Lethal Agent

by Flynn Vince

  “Are you seeing this?” Rapp said.

  “Yeah,” McGraw responded as the police car crossed the median and began coming up behind them with siren wailing.

  “Then deal with it.”

  His man drifted into the right lane in what appeared to be an effort to let the cop pass. But when it came even with the pickup, McGraw swerved left. The unexpected impact was enough to send the cruiser back into the median, where it flipped three times before coming to a rest on its roof.

  “Claudia,” Rapp said. “A cop just came after us and McGraw took him out.”

  “Copy that. We haven’t heard anything over the police radios about you. Did you do anything to get his attention?”

  “Negative.”

  “Then they may be communicating by cell phone, which is probably not a good sign.”

  “Looks like the Mexicans have finally decided to join the party,” Coleman broke in. “You’ve got two more cruisers coming in on you from the east. They’re still about five miles out but their lights are on and they’re hauling ass. Hold on . . . Looks like they’re slowing down. Yeah. They’re crossing the median and setting up a roadblock. And you’ve got another cop coming up behind you. A ways back though and he’s struggling to close the gap. You’ll have a visual on him before you get to the roadblock, but I don’t think he’ll be on top of you yet.”

  Rapp glanced at his speedometer. Eighty-seven miles an hour. It was about all he was going to get out of the truck on this road. “Can I get around it?”

  “That’s a negative. They picked a place with rocky terrain and trees on either side.”

  “Mas!”

  “I’m on it, Mitch.”

  • • •

  When the roadblock finally came into view, it was chaos. Maslick had his pickup sideways in the road and was firing his assault rifle across the hood at the cruiser blocking the right lane. From that distance, Rapp couldn’t tell what the cops were doing in response and at this point he didn’t care.

  “What the fuck?” he said over the comm. “I’m less than a minute out and I’m not planning on slowing down. Get me through.”

  Twenty seconds later, he still didn’t have a lane, but Maslick’s rifle had been replaced with an RPG. There was a puff of smoke and then the cruiser on the left flew into the air on a pillar of flame. Rapp eased into that lane and maintained his speed as the dry brush in the median caught fire.

  The cruiser was still hanging out into the asphalt, making it a tight squeeze. There was a deafening crash when his left fender caught the edge of the police vehicle’s bumper, but he managed to hold the wheel steady.

  “I’m clear,” Rapp said. “ETA’s coming down fast. Is Gary ready?”

  “He says yes,” Claudia replied over the comm. “But they’re seeing some increased activity on the Mexican side of the border. Not sure what they’re up to yet, but it’s clear they know something’s going on.”

  “Roger that. It’s not much farther. We just have to hold this shit show together for a few more minutes.”

  He ignored McGraw as he passed, focusing instead on the police car that had appeared through the smoke and was overtaking him from behind. A moment later, though, Coleman’s chopper became visible and the former SEAL opened up on the vehicle from above. It skidded off the tarmac and began spinning through the dirt, coming to a stop and staying that way. Whether it was damaged or whether the driver had decided he’d had enough was impossible to tell. Either way, he was out of the game.

  The traffic started getting heavier and buildings began springing up on both sides of the road. He slowed, matching the speed limit. Cross streets started to split off the main thoroughfare and the increasing density of buildings made it impossible to see if anyone was going to pull out.

  “So far, no stop signs, but if we run into any, someone’s going to have to get control of the intersection so I can roll through. I can’t risk a cra—”

  Rapp fell silent when a light bar came on fifty yards ahead. The border patrol vehicle turned sideways in the road, blocking it at a choke point between two buildings. Rapp didn’t even have time to give an order before McGraw swerved toward it. His brush guard connected hard with the cruiser’s front quarter panel, spinning it completely around and through the front window of a shop to the left.

  Unfortunately, it had a similar effect on McGraw’s pickup. Rapp saw the air bags go off as the top-heavy vehicle teetered on two wheels before finally landing on its side. McGraw seemed unaffected, climbing out the open driver’s-side window and firing his assault rifle in the air. The locals scattered, clearing a path.

  Rapp shifted gears and slammed the accelerator to the floor. “We’ve lost Bruno. Mas, come around me. It’s time to start breaking shit.”

  “Copy that.”

  Rapp had the semi up to almost fifty again when Maslick’s supercharged Jeep Grand Cherokee passed and took a position twenty yards in front. He lay on his horn, and when that wasn’t enough to clear the road, a nudge from his brush guard did the trick.

  “I’ve got eyes on you!” came Gary Statham’s excited voice over the comm. “There’s a lot of activity on the Mexican side, but it’s still disorganized. Just keep coming my way and don’t—I repeat, do not crash that truck.”

  “Keep them off me, Scott.”

  “On it.”

  The chopper passed overhead with Coleman leaning through the open door firing at pretty much anything that moved. The border crossing was now visible and Maslick was driving like he was in a demolition derby. On the U.S. side, all the barriers had been lifted and what little backed-up traffic that existed was being waved through.

