by Vince Flynn
After that, things were going to turn ugly.
* * *
“Now!” Sanyu Nabirye shouted over the sound of distant explosions.
His feet seemed to barely skim the ground as he started upslope. The branches whipping his face caused no pain, only more rage and the warm sensation of blood running down his cheeks. His lungs heaved, but didn’t burn, and his heart beat with a force that made his entire body shake in time.
It was a sensation he was familiar with from countless village raids and occasional skirmishes with Ugandan government forces. He’d come to crave it. To imagine that it was a glimpse into the afterlife that he would one day enjoy as an acolyte of Gideon Auma. The world and everything in it seemed to fall away. His body felt disconnected and remote—more like a weapon he carried than part of him. He had become a spirit guided by Auma and his warrior ancestors.
The steepness of the slope continued to increase but it didn’t cause him to slow or to question the conflicting information he’d been given about the terrain. A helicopter became audible over the ecstatic shouts of the men behind him and the blood rushing in his ears. The incline became sharp enough that he had to use his hands to help propel himself, but still all he could think about was reaching the Whites cowering behind their flimsy wall. Watching them scatter in terror. Feeling the earth turn thick with the blood of Gideon Auma’s enemies.
The rushing in his ears reached an intensity that he didn’t remember from the times before. Less than a minute later, he felt a cold, misting rain against his back. Through the trees above, though, the sky was full of stars. A miracle? He tilted his head back and let a few drops fall into his mouth, quenching the thirst he barely registered. Rain from a clear sky. What else could it be but a gift from his master?
A few men surged past him and he began sprinting again. He’d been given the privilege of command. Not them. It was his honor to lead God’s forces. Nabirye caught them easily, but not because of his superior speed. Because they’d arrived at a cliff blocking their path. The rain was coming harder now and the roar of it mixed with the sound of water flowing down on them.
He stopped, trying to form coherent thoughts in his clouded mind. He’d been told that the gully would take them directly to the weakest part of the compound’s wall. That it would be a relatively flat approach with abundant cover. It was only then that he noted how steep the slopes had become on either side.
His men began to pile up behind him, shoving him into the rock wall. He turned, trying futilely to push back against them, watching as some tried to get around the natural barrier by climbing the sides of the gully. They would make it a few meters and then slide down again, rolling over top of the people coming up behind. The miraculous rain hadn’t just sated Nabirye’s thirst, it had covered the terrain in a slick layer of mud.
A blinding flash was followed by a wave of heat and shredded foliage that assaulted the exposed skin on Nabirye’s face. Bodies catapulted into the air, some getting hung up in trees and others coming back down as lifeless lumps of flesh. A detached arm bounced off the cliff and then cartwheeled across the heads of the men closest to him. They began to scatter, trampling each other as more explosions erupted.
The pressure of the bodies against Nabirye eased and he stumbled away from the cliff, tripping over a body and falling next to it in the mud. The shredded backpack identified what was left of the boy as the Bearer of the Sacrament. The holy receptacles lay next to his severed hand. Nabirye picked one up, finding that the water had turned its contents into a thick paste. It didn’t matter. He shoved it in his nostrils, inhaling hard enough to make him choke and finally vomit.
A sense of euphoria more intense than any he’d experienced before took hold, relegating the odd hiss of the rain and the heat of the explosions to another realm. He climbed over his dead comrades and began flailing desperately up the north slope. He wouldn’t fail. He was blessed by God and filled with the Sacrament.
He was invincible.
27
RAPP was lying on the concrete floor with a jacket piled behind his head when Levi Mizrah’s voice came over his earpiece.
“Mitch. We have contacts to the west. Three vehicles coming in on the road. One SUV and two pickups, each with a full complement of men in the back. They don’t look like pros, though. Just a bunch of locals.”
Rapp was about to respond when the phone in his pocket began to vibrate. He activated the screen and squinted through the inky darkness at it. Scott Coleman.
“Hang on, Levi,” he said before picking up. “Go ahead, Scott.”
“We… force… in… air…”
“I did not copy that,” Rapp said. The dull roar of what he suspected were water cannons overwhelmed Coleman’s voice, hinting at what was happening at Ward’s compound.
The roar faded to a hiss and the former SEAL came on again. “We’re under attack from the east. Fifty-plus men are on the move after digging up your wire. Ward and his people are in the air.”
“You all right? Everything under control?”
“We have one minor breach in the wall to the west, but I don’t think anything is going to come of it. The main force in the gully is toast.”
Rapp stood. “Let me know if anything changes.”
The roar started again, and Coleman shouted over it. “Copy that! I’m out!”
“Levi,” he said, switching back to his throat mike. “Give me an update.”
“We have good video of these guys now—they’re driving with headlights. They’re definitely from around here.”
“Could they be disguised?”
It seemed unlikely that someone who had the ability to dig so deep into the Agency’s mainframe would send a bunch of locals to ambush Ward and Chism. They’d use the same kind of top private talent that Rapp was.
