Mitch Rapp wasn't sure if he believed in hell, but if such a place truly existed, Ali Saed al-Houri was on his way. Rapp rolled him over so the others could get a good look at what was in store for them. The force of the hollow-tipped .45-caliber round had punched a fist-sized hole through the terrorist's head, leaving a gaping wound where his nose and upper lip once were.
As Rapp looked down at him he didn't feel the slightest bit of regret or guilt. Al-Houri was one of the organizers of the worst terrorist attack in American history. He had cheered and gloated over the deaths of 3,000 peaceful men and women, and he was planning to kill thousands more. He was a vile and demented religious zealot, deserving of the bullet that had just ripped a large portion of his brain from his head.
Rapp paced back and forth in front of the remaining four prisoners. Not one of them dared raise his eyes and look at him. He knew their ears were ringing from the blast of the powerful .45-caliber Kimber so he shouted in Arabic, "Which one of you wants to go to hell next?"
Rapp told Urda to repeat everything he said in Pashtu. He went on to talk about theSirat; the bridge over hell that all Muslims walk to find out if they will make it toJannah, or paradise. He recited verses from the Koran that condemned the killing of innocent civilians. He screamed about the need to be in a purified state to be accepted into heaven. He spat verse after verse at them to drive doubt into their narrow minds that they were true martyrs and thus deserving of paradise. He got right in their ears and shouted that they were about to spend the rest of their days in endless torment, and then he offered them a chance to repent. A chance to be cleaned and purified. When he had set everything up as best as time would allow, it was time to separate the prisoners and begin questioning them one by one.
Urda's bodyguards came back into the warehouse and dragged three of the men out, leaving behind the one Rapp had chosen. He was the youngest of the lot, the man who had recognized Rapp. He was one of two wild cards. Rapp did not even know his name. It would have been ideal to know exactly who he was, to have a full briefing on him so he knew where to apply pressure and probe, but that was out of the question.
Rapp grabbed a couple of empty white five-gallon buckets and turned them upside down. As he walked around behind the prisoner, the man flinched. That was a good sign. Rapp took hold of him under the arms and hefted him onto the bucket. Moving the other bucket a little closer, he sat and looked into the eyes of the young man only a few feet away. The lifeless body of al-Houri lay beside them, the blood draining from his head and snaking its way toward the bare feet of the prisoner. It served as a vivid reminder of where this interrogation could lead.
For the first time, Rapp scrutinized the man's face. He had a beard, of course, and on the surface did not look Arab or Persian. The young man was probably Afghani or Pakistani and looked to be in his mid-twenties.
"Do you speak English?" Rapp asked in an easy tone.
The prisoner would not raise his head and look at him. "Yes," he offered quietly.
The answer was more telling than one would think. It was common for English to be taught as a second language in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not in the mountainous border region. That meant the young man was more than likely from a larger city. "What is your name?"
"Ahmed."
"Do you have a last name?" Rapp asked.
The prisoner did not answer at first.
"It is only a name," Rapp prodded gently. "You know mine."
He answered reluctantly, "Khalili."
"How old are you?" Rapp wanted to start with the basics.
"Nineteen."
Rapp was surprised to hear how young the man was. It spoke to the harsh life that they lived that he could have easily passed for someone ten years older. Rapp looked up at Urda and held his hand up to his ear as if he was making a phone call. Urda nodded and started for the door. Rapp doubted they'd find the nineteen-year-old's name in their data base, but it was worth a try.
"Are you married, Ahmed?"
"Not yet."
The boy still wouldn't look him in the eye.
"Where are you from?" Rapp maneuvered his head to try and get him to look at him.
He chose not to answer, and kept his eyes fixed on the floor before him.
Rapp got up and walked behind the man, adding to the already tense mood. "I said, where are you from?"
"Karachi," the man answered, his shoulders tense with fear.
The large city in southern Pakistan. The young man was likely the product of one of the many Saudi-funded religious schools where children were indoctrinated into the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam.
