Order to Kill

CHAPTER 5

NEAR MASERU

LESOTHO

RAPP tried to wrench himself into a more comfortable position as he squinted into the light bleeding through the trunk lid. His hands were taped behind him, making it impossible to see his watch, but the fact that the sun was coming up suggested that he’d been crammed into the tiny space for a good ten hours. Karmic payback for all the people he’d stuffed into similar trunks over his career.

The road had become noticeably worse over the last hour and the vehicle dropped into yet another rut, ramming his head into what was probably a lug wrench. By his count, it was the twelfth time that had happened, and with every repeat, his anger grew.

Rapp knew pretty much everything there was to know about the shooter he’d found on that cliff face. His name was Steve Thompson, though these days he answered to Kent Black. Apparently he felt the new name gave him more gravitas. His father had been an abusive survivalist who years ago had taken his young son to a remote corner of Montana in preparation for the end of the world.

They’d lived there with no electricity or running water for a little over ten years before the old man suddenly disappeared. No body or evidence of foul play was ever found. In all likelihood, it had been the first demonstration of his son’s unusual talents.

With little formal schooling and nowhere to go, Thompson had gotten his GED and joined the army. He’d eventually become a Ranger and seen a fair amount of combat in the Middle East. After eight years of that, he’d finally been drummed out for insubordination. There had been no specific incident that stood out. Just a general distaste for authority that he couldn’t be bothered to hide.

It had been an interesting enough resume to land on Rapp’s desk but he’d decided there were too many red flags. The issues with authority were only the tip of the iceberg. Thompson was a talented operator but a loner to the point of being a guy you wouldn’t necessarily be able to count on when the shit hit the fan. And then there were the sociopathic tendencies, the potential beginnings of a cocaine problem, and the fact that he’d likely murdered his own father. There was no question the old bastard had it coming, but it brought into question where the kid’s boundaries were. Or if he had any at all.

The accomplice who had helped wedge Rapp into his present accommodation was more enigmatic. Judging by his accent, probably Iraqi. Early twenties with a thick beard and the wild eyes that Rapp had come to associate with ISIS.

An interesting pair, to say the least: the young American mercenary with well-documented sociopathic tendencies matched with an even younger member of a jihadist movement that wasn’t in the habit of hiring contractors-particularly American ones.

The car skidded to a stop and Rapp rolled toward the front, slamming his head into the lug wrench again. The trunk flew open a few moments later and he turned away from the bright sunlight as the Iraqi grabbed him by the hair and dragged him out. The stream of Arabic insults was nonstop and he likely assumed that Rapp wouldn’t be able to comprehend it. When the terrorist got around to Mitch’s mother, though, Rapp swung a foot into the side of his leg, dropping him to his knees. A follow-up kick landed between his shoulder blades and put his face into the rear bumper.

“Stop!”

Rapp turned toward Thompson and looked down the silencer of his own gun. One of his least favorite things to do.

Blood was gushing from the Arab’s nose as he leapt to his feet and prepared to charge, but Thompson shifted the weapon toward him. “I said stop! Both of you.”

Rapp just turned and started walking toward the only building in sight.

“Wait!”

He ignored the man, using the time to take in his surroundings. The mountains were less rocky than those around Franschhoek and everything was green. Despite the clear sky and sun angling in from the east, the air didn’t hold much heat, suggesting a significant increase in altitude. More interesting was the building itself. Windowless and constructed entirely of cinder block, its purpose was painted on it in faded red letters: Mortuary.

Thompson and the bleeding Arab fell in behind as Rapp pushed through a heavy wooden door.

The room was probably twenty-five feet square, with the woman and the girl he’d come to Africa to help sitting on a collapsing sofa at the far end. Claudia looked understandably distraught, while Anna was nearly catatonic. They were guarded by an armed Arab who looked just as crazy as the one dripping onto the floor by the entrance.

Finally, there was a coffin in the center of the room containing the emaciated corpse of a man who looked to have been about thirty when he died. Whether the condition of the body was from the illness that killed him or the fact that he’d just gotten a little dried out was hard to tell. At least he didn’t smell.

Claudia stood and started toward Rapp but the man guarding her swung his rifle butt into her chest hard enough to knock her to the floor. Anna came to life, darting for her mother and landing beside her, crying loudly. Rapp felt his anger flare but there wasn’t a lot he could do with his hands secured behind his back.

