Vince Flynn - Order to Kill

This guy was way too easy. Certainly not Russian intelligence. If he were, Rapp would already be on a plane to Moscow, where he’d either get traded back to the U.S. or spend the next five years being wrung for everything he knew about America’s intelligence capability.

No, this dipshit had the look of one of the many organized criminals that ran roughshod over the former Soviet Union. Not the stupidest-looking one Rapp had ever met, but then the bar wasn’t all that high.

“You’re lying,” Rapp said, calculating the best way to keep the conversation going. It was obvious that the Russian was enjoying showing off that he knew more than the Agency. “I know how this goes. You’re trying to confuse me. It’s not going to work. What would be the point of taking them halfway around the world?”

The man turned back to the gurney and exchanged the scalpel for a saw. The way his eyes shifted suggested that he didn’t know. Whoever was pulling his strings wasn’t stupid enough to tell him any more than he needed to know.

Not that it mattered. There was only one answer that fit. This wasn’t about Claudia. It was about distracting him and getting him out of Pakistan.

“My employers deemed it too risky to try to kill you.”

While there was probably some truth to that, Rapp doubted it was the whole story. More likely his employers recognized that killing him went only so far toward damaging the CIA’s Pakistan operation. What they were counting on was that he’d pull Scott Coleman and his team out of Islamabad to help find Claudia. And they were right. If he hadn’t gotten the tip and instead showed up to find that Claudia had been snatched by a couple ISIS pricks, he would have wanted his top people in on the hunt.

“It appears that they very much overestimated you,” the Russian continued.

“I get that a lot.”

He used the flexible metal saw to smack Rapp across the face, leaving a serrated cut across his cheek. There seemed to have been no purpose to the blow. He did it just because he could.

More and more, Rapp was starting to suspect that this wasn’t actually an interrogation. The Russian was trying to decide what to do. He could hand Rapp over to his employers and reap the rewards or he could keep Rapp and use whatever information he could beat out of him for his own benefit.

“I’m worth a lot to my government,” Rapp said, trying to keep him on the hook. “They’ll pay to get me back.”

The man didn’t respond for a long time, staring down at his own reflection in the saw. “I don’t think the rewards would be equal to what I can get from my own employer.”

It sounded like he was coming to a decision. Time was running out.

“Whoever you work for, they’re not the U.S.A. What can they give you?” Rapp said, trying to get some clue as to who was behind this. “We’ll match it.”

“You’re bound by the law. My employer isn’t. Money, of course. But young girls? Drugs? An estate filled with stolen masterworks befitting an oligarch?”

Interesting, but not that helpful. In Russia it was hard to tell where the government stopped and organized crime started. You could probably find someone at the Moscow DMV to provide those things if the price was right.

“You seem like more a dogs-playing-poker guy to me.”

The saw flashed again, this time leaving a jagged cut on his other cheek. Rapp could feel the blood trickling through his beard and then dripping into the open collar of his shirt.

“That’s starting to get old, Ivan.”

“It’s nothing compared to what my employer will do to you. He’ll keep you alive for years, extracting everything. You’ll spend your days begging to be killed and your nights chained naked to a bare concrete floor. There will be nothing left of you but a frightened, broken old man.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a satellite phone. That was it. He was going to call it in a sitrep. Shame. He had to be one of the most talkative interrogators in history.

Rapp reached into the tape binding him and peeled off a shard of razor blade that was right where it was supposed to be. The Russian dialed as he started slicing.

Rapp’s knee was partially locked when he finally stood. Ten years ago a few hours in a trunk wouldn’t have affected him but now the wear and tear was starting to add up.

The Russian froze for a split second when he saw that his prisoner was free and then threw the saw before running for the door. The blade passed a good foot to Rapp’s right and he just stood there stretching his back as the Russian jerked open the door and shouted for Thompson’s help.

In the room beyond, the young contractor was standing over the bodies of the two Arabs. Claudia had Anna on her lap, holding her tight and trying to keep her quiet.

The Russian retreated to the far wall, watching wide-eyed as Rapp retrieved his Glock and walked through the door, kneeling in front of Claudia and running a hand affectionately through Anna’s hair.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could have spared you this.”

Claudia shook her head, tears flowing past the streaks of dried ones on her cheeks. “Please don’t, Mitch. Don’t ever tell me you’re sorry. We’d be dead many times over without you. I don’t deserve any of the things you’ve done for me.”

Rapp fished a set of keys from the pocket of one of the dead men. “Wait in the car. I’ll be out in a little while.”

He and Thompson watched her go before turning their attention back to the man pressed against the wall of the embalming room.

“But…” he stammered, pointing at the young contractor. “You’ve been paid! We had an agreement!”

His confusion was understandable. Killers of Thompson’s caliber rarely betrayed their customers. At best it was bad for business. At worst it could be deadly.

“I’m not an idiot,” Thompson said. “I work in a pretty exclusive profession, Ilya. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize Louis Gould’s wife and daughter? And that I wouldn’t know Mitch has a history with them? What do you think he was going to do after you were finished leading him around on his wild goose chase? He was going to hunt me down and put a bullet in my head.”

“Gould? I… I didn’t know!”

“Yeah, well, whoever you’re working for did. And since they were setting me up, I figured I’d give Mitch a call and return the favor.”

THE Russian crouched and let loose a right hook when Rapp got in range. It wasn’t a bad effort-clearly the man had some training. Based on the speed, though, that training had been a lot of vodka and cigarettes ago.

Rapp ducked and shot an open palm up into the man’s chin. He’d retreated against the cinder-block wall and, as planned, his head snapped back into it. Not with sufficient force to knock him unconscious, but hard enough to make his knees buckle.

Rapp grabbed him by the hair and dragged him to the gurney centered in the room. He shoved the corpse occupying it onto the floor and replaced it with the Russian. He struggled weakly but was too dazed to prevent Rapp from using a roll of duct tape to secure him to the bloodstained metal surface.

“Ilya, right? What’s your last name?” Rapp said, grabbing his phone off the tray and starting to dial.

“I… I wasn’t going to harm you,” the man begged uselessly. “I don’t know anything. I was just hired-”

Rapp slapped a piece of tape over his mouth, silencing him as the phone on the other end of the line began to ring. Irene Kennedy picked up a moment later.

“Are Claudia and Anna all right?” she said by way of greeting. As director of the CIA, the demands on her time got worse every year. She reacted by making everything more efficient, and that had prompted her to do away with meaningless pleasantries. Rapp wholeheartedly agreed. After almost a quarter century of working together, small talk was a waste of limited resources.