Mitch Rapp 13 - The Last Man

by Vince Flynn

  They hadn’t bothered to inform Kennedy as she was tied up in a high-level meeting. Rapp didn’t want to raise anyone’s hopes until they were sure Zahir wasn’t jerking their chains. A quick comparison of the photos Zahir had sent compared to the video posted on the Internet looked legitimate. The trick had been getting Major Nathan to agree to Rapp’s release. The major ran Rapp through a series of tests, most of them involving balance. To the doctor’s surprise, his patient fared very well on the tests. Nathan still thought it was too early for Rapp to be up and moving around, let alone flying off on a mission that might involve more concussive blasts. The doctor never really agreed to release Rapp, but he was forced to reluctantly admit that he had no authority to keep Rapp against his will. He did add, however, that if Rapp left and came back wounded he would do his best to make sure he ignored his medical needs.

  The metal gate was open and Zahir was waiting for them in the driveway. Rapp and Coleman paid him no attention and instead approached the commander for the assault team. “Chief,” Coleman said, “what’s the status?”

  “Perimeter is secure and the handler just sent in his dog.” The senior chief looked at the local cops. “They look pretty nervous.”

  “Yeah, well, if twenty-one of our boys had just been greased two days ago we’d be pretty nervous, too.”

  “Good point.”

  “The dog have a camera?”

  “Yep . . . handler’s looking at that, as well as the brains back at JSOC. When the big brains give us the go-ahead the bomb guys are going to send in their robot.”

  Rapp asked, “How long is that going to take?”

  “Twenty to thirty minutes.”

  Rapp frowned. “I don’t want to wait that long.” He looked over at Zahir. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  After the dog came back out they asked the handler if he had seen anything unusual. Other than the two dead bodies in the basement, everything looked pretty normal. While the bomb techs unpacked their equipment, Rapp told Hayek to stay put and approached Zahir with Coleman. “Commander, you and your men didn’t happen to find any booby traps while you were in there?”

  Zahir was very unhappy that the Americans were playing this game with him. He shook his head and refused to speak.

  “Good,” Rapp said, “so you’re willing to go back in with us and show us what you’ve found.”

  Zahir nodded, waved for them to follow, and then marched past his men in and into the house.

  “You sure about this?” Coleman asked.

  Rapp figured he could spend the rest of his life worrying that there was a bomb around every corner or he could get back on this horse. “You read the report on Zahir. Suicide isn’t his deal. Too narcissistic. If he’s willing to walk in there, we’re safe.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Coleman look over his shoulder, “Chief, we’re going in. When JSOC starts freaking out, tell them Mr. Cox made the call.” Having served in the military, Coleman didn’t want the guy getting reamed for something that wasn’t his fault. As he started walking, he called back, “You can still send in the robot if you want.” Zahir led them through the first floor.

  “Anything worth seeing up here?” Rapp asked as they reached the stairwell.

  “I’m sure you’re going to want to take this house apart piece by piece, but I didn’t see much.” Pointing down the staircase, Zahir said, “The important stuff is down there.”

  Rapp had Zahir go first and followed him down the steps with his M-4 rifle pointed at Zahir’s back. Halfway down the stairs the stench hit them. Zahir pulled out a handkerchief and covered his mouth. At the bottom of the stairs was a table with a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Zahir led them through the open door and the stench became almost unbearable. Rapp and Coleman were both covering their noses with gloved hands as they looked around the rectangular room.

  The first thing Rapp noticed were the two bodies on the floor. They looked like the men in video. The sheets were covering the walls, and attached to one of the floor joists was a metal hook with a length of knotted rope.

  “This one here,” Zahir pointed at the larger of the two men, “is Shahrukh Ahmad Wazir. He’s Taliban.”

  “You’re sure?” Rapp asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And the other one?”

  “I have no idea, but we will find out. Very likely he is Taliban as well.”

  “God, it stinks down here,” Rapp said. “What is that smell? These guys don’t look like they’ve been dead long enough to smell like this.”

  Zahir pointed at a puddle between the two bodies and a little closer to where they were standing. It was a rusty brown mixture. “That is blood and I think feces and I’m sure urine as well.” Zahir had seen many men shit themselves when interrogated, but he didn’t think now was a good time to offer this knowledge.

  “What was the big ones’ name, again?” Coleman asked. He had his phone out and was about to send the name back to the Intel Fusion Center. Zahir spelled it for him and Coleman sent the message. If Zahir knew who he was, it was likely the name would pop up in one of their databases.

  Rapp stepped around the putrid liquid to get a better look at the two men. They both had bruised knuckles and their hands were swollen. Just beyond the bodies were two rubber hoses, more evidence that this was the place where Rickman had been interrogated. He counted no fewer than four bullet holes in each man. The image of the dead bodyguards lined up in the safe house came back to him. This murder scene couldn’t have been more different. “Look at this,” Rapp said to Coleman. “Remember Rick’s four guys, each one with a single bullet hole.”

  “Yeah,” Coleman said, “this was done by someone who was pissed off.” He turned around and looked at the other two walls. As far as he could tell they didn’t have any pockmarks from bullets. This wasn’t a gunfight, it was an execution.

