by Vince Flynn
“The German must die immediately.”
“Make it so.”
“And I regret to suggest that Saeed Ahmed Abdullah should meet an untimely end.”
This was Rashid’s oldest, closest friend. A devout Wahhabi and a good man. He could never abandon him. “No. You heard Ross. What evidence they have is thin. If the Americans want to persecute every man who has wished Mitch Rapp dead, they will have a list numbering in the millions.”
“But they just happen to be right in this case.”
“I will return to the Kingdom tonight and take care of Saeed. He will be fine. The Americans will never be able to prove a thing.”
“Mitch Rapp will not need proof,” Tayyib said in an ominous voice. “He will start killing and torturing until he finds out who was behind this.”
“Ross said the president has ordered him to stay out of this.”
“Rapp has never been one to follow orders. With his wife dead, the Americans have no hope of controlling him.”
“Then he must die,” Rashid snapped.
Tayyib nodded. “I know of two CIA safe houses in Virginia. One is very close. I helped interrogate several prisoners there after 9/11. They are fortified facilities but not heavily guarded.”
“I want him dead,” snarled Rashid.
Tayyib thought about this for a moment and then said, “It will cost a lot of money and it will be very messy.”
“I don’t care. Just so long as Rapp is killed and none of it is linked to us.”
“I will take care of it.”
48
VENICE, ITALY
T he news of Rapp’s resurrection was for the most part lost on the general public. It appeared at first on news crawls—those obnoxious streams of words that flowed across the bottom of the twenty-four-hour cable news channels. Intelligence agencies weren’t proud of it, but they got a lot of their information from cable news, and the people whose job it was to monitor these channels stood up and took note that Mitch Rapp was alive. Phone lines burned, and e-mails flew back and forth between secretive buildings and across borders. The international espionage community was a loose affiliation of spies, analysts, and operatives who were bound by the unique nature of their careers. The mission of each organization was to collect and disseminate information, and not just within their own government, but to allies as well. Rapp was an icon in their world, admired by friend and foe alike. He was a man who had worked in the field and come up through the ranks—something they could all respect.
The news that he had been killed had been met with mixed reaction. Some thought his demise inevitable—no man could so aggressively wage a war against religious fanatics and remain unscathed. Those few who were ideologically opposed to Rapp’s stance and methods applauded his death, but most were saddened by the news. He was one of them, and his death was a reminder of how dangerous their jobs were. There was another element to the story, though, that gnawed at a great number of them. Rapp’s wife had been caught in the crossfire, and there was an unwritten rule in their line of work that families were off limits. Whoever had gone after Rapp had gone too far, so when news broke that Rapp was still alive, the vast majority of these men and women were secretly, and some not so secretly, hoping that Rapp would make the killers pay.
As a former Stasi officer and current freelancer Erich Abel was still connected to the fraternity, and it was safe to say that he was more surprised than anyone to hear that Rapp was alive. His day had started well enough. He’d gone for another long walk, this time through the Castello neighborhood of Venice, stopping in the Campo Santa Maria Formosa for breakfast and then continuing on his meandering walk through the narrow streets and alleys. He found two small galleries that showed promise. They were far enough off the main path that he knew he could negotiate a reasonable price for individual pieces. Abel was already spending his money. He would buy a small villa in the South of France and keep his place in Zurich. The place in Vienna, he decided, would be put on the market and his office closed. There were too many Saudis in Vienna, and it was time to sever that relationship. It had been profitable, but he no longer trusted Rashid. The man was on a jihad and everybody was expendable except himself.
He’d decided all of this before he’d been blindsided by the news that Rapp was still alive. Abel had been on his way back to his hotel after a late afternoon tour of more art galleries when he turned on his phone to check messages. For reasons of security and serenity, he’d been leaving the phone off but turning it on only a few times a day. He instantly knew something was wrong when the screen on the phone told him he had eleven new voice-mail messages and sixteen new e-mails. The first four were from his secretary in Vienna reciting a list of people who were trying to get ahold of him—almost all of them Saudis. The fifth message was from Saeed Ahmed Abdullah, and it was not pretty. In his thickly accented English he demanded that the job be finished or all twenty-two million dollars be refunded. Apparently the man did not remember the part where Abel had told him half of the money was a nonrefundable deposit. The sixth call was from Prince Muhammad bin Rashid’s personal assistant and then after that it was a jumble of people. The e-mails were pretty much the same. By the time Abel reached his penthouse he’d come to the reluctant conclusion that Mitch Rapp was in fact alive. How they had missed him, Abel didn’t know, nor did he care. The reality was the man was breathing and Abel’s entire world was in shambles.
Abdullah, in one of his messages, proclaimed that the job must be finished. Abel considered the feasibility of this only briefly. Going after Rapp when he didn’t expect it was one thing, but now that he was alert it was out of the question. Even before this disastrous news, Abel had felt he could no longer trust Prince Rashid. That was why he was in Venice, staying in a five-star hotel under an assumed name and paying for everything in cash. Now that the job had been botched, Rashid would want him silenced. Abel began packing his suitcase and pondering how quickly the Saudis could move on him. Their intelligence services were good within the Kingdom but they were anemic abroad. Rashid would have to hire someone like Abel, which would take time.