Rapp continued walking around the man until he was once again standing in front of him. "Were you an orphan?"
The young man nodded.
It was an all-too-common occurrence in the region and beyond. The Wahhabis were taking in the orphans and street children of these large impoverished cities and filling their heads with their firebrand rhetoric.
Rapp felt a slight touch of sympathy for the person sitting before him. He no longer saw a young man, he saw a child who had been brainwashed. Rapp nudged the bucket forward even farther and sat again. He reached out and lifted the boy's face. "I am not the angel of death, Ahmed, and I am not going to kill you." Rapp noted the gleam of intelligence in the boy's gaze.
Ahmed's hazel eyes began to fill with tears, and he pulled his chin away from Rapp. "You are a liar." His gaze rested on the dead body lying on the dirty floor. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head in defiance.
"I did not say you won't die, you just won't do so by my hand." Rapp nodded toward the door. "Those two Afghanis who threw you in the pigpen...their entire families were murdered by the Taliban. They wanted to do awful things to you, even before they knew you were a Pakistani. Things that I wouldn't even dream of."
Pointing to the bloody corpse on the floor, Rapp said, "That is the easy way out. He will be tormented in Hell for eternity, to be sure, but at least he didn't have to suffer the indignity of being forced to eat his own genitalia."
The young man began to whimper.
"If you do not talk to me," continued Rapp, "I will have no choice but to turn you over to them, and then you will lose any hope of setting things straight before you pass."
"I have done nothing wrong," the boy said defensively.
"Can you be sure of that? Do you pretend to know what Allah wishes? Can you be absolutely certain that those men who gave you your religious instruction know the full intent of the prophet?" Rapp lifted Khalili's chin again. "Ahmed, I'm guessing you're smart...smarter than the others. Have you never read the Koran and wondered how the imams derive such hate from a book that is so filled with peace and beauty?"
The boy did not try to pull away this time. Rapp released his chin and placed his hand on his shoulder. "I can help you if you let me, Ahmed. I will take you away from this place and make sure no harm comes to you. You will meet other Muslims who are enlightened. Muslims who will tell you that the people who have taught you are false prophets, sick men who are blinded by bigotry and hate for their fellow man. There is a plane waiting only miles from here. A hot shower, a change of clothes, and a prayer rug for you to begin making things right. That is one path. The other one is several days, perhaps weeks, even months filled with pain and humiliation you can't even begin to comprehend.
Rapp withdrew his hand. "The choice is yours, but you must show me you are willing to cooperate, or I will turn you over to the Afghanis." He studied the boy, and watched as his breathing seemed to settle. Rapp did not want to give him too much time to think of his answer. He was sure the voices of his religious instructors were ringing in his head telling him that their version of Islam was the only true one. The Muslims, who disagreed with him had gone astray and been perverted over the centuries.
Rapp stood and took a step toward the door. Over his shoulder he said, "I will take your silence as an unwillingness to cooperate."
He had barely taken three steps when he heard the beaten voice of his prisoner say something that he could barely make out. He forced himself to turn around more slowly than he would have liked. "What did you say?"
"They are planning to kill your president."
"How?"
He shook his head. "I do not know."
Rapp studied the slumped figure for a few seconds. "Ahmed, if this is going to work, you have to tell me everything."
"I do not know how," he said more adamantly this time.
"A bomb."
"There has been mention of a bomb."
Rapp felt his heart quicken. "A nuclear bomb?"
The boy looked up at the question. "I have not heard them talk of a nuclear bomb."
"Ahmed, you cannot lie to me."
"I only arrived the day before yesterday. I have not been involved in this part of the operation."
Rapp returned to the bucket and sat. "What else did they say about the bomb? Repeat everything."
"I overheard them saying it was very big." Ahmed looked down as if he was ashamed. "They said it would kill thousands. All of your politicians and generals."
Rapp's jaw hung slack with disbelief at the revelation. There was only one bomb that he could think of that killed thousands. "Ahmed, do you know how many Muslims live in Washington, D.C.?"
