Vince Flynn - Order to Kill

Neither of the men moved, clearly not willing to get any closer to one another than was necessary.

Shirani was the first to speak. “You’ve returned my country’s property?”

“Yes,” Rapp responded. “For what it’s worth.”

The soldier’s eyes narrowed as he tried to understand the meaning of Rapp’s words. “Is that another threat? Because if you don’t believe we can get-”

“General,” Chutani cautioned, “before we jump to conclusions, maybe we should let Mr. Rapp explain.”

“I’d be happy to. That bomb’s a dud. There’s no fuel.”

“What are you talking about?” Shirani said. “You-”

“The canister that was supposed to contain the warhead’s fissile material is a fake,” Rapp said, cutting him off.

“This is your doing!” Shirani shouted, pointing an accusatory finger. “You stole our weapon and sabotaged it! Now you’re trying to blame the army. You want to discredit me. To discredit my leadership.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to, General? Don’t accuse me of things we both know I didn’t do.”

“My people saw no terrorists in Faisalabad. Just your people and your helicopter. You wonder why we move our arsenal on a regular schedule? Because of this. Because of the outlaw CIA, killing our people and trying to destroy our ability to defend ourselves.” The aging soldier turned to Chutani. “You made a grave mistake allying yourself with this man. The people of Pakistan don’t want our country to be run from Washington. We are a proud-”

Rapp rushed him, ramming a forearm into Shirani’s throat and driving him into the wall. The general had been a formidable warrior once but had spent his last twenty years sitting on his ass, a luxurious lifestyle that reduced him to slapping ineffectually in Rapp’s general direction.

Rapp used his free hand to take hold of the soldier’s hair and drag him to the floor. A moment later he had the Glock pressed against Shirani’s forehead.

“You…” the general stammered. “My forces are just outside. You can’t kill me.”

“Are you willing to bet your life on that?”

“You’ll die minutes after me. You won’t do it. Americans are cowards.”

Rapp grabbed the general’s sleeve and ripped it from his uniform. The man resisted but couldn’t prevent Rapp from stuffing the starched fabric in his mouth.

“Mitch,” Chutani cautioned from behind. He sounded scared. “Perhaps you should-”

“Shut up,” Rapp said without looking back. “You signed on for this.”

Fucking politicians. They were all the same. Tough as nails when they were barking orders from a distance. But if there was any danger of blood splashing on their five-thousand-dollar suits, they shrank away.

“How many?” Rapp said, pulling the sleeve from the man’s mouth.

“What? I don’t know what you’re-”

The sleeve went back in and Rapp reached for the man’s ring finger, snapping it at the middle joint. The sound of shattering bone was surprisingly loud in the concrete cube of a room. Shirani screamed through his gag, but Rapp didn’t immediately remove it. Better to let the pain work on him for a while.

Kennedy was increasingly convinced that fissile material had been taken from more than just the warhead Craig Bailer had examined. And Rapp found it hard to swallow that Shirani would be completely in the dark about terrorist groups tinkering with his nukes. The man was a scumbag and a thug but not a complete idiot. If he’d gotten even an inkling that his arsenal might be compromised, he’d order a comprehensive assessment.

“How many of your warheads are missing their fissile material?” Rapp repeated, pulling the sleeve out again.

“I don’t-”

He replaced the gag and this time targeted Shirani’s index finger. He needed to get this moving. The Pakistani had more fingers than Rapp did time.

“Mitch…” Chutani said. “He may not know. We-”

“I said, shut up!”

Rapp pulled the gag out again and the man coughed violently, apparently on the verge of vomiting. He’d undoubtedly done much worse to people who had opposed him over the years. Based on the look in his eyes, though, he didn’t much like being on the receiving end.

“You can make this stop, General. How many?”

“Six!” he managed to get out. “There are six including the one you have.”

“Who’s responsible?”

“We don’t know. I didn’t bring in the ISI, so we’re doing the investigation internally. Not Taliban. We know that. My people suspect ISIS. We don’t have much penetration into their network.”

“Where are they? Where are the nukes that have been compromised?”

“We’ve moved them to a nearby missile facility in order to examine them.”

Rapp pressed the barrel of the gun harder against Shirani’s forehead.

“No! I told you what you wanted to know. If you kill me, you and Chutani will never get past my men alive.”

“You should have never agreed to let Chutani’s people take the east side of the runway, General. I’ve got five drones circling overhead and they’re going to rain hell down on your forces while the president’s men take cover behind the buildings. Then it’ll just be a matter of cleaning up the mess.”

The story was only partially true. The drones were there, but Rapp had no idea if the wrecked buildings would hold up to the firestorm they were capable of unleashing.

“There is an alternative,” Rapp said.

“What?”

“You take me to those nukes and resign.”

“I won’t.”

“Don’t be stupid, General. You have what? A hundred and twenty million dollars squirreled away in accounts all over the world? Take your family and your mistresses to London. Buy a mansion and live the good life. Or die here. Now. In this shithole.”

Shirani looked at the president. “Are you sure about this? Are you sure that your position is strong enough to survive the retaliation of the army?”

Chutani shook his head. “I’m not sure, Umar. But you’ve lost control of our nuclear arsenal and put weapons-grade plutonium in the hands of fanatics. One way or another, this must end. Our country and our arsenal must come under responsible civilian control. If we both die here in an effort to achieve that, so be it.”

PRESIDENT Chutani had returned to Islamabad, leaving Rapp with a contingent of his top men. The string of armored vehicles containing them stretched out in front of and behind the one he was sharing with General Shirani. The road was well maintained but the sand from the empty plain had blown across it in places, occasionally bogging down the convoy.

Now, though, their destination was finally in view. A half mile away, Rapp saw a massive building shimmering in the heat. It was unremarkable in every way-a squat rectangle built from local materials and ringed by a generic chain-link fence. According to Irene Kennedy, the American intelligence community had no knowledge of the facility’s clandestine purpose and identified it as a legitimate textile manufacturing plant.

The motorcade eased to a stop and Rapp watched through the windshield as Shirani’s chief of staff leaned out of the lead car to bark orders at a guard in civilian clothing. A moment later, the convoy was progressing into the courtyard.

Shirani was sweating profusely next to him, causing stains to spread down the sides of his uniform. Rapp had straightened the soldier’s broken fingers, but he was still in a fair amount of pain.

Or was it more than that? The motorcade consisted of thirty of Saad Chutani’s elite guard, but Shirani would have at least that many loyal army regulars inside. Was he thinking about abandoning his promise to quietly resign in favor of taking his chances in an all-out firefight?