by Vince Flynn
She slipped into the gray Ford Focus the FBI had given her—out of spite, she assumed—and inserted the key in the ignition. She started to turn it, but then froze when a gun was pressed to her ear by someone in the backseat.
A cop? Could she have been seen? If that was the case, what should she do? Killing the man would be a trivial matter, but it wouldn’t play well with her FBI handlers.
No. What was she thinking? Police didn’t hide in backseats waiting for a suspect to get in their car. A former enemy? Doubtful. As odious an organization as the FBI was, it had hidden her identity quite competently. A mugger? A rapist? That would be interesting. After all this time, two men in one day.
“What the fuck was that all about?”
Despite the years, the voice was immediately recognizable.
“Mitch?” she said, turning slowly.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“He stole from me,” Donatella said. The anger that had faded long ago erupted again. “Like you did.”
She pushed the gun aside and lunged over the seat, wrapping her hands around his neck and squeezing with everything she had. “You did this to me, you bastard! I had beautiful men. Beautiful women! A beautiful flat in Milan! I am what you made me!”
He dislodged her hands and shoved her back against the dashboard hard enough to knock the wind out of her.
“You did this to yourself, Donatella. How many times has the Bureau had to relocate you? Twice now? And from what I just saw, you’re going for a hat trick.”
“What are you doing here, Mitch? You don’t care about me. You haven’t for a long time.”
“That’s not true and you know it. But, damn, you’re a pain in the ass.”
“Are you going to send me to Iowa?”
It was the FBI’s favorite threat. And after what had happened two years ago in Dallas, they’d made it clear that it was no longer an idle one.
He shook his head. “I have a job you might be interested in.”
“A butcher shop that needs a new manager?”
“You’re never going to let that go, are you? It was just a suggestion. You like food and you’re good with knives.”
His phone rang and he put it to his ear. “No, the alley north of that. Uh-huh. I don’t give a shit. Bury him in the woods, feed him to some pigs. Just get rid of him. Yeah . . . One, but he doesn’t seem like the type who’s going to go to the cops. Forget him. I know she is. I already said I owe you, what more do you want? Fine . . .” He disconnected the call. “Where were we?”
“You were talking about a job,” she said, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Why would you be coming to me? Is this something Scott and his Boy Scouts can’t handle? No. They walk on water. Something that needs a feminine touch?”
His eyes shifted in a way that most people would have missed. They’d been together in their younger years and she could still read him. A smile began to play at her lips. “No, not a feminine touch. You’re into something too ugly for them. You’re isolated.”
“Something like that.”
Her smile broadened and she leaned back against the dash. “What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
“I want to go home to Italy. And I want funding to start my own fashion line.”
“Cut the crap, Donatella. You know I can’t do that.”
“You can do anything.”
“The Mossad wants you dead.”
“You and Irene could take care of that with a phone call.”
“Yeah, but we can’t take care of Hamas. Those guys really know how to hold a grudge. And we can’t do anything about the enemies you made when you were working private. Try again.”
“Why don’t you make me an offer?”
“Don’t you want to know what the job is first?”
“Not really.”
“All right. New face, new identity. A nice condo in New York overlooking Central Park. You stay away from the fashion industry, but I bankroll you in an art gallery.”
“Art?” she said. It was something she’d never considered. “I like art.”
“I remember,” he said, slipping his Glock into the holster beneath his arm. “You used to drag me to those openings.”
“I thought you could use a little culture. Apparently it didn’t take.”
CHAPTER 23
Tal Afar
Iraq
ANTHONY Staton moved along the shattered wall, finally getting a glimpse of his target in the moonlight. The building was constructed of concrete and had sustained a fair amount of damage from the war and ISIS’s recent takeover of the city. The bottom floor was burned out, but the entire top floor had apparently been renovated into a luxury flat. It was hard to believe from where he was standing. Great care had been taken to leave no outward evidence that it was habitable, and blackout shades went down every afternoon just before sunset.
Now that the Agency had located it, there was nothing he would have liked better than to see the whole structure disappear in a pillar of flame. Paint it with a laser, wait for a drone to come overhead, and then slink out of there in the ensuing dust and chaos.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the plan. The former Iraqi general who had planted his fat ass in this cut-rate penthouse was apparently too important to vaporize. Irene Kennedy wanted him alive, and that left Staton wandering around ISIS-held streets with nothing more than a bare-bones team to back him up. Fast and light was undoubtedly the best strategy in this situation, but that didn’t make him feel any less exposed. This was an op that he would have gladly let someone else handle, but the Agency was an operational clusterfuck right now. Scott Coleman was damn near in a wheelchair, Joe Maslick had dug in his heels, and Mitch Rapp had hung up his Glock. Who would have thought he’d live long enough to see that last one happen?
“This is Forward One,” came a voice over his earpiece. “I’m in position. Still quiet. Looks like we might get lucky.”
Staton wondered. He couldn’t help thinking of the cliché from the cheesy Westerns he liked so much. Quiet. Too quiet.