Abel closed the suitcase and zipped it shut. He walked over to the large window in time to see another cruise ship passing through the Canale di San Marco. Row after row of faceless people lined the starboard decks snapping photos, waving, and watching. The ship was massive. Abel considered how easy it would be to disappear on one of those ships. He would be lost in the myriad of tourists from around the world. A divorced man looking to take his mind off a disastrous marriage. He’d used it as cover before and in fact he was using it right now. That was the excuse he’d used to pay for the room in cash and use an alias. Abel had explained to the manager that he was going through a messy divorce and had decided to tour Europe in style rather than give the wretched woman a penny. Her lawyers, though, were right on his heels and if he had any hope of holding them off he needed to be discreet.
Abel stared at his phone for a minute and then turned it on. He dialed his personal assistant’s mobile number and waited for her to answer. After the eighth ring he got her voice mail. “Greta, it’s Erich. Remember that thing we talked about? Well, I’ve decided to take a sabbatical. If you need to get ahold of me, you know how to reach me. Good-bye.” Sabbatical was a prearranged code word that was a warning to Greta. She was supposed to stay away from the office until he told her it was safe to go back to work. In the meantime she would be paid for six months of work. After that she should assume something had happened to him and look for other employment.
He checked his e-mail quickly and then decided to send a message. He pulled up the address for the assassins and began typing. It read: You failed. Finish the job, or return the money. He didn’t bother attaching a name.
Abel scratched out a quick note and stuffed it in an envelope along with a thousand euros. He grabbed his bag and wheeled it to the elevator. When he reached the front desk, he asked to see the manager. A moment later Nico appeared from the back off
ice and stepped out from behind the counter. He took one look at the suitcase and held his hands out in surprise.
“You are leaving us so soon?”
Abel adjusted his glasses and said in a low voice, “I’m afraid the lawyers are hot on my trail.” He handed the envelope to the manager and said, “I may try to make my way back in a few weeks. I left a number along with a generous tip for your judiciousness.”
The man clutched the envelope to his chest. “You are too kind.”
Abel leaned in a bit closer and said, “Call me if anyone comes looking for me.”
The manager winked. “I will.”
Abel wheeled the medium-size black suitcase out the front door and turned left to catch a water taxi. A valet from the hotel was there to assist him and Abel tipped him generously.
“Marco Polo Airport,” Abel said in a voice that was loud enough for both the driver and the valet to hear. The German sat on one of the long white vinyl seats and began mulling over his options. He would go to the airport, but he would not be getting on a plane. He would go to the terminal and then take a cab to the port where he would book passage on one of the floating buffets. And then he would try to fit in among the large people.
49
MONTERREY, MEXICO
T he drive from Indianapolis to the Mexican border took nineteen hours with a stop for dinner and a quick nap near Lake Texoma in Oklahoma. Along the way the gun, the rifle, and the ammunition were all disposed of piece by piece. Neither weapon had been used to kill anyone, and there was no way of tracing them back to Gould, but they weren’t worth the trouble of trying to take across the border. Gould drove the entire time and despite feeling unsympathetic to Claudia’s depressed state he continued to apologize and at least act like he was sorry about the woman. In truth, though, he could have cared less about Rapp’s wife. He knew it sounded harsh, and there were many, including the woman who was carrying his child, who would think him a monster for such a callous attitude, but it was the nature of his business.
To survive, much less succeed, his work had to be approached with an analytical detachment that focused on maximizing success and minimizing failure. At first it had been relatively easy. The men he killed were not on the road to sainthood. Their corrupt, and sometimes vile, behavior made it easy, but as larger contracts came in, the ethical waters became murky. Who was to say which side was right and which side was wrong? Gould came to accept the fact that the players had all willingly entered the arena with a full understanding of the risks. This rationalization started him down a path of moral ambiguity. Rapp knew full well the risks his job involved and by association so did his wife.
The secondary figures in these operations, the bodyguards and spouses, for example, had signed on knowing who they were getting involved with, or they should have. Would it have been better if Rapp’s wife had survived? Yes, but Gould felt he’d made an honest effort to spare her. In the end, however, it wasn’t meant to be. As much as Gould wanted to engage Claudia in this debate, he knew that in her current state it would be foolish. He had always worried that she would not be able to handle the messy end of the business, and he’d done everything possible to shield her from it. She had seen him kill only one person, and that was in self-defense.
