His fingers gripped the seats as he anticipated the telltale bursts of automatic fire followed by the individual volleys of Rapp’s pistol. The clock in his head ticked steadily, each movement of the imaginary second hand reducing his hopes further. Finally a heavily accented voice came over his earpiece. “The building is clear.”
“Fuck!” Wilson said, throwing himself back in the seat.
“We go in?” his driver asked.
“Of course we go in, idiot! Now, move!”
They accelerated through the gate and Wilson got out into the rising heat of the morning. Where the fuck was that CIA son of a bitch? Gone to murder more innocent Saudis? Or had he been tipped off? And if it was the latter, who was responsible? Someone at the local airport? Someone back in Washington? One of Wilson’s own men? He knew little about them other than the fact that they had Nassar’s confidence.
As impressive as the Saudi intelligence chief was, moving this quickly and joining forces with locals was always dangerous. Loyalties in this part of the world were bought and sold almost hourly.
Wilson jogged inside and pushed the doors closed behind him. “Cover all the entrances and get men up into the balcony. I also want men on the outside wall spotting in every direction. If Rapp doesn’t know we’re here, he might be stupid enough to walk into a trap. And if he does know we’re here, he might be stupid enough to attack.”
“Understood,” came the response over his earpiece, although no one seemed to be moving.
The sunlight coming through the building’s cracks was sufficient to illuminate the interior, but there wasn’t much to see. Rotting pews strewn across the floor, the remains of an altar, and piles of debris created by the structure’s slow collapse.
“Sir!” a man near the center called. “Here!”
Wilson ran to him and looked down at what he had found—a doused campfire. He crouched and held out a hand, feeling a jolt of excitement at the heat still emanating from it. The fire had recently been put out, explaining the water on the floor. But why was the pew next to it so wet? He ran a hand over the top and then did the same underneath. It came back stained with blood.
He bolted to his feet and drew his gun. “We’ve had recent activity in here. Talk to me. What are we seeing from the walls?”
“Be calm,” came the response from Nassar’s lead man. “We have no—”
His condescending response was drowned out by the shouts of two men standing next to a pile of debris in the northeast corner of the building. Wilson started in their direction but then stopped short when he saw the bodies. One still had the cord that had killed him wrapped around his neck. The other was far more gruesome. A machete had nearly cut his head in half and the handle was still jutting from the bridge of his nose.
Wilson stumbled back a few steps, suddenly very aware that he wasn’t a combat operative. He was an investigator with a talent for office politics. Starting to panic, he drew his sidearm for the first time in his career and started toward the main door. “Pull back. Bring whatever evidence you’ve found, but I want everyone back in the vehicles in one minute. We’re—”
A voice speaking rapid-fire Arabic came over the comm, followed by a response from Nassar’s commander, who no longer sounded so cocksure.
“What is it?” Wilson said. “What’s going on?”
Two men ran past him and out the door while another climbed into the balcony and took up a position near a broken window.
The voices in his earpiece became increasingly desperate and he found himself frozen. “What’s happening?” he screamed into the microphone on his headset. No one bothered to respond.
* * *
Rapp remained completely still, using only his eyes to track the men running along the west side of the church. He was sitting on a beam jutting thirty feet above the side courtyard. There was significant damage to this section of roof and he blended perfectly into the visual chaos.
Shouting was audible through the plastic sheet that kept rain from penetrating to the building’s interior. Mostly Arabic, but also an unintelligible African dialect and a panicked American voice that undoubtedly belonged to Joel Wilson.
According to Black and Azarov, the cars that made up Wilson’s motorcade were now empty and Nassar hadn’t appeared. The Saudi intelligence chief continued to prove that he was in no way stupid. While Wilson was blind to anything but revenge and transforming himself into the great American savior, Nassar apparently had no such delusions. Despite the fact that his life was very much hanging in the balance, he could still see clearly enough to be suspicious of the information on Claudia’s computer. Hats off to the terrorist son of a bitch.
“Here we go,” Black said over the comm. “Two pickups coming in hot. Most of Abdo’s spotters seem to be backing off, so the main force is going to be the men in those vehicles.”
“How many?” Rapp asked, dangling his feet over the edge of the roof to loosen his stiff right knee.
“Moving too fast to get an exact head count. You know the drill, though. Small trucks packed to the point that they’re damn near dragging the ground.”
“Copy that,” Rapp said.
“They’re moving out of my line of sight,” Black said. “Grisha? Are you picking them up?”
“Yes. I’d estimate twenty-three men, including the drivers. Assault rifles, mostly AKs. The front vehicle is swerving a bit. It doesn’t look like a mechanical problem. I’d guess that the driver’s impaired either by alcohol or drugs. ETA to the gate is fifteen seconds and they aren’t slowing down. It conceivable that they’re going to try to ram the doors.”
“What? No plate numbers?” Black said.
“They didn’t seem relevant,” Azarov responded, not picking up on the sarcasm.
“Mitch,” Donatella said. “I have eyes on you from the southwest. There’s no one in the courtyard below you. Can you climb down and get out the back? Kent can give you cover.”
