by Vince Flynn
He went into the bathroom and examined his face. The damage Laleh had done was holding. When he rinsed his mouth, a molar came out with the water, rolling around in the basin for a moment before disappearing down the drain. Damn Joe Maslick.
On the brighter side, no visible pus, weird odors, or fever. That meant no infection. His accuracy had been dead-on and his sprint across the school courtyard felt only about five percent off. So, in the context of his current situation—and his life in general—he supposed this was what passed for a good day.
When he entered the bedroom, Laleh was sitting on the sagging mattress with a blanket pulled up around her neck. Based on the clothes laid out on the floor with OCD perfection, it appeared that she’d actually followed his instructions. He was surprised by the intensity of the relief he felt. Another knock-down drag-out with her was more than he wanted to deal with right now.
Her eyes locked on him as he kicked off his shoes and fell into bed. Reaching for the lamp on the floor, he turned off the flow of kerosene and closed his eyes. They shot back open a moment later.
“Laleh?”
“What?”
It was dark, but he could tell that she was still sitting with her back against the wall.
“Don’t attack me in my sleep.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious, now.”
“I said okay.”
Her answer seemed sincere so he closed his eyes again and was asleep in less than thirty seconds.
• • •
Rapp jerked awake to a loud banging.
“Eric! Open this door immediately!” The voice was muffled but unmistakable. General Ali Mustafa.
“I’m coming!” Rapp shouted, rolling out of bed and grabbing the strip of cloth he’d torn from the shade. At some point in the night, Laleh had allowed herself to lie down, but it was hard to know if she’d slept. Right now she was staring up at him with the exact same expression she’d had before he’d shut out the light.
“Put your hands against the headboard.”
“What? No. I—”
“I don’t have time to argue,” Rapp said quietly. “Do it.”
She relented when the pounding turned into powerful kicks accompanied by the sound of splintering wood. “Eric! Open the door!”
“I’m coming!” Rapp shouted while tying her hands to the bed’s flimsy headboard. He knew that she’d panic if he did a good enough job to make it hard to escape, so he kept the bonds loose. Just enough to keep the show going.
“Roll on your side with your back to me.”
This time she didn’t hesitate.
He pulled the blanket halfway down and unhooked her bra, sliding one strap artistically over her shoulder. “Good. Now, stay like that. You’re unconscious.”
He kicked her neatly arranged clothes across the floor and turned on the lamp before running out into the main room. It would have been more realistic to answer in his underwear but his well-defined muscles and patchwork of healed battle wounds weren’t exactly in keeping with an overprivileged prick from Colorado.
“Stop pushing!” he yelled. “It’s sticking.”
He freed the wedge he’d placed beneath the door and pulled it open, stepping out of the way as Ali Mustafa entered with two armed men.
“Why didn’t you—” The general fell silent when he saw the woman tied to the bed. “Ah. I see.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know it was you,” Rapp apologized. “Through the door, your voice—”
“It’s of no importance,” Mustafa said, squinting perceptibly as he examined Rapp’s shattered nose. “Your face . . .”
“The bitch attacked me,” Rapp said, pointing to the broken lamp lying on the floor.
Mustafa translated and his two bodyguards laughed condescendingly.
“Are you aware of what happened at our training camp?”
“No. Is there a problem?”
“It was attacked early this morning.”
“Attacked? By who?”
“It appears that two men killed the perimeter guard and gained entry by saying that I had sent them.”
“Have you captured them?”
“Not yet. But I swear to God I will. And when I do, I will make them suffer in ways they’ve never even imagined.”
“How many of our people were hurt? Do you still have enough men to carry out your plans?”
This was where things got tricky—and why Rapp hadn’t killed every last one of those pedophile sons of bitches. If he’d completely wiped out Mustafa’s team, the general might move on to some kind of half-assed plan B. The fissile material could be split up and disappear into the hands of multiple groups, all with their own capabilities and objectives. The goal had been to take out enough men to once again make Eric Jesem’s involvement desirable, but not so many as to make Mustafa’s op nonviable.
“Are you all right?” the general said, ignoring Rapp’s question. “Are the wounds that whore gave you serious?”
“I can’t breathe through my nose but otherwise I’m nearly healed.”
Mustafa nodded thoughtfully. “We still have enough men for the primary teams. I’m reinstating you to a position on the backup.”
“Sir, really. I feel fine. I can—”
“You will follow my orders!” Mustafa, said, obviously in no mood to argue after the events of that morning. Rapp wondered what pissed the man off more—the deaths of his men or the fact that his underage livestock had scattered.
“Of course, sir. I’ll follow your instructions to the letter.”
Mustafa gave a short nod and pointed at Laleh, who was still motionless with her hands tied to the headboard. “Enjoy yourself. You leave for Saudi Arabia with the others tonight.”
CHAPTER 44
PERSIAN GULF
OFF THE COAST OF SAUDI ARABIA
GRISHA Azarov watched two men climb down the dhow’s cargo net and slip silently into the water. Instead of immediately following, he remained on deck, staring out over the water. As had been predicted by Krupin’s forecasters, the region was enjoying a brief respite from the wind before it returned with the sunrise now only a few hours away. Free from the suffocating heat of the vessel’s hold, Azarov breathed in the salt air and examined the outline of an empty shore.
