Order to Kill

CHAPTER 50

RIYADH

SAUDI ARABIA

A VIOLENT gust slammed into the chopper when it was only ten feet off the ground, sending it toward a series of aircraft lined up on the tarmac. Rapp braced himself as the pilot barely missed some Saudi asshole’s Learjet and set the bird down with a surprising lack of drama.

“Thanks for the ride, Fred,” Rapp said before removing his helmet and going for the open door.

“No problem,” Mason shouted over the sound of the rotors. “Between this and Pakistan, Irene’s gonna send my daughter to grad school.”

Rapp jumped out, clutching the Toughbook he’d taken from Mihran. Ahead, a white SUV was barreling toward him on the runway.

It lurched to a stop a few yards away and a young man in the uniform of a spec ops officer exited. He took a few steps but then stopped short. The abruptness of it seemed odd, but then Rapp remembered what he must look like. The battered face had been bad enough, but now the bottom of Eric Jesem’s pants were splattered with the story of Mihran’s last moments on earth. In fact, there was still a dried piece of his scalp, complete with hair, stuck to the top of Rapp’s boot. In retrospect, he probably should have scraped that off.

“Mr. Rapp?” the man said, sounding a bit uncertain. Undoubtedly, he’d heard endless stories about the CIA operative and what he saw before him didn’t match the image he’d built up in his mind.

“Take me to King Faisal,” Rapp said in Arabic, passing by the young officer and climbing into the back of the SUV.

“I’m afraid he’s not available,” the man said, taking a seat next to Rapp and slamming the door closed behind him. “I’m Captain Bazzi. I’ve been instructed to take you to your hotel, where you’ll be met by the government’s representative in this matter.”

“Prince Abdullah?” Rapp said. He despised the Saudi security chief with an intensity that he reserved for only world-class scumbags. Every time he got close to the man, he could barely keep himself from snapping his neck.

“No, sir. But one of his most trusted men. My commander, Colonel Wasem.”

Rapp examined the young man through swollen eyes. “The royals have all skipped the country, haven’t they, Captain?”

“They’re busy men, sir. A number of them had important matters to attend to in Europe.”

Rapp nodded and looked out the window as the SUV accelerated. No big surprise. They’d be lying around their yachts waiting for him to make the place safe for their pampered asses again. And if he failed, they’d probably never return. Instead, they’d live out their lives in Monaco, Beverly Hills, and London, while their country was overrun.

• • •

His hotel suite was predictably gaudy-the product of a Middle Eastern decorator with too much money to spend. Rapp strode across it, his impatience turning to anger when he realized no one was there to meet him.

“We’ve set up a secure computer and satellite phone on the desk for your use,” Bazzi said. “Clean clothing is on the bed.”

“Where’s Colonel Wasem?”

“My understanding is that he’s on his way. He thought that you’d want to contact your people for an update before he arrived.”

Rapp didn’t bother to hide his contempt. There was little doubt that Wasem was somewhere in the hotel waiting for Rapp to use one of the communication devices he’d been provided. All of which were guaranteed to be compromised.

“There’s food on the table. Do you need medical assistance? I can have a doctor-”

“What I need is Wasem. And for you to have five spec ops teams in choppers ready to fly.”

“Yes, sir. We have people standing by, waiting for the colonel’s orders.”

Rapp pointed to the door and Bazzi took the hint, moving quickly toward it. When he was gone, Rapp lifted the sterling silver cover off a plate set up on a rolling cart. Underneath, he found a bacon-wrapped filet with all the trimmings. Not something you saw every day in a Muslim country. He grabbed it in one hand and carefully gnawed an end off with his undamaged teeth, chewing painfully as he used the Saudi computer to start a download from an innocuous commercial website Marcus Dumond had set up.

Next up was Mihran’s Toughbook. It came to life when he opened it, but now there was just a black screen requesting a password. Dumond had already gotten control and locked it out.

Rapp sat on the desk with his back to the wall in order to thwart the cameras that were undoubtedly watching. His main Agency password was rejected, as were a number of secondary passwords he used for access to CIA front companies. It took almost ten tries, but he finally made it past the security screen. Dumond had used the password to Rapp’s personal bank account. Little hacker punk.

The screen refreshed and Rapp looked down at four dots floating across a map of Saudi Arabia. All were west of Al Hofuf, spreading out through the country’s main oil-producing region. The ISIS teams were staying off main thoroughfares and even appeared to be avoiding secondary unpaved roads used by Aramco, sacrificing speed for the anonymity of the open desert.

Rapp locked down the Toughbook again and checked the progress of his download on the Saudi laptop. Six minutes left to finish. Just enough time.

He grabbed a few potatoes and headed for the bathroom. Before stripping, he turned on the shower and piled the food in the empty soapdish. His face was obviously on the mend, because the hot water hitting it produced little more than an intense sting. He lathered up his sweat-matted hair, occasionally retrieving food from the soap dish and cramming it in his mouth. As near as he could tell, the teeth he was going to lose were already gone. A few borderline ones had tightened up enough to make the potatoes no problem. The steak was going down in partially chewed chunks.

Rapp allowed himself four minutes before stepping out and going for the suite’s main bedroom. A meticulously pressed desert camo uniform had been laid out for him along with a Glock 19, shoulder holster, and a few extra mags. No silencer, but still, the young captain was starting to grow on him.