"No."
"Thousands. These bombs don't simply kill politicians and generals. Do you think Allah will show forgiveness to anyone who kills that many of his flock?"
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do, Ahmed," snapped Rapp, "yes, you do." The sheer lunacy of the entire mess left Rapp at a momentary loss. These bastards were finally going to do it.
"When is the attack to take place?"
"I don't know."
"Come on...you must have some idea."
"Soon, is all I know."
"How soon?" demanded Rapp.
"I do not know."
Rapp gave his prisoner an ominous look.
"I swear to you I do not know! I only follow orders. This Friday past, Waheed Abdullah told us we were to leave Karachi and make our way to the mountains."
"Why?"
"Because of the crackdown that will take place after the bomb goes off."
Rapp buried his face in his hands. These idiots had no idea of the Pandora's box they were about to open.
After a moment he regained his composure. So far he believed Ahmed, but he needed to talk to the others and see if he could confirm this story. More importantly, he needed to find out if the others knew more. He was willing to bet that two of them did for sure.
Rapp grabbed Ahmed under the arm and pulled him to his feet. "Let's go, and I don't want you talking to the others. Don't even look at them!" They walked toward the door, Rapp pulling the shackled prisoner along. When they reached the rickety door, Rapp shoved it open, and they were momentarily blinded by the bright morning sun. Rapp brought a hand up to shield his eyes and pushed Ahmed toward Urda.
"Gag him and sit him down over there by the trucks."
Urda was on his mobile phone. He held up a finger signaling to Rapp that he needed a second. He walked a few steps away and continued to listen. "All right. Thanks for the update. Call me as soon as you learn anything else."
Urda flipped the phone closed and approached Rapp. The other three prisoners were kneeling on the ground bound and gagged about fifty feet away. Urda hooked Ahmed by the arm and said to Rapp, "Follow me."
The three of them walked over by the trucks where Urda deposited Ahmed. He fastened the gag over his mouth and grabbed a smelly burlap hood to throw over his head.
Rapp stopped him. "He doesn't need the hood."
Urda threw the hood on the ground and gestured for Rapp to follow him. He led him around the corner of the building and in a voice barely loud enough for Rapp to hear said, "That was one of my guys calling from the base. They found a couple of interesting dossiers on some guys who we've been looking for. Care to take a guess who?"
Rapp was not in the guessing mood. He'd allowed his thoughts to wander briefly and was thinking of the city of his youth. The place he called home. The faces of innocent people going about their honest lives. They were all in jeopardy. "I have no idea."
"You know those missing Pakistani nuclear scientists we've been trying to track down?"
All Rapp could do was shake his head. "This just keeps getting worse."
"The dossiers are detailed. Filled with surveillance of their activities going back five years in one case. They were recruited by agents at the local mosques where the scientists were posted...just like we thought."
"Any more good news?" he asked sarcastically.
"No."
Rapp leaned back around the corner and checked on Ahmed. "Khalili says he left Karachi last Friday when Abdullah ordered them to pack up and head for the mountains."
"The mountains?"
"Reprisals. They think those damn mountains will actually protect them."
Urda looked off to the south. From this distance the mountains looked like a distant wall of clouds. "Those mountains have protected them for centuries."
"Not this time, Jamal. If they've got a nuke, and they set it off in D.C., the mountains will become their tomb." Rapp stepped around the corner and looked at the three prisoners he had yet to interrogate. He could feel the rage building, which wasn't always a good thing, but considering the time constraints they were up against there was no delicate way to handle the situation.
"Follow me," he said to Urda, "And let's get this over with."
Rapp dragged Hassan Izz-al-Din into the room by his long black hair. The man's personal hygiene left a lot to be desired, and that was before he'd been rolled around in pigshit. Al-Din's gag was still in place, so the curses he was trying to fling at Rapp weren't getting very far. Rapp deposited the Yemeni-born extremist like a bag of garbage on top of his dead comrade. Al-Din struggled wildly against his bonds while simultaneously trying to writhe his way off his dead friend.
