Protect and Defend

by Vince Flynn

  “Will do.”

  Rapp clutched the grip of the M-4 and checked his watch. It was 11:17. He looked down at all the firepower on the street and couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. One misstep, by either group, and Kennedy and her detail would be caught in the crossfire. Rapp could hear Kennedy’s voice coming from the speaker behind him. His eyes narrowed as another police pickup truck joined the other two at the far end of the street. This one was carrying eight men, all in uniforms and black hoods. They piled out of the truck and moved off in pairs toward each corner of the intersection. Rapp swore under his breath and decided enough was enough.

  “Mac,” Rapp said as he keyed the transmit button on his radio. “I think it’s time to wrap this thing up and get her back to the base.”

  “I agree.”

  “All right, get your guys ready to move. Minister Ashani goes first and then once he’s gone bring her out and hightail it straight back.”

  “You want me to tell her it’s time to go?”

  “That’s right. Just whisper in her ear that something urgent has come up. They broke the ice. Next time they can meet in Geneva where we won’t have to deal with all these crazy bastards.”

  “Roger.”

  Rapp moved his eyes from the front door of the café to the militia men and then the cops at the far end. The sliding glass door was already open. He took a step back so the muzzle wouldn’t stick out beyond the curtain and raised his rifle. With both eyes opened, he looked through the L-3 EOTech sight and centered the red dot on the head of the .50-caliber gunner on the far right. He guessed the distance to be about 140 feet. An easy shot. Rapp moved the sight from one gunner to the next and quietly said, “Just stay calm, boys. This will all be over in a few minutes.”

  Someone who must have been an officer walked up to the two men manning the .50-caliber machine guns and started yelling and pointing in different directions. After a moment the men retrained their guns in the opposite direction. Rapp lowered his rifle and relaxed a bit.

  35

  Irene Kennedy stood inside the café and watched Ridley and Minister Ashani cross the street. Both men looked back as they were about to climb in their vehicle. The meeting had furthered Kennedy’s belief that the Iranian intelligence minister was someone she could work with. Someone she could possibly trust. She smiled warmly at Ashani as he waved at her. Kennedy held her black sunglasses in her right hand and waved back. She could have talked with the man for hours. There was so much they could work on. The relatively short meeting had reconfirmed for her that it was time to bury the hatchet with Iran. Especially if more men like Ashani were in power.

  The rest of the men piled into the other two sedans and the motorcade sped off. Kennedy put on her sunglasses and wondered what she was going to do with Rapp. She’d known Mitch since he was a twenty-one-year-old lacrosse star at Syracuse University. She had recruited him, she’d helped train him, and she’d been his handler for most of his storied career. He’d been good from day one. A natural at picking up languages and mannerisms and customs that were unique to every city on the planet. His ability to immerse himself for extended periods of time on overseas assignments, with almost no contact from the Agency, was unique. There’d been plenty of times where the months had ticked away and Kennedy was left wondering if Rapp was still alive.

  Somehow, though, he always made it back. And with each successful mission, he became less patient with his handlers. Less comfortable with the suit-and-tie culture of CIA headquarters. Over the years the insubordination worsened. Kennedy’s mentor, Thomas Stansfield, told her the good ones were always a bit rebellious. They didn’t fit into the bureaucratic structure of Langley. Their missions were too fluid to have real structure. Add to that the reality that they knew everything they did would be picked apart by people who had never been on an overseas assignment in their entire career, and you had a problem.

  His marriage had seemed to help a bit. At least Anna had made him see the other side of things. After she was murdered, though, he retrenched and the circle of people he trusted contracted further. Any semblance of patience was now gone. Sitting down with Ashani was a rare opportunity. To have it cut short simply because Rapp thought it was dragging on was infuriating.

  Kennedy turned to McDonald and asked, “Why did Mitch think it so imperative that he had to end my meeting?”

  “There was a lot of tension out here between the minister’s people and the police. It looked like a gunfight was about to break out.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Boss, I don’t joke about stuff like this. Now can we please get you back to the base?”