There were no lights visible other than the vague urban glow of Dammam, sixty kilometers to the south. A slightly shorter distance to the north was Al-Jubail, the city this vessel would soon set sail for in order to unload its legitimate cargo. Until then, the captain stood near the bow, looking nervously to the horizon.
Azarov finally put on a well-used dive mask and followed the men into the water. Even rudimentary scuba gear had been impossible to bring. It would have been discovered by the Coast Guard boarding party and might have raised suspicions.
He dipped beneath the swells and kicked toward the two similarly equipped men working beneath the hull. A single glow stick cast a green haze over their effort to open the container attached near the keel. They worked with impressive efficiency, something Krupin had assured him would be the case. Both men had trained on an exact replica of the dhow’s hull submerged in a Russian lake.
Azarov surfaced, turning again toward shore. His mask fogged and he lifted it, making out the shadow of a small fishing boat approaching from the west. As instructed, it was equipped with an electric motor that made far less noise than a conventional outboard.
Something bobbed to the surface to his right and he glanced briefly at what would be the first of six black balloons. The men in the fishing boat were equipped with night-vision gear, making it a simple matter for them to intercept.
Azarov maintained his distance, watching them pull the crate dangling beneath the waves onto their craft. Once safely aboard, a knife was used to deflate the balloon and send it to the bottom of the Gulf. This process continued for another ten minutes. A float would splash to the surface, the men would collect the attached crate, and then the evidence would disappear. When t
he last crate had been retrieved, Azarov pulled himself over the side of the small vessel.
After confirming that their cargo was adequately hidden beneath a stack of fishing nets, he threw his wet clothes overboard and changed into baggy pants and a sweatshirt similar to those worn by the man steering the skiff toward shore.
Behind, he heard the engines of the dhow as it started toward deeper water. Job done, they would go back to their lives as traders and petty smugglers, as though none of this had ever happened.
The boat grounded on shore and Azarov jumped out. An SUV with two men standing next to it was visible about fifty meters away and he jogged through the sand toward them.
The vehicle turned out to be an impeccable Range Rover. The two men were equally well appointed, in tailored silk suits and traditional headdresses. In most places, their appearance would be less than subtle, but in the context of Saudi Arabia, it was relatively mundane. In fact, these men really were who they portrayed themselves to be—minor royalty who had enjoyed lives of unimaginable privilege since the day of their birth. Like so many young men with similar backgrounds, though, they had become bored. Now they played at jihad.
“Praise be to Allah that you were delivered to us safely,” one of the men said, extending a hand. He had been educated in America and spoke flawless English.
“Indeed,” Azarov replied, allowing his still-damp hand to be clamped in the crushing grip of overconfident youth.
While the benefit of using these men was obvious—their station in life made them largely above the law—they were not to be trusted. Creatures of comfort and entitlement, they would turn on him, and the God they professed to serve, at the first sign of danger.
The fisherman approached from behind and loaded the first two crates into the Range Rover. Of course neither of the Saudis made a move to help. Azarov knew from his time working as an energy consultant that it would be pointless to ask. They would be genuinely confused by a request that they participate in physical labor.
He wanted to minimize their time on this empty beach, so he turned and ran back down toward the boat. With his participation, they could be loaded and on the road to Al-Hofuf in less than five minutes.
CHAPTER 45
AL-SHIRQAT
IRAQ
RAPP was sitting on the floor of the tiny bedroom with his back against the wall. He’d removed the makeshift shade from the apartment’s only window and the morning sun was casting a dim glow over Laleh as she squinted in his direction. Her wrists were free and she was curled up beneath the covers with her dark hair tossed across her face.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” she said. “What are you thinking?”
He was thinking about the panicked girls running past him at the school. About the ones on stage being sold off to the highest bidder. About the ones still in hiding, praying to Allah to keep them safe. But most of all, he was thinking about her.
In a few hours, he would leave for Saudi Arabia to try to stop whatever attack Ali Mustafa was planning. That was his responsibility, he told himself. His only responsibility. Laleh and the thousands like her weren’t a priority. They couldn’t be.
“You’ve never told me your name,” she said when he didn’t answer.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You’re Mitch Rapp, aren’t you?”
Lying came easily to him, particularly on the subject of his identity. But she deserved better than that.
“Yes.”
She nodded but didn’t otherwise react. “You’ll leave with them tonight, then. You’ll stop them. Kill them.”
“If I can.”
“Good.”
They sat in silence for a long time, the intensity of the light in the room growing with an uncomfortable inevitability.
“There’s going to be no way for me to get back here, Laleh. Assuming I even survive.”
“I know.”
“Get dressed. I’ll take you to your brothers.”
“And how would you explain my absence to the men who come for you?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Thank you, Mitch. But it’s impossible. My brothers are good men, but they’re not like you. They’re not strong enough to protect me.”
“They’d want the chance to try.”
