of people involved. Predictably, Shamir Karman had become emotionally attached to a number of his employees and had refused to leave them behind. It had taken a little creativity, but they’d managed to cram everyone into a five-vehicle motorcade and avoid getting strafed by the Saudi air force. By now Karman would be installed in a New York condo and the others would be getting fast-tracked through immigration.
Coleman and his men were at Walter Reed getting their wounds checked for the various antibiotic-resistant infections making their way around Yemen. And, of course, grumbling about the fact that Rapp’s two days fighting his way through the desert had left him with nothing more than a moderate sunburn.
Empty lots started to appear on either side of the road, all owned by people loyal to Rapp. Near the center of the private subdivision, he passed a couple of completed foundations and a house surrounded by a yard strewn with toys and sports equipment. With all those kids, Mike Nash’s place was always either descending into anarchy or recovering from it.
Creating a neighborhood full of shooters had been his brother’s idea and, as usual, it had been a solid one. While the fortress of a house Rapp had built was capable of repelling pretty much any attack that didn’t involve artillery, the fact that any fight would be immediately joined by a bunch of former SEALs, Delta, CIA, and FBI added to the deterrent.
And so he finally had a place he could let his guard slip a little bit. Maybe relax and have a couple of beers in a chair that wasn’t backed up to a wall.
Or not.
Sayid Halabi was alive, pissed, and had apparently been doing some deep thinking. His propaganda videos were beautifully produced and perfectly targeted. His men were well trained and well disciplined. His use of technology was cutting-edge.
He seemed to have lost interest in futile attempts to take and hold territory in favor of embracing the concept of modern asymmetrical warfare. He’d identified the internal divisions tearing America apart and was using fear—amplified by Christine Barnett—to widen them.
It was hard not to give the terrorist piece of shit credit. The rage gripping Barnett’s constituency seemed to become more powerful and more deranged every day. Her followers didn’t seem to think Sayid Halabi carried any of the responsibility at all for the bioweapon he was cooking up. They were far more interested in blaming America’s foreign policy for provoking jihad, the president’s party for not anticipating the threat, and the CIA for not making it magically disappear. Trying to find a news program that even touched on the subject of stopping ISIS was an exercise in futility. All they were talking about was how Halabi’s videos were affecting the presidential primaries and how an attack might reshape the general election.
He used the controls on the steering wheel to turn up the stereo, filling the interior of the Dodge Charger with Bruce Springsteen’s “The River.” Not the most uplifting song, but it took him back to a simpler time. A time when America’s enemies were external and could be eradicated with a gun.
A traditional red barn appeared on his left and shortly thereafter the white stucco wall surrounding his house began to emerge. Dim spotlights illuminated the copper gate, but also something else. A lone figure sitting on the ground next to it.
Claudia.
She didn’t seem inclined to get up as he approached, so he stopped and stepped out of the vehicle. Despite the cloud cover, it was a beautiful night. There was a light breeze from the north and temperatures were hovering in the mid-seventies. Even so, she had her arms wrapped around her knees, pulling her thighs to her chest as though she was freezing. His headlights combined with the spots, reflecting off tears running down her cheeks.
He wasn’t sure what to say. She’d been in this business a long time and knew the realities of his world. The likelihood of him living long enough to buy a set of golf clubs and retire to Florida was fairly low.
“You did everything you could,” he said, finally.
“Which was nothing. No one returned our calls, Mitch. And the few who did gave nothing but excuses.”
He pressed his back against the wall and slid down next to her. “At the end of the day, I’m at the sharp end of these operations. And I’m comfortable with that.”
“Comfortable being abandoned by the country you spent your life fighting for?”
He considered her question for almost a minute before speaking again. “It’s nice out there at night. You wouldn’t believe the stars. And the quiet.”
She just stared straight ahead, unable to meet his eye.
“In a way, I like it,” he continued. “Being alone is simple. I like the freedom of knowing that I don’t have anyone to rely on and no one’s relying on me. There’s a clarity to it that you can’t get anywhere else.”
She laughed and wiped at her tears. “You should never tell a psychiatrist that. They’ll lock you up.”
“Probably,” he said. They sat in silence for a few minutes before she spoke again.
“It was a trap, Mitch. Halabi went after you specifically.”
“Seems like.”
