Order to Kill

CHAPTER 18

RAPP kept his scope trained on the warehouse’s empty window frame, focusing on the small office at its center. Every few seconds a body part would come into view above the plywood wall, but it always disappeared too quickly to discern who it belonged to. The only thing that was crystal clear was that Scott Coleman was overmatched. His attacker was moving with incredible speed and power, while the injured SEAL was on the ragged edge, barely able to defend himself.

A knife appeared and then plunged down, causing Rapp’s breath to catch. He gripped the rifle a little tighter, but didn’t attempt a shot. While there was no doubt he could hit one of them, which one was no better than a coin toss.

“Get off your ass,” Rapp said quietly. “Get him up.”

The decision to go for the high ground had initially been a no-brainer. In the anticipated scenario of Coleman coming up against a number of moderately well trained jihadists, the danger was that they would split up and go for position. A sniper with a wide field of view was the ideal tool to deal with that situation. This, though, was something very different. It should have been him down there. Not Coleman.

A shot rang out from below and a chunk of concrete shattered about two feet to Rapp’s right. The cops had finally noticed the lone gunman on the rooftop. He ignored them, keeping his rifle trained on the battle taking place inside the warehouse.

“Come on, Scott,” he repeated under his breath. “Get him up.”

As though his friend had heard, the tops of two heads suddenly rose from behind the wall. It occurred to Rapp that he’d been wrong about Coleman’s conspicuously blond hair. At that moment, it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

He immediately adjusted his aim to the darker of the two heads but was a fraction too slow. Coleman’s attacker shifted his weight and swung the SEAL left, using him as a shield against anyone looking down on them.

The scene seemed to slow down and every detail came into razor-sharp focus. Coleman’s right arm was useless, hanging at a grotesque angle in its socket. Beyond that and the knife sticking from his side, it was impossible to assess the number or seriousness of his wounds. There was just too much blood.

His attacker, by contrast, appeared to be uninjured from the fall and in complete control. He had Coleman by the shirt and was lifting him up while simultaneously ducking down, further reducing Rapp’s line of sight to him.

His actions made it likely that he’d been tipped off that there was a sniper on the roof north of him. In the same situation, Rapp would twist a little farther and drop onto his back, pulling Coleman down on top of him. Done correctly, it would drive the knife the rest of the way in and provide cover from a shooter controlling the high ground.

Clearly the man had come to exactly the same conclusion. He continued to turn, beginning to disappear behind the plywood wall with Coleman in tow. Rapp knew that if he lost sight of them without acting, his friend was a dead man.

He adjusted his aim slightly and squeezed the trigger. Maslick’s meticulously dialed-in rifle bucked against his shoulder and the crack of one of the most critical shots he’d ever fired assaulted his eardrums.

As planned, the round missed both men, instead shattering what was left of the office window they were standing in front of. Shards slammed into the back of Coleman’s head and stuck there. The ones that didn’t, though, sprayed into the face of his opponent.

The man shoved Coleman back, slamming him into the window frame and dropping out of sight. Rapp watched his friend slowly slide down and fired a pattern around him. The tango would be trying to get behind the desk and kick through what was left of the flimsy rear wall. From there he’d have enough cover to reach the rear exit.

“Mas, you’ve got a man heading for the back door. Bloody face, nice suit. Kill the motherfucker.”

“There are a lot of civilians back here and I gave you my rifle,” came the response. “I have the door gun. How big a mess do you want me to make?”

Rapp swore under his breath. There was no way they could open up on a crowded street with a weapon like that. In one of the most anti-American countries in the world, it would be seen as an act of war.

“Belay my last order,” Rapp said through clenched teeth. “Let him go.”

“You want our people to try to follow him?”

Hell yes, he did. More than anything. He wanted them to track him to his safe house and then he wanted to kick down the door and look into his eyes before splattering his brains all over the wall. But one of his people was already down. That was enough.

“Negative. No one gets anywhere near this guy. Is that understood?”

“Copy that. We’re letting him walk.”

Another shot came from below, this time hissing past his right ear. Rapp turned and fired five rounds in rapid succession, each one coming within inches of one of the five armed men in the street. They all scrambled for cover as Rapp turned and ran crouched toward a sturdy-looking ventilation pipe.

He tied the end of the rope still running through his harness around the base and then played out some slack. With the guns below still silent, he ran toward the edge of the roof, launching himself over the low wall bordering it and into the air. The rope caught him with a spine-wrenching jerk about fifteen feet down. He released his brake hand and dropped the rest of the way, hitting the concrete rolling, and coming to his knees behind a parked car.

“I’m on the ground and heading for the warehouse,” he said into his throat mike.

“Copy that,” Maslick came back. “I see you. The front’s locked and you’ve got a lot of company out there. Scott got in through the alley on the southeast side.”

“Copy.”

Rapp came up over the hood of the car and fired a few more well-placed rounds, punching holes in the vehicles, walls, and street signs the Pakistanis were using for cover. Nothing close enough to cause injuries, but plenty close to get everyone thinking about just how important their job was to them.

