Azarov could feel his heart pounding in his chest and the blood rushing in his ears. Normally, his heart rate barely rose during operations-the result of years of physical and psychological training. This was hardly a normal operation, though. The ISIS-supplied terrorists and lack of information introduced an intolerable lack of predictability. The potential presence of a nuclear warhead opened a scope far greater than he had dealt with in the past. And, finally, there was Mitch Rapp.
The entire scenario was madness. He should have spent months personally planning this confrontation: walking the streets, laying out lines of retreat, cracking Rapp’s radio encryption. He should have been drawing the legendary CIA agent into a trap that would cut him off from his backup and leave him facing an overwhelming force.
Instead, he was standing alone in an unfamiliar building armed with nothing but a pistol and single spare magazine.
Undoubtedly Maxim Krupin would say that it would be impossible to create a more elaborate plan without tipping off the Americans. That Azarov was being unnecessarily timid. Those objections rang hollow, though. In truth, Maxim Krupin was embarking on something so dark that he couldn’t risk even the remotest possibility of being discovered.
And this left further troubling questions.
Of course, the Muslims would be summarily executed after they had served their purpose. But what about him? Azarov presumed that he continued to have the Russian president’s confidence, but it would be foolish to cling too desperately to that belief. Marius Postan had been one of Krupin’s most indispensable men and he now resided at the bottom of the Arabian Sea.
The radio came to life again, this time with a distinctly British voice. One of the insane men who had abandoned their world to fight a barbaric war that didn’t concern them. “Three men on motorcycles are leaving the store on Jaranwala. One is going for Canal and another for Jhang. Best estimate is that they will intercept the truck in five minutes. The third American is heading northwest.”
Azarov nodded silently. The men converging on the truck would be Mitch Rapp and Scott Coleman. They would be forced to improvise when they discovered it had changed course. The other man would be Joe Maslick, formerly of Army Delta. He was still only about ninety percent recovered from a recent shoulder injury, so the logical course would be to send him to the helicopter the CIA was holding at the edge of town.
Azarov pulled his weapon from its holster and checked it for the last time. Rapp would be there soon.
CHAPTER 12
RAPP accelerated the motorcycle up twenty feet of open street before being forced to veer around a van. He barely avoided having to jump onto a sidewalk packed with pedestrians, instead taking the side mirror off a Suzuki wagon when he threaded between it and a light post.
The situation was an ungodly mix of everything he’d come to associate with Pakistan: heat, car exhaust, and chaos. Even in what passed for politically stable times, the country was one of the greatest threats faced by the modern world-a hopelessly corrupt hornet’s nest of factionalized terrorist groups, divisive government officials, and poorly monitored nukes.
“Turning right on Canal.” Scott Coleman’s voice in his ear.
“Copy that.”
Rapp’s long hair had become completely saturated with sweat, and it hung in front of his eyes, making visibility a struggle. An armed soldier posted on a street corner started paying too much attention and Rapp took a left into an alleyway. It was too narrow for cars, and that allowed him to increase his speed as pedestrians pressed their backs against the walls to let him by. The downside was that his handlebar-mounted GPS had lost satellite signal.
“I’ve turned off Jhang. Should be connecting to Okara in about a minute.”
“Copy,” Coleman came back.
“Mas. What’s your status?”
“I’ll be boarding the chopper in less than six minutes. Over your position in about ten.”
“Ten minutes. Copy.”
Rapp came out on a broad avenue and weaved around a motor scooter piled with bales of cotton. Coleman was about twenty blocks north, heading southwest on the same road as the truck containing the nuke. They’d converge on it from opposite directions and then they’d have to improvise. The key would be speed. Take out the tangos and get control of the vehicle. Then figure out how to deal with the backlash from the cops and military. Not exactly an airtight plan, but the best they’d been able to come up with on the fly.
“The truck has turned off Canal,” their spotter said. “It’s now moving southwest on the Karin Interchange. Traffic is moving too fast. I’m losing him.”
“I’m going to cut left on Satayana and parallel him,” Coleman said. “See if we can figure out where he’s going.”
“I’ll be coming out south of the interchange and I’ll try to get on his-”
A delivery truck parked on the sidewalk suddenly pulled back onto the road right in front of Rapp. He swerved right, cutting across traffic and narrowly avoiding getting taken out by a passenger bus. With nowhere else to go and too much momentum to stop, he jumped onto the sidewalk and locked up the rear wheel. Pedestrians dove in every direction as he was funneled toward a set of stairs heading down into an open plaza.
There was no way to stop in time, so he took the opposite course of action, twisting the accelerator and standing on the foot pegs as he approached. Frightened and angry shouts erupted around him as he launched off the landing.
The staircase was only about fifteen steps in length and he cleared the last one by a few feet, bottoming out his shocks on the concrete slab below. There was a loud snap, followed by a loss of power and the sound of the bike’s motor revving out of control. He ran through the gears but it was no use. The transmission was done.
Rapp leapt off, letting the motorcycle roll into a mailbox before flipping on its side. A crowd immediately started to gather and he could see the gray-and-tan shape of a cop running in his direction.
Rapp’s first instinct was to go for the crowd. In his experience, the first few rows of people would offer token resistance, but the ones behind would just be following the herd. They would have no idea what was happening or who was involved.
As he got closer, though, it became clear that the cop was a good thirty pounds overweight, jogging awkwardly with an assault rifle clutched in front of his ample stomach. It would be a miracle if he could run a fifteen-minute mile without dropping dead, while Rapp could cover that distance in a third of the time.
Satisfied that there would be no serious pursuit, Rapp turned away from the expanding mob and began sprinting toward their target’s last reported position.
“I’m on foot,” he said into his throat mike. “Coming up on Okara.”
“Are you all right?” Coleman asked. “What happened?”
“Yes, and don’t ask. Mas? Where are you? My GPS is still on the bike. I’m running blind.”
“On my way. We’re pushing it as hard as we can, Mitch.”
Rapp glanced behind him and confirmed that the cop was standing motionless on the sidewalk, bent at the waist and trying to catch his breath.
“I’m still on Satayana,” Coleman said. “Try not to be too late for the party, huh, Mitch?”
CHAPTER 13
“I’VE reacquired the target,” a voice said over Scott Coleman’s earpiece. “It’s entering a warehouse on the corner of Haali and Qaim using bay doors on the southwest side.”
“Copy that,” Coleman said, glancing down at the GPS on his bars. It was being updated remotely, and a few seconds later he had routing. “I’m about two minutes out. Can you keep eyes on?”