“What terrifies me is that he didn’t want to kill you. That he was willing to lose good men to capture you. I try not to, but I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if he’d succeeded. What he would have done to you.”
Rapp shrugged. “There’s no point in dwelling on things that could have happened. You take what lessons you can from them and you move on.”
“And what did you learn out there, Mitch?”
He looked over at her. “I feel like we’re beating around the bush here. If you have something to say, say it.”
“Okay, I will. It’s getting bad here, Mitch. America’s changing. I think maybe you don’t see it, because it’s your country. But I do.”
“It’s just politics,” Rapp said dismissively. “I’ve been dealing with this crap my ent
ire career.”
“No. It’s more than that. You weren’t here to see the brick wall Irene and I hit trying to get help for you. Most people believe that Christine Barnett will be America’s next president and they’re focused entirely on dealing with that fact. A lot of good people are getting out and a lot of bad ones are moving up. People are paralyzed. They don’t know who they should ally themselves with. What positions they should take. No one can figure out exactly what she wants.”
“Power,” he said, standing and holding a hand out to her. “That’s all any of them want.”
CHAPTER 15
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
USA
WHEN Irene Kennedy entered the Oval Office, the meeting’s other attendees were just settling into the conversation area at its center. President Alexander was the first to notice her and he strode toward her with a hand outstretched.
“Irene. It’s good to see you. As always.”
His years in Washington had done nothing to diminish the southern gentleman in him, though they both knew he was lying. When they got together outside of their normal schedule, it meant something had gone wrong. A nuclear threat. A terrorist threat. A Russian leader gone mad. Or, in this case, a psychotic fundamentalist building a biological weapon.
“I think you know Senator Barnett?”
The handshake between the two women was coldly mechanical and accompanied by what must have been Barnett’s thousandth attempt to stare her down. As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kennedy was forced to interact with her much more than she would have liked. Barnett was a woman whose only true human emotion seemed to be ambition. She was interested solely in information that could advance her status, increase her personal wealth, or destroy the careers of her rivals. Everything else was just noise to her. And that laser focus had worked. It was almost certain that she would be the next leader of the free world.
“And I assume you’ve met Colonel Statham?” Alexander continued, picking up on the tension between the two women and trying to diffuse it.
“Of course,” Kennedy said, turning with a genuine smile toward the army officer. Despite being a bit overweight and barely five foot four, he was in many ways the Mitch Rapp of deadly diseases. Statham had spent his career seeking out the most terrifying pathogens Mother Nature could dish out. Everything from Ebola to plague to rabies. He had endless stories about things like extracting a foot-long worm from his own leg, being swept over a waterfall while trying to reduce his runaway fever in an Asian river, and being chased through the bush by a hippopotamus. Not surprisingly, he was extremely popular at cocktail parties.
“Gary,” she said as he took her hand warmly. “I thought you were in Africa.”
His eyes lit up at the mention. “We’re working on an Ebola vaccine. Just initial testing, but it’s promising.”
“Are we ready?” Alexander said, clearly feeling one of the microbiologist’s infamous digressions coming on.
“Yes, sir,” Statham said.
“Then you have the floor,” he said, motioning for everyone to sit.
“I didn’t bring the ISIS videos because I figure everyone’s watched them too many times already. My team’s gone over them with a fine-toothed comb and, combined with the Agency’s analysis, I think we have a pretty good idea of what happened.”
“And?” Christine Barnett said, already starting to sound impatient. Undoubtedly, she was looking for ammunition for another attack on the administration of the man sitting next to her.
Despite this, neither Alexander’s expression nor his body language even hinted at his deep hatred for Barnett. He’d resigned himself to the fact that she would likely be his successor and he was committed to doing his best to make sure she was prepared for the job.
And while Kennedy admired his effort, she also understood that it was a waste of time. The presidency demanded less a specific skill set or background than it did a type of person. Unfortunately, Christine Barnett would never be that woman.
“Doctors Without Borders was working on an outbreak of a very dangerous SARS-like virus in the village,” Statham continued, unflustered. “The three medical personnel that Halabi snatched had stopped the spread and had victims corralled in a building that they’d converted into a treatment facility. It’s clear that ISIS knew about it and they sent extremely well-trained and well-prepared troops. Even our Delta guys were impressed by their plan and how it was carried out.”
“What plan?” Barnett said.
