by Vince Flynn
It was impossible to believe that the culmination of years of planning was only a week away. The assassination of President Chutani at his banquet for the Americans would be a trivial matter. Shaping the aftermath, though, would be more delicate.
The people of Pakistan and the Middle East would have to be made to believe that the United States was responsible. The story was admittedly clumsy. Why would the Americans kill such a steadfast ally? Like in U.S. politics, though, truth was unimportant. People believed what they wanted to believe, and the hatred of America was incredibly powerful in his country.
Following the president’s death, Taj would waste no time. Using Shirani’s army and his own influence with the Taliban, he would take control.
Pakistan, now a failing patchwork of competing factions, would become a monolith. And the world would tremble.
CHAPTER 27
NEAR LAKE CONSTANCE
SWITZERLAND
I CAN’T believe it was so easy,” Gould said, his gun still trained on Rapp’s head. “Either you’re slipping or your reputation came right out of the CIA’s marketing department.”
Rapp remained completely still, eyes locked on the Glock 17. Tom Lewis’s psychological profile of Gould portrayed him as a narcissistic sociopath. Once again, the shrink’s insights proved correct. The Frenchman had already managed to completely suppress the past, unable to admit that he could ever have been bested. Now he was busy building himself up into the legend he believed he deserved to be.
It was a weakness that could be exploited, but even with that possibility, Rapp recognized that this was about as deadly a situation as he’d ever faced. Nutcase or no, Gould wasn’t going to miss at this or any other range. The merc in Rapp’s peripheral vision had a crimson puddle growing around his left foot but the blood loss and pain weren’t preventing him from holding the MP5 rock steady. Finally, the man who’d shoved Hurley through the door was undoubtedly still standing right on the other side of it.
The old man looked like his head had cleared but that didn’t do anything about the fact that he was well past his sell-by date. Unlike Rapp, though, physical talent and the ability to instantly analyze tactical situations weren’t what had made Stan Hurley one of the most effective killers of his generation. He operated entirely on rage, and based on the expression on his face, the decades hadn’t dimmed it.
“What are you waiting for?” Gould taunted. “You think Scott’s going to rescue you? That knoll’s completely surrounded by Obrecht’s men. If Coleman’s not dead already, he will be soon.”
“Mitch, Stan. If you can hear this, get ready. Things are about to get a lot less subtle.”
Hurley’s fake hearing aid had been taken, making it impossible for him to hear Coleman’s warning.
“Scott might just surprise you,” Rapp said to get the old man’s attention.
He made a subtle motion toward Gould with his thumb. Hurley had the better angle on the Frenchman. That left Rapp tangling with a badly injured, no-name merc while an octogenarian with a freshly replaced hip took on one of the best contractors in the world.
The thermobaric charge worked as advertised, creating an eardrum-splitting explosion and shaking the mansion violently enough to cause Gould’s pistol to dip.
Rapp dove toward the mercenary, hoping to draw both men’s fire. Surprise and blood loss delayed the merc’s reaction, but not Gould’s. His shot struck Rapp’s flak jacket just above his navel, flipping him onto his side next to the Glock still lying on the carpet. Behind, Rapp could hear the muffled sound of Gould’s weapon firing repeatedly. He couldn’t worry about that, though. It was Hurley’s problem.
The MP5 opened up, stitching holes in the floor as it arced toward him. The statue was still blocking his line of sight to the man’s head so Rapp snatched up his Glock and pumped a round into the man’s other foot. This time he went down, losing control of his weapon and cutting through the plaster ceiling. Still lying on his side, Rapp lined up on the underside of the fallen merc’s chin and blew the top of his head off.
Rapp immediately rolled onto his back and aimed at the door. Predictably, it was thrown open by the man who had captured Hurley. Rapp squeezed the trigger and put a round through the man’s mouth, sending brain tissue, teeth, and shards of skull spraying out into the hallway.
It was only then that he could turn his attention to Hurley and Gould.
