Vince Flynn - Order to Kill

When she swung again, he only partially blocked the blow, allowing the lamp base to land a painful blow to the right side of his face. It lacked the knee-shaking force of one of Maslick’s fists, but it was a step in the right direction.

Rapp slipped past her and into the main room to give himself space to maneuver. She didn’t hesitate, chasing after him and taking another vicious swing. Hate and rage had transformed her beautiful features into something that would have startled even Stan Hurley-a man who had done hate and rage better than almost anyone.

Instead of retreating, Rapp moved closer. The shaft of the lamp hit him in the left eye, knocking him back a few steps. He blinked a few times to confirm that he could still see out of it as she came at him with an ear-splitting scream. This would be the money shot and he had to admit that he wasn’t looking forward to it. A surge of adrenaline coursed through him when he turned and let the lamp hit him square in his broken nose.

“Fuck!” he shouted, staggering back as blood began pouring into his beard.

She pressed her advantage, undoubtedly thinking she was on the verge of finishing him off. This time he caught the lamp and swept her feet out from under her. She landed flat on her back on the concrete floor, knocking the wind from her lungs.

Rapp threw the lamp into a corner and went back into the bathroom to examine his face. No chance anymore of anyone differentiating his nose from Jesem’s. In fact, it was hard to recognize the thing in the center of his face as a nose at all. If he managed to survive long enough to get back to the States, Irene Kennedy was going to be writing a serious check to the Agency’s plastic surgeons.

He shoved some toilet paper in his nostrils to stop the bleeding and passed back through the door. The woman had made it to her knees and she looked up at him. The beating she’d just doled out had clearly done nothing to diminish her burning hatred.

“Do you speak English?” he asked, unwilling to reveal his language skills.

“If you touch me, I’ll kill you.”

Not only did she speak English, she spoke it pretty well.

“What do you say we call a temporary truce? Dinner should be ready.”

He retreated into the kitchen and came out with the Mexican chicken. She rose to her feet, but seemed unsure what to do. Undoubtedly she was wondering why she hadn’t been raped the moment she’d hit the bed.

“It’s drugged,” she pronounced.

He shoved a heaping spoonful into his mouth and then held the package out to her. She took a hesitant step forward and then snatched it from his hand. He watched as she wolfed it down like she hadn’t eaten in a week-which was probably the case.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I don’t have to talk to you,” she said, trying to get the last piece of chicken from the bottom of the container.

“You might want to think about your situation a little more carefully.”

“If you come near me, I’ll kill you.”

“You already said that. Tell you what. I saw a package of Asian beef in there. Answer a few simple questions and I’ll make it for you. Now, what’s your name?”

She backed away a few steps. “Laleh.”

“Are you from this area, Laleh?”

“Yes.”

“Where are we?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“What city? What country?”

Her eyes narrowed as though she thought she was somehow being tricked. “Al-Shirqat, Iraq.”

Rapp nodded silently. North-central Iraq. Dead in the middle of ISIS-held territory.

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

U.S.A.

“YOU can go right in, Dr. Kennedy.”

“Thank you, Gloria,” she said, passing through a door that led directly into the Oval Office. Predictably, President Alexander was on the phone, but he stood and pointed to a chair in front of his desk. A small table next to it contained a steaming cup of tea.

She immediately recognized his conversation as a meaningless political strategy session and tuned it out. It was much more interesting to just watch the man as he twirled a pencil across the back of his knuckles and tried to hide his impatience.

Joshua Alexander was barely over fifty, but his brown hair was quickly turning gray. The dimpled smile and playful eyes that had so effectively ingratiated him with voters were still there, though. More importantly, he had proved to be something of a backroom realist. He knew what needed to be done to keep the country safe and while he tended to dislike being directly involved, he was often willing to look the other way. In the end, it was probably the best she could hope for from any politician.

Alexander finally managed to extricate himself from the call and laid the handset in its cradle.

“Irene. You look like shit,” he said, and then caught himself. “I’m sorry. That was rude, wasn’t it? How’s Scott doing?”

“Much improved, thank you for asking.”

“Normally I’d take that to mean you’re finally going to get some sleep. But you never call emergency meetings with me to talk about how well everything’s going.”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but you’ve only got five minutes. I have the Turkish ambassador coming in and I don’t have to tell you the mess they’re dealing with.”

“I understand, sir. I’ll get directly to the point. We’ve learned that the fissile material missing from the Pakistani warhead we examined isn’t an isolated incident.”

“What do you mean not ’an isolated incident’?”

“We have confirmation that a total of six warheads have been compromised.”

Alexander just sat there for a moment, staring at her. “Do you know who has it?”

“We think ISIS, but it may be more complicated than that.”

“ISIS! Now hold on, Irene. You’re telling me that the most violent bunch of psychopaths to walk the earth in the last five hundred years have the fuel to build six nuclear weapons?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“Can they do it? Do they have the resources?”

“On their own, it’s doubtful. Building a weapon would take sophisticated materials, expertise, and machining capability-most of which has been destroyed in the area they control.”

“Dirty bombs, then.”

“That would be well within their capability. They could also sell it-to other terrorist groups, to the Iranians, or any other country interested in building a nuclear capability.”

Alexander’s secretary knocked and poked her head in. “Sir, the Turkish-”

“Reschedule him, Gloria.”

“You’re booked until eleven thirty this evening, Mr. President. I-”

“Then tell him midnight!”

“Yes sir,” she said, immediately withdrawing and closing the door.

“I’m afraid there’s another complication,” Kennedy said when they were alone again.

“ Another complication? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“We have mounting evidence of Russian involvement.”

“Krupin? Why would he get mixed up in something like this? He has personal control over the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal-something he reminds me about every time we talk. He doesn’t need to steal fissile material from the Pakistanis.”

“Our people have done a full analysis of the decoy fuel canisters they found in the warhead. They’ve also been in touch with the Pakistani engineers examining the five other compromised weapons. All the containers appear identical. The metals originated in China, but evidence is strong that they were manufactured in a Russian facility. One controlled by the government.”

“And how was that determined?”

“Microscopic pollen and industrial soot found in the welds.”