Vince Flynn - American Assassin

Kennedy felt her stomach twist into a wrenching knot. She liked Cummins. They knew all too well how this would play out. The torture would have commenced almost immediately, and depending on how Cummins held up, death was the likely outcome.

“I remember you voiced your opposition to this,” Stansfield said, “but know there are certain things that even I wasn’t told.”

“Such as?”

The ops boss shook his head, letting her know he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. “The important thing now is that Schnoz’s Syrian contacts back his cover story. If they don’t step up to the plate for him, this will end badly.” Cummins was half Armenian and half Jewish and had a nose to make a Roman emperor jealous; hence his unofficial cover name was Schnoz.

“Double down,” Powers chimed in. “Get the Texas boy on a plane with a couple suitcases filled with cash.”

“It’s a possibility that I already floated with the White House. They’re getting nervous, though, and for good reason.”

“They should be,” Kennedy said. “They just burned one of our most valuable assets trying to do a personal favor that as far as I can tell has nothing to do with national security.”

“Bingo,” Powers said.

Stansfield was quiet for a moment. “I have a back channel I can use with the CEO. He wants this employee back, and I think when I explain to him what happened to our man, he’ll offer to pay for both. It should help cement the idea that Schnoz was working as a freelancer.”

“It better happen quick,” Kennedy said. “We never know how long someone will be able to hold out. If they break Schnoz…” She stopped talking and shuddered at the thought of the damage that would be done.

“I know,” Stansfield sighed.

“Rescue op?” Powers asked.

Stansfield looked slightly embarrassed. “Not going to happen. We knew it going in. Beirut is still radioactive.”

“What if we get some good intel?” Kennedy asked.

“That’s a big what if.”

“But if we do,” Kennedy pressed her point, “we need assets in place.”

Stansfield sadly shook his head.

“Corner office or Sixteen Hundred?” Powers asked.

Kennedy understood the shorthand question to mean was it the director of CIA who was freezing them out or the White House?

“White House,” Stansfield replied.

“Our friends at the Institute.” Powers offered it as a suggestion. “They’re in the loop?”

Stansfield tapped the leather ink blotter on his desk while he considered the Israeli option. The Institute was the slang Powers used to refer to the Institute for Intelligence, or as they were better known, Mossad.”

“I’m told they knew before we did.”

“Maybe let them handle the cowboy stuff… if it comes to that.”

The fact that it had not occurred to him to have Mossad handle the rescue spoke volumes about the complicated relationship. “If something concrete comes our way I’ll consider it, but…”

“You don’t want to owe them the farm,” Powers said.

“That’s right. They would more than likely demand something that I’m either unwilling or unable to give them.”

“May I say something, sir?” Kennedy asked.

Stansfield wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it, but he knew he needed to let his people vent. He nodded.

“This problem is never going to go away until we send these guys a very serious message.”

“I assume you mean the kidnapping?”

“Yes.”

“I told the director the same thing five minutes before you walked in the door, but it seems we lack the political will, at the moment, to take a more aggressive approach.”

“Pussies,” Powers muttered, and then looked at Kennedy and said, “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” She paused and then decided this was the right time to push her agenda. “You know what this means?”

“No.”

“It’s yet another example of why we need to get Orion up and running. How in hell can we expect our assets to operate in this environment? It’s bad enough that we won’t get tough with these guys… it’s inexcusable that we won’t even consider a rescue op. He’s one of our own, for Christ’s sake!”

Stansfield was not surprised that she’d brought it up. He would have done the same thing if he was in her place, but during a crisis like this it was a common mistake to hurry things that needed time. “I want this to happen as badly as you do, Irene, but it can’t be rushed. If we send a bunch of half-baked assets into the field, we’ll end up spending all our energy trying to pull them out of the fire. Trust me… I saw it firsthand back in Berlin. Just try to be patient for a few more months. If a couple of these guys can prove that they have the stuff, I’ll greenlight it, and support you every step of the way.”

Kennedy took it as a promise but couldn’t get her mind off Cummins and what he was enduring. Her thoughts for some unknown reason turned to Rapp. She hoped he was the one. The weapon they could turn loose on these murderous zealots.

THEY each ran the obstacle course three more times and then double-timed it back to the barn for breakfast. They stuffed their faces with eggs and pancakes, then were given thirty minutes to digest their food and make sure their bunks were squared away. Rapp was somewhat relieved that Victor used this time to pester someone else. Then it was off to the pistol range, which was a two-mile hike back into the woods. It was not a leisurely hike, however. They were given twelve minutes to get to the range and were told that anyone who was late could pack his bags. Rapp was starting to get the idea that they would be doing a lot of running, which was fine by him. He kept a pace or two off the lead and made it look as if he was struggling to keep up, but he wasn’t.

The range was adjacent to the obstacle course. It was twelve feet wide and one hundred feet long, and was as bare-bones as you could get. Basically a tractor had scooped out a ten-foot-deep trench that ran between a row of pines. It was lined with old car tires and covered with camouflage netting, which in addition to the tree branches made the light pretty weak. There were three shooting stations made out of pressure-treated plywood and lumber. Silhouette targets were already hung at twenty feet and silenced 9mm Beretta 92Fs were loaded and ready to be fired. The first three guys stepped up, and when Sergeant Smith ordered them to commence firing all three methodically emptied their rounds into the paper targets.

Rapp swallowed hard when they were done. The first two guys punched soup-can-sized holes through the chests of the black silhouettes. The third target had a nice neat hole about the size of a silver dollar in the center of the face. There was not a stray shot among the three. Rapp was impressed, but the thing that really surprised him was the reaction of Sergeant Smith. The instructor had a smile on his face.

Sergeant Smith stood beside the last shooter and said, “Normally I don’t like you SEALs, but goddamn! They sure do teach you boys how to shoot.” He gave the recruit a rough slap on the back and ordered the next three up. The results were similar-at least as far as the first two were concerned. They had both punched nice neat holes in the chests of their targets. Rapp’s target, however, looked a little rough.

Rapp lowered the pistol and took in his handiwork. He’d only started shooting a few months earlier, and without any actual training from an instructor, the results were lacking. The target looked like a piece of Swiss cheese, with holes from the chest all the way down to the groin. He set the heavy Beretta down on the flat plywood surface and grimaced as the instructors fell in, one on each shoulder.