After confirming that their cargo was adequately hidden beneath a stack of fishing nets, he threw his wet clothes overboard and changed into baggy pants and a sweatshirt similar to those worn by the man steering the skiff toward shore.
Behind, he heard the engines of the dhow as it started toward deeper water. Job done, they would go back to their lives as traders and petty smugglers, as though none of this had ever happened.
The boat grounded on shore and Azarov jumped out. An SUV with two men standing next to it was visible about fifty meters away and he jogged through the sand toward them.
The vehicle turned out to be an impeccable Range Rover. The two men were equally well appointed, in tailored silk suits and traditional headdresses. In most places, their appearance would be less than subtle, but in the context of Saudi Arabia, it was relatively mundane. In fact, these men really were who they portrayed themselves to be-minor royalty who had enjoyed lives of unimaginable privilege since the day of their birth. Like so many young men with similar backgrounds, though, they had become bored. Now they played at jihad.
“Praise be to Allah that you were delivered to us safely,” one of the men said, extending a hand. He had been educated in America and spoke flawless English.
“Indeed,” Azarov replied, allowing his still-damp hand to be clamped in the crushing grip of overconfident youth.
While the benefit of using these men was obvious-their station in life made them largely above the law-they were not to be trusted. Creatures of comfort and entitlement, they would turn on him, and the God they professed to serve, at the first sign of danger.
The fisherman approached from behind and loaded the first two crates into the Range Rover. Of course neither of the Saudis made a move to help. Azarov knew from his time working as an energy consultant that it would be pointless to ask. They would be genuinely confused by a request that they participate in physical labor.
He wanted to minimize their time on this empty beach, so he turned and ran back down toward the boat. With his participation, they could be loaded and on the road to Al-Hofuf in less than five minutes.
CHAPTER 45
AL-SHIRQAT
IRAQ
RAPP was sitting on the floor of the tiny bedroom with his back against the wall. He’d removed the makeshift shade from the apartment’s only window and the morning sun was casting a dim glow over Laleh as she squinted in his direction. Her wrists were free and she was curled up beneath the covers with her dark hair tossed across her face.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” she said. “What are you thinking?”
He was thinking about the panicked girls running past him at the school. About the ones on stage being sold off to the highest bidder. About the ones still in hiding, praying to Allah to keep them safe. But most of all, he was thinking about her.
In a few hours, he would leave for Saudi Arabia to try to stop whatever attack Ali Mustafa was planning. That was his responsibility, he told himself. His only responsibility. Laleh and the thousands like her weren’t a priority. They couldn’t be.
“You’ve never told me your name,” she said when he didn’t answer.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You’re Mitch Rapp, aren’t you?”
Lying came easily to him, particularly on the subject of his identity. But she deserved better than that.
“Yes.”
She nodded but didn’t otherwise react. “You’ll leave with them tonight, then. You’ll stop them. Kill them.”
“If I can.”
“Good.”
They sat in silence for a long time, the intensity of the light in the room growing with an uncomfortable inevitability.
“There’s going to be no way for me to get back here, Laleh. Assuming I even survive.”
“I know.”
“Get dressed. I’ll take you to your brothers.”
“And how would you explain my absence to the men who come for you?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Thank you, Mitch. But it’s impossible. My brothers are good men, but they’re not like you. They’re not strong enough to protect me.”
“They’d want the chance to try.”
“Of course. But they would fail and I would be the cause of their deaths. For what? To delay my fate another week? No. Without me, they have a chance. With me, they’re dead men.”
Rapp was surprised when Laleh pulled back the blankets covering her. She was still wearing only the panties and bra he’d insisted on so as not to raise the suspicions of Mustafa and his men.
“Now come back to bed.”
• • •
The chime was barely audible, but still caused Rapp to jerk awake. It was the first electronic sound he could remember hearing in days. He would have assumed it was just a dream if it weren’t for the elated shouts filtering in from the street.
Rapp eased himself out of bed, careful not to wake Laleh, and walked naked into the outer room. The torn blackout shade was on the floor, so he skirted the wall and slipped up alongside the cracked glass. Below, he saw two men talking excitedly. They seemed consumed with something the one on the right had cupped in his hands.
Eric Jesem’s cell phone was still charging in the window and Rapp picked it up. The screen showed three bars and a weak data signal.
Irene Kennedy making it rain. He would love to have been a fly on the wall when she asked Jimmy Templeton to pull the plug on his beloved jamming program.
Rapp punched in the U.S. country code and dialed Kennedy’s private number. He didn’t really expect it to go through and was surprised when an echoing ring started.
“Hello?”
“Irene! Can you hear me?”
The delay was infuriating, but she finally responded. “Mitch. Thank God. Where are you?”
“Al-Shirqat.”
“Al- Suspected… region.”
“Irene! This connection sucks. We may not have much time. What have you been able to figure out?”
When she came back on, the signal had stabilized a bit. “Not much, Mitch. We’ve run scenarios for the potential use of the fissile material and I’ve prioritized them in order of probability. But we’re working more with hunches than data.”
“Okay, listen. Here’s what I can tell you. This thing’s being run from here by one of Saddam’s former Generals. Ali Mustafa. The six compromised warheads we know about are all they have. And when I said that the CIA thought ISIS was building nukes to smuggle into the U.S., Mustafa made it clear that wasn’t the plan.”
“What is the plan?”
“I don’t know, but it’s starting tonight and it sounds like it’s about Saudi Arabia.”
“Have you seen the fissile material? We could bring teams in.”
“No. And my gut says it isn’t here.”
“Mine, too. If it’s coming from Pakistan for use in Saudi Arabia, why move it into Iraq? More likely they’d transport it up the Gulf.”
“I’ve gotten myself in on the operation, Irene. I’m on the backup team and I leave sometime tonight.”
“Understood. Everything you’ve told me confirms my suspicions. I don’t think we’re looking at nuclear explosions, Mitch.”
Rapp nodded in silent agreement. If the goal was to take out Saudi Arabia, six nukes was overkill.
“The evidence that Maxim Krupin is involved keeps getting stronger,” she continued. “If we add the intelligence you’ve managed to gather, I think the most likely scenario is a dirty bomb attack.”
“So Riyadh, Jeddah, and Medina. Are you thinking they’d hit Mecca?”
“Not the cities, Mitch. The oil fields. It would destabilize Saudi Arabia to the point that they’d become vulnerable to ISIS. And after that-”