They were pressed together face-to-face. Gould’s gun was shoved into Hurley’s stomach and he was emptying it into the man. The back of Hurley’s shirt was torn and wet with blood from numerous exit wounds. His face was buried in the side of Gould’s neck but Rapp didn’t understand why until his old friend finally collapsed to the floor.
Gould slapped a hand to the side of his throat but it did no good. Bright red arterial blood was flowing through his fingers and from his mouth. He swung his gun toward Rapp and pulled the trigger, unable to process the fact that it was empty. When the Frenchman finally realized that the weapon was useless, he lurched right, stumbling toward the door. He bounced off the jamb and was gone.
The sound of automatic gunfire was starting outside as Rapp crawled to where Hurley was lying on the blood-soaked carpet. His friend stared up at him and for one of the few times in his life, Rapp’s emotions made it difficult to speak. “What happened to the belt buckle knife you’ve been bragging about for the last twenty years?”
Hurley laughed, ejecting a sizable chunk of Gould’s neck from his mouth. “Got stuck. Can you believe it? I’m gonna get that old bitch who made it for me.”
Rapp stared down at the man, feeling a constriction in his chest that he told himself was the result of Gould’s bullet. “I’m sorry, Stan. This was my op. My failure.”
Hurley managed to press a bloody hand against Rapp’s shoulder. It might have been the first overt display of affection in their long relationship. “No. It was perfect.”
And then Stan Hurley—a man who had survived everything from the Soviets to the rise of Muslim extremism—died.
Rapp stood and slipped through the door with his Glock held out in front of him. The scent of chemical explosive was mixing with the gunpowder haze hanging in the air, creating an environment that he’d become all too familiar with. Outside, it sounded like Obrecht’s men had regrouped and were hitting Coleman’s force hard. The former SEAL would just have to hang on.
The trail wasn’t particularly subtle and Rapp followed it down the hallway until it turned into a bedroom on the right. He found Gould sitting on the floor propped up beneath a window. The Frenchman clawed for the empty gun next to him but didn’t have the strength to pick it up. His other hand was still clamped weakly to his neck but the entire left side of his body was drenched in blood.
Rapp took aim, thinking of Anna and his unborn child as the assassin struggled to focus. A moment later, he lowered his pistol and went for the door. Even after everything Gould had done to him, this was the old man’s kill.
CHAPTER 28
SCOTT Coleman was in a prone position at the bottom of a shallow impression in the dirt. The bushes were dense enough to make him invisible from the mansion but he’d cut away a few to give him a view of the chaos he’d created.
The smoke had dissipated to the point that he could see the massive hole in the wall surrounding Obrecht’s property, but not enough for the cameras on Marcus Dumond’s drone to provide a reliable overhead feed. Flames were licking the blackened edges of the breach, and burning cinder blocks dotted the ground almost to the tree line.
He swept his scope along the newly created gap, noting two men down. The one lying facedown was still intact but in a grotesque position that suggested there wasn’t an unbroken bone in his body. The other was on fire.
“Targets?” he said over his mike.
Wicker and McGraw both returned negatives.
Based on the radio chatter, Rapp was alive and on the move. Hurley and Gould’s conditions were more ambiguous.
He activated his throat
mike again. Rapp knew he was constantly broadcasting, but it was still unusual for him not to have made a specific report of his status.
“Mitch. Give me a sitrep.”
There was a delay long enough to make Coleman start to worry, but then Rapp’s voice came on.
“Gould, Stan, and two tangos down in the mansion. This frequency’s been compromised. Cut me out.”
Coleman let out a quiet breath and did as ordered, mentally assessing their situation. Hurley and Gould were dead. Rapp was running around the building with no way for Coleman to track his position or status. They’d just detonated a projectile that was loud enough to wake people in Madagascar. And, by his count, there were still eight serious shooters digging into what he assumed were hardened positions.
