Order to Kill

CHAPTER 31

THE van doors slammed shut but Rapp remained motionless, lying on the steel floor with his hands secured behind him. The motor came to life and the vehicle began bouncing painfully along the dirt road that led to the missile site’s outer gate. He rolled on his side, closing his eyes to keep blood from flowing into them. Maslick had done a skillful job matching the look of Eric Jesem’s injuries without crossing the line. As near as Rapp could tell, he had no significant damage to his ribs or joints, and his eyes were badly blackened but not so swollen as to interfere with his vision. Bruising on his torso was impressive, but no obvious internal injuries or slipped disks.

On the downside, he’d lost one tooth and a few more were clearly on their way out. The damage to his nose was severe enough that he wondered if he would ever breathe out of it again. And, finally, he was bleeding badly from a cut Maslick had carved into his forehead. An admittedly artistic job, though. It matched the one Jesem had in every detail.

The van jumped onto the pavement and the ride smoothed out as it accelerated. When Rapp was certain they were past any residual guards who might want to look in on him, he pulled off his cuffs. Maslick had used the tips of Jesem’s shoelaces to jam the locking mechanisms while Rapp recovered from a slightly overzealous kick to the stomach. Low-tech but effective.

The back of the van was brutally hot, probably close to one hundred twenty Fahrenheit, with ventilation limited to a few holes drilled through the sides. Soon, though, the sun would go down and the unbearable heat would turn to bitter cold. A good twelve hours of it, if they made it to the CIA black site that was ostensibly their goal. If everything went to plan, though, his trip would last nowhere near that long.

Maslick had done a solid job of winding up Umar Shirani-better than Rapp had imagined the former soldier capable of. The general would be blind with rage at being castrated like that in front of his men, which was exactly the reaction Rapp was looking for. It was unlikely that the old soldier would let that kind of humiliation go unanswered.

At this point, though, his power to retaliate was limited. The best he could do without exposing his role was to get in touch with his contacts at ISIS and give them the route of the van carrying their American compatriot. Shirani would deny the CIA their prisoner and any information he might have.

Rapp closed his eyes and did his best to drift off despite the pain radiating from virtually every part of his body. The heat and lack of water were going to do a job on him and it was critical to conserve as much strength as he could. If he was right about what would come next, he had to maintain as much of his physical and mental capacity as possible.

• • •

Rapp awoke just as the van’s driver slammed on the brakes-a split second too late to keep from sliding forward and smashing his head. Automatic gunfire erupted a moment later and he flattened himself against the steel floor as a few errant rounds rang off the vehicle’s exterior. The barrage grew in intensity, turning deafening when the men in the cab started to return fire.

Rapp’s head was still foggy as he crawled toward the doors and retrieved the discarded handcuffs. Opening one of the shackles so that it could be used as a claw, he slithered the rest of the way toward the rear. Shouts became audible outside and he threw his arms protectively over his head as rounds stitched themselves across the vehicle’s door.

They were clearly intentional. Chutani’s men would do what they could to make sure Eric Jesem didn’t live long enough to be rescued by his ISIS companions.

Rapp heard the handle rattle and he pushed himself to his knees. A moment later, the doors were yanked open and one of Chutani’s men was there, holding a Beretta in his hand. With nothing but two feet of air separating them, this time he’d get the job done.

The pistol rose and Rapp lunged, swinging the open handcuff toward the guard’s neck. By the time they collided, though, the man was already dead-hit by a bullet that entered his right side and exited the left in a cloud of blood and bone. They landed gracelessly on the road and Rapp rolled the corpse on top of him as guns opened up from a chase car stopped twenty-five yards back. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, reducing visibility but not the temperature of the asphalt. Sticky tar penetrated his shirt, burning the skin on his back badly enough to force him to cast off the man’s body and run in a crouch for the road’s shoulder.

Bullet impacts sounded to his left and he adjusted his trajectory away from them. The blow to the head he’d suffered when the van stopped would have been enough of a disadvantage on its own. Combined with the heat and the beating he’d take from Maslick, his legs felt like they were going to collapse beneath him.

The rounds continued tracking, getting closer as Rapp ran. He cleared the edge of the road and tripped in the glare of the setting sun, slamming into a pile of jagged rocks before sliding down a steep embankment. When he stopped, he tried to get up, but his body refused to obey. Naked willpower got him to all fours, but then he collapsed and rolled onto his scorched back in the gravel.

Consciousness came and went as the sound of the battle raged around him. Gunfire. Shouts. The screams of the wounded. When he finally managed to open his eyes, he saw the silhouettes of armed men standing over him. One of them unwrapped the scarf hiding his face before putting a bottle of water to Rapp’s split lips.

“What have they done to you, brother?”