Vince Flynn - Order to Kill

“Mitch!” she said, tossing the spoon on the counter and throwing her arms around him. The hug was more than a little painful, but he found that he didn’t mind at all.

“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, but I didn’t want anything to burn.”

“No problem,” he said, immediately wishing he’d come up with something a little more suave.

“Well?” she said, spreading her arms wide. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” he said, feeling a little overwhelmed. “Great sculpture out front.”

“Isn’t it fantastic? It’s an Aubarge.”

He nodded as though that meant something to him. “Where’d all this furniture come from?”

“Where didn’t it come from? Do you like it? It’s modern, but not sterile, don’t you think?”

“That’s exactly what I was going to say.”

“You were not,” she responded, picking up her spoon and going to work on one of the pots boiling on the stove. She indicated with an elbow toward an open bottle of wine sitting on the counter. “Have a glass. But be warned, it’s a bit cold. I just pulled it from your cellar.”

“I have a wine cellar?”

She switched to the French she was more comfortable with. “Of course! Fully stocked!”

He found a glass and examined the label on the bottle. Not surprisingly, he’d never heard of it, but the fact that it had been produced before he’d learned to read worried him a bit. Through a few bizarre twists of fate and his brother’s financial genius, Rapp had amassed a fair amount of money. Not this much, though.

“Claudia?”

“Yes?”

“First, let me say that the place is amazing.”

“You love it, right?” she said, twisting around to look at him with a broad smile.

“Absolutely. I do. But could I ask you how much it cost?”

“Oh, not much. I was a little overbudget but I just paid for that myself.”

“Paid for what?”

“The overbudget part.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“Not much.”

“Is there some reason I shouldn’t know the number?”

“ With the artwork?”

“Yes. With the artwork.”

“But not the wine.”

“The artwork, the wine. Everything.”

She shrugged at the sheer triviality of the amount, making a show of carrying out the necessary calculations in her head.

“Twoish…”

“Two hundred thousand?” Rapp said, deciding to fall off the wagon and pour himself a glass of what was apparently extremely expensive wine. Still, it could have been worse. He could reimburse her for that without too much juggling.

“Million.”

The glass stopped a few inches from his mouth but then he decided to just go with it. That number was so big, it didn’t bear worrying about.

“Now go away,” she said. “I need to concentrate. Go see Scott and Anna.”

“Scott?”

“Well, I couldn’t leave him in that horrible hospital and he didn’t have anyone else to take care of him. They’re in the guest bedroom playing LEGOs.”

Rapp started for the hallway but then stopped after a few steps. “Where is that?”

“Directly opposite of where we are now. You can’t miss it.”

• • •

Anna had been coached, too, but it didn’t help. She let out a high-pitched shriek when he walked through the open door.

“It’s okay! It’s me. Mitch.”

The young girl slid off the bed where she and Scott Coleman were attempting to build something that may have been the Eiffel Tower. “Mom said you were in a car accident. Were you wearing your seat belt?”

“I wasn’t.”

“You know that’s illegal. You have to!”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Anna,” Coleman said, “your mom probably could use some help. Why don’t you go see.”

“When are we going to finish?” She pointed to the LEGOs. “Maybe Mitch wants to play.”

“I’m sure he does, but we should save the rest for tomorrow.”

She nodded and went for the door, giving Rapp’s leg a quick hug before starting down the hallway.

“Anna?” Mitch called after her.

She stopped and turned.

“Maybe you could ask your mom to put my food through the blender.”

The request obviously confused her but she gave a quick nod before tearing down the hallway.

Coleman waited until she was out of earshot before he spoke. “Jeez… Mas said he worked you over, but I had no idea.”

“You don’t look so great yourself.”

Rapp was happy to note that his retort wasn’t entirely accurate. While Coleman had lost a lot of weight and his skin was pasty white, his eyes were clear and his voice had regained its strength. Most of all, though, he was aboveground.

“I hear you’re going to make a full recovery,” Rapp continued.

“Yeah. But at the end of a long road.”

“No problem. Take a couple of weeks.”

Coleman managed to produce the Boy Scout grin his friends had become so familiar with. “The docs say that I should be dead. That if it weren’t for you, the infection I got would’ve been fatal.”

“Me? What do I have to do with that?”

“Turns out you dragging me through every third-world shithole on the planet has given me a pretty good immune system.”

They fell silent for a few moments and Rapp ran through the Pakistan op in his head-the trashed motorcycle, going for position instead of entering the warehouse…

“I’m sorry, Scott. That should have been me in there.”

“Fortunes of war, man. What’ll you do?”

Rapp nodded. “When you’re done with your rehab are you coming back?”

“Hell yeah,” Coleman said, pointing a shaky finger at Rapp’s damaged face. “You obviously don’t do too well without me there to watch out for you.”

Claudia’s voice floated down the hall toward them. Dinner was ready.

Rapp noticed a walker in the corner. “You need some help?”

“No. I think I’m going to sit this one out. Maybe get some sleep.”

Rapp turned toward the door but stopped when Coleman spoke again.

“Can you do me a favor, Mitch?”

“Sure.”

“If Azarov is still alive, don’t go after him. It won’t change what happened.”

Rapp ran his hand along the rim of a Chinese vase that he hoped was a reproduction. “Sure, Scott. Whatever you want.”

NEAR DOMINICAL

COSTA RICA

“ARE you making those fried plantains with it?”

“Do you want them?”

Cara popped the top off her third beer and frowned theatrically. “Come on, Grisha. You have to ask?”

He selected a ripe one from a bowl on the counter. “You chop.”

The evening was unusually warm and she was still in a bikini top and surf shorts, padding around his tile floors in the thrift-store flip-flops she favored.

“Be careful,” he said when she reached toward the knife block. “Those are sharp.”

“You and your knives. I swear you stay up all night grinding them on a big rock in your basement.”

“Not all night.”

She was the most vibrant person he’d ever met. A blinding light in the darkness that had swallowed him so many years ago. Having said that, he had to acknowledge that in the kitchen, she was a danger to herself and everyone around her.

It had been six months since he’d escaped Saudi Arabia. ISIS had taken full credit for the attack and there was no reason for the world to look any further. The cleanup was already well under way and the effect on oil prices had been relatively minor. Maxim Krupin was still in control, but of an increasingly angry populace and dissatisfied oligarchy.

For a time, Azarov had run. He’d used his network of clandestine bank accounts and underworld contacts to disappear into the empty corners of the earth. It was a strategy designed to produce a long existence but not a long life. One morning he’d woken up in an anonymous hotel room in Namibia, packed his bag, and returned home. It was here he would stay. In peace, if possible. In a bloody last stand if necessary.