Despite the hundreds of garbage bags rotting in the heat, the entrance wasn’t hard to find. The lock had already been shattered by Coleman’s Sig, so Rapp pushed the door open and slipped though.

Predictably, the shooting started almost immediately. Automatic fire stitched a line of holes in the wall above, forcing him to stay low in the shadows. He moved right and dropped to the floor, landing exactly where Coleman had, based on the marks in the dust.

The HK rifle rounds impacted a hell of a lot harder than his Glock, so he didn’t bother going for his normal head shot. The first tango took a round to the chest, flipping backward over the crate he was standing in front of and disappearing behind it. The second was hit in the ribs and dropped like a bag of rocks when both lungs and his heart were punctured.

Rapp sprinted for the demolished office at the heart of the building. Coleman was lying on his back in the debris from the collapsed roof and shattered windows. His eyes were open but he didn’t so much as twitch when Rapp dropped the rifle next to him.

“Mitch,” Maslick said over his earpiece, “give me a sitrep.”

“I took out two tangos. They look like the last ones. Scott’s down. Stand by.”

“Down? Is he all right?”

“I said to fucking stand by.”

He pulled his Glock 30 from the fanny pack strapped around his waist and moved away from the office, crossing the shop floor while watching for movement. Once at the back, he stepped over the body of one of the men he’d shot and looked inside the open crate lying on the floor.

“I have the warhead, Mas. Drop me a cable and a box of ammo for your HK.”

“Copy that.”

Outside, the roar of the chopper intensified. Rapp threw open one of the bays and squinted against the dust being kicked up by the rotors. The civilians Maslick had been concerned about seemed to have fled, and Rapp went for the line descending from a reel in the helicopter’s open door. Weighted down with the metal ammunition box, it was easy to get hold of and he pulled it inside.

When he reached the crate, he found there was nowhere to connect the hook, only smooth steel and a garish depiction of the Pakistani flag. With no other option, he just wrapped the cable around the tail fins.

“All right,” he said into his throat mike. “Reel it in!”

The line went taut and he winced as the weapon started bouncing across the concrete floor. The CIA’s experts had told him these things were hard to set off and now he was going to find out if they were right. It hung up on the bay door for a moment and then went through, taking some of the frame with it.

“We’ve got it!” Maslick said. “And you’ve got a group of Pakistani cops and soldiers coming at you from the north. They’ve blown the lock on the front doors and are getting into position to open them.”

“Copy that. Now get that thing out of here.”

“What about you and Scott?”

“Go!” Rapp said, scooping up the ammo box and running back to Coleman. It turned out that he was still breathing, but in a shallow, labored way that Rapp had seen too many times before.

The sound of grinding metal rose up from the front of the building but he didn’t bother to look at what was causing it. Instead, he lifted Coleman into a fireman’s carry and grabbed the rifle and spare ammunition with his free hand.

The main door was nearly fully open but none of the Pakistanis were visible as he ran across the shop floor and took cover behind the same machine Coleman’s attacker had. He laid his friend on the concrete and pulled the magazine from Maslick’s rifle, quickly slapping in a fresh one as he watched the shadows of the men moving around in front.

They didn’t seem all that anxious to enter, and he used the time to dial Irene Kennedy on his satellite phone, patching it through his earpiece.

“Mitch!” she said upon picking up. “I’m getting reports of a firefight in downtown Faisalabad.”

“That’s me. Most of the terrorists are dead and Maslick’s in the air with the nuke.”

“Where are you?”

“Pinned down in a warehouse. You need to get on to the government and tell them to pull their men back. So far I’ve been shooting wide but if they move in on me I’m going to start dropping them.”

“I’ll do it right away. Where’s Scott? Is he with Joe?”

A small metal canister came sailing through the open door and bounced a few times before starting to spew tear gas.

“He’s with me. He couldn’t make it to the chopper.”

“Why? Is he injured?”

“Sooner would be better than later on that call, Irene.”

He disconnected the line and used Maslick’s rifle to shoot out some of the still-intact windows near the ceiling-more to put the fear of God into the men considering charging him than out of concern about the gas. The building was too large and well ventilated for it to have much effect.

A weak hand gripped Rapp’s leg and he looked down to see Scott Coleman’s eyes fix on him. The injured man managed to speak but when he did, a thick mix of blood and spit drooled from his mouth.

“I’m done, man. Get out of here.”

Rapp shook off memories of Stan Hurley, who had looked up at him in a similar condition a few weeks ago. The difference was that he’d been an old man dying on his own terms. Coleman wasn’t.

Rapp knew that any hint of concern or sympathy would just weaken his friend further. He was a soldier. One of the best in the world. And that’s the way he deserved to be treated.

Rapp pulled the pistol from his waistband and slapped it into Coleman’s limp hand. “Quit whining and make yourself useful.”