Claudia looked more scared than hurt and she pulled her daughter back to the sofa, keeping a watchful eye on the man screaming about crushing her skull and raping her dead body before doing the same to Anna. Fortunately, French and English were her only languages and she had no idea what was being said.

“Move,” Thompson said, indicating a door to the left. With few other options, Rapp entered what appeared to be an embalming room.

“Sit.”

He did as he was told and Thompson used more tape to secure him to the chair. When he was satisfied with his handiwork, he dumped Rapp’s gun and other personal effects on a metal gurney next to a body in the process of being prepared for burial.

“He’s secure?”

Rapp looked toward the door and examined the man who had appeared in it. The accent was unquestionably Russian and his appearance confirmed that. About six feet, weighing in at a soft two fifty. A few tattoos with Cyrillic writing were visible beneath the thick black hair on his arms.

“Yeah. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Then get the fuck out.”

Thompson closed the door behind him as the Russian walked to the gurney and started going through items on it. He admired the Glock for a few seconds before starting to paw through Rapp’s wallet.

“Mitch Kruse?”

“That’s me.”

The man let out a short laugh and picked up Rapp’s phone, staring down at the screen for a moment. “What is this? It says granite.”

That woman just wouldn’t give up.

“It’s a type of rock.”

The Russian rushed forward and slammed a fist into the side of Rapp’s face. “I speak English! What does it mean? Is it a code word?”

Rapp worked his jaws around. No serious damage but the guy had a punch. “It means I need kitchen counters, Ivan. Do me a favor and pick one.”

He swung again but this time Rapp managed to duck his head enough to get the blow to glance off.

“You will give me the truth!” the man screamed. He paused, letting an arrogant smile spread across his face. “Mr. Rapp.”

“Pretty pleased with yourself, aren’t you, Ivan?”

“My name is not Ivan!”

“Sorry. What is it?”

“I am asking the questions,” he shouted, this time swinging a fist into Rapp’s stomach. “How did you get here so quickly?”

“I swam.”

The man glanced suggestively at the door that led to Claudia and Anna. “Are you sure you want that to be your answer?”

Normally, Rapp would just clam up during an interrogation. It was the best way to hold out. But he needed to get this moron talking.

“You got me, Ivan. Gulfstream G550.”

“Stop calling me that!” the man said angrily.

“Then introduce yourself.”

The Russian grabbed a scalpel from next to the body and held it so it flashed in the overhead lights. “I suggest you start taking my questions seriously.”

Rapp decided to mix it up and feigned a hint of fear. “Okay, okay. I have a personal relationship with the woman and got a tip someone was coming to kill her.”

Of course, the intel was actually that kidnapping was the play, but the intentional error would goad this idiot.

“From who?”

“An informant in St. Petersburg. You should have covered your tracks better.”

“Your informant knows nothing,” the man said, clearly anxious to prove that he was the smartest guy in the room.

“The people who hired you had dealings with her husband,” Rapp offered. “This is just some piece of dumbass revenge.”

“You rely too heavily on bad intelligence, Mr. Rapp. I was just to take the woman and the child to Afghanistan. To lead you on a chase around the world for the next two weeks before killing them.”

This guy was way too easy. Certainly not Russian intelligence. If he were, Rapp would already be on a plane to Moscow, where he’d either get traded back to the U.S. or spend the next five years being wrung for everything he knew about America’s intelligence capability.

No, this dipshit had the look of one of the many organized criminals that ran roughshod over the former Soviet Union. Not the stupidest-looking one Rapp had ever met, but then the bar wasn’t all that high.

“You’re lying,” Rapp said, calculating the best way to keep the conversation going. It was obvious that the Russian was enjoying showing off that he knew more than the Agency. “I know how this goes. You’re trying to confuse me. It’s not going to work. What would be the point of taking them halfway around the world?”

The man turned back to the gurney and exchanged the scalpel for a saw. The way his eyes shifted suggested that he didn’t know. Whoever was pulling his strings wasn’t stupid enough to tell him any more than he needed to know.

Not that it mattered. There was only one answer that fit. This wasn’t about Claudia. It was about distracting him and getting him out of Pakistan.

