by Vince Flynn
Rapp picked up an embalming needle injector. “This looks like it would do some damage, doesn’t it?”
“Please! I wasn’t told you were involved and I didn’t know who the woman was. I did it for the money. Nothing more.”
“Okay. Then tell me who’s writing the check.”
“I . . .” he stammered, trying to buy enough time to come up with a plausible lie. “I don’t know. I’m just a criminal. Drugs. Women. Gambling. My name is Ilya Gusev.”
Rapp recognized it. Despite his appearance, Gusev wasn’t just a piece of mindless muscle. He was a high-level criminal with his own outfit. Rapp had become familiar with him when the CIA had incorrectly suspected him of dealing arms in the Middle East.
“Sure,” Rapp said. “I’ve heard of you.”
“Then you know I’m telling the truth!”
“What I know is that you’re not some small-time hustler who takes jobs from anyone with a few rubles to wave around. So either you’re lying about not knowing who you’re working for or you came up with this on your own.”
“No! I’ve told you everything!”
“Look, Ilya. I don’t give a rat’s ass about you. I don’t care if you walk out of here without a scratch or if my people have to scrape what’s left of you off the floor. But I can tell you that if you keep lying to me, it’s going to be the second one. Now let’s start again. Who’s writing the check for this job?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding like he was on the verge of breaking into tears.
Rapp looked back at the door, making sure it was closed and trying to assess its thickness. Normally, this would be a simple situation. He’d ask his questions in a way that they would be answered quickly and truthfully. Now, though, he found himself worrying that the sound might carry out to Claudia and Anna. And then there was the matter of blood. He couldn’t walk out of here looking like he’d spent the day working in a slaughterhouse.
Rapp had promised himself that he was going to get a life outside of all this, but he’d forgotten the drawbacks—the constraints that he hadn’t worked under since his wife died.
“You’ve caught me on a good day,” Rapp said, pressing his silencer to bottom of the man’s left foot. “But now my patience is wearing thin.”
The Russian thrashed wildly, trying to break free of the tape, but he still didn’t offer any employment details. Time for a change in strategy. Rapp moved the weapon from the leather sole of Gusev’s shoe to his thigh, pressing the tip into his soft flesh. It would further dampen the sound.
“Are you partnering with ISIS, Ilya? They’ve knocked over a lot of banks and sold a lot of oil. I’ll bet they have enough money to tempt even a high roller like you.”
“No! I was going to shoot them and leave them for you to find. To give you a trail to follow to the Middle East.”
“Why?”
“Maybe someone there wants to kill you?”
“Everybody there wants to kill me, Ilya. But why go through all this effort? A month doesn’t go by that I don’t show my face in the Middle East at least once. No one has to lure me. More likely, someone wanted me out of Pakistan. You just have to tell me who and why.”
ISIS was coming under the control of Saddam Hussein’s former generals, making their command and control structure increasingly sophisticated. Was it possible they’d gotten to the point that they were capable of embarking on something this complicated? The Baathist sons of bitches that the American politicians had prohibited him from killing would like nothing more than to get their hands on a nuke.
His phone chimed and he reached into his pocket, hoping that it was Kennedy with an ETA on his ride and not his decorator with a selection of bathroom tiles. For once he got his wish. The G550 would be at a nearby strip in thirty minutes.
“Time’s up, Ilya.”
“No! I—”
Rapp squeezed the trigger and felt the Glock kick as a bullet tore through the Russian’s leg. He started screaming and Rapp shoved a bloodstained rag in his mouth to muffle the sound.
Gusev managed to spit out the rag just as Rapp was finishing an acknowledgment text to Kennedy.
“You’re a dead man!” the Russian screamed. “Do you hear me? A dead man! You have no idea what you’re dealing with. Grisha is going to come for you and everything you love!”
Rapp set down the gun. Finally, they were getting somewhere.
“Who’s Grisha?”
“You’re going to find out,” Gusev said between clenched teeth.
“Is that who you work for? Not ISIS? A Russian? Why don’t you give me a last name? We can give him a call. Put him on speakerphone while I bandage up that leg.”
Gusev started shouting obscenities at him in Russian and Rapp grabbed hold of his wounded thigh. “Listen to me, you Russian piece of shit. I’ve given you more chances than I’ve given anybody in ten years. But that’s over now. There’s a set of pliers on that tray over there and if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to start pulling your teeth.”
The rage in Gusev’s eyes was replaced by panic when Rapp clamped a hand around his throat. He had been around too many men in Gusev’s position to be fooled. Hell, he’d been in Gusev’s position a couple times. The Russian still had some fight in him, but it was running out fast.
Gusev’s eyes started to lose focus just as the door leading into the room was thrown open. Rapp spun and saw one of the Arabs Thompson had shot sagging against the jamb. There was an AK-47 in his hands and he pulled the trigger, using what little strength he had left to sweep it across the room.
Rapp dove to the floor, rolling to the table where he’d left his Glock. A barrage of bullets went over his head and a spray of pulverized cinder block hit him in the face, partially blinding him. All he could see was the Arab’s outline and he aimed for the middle of it, firing three rapid shots that hit center of mass. The force of the rounds spun the man around and toppled him over a cart stacked with rusting embalming equipment.