  As Rapp approached, two Mexican border security vehicles started to pull out of their spaces to block him. Maslick sideswiped the front of both and then threw his vehicle in reverse, pulling it back and forth as they tried desperately to get around him.

  Rapp swerved into a lane reserved for commercial trucks, aiming for the open gate that marked the border. Once through, he slammed on the brakes and downshifted, forcing the rig to a stop. A moment later, vehicles had pulled in front and behind, blocking him in. A few particularly stupid civilians were filming with their phones instead of fleeing, but a little automatic fire ran them off.

  Men in hazmat suits appeared from nowhere, surrounding the truck with their weapons trained on him. One spoke into a microphone attached to a speaker on his hip.

  “Do not exit the truck. Do you understand me, Mitch? Stay in the truck.”

  Rapp leaned his forehead on the steering wheel as people swarmed the vehicle, adding chocks to the wheels and disabling its electrical system. The AC went off and he was suddenly aware of the sun pounding through the windows.

  “Mitch?” Claudia said over his earpiece. “Are you all right?”

  He didn’t answer, instead fishing the last two antibiotic pills from his pocket and tossing them in his mouth.

  CHAPTER 52

  WEST OF TALEH

  SOMALIA

  THE truck’s headlights created a circle of illumination that quickly faded into the blackness around them. Some three hundred meters ahead, Sayid Halabi could see two similar rings of illumination and he knew there were others behind. They had been on the road now for almost forty-eight hours, traveling by night and taking cover by day.

  The landscape was wide-open and the skies had been clearer than forecasted, making their situation even more precarious. It was the reason he’d allowed his men to disperse and surrounded himself instead with local jihadists. The goal was to lose himself in the chaotic rhythms of a country that the Americans didn’t understand.

  He’d made the grave error of calling Muhammad Attia during the operation. And when the man hadn’t answered, he’d compounded that error by calling again. And again. Finally he’d connected and spoken on a connection so filled with noise that the conversation was nearly unintelligible.

  It was clear now that the garbled voice on the other end of that call hadn’t belonged
to his loyal disciple. It had belonged to Mitch Rapp.

  Halabi looked through his open window at the star-filled sky, searching for any sign of the Americans. They were out there somewhere. Watching, collecting data, calculating probabilities. Waiting to strike.

  Only God could protect him now, but he wasn’t sure that protection would be forthcoming. The YARS operation had expended every resource and burned every bridge in order to ultimately accomplish nothing. The truck containing his people had been stopped just across the U.S. border, sealed in plastic, and airlifted to an undisclosed location.

  Irene Kennedy had skillfully disseminated the story that the trailer was filled with the radioactive components for a dirty bomb. It was a narrative that made locking down the area child’s play. No one from the outside had any interest in approaching a contaminated zone, while the ones inside had every incentive to stay. The radiation source was gone and the government was promising testing and treatment for anyone exposed. In the unlikely event the virus had escaped the truck, it was containable.

  Halabi glanced over at his Somali driver before staring off again into the darkness. Attia was dead. ISIS forces had been scattered and were now transforming into isolated criminal gangs. The highly trained group of men he’d surrounded himself with would spend the rest of their short lives being hunted by the world’s intelligence agencies.

  The other major threat to America, Christine Barnett, also seemed to be fading. Her attacks on America’s intelligence agencies had been badly undermined by the heroism and competence displayed by the DEA, CIA, and army. For the first time in her political career, she was adrift.

  Halabi closed his eyes for a moment, hiding from the reality of what he had done. He hadn’t just failed to destroy the United States, he’d provided it with a tangible, terrifying external threat. The country that had been busy tearing itself apart would now turn away from imaginary dangers and focus on real ones. He had unwittingly provided the American people with the truths that their politicians and media had worked so hard to obscure.

  Halabi retrieved a new phone from the floorboard, removing it from its packaging before just letting it fall from his hand. There was no one left to call. Nothing left to be learned. Details, strategies, and elaborate plans meant nothing. He knew that now. Mitch Rapp wasn’t just the enemy of Islam. He was more than that. The forces of evil had chosen him. And now they were supporting him. Giving him strength.

  Until he was dead, God’s will could not be done.

  Halabi understood that he was aging and injured. That he and his network would become the targets of a manhunt unprecedented in world history. He would never again have an opportunity like the one that he’d just allowed to wither. But he wasn’t without resources. He still had benefactors and millions of dollars hidden in bank accounts throughout the world. He still had thousands of followers willing to die on his command.

  There was no question that he was soon for the grave, but with his last breath he would drag Mitch Rapp in with him.

  The poorly maintained roadbed became strewn with rocks and his driver was forced to slow, swerving through the obstacles. All sense of progress—already nearly nonexistent in Halabi’s new reality—seemed to disappear.

  A flash appeared ahead in the darkness, unmistakable but impossible to pinpoint exactly. A split second later, a bullet penetrated the windshield and slammed his driver back in his seat.

  Halabi grabbed the handle and threw himself against the door but found it blocked. A barely visible figure leaned closer to the open window, his features gaining detail in the hazy artificial light.