It was during the mid-nineties after the Soviet Union had collapsed and the tycoons and robber barons were dividing up the spoils and killing whoever got in their way. Politicians, journalists, competitors all were fair game. This had been Gould’s proving ground and where he had made a name for himself. The work was steady and the money was exceptional. Gould had just popped a man in his hotel suite and was leaving the lobby when the warning bells were sounded. The crazy Russian bodyguards drew their guns and tried to shut the place down. Gould had to shoot his way out, and when he got on the street, there was one last Russian waiting. Fortunately for Gould the man was a bad shot. He squeezed off a long burst from an Uzi submachine gun. He was off balance, though, and shooting at an upward angle as Gould came down the steps. The bullets whistled high past his head. Gould took only one shot with his silenced pistol, striking the man in the face, dropping him to the ground right in front of Claudia, who was waiting behind the wheel of the getaway car.
Claudia had understood the need for him to kill or be killed. They’d even had passionate sex that night, but this was all different. Gould suspected she saw herself in Rapp’s wife and wondered if she saw him in Rapp, if she was making some twisted Freudian parallel between the two couples. Nineteen hours of mostly silence in a car gives the imagination ample opportunity to run riot.
They approached the border during the peak of morning rush hour and had no trouble making it through customs. They were a man and a woman in a minivan headed to Mexico. If they had been trying to cross from Mexico into America they might have faced more scrutiny, but going south was easy. Gould relaxed almost immediately and Claudia smiled for the first time in days. They rolled down the windows, held hands, and cranked the radio. The drive along the toll road from the border to Monterrey was easy. Gould followed the signs to the airport and they parked the van in the crowded lot. He left the driver’s window down and the keys in the ignition. They grabbed their backpacks and entered the airport. Gould purchased two tickets at the Mexicana counter from Monterrey to Mexico City and then on to Zihuatanejo. They had a little more than two hours to kill before the flight left. After passing through security, they found a café with wireless Internet service. Gould finally felt like they could relax and ordered a margarita while Claudia turned on her laptop and began checking e-mail.
There was some strange game show on the television that was holding the attention of both the bartender and the waitress. Gould had to wave his arm to order a second drink. Claudia asked for a bottle of water. It wasn’t quite noon and no one, including the other travelers, seemed to be in a hurry. Gould was starting to feel the buzz from the tequila when he realized something was wrong. He glanced over and Claudia had her face buried in her hands and was shaking her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t believe it,” she mumbled, her hands still covering her face.
“What?”
She turned the laptop toward him so he could read the e-mail. “It’s from the German.”
Gould read it, his face contorted in disbelief. “This is bullshit. ‘Finish the job or send the money back.’ What in the hell is he talking about?”
“I’d say it’s pretty obvious.”
Gould kept his voice down but was intense. “The job is finished.”
Claudia spun the laptop toward her and her fingers began dancing over the keys. Within seconds she was scanning the home page of the Washington Post. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. She turned the computer back to Gould and pointed at the headline that read RAPP STILL ALIVE.
Gould read it and said, “I don’t believe it. It’s a trick. See if you can find another source.”
Claudia pulled up one newspaper after another. They were all running the same story. She suggested Louie call and check their messages. There were three. The first was from his father mumbling something about a family gathering. Gould skipped it and erased it. The next one was from the German. His voice was calm, but he was adamant as to what must be done. The third and final message was from Petrov, who said that he had been put in a very difficult situation. He had recommended them to the German and it was his reputation that was on the line. He ended by telling Gould he knew how he thought, and this was not some trick by the Americans. Rapp was very much alive and if Gould wanted to stay alive too he’d better do the right thing.
Gould turned off the phone and stood. His entire body was tense with frustration. He ran his hands through his hair and took a step to the left and then the right. “How the hell did this happen,” he mumbled to himself. He looked at Claudia. “I was there. I saw the house blow up. I know he was inside.”
Claudia pointed at the screen. “It says here he suffered a broken a
rm and several broken ribs. The explosion blew him into the water, where he was picked up by a fisherman who saw the whole thing.”
“Damn it.” He spun around and looked at the exit. “I can’t believe this. Grab your stuff. Let’s get out of here.”
Claudia didn’t budge. She looked at him with an icy stare and said, “Sit down.”
Gould’s head snapped around. “What?”
“You heard me. Sit down right now.”
Gould placed a hand on the back of his chair, but refused to sit.
“Where do you want to go?” Claudia asked.
“Back,” he said as if she was a moron. “We have to go back and finish this.”
“No, we don’t. We are done. We have the money and we are retiring.”
“No.” He shook his head emphatically. “We go back and finish the job.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“The right thing to do,” she mocked him. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?”
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You killed an innocent woman, and now you’re talking about doing the right thing.” Her brow furrowed and she began shaking her head. “Have you really become so sick that you believe yourself noble…that right or wrong has anything to do with this?” She lowered her voice and through tight lips said, “We kill people.”
“I know what we do, but we have a code we have to follow.”
“We used to. We’re done. How does this change anything? We are retiring. You promised me. We are going to raise a family.”
“They will come looking for us.”
She laughed. “They would not even know where to begin. They know nothing about us, and we know everything about them.” She pointed at her computer. “A single message telling them to leave us alone or we will kill them will solve the problem.”