“Sure.”
“Then do it,” Rapp said, turning his attention to the man trying unsuccessfully to push himself to his feet. He’d been bleeding for a good forty-five minutes now and wouldn’t last much longer.
“Who are you?”
Malik spit a mouthful of blood in Rapp’s direction, answering in Arabic. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Interesting accent,” Rapp replied. “Not Saudi Arabia. Iraq?”
He didn’t answer.
Rapp looked over at Wilson. “You try.”
“I don’t think he’s going—”
“Don’t make me tell you again, Joel.”
The FBI man took a hesitant step back in the face of Rapp’s sudden anger, but complied.
“Where are you from? Are you Iraqi?”
The man spit another crimson glob but didn’t otherwise respond. Out of the corner of his eye, Rapp spotted movement at the edge of the clearing and brought his hand closer to his Glock.
“We want to get you medical attention,” Wilson said. “But in return we need information.”
“Fuck you!”
Rapp continued scanning the tree line but, rather than spotting the camouflage of a local rebel, he saw flashes of reddish-brown and black fur. Not as bad as a contingent of Abdo’s men, but better to move things along. The scent of the dying man’s blood was obviously carrying on the wind.
Rapp shoved Wilson out of the way and stepped down on the bullet hole in Malik’s stomach. The man screamed in pain and grabbed Rapp’s ankle, trying futilely to escape.
“You have to answer!” Rapp shouted down at him. “You work for him.”
“I work only for the glory of Allah.”
“I saw you!” Rapp said, grinding his heel into the wound. “You betrayed your god. Why are you working for this man? Why are you working for the FBI? Are you a Christian?”
His expression of agony was replaced by one of horror at the suggestion.
“Or was it just money? Did you sell out your god for a few American dollars? That’s it, isn’t it? You’re just a whore.”
Now the Arab was backed into a theological corner. He knew that his time on this earth could be measured in minutes. Would he meet Allah having not defended his faith?
“My allegiance is to Mullah Halabi! God’s representative on earth!”
Wilson stared down at him, stunned by the revelation.
“Don’t lie to me,” Rapp said, rewarding the man’s response with a slight reduction in the pressure on his stomach. “Nassar hates ISIS. It’s a threat to the Saudi royalty.”
“You’re a fool. The royalty have become tools of the West. They aren’t true followers of Islam.”
“That may be true, but they are Nassar’s power base,” Rapp said, easing his foot back a bit more. “And that son of a bitch loves his power.”
“The weaker we look in Saudi Arabia, the more complacent Faisal becomes. The old fool thinks we’ve stopped our propaganda campaign because of the Intelligence Directorate.”
Rapp loved these ISIS pricks. It was a serious pain in the ass to get the al Qaeda guys to talk, but their dumber, crazier cousins would run their mouths all day if you let them.
Nassar, on the other hand, was neither dumb nor crazy. Teaming up with Halabi to tamp down ISIS propaganda in Saudi Arabia was a cunning move. The fact that Faisal had one foot in the grave made him willing to delegate to anyone who looked like they could hold the kingdom together. As he became weaker, Nassar became stronger. With the help of Halabi and his millions of Saudi sympathizers, the king’s death could set the stage for a coup. The royal family would be chased into exile, leaving their massive financial and military resources in the hands of radicals.
Wilson licked nervously at his lips, the realization that he’d been working for ISIS finally starting to sink in. The decision not to leave him for the scavengers might work out after all.
Rapp stepped over Malik and slid back into the car. Movement at the edge of the clearing was becoming less hesitant, and a few dark-ringed eyes were starting to appear.
Not sure what was happening, Wilson ran around the other side only to find the door locked. He dove through the window when Rapp began pulling away, getting stuck halfway in. “Stop! You can’t leave m—”
Rapp grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed his face into the console between the seats. The padding made the act a bit unsatisfying, so he repeated it a few more times before shoving Wilson back through the window. The FBI man fell into the dirt, dazed and bleeding badly from his nose.
“There aren’t a lot of second chances in life,” Rapp said, leaning across the passenger seat. “Do the right thing, Joel. Or I’ll be coming for you.”
He turned the car and was about to floor the accelerator, but instead paused to point toward Malik and the pack of wild dogs he was desperately trying to crawl away from. “And you might want to consider running.”
CHAPTER 52
I THINK you’re completely insane.”
“I know,” Rapp said.
Claudia was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing exactly the expression he’d expected. She hadn’t really been a citizen of any particular country since she was a child. Her life had been about moving around the world in search of jobs or to stay ahead of whoever was chasing.
His history was different. Sure, he’d originally joined the CIA out of anger and hate, but those emotions had been replaced over the years by a sense of duty. At the end of the day he believed in what he did. He believed in America and the idea that everyone had a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Where Jefferson had gone wrong was in thinking that those rights were inalienable. In truth, they had to be fought for every hour of every day.
Claudia motioned with her head in the general direction of the door. “As your logistics person, I feel like I have to point out that when the team you built is gone, your only ally other than me is Joel Wilson. A man who spends his nights dreaming about how to destroy you.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, leaning back against the wall.
“I can make us disappear, Mitch. We can get Anna and fade away. The only person who would have a chance at finding us would be Irene, and she wouldn’t be looking. Even if some other intelligence agency got lucky, what would they do? Any of the people they’d send probably owe you their lives. And the three or so private contractors good enough to take the job are also smart enough not to.”
“What about what’s happening in Saudi Arabia?”