They hadn’t wanted to move in when the streets were all but abandoned because the team would stand out too much. Instead, they’d picked a time of night early enough that there were still a few people wandering around, but late enough that they were more interested in getting home than asking questions.
Still, pedestrian traffic was far lighter than he’d expected and he’d only seen two patrols—both easily avoided. Either this was shaping up to be a cakewalk or the other shoe was about to drop. In his experience, it was always the latter. There were no gifts in this life.
He reached up and activated the throat mike hidden beneath his traditional garb. “I have eyes on the line and I’m moving into position. Stay on your toes. I don’t have a great feeling about this.”
“You never do, Tony. Copy.”
There was a clothesline that ran from the top of the target building to an abandoned one across the street. An advance team had managed to replace it with a Kevlar one that they swore looked and felt exactly the same. Staton had been skeptical but, judging by a pair of pants hanging from it, he’d been overly pessimistic.
Three of his men would zip-line across it to the roof. From there, they’d cut through the lock on the access door and slip down into Fares Wazir’s apartment. They’d pop the guards, dart the family, and then take the former general back across the line. The best they’d been able to come up with for getting him to a viable LZ was a wooden handcart. Reasonably common in the area, but still risky. The whole thing—the zip line, the uncertain number of security men, the cart—was a little seat-of-the-pants for his taste. Scott Coleman would have loved it, but Staton saw it as a fuckup waiting to happen.
“Is everyone in position?” he asked. The team confirmed.
“Then we’re a go.”
There was a lone man walking up the street in his direction, but Staton largely ignored him. He looked to be about a hundred years old, hobbling forward with none of the urgency felt by the other people out at that time of night. He probably figured, at his age, screw ISIS.
Above, a dark figure crossed the Kevlar line, moving quickly enough to be invisible to anyone not specifically looking. A second followed, and then a third.
A voice crackled in his earpiece. “We’ve gained the roof. Looks clear.”
“Copy that,” Staton said. “Go ahead and reposition the cable.”
“On it,” another voice responded.
The end attached to the abandoned building would be moved down one floor to reverse the slope and give them an even faster ride on the way out. It made the landing a little tricky—particularly with the deadweight of Wazir—but it was worth it to reduce their exposure time.
“The lock is what we expected,” one of his men said over the radio. “It won’t—”
Staton ducked involuntarily at the sudden flash and deafening concussion of an explosion. It took him a moment to process the fact that the roof his men were on had been transformed into thousands of flaming concrete shards arcing through the air. The old man in the road stopped, glancing back at the massive fireball, before continuing on his way as if nothing had happened.
“Pull back!” Staton said into his throat mike. “I repeat, pull back!”
He ran forward, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Did his men trip a booby trap? It seemed impossible—they were specifically looking for one and had instructions to tell him before they started cutting through the lock.
Flashes of gunfire appeared in the building across from their target, precisely where his man handling the cable would be.
Staton broke away from the wall at his back, sprinting north toward his remaining team. He’d made it only about ten yards when more flashes lit up the road. He tried to pinpoint where the fire was coming from, but it was impossible. It was coming from everywhere. Every window. Every rooftop. Every doorway. The old man went down and Staton swerved right in a futile search for cover. The first round hit him in the new hip that everyone thought would retire him. After that, impacts started coming so fast, he couldn’t distinguish them. The overwhelming sensation was of their momentum, shoving him sideways and finally slamming him to the ground. The darkness was gone now, driven away by thousands of muzzle flashes.
He spotted the carcass of a car shimmering in the artificial light and tried to crawl to it. The force of the bullets impacting his back seemed to be pinning him to the ground, though, grinding him mercilessly into the dust. He squeezed the trigger of his own weapon and the roar of it joined the rest before everything went silent.
* * *
Aali Nassar laid his phone on the limousine’s seat and allowed himself a rare smile. The king had called personally to express his gratitude for the reduction in antimonarchy trolling on social media, still blissfully unaware that it was Sayid Halabi’s doing.
Further, the five million euros demanded by the mullah was at this moment being loaded onto Mahja Zaman’s private jet. He had provided half himself, while two other men loyal to Nassar had made up the balance. All of the arrangements were complete and there was no reason to believe the transfer wouldn’t go smoothly.
Even the problem posed by Talal bin Musaid was showing signs of improvement. Reports were that he was on his way to Monaco to visit his brother. Having him outside of Saudi Arabia would be helpful, as Nassar had decided that the benefits of killing the prince now outweighed the drawbacks. While it was unlikely that President Alexander would have the courage to move against bin Musaid in a way that would jeopardize the precarious relationship between their two countries, it was conceivable that the CIA or Mossad would attempt an unauthorized rendition.
And while all these developments were undoubtedly gifts from Allah, they were hardly sufficient to elicit a smile from a man unaccustomed to the expression. No, only the news of Mitch Rapp’s resignation had the power to do that. The extent of the injuries suffered by the CIA man in Saudi Arabia were apparently far worse than the intelligence community had been told.
