The Survivor

CHAPTER 57

Scott Coleman was standing in the plane’s aisle, shouting into a satellite phone as he struggled to maintain his balance in the turbulence. The CIA pilot was more conservative than the Russian who had flown them to Irena Shulyov’s camp and had wanted to fly around the storm. Rapp quickly made it clear that they were taking the shortest route — the only question was who was at the controls.

Coleman finally turned off the phone and tossed it onto an empty seat. “Four dead including the girl who was shot. Everyone else is stabilized and the team’s getting ready to take the sleds to Ukhta. They’ll be back stateside tomorrow morning.”

Rapp nodded. Pavel Katdsyn’s people — particularly the children — had been in bad shape. He’d left McGraw and Wick to save as many as they could. Whatever was going to go down in Islamabad, it wouldn’t be a frontal assault on the heavily guarded presidential palace. The difference between him having three men and one wasn’t going to matter.

“Get some sleep, Scott.”

The former SEAL thumbed back at their prisoner. “You don’t want help?”

“I’ve got it.”

Coleman retreated to a sofa mid-plane and fell onto it, nodding off almost immediately. The ability to rest whenever possible was stressed in special forces training, and it was a lesson Coleman had learned well. Unfortunately, sleep wasn’t an option for Rapp. He was on a laptop paging through everything the CIA knew about Kabir Gadai. None of it came as much of a surprise: Well educated, military background, impeccable record. Wife, three sons, and two daughters. A golden boy since the day he’d been born.

More interesting were the few paragraphs of new intel on Ahmed Taj. Kennedy had started digging into his background when she’d first begun having suspicions about the man. None of it was particularly shocking considering his success in the murky world of Pakistani intelligence, but there were unquestionably a few useful revelations. Whether they would be enough to get the job done remained to be seen.

The plane dipped and Rapp glanced over the top of his screen. Gadai was strapped into a seat at the back with his hands still secured behind him. The pain generated by his broken sternum had been working on him for hours now, and a thin trail of blood ran down his chin where he’d chewed through his lip. When their eyes locked, Rapp could see that the hatred burning there had intensified — a trend that needed to be reversed before it reached the point of no return.

Gadai wasn’t some run-of-the-mill jihadist. Based on his stoic performance in the snowcat and his unbroken silence on the flight, he’d been well trained in the art of dealing with physical suffering. Of course, he would break eventually — everyone did — but that would take time they didn’t have.

Rapp grabbed a bottle of OxyContin from the seat next to him and started down the aisle. The Pakistani watched his approach with an admirably blank expression. He was aware of Rapp’s reputation and had prepared for what he believed was coming. Any sign of weakness or fear would be hidden for as long as possible.

Gadai’s jaw clenched, anticipating the first of many blows. There was nothing Rapp would have liked more than to oblige him. Unfortunately, circumstances demanded a different strategy.

He shook two pills from the bottle and held them out. “For the pain. I’ve taken shots like that to the vest and I know how bad it hurts.”

Gadai was predictably suspicious. His jaw tightened further and he turned his head away.

“Come on,” Rapp said, sitting in the chair facing him. “If I wanted to drug you, I’d use a needle.”

“I’ll take nothing from you.”

“I know you think we’re enemies, but we’re not.”

Gadai let out a short laugh, wincing perceptibly at the pain it caused.

“We protect our countries, our homes, and our families,” Rapp said. “We do what we believe is necessary. If you’d been born in America, you’d probably be working for me.”

“I serve only the one true god.”

“I have no problem with that. And if you and Taj take control of Pakistan, I figure I’m better off. Nations aren’t a problem for the United States — we’ve been dealing with those kinds of enemies since we signed the Declaration of Independence. Chaos is a real thorn in our side, though. You and I both know that all this democracy talk from American politicians is bullshit. Muslim countries need a strong hand at the helm.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

As planned, Gadai was confused by how the conversation was playing out. “What do you want from me?”

“We know that Taj is going to kill President Chutani at the state dinner tonight.”

“What? Where did you get this information? It’s absurd.”

He was a good liar, but the pain, fatigue, and unexpected line of questioning were straining that skill past its breaking point.

“You told me as much a few hours ago,” Rapp said in a calculatedly bored tone. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter. We’ve been onto Taj for a long time. He’s great at staying under the radar and playing the bland servant, but come on. Irene Kennedy wrote the book on that trick.”

Rapp tapped the bottle of pain medication again. “Are you sure? You look like you’re really suffering.”

Gadai just stared defiantly at him.

“The way I see it, Kabir, we both have serious problems.”

“You more than me,” Gadai responded. “All you can do is kill me. Send me to paradise.”

“Actually, I can do a lot more than that, but let’s forget about that for the moment. I think you know what I’m worried about.”

“The files,” Gadai said proudly. “The first step in the inevitable destruction of your corrupt and godless country.”

Rapp rolled his eyes. “America’s not going to be destroyed, Kabir. You’re a smart guy. Let go of your ideology for a minute and think. For all the money we’ve poured into it, your military has never managed to win a war. And that’s against the Indians. We’re not the Indians.”