  Kennedy folded her arms and looked across the street at the second-story apartment. She couldn’t see Rapp, but she knew he was up there. Kennedy shook her head and said, “Fine. Let’s go.”

  McDonald signaled for three more of his men to come over. A fourth stayed by the rear passenger door of the Suburban. The four men moved in unison, with Kennedy in the middle. The director climbed into the backseat. One of the men followed her and closed the door. Another bodyguard entered from the other side so Kennedy was sandwiched in the middle. McDonald stood by the front passenger door and gave the hand signal for all the other men to load up. When everyone was in their vehicle, he jumped in the front seat of Kennedy’s Suburban and gave the order to move out. The five vehicles rolled single file down the block and idled for a second as the police cars moved to allow them through.

  Kennedy looked through the front window as they followed the other Suburban past the two police cruisers and turned left. She noted the dozens of masked police officers standing on the other side of the street. They were all in black hoods, holding either machine guns or RPGs. Kennedy reached for her Black-Berry. She pressed several buttons to take it out of silent mode and then, just as she was about to open an e-mail, there was a thunderous explosion. The Suburban lurched to a stop. Kennedy looked through the front window, eyes wide, and mouth agape at the sight of a fireball engulfing the vehicle in front of them.

  36

  Rapp watched Ashani’s entourage move out in a hurry. These militia guys didn’t mess around. He moved to a second set of windows to get a better view as they accelerated toward the police checkpoint. This was the moment he’d feared. He half expected the cops to unload on the three vehicles in a modern-day Iraqi version of the climactic scene in Bonnie and Clyde where their getaway car gets shredded by a fusillade of bullets. To his relief, the cops cleared the way and the three sedans sped down the open street, toward the Tigris River and their waiting helicopter.

  Rapp returned to the other window. “The hard part should be over now that the Hatfields have left town.”

  “I agree.” Stilwell tapped a few keys and changed the camera angles on the main monitor. “This was a hell of an idea you had, Mitch. Could be one for the history books.”

  “You’re getting a little ahead of yourself there, Don Juan. They’re plenty of crazy-ass mullahs back in Tehran who are going to hate this. “

  “Even if they don’t take us up on the aid package, you’ve managed to deflect attention away from us and Israel.”

  “We’ll see.” Rapp watched Kennedy climb into her armored Suburban. The security guys all hustled back to their vehicles and mounted up. The lead Toyota 4Runner started to move. It was all much slower than Ashani’s motorcade. One by one the other vehicles followed leisurely down the street. The two police cruisers slid into reverse and provided a gap. The lead vehicle entered the intersection and took a hard left. Next came the first armored Suburban. Rapp had seen Kennedy get in the second Suburban. The other three vehicles were all white Toyota 4Runners that looked like they were on loan from a United Nations convoy. As Kennedy’s Suburban started its turn, Rapp noticed something strange. The police on the left side of the street started running in Rapp’s direction. Rapp pushed the sliding glass door open and stepped out onto the balcony. He looked to the sidewalk beneath to find out wh
at was going on. There was nothing. No pedestrians. No vehicles. Nothing. He looked back at the running officers and noted that several were looking back over their shoulders. They weren’t running toward something, they were running away from something. Rapp redirected his gaze to the intersection just as the last vehicle was making its turn.

  A flurry of motion just beyond the white SUV caught his attention. Rapp watched as the two police officers manning the .50-caliber machine guns swung them around. Other officers began jumping behind vehicles and taking cover behind buildings. Rapp’s body started to tense, his eyes narrowed, and his right hand reached for the safety on his M-4 rifle. Every survival instinct in his body was suddenly screaming that something was wrong. He leaned over the balcony to see if there was some hidden threat that he had yet to identify. As he was doing so, he reached under his shirt and keyed his secure radio so he could hear Kennedy’s security detail.

  The thunderous report of one of the .50-caliber machine guns caused Rapp to flinch. In this urban setting of hard asphalt and concrete surfaces the concussion of the weapon boomed like a cannon. Rapp watched in horror as two of the big fifties opened up with sustained bursts. The last white SUV was torn to shreds.