A chime on his phone sounded and he glanced down at it. An encrypted email from Irene Kennedy. He opened it and, instead of text, found only a link to an ISIS propaganda site. Intrigued, he clicked on it and waited for the video to load. When it began playing, he felt the breath catch in his chest.
It was a slickly edited film of an attack on a small group of U.S. operatives. The location was immediately recognizable—Fares Wazir’s home in Iraq. Nassar rewound it and watched again, his fist clenching around the phone as the roof blew off the top of Fares Wazir’s apartment and gunfire erupted from every direction. The overhead shot zoomed onto a man running across the street, jerking wildly as he was impacted by what seemed like an infinite number of rounds. He finally fell, firing his own weapon uselessly into a stone wall before going still. The video then began quick cuts accompanied by loud revolutionary music—dead Americans being carried from buildings, the barely recognizable remains of the ones from the roof being collected, a bloody corpse being dragged through the streets.
He finally shut off the video and dialed a number Mullah Halabi had given him. He had never imagined he’d be forced to use it so soon, and in response to such crushing stupidity. Surprisingly, the ISIS leader picked up personally.
“You’re up late, Director.”
“I just saw the video of the raid on Fares Wazir’s home.”
“Glorious, isn’t it?”
“Glorious?” Nassar said, glancing at the glass separating him from his driver, although he knew it was soundproof. “It’s insanity! I gave you that information to allow Wazir to escape before the Americans arrived. Irene Kennedy just sent me an email with only the link to the video—no text at all. I can assure you that her lack of diplomacy was intended to make a point. To make it clear that she suspects that the leak came from my organization.”
“Yes, I imagine you’re right.”
“Then why would you do this? Why would you jeopardize my position and my ability to provide you with intelligence?”
“Because you needed this, Aali.”
“What? I needed it?”
“You portray such strength, but inside you’re weak. Of course, you would say that you grew up poor, but in fact you lived the lifestyle of your family’s wealthy benefactors and attended Oxford. And I’m aware of your military service, but your carefully planned operations were acts devoid of any real risk or passion. Now you feel the danger. You feel the Americans’ eyes on you, the anxiety of wondering if one of their drones is circling you right now. Will they discover your betrayal? And if so, what action will they take?”
“If they kill me, all the money and intelligence I’m providing you will disappear. The king—”
Halabi began to laugh, drowning out Nassar’s words. “I suspect you’ll be fine, Aali. Particularly now that the CIA is trying to deal with the departure of Mitch Rapp. But I’m not certain of it. And neither are you. You’re now in a position that will test your faith in God. Will you pass that test? Are your actions in His service? Or your own?”
There was no point in fighting with the man. Nothing would come of it.
“I serve God.”
“Good, Aali. Good. And of course I sympathize with the difficulties the general has caused you. So tell me. What is it I can do to balance the scales?”
Nassar was both surprised and relieved by the offer. Already, Halabi was beginning to understand his value and the importance of maintaining his loyalty.
“Prince Talal bin Musaid is on his way to Monaco,” Nassar said.
“Ah. Can I assume that his usefulness to you is at an end and that you’re concerned about the risks of dealing with him yourself?”
“Yes.
”
“Then I’ll contact my people in Europe and have the matter put to rest.”
CHAPTER 24
East of Juba
South Sudan
THIS sucked.
No, that was the understatement of the century. This had catastrophe written all over it. In blood. Ten feet high.
Kent Black’s foot suddenly felt too weak to depress the accelerator and he let the truck’s speedometer drift. Outside, dust was enveloping the vehicle, confining him to the suffocating heat of the closed-up cab.
The road he was on was little more than a tracked-up strip in an endless plain of sunbaked dirt. His GPS said he was headed in the right direction and kept counting down to his arrival, but he wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
He despised South Sudan. When he’d been an army sniper, he’d spent a lot of time fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that had been different. Sure, both countries were dry, dusty shitholes, but at least he’d had backup and a few geographic features to hide behind. The empty landscape he was penetrating into had a hazy, overexposed-photograph feel that Black found disorienting. Undoubtedly why Kariem had chosen it as the location for their meeting.
Arms dealing had never been high on his list of careers, but what choice did he have? His lucrative job as a five-thousand-dollar-suit-wearing, supermodel-dating contract killer had recently run into an impassable roadblock named Mitch Rapp. Their business together had ended with Rapp agreeing not to kill him but making it clear that, the next time they met, the outcome would be different.
So Black had grabbed a map and searched for corners of the world that were both remote and in need of a man of his talents. South Sudan, which was teetering in and out of civil war, seemed to fit the bill. He figured he’d do a little mercenary work for the government while Rapp forgot about him. Unfortunately, the government proved to be only slightly less crazy than the rebel forces it was fighting. In the end, supplying both sides from way behind battle lines turned out to be not only more lucrative but a hell of a lot safer.