“No way. A lot of them look like they’re in their teens. Some may be even younger.”
“ETA?”
“About six minutes.”
Rapp strode across the hangar using night vision gear that could barely collect enough light to navigate by. Various pieces of equipment had been brought in and placed strategically around the building. None of it served any purpose other than to provide cover for his men, but to the casual observer it would look like it belonged. The incursion point was easy to anticipate since the hangar only had entrances on the north side—the main bay doors and a single smaller door for pedestrian traffic.
“Levi. Get our support choppers in the air. Have them hang back, though. We don’t want to spook these assholes.”
“Roger that,” he said as Rapp continued to make a quick circuit of the building. Everyone was in their designated position. All pros ready to rock. He patched into the main comm.
“To reiterate our mission: we are capturing these men. Not killing them. Unless your life is in imminent danger, you are not to use lethal force. If anyone isn’t clear on that, speak up.”
Silence from the men in the hangar with him, but then the voice of one of his scouts came on.
“This is Exterior Two. We have one truck slowing. My guess is that they’ll set up along the tree line to provide cover for the incursion team.”
“Can you handle them?” Rapp said.
“Shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll tuck in behind them and wait until the fireworks start.”
“Copy that. Let me know if you run into any issues.”
Rapp stopped at the front of the main hangar doors and examined their hazy green image in his monocular. It would be impossible to get through without explosives, which would create obvious damage that the force coming in couldn’t tolerate. The smaller door would be the target. It wasn’t as heavy, and any damage done breaching it would be easy to obscure.
Kennedy’s gut had proved accurate once again. Whoever had accessed Nicholas Ward’s CIA file clearly wasn’t after a few stock tips. They wanted it all.
Rapp crouched to perform a final check on four small devices strategically placed near the door.
They were additional prototypes of the Taser bomb that had dropped him and Coleman’s team at their training session a few weeks ago.
“This is Exterior Two,” came the voice over his earpiece again. “The SUV and one of the pickups have cleared the tree line and are on their way to the hangar. ETA less than one minute. The remaining truck has stopped before the clearing and the men are getting out. Looks like I was right. They’re going to set up in the woods as cover. We’re in good position to take them out. Permission to use deadly force if necessary to keep them from reinforcing the incursion team?”
Rapp wanted to take as many of them alive as possible, but the perimeter force wasn’t of much concern. They’d just be soldiers. Whoever was directing this operation was almost certainly in the SUV. That was the person he was interested in talking to.
“If necessary, Exterior Two. Permission granted.”
“Copy that. The truck and the SUV are pulling up to the bay doors. Stand by… Okay, the men in the back of the pickup have what looks like a battering ram. Actually, I think it’s just a log with ropes tied around it, but it’s big enough to go through that door pretty easy. The occupants of the SUV are stepping out… two of them. The one who came out of the back seems to be giving the orders.”
“Can you give me a description?” Rapp said, crouching behind a generator that was his designated position.
“Negative. African. Fatigues. Nothing stands out.”
“Roger that,” Rapp said as a loud clang echoed through the hangar. The first blow against the door.
“They’re pulling the vehicles back toward the trees. The men at the hangar don’t have rifles. Some are carrying what could be handguns, but I’m not sure. Might just be flashlights.”
“Copy,” Rapp said.
Not entirely unexpected. They would have no reason to believe the hangar was anything but empty. The goal would be for Ward to arrive not realizing anything was amiss. He would be rushed inside, where he and his people would be immediately overwhelmed. Providing the men trying to get through the door with weapons would endanger Ward. When guns were involved, accidents had a way of happening.
The door held longer than expected, finally bursting open on the fifth strike. Men began flowing through the opening with what indeed turned out to be flashlights. One on the left located a switch box on the wall and attempted to turn on the lights, but Rapp’s people had rerouted the circuit. The Africans didn’t seem overly bothered, continuing to flow through the door and fan out, playing their flashlights over the building’s interior and the private jet it contained. If any of them noticed the four small cylinders on the floor, none gave any indication.
It took about twenty seconds before the men had dispersed into what Rapp calculated to be an optimal spread. It was possible that a few were out of range, but if he waited much longer, a number of the men would penetrate the building far enough to flank some of his people. He ran a thumb over the detonator, but hesitated. These were worker bees. Where was the queen?
He was rewarded a moment later when a man strode regally through the doorway, barking orders in Swahili. Rapp waited until he approached the first Taser unit and then depressed the button. Showers of sparks were accompanied by a sound reminiscent of spattering grease, and a moment later most of the incursion team was down. The unit closest to him misfired, leaving a few more men standing than he’d hoped, but the fact that they weren’t armed made them a minimal threat.
“Lights!” Rapp said into his throat mike and then replaced his night vision monocular with a pair of dark sunglasses. After the agreed-upon two-second delay, powerful overhead lights bathed the space in a fluorescent glare.