His earpiece produced a series of beeps in the eerie post-explosion silence, notifying him of an incoming encrypted call on his cell phone.
“Done,” Maria Glauser said, and then disconnected.
As their logistical support person, she’d carried out their contingency plan for covering up the rocket attack. Rapp had come up with the idea of filling a vacant house in a nearby subdivision with plastique. She’d blown it the moment she heard the blast created by the SMAW and now her people were calling in breathless reports of a gas explosion. It wasn’t a permanent solution by a long shot, but it would buy them a little time with the local authorities.
“Movement on the fence line,” McGraw said over the radio. “Are you both seeing this?”
Coleman eased his rifle left, finally finding a disturbance in the smoke at the top of an undamaged section of wall. It was too big to be a man and rising with the smooth steadiness of some kind of mechanical platform.
“Take cover!” Coleman shouted, though he knew his men in the trees had a limited ability to do so.
He flattened himself in the shallow ditch just as the familiar buzz of a Gatling gun started up. He could hear the shattering of wood and the crash of falling branches as rounds spewed from the weapon at a rate of three thousand per minute. When the bullet stream passed overhead, Coleman was forced to roll into a ball to protect himself from the debris raining down on him.
Then everything went silent again.
The gunner had no visible targets. He was just sending a message. A very clear one.
“Sound off,” he said into his radio.
“No injuries,” McGraw said.
The unflappable Charlie Wicker came on right after. “I want to talk about my compensation package.”
Coleman ignored him. “Bruno, do you have a line on that guy?”
“Negative. He’s completely shielded. At best, he’s using cameras for targeting. At worst, the gun’s remote controlled.”
“Wick?”
“I’m still lined up on the knoll. Can’t even see the gun placement.”
“Any movement?”
“The explosion seems to have lit a fire under them. Looks like they’re retreating and that they’re going to just leave their wounded man.”
“Joe, did you copy that? Those guys are coming in your direction.”
Maslick, who was still covering the tunnel exit, responded immediately. “I copied.”
“Do not engage,” Coleman said. “I repeat, do not engage. I don’t want to do anything to give away your position or change their mind about running. Just stay sharp and watch for Obrecht.”
“Roger that.”
Coleman crawled forward through the downed leaves and branches. The Gatling gun was fully visible now, moving smoothly back and forth on what he guessed were electric motors. It seemed likely that there was a similar weapon on the southern end of the wall but the damage there was significant enough that he doubted it was something he’d have to deal with. They must have been mounted beneath the wooden promenade behind the fence, keeping them hidden from Dumond’s drones.
“Let me know if you acquire a target, but no one shoots without my express order. We can’t afford to draw that kind of fire.”
He swept his scope over the scene again. The smoke continued to thin, and now he could see a single open window in one of the attic dormers. No doubt there was a sniper just inside and even less doubt that he was top-notch.
“Bruno. You see that window?”
“Yeah, but I got nothing.”
It had gone quiet enough that Coleman could hear his own breathing and the light breeze rattling the leaves. It was a sound he was depressingly familiar with—the sound of an operation dead in the water.
Back in the day, this was about the time he’d be calling in air support. Paint the compound with a laser and let the flyboys drop something nasty from the stratosphere. There were times he really missed the navy.
Coleman finally made a decision and enabled Rapp’s radio frequency again. “There’s a Gatling gun placement on the north side of the wall,” he said. “Remember Herat?”
If Obrecht’s men were monitoring their communications, they would have no idea what he was talking about. Herat was a city in Afghanistan where he and Rapp had been pinned down for more than an hour by a sniper in the upper floor of a hotel.
As expected, there was no response, but hopefully the message got through. Rapp was in a position to flank Obrecht’s men, and if he could just take a little of the heat off, Coleman’s team could advance. If not, they would be forced to leave him. Kennedy’s orders were clear: At the first hint of Swiss authorities, they were to get the hell out of Dodge.