He squirmed his way clear of the corpse just in time for Urda to deposit Waheed Ahmed Abdullah in the space he had just vacated. Abdullah's reaction to being placed on top of his lifeless friend was much the same as al-Din's.
Rapp pulled al-Din to his knees, and as soon as Abdullah had rolled clear he yanked him off the ground by his hair. The two men were left kneeling side by side with the body of al-Houri in front of them. Rapp took one man's gag off and then the other. The curses flew forth in furious Arabic. The dignity of Rapp's mother was assaulted right off the bat, and then their attention turned to his wife.
Rapp just stood there, arms folded, watching the bearded mongrels spew their hatred. He wanted them to get all of this off their chests and then he would react. Finally, Rapp asked in Arabic, "Are you done?"
The men spat in his direction and launched into a second tirade every bit as vituperative as the first. Many of the same insults were used, only uttered with redoubled vigor, but as before, they ran out of steam and grew a bit bewildered at Rapp's refusal to engage.
Rapp knew a fair amount about each man. He knew from where they hailed, and where they'd received their religious indoctrination. Although he couldn't recall all the names, he also knew the CIA had a list of their family members.
"Are you done?" he asked again.
This time they only muttered a few curses before stopping.
"Good," replied Rapp in a satisfied tone. He drew his 9mm FNP-9 from his thigh holster, pulled the hammer back into the cocked position, and leveled it at al-Din. Without a question, or word of warning, he squeezed the trigger once, a loud pop and muzzle flash erupting from the weapon. Before Abdullah could react, Rapp brought the weapon to bear on him and fired again.
The entire thing happened in less than a second, with both men toppled over screaming in pain but unable to clutch their shattered kneecaps.
Rapp stepped over the dead body of al-Houri and looked down at the two agonized faces. "You didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did you?"
Through a jaw clenched in pain al-Din tried to assail him with more insults, although they'd lost the intensity they'd had only a moment earlier. Abdullah reacted just as Rapp thought he would. He just lay there on the dirty floor and whimpered to himself.
Rapp had decided to take a calculated risk and make an assumption based on what he already knew. He lowered his weapon and said, "So tell me about the bomb."
Abdullah started to speak, but was stopped by al-Din. "Silence! Don't say another word to him."
Looming over the two men, Rapp reacted instantly and without malice. He grabbed Abdullah by the hair and shoved his face next to al-Din's. He extended his pistol and pointed it at the head of al-Din, the man who he had already guessed would be more difficult to break. The men had their faces pressed tightly together. Rapp squeezed the trigger and sent a hollow-tipped bullet into the Yemeni's face. Al-Din's entire body convulsed at impact and then settled, with only his fingers twitching. Abdullah was left gasping for air, his eyes stinging from the muzzle blast and his face covered with blood and flesh.
Rapp knew that al-Din had been born into an impoverished Yemeni household and at the young age of fifteen had joined the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was battle hardened and the less likely of the two to break. He had also been in charge of the terrorist training camp that produced seven of the 9/11 hijackers, and for that reason alone Rapp felt no remorse for putting a bullet in his head.
Abdullah, on the other hand, had come from a wealthy Saudi family, and having shown no real skill or interest in business, he was shipped off at the age of twelve to receive religious instruction at one of the grand Wahhabi madrasas in Mecca. Abdullah was a firebrand Muslim, but a pampered one.
"So," Rapp straddled the Saudi and pointed the barrel of the FNP-9 at his head. "You and I were talking. Tell me about the bomb."
Abdullah's face was contorted in pain from the gunshot to his knee. He looked over at the twitching hand of his dead comrade. A second later he shut his eyes and said, "I do not know about any bomb."
"Wrong answer." Rapp brought his gun up. He would not kill Abdullah, at least not yet, but the man did not need to know that.