Rapp got to his feet, wiping at his eyes as he approached the man. This time there was no question that he was dead. Two hits in the chest and one in the stomach. A fourth wound could be seen on the right side of his head beneath blood-matted hair. Thompson’s shot.
Rapp turned back toward Gusev and swore under his breath. The man was staring sightlessly at the ceiling with a gaping bullet wound in his side.
The sound of running footsteps became audible in the next room and Rapp lined up on Steve Thompson as he came skidding to a stop in the doorway.
“Whoa! Easy, Mitch!” He raised his hands, one of which held a Beretta 92FS. “What the hell happened?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Thompson spotted the dead Arab and his eyes widened. “I popped that guy, man. I swear I did. Right in the head.”
“You didn’t check to see if he was dead?”
“It was point-blank range! His fucking hair caught fire!”
Rapp’s finger tightened on the trigger but it was out of anger at the kid’s stupidity, not because he thought Thompson had tried to set him up. Part of the Arab’s head was noticeably concave and the trail of blood he’d left on his walk to the door was obvious. It was the downside of head shots. While they got around the problems posed by body armor, they could be unpredictable.
“Come on, Mitch. I’m sorry. I don’t normally do this kind of close-up work.”
“Get out.”
“So we’re good?”
“As long as I don’t ever see you again.”
“Not a problem, man. I’m a ghost. But hey, could you give me a lift to—”
Rapp adjusted his aim slightly and put a bullet in the wall about a quarter of an inch from Thompson’s ear.
“Fuck!” the young assassin shouted, ducking and throwing an arm protectively in front of his face. A few seconds later he was out the front door and running up the road.
CHAPTER 7
MOSCOW
RUSSIA
> AS was always the case when he arrived, the outer office was empty.
Grisha Azarov crossed it quickly, glancing at an ornate clock on the wall to confirm that he was precisely on time. The door at the back was open and he passed through, closing it quietly behind him.
The office was a stark contrast to the one he’d just visited in Siberia. Every wall was clad in the rich wood paneling favored by powerful men and gilt accents bordered the ceiling. Carefully restored antiques and priceless works of art were in abundance, tracing the whole of Russia’s history.
At nearly twenty meters square, it took a not insignificant amount of time to cross the room and take a position of attention in front of a desk that had once been owned by Czar Nicolas II. According to legend, he had used it only once before the people rose up and killed him for his sins and the sins of his forebears. Azarov had always thought it ironic that Russia’s president would choose a desk with such a history.
Maxim Krupin finished signing the document in front of him and set it aside, leaning back in his chair to finally acknowledge Azarov’s presence. The politician was relatively young at fifty-two, stocky and solid. He had recently grown a jet-black mustache that, despite being meticulously groomed, still had the effect of making him look a little wild. Undoubtedly the change was a calculated effort to further intimidate the West and to ingratiate himself with a constituency desperate to have the world tremble once again in Russia’s shadow.
By contrast, Azarov was clean-shaven, with a thin, muscular physique beneath a suit tailored to obscure it. The man who oversaw his training never allowed his client’s body fat level to rise above that favored by professional athletes. In a world flooded with modern weapons, strength was desirable, but speed and agility were the difference between survival and death.
“You look well despite the recent unpleasantness, Grisha.”
“It’s kind of you to say, sir.”
“Certainly better than when I found you.”
Their rare face-to-face meetings always began with Krupin subtly reminding Azarov that everything he had was a result of their association.
While Dmitry Utkin’s similar comment had been an exaggeration, Krupin’s was fundamentally accurate. Azarov had been pulled from his special forces post without explanation just before his twenty-fourth birthday. Having distinguished himself on a number of difficult clandestine operations as well as on the army’s intelligence tests, he had come to the attention of the country’s new president.
Krupin had ridden a populist wave into office and was then in the process of consolidating his power. In order to facilitate that consolidation, he’d needed a man with a specific skill set and unwavering loyalty.
The Russian army had provided the former while Krupin bought the latter. Almost overnight, Azarov had gone from living in a barracks and making a few rubles a month to a life of mansions, private jets, and runway models. It had been more than the son of a poor farmer from the rural north could ever have dreamed of. Now, though, he recognized it as the Faustian bargain it was.
“Our friends were beginning to forget their place,” Krupin continued. “Now they’re reminded that they’re only flesh and blood.”
He was, of course, referring to Utkin and Russia’s other powerful oligarchs.
“A weakness we share, Mr. President.”
“Do I hear fear in your voice, Grisha? It doesn’t suit you.”
Krupin was a brutal man who had risen through the ranks at great cost—a cost that was beginning to come due. The precipitous drop in oil prices had combined with Western economic sanctions to loosen the iron-fisted control he’d gained over the country. The control that kept both him and Azarov alive.
“They’re dangerous men with extensive resources, sir.”
“They have no patriotism, Grisha. No love for mother Russia. The Americans are trying to strangle us and all they care about are insignificant shifts in their stock prices. They have no vision for this country’s return to its former glory.”