“Of course. But they would fail and I would be the cause of their deaths. For what? To delay my fate another week? No. Without me, they have a chance. With me, they’re dead men.”
Rapp was surprised when Laleh pulled back the blankets covering her. She was still wearing only the panties and bra he’d insisted on so as not to raise the suspicions of Mustafa and his men.
“Now come back to bed.”
• • •
The chime was barely audible, but still caused Rapp to jerk awake. It was the first electronic sound he could remember hearing in days. He would have assumed it was just a dream if it weren’t for the elated shouts filtering in from the street.
Rapp eased himself out of bed, careful not to wake Laleh, and walked naked into the outer room. The torn blackout shade was on the floor, so he skirted the wall and slipped up alongside the cracked glass. Below, he saw two men talking excitedly. They seemed consumed with something the one on the right had cupped in his hands.
Eric Jesem’s cell phone was still charging in the window and Rapp picked it up. The screen showed three bars and a weak data signal.
Irene Kennedy making it rain. He would love to have been a fly on the wall when she asked Jimmy Templeton to pull the plug on his beloved jamming program.
Rapp punched in the U.S. country code and dialed Kennedy’s private number. He didn’t really expect it to go through and was surprised when an echoing ring started.
“Hello?”
“Irene! Can you hear me?”
The delay was infuriating, but she finally responded. “Mitch. Thank God. Where are you?”
“Al-Shirqat.”
“Al— Suspected . . . region.”
“Irene! This connection sucks. We may not have much time. What have you been able to figure out?”
When she came back on, the signal had stabilized a bit. “Not much, Mitch. We’ve run scenarios for the potential use of the fissile material and I’ve prioritized them in order of probability. But we’re working more with hunches than data.”
“Okay, listen. Here’s what I can tell you. This thing’s being run from here by one of Saddam’s former Generals. Ali Mustafa. The six compromised warheads we know about are all they have. And when I said that the CIA thought ISIS was building nukes to smuggle into the U.S., Mustafa made it clear that wasn’t the plan.”
“What is the plan?”
“I don’t know, but it’s starting tonight and it sounds like it’s about Saudi Arabia.”
“Have you seen the fissile material? We could bring teams in.”
“No. And my gut says it isn’t here.”
“Mine, too. If it’s coming from Pakistan for use in Saudi Arabia, why move it into Iraq? More likely they’d transport it up the Gulf.”
“I’ve gotten myself in on the operation, Irene. I’m on the backup team and I leave sometime tonight.”
“Understood. Everything you’ve told me confirms my suspicions. I don’t think we’re looking at nuclear explosions, Mitch.”
Rapp nodded in silent agreement. If the goal was to take out Saudi Arabia, six nukes was overkill.
“The evidence that Maxim Krupin is involved keeps getting stronger,” she continued. “If we add the intelligence you’ve managed to gather, I think the most likely scenario is a dirty bomb attack.”
“So Riyadh, Jeddah, and Medina. Are you thinking they’d hit Mecca?”
“Not the cities, Mitch. The oil fields. It would destabilize Saudi Arabia to the point that they’d become vulnerable to ISIS. And after that—”
Her voice dropped before she could finish the sentence, but it didn’t matter. He knew what she was going to say. After that, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE w
ould fall. Oil prices would shoot through the roof and Maxim Krupin would go from clinging to power in that shithole he called a country to master of the universe.
“Irene? Are you there? Irene!”
The line was dead.
He looked out the window and saw that the men on the street were having the same problem. As more people discovered the network was back online, more people logged on. The system was overloaded and there was a good chance it would stay that way.
CHAPTER 46
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
U.S.A.
IRENE Kennedy sat motionless, lost in the split-screen image on her computer. To the left was a public webcam showing a swath of desert southeast of Riyadh. According to the Agency’s weather forecasters, the wind was blowing north at an average of almost thirty knots, with gusts exceeding fifty. Based on the disorienting swirl of dust and sand that made up the video feed, she saw no reason to doubt them.
The other side of the monitor depicted a map of Saudi Arabia’s main oil fields, with six markers spread strategically across it. Her analysts had placed them based on their best guess as to the most likely deployment of Pakistan’s missing nuclear fuel. Taking into account the amount of fissile material in ISIS’s hands, the prevailing winds, and the distribution of Saudi oil reserves, the markers depicted optimal release points. The current theory was that the radioactive material would be wrapped around six explosive charges powerful enough to blow it into the sky and prevailing winds would then irradiate the world’s most productive oil fields.
If Maxim Krupin was directing this operation—and she was increasingly convinced he was—his people would have provided him with similar data. Was he sitting in the Kremlin at that moment examining an identical map?
Her phone buzzed and her assistant’s voice came on. “I have Prince Khaled bin Abdullah on the line for you, Dr. Kennedy.”
Ten minutes late, as usual. She didn’t immediately reach for the handset, instead taking a moment to steel herself for the conversation. Abdullah was both extremely conservative in his religious beliefs and utterly incompetent. While he understood that Saudi Arabia needed the U.S. as an ally, he despised Christians in general and American Christians in particular. To make matters worse, he was misogynistic to the point that it made it difficult to have a coherent conversation with him.