“We’ll destroy your intelligence network. Leave you defenseless and your government in turmoil. We’ll cut off your oil. And unlike you, we’re prepared to use our nuclear arsenal. You profess to have faith in your god but it’s a lie. Christians fear death. They fear everything.”

“I’m sure that was the plan, but what do you think I’m going to do? Just sit back and let Taj make his move?”

“He’s too clever for you. Too dedicated. And too powerful within Pakistan.”

Rapp slammed a hand down on the table between them, causing Gadai to jerk back in surprise.

“You want to sit here with stars in your eyes about Pakistan taking over the world?” Rapp shouted. “Fine. I’ll call President Chutani and tell him what’s going on at the ISI. He’ll spend the next two years cutting little pieces off Taj while I do the same to you.”

Rapp pulled out a switchblade and Gadai tried futilely to twist away, but in the end the knife just cut through his flex cuffs. Once they were severed, he moved his swollen hands to his lap, careful not to bring about another flash of rage in his captor.

“It gets worse for both of us,” Rapp said, folding the blade and moderating his tone again. “I don’t trust Chutani. I don’t want him to have those files any more than I want Taj to.”

He let that statement hang, deciding to force the Pakistani to ask him to say more. Unsatisfying as hell but it was how these standoffs were won. One small victory at a time.

“And how does it get worse for me?” Gadai said after almost a full minute of silence.

“If I keep you, then Chutani’s going to move against your family. He’ll figure there’s a chance they know something that can help him. And he won’t stop trying to get that information until they’re dead.”

Gadai’s eyes began to shift back and forth, focusing on everything in the small plane except the man in front of him. It wasn’t hard to convince him of his wife and children’s bleak future for one simple reason: It was the truth.

“I heard a rumor that Chutani took a page out of Saddam Hussein’s book,” Rapp said, looking out the window into the darkness. “He likes to lower people’s kids into vats of acid while their parents watch. Makes quite a mess, and I understand the smell is horrible.”

It wasn’t an observation that demanded a response but Rapp waited anyway.

“The rumor is true,” Gadai said finally.

“Then let me ask you a question, Kabir. Do you think anything I’ve said to you tonight is a lie?”

“No.”

Rapp was in a virtually impossible situation even if Gadai started talking. They were scheduled to land only an hour before the start of Chutani’s state dinner and he had no idea how he was even going to — access the heavily guarded palace, let alone deal with Taj.

“I’ve spent most of my adult life in the Middle East, Kabir, so I know how people like you think. You sit in your fundamentalist echo chamber and talk about creating a thousand-year dynasty. About how God loves you best and how He’s going to help you turn the world into some half-assed caliphate. But you graduated near the top of your class with a degree in history, right? So you know that Pakistan has a hard time going a week without a coup. If Taj takes over, how long is it going to be before the military figures out a way to get rid of him? Hell, how long is it going to be before he pisses off our president so bad that he sends me over to deal with the situation? It’s a pipe dream, Kabir. The whole world will line up against you like they did against Hitler. And Pakistan’s not Nazi Germany. It’s a mess of kooks and semiliterate fanatics who’d just as soon shoot each other as shoot us.”

“You want me to betray Taj.”

Rapp shrugged. “It’s what he plans to do to you.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve been with him since I was a child. We’re from the same family.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe blood is thicker than water. But from what I heard, his last assistant ended up rotting on a trash heap.”

Kennedy had warned that the intel about Taj’s involvement in that death was little more than hearsay, but the flicker in Gadai’s mask suggested he’d heard the same story.

“Rickman’s files are the key to Taj’s power and you’ve seen them. You have the encryption key.”

“He knows I’m loyal to him. That I would die for him.”

“Correction: He’s pretty sure you’re loyal to him and probably no better than fifty-fifty on whether you’d die for him. Put yourself in his place, Kabir. Would you take that chance?”

Gadai didn’t respond.

“If you just let go of this world domination crap and take a clear-eyed look at your situation, you’ll see that Taj is going to kill you. You don’t owe him anything. He sent you to Russia with my team closing in. What do you want to bet that he would have taken a more cautious approach if it had been his neck on the line instead of yours? You’re sitting here because of him.”

“If I agree to cooperate, what becomes of me?”

Normally, it was the question Rapp would be waiting for — an indication that Gadai was willing to deal. In this case, though, it was a dangerous crossroad. Did he lie and risk that Gadai would pick up on it or tell the truth and risk Gadai not being able to handle it? In the end, he decided the latter path posed the least risk.

“There is no you, Kabir. Chutani’s going to want to get his hands on you something awful and we have no legal authority to keep you.”

“Tell him I’m dead.”

“He’s not stupid. He’s going to want a body.”

“So you’re offering me a bullet to the back of the head?”

“I’ll leave the method to you, but that’s the long and short of it. All I’m selling is the safety of your family.”

“And I’m to believe that you can guarantee this?”

“If I save Chutani’s life, he’s going to owe me. I’ll call in that marker for your family. He won’t have a problem with that. Your wife isn’t the type to be involved in something like this and your kids are too young. He’s not going to cross me over some vague suspicions and a piece of pointless revenge.”

“Why would I trust you?”

Rapp slid the OxyContin across the table and this time the man accepted. “You’ve read everything the ISI has on me, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what I’m capable of. But you also know that I’m a man of my word.”