Azarov wondered what exactly that former glory was. The dysfunctional aristocracy represented by the handcrafted desk in front of him? The genocidal mania of Joseph Stalin? The disastrous communist experiment?
In truth, his country was utterly dependent on the extraction of natural resources. Russia invented nothing. Made nothing. Contributed nothing. Its people had never had a chance to learn how.
In many ways, this is why Krupin had enjoyed such success in politics. He understood his people’s thirst for relevance and had a gift for slaking that thirst in ways that were ultimately meaningless but satisfying in the short term.
“Before he died, Utkin demanded details of your plan for the economy and proof that those plans would be effective, sir. I suspect the others will do the same.”
Krupin’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward across his desk. “I will cut the Americans off at the knees, Grisha. Russia will be respected and feared throughout the world. We will exceed even the power we had at the height of the Soviet era. Will that be sufficient for these little men?”
“What you describe would indeed be glorious,” Azarov said, trying to conjure the expected sense of enthusiasm.
It appeared that he was successful because Krupin nodded and sank back into his chair. “Unfortunately, I find myself in a position that I once again need to ask your help, Grisha. I was committed to keeping you out of the Pakistan operation but circumstances conspire to make that impossible.”
“What’s changed, sir?”
Krupin waved a hand in a dismissive gesture that seemed a bit strained. “We’ve lost touch with the men sent to deal with Mitch Rapp.”
Azarov didn’t allow himself to visibly react. Only two days ago, Krupin had boasted that the operation was going perfectly. That Rapp was falling headlong into the trap created for him.
“Lost touch?”
“Our best intelligence is that Rapp is on his way back to Islamabad and could interfere with our work.”
The operation targeting the CIA man had been planned entirely by Krupin and his logistics expert, Marius Postan. Azarov had been kept out of the loop, a move typical of the Russian president. One of the strategies he used to maintain power was to compartmentalize everything he did, never allowing anyone to see the entirety of his machinations. It was a level of secrecy that kept his opponents off-balance, but often had a similar effect on his allies.
Normally, Azarov would have requested to be included in the planning of an operation like this and Krupin would have eventually agreed. In this case, though, Azarov had decided to keep his distance. He had studied everything Russian intelligence had on Mitch Rapp, and it was hard to ignore the fact that even well-planned, well-executed moves against him tended to fail. Often catastrophically.
“Did Rapp have time to question any of the men involved?”
“We don’t know for certain. The CIA is sending people but they appear to be a cleanup crew. Our best information is that Gusev was killed in short order along with the two ISIS men with him. The American that Gusev insisted on bringing in seems to have escaped.”
So, yes, Azarov thought. Anyone would eventually talk with Mitch Rapp doing the questioning, but Gusev could be counted on to give up what he knew more quickly than most. He was a soft, self-interested criminal faced with a man who had spent his life dealing with fanatics who welcomed—even courted—suffering and death.
Krupin seemed to read his mind. “Gusev knew less than nothing.”
That seemed unlikely. He was running the tactical side of the operation and understood both its short-term goals and methods. It was admittedly not much, but that was very different from nothing.
“What action do you intend to take, sir?”
Krupin didn’t answer immediately, instead staring out across the desk.
“After a great deal of thought, I’ve decided that Rapp has to be dealt with, Grisha. The Pakistan operation has been going well since he’s been gone. Scott Coleman’s men have been reaso
nably effective, but the other CIA teams are faltering without Rapp’s leadership.”
“Then you’ve been successful?”
He knew little of what was happening in Pakistan and he preferred to keep it that way. Unfortunately, it was becoming clear that his continued ignorance and lack of involvement weren’t going to be possible.
“Successful? Yes. To some extent.”
“Perhaps it would be better to accept that partial victory and suspend your operation until Rapp moves on?”
“I don’t have enough material to achieve my ultimate goal. In this case, I’m afraid there are no partial victories.”
“Do you have a sense of how you would like this to play out?”
“We’re aware of a high-level Pakistani mole codenamed Redstone who is on the CIA’s payroll. We’ve used back channels to feed him intelligence that the al Badr terrorist group is going to make an attempt on a nuclear warhead being moved through Faisalabad tomorrow. Redstone has been a reliable informant for the Americans and I think that they will take him at his word.”
“So, we’re drawing Rapp into a second trap after the first failed?”
“It was a mistake to put Gusev in charge. I should have never allowed Marius to do it. That’s why I’m asking you to get involved personally, Grisha.”
“But it’s a bit like throwing a net over a bear, yes?” he said, despite knowing that Krupin wasn’t interested in his opinions or objections. “Again, I have to wonder if it would be possible to step back for a few weeks.”
Krupin shook his head. “The Pakistani warheads are being moved with minimal security because of the power struggle between its army and civilian government. This level of disorder isn’t going to last. One or the other will soon gain the upper hand and the warheads will once again be out of my reach.”
So it was Pakistan’s nuclear weapons that Krupin was interested in. But why? There could be only one answer: while Russia controlled a nuclear arsenal capable of destroying the planet many times over, it was just for show. A multitrillion-dollar deterrent that couldn’t be launched without creating an equally devastating response from the West.