“I was just getting to that. If you combine all the existing videos into one timeline, you can get a pretty good blow-by-blow. All of Halabi’s men were wearing protective gear and they nailed all the doors in the village shut, starting with the treatment facility. They didn’t touch anything and after the villagers were sealed up, they burned the buildings.”
“Are we certain there were no survivors?” President Alexander asked.
“As certain as we can be,” Kennedy responded. “As you know, Mitch took a team there and confirmed that the entire village was burned. Also, there’s a significant amount of open desert around it, making it unlikely that a hypothetical survivor could have reached the next-closest population center. Having said that, we’re monitoring all of them for unusual activity that could suggest the illness has spread.”
“Is there any point to sending another team to have a more in-depth look?” Alexander asked.
She shook her head. “The Saudis obliterated that village five days ago.”
“Nothing’s certain in this business,” Statham interjected. “But with the fire, the protocols used by ISIS, and the isolation, I think we probably dodged this bullet.”
Barnett actually laughed at that. “So we don’t have to worry about some village in the middle of nowhere with the flu. All we have to worry about is that ISIS now has a sophisticated bioweapons lab manned with Western experts. Is that how you define dodging a bullet? What were those people doing in a terrorist-controlled area of Yemen anyway?”
“Putting themselves in harm’s way to help sick people and make sure a potentially catastrophic disease didn’t spread,” Statham said, no longer able to hide his irritation.
“It’s a nice sentiment, but now look where we’re at. If we hadn’t allowed those—”
“They’re from an NGO,” Kennedy said, cutting her off before she could sidetrack the meeting. “Two of them aren’t even American citizens. We weren’t in a position to tell them where they can and can’t help people.”
“Well, maybe we should have been,” Barnett shot back.
“Agreed. But your committee has been reluctant to support our operations in Yem—”
“I was told that Sayid Halabi was dead,” she said, the volume of her voice rising. “If I’d known he was in Yemen looking to build a biological capability, I wouldn’t have taken that position.”
Kennedy wanted to remind her that the Agency had never confirmed Halabi’s death and, even if it had, he was only one of a countless number of dangerous jihadists now taking cover in Yemen. But what was the point? This wasn’t about truth. It wasn’t about protecting America. It was about her installing herself in this office.
The uncomfortable silence that ensued was finally broken by Statham.
“Since you mentioned Halabi’s biological weapons capability, let’s talk about it for a second. The main purpose of those videos was to look scary. Basically, a lot of fancy stainless steel equipment and three people wandering around in biohazardy-looking clothes. But the truth is, most of that stuff has nothing to do with the production of bioweapons.”
“What about the latest video?” Barnett said. “The one I just got a few hours ago? Halabi says he’s got Gabriel Bertrand producing a half ton of anthrax.”
“That video does suggest that he has the capacity to produce anthrax, but not in anywhere near those kinds of quantities. It’s just propaganda.”
“Whether it’s a little anthrax or a lot doesn’t ma
tter,” Barnett said. “People are terrified. And they should be. It’s this government’s duty to protect the country from these kinds of threats. And despite the billions we squander on homeland security, I have to spend my days sitting around watching a video of Sayid Halabi building bioweapons.”
“How long before he has enough anthrax to attack us?” Alexander asked in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. He looked exhausted. Not only from his seven-plus years in office, but from the knowledge that everything said in this meeting would be used against him and his party in the evening news cycle.
“It depends on how much he plans on smuggling in,” Statham said. “The amount necessary for a small-scale attack might already be available.”
“Casualties?”
“Limited. Any biological weapon is serious and terrifying, but anthrax is hard to deploy. You have to get the granules small enough for inhalation and keep them from clumping. And then the victim actually has to breathe them in. It doesn’t spread from human contact and it doesn’t scale up well.”
“The Russians did it,” Barnett said.
“The Soviets did it,” Statham corrected. “They bred a very deadly spore capable of being deployed as an aerosol. When it got through their lab’s filtration system, it killed more than a hundred people. But we’re talking about a massive effort by a major world power. This is different. Think about the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan. They put an enormous amount of money, expertise, and effort into trying to do the same thing and ended up abandoning the effort in favor of sarin.”
“I keep being told not to worry about ISIS and I keep getting burned,” Barnett said.
Kennedy frowned but, again, kept her mouth shut. The number of written warnings her office had provided about ISIS in Yemen would fill a good-size closet.