  There was a loud explosion and then Rapp heard McDonald’s voice in his ear. “Shit! We’re under attack. Don’t stop! Move, move, move!”

  The first explosion was followed by two more. Rapp’s weapon snapped into the firing position and he screamed back into the apartment, “Get that quick reaction force here ASAP!”

  Rapp saw the rear driver’s side door of the last SUV open. An obviously wounded security contractor fell out of the vehicle and attempted to seek cover behind the rear wheel. A group of cops hiding behind the trunk of their cruiser opened fire on the man, mercilessly pounding him with dozens of rounds. Rapp took in a deep breath and denied himself the immediate gratification of killing policemen first. They could wait.

  The dull, black suppressor on the end of his weapon only added to its accuracy. The L-3 EOTech sight consisted of a squarish viewfinder with a red dot in the middle. It was an amazing advance in battlefield technology that allowed the shooter to keep both eyes open while zeroing in on a target. Rapp centered the red dot on the head of the .50-caliber gunner on the far right, leaned forward ever so slightly, and squeezed the trigger. The light kick of the M-4 rifle threw the muzzle skyward less than an inch. Rapp’s countless hours of training kicked in. He brought the muzzle back on line and swept it to the left in search of the next target. He placed the dot on the open mouth of the gunner who was screaming while he unloaded his heavy-bore weapon on the other vehicles. Rapp squeezed his trigger, the sight jumped and then fell back into place in time to show a cloud of blood silhouetted against the man’s black hood as the .223 round blew out a large chunk of his skull. The masked cop continued to clutch the handles of the .50-caliber machine gun for another second, and then his entire body fell backwards over the side of the truck.

  “Grab a gun and get out here,” Rapp yelled to Stilwell. He was tracking his weapon in search of the other .50-caliber gun, when he saw one of the police officers taking aim with an RPG. Rapp brought the red dot back, centered it on the man’s head and fired. The bullet struck the cop in the side of the head just as he was firing his grenade launcher. The force of the bullet sent the grenade off course and into a building where it exploded, taking out three cops. Rapp found the third .50-caliber gun and missed the man on his first shot. He quickly reacquired the target and sent him spiraling out of the truck bed. Rapp began moving from one target to the next in a steady, methodical, unrushed pace, counting each expelled cartridge as he went.

  “Mac,” Rapp said as calmly as he could. “Give me a status report.” He continued to shoot, and count, as he waited to hear from Kennedy’s security chief. He squeezed the trigger for the thirtieth time and then dropped to his right knee, ejecting the magazine and reaching for a fresh one. He looked back into the apartment at Stilwell and saw him loading the squad automatic weapon. As Rapp slammed a fresh magazine into his M-4 he tried to visualize the battlefield and what was happening around the corner to the rest of Kennedy’s motorcade. Rapp fought back a sense of doom. There was no time for that now. He needed to stay focused and try his best to hold them off until reinforcements arrived from the base.

  He chambered a round, stood, found a new martyr trying to man one of the .50-caliber machine guns, and hit him in the side of his head. Rapp heard moaning over his earpiece.

  “Mac, is that you? Are you all right?” Rapp searched for a new target, which wasn’t easy. The cops had started to figure out that a good way to get killed was to try and man one of the .50-caliber guns. “Mac,” Rapp called out again. He watched as two of the cops pointed down the street and then jumped in one of the squads and peeled out. Rapp’s spirits soared for a second. He didn’t think the Stryker column could have gotten here that fast, but it had to be why the cops were running.

  As quickly as his spirits had soared, they sank like a rock in a pond when he saw a beat-up sedan race through the intersection toward Kennedy’s motorcade. The vehicle was followed by two more, and then two vans and a truck that stopped in the middle of the intersection. Some of the cops took off while others stayed and began stripping off their uniforms. Rapp stopped shooting for a moment, not sure who he should target.

  Stilwell joined Rapp on the balcony, and said, “We got some bad news. The quick reaction force has a problem.”

