Vince Flynn: Consent To Kill

"Bees to the honey," Rapp said to himself as he continued his slow retreat. He looked toward the door to the mosque wondering just what in the hell was taking Rashid so long. Rapp couldn't wait much longer. He extracted the remote detonator from his pocket. This time rather than using a vest, Rapp had simply wrapped Tayyib's entire torso in C-4 and covered every square inch with ball bearings. Rapp made it to a pillar and stopped. He looked over his shoulder quickly to check on Coleman and Stroble. They were standing next to each other one more pillar back. Rapp jerked his head for them to get behind it.

He looked back just as the bodyguard reappeared from the mosque and said, "Prince Muhammad wants to know if you've checked him for explosives."

Everybody froze. Rapp hadn't really thought he'd be able to get away with it twice, but the bomb would still serve its purpose.

The men on each side of Tayyib pulled back his suit coat and the man standing in front placed his hands on Tayyib's waist. Rapp stepped behind the large stone column and pressed the button on the remote. There was a loud explosion, followed almost immediately by the sound of breaking glass as hundreds of ball bearings were hurled outward by the force of the explosion.

Rapp counted to three and peered back around the column. All six bodyguards were down and Tayyib was in two pieces-head and shoulders pointing toward the door to the mosque and his legs and ass pointing the same way. The other six men, and much of the courtyard, were covered in what used to be Tayyib's torso and arms.

Rapp stepped over the bodies and went straight for the mosque. He stood next to the door and counted. He knew curiosity would get the best of Rashid and by the time Rapp got to seven Rashid proved him right. His pointy black beard poked its way into view followed by a pair of shocked brown eyes.

Rapp's left hand shot out and grabbed Rashid by the end of his beard. He yanked him forward and at the same time brought his left knee up, delivering a vicious blow to the older man's solar plexus. Rashid fell to the ground right on top of one of his nearly decapitated bodyguards. Rapp rolled him over and placed his boot on the man's chest.

He looked him in the eye and said, "Why?"

Rashid had a fire in his eyes. He spoke in Arabic and said, "Because you are an infidel."

Rapp shook his head with disgust. "And my wife."

There was no smile, no fear, no pleading, there was nothing other than total conviction in the man's eyes. "She was an infidel. You are all infidels."

Rapp nodded and said, "And you are going to hell." Rapp grabbed a phosphorus grenade from the cargo pouch on his right thigh. The incendiary device reached a temperature of 2,000 degrees in less than two seconds. Rapp lifted his boot from Rashid's chest and sent it crashing down once more, this time into Rashid's stomach. The Saudi's mouth opened wide, gasping for breath. Rapp was ready. He was holding the grenade by the top third, and he brought it crashing down with such force that it shattered Rashid's front teeth and wedged itself firmly in his mouth.

Rapp got right in his face and said, "Fuck you! And fuck your sick, twisted, perversion of Islam." Rapp yanked the pin and walked away. Three seconds later there was a pop followed by a blinding white flash, and then Rashid's head literally melted from his body.

Rapp watched them for three days from a house on the hill overlooking the beach, which was probably one day too many. Coleman didn't say anything. Didn't make any observations. Didn't offer any advice. It had been nine months, one week, and three days since Rapp's wife had been killed. Wicker was with them, as were Hackett and Stroble. Wicker could have ended it more than a dozen times with his rifle. The winds were calm in the morning and the evening. It was just under 800 yards from one terrace to the other, and the trajectory was steep. For most people it would be an impossible shot, but for Wicker it was business as usual. The sniper waited for the word, but it never came.

The hunt had changed Rapp. With each passing day over the past months he had grown quieter and retreated from all but Kennedy, her son, Coleman, and the O'Rourkes. Liz O'Rourke was Anna's best friend from college. They were the only people other than Kennedy that he really confided in. Even with Coleman it was all about the hunt. He spoke with his brother a few times, and Steven had come to the memorial service in Washington-a service that Mitch ended up skipping. The priest waited for thirty minutes, and then Kennedy and Liz O'Rourke told the priest to start without him. Neither woman held out much hope that he would show. He was too private a man to show his grief in front of so many people whom he barely knew.

The new house sat unfinished and the old house on the Chesapeake, a house that Anna had grown to love, remained a charred ruin. Coleman went to Kennedy. He wanted to bring in an excavator and have the mess cleaned up. She thought about it for a second and told him no. It was Mitch's decision. When he was ready, he would do it himself. They all waited. Waited for Rapp to come out of his shell and get on with his life, but it didn't happen. The days ticked by and then the months. Rapp rented a house in Galesville on the bay, just up the road from where Anna had died. He didn't want to leave the water. He was afraid to lose that connection.

Almost every day he drove to the charred wreckage on the bay that had been their home. Sometimes he stayed in the car. Sometimes he got out and walked around. Every single time he sobbed uncontrollably over the memories that had been and the dreams that would never be. He never got to see his baby, never got to cradle the little infant in his arms. He never got to find out if it was a boy or a girl. He never even got to say good-bye to the woman of his dreams. He'd failed to protect her when she'd needed it most, and it was eating him alive. The unfulfilled dreams and the yearning to hold her one more time, to look into her beautiful, stunning, green eyes and smell her hair, was more painful than anything he'd ever experienced, but even so, it wasn't as bad as the guilt he felt over causing her death.

When he went in to work, it was only to be updated by Kennedy and Dumond on what they had learned about the assassins. Other than that he stayed away from Langley. What he was doing nobody knew and no one dared ask. The first break came from the Russian named Petrov. Kennedy had been stationed in Moscow earlier in her career and she had many contacts. Through several of Petrov's old colleagues she talked him into sitting down. Word had reached him about Abel's demise. It had been reported as an accidental death, but Petrov knew better. Men like Abel didn't die in chance house fires.

She told him that Abel had been hired by several wealthy Saudis and given a twenty-million-dollar contract to kill Mitch Rapp. Petrov was genuinely surprised by the amount. Kennedy told him what he already knew-that Abel had hired two assassins who were recommended by none other than himself. Then she told him something he didn't know. The assassins had missed Rapp and killed his wife by mistake. Petrov winced at the news. Families were off limits and a man like Mitch Rapp would stop at nothing until he hunted these people down and killed them.

This was a mess Petrov did not need. He could either tell Kennedy what little he knew, or risk Mitch Rapp paying him a visit in the dead of the night. The decision was easy. He told Kennedy what he knew about the assassins, which wasn't much, but proved to be crucial. The woman was in fact French and so was the man, Petrov suspected. He also suspected he was former military, and at one point had lived in America, probably during his teens. When Kennedy pressed him on this, he explained that the man's English was too good. Too colloquial. He had all the idioms and slang down. The type of thing you can pick up only by living in a country. Petrov handed over the phone numbers and e-mail addresses he had used to contact them over the years.