“Come down and regroup around me,” he said, after killing the connection to Rapp again. “One way or another, we’re going to have to move fast.”
CHAPTER 29
NEAR GEORGETOWN
WASHINGTON, D.C.
U.S.A.
IRENE Kennedy adjusted the lamp for the third time. Finally she was forced to admit that her inability to read the classified documents lying on her desk had nothing to do with a lack of illumination. Her normally unshakable ability to concentrate had simply failed her.
She took off her glasses and looked around the windowless office tucked away at the back of her home. Not that there was much to see. She’d left the overhead lights off, as was her custom.
The semidarkness was usually accompanied by a sense of security. Not that day, though. If anything, it magnified the anxiety and regret building in her. Joe Rickman’s files were still out there and it was her failure. She should have seen it coming. Rickman had always been unstable, but he’d also been brilliant. He could do things that no one else could and she had become reliant on—perhaps even blinded by—his talents.
There were no easy problems for the person running the Central Intelligence Agency. Those were dealt with well before they reached her office. Her world was an endless knife-edge balancing act. There were no wins, only scenarios where the rewards slightly outweighed the risks. In the current situation, her careful evaluation of the circumstances had led her to the wrong strategy. Or, as Mitch would undoubtedly simplify it, she’d guessed wrong.
The secure phone next to her began to ring and she reached for it reluctantly. Another drawback to her job was that people rarely called her at home with good news.
“Yes.”
“They’ve blown the fence,” Marcus Dumond said. “The smoke’s blinding my drone.”
“Thank you.”
She hung up and felt the knot in her stomach tighten. The Obrecht operation had been authorized entirely on her own authority. Neither the Swiss government nor President Alexander knew anything about it. There hadn’t been time for debate, and “no” wasn’t an option. It would be easier to offer her resignation than ask permission.
Kennedy reached for the phone again but then withdrew her hand. She had a direct line to Scott Coleman, but it existed only for emergencies. She’d laid out the rules of engagement for this rendition and Coleman would follow her orders to the letter. Rapp and Hurley, on the other hand, would do whatever they wanted. There was no action she could take and no update that would matter at this point. T
he die had been cast.
Instead of the phone, she used her laptop to check her email account. Automatic notifications had been set up in case she received another communication from Rickman, so she knew she wouldn’t find anything. Still, it offered some small comfort to see the empty inbox.
It was just a matter of time, though. Rickman wouldn’t let something as trivial as death stop him. He was far too smart and obsessive for that. No, if he’d embarked on a plan this grand, he would have made it foolproof. Unstoppable.
Would she be the director who presided over the disintegration of America’s intelligence capability? Was she responsible for recruiting and training the man who would tear down her country’s defenses just when the world was at its most dangerous and unpredictable?
Afghanistan was in the process of returning into what Americans considered medieval chaos but the Afghans thought of as normalcy. Various terrorist groups would use the lawlessness and lack of cohesion as cover, but the Afghans themselves posed less of a threat than most people suspected. They didn’t much like outsiders and with a little prompting could be used to combat the terrorist groups wanting to use their country as a base.
Iraq was a far more dangerous situation, and one of the keys to the current instability in the Middle East. The truth was that little could be done to remedy the situation militarily and arming moderates in the region was a strategy almost certain to backfire. People who felt moderately about things tended not to fight with the same intensity as fanatics. More often than not, they handed over their American-provided weapons and ran. Or worse, they reacted to the brutality they saw by becoming fanatics in their own right. Sadly, the best answer was for her to insert a brutal pro-American dictator. With a little luck, that would create an environment in which the rest of the region could be stabilized.
Less visceral but perhaps more dangerous were the former and future world powers. Russia was trying to restart the Cold War in order to gain the respect it craved but was incapable of earning with its anemic economy and corrupt institutions. China was trying to take possession of every piece of territory it had ever laid claim to in a cynical effort to distract its people from slowing GDP growth and an environmental disaster that was beginning to bite.