  Before Rapp could ask what the problem was, the Kurds entered the room just then and began shouting at their boss. Rapp noticed that several of them were wearing black balaclava hoods. He looked at all the firepower in the corner of the apartment and then the street that was suddenly crawling with hooded militia types.

  Rapp yelled for everyone to be quiet and asked Stilwell, “What kind of problem?”

  “I didn’t get an answer out of them. All I was told was the base was under lockdown.”

  Rapp let loose with a string of profanity and then looked at one of the hooded Kurds. He stuck out his hand and said, “Give me your balaclava.”

  The man didn’t respond quickly enough so Rapp screamed his order like a drill sergeant.

  “What are you doing?” Stilwell asked.

  “I’m going down there.” Rapp took the black hood from the Kurd.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Open up those crates,” Rapp pointed to the stockpile of weapons, “put half the guys up on the roof and the other half out on the balcony and start pounding the shit out of anything that moves except me.”

  Rapp put on the hood and looked at the Kurds. “Don’t shoot me. Black pants, gray shirt, black hood.” He touched each garment. “Everybody except me.”

  37

  Imad Mukhtar looked through the dusty storefront window and surveyed the scene on the street. A block and a half away the police had set up their barricade just as they had told him they would. Mukhtar had leaned heavily on Ali Abbas. He’d handpicked Abbas two years earlier to be Hezbollah’s commander in Mosul. During that time Abbas had built up a very effective network. He didn’t have as many successes as his counterparts in other cities like Basra and Baghdad, but his job was much more difficult due to the large Kurdish population. He had been put here to collect intelligence and run limited operations against the Americans. One of the things they had discovered was the near-total corruption that was rampant in the Sunni-dominated police department. Virtually every man on the force had moved to the northern city on Saddam’s orders as part of a plan to lessen the influence of the Kurds and Shiite populations.

  Now that Saddam was gone, they were doing whatever it took to survive. In many ways they were more like local organized crime than a police force. If someone wanted protection, they had to pay for it. Even those who wanted to be left alone had to pay money. Getting the police to cooperate had required a lie, and a large portion of the $250,000 that Amatullah had given him
. Abbas had told Mukhtar that the police would more than likely not be involved in the plan if they knew the intended target was someone as high-ranking as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. A similar operation that they ran in conjunction with the Iranian Quds force had brought too much heat down on the police in the days that followed. So a convenient lie was constructed.

  They told the police commander that the intended target was a Jewish banker from Switzerland. Mukhtar knew that both sides had agreed the local police would be hired for traffic and perimeter control only. It was agreed that they would not be told who was at the meeting. Mukhtar offered the commander more money; the man took the offer and then intimated that he would also like a cut of the ransom. Mukhtar acquiesced after another ten minutes of negotiating. The commander tried to negotiate further, but Mukhtar had had enough. He told the man his exposure was minimal. Mukhtar already had the men and the police vehicles. All the commander needed to do was keep his own men away until the dust had settled and the American military showed up. Then he could come in and act as if he knew nothing.

  Mukhtar kept his eyes on Abbas. He was wearing a police uniform and standing at the next corner waiting to signal Mukhtar that the motorcade was about to move. Mukhtar had already called him and told him to tell the imbeciles in the pickup trucks to point their guns in the other direction until he gave the order to attack. The Americans were stupid but not that stupid.

  Abdullah had made it clear that it was crucial that Minister Ashani make it back alive. For their plan to work they did not need the public embarrassment of such a high-ranking official caught meeting with the director of the CIA. In most cases Mukhtar thought people expendable, but not this time. He owed Ashani for saving his life. If it weren’t for the minister he would have followed that idiot Ali Farahani down into that pit of radioactive waste. The thought of such a death caused his hands to tremble momentarily. Several years earlier during one of their brief wars with the Zionists, an Israeli bomb had found the building where he was staying and had almost killed him. Mukhtar had been trapped in an almost entirely collapsed basement for two days. He’d lost three fellow warriors on that one attack. Their dusty and mangled bodies were emblazoned on his memory. That and his near death at Isfahan had brought him to the conclusion that he would never again set foot in a bunker. He would take his chances aboveground.