“My employers deemed it too risky to try to kill you.”

While there was probably some truth to that, Rapp doubted it was the whole story. More likely his employers recognized that killing him went only so far toward damaging the CIA’s Pakistan operation. What they were counting on was that he’d pull Scott Coleman and his team out of Islamabad to help find Claudia. And they were right. If he hadn’t gotten the tip and instead showed up to find that Claudia had been snatched by a couple ISIS pricks, he would have wanted his top people in on the hunt.

“It appears that they very much overestimated you,” the Russian continued.

“I get that a lot.”

He used the flexible metal saw to smack Rapp across the face, leaving a serrated cut across his cheek. There seemed to have been no purpose to the blow. He did it just because he could.

More and more, Rapp was starting to suspect that this wasn’t actually an interrogation. The Russian was trying to decide what to do. He could hand Rapp over to his employers and reap the rewards or he could keep Rapp and use whatever information he could beat out of him for his own benefit.

“I’m worth a lot to my government,” Rapp said, trying to keep him on the hook. “They’ll pay to get me back.”

The man didn’t respond for a long time, staring down at his own reflection in the saw. “I don’t think the rewards would be equal to what I can get from my own employer.”

It sounded like he was coming to a decision. Time was running out.

“Whoever you work for, they’re not the U.S.A. What can they give you?” Rapp said, trying to get some clue as to who was behind this. “We’ll match it.”

“You’re bound by the law. My employer isn’t. Money, of course. But young girls? Drugs? An estate filled with stolen masterworks befitting an oligarch?”

Interesting, but not that helpful. In Russia it was hard to tell where the government stopped and organized crime started. You could probably find someone at the Moscow DMV to provide those things if the price was right.

“You seem like more a dogs-playing-poker guy to me.”

The saw flashed again, this time leaving a jagged cut on his other cheek. Rapp could feel the blood trickling through his beard and then dripping into the open collar of his shirt.

“That’s starting to get old, Ivan.”

“It’s nothing compared to what my employer will do to you. He’ll keep you alive for years, extracting everything. You’ll spend your days begging to be killed and your nights chained naked to a bare concrete floor. There will be nothing left of you but a frightened, broken old man.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a satellite phone. That was it. He was going to call it in a sitrep. Shame. He had to be one of the most talkative interrogators in history.

Rapp reached into the tape binding him and peeled off a shard of razor blade that was right where it was supposed to be. The Russian dialed as he started slicing.

Rapp’s knee was partially locked when he finally stood. Ten years ago a few hours in a trunk wouldn’t have affected him but now the wear and tear was starting to add up.

The Russian froze for a split second when he saw that his prisoner was free and then threw the saw before running for the door. The blade passed a good foot to Rapp’s right and he just stood there stretching his back as the Russian jerked open the door and shouted for Thompson’s help.

In the room beyond, the young contractor was standing over the bodies of the two Arabs. Claudia had Anna on her lap, holding her tight and trying to keep her quiet.

The Russian retreated to the far wall, watching wide-eyed as Rapp retrieved his Glock and walked through the door, kneeling in front of Claudia and running a hand affectionately through Anna’s hair.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could have spared you this.”

Claudia shook her head, tears flowing past the streaks of dried ones on her cheeks. “Please don’t, Mitch. Don’t ever tell me you’re sorry. We’d be dead many times over without you. I don’t deserve any of the things you’ve done for me.”

Rapp fished a set of keys from the pocket of one of the dead men. “Wait in the car. I’ll be out in a little while.”

He and Thompson watched her go before turning their attention back to the man pressed against the wall of the embalming room.

“But…” he stammered, pointing at the young contractor. “You’ve been paid! We had an agreement!”

His confusion was understandable. Killers of Thompson’s caliber rarely betrayed their customers. At best it was bad for business. At worst it could be deadly.

“I’m not an idiot,” Thompson said. “I work in a pretty exclusive profession, Ilya. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize Louis Gould’s wife and daughter? And that I wouldn’t know Mitch has a history with them? What do you think he was going to do after you were finished leading him around on his wild goose chase? He was going to hunt me down and put a bullet in my head.”

“Gould? I… I didn’t know!”

“Yeah, well, whoever you’re working for did. And since they were setting me up, I figured I’d give Mitch a call and return the favor.”