  Not a Somali bandit. His face was streaked with paint and his hair was covered with a sand-colored cap. What he couldn’t hide, though, were his Caucasian features and bright blue eyes.

  A pistol appeared and Halabi jerked back, raising an arm protectively as the man spoke.

  “Mitch Rapp sends his compliments, motherfucker.”

  CHAPTER 53

  FORT DETRICK

  MARYLAND

  USA

  RAPP lifted the remote control with difficulty, using it to increase the volume of the television bolted to the wall.

  Senator Christine Barnett was jogging up the Capitol steps, besieged by reporters shouting questions, aiming cameras, and jostling each other with outstretched microphones. The press that she’d manipulated for so long suddenly seemed completely beyond her control.

  “. . . leak exposed a counterterrorist operation and allowed a serious threat to cross the border,” someone shouted. “Is your committee going to investigate?”

  “Of course,” she said, looking haggard and uncertain. “This is an extremely important matter and it’ll be fully vetted.”

  The authoritative rhythm of her speech was gone now. Her responses seemed canned. Fake.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she continued, trying to pick up her pace without looking like she was breaking into a full run, “I have a meeting.”

  The screen faded back to an interview with a governor who was running a distant second to Barnett in her party’s presidential primary. Rapp had met him on a number of occasions and in the scheme of things he wasn’t that bad. A former army captain whose brain hadn’t yet been completely scrambled by Washington.

  “Your thoughts?” the host said.

  “Obviously, there are a lot of questions here. About the leaks. About the senator’s attacks on the CIA and DEA operatives putting their lives on the line to protect America. It’s my understanding that the man who captured the ISIS truck and delivered it to the army may not survive. I wonder if she would have done the same for her country?”

  “And the reports that her campaign manager Kevin Gray has resigned and is being interviewed by the FBI?”

  “More questions,” the man agreed. “If Senator Barnett intends to lead our party in the next presidential election, they’re going to need to be answered.”

  They cut to a clip that Rapp had seen before and he hit the pause button to freeze Barnett’s face in a deer-in-the-headlights expression that bordered on fear. It was his favorite shot of her.

  He sank back into the pillows and focused on a ceiling that had become a little too familiar over the past couple of weeks. The room he was imprisoned in was about twenty feet square, constructed mostly of stainless steel and glass. Mysterious medical machines hummed around him, displaying vital signs and other information that confirmed he was still alive. As though the cracking headache and constant labor of getting air in and out weren’t enough.

  The illness had hit him thirty-six hours after he’d been quarantined. It started with a single, innocuous cough and then progressed to a temperature north of 104, a respirator, and finally unconsciousness.

  He heard a familiar hiss to his left and let his head loll over to watch Gary Statham come through the air lock in full biohazard gear.

  “How’re you feeling?” he asked while he checked the machines.

  “Great.”

  “Happy to hear it. I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Rapp managed to get out. “You’ve been telling me I was going to be fine since I got here.”

  “I was lying. But today I come bearing good tidings. Your lungs and kidneys look good and we’re not seeing any permanent damage. It’s going to take a little time but you’re going to make a full recovery.”

  “Is that straight? Or another lie?”

  “That’s straight,” Statham said, turning toward the bed. He was a little hard to hear through the space suit. “You’ll be back shooting people in the face before you know it.”

  “Outstanding,” Rapp said, already a little out of breath from the conversation. It was hard to imagine even being able to get out of bed. Combat seemed a million miles away.

  “Believe it or not, there are some people here who seem anxious to see you. Are you up for a five-minute visit?”

  “Sure.”

  Statham clipped a microphon
e to Rapp’s shirt and then disappeared back through the air lock. A few moments later, Claudia and Anna appeared on the other side of a long window to his right.

  “They tell me you’re going to be fine,” Claudia said, sounding relieved, but still looking worried beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.

  “Mom says you got the flu,” Anna said, straining to get eye level with the bottom of the viewing window. “My teacher says they have shots for that.”

  Every time he came home from an operation the worse for wear, they had to come up with a cover story. And every time, his invented carelessness met with the girl’s disapproval. Car accidents earned him admonishments about seat belts. Falls down stairs brought on scolding about proper lighting and sensible shoes. Now he was going to get the vaccine lecture.

  “Maybe I need to start going to class with you,” he said, thankful that the microphone made his voice sound stronger than it really was.

  “You’re older than my teacher! Can you play a game, Mitch? We brought an Xbox and they said they’d hook it up, but it might take a few days because of the Internet and stuff.”

  “Sure.”

  “What do you want to play?”

  “How about one of those zombie games?”

  “You always want to play the shooters because you always win!”

  “This could be your year.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Let’s not badger Mitch, okay, sweetie? He isn’t feeling well and he’s always nice to you when you’re sick.”

  “Okay,” she said, sounding a little guilty. Her eyes disappeared as she dropped from her tiptoes, leaving only the top of her head visible.

  A long silence stretched out as Claudia stared through the glass. She’d never seen him like this and it appeared to terrify her. He’d have said something to reassure her but he was still recovering from his extended conversation with Anna.

  “Scott’s here to see you. Should I tell him no? That you need to rest?”