Vince Flynn: Consent To Kill

What little face that could be seen through the thick gray beard showed nothing. The sheik simply closed his eyes and nodded.

Saeed looked back to the prince, his old friend. "I am not a politician or a statesman, or a man of God. I am a businessman. I don't expect either of you to publicly or privately support what I am going to do. All I am asking, Rashid, is that you point me in the right direction. Give me a name and I will handle the rest."

With the exception of Saeed's public proclamation, Rashid couldn't have been more pleased with how things were proceeding. He had predicted his friend's response almost perfectly. He sat stolidly, not wanting to appear too eager. "Saeed, I know of a man who is very skilled in what you ask. He is extremely expensive, but knowing you as well as I do, I doubt that will be an issue."

Saeed nodded his head vigorously. He had easily made billions, first by putting up phone and power lines around the kingdom and other countries in the region and now by laying thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable.

"I will send him to see you, but you must make no mention of our meeting here today to him or to anyone else. I share your anger, and I wish you success, but you must give me your word as my oldest friend that you will never speak of my role in this to anyone. The Kingdom is a very dangerous place these days, and there are brothers of mine who would not be as sympathetic to your plight as I." Rashid's reference to Saudi Arabia's pro-American government was obvious.

Saeed sneered. "There is much I would like to say, but as you said the Kingdom is a very dangerous place these days. You have my word. I will speak of this to no one. Not even to the man you send."

"Good," smiled Rashid. He stood and helped his friend to his feet. The two began walking across the cavernous room, leaving the cleric sitting alone. "Because, my friend, if you succeed in killing Mr. Rapp, and the Americans find out you were behind it, the king will cut off your head. If you fail, and Mr. Rapp finds out you were behind it…he will visit you and your family with more pain than you can imagine."

Saeed nodded. "How will I recognize the man you send?"

"He is a German. There will be no mistaking him. He is infinitely capable. Just tell him what you want, and he will take care of the rest."

Rapp arrived the next morning on a Falcon 2000 executive jet leased through a front company in Virginia. A certified pilot, Rapp was the acting copilot on the flight and was dressed accordingly. With the uniform, and a well-used, but fake passport, he breezed through a cursory customs inspection at the private airport and hailed a cab to the hotel where the team was staying. It was Saturday morning. The team's seventh day. There were four of them, including Coleman. Their history with Rapp went back a decade and a half. Each knew how the others operated, and they all trusted one another, which in their line of work was no small thing.

Coleman was waiting for him in the hotel room, ready to bring him up to speed on the tactical situation. The other three men were out keeping an eye on the target. The former SEAL was about an inch shorter than Rapp. He normally kept his blond hair close cropped, but he'd let it grow out, so it spilled over the top of his ears and touched his shirt collar in back. There was a wave to it with a slight curl. He was lean and athletic, but had a relaxed way about him that could be very deceptive. Confident in his abilities, he no longer felt the need to prove anything. He had done it all, survived some really nasty stuff, and lived to keep his mouth shut. That was the way of the SEALs. They might exchange war stories with each other, or other operators, but that was as far as it went. They were a tight fraternity-one that didn't like braggarts.

Rapp set his flight bag down on the one bed and looked down at the map spread out on the other one.

"Here's the hotel, here's the mosque"-Coleman pointed to one spot and then the other-"and here's his apartment."

Rapp looked down at the map of downtown Montreal and the surrounding neighborhoods. "How long does it take him to walk from the mosque to the apartment?"

"He averages five minutes and twenty-three seconds. Quickest time is four minutes and eighteen seconds. He was late for prayer and in a hurry. Longest time was just over ten minutes. He stopped to talk to someone along the way."

"Any signs of surveillance by the police or the intelligence service?"

"Nothing."

Rapp frowned. "That's strange."

"I thought so at first, but then I got to thinking that maybe they've got someone on the inside."

"A fellow worshiper?"

"Yeah." Coleman pointed to an eight-by-ten surveillance photo of the mosque. "We've picked up some chatter. Not everyone agrees with his radical interpretation of the Koran."

Rapp's right eyebrow shot up in surprise. "You've got the mosque wired?"

"No. We've been able to monitor the worshipers as they come and go using parabolic mikes. Caught a couple older guys yesterday after Khalil delivered his Friday afternoon sermon. They think he's a cancer in their community. A bad influence on the kids. Filling their heads with all of this talk of jihad and martyrdom."

This did not surprise Rapp. The overwhelming majority of Muslims did not agree with what these terrorists were doing in the name of Allah. Rapp just wished they were more vocal about it.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. He's a real pious bastard, this one. We got into his apartment yesterday during the afternoon sermon. The whole building empties out, so we figured it was pretty safe. We took a look at his computer." Coleman extracted a memory stick from his pocket. "Copied his hard drive for you."

Rapp grinned and took it. "Thank you."

"It's filled with porn."

"No way?"

"Dead serious. A lot of really kinky shit. Mostly bondage."

Rapp studied the memory stick. "You just never know with these idiots, do you?"

"Nope, but it doesn't surprise me one bit."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. They're all running from something. What else?"

"Best spot to hit him is obviously between the mosque and the apartment. Five round trips a day. Before sunup, just after noon, late afternoon, just after sunset, and then my favorite…his ten o'clock trip."

"Why not early in the morning?"

"It would work," said Coleman, "but the sunrise call to prayer has double the attendance that the evening one does. By the time he heads home it's almost eleven, and the streets are empty."

"He walks alone?" Rapp asked, still not believing the intel report he'd received earlier in the week.

"Yep."

This guy was a real moron, but pretty typical when you looked at his early years. Khalil Muhammad, Egyptian by birth, had grown up in the clutches of an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, indoctrinated into the strict unyielding brand of Islam perpetuated and funded by the Wahhabis out of Saudi Arabia. At the age of fifteen he and a group of peers stoned a reporter to death for writing an article that was critical of the madrasa they attended. The religious school he attended had sent every single one of its graduates off to fight in the Afghani war against the Soviets. It was rumored that many had been sent against their will.

While the others stood trial for the stoning, Khalil fled to Saudi Arabia, where he received further religious instruction at the hands of the Wahhabis. In his early twenties he completed his studies and became an Imam. At twenty-six he immigrated to Canada with the express purpose of building a new mosque and spreading the Wahhabi faith to North America. His mosque grew rapidly and as a reward he was granted funding to build a second mosque in France.