Order to Kill

CHAPTER 40

NEAR JIWANI

PAKISTAN

THE man piloting the truck was going too fast, but trying to impose reasonable driving habits on the people of this region was an exercise in futility. Grisha Azarov gripped the wooden crate he was perched atop and tightened the scarf protecting his lungs from the dust.

The young men seated around him seemed to be enjoying their journey through Western Pakistan on the open flatbed. Neither the spine-crushing jolts nor the oppressive heat seemed sufficient to dampen their spirits.

All were members of ISIS, selected by Maxim Krupin for their desirable qualities. They were obviously young and strong. Beyond those traits and their deep well of enthusiasm, though, Azarov wasn’t sure what made them so exceptional.

The truck came around a corner at a speed that caused the load to list dangerously. The crates, filled mostly with goods to be traded along the Gulf, had been stacked more than four meters high. Azarov clung to one of the ropes securing the load as the vehicle rocked onto two wheels. He found himself almost hoping for a well-timed wind gust. It would be a fitting end to this twisted enterprise: him lying among the injured ISIS men surrounded by bolts of cloth, canned food, and the fissile material stolen from Pakistan’s arsenal.

They crested a hill and the Gulf of Oman became visible in the distance, a blinding mirror under the powerful desert sun. The men around him began to talk excitedly, but he spoke only rudimentary Arabic and had no idea what they were saying.

It was one of the many reasons he should have been a thousand miles from this place. His experience in the Middle East was almost entirely a function of his life as an energy consultant. He was intimately familiar with the region’s high-end hotel suites, conference centers, and European-style restaurants. Occasionally, he would be taken to a new extraction facility in the back of an air-conditioned SUV-usually one equipped with a bar.

His mind drifted from the task at hand to his future-a subject that he had never given much thought to until a few weeks ago. Would Krupin really release him? It would be the most reasonable course of action, and the Russian president could generally be counted on to take that path when it was in his best interest. There were a number of notable exceptions, though. Some of which Azarov had been personally involved in.

It would be easy to make the mistake of attributing Krupin’s obsession with power entirely to his desire for survival. This was not necessarily the case. There were times when the Russian politician took significant risks to punish some irrelevant apparatchik or low-level criminal who dared to defy him. There was never any profit in it, only an opportunity for Krupin to exercise his rage and sense of superiority.

Would this be one of those instances?

Azarov had served the Russian president for so long that it was hard to remember the modest farmer and soldier he once was. When they’d first met, Krupin had seemed like a god. Bold and cunning, worldly and well educated. Azarov was dazzled-overwhelmed, really-by the man. He’d wanted what Krupin had. To be respected and feared by great men. To wield power and wealth with the same thoughtless ease. To become a man who commanded the attention of the world.

Now, though, he wanted none of those things. And he had learned to see Maxim Krupin for what he was: a desperate and ultimately weak man whose legacy could be only destruction, because it was all he knew.

The truck finally came to a stop where the dirt road disappeared into a sandy beach. A three-masted dhow was anchored just offshore, its angled stern and tapered bow bobbing in the light chop. The men around him immediately got to work, some jumping to the ground and others beginning to free the truck’s cargo. Azarov climbed down one of the straps and stood in the shade of the teetering load, gazing across the water toward Oman.

Was Mitch Rapp on the far shore, staring back from a similar beach? Russian intelligence had managed to pick him up at the hospital where Scott Coleman was being treated, but the fools had then promptly lost him. There were reports that he’d been near Bhakkar, but Krupin’s agents had only been able to confirm the presence of Joe Maslick.

A confrontation with Rapp was inevitable, but Azarov didn’t want it to be here in the blinding sun and oppressive heat. These were Rapp’s conditions. In some ways, his home. Azarov would prefer to lure him to northern Russia-somewhere cold, dark, and closed in, where the advantage would be his.

The captain of the dhow waded ashore and pointed at him, shouting something in Arabic. While Azarov didn’t understand the words, the meaning was clear: Get to work unloading the truck.

The man had no idea who he was talking to, but he was right. There was no point in attracting attention by standing in the shade while the others ferried crates to the boat. Azarov walked to the back and one of his men pointed to a box marked with a subtle red X. He stacked another on top of it and the Russian lifted them, wading into the water before wedging his cargo into a large inner tube.

He started toward the starboard side of the boat, walking as far as he could before being forced to cling to the side of the tube and kick. He was about ten meters out when he saw a shadow moving in the water beneath him. The diver rose up from the darkness and pulled the marked box through the bottom of the tube. The procedure was even smoother than Azarov had anticipated, resulting in nothing more than minor bobbing. If there had been anyone on shore watching, it was unlikely they would have noticed anything unusual. If the Americans were watching from above, they would be utterly blind to what had happened.

Azarov continued forward as the diver descended to a hidden container attached to the hull.

Once fully loaded, the dhow would take him and his men into the Persian Gulf, where they would unload their smuggled cargo on a remote Saudi beach. It was an uncomfortable and slow mode of transportation, but one unlikely to attract attention.

Azarov arrived at the boat and two men climbed down a cargo net to take the remaining crate off his tube. Once they had it, he swam back toward shore to get another load.

In a few days it would all be over. He would return to Costa Rica and in the worldwide chaos that ensued, he would finally be forgotten.