“I think you’ll be quite satisfied with the plan, Grisha.”
Azarov took a slow sip of his bourbon, savoring the flavor while he calculated how much to say. “I’m concerned about working with Pakistani Taliban while Rapp will be supported by Scott Coleman and his men.”
“The Taliban have strong local knowledge and are willing to give their lives to ensure that you accomplish your goal.”
“I think we can be certain that Coleman’s people will be reasonably knowledgeable about their operating environment as well. And I suspect that there isn’t one of them who wouldn’t lay down his life for a teammate. Further, they’re extraordinarily well trained, speak the same language as Rapp, and have a lengthy history of carrying out successful operations with him.”
“I selected these men personally,” Krupin said, the anger starting to creep into his voice. “Not only for their skill but for their commitment to the mission.”
It was, of course, a complete lie. Krupin had selected these men because they couldn’t be traced back to him. Their skill or lack thereof was a secondary consideration at best.
“Thank you for involving yourself personally,” Azarov said, knowing that there was nothing to be gained from further discussion. “I understand the demands on your time.”
“Not at all, Grisha. I have no priorities more important than your well-being. Other than perhaps your happiness. You continue to demonstrate your value. How can I express my appreciation?”
It was a question that had been asked many times during their relationship, but one that was becoming increasingly difficult to answer. Another car? He had a Bugatti Veyron sitting in storage in Canada and a Bentley Continental in a garage outside Geneva, to name only a few. Another house? He had four-three of which he hadn’t visited in years. The only thing he wanted was the one thing he would never be granted. Freedom.
“That’s very generous of you, sir. Please give me time to consider the offer.”
“Of course.”
The line went dead and Azarov set his phone down, staring at the body lying near the door.
In a way, he envied Krupin and men like him. They were blessed with insatiable appetites that had to be constantly fed. Money, power, possessions, women. It would never be enough. A billion euros would have to become two billion. The adulation and obedience of ninety percent of the population would have to grow to one hundred percent. Krupin and the oligarchs would scrape and strive until their last breath, never knowing a moment’s doubt, introspection, or regret. Never considering there were aspects of life that existed outside their simple philosophy of more.
For a long time, Azarov had felt like he was drowning. Not the panicked, desperate death that most people would associate with that kind of end, though. More a sense of waves lapping over him and of a cold, endless darkness below. The road ahead was empty. He had nothing he wanted. Nothing worth fighting for.
Now, though, there was the strange sensation of adrenaline leaking into him. Soon, he would face Mitch Rapp, a man he had spent his adult life actively avoiding. There had never been any reason to court a confrontation, but now that it was inevitable he was starting to feel… what? Excitement? Fear? Those were clumsy words that had little meaning to him. But he felt something. Something to break up-or perhaps end-the existence he’d become trapped in.
CHAPTER 10
FAISALABAD
PAKISTAN
RAPP didn’t bother lowering the jet’s stairs, instead jumping to the tarmac and jogging toward a car parked at the edge of the runway. The clear skies and cool breezes of the Western Cape were now thousands of miles away, replaced by Pakistan’s familiar heat and yellow haze.
His flight plan had been for Islamabad, but they’d been diverted one hundred fifty miles south to Faisalabad without explanation. Based on the blond hair barely visible through the filthy windshield of a Honda Civic waiting for him, the news wasn’t good. Scott Coleman was a former Navy SEAL and the principal in SEAL Demolition and Salvage, a private outfit that existed largely as backup for Rapp in ops that were best left off the books.
“Hot enough for you?” Coleman said as Rapp slid into the passenger seat. “The weather guys say we’re going to break a hundred and eight this afternoon.”
They weren’t normally prone to talking about the weather, but those kinds of numbers had to be accounted for when planning operations. At best, speed, stamina, and precision would be compromised. At worst, heat stroke and dehydration could take out even an experienced desert operative.
“Did someone demote you to chauffeur and not tell me about it?” Rapp said, turning one of the car’s AC vents on him as they accelerated toward the main road. He’d left Coleman in charge and had expected to be picked up by one of the CIA’s local staff.
“We’ve got good intel that a nuke is going to be coming through town in a few hours and that al Badr is going to make a play for it.”
“Not ISIS?”
“ISIS? No, why?”
“No reason,” Rapp said. “But why al Badr? They’re a second-string Kashmiri outfit. What are they doing in Faisalabad?”
“Hell if I know. I’m telling you, Mitch, it just keeps getting worse. Pakistan’s got a thousand terrorist groups and I swear every one of them has their eye on the nukes the army’s driving around. If someone doesn’t get control of this chickenshit government fast, we’re going to lose one.”
He and Coleman had been in some hairy situations over the years, but this was about as agitated as Rapp had ever seen the man.
Not that he didn’t agree. Pakistan was a fractured nation with almost two hundred million inhabitants and a stockpile of more than a hundred nuclear warheads-many of which were currently in motion. A screwup didn’t mean getting your ass shot off, it meant watching a million people disappear into a mushroom cloud. Just the kind of large-scale problem Rapp had spent his career seeking out and Coleman had spent his career trying to avoid.
“Who fed us the intel?”
“Redstone.”
Rapp nodded silently as Coleman turned onto a road that tracked north through the tightly packed buildings of Faisalabad. Redstone was one of their top assets in the region, a man highly placed in Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. He’d had a few misses over the years, but generally his intel was solid.
“If we get involved, are we going to run headlong into an ISI operation?” Rapp asked, referring to Inter-Services Intelligence-Pakistan’s version of the CIA.
“I don’t think so,” Coleman responded. “According to Redstone, you killing the ISI’s director has completely paralyzed them. Everybody’s jockeying for position and playing both sides of the power struggle going on between General Shirani and the president. The fact that someone could wander off with one of their nukes is so low priority to them it barely makes their radar.”
“How many are we tracking now?”
“Thirteen warheads that we know of are currently on the move. We located another two stationary ones while you were gone, putting the total we have a handle on at fifty-three. The analysts are guessing that another twenty-five are attached to missile systems that would make them impractical to move.”
Rapp did some quick math in his head. “So that leaves somewhere in the ballpark of thirty unaccounted for.”
Coleman nodded. “Including the one we’re talking about now. We weren’t aware of it until Redstone tipped us off.”
It was a problem that had existed for years. The Pakistani army was paranoid about the Americans or Indians getting a bead on their nuclear arsenal, so they moved it around-on trucks, in train cars, in the trunks of private automobiles. Hell, there was credible intel that a tactical warhead had once been hauled three hundred miles on the back of a motorcycle.