Order to Kill

CHAPTER 11

“THE American scout has seen the truck and is following on foot.”

Grisha Azarov didn’t acknowledge the voice coming over his earpiece, instead continuing to pace steadily across the abandoned manufacturing plant. Twenty-three meters. He calculated how long it would take him to run that section from a standing start and then moved on to a massive industrial machine that dominated one side of the shop floor.

“I repeat. The American scout has seen the truck and is following on foot.”

Azarov activated his mike as he paced off another portion of the building. “Understood. Authorize the driver to divert.”

He stopped and took in the space around him-the disused machines rusting at its edges, the remains of the glass-walled office at its center, the piles of refuse left over from the plant’s operations.

He didn’t know what had been made there or when production stopped. He didn’t know if the driver of the truck now headed inevitably his way was a Muslim fanatic, a trained operative, or an innocent transporter of fruits and vegetables. He was largely unfamiliar with the surrounding neighborhood, the flow of traffic at that time of day, and the strength of local law enforcement. He was forced to assume that these details had been sufficiently studied and to trust Krupin’s spotters to keep him apprised of the status of the man he would soon engage in a fight to the death.

Azarov walked to the base of a crane that rose to the ceiling, scanning along it before lowering his gaze to a group of Middle Eastern men huddled at the back of the building. Their precise purpose had not been shared with him beyond the fact that they were not there to back him up. Based on their number and equipment, it seemed obvious that they had been charged with unloading something from the truck that would soon arrive. And, while it had never been specifically discussed, there was little question that the item in question was one of the nuclear warheads being moved haphazardly around Pakistan.

Azarov could feel his heart pounding in his chest and the blood rushing in his ears. Normally, his heart rate barely rose during operations-the result of years of physical and psychological training. This was hardly a normal operation, though. The ISIS-supplied terrorists and lack of information introduced an intolerable lack of predictability. The potential presence of a nuclear warhead opened a scope far greater than he had dealt with in the past. And, finally, there was Mitch Rapp.

The entire scenario was madness. He should have spent months personally planning this confrontation: walking the streets, laying out lines of retreat, cracking Rapp’s radio encryption. He should have been drawing the legendary CIA agent into a trap that would cut him off from his backup and leave him facing an overwhelming force.

Instead, he was standing alone in an unfamiliar building armed with nothing but a pistol and single spare magazine.

Undoubtedly Maxim Krupin would say that it would be impossible to create a more elaborate plan without tipping off the Americans. That Azarov was being unnecessarily timid. Those objections rang hollow, though. In truth, Maxim Krupin was embarking on something so dark that he couldn’t risk even the remotest possibility of being discovered.

And this left further troubling questions.

Of course, the Muslims would be summarily executed after they had served their purpose. But what about him? Azarov presumed that he continued to have the Russian president’s confidence, but it would be foolish to cling too desperately to that belief. Marius Postan had been one of Krupin’s most indispensable men and he now resided at the bottom of the Arabian Sea.

The radio came to life again, this time with a distinctly British voice. One of the insane men who had abandoned their world to fight a barbaric war that didn’t concern them. “Three men on motorcycles are leaving the store on Jaranwala. One is going for Canal and another for Jhang. Best estimate is that they will intercept the truck in five minutes. The third American is heading northwest.”

Azarov nodded silently. The men converging on the truck would be Mitch Rapp and Scott Coleman. They would be forced to improvise when they discovered it had changed course. The other man would be Joe Maslick, formerly of Army Delta. He was still only about ninety percent recovered from a recent shoulder injury, so the logical course would be to send him to the helicopter the CIA was holding at the edge of town.

Azarov pulled his weapon from its holster and checked it for the last time. Rapp would be there soon.