“I might take you up on that, Donatella. But not quite yet.”
* * *
Joel Wilson heard the growing roar of an engine outside but couldn’t work out what that meant until a pickup crashed through the church’s front entrance. The doors were flung across the floor along with most of the men who had been riding in the bed. The FBI man froze, looking at the African soldiers strewn out in front of him. Some were dazed, some were getting to their feet, and others were either dead or unconscious. Had their brakes failed, or had they come through the doors on purpose? Who would do such a thing?
Successive bursts of automatic fire pulled him from his stupor, and he sprinted toward the back of the building, diving behind an overturned pew along the west wall. From around the side, he saw a second pickup come through the hole made by the first. The men in the back jumped out and began running in every direction, spraying rounds haphazardly in the general direction of Nassar’s men.
Wilson drew back farther behind the pew, unwilling to fire his weapon out of fear that it would give away his position. Who were these men? Had Rapp hired them? He’d referred to himself as “we” in the emails. Was this his team? A group of suicidal African mercenaries? Would a man famous for his precision—someone who almost always killed with a single shot to the head—work with people like this?
He dropped onto his back and peered out from beneath the bench. At least for now, Nassar’s men seemed to have the tactical advantage. They’d taken cover at strategic points around the church and were firing controlled bursts, in contrast to their attackers, who were shooting wildly from a run. Would it be enough of an advantage? They were outnumbered and there was no way to know if this was the entire opposing force. There could be hundreds of similar soldiers closing in from the courtyard. The image of the man with the machete in his head flashed through his mind and he fumbled for his satellite phone, dialing a private number the Saudi intelligence chief had given him.
&n
bsp; It rang a few times before Nassar came on. Wilson was halfway through a babbling plea for backup when the phone beeped and a woman’s voice asked him to leave a message.
CHAPTER 49
RAPP continued to work his right knee, swinging his leg out over the courtyard as the battle raged on inside the church. He heard a scream behind him and glanced back in time to see one of Wilson’s men stagger into the plastic covering a hole in the roof. He slid down it, leaving a streak that glowed crimson in the dawn light.
“Mitch,” Kent Black said over his earpiece. “Are you just going to sit there all day? Can I have some coffee delivered?”
“Napoleon said, ‘When your enemy is doing something stupid, don’t interfere.’ ”
“I think the attribution is apocryphal,” Azarov commented.
“The point’s valid, though.”
“Agreed.”
The frequency of gunfire had leveled out and was now declining, indicating that the running battle inside had turned into a skirmish between forces with cover. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t turn into a war of attrition. Abdo probably already had reinforcements on the way.
Nassar wasn’t there, so Rapp had resigned himself to the fact that his carefully laid trap was a bust. In light of that, did he care what happened in that church? It wasn’t his nature to walk away from fights, but what was there to gain from going in there? He could kill Wilson and a few of Nassar’s men, but it seemed that Abdo had that well in hand. The only thing he could accomplish was to be seen or, worse, have someone snap a cell phone picture of him.
He missed the involvement of Irene Kennedy even more than he’d thought he would. The role of strategist was unsatisfying as hell.
“Kent, is there a way I can get off of here from the outside?”
“Not unless you’re Spider-Man. The walls are dead smooth and I wouldn’t trust any of that roof structure.”
“Copy,” Rapp said, feeling strangely relieved for an excuse not to slink out of there like the criminal he supposed he now was. “Looks like I’m going to have to go out the way I came in. Grisha, can you reposition so you can cover that line of retreat?”
“Affirmative. Two and a half minutes.”
“Two and a half minutes,” Rapp repeated, setting the timer on his watch. “Do it. I’m going in.”
He drew his weapon and slipped through the blood-smeared plastic. Only one of Nassar’s men had managed to set up in the balcony, and a series of bullets had stitched their way up through the floor, killing him. He was lying at the edge with his rifle hanging partially over it.
Rapp plucked the weapon from his lifeless hands and lay down on top of him. The fact that none of the rounds had come through the man’s back suggested he would provide sufficient protection.
Below, it looked like a bomb had gone off. Men were strewn across the floor, some taken out by gunfire and others by the impact of the pickup when it had crashed through the doors. Two of Nassar’s men were still alive and shooting from cover near the altar. Abdo’s force was down to three—two hugging the west wall and one just out of sight beneath the balcony overhang. Rapp scanned for a sign of Wilson but couldn’t see any.
“Has anyone come out?” he said into his radio.
All responses came back negative.
Could the FBI man be holed up in Black’s office? It seemed unlikely. There was a door leading to the outside, and if he knew Joel Wilson, he would have taken the opportunity to escape.
Rapp’s questions were answered a moment later when the man beneath the balcony broke cover and ran for the east wall. Nassar’s remaining shooters were too busy with the other two to worry about him, but a familiar white face popped up from behind a pew near the back wall and fired a few rounds that didn’t get within twenty feet.
Abdo’s man threw himself to the ground and began crawling toward Wilson. Rapp watched for a few seconds but then reluctantly reached for his silencer.
