Vince Flynn: Consent To Kill

"Khalil is closer to you. The other man is walking on the street side. Both of them have their hands in their pockets."

Rapp pictured them in his mind. He had no idea if either man was armed, but with the element of surprise on his side it wouldn't matter. He actually preferred that they had their hands in their pockets. If it was someone with more experience it would worry him, but not with these two. Khalil truly was a moron. Anyone with half a brain would vary the route he took to and from the mosque. He would notice that the streetlights that were working a week ago were now out. He would step out onto the street when approaching a blind alley. He would be aware of his surroundings. But this guy wasn't.

They were close now. Coleman was counting down their approach, and Rapp could clearly hear their conversation. They would appear in just a few seconds. Rapp turned toward the sidewalk and dropped to a crouch, ready to spring. He had decided to keep his left hand free. He held the gun in his right. He saw their long shadows appear, cast from a streetlight down at the other end of the block. Time slowed. All of his senses heightened. At the other end of the long, dark alley he heard the rattling engine of a late model car as it passed by. He was perfectly concealed in the dark canyon. His entire body coiled, ready to strike.

They appeared side by side. Rapp held his position. Let them pass so their peripheral vision would not be able to detect him. He slowly rose up, but only a foot. He took his first silent step, and then his second. He was exposed now, and he moved quickly, still in a crouch. At the last second he stood to his full height. He was up on the balls of his feet, his weight leaning slightly forward. Both men were within reach and neither of them so much as flinched. Rapp's right hand came crashing down, the grip of the pistol striking the unknown man on the back right side of his neck. Rapp had rethought his original plan. Instead of using a leg sweep, he planted his left foot, spun to the right, dropped down a few feet and delivered a hammer like blow to Khalil's right kidney.

Rapp continued through the move, looking to his right to make sure the other guy was out of commission. The man was falling face-first to the sidewalk, his hands limp at his sides. He was already unconscious. Khalil's mouth was open, gasping for air. His back arched, his hands reaching for the area where he'd been hit. His neck was completely exposed. He might as well already be dead. Rapp's left hand shot up and clamped down on the terrorist's throat like the jaws of some lethal carnivore. Rapp was now eye to eye with Khalil, positioned as if they were dance partners doing some intricate move. The man's eyes spoke of pure fear, which was probably the same expression worn by the young boys when they realized they were strapped behind the wheel of a car filled with explosives.

With the man's neck firmly in the grasp of his gloved hand, Rapp forced Khalil's chin up and began driving him back into the shadows of the alley. A basic tenet of hand-to-hand combat is that the body goes where the head goes. Khalil wrapped his hands around Rapp's forearm, but it was already too late. His larynx half crushed, his body completely off balance, Khalil could do nothing but watch in absolute horror as the final seconds of his life played out before him like some awful nightmare. It was the perfect justice for a man who had preached terror and hatred for over two decades.

Rapp accelerated his move, wrenching Khalil's head back as far as it would go. The man was beyond stumbling. He was on his way down, and there was nothing that would keep him on his feet. Rapp used Khalil's weight against him. At the last second he thrust his left arm out like a piston and slammed the back of Khalil's head into the hard unforgiving pavement. The man's entire body went limp a split second after impact. There was a good chance the blow was fatal, but Rapp wasn't about to leave anything to chance.

He wasted no time. He put the gun back in his pocket, spun, took a few steps, and grabbed the feet of the other man. Coleman and his team were under specific orders not to get out of their vehicles unless Rapp called for them. Rapp dragged the unknown man into the alley and deposited him next to the Dumpster. Next, he grabbed Khalil under the arms and propped him up against the brick wall of the building. Everything was done without hesitation and with great efficiency. Rapp grabbed the knife from his left pocket, pressed the button and heard the spring-loaded blade snap into position. Standing off to the right, Rapp placed his right hand on Khalil's forehead and stuck the blade into the man's neck just beneath his right ear. The hard steel went in with little trouble. Rapp then gripped the knife firmly and drew the weapon across Khalil's neck, slicing him from one ear to the other.

At first glance the man appeared to fit in. He was wearing the traditional garb of a Saudi businessman. A white thawb, or robe made of cotton, was draped over his shoulders and stopped short of his ankles, and his sandy brown hair was covered with a ghutra and tied with an ornamental rope to keep it in place. Upon closer inspection, though, there were telltale signs that he was not native to the Arabian Peninsula. His skin was tan, but not the right shade, he was clean shaven and wearing heavy-soled black dress shoes instead of sandals, and above all else, his eyes were a muted blue, almost gray color. At the moment, however, those eyes were concealed behind a large pair of black sunglasses.

It was only 9:00 a.m. in Riyadh, and the temperature was pushing 100 degrees. Erich Abel didn't mind the heat, though. He actually preferred it. Having grown up asthmatic, he found the dry arid climate of Saudi Arabia's capital far preferable to the humid weather of the coastal cities on the Red Sea. Abel had a genuine interest in Saudi Arabia. Not because of the climate, really, or even because of the people. It had more to do with how it would soon shape history. It was an exciting place to conduct business.

The former East German spy believed in going native. It was the only way to really understand a culture. In truth, though, that was only part of the reason he wore the traditional Arab garb. The reality was, Saudi Arabia had become a very dangerous place for Westerners. Kidnapping was of course a constant possibility, but anyone dumb enough to grab him would return him as soon as they found out who he worked for, and then they would beg forgiveness at the foot of Prince Muhammad. The real problem was the increase in random killings by the crazed Wahhabis. There was great unrest in the desert kingdom, and it was very important to be as inconspicuous as possible.

If Abel had a true talent in life it was predicting change. When he'd worked for the Stasi, the ruthless and much feared East German Secret Police, he'd been the only one in his office to predict the collapse of communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall. He'd passed his reports up the chain of command, and they'd all told him he was too young to know what he was talking about. Just twenty-nine when the wall fell, Abel was looked upon as an overeducated intellectual by the cold-blooded ranks within Stasi headquarters in East Berlin. The Stasi prided itself on a certain crass ruthlessness that Abel lacked. Truth be told, he would have fit in better with the British foreign intelligence service, MI6. Abel had great respect for the Brits. They ran creative operations and took great joy in outwitting their adversaries. The Stasi was more like a very efficient and ruthless American organized crime family. At any rate, no one wanted to hear his predictions that their reign of terror was drawing to an end.

Abel had been a sickly child, in and out of hospitals. When he was out, he spent much of his time in bed with barely the strength to read. While the other kids advanced physically, he advanced intellectually. He graduated from university early, at the age of twenty and with dual degrees in math and economics, and was recruited by the Stasi. The employment opportunities in East Germany in the early eighties were not good. That fact combined with the idea of doing some bullying after being picked on for much of his youth appealed to him in a perversely satisfying way.