  Rapp noticed the video camera and tripod knocked over on the floor. They needed Hayek down here. Rapp reached up and grabbed the lip mike from the side of his helmet. He swung it down and hit the two-way button on his Motorola radio. “Sid, this is Harry, over.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Did you bring any masks? It smells pretty bad down here.”

  “Yeah, I have some.”

  “Good, grab your gear and come on in. I’ll meet you on the first floor.

  “Harry,” the voice crackled over the radio, “Our boss is out of that meeting and she’s not very happy with you.”

  Rapp’s memory was still a little spotty but he got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time she’d been mad at him. “Tell her I’m 97 percent sure we found the place where Rick was interrogated. That should calm her down a bit. I’ll meet you by the front door.” Rapp flipped the lip mike back up and started for the stairs.

  “This is pretty fucking ballsy,” Coleman said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re a block and half from the safe house. We’re looking all over the planet for him and he was here, just a couple hundred yards away. I hate to admit it, but it’s a pretty fucking smart move. Who would have ever thought of looking this close?”

  Coleman’s words triggered something familiar in Rapp’s mind. His brain was still having some issues, like it knew what it was searching for but it was stuck in that pinwheel mode that a computer went into when it couldn’t get out of program.

  Coleman could see he’d triggered something. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I don’t know. I think something you said is important, but the old noggin still isn’t working quite right.”

  “It’ll come.”

  Rapp stepped into the other room and Zahir followed him. “Mr. Harry, are you satisfied?”

  Rapp stopped on the first step and looked back at the corrupt police officer. He sighed and reluctantly said, “Yes, Abdul, you’ve done a good job.” Rapp climbed two more steps and then thought of something. “Abdul, how did you discover these bodies?”

  Zahir wanted to tell
him that it was through his contacts, but he was afraid the American would discover the truth. The man was no longer mad at him, so he said, “We received an anonymous call at the police station.”

  “Anonymous?”

  “Yes.”

  That sounded funny to Rapp. They were offering thousands of dollars in cash to anyone who could help them find Rickman. You would think someone would want to collect that money. Rapp shook his head and started up the stairs again with Ashan in tow.

  “Mr. Harry, I would just like to say that I am sorry we started off on the wrong foot.”

  “Me too, Abdul, but maybe we can start over.” Rapp stopped in the front entryway, sidestepping the robot.

  “I would like that.”

  Rapp thought of something else. “Good. Now you need to find Mr. Hubbard. Alive preferably.”

  Zahir hemmed and hawed and then asked, “Is there a reward?”

  Rapp should have expected it. Guys like Zahir never changed. “Fifty grand . . . maybe more, depending on how hard you have to work.”

  Zahir smiled. This was a huge relief. He much preferred doing business this way. His joy was short-lived, however.

  Rapp pointed the muzzle of his rifle at Zahir’s chest and said, “But if I find out you’re fucking me, or that you had a hand in any of this, you’re dead.”

  Chapter 40

  Hayek had donned her white paper suit, hood, and booties. She wore her mask and kicked everyone out of the house, including the bomb techs. For more than an hour she thoroughly photographed everything, and in the room where the torture had taken place she took two samples of every fluid she could potentially identify. When she’d been with the FBI, they would have had no fewer than six agents combing over a crime scene like this. She was well aware that she was likely missing a bevy of potential evidence, but her focus here was very different from that of an agent collecting evidence that would be challenged in a courtroom. Her immediate goal was pretty straightforward—she needed to be able to tell Kennedy with near certainty that Joe Rickman had in fact been in this room.

  Even as Hayek carefully collected her evidence she knew what she would recommend to Kennedy. She needed to bring in a forensic team from the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Laboratory at Bagram or have the FBI send one of their teams over. Kennedy wouldn’t like the idea of bringing in someone from outside the Agency, but the truth was the CIA didn’t have the capability to do this job at the level it needed to be done. Hayek’s preference was the FBI, but she recognized that she was biased from having worked with them.

  When she was finished collecting all of her samples, she was left with one small dilemma. On the floor, across the room from the two dead men, was a digital camera with a tripod screwed into the bottom. It appeared the camera had been knocked over, as only a small wire tethered the viewfinder. Several pieces of the camera’s black plastic casing were also cracked and broken. If the FBI were going to get involved they would want her to leave the camera where it was so they could follow their own strict protocols for evidence collection. Hayek was no electronics expert, but she knew that some cameras came equipped with internal memory drives as well as slots for removable memory cards. Using her gloved hands she cradled the camera as if it were a bird with a broken wing. She carefully turned it over in her hands and saw that the slot for the memory card was empty. She was about to leave the camera when she decided that would be foolish.

  Hayek chastised herself. There were times where she still thought too much like a law enforcement officer and not enough like a member of the Clandestine Service. The priority was to get Kennedy as much information as possible as quickly as possible. She could always hand the camera over to the FBI later, along with the photographs that would show where she’d found the camera. She carefully unscrewed the tripod from the bottom and placed the camera in a clear evidence bag.