“Mitch,” Black said over the radio. “The spotters I can see are starting to move away.”
“I’m seeing something similar,” Azarov said.
“Me too,” Donatella confirmed.
“Copy,” Rapp said, screwing on his suppressor.
If he were an optimist, he’d think that they’d had enough and were retreating. It was much more likely, though, that Abdo had a secondary force moving in and that they were pulling back to join it. As much as he would have liked to wait until a few more of the people below had killed each other, there was no more time.
Rapp fired a carefully aimed round into the head of the man crawling toward Wilson, followed by a round to the ribs of one of the men along the east wall. Nassar’s shooters saw him go down, and one broke cover, going for position on Abdo’s last surviving man. The African guerrilla saw him and fired, taking him out before being cut down himself. Then everything went still.
“Joel!” Rapp shouted. “You still alive back there?”
“What? Who is that?”
“It’s Mitch.”
The FBI man didn’t respond immediately. Finally, “What are your intentions?”
It was a good question. The CIA assassin Mitch Rapp would kill him and Nassar’s last man, then leave Irene Kennedy to clean up the mess. The question now was: What would Mitch Rapp the international fugitive do?
“Now that I’ve saved your ass, I’m surrendering,” he called. “I want to go back to the U.S. so I can clear my name.”
“Mitch,” Claudia said over his earpiece. “What are you doing? He isn’t—”
“What do you say, Joel?” Rapp said, cutting her off. It was time to show Wilson whom he was working for. It was a long shot, but maybe the FBI man could be useful.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’ve got the high ground. If I wanted you and your last man dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
A few more seconds passed before Wilson rose slowly into view. He motioned for his man to do the same and, surprisingly, he obeyed.
Rapp slid his weapon down the back of his pants and stood, walking deliberately toward the edge of the balcony. “Does your friend speak English?”
“Yes,” the man answered for himself.
“Then you understand not to shoot. That I’m surrendering.”
“I understand.”
“What the fuck are you doing?” Black said, sharing Claudia’s confusion. “Blast those assholes into the next time zone and let’s get the hell out of here.”
It probably wasn’t bad advice, but Rapp ignored it. He was curious about what would happen. While he was confident that Wilson really did want to march him in front of the cameras in chains, Nassar would be far less excited about the prospect of a bunch of congressional hearings.
Rapp inched into view, ignoring Wilson, who was aiming at him with a shaking hand, and instead focusing on Nassar’s man. His accent and mediocre performance during the fight suggested that he wasn’t one of the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate’s crack operatives. And if that was the case, who was he?
“Okay, everybody, take it easy. I’m coming down.”
Nassar’s man sighted over an AK-47 as Rapp moved toward the ladder. The distance between them was about thirty yards, and that, combined with the angle, would make a clean shot difficult. The Arab looked smart enough to wait, but for how long? Would he take the doable but difficult shot at Rapp when he started down the ladder? Or would he risk letting the CIA man get close enough for a sure thing?
Those questions were answered when Rapp reached for the first rung. The man’s stance suddenly stabilized, and he pulled the butt of his assault rifle more firmly into his shoulder. Rapp jerked back just as a short burst chewed through the ladder an inch from his hand.
“Cease fire!” Wilson shrieked, as Rapp dropped to the floor. “Cease fi—”
The sound
of the rifle changed subtly as the shooter adjusted his aim and squeezed off another burst. Rapp rolled to absorb his impact with the floor and rose to one knee in time to see Wilson throw himself over a pew. Impacts from successive rounds pounded the wood for a few seconds before Nassar’s man began swinging his weapon back in Rapp’s direction.
The CIA man’s position wasn’t ideal, and it took more time than it should have to line up. The shooter was backing away as he fired, going for the cover of the altar. Rapp squeezed off a round and hit him in the stomach, causing him to lose control of his rifle. The barrel rose and rounds started punching holes in the roof as Rapp sprinted across the floor, grabbing the weapon and taking the wounded man’s legs out from under him. He tossed the AK and used a foot to pin the Arab to the ground, ignoring the fact that Wilson was approaching with his pistol held out in front of him.
“I told him not to shoot,” the FBI man stammered. “And then he . . . he tried to kill me.”
Rapp grabbed the injured Arab by the collar and began dragging him toward what was left of the church’s front entrance. “Do you have a phone with a camera, Joel?”
“A phone,” he mumbled. “Yeah. I have one. But I—”
“Get pictures of all of Nassar’s men. Do it now.”
The careful recording of crime scenes was very much in the FBI man’s wheelhouse, and the task seemed to revive him. He moved hesitantly at first but gained confidence as he flipped the bodies and lined his lens up with their faces.
“Change of plans. I’m coming out the front,” Rapp said into his radio. “Wilson will be following. Don’t shoot either of us.”
Black, who had line of sight on the front courtyard, acknowledged.
“Where are you going?” Wilson said, running up behind him. “What just happened? Who attacked us? Were they your people?”
Rapp dropped the wounded man behind one of the vehicles in Wilson’s motorcade and popped the trunk.