One African came even with Rapp’s position, squinting and raising an arm to shade his eyes. He was close enough that Rapp could have extended a leg to trip him, but it wouldn’t have been wise to expose any flesh with the quiet puffs of tranquilizer darts sounding throughout the hangar. Instead, he waited for the man—boy really—to go by and used his own dart gun to shoot him in the ass. He made it about another ten steps before stumbling and going down on his face.
“Clear!” someone shouted. That was followed by similar shouts around the hangar. Rapp loaded another dart and came out from behind the generator, swinging the unfamiliar weapon smoothly in front of him, looking for any movement that his men might have missed. Snipers were covering from the rafters, but it didn’t look like they’d be necessary. What little movement existed was just the weak flailing of the electrocuted or drugged.
“Exterior teams,” Rapp said into his comm. “Give me a sitrep.”
“This is Exterior One,” came the immediate reply. “We’re secure with no injuries to our team. On the other side, we have two fatal gunshot wounds and one man who got hit with multiple darts and is having some kind of seizure. Two escaped into the woods. We have people in pursuit.”
“Copy that. Keep me apprised of any problems.”
Rapp pulled off his sunglasses, wiping the sweat from his eyes and looking at the men littered across the floor. He’d lost track of the man who had been giving orders, but he turned out to be easy to find. Gray hair at the temples and fatigues that were free of holes and bloodstains.
Rapp crouched, grabbing the man by the hair and lifting his head enough to examine his face. There was a string of spit connecting the side of his mouth to the concrete and his eyes fluttered sightlessly, but he was immediately recognizable.
Gideon Auma. God’s representative on earth.
28
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
USA
WHEN Mike Nash entered the Oval Office, the president was sitting behind his desk, poring over a document in front of him. Not the Resolute Desk, which had been there during their last meeting, but a new one constructed from steel, glass, and polished wood. Catherine, who was reading over his shoulder, straightened and unleashed a smile that seemed to get warmer every time they met.
“It’s good to see you, Mike.”
“Thanks for fitting us in,” Nash responded as she indicated the seating area at the center of the office.
Us wasn’t entirely accurate as he seemed to be the Agency’s only representative in the room. “Is Irene stuck in traffic?”
“No,” the president responded, walking to his customary chair in the conversation area. “There wasn’t any reason to tie you both up.”
Nash nodded and lowered himself onto a sofa across from Washington’s new power couple. More and more he was flying solo at these kinds of meetings and he wasn’t exactly sure why. It was almost as if Kennedy was knowingly allowing herself to be pushed out of the government’s inner circle. She’d always been one step ahead of everyone else in this town, but now the combined brainpower of Anthony and Catherine Cook was providing serious competition. Was she struggling with the reality that she might no longer always be the smartest person in the room? Or was it more than that? Was it possible that she was reaching her expiration date? It happened to everyone eventually. At some point, the changes just came too fast and hard to keep up with.
Whatever it was, she seemed to be purposely inching her way toward irrelevance. While everyone else inside the beltway would kill their own children for two minutes of face time with the Cooks, she was retreating from them. And the more she worked herself out of her job, the more he appeared to be working himself into it. Or better said, sucked into it. Like some black hole. Dark. Irresistible. Inescapable. What was the term he’d learned helping Rory with his astronomy homework? Event horizon. Once crossed, there was no coming back.
“I’m sorry to rush you, Mike, but there’s only so far I could rearrange my schedule,” the president said. “I understand this has something to do with Nicholas Ward again?”
There was a coldness in his voice that said volumes about his feelings regarding the tech mogul. It had been bad enough before, but then the press had gotten hold of the fact that Chism had been rescued by a team of mercenaries and not US spec ops
. It made his administration look a little impotent—which infuriated him—but it could have been much worse. The existence of the Cooks’ spectacularly botched rescue effort was still under wraps and neither Coleman nor Ward was the type to run his mouth unnecessarily. That went double for Mitch Rapp. His ambition was to go through life as a ghost.
“Mike?” the First Lady prompted.
He realized he’d been silent too long but, still, he didn’t speak. The truth was that he didn’t want to be there. In fact, his reaction to the photos that had landed on his desk that morning was to think he should get out. And not the playful threats of becoming a Hawaiian fishing guide he muttered ten times a day. Serious thoughts about running screaming from Langley and rethinking his life. His wife wouldn’t give a shit. She made five times what he did.
But what about his kids? What about the grandkids that would eventually come? Could he just turn his back on the world they’d inherit and tell them to figure things out on their own?
Nash pulled a series of eight-by-tens from his portfolio and laid them on the coffee table.
“What are we looking at?” the president asked.
“What’s left of Nicholas Ward’s compound in Uganda.”
Cook reached for the top photo and examined it while his wife picked up the one beneath. Nash had learned early on to bring two of everything.
“Those are satellite photos. Not great, but the best thing we have at this point.”
“I can make out the burned areas and buildings,” Catherine said, oddly expressionless. “But what are all the dots?”
“Bodies, ma’am. You can see where they breached the east and west walls. The pattern of casualties suggests a running fight with Ward’s security forces.”