The download was complete when he came back out, and he rebooted the Saudi computer. Dumond’s program would disable the operating system and replace it with one he’d designed for one purpose only: security.

Rapp slid up on the desk again, pulling a wired headset over his ear and connecting the computer to the hotel’s Wi-Fi. Everything coming in and out of it was now heavily encrypted and bouncing all over the world. Further, Dumond’s operating system had no ability to save anything. If you received an email and needed information from it, the only recourse was to take a picture of the screen or copy it down on a piece of paper.

Rapp launched a phone app and dialed Kennedy’s private number. Not surprisingly, she picked up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s Mitch.”

“My understanding is that you’ve arrived in Riyadh.”

“Yeah. What’s Marcus been able to find on the Toughbook?”

“Not much more than you did, I’m afraid. Its only real capability appears to be to track the ISIS teams-three more of which have come online since you’ve been out of contact.”

“So no information on the teams’ final destinations?” Rapp asked.

“None. We do have projections from our people, though, and I think they’re going to be fairly close. Krupin would be working off the same weather and geological data we have. Marcus is almost done integrating all that information into the map on the Toughbook. In the meantime, I’m sending overhead photos of the areas we think they’ll target. We can’t reliably narrow it down to anything much less than a one-mile radius, but we’re fairly confident at that resolution.”

A moment later one of the photos she’d promised flashed onscreen. It depicted a nondescript area of desert with a longitude and latitude printed at the bottom. He scrolled through four similar pictures before landing on one depicting a massive tangle of gleaming pipes and tanks.

“Is this an oil refinery?”

“Abandoned production facility. It’s right in the middle of those targets.”

Rapp nodded silently. “Have you found the man who attacked Scott?”

“We know he’s a former Russian soldier who goes by the name Grisha Azarov. Have you heard of him?”

The name rang a bell, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. After a few seconds it came to him. “That Russian mobster in Africa. Before he died he said something. That Grisha was going to come for me.”

“I don’t know if that’s true, but what I can tell you is that we don’t have a current location on him.”

“He’s there,” Rapp said. “At the production facility.”

“It’s a possibility we’ve considered. Our people agree that it would be an ideal command post. It’s centrally located and provides shelter from the wind as well as a place to set up equipment. The question is whether Krupin would send his man personally.”

“My gut says he would. This operation is too important and has too many moving parts to trust it to a bunch of ISIS idiots.”

“I tend to agree.” She paused for a moment. “Mitch, Scott’s going to make a full recovery and my understanding is that Joe injured you fairly seriously.”

“Your point?”

“I don’t want you going up against this man. Not now.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Don’t patronize me, Mitch. I’m serious about-”

As Rapp had been expecting, the door at the far end of the suite suddenly burst open. He disconnected the call as four armed men rushed him. Two aimed their U.S.-supplied weapons at his head while the others snatched the laptop from his hands and the Toughbook from the desk next to him.

Once the room was secured, a man wearing the uniform of a Saudi army colonel strode through the door. Bazzi was right behind, with an even younger man who had the unmistakable look of a computer tech.

“What took you so long?” Rapp said.

Bazzi gave a weak smile but Wasem just pointed to the computers now sitting next to what was left of Rapp’s lunch. The hacker knelt and went to work on the Saudi-supplied laptop.

“The operating system has been bypassed, Colonel. There is a telephone application on-screen but the call has been disconnected.”

“Who was the recipient of the call?” Wasem asked.

“There is no record.”

“What do you mean no record?”

“This operating system appears to be exclusive to the CIA. I assume that all information is permanently wiped the moment it’s no longer necessary.”

The young man moved to the Toughbook and woke the screen. “This computer is password-protected, sir.”

Wasem turned his attention to Rapp. “What’s the password?”

“Don’t waste my time, Colonel.”

“I don’t think you understand your position,” Wasem said, pulling his sidearm and aiming it at Rapp. “My country is under nuclear threat and you’re withholding the information I need to protect it.”

Rapp slid off the desk and walked over to the table containing the computers. Instead of reaching for one, he grabbed a stalk of asparagus and took a bite off the end. “Am I supposed to be afraid?”

“Colonel,” Bazzi intervened, “the Americans are our closest allies. Surely, Mr. Rapp is going to do everything in his power to help us. He wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Rapp finished the asparagus and reached for another, using it to point at Wasem. “Here’s how this is going to work, Colonel. You’re going to get five attack choppers in the air. No missiles. Just guns. The people we’re going after are carrying dirty bombs and I don’t need you doing their work for them. When your men are in the air, I’ll give them targets. But no one attacks until I give the order.”

“So you’ll be here, directing things from the safety of your hotel suite?” Wasem mocked.

“No, I’ll be in a helicopter of my own on my way to take out the man running the operation.”

“Out of the question. You’re to give me all the intelligence you have, immediately. I will handle this personally.”

“Colonel,” Bazzi interjected again, “perhaps we could go with Mr. Rapp and supervise the operation from the field? That would-”

“Shut up, Captain! If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

“You should listen to your man,” Rapp said. “Because if those birds aren’t in the air soon, you’re going to spend the rest of your short life explaining to King Faisal why he doesn’t have a country anymore.”