  When she stepped into the afternoon sun, she saw that everyone was in a far more relaxed posture.

  Rapp was standing just inside the gate with Coleman, who looked like he was about to fall asleep. Rapp asked, “How did it go?”

  Hayek pulled the paper hood off her head and the mask from her face. “I’ve got what we need to get a start, but we need to get someone in there to go over the entire house.”

  “Like who?” Rapp asked.

  “Probably one of the FBI’s forensic teams.”

  “I’m not sure I like that idea.”

  “I didn’t think you would, but they’re the best.”

  “Irene’s going to have to make that call.”

  “I agree. In the meantime we need this place secured. I don’t want anyone going in or out, including the local police.”

  Rapp looked to Coleman. “Any ideas?”

  “Well,” he rubbed his tired eyes, “having the JSOC boys guard an empty house is like asking a thoroughbred horse to plow a field. Besides, I’m sure they have ops they have to run tonight.” Coleman was about to say he could call Hubbard and get some grunts from the air base to come over and secure the place, but then he remembered Hubbard was missing. “I’ll make some calls. In the meantime, I’ll see if we can get the Rangers to keep an eye on things.”

  Coleman got patched in to the ops boss back at Bagram and explained the situation. A solution was reached in less than sixty seconds. That was one of the nice things about JSOC. There was so much practical experience involving missions that on the surface were very similar, but in the details every one unique. The two Black Hawks that had delivered the assault team were standing by on the tarmac only a few miles away at the Jalalabad Air Base. JSOC had already arranged for three MRAPs to transport the assault team and their gear back to the airfield for linkup with their Black Hawks and transport back to Bagram. The interim solution was to have the Rangers close up their position on the house and run security until another force could be found to relieve them. Coleman also arranged to have their Little Bird come back in and pick them up for the return to Bagram. Five minutes after they were airborne, Coleman was asleep and Rapp was wide awake trying to understand what was gnawing at the edges of his memory.

  At this juncture Kennedy was less concerned about maintaining absolute secrecy and more interested in getting results, so Hayek requested access to the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility at Bagram. Kennedy explained her situation to the base commander, a two-star from Idaho, who had been an extremely gracious host. One quick phone call from the CO and Hayek had complete access to the lab and any help that the staff could offer.

  Hayek was impressed with the facility, which was run by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Command. As with all things to do with the Army they had turned the name into an acronym. Rather than call it the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility they called it JEFF. Hayek laid her evidence bags out on a stainless-steel table and double-checked that she had a backup for each sample. She then took the extra bags, placed them in a larger evidence bag and sealed them. If anything went wrong in the lab, she could rely on these samples and test them on familiar equipment back in the States. She had taken fingerprints and DNA samples from the two dead men. She turned those samples over to the lab’s latent-print examiners and DNA analysts and told them which databases to check them against. The two women smiled and reassured her that they had done this more times than either of them could count.

  The officer in charge of the lab was a Major Archer. Hayek showed him the clear evidence bag with the damaged camera. “Do you have anyone on staff who could check and see if there are any useful images on this?”

  The major wasn’t wearing gloves, so he made no attempt to touch the bag. “Yes, ma’am. We have an information technology analyst. This is just his kind of thing. I’ll be back in a second.”

  When the major reappeared, he had a small black man with him who was wearing bulky black U.S. Army–issue eyeglasses. “Agent Hayek, this is Corporal Floyd. He’s one of our best. If there’s anything in there, he’ll find it.”

  The corporal was wearing a white pap
er evidence suit. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and without saying a word he held out his hands. Hayek gave him the bag and watched him hold the camera up to the light and look at it from several angles.

  When he finally spoke he asked, “Do you have a power cord?”

  Hayek could have kicked herself. She could see the cord still sitting on the floor. The thought of bringing it with her never crossed her mind. “Sorry . . . no cord.”

  The corporal shrugged his small shoulders. “I should be able to find something. Canon cameras pretty much use the same power source.” He looked at the bottom and then moved to open the bag asking, “Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He pulled the camcorder out of the bag and checked the SD card slot.

  “No memory card,” Hayek pointed out the obvious. “Any chance we can find something on there.”

  The corporal nodded. “This is a Canon VIXIA HF R30 SDHC. Comes with an eight-gigabyte internal flash drive. Three hours of high-def recording. If the Wi-Fi is still working, it’ll be a snap. If it isn’t I might have to take the flash drive out which will take some time.”

  “How much?”

  “Maybe a few hours.”

  Hayek wasn’t happy. “Can’t you just hook it up to a TV and play it back?”

  A small grin formed on the corporal’s lips. “If I had all the right cables and the thing wasn’t all busted up, yes, I could hook it up to a TV, but I don’t have those cables, so it might take a little while to get it running, but don’t worry, if there are any images on here I’ll retrieve them for you.”

  The images—that’s what this was all about, and this young soldier, if he was able to retrieve them, was in for quite a shock. Hayek still hadn’t gotten used to this double life. She hadn’t bothered to give the officer in charge, or anyone else for that matter, her alias. There were times where she truly wondered whether she was cut out to be a Clandestine Service officer.