"No...no...I am telling you the truth!" Abdullah closed his eyes tightly as if that would somehow slow the impact of the bullet. "It wasn't my part of the operation."
"Abdullah, listen very carefully to me. If you don't tell me everything I want to know I am going to kill you, and then I am going to track down your entire family and kill each one of them. Now, for the last time..." Rapp leaned over, placing the hard steel of the FNP-9 against Abdullah's temple and forcing his head onto the dirty floor. "Is the bomb nuclear?"
Abdullah's face was twisted in fright. "Yes."
"How big?"
"I do not know," he pleaded. "Honestly."
"Bullshit!"
"I swear I don't know. All I've been told is that it will destroy the entire city."
"What city?"
"Washington."
Rapp squeezed the grip of his FNP-9. "When are you planning on setting it off?"
"This week some time...I think."
Rapp leaned on the gun and yelled, "What do you mean some time?"
"I do not know. I was only told it would happen this week."
"Where is the bomb right now?"
"I don't know."
Rapp removed the pistol from the Saudi's temple and shoved it into his groin. "I'm going to blow your balls off, Abdullah! Where the hell is the bomb?"
"Don't shoot!" the man pleaded. "It was supposed to arrive yesterday."
"Where?"
A bewildered expression spread across Abdullah's face. "I truly don't know. I only know that it was coming in by plane."
"What kind of plane?"
Abdullah closed his eyes. "A cargo plane."
"What carrier, and from where?"
"I do not know."
Rapp kept the pistol firmly in place. It was unclear how much, if any, of what he'd just been told was true, but either way he had to report it to Kennedy immediately. An idea popped into his head and he decided to go with it. He stood, reached down to grab a handful of his prisoner's hair, and started dragging him across the floor.
He looked at Urda and said, "Load the other two up. We're going back to the base." When he reached the door he held it open with one hand while he pulled his prisoner across the threshold. Then, in a moment of inspiration, he decided to stop and slam the door into the terrorist's shattered knee.
Abdullah shrieked in pain. Rapp waited a few seconds and slammed the door into his knee again. Abdullah's eyes rolled back into his head, and he began to hyperventilate.
Rapp bent down and growled into his ear, "Guess where we're going?"
Abdullah either didn't hear the question or was in too much pain to answer so Rapp yanked his hair and screamed the question a second time.
"I don't know," Abdullah answered, with tears streaming from his dark brown eyes.
"Ground zero, you stupid prick." Rapp pulled him out into the bright sunlight. "I'm going to strap your ass to the Washington Monument so you can have a front-row seat."
Rapp began pulling Abdullah toward the waiting vehicles. He couldn't even attempt to remember the last time he'd been so enraged. It had finally come to this. These nutbags were actually going to plunge the world into chaos.
"Hey, Abdullah," Rapp said in a sarcastic voice, "maybe I'll have your mom and dad picked up along with all of your brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews." Rapp pulled him roughly over a crumbled wall. "The whole Abdullah clan. That's what I'm going to do. I'll call my buddy the crown prince and have them sent over."
"The crown prince," hissed Abdullah, "is no friend of yours."
"Sure he is," replied Rapp in a jovial voice. "He owes me a big favor, actually." Rapp reached the back of one of the vehicles and let go of his prisoner's hair.
Abdullah's head hit the ground hard. With an angry face he said, "This proves you are a liar. I know the crown prince." Abdullah wheezed in pain and added, "He is a true believer, and he would never ever speak to someone like you."
Rapp laughed. "The crown prince believes in Allah, but he does not buy into all that Wahhabi crap."
"Liar!"
"Remember fat Omar...his half brother? Sure you do. Omar used to send you money to wage your little twisted jihad." Rapp squatted down and pointed to himself. "I was the one who killed him in Monaco last year, and the crown prince thanked me personally for saving him the trouble."
The look on his captive's face was beyond priceless.
Rapp popped the tailgate. "Yeah, I'll have to make that call. That way your family can thank you in person for getting them all killed. Every last member."