Order to Kill

CHAPTER 47

AL-SHIRQAT

IRAQ

“SHIT!” Rapp said, staring down at the phone’s screen. He’d never reestablished contact with Kennedy and now the signal had disappeared. By his calculation exactly eight hours after it came on.

“Is everything all right?” Laleh asked, coming out of the kitchen. She had spent the last hours cooking every MRE in Eric Jesem’s collection, sampling each with infuriatingly fatalistic pleasure.

“The jamming’s started again.”

“Oh, that,” she said dismissively. “I’ve just made jambalaya. It’s not as good as the chicken and rice, but you should have some.”

Her expression was impossible to read. The apartment had turned gloomy with the setting of the sun, putting her face in the shadow of her dark hair.

“I wanted to set up an extraction for you, Laleh. But it’s not going to be possible.”

“No. Of course not.”

“It’s time for you to get out of here,” he said, holding out the phone. “Go to your brothers and tell them to take you east toward the Iranian border. That’s your best bet for a signal. When you can, dial the last number in the registry and tell the woman who you are. She’ll help you.”

“My brothers won’t leave. They’re not as strong as you, but they can still fight for their home.”

“Then go there and stay with them.”

“I told you, my presence would be too dangerous.”

“It will be worse if you don’t. They’ll try to rescue you again. And take it from me, they’re not cut out for that kind of work.”

“I’m twenty-two years old and no longer a virgin. I doubt I’m worth much more than a pack of cigarettes. But even if I was, I don’t think that will be my fate. No. There will be no attempt to rescue me this time.”

Rapp knew she was right. The auctioneer she’d partially blinded would take her and immediately put her to death by the most painful means possible.

“Then just leave. Better to die trying to save yourself than waiting for death to walk through the door.”

She had a beautiful smile, even in the semidarkness. “A woman alone? You know this place as well as I do, Mitch. It’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible, Laleh.”

“And how would you explain my absence?”

“I’ll come up with something.”

“You could say I escaped but Mustafa wouldn’t believe you. And if he did, he would begin to question his decision to allow you to go on this mission. Your only other alternative would be to say that you sold me, but I think he would be interested in to whom, no? He might kill you. Then the people you’re trying to save will be lost. And for what? The small chance that I can make it hundreds of miles through ISIS territory and call your friend to be rescued? I don’t want your blood on my hands. Or my brothers’. Or anyone else’s.”

Rapp was accustomed to being in charge. To solving problems quickly and permanently. Now he found himself standing in front of this girl with no solution to offer.

“Come,” Laleh said. “The jambalaya is getting cold.”

She disappeared back into the kitchen but Rapp remained motionless, trying to find a way out for her. Finally, he followed and sat at the table, watching her eat. When the inevitable sound of a fist against the door finally started, she didn’t even seem to notice.

He walked into the outer room and opened it, taking a step back as three men entered. Mustafa had come personally, something Eric Jesem would have seen as a great honor if he hadn’t been rotting in a Pakistani garbage chute.

“It’s time,” the general said.

Gaffar hadn’t asked for his gun back and Rapp hadn’t offered. It was now stuffed into his waistband near the small of his back. He could put all three men down in less than a second, get supplies from Laleh’s brothers, and steal a truck. Let Saudi Arabia and the world deal with their own problems.

“Where’s the girl?” Mustafa asked.

“I’m here,” Laleh said, appearing from the kitchen. She still had a bit of what Rapp suspected was chili on the side of her mouth.

Mustafa indicated toward one of his men, who grabbed her by the arm. She didn’t resist when he began dragging her toward the door.

“I’ve negotiated a very good price for you from Zaid Salib-the man she blinded. There was no amount of money he wasn’t willing to part with in order to once again possess-”

“Pig!” Laleh shouted as she was dragged past the general. Something flashed in her hand and Mustafa suddenly fell silent. An expression of confusion crossed his face as he looked down at the knife hilt protruding from his stomach.

The man holding Laleh jerked her back with a startled shout, while the other lowered the general to the floor. Despite the considerable width of the chef’s knife and the depth it had penetrated, Mustafa was still capable of speech. His voice was barely a whisper, but Rapp could make out enough to know that he was ordering the man kneeling over him to get someone named Najjar. Likely a doctor they had imprisoned somewhere.

Rapp looked up and focused on the girl. She met his gaze and fought to keep it as she was wrestled through the door. For the first time in their short relationship, her eyes were full of fear. Rapp pulled the Smith & Wesson from his waistband and when he took aim, that fear turned to tranquility.

The round struck her directly in the heart and she crumpled to the ground with an arm still gripped in her captor’s hand.

Expressionless, Rapp looked down at her body for what was probably too long. It had always bothered his late wife that he could sleep so well after everything he’d done. She would be happy to know that those days were likely over.

The man next to Mustafa leapt to his feet and Rapp shoved him roughly back. Weakness was not an admired trait in this part of the world. Mustafa’s injury at the hands of a woman and his pathetic demands for medical attention were undermining what little authority he had left. That created a power vacuum Rapp could use.

“The general has been martyred. Leave him. We have God’s work to do.”

The man still holding Laleh’s arm gave a short nod and translated for his companion. A moment later both were retreating down the stairs. Before Rapp followed, he knelt next to the man now begging for help in breathless English.

Leaning into the Iraqi’s ear, he spoke quietly.

“How do you like spirited women now?”