After about five minutes of generally southern travel, he came to a collapsed building with little more than the east wall surviving. It was one of the landmarks he’d identified from a photo at Langley and he turned left, cutting diagonally across a cratered square.
By the time he made it to the far side, he was certain he was being tracked. There was a natural rhythm to the debris dislodging from the structures around him and now it was off just enough to stand out. The footfalls were random and careful, but to the practiced ear they were unmistakable.
He kept his pace casual, climbing over a burned car to gain access to the alley behind it. When he was certain he was obscured from view, he sidestepped into a gap in the wall to his right.
Whoever was behind him was disciplined—Rapp would give him that. It was a full two minutes before he was able to pick out an intermittent shadow inching toward his position. He dug a shard of concrete from around a piece of rebar and threw it, creating a nearly inaudible clatter twenty yards to the south.
The footsteps faltered for a moment. Rapp retrieved his Glock and waited, barely breathing. A few seconds passed before the silhouette reappeared. The man it belonged to was an inch taller than him and a good six inches wider at the shoulder. He had an assault rifle strapped across his chest and was moving in a manner that suggested he was more than just another ISIS dipshit.
Rapp remained motionless in the darkness where he’d taken refuge, watching the man approach. When he walked past, Rapp stepped out and pressed his gun to the back of his head.
The man didn’t cry out or even speak, instead coming to a halt and raising his hands. Rapp moved slowly around him, brushing the barrel of his Glock through the man’s hair until it came to rest against his forehead.
“I remember you being less sloppy,” Rapp said in Arabic.
“And I remember you looking like the wrong end of a goat.”
Rapp pulled the gun back and the big man embraced him.
“Hold your face to the sky, my friend. Let me see you.”
Rapp raised his chin to catch the moonlight and the Iraqi gripped Rapp’s beard, moving his face around to see better.
“It’s miraculous what you Americans can do,” he said sincerely.
In order to not be recognized on his prior operation in al-Shirqat, Rapp had been forced to let Joe Maslick beat his face into something resembling raw meat. That was the only face Gaffar had ever seen—the broken, bleeding, and swollen one Maslick had created.
“More surgeries than I care to remember.”
“Yes, but still . . . it’s incredible.”
“How are the others?”
“They’re managing, but they aren’t soldiers. Fear is a good motivator, but this . . .” He waved a hand around him. “The cold, the boredom, the lack of food. It is hard.”
“How long have you been hiding out here?”
“Two weeks.”
Rapp nodded. Often it wasn’t the terror and exhaustion of combat that beat people down. It was everything in between.
“Come,” Gaffar said. “I’ll take you to them.”
What was left of this part of town appeared to be uninhabited and of no interest to ISIS forces, but still it made sense to proceed carefully. They finally arrived at a massive concrete slab that had tipped against a crumbling wall. Gaffar picked up a rock and tapped it three times against what had once been a lamppost. A moment later the people Rapp had come for appeared at the entrance of the artificial cave.
On the left were two thin men who looked like computer geeks. One seemed to have lost his glasses and was squinting uselessly into the darkness. Mohammed, their leader, didn’t seem too much worse for the wear and neither did his brother.
The Iraqi siblings were the only two men in the world that Rapp had a hard time looking in the eye, so he adjusted his gaze to the woman pressed against Mohammed’s side.
“Who’s she?”
“My wife.”
“You got married?” Rapp said. “Interesting sense of timing.”
“Shada was being auctioned off by ISIS. I’ve known her since we were children. I sold everything I had and used the money to buy her.”
Rapp looked into her dark eyes, taking in the unlined face and black, tangled hair. He had purchased Mohammed’s sister under similar circumstances. This girl was younger and more fearful, but otherwise no different than Laleh had been.
The memory was accompanied by a painful constriction in Rapp’s chest and he pushed her image from his mind. It would come back, though. It always did.
“If there isn’t room for me, I’ll stay behind,” she said as the silence drew out.
“No,” one of the geeks said, a little too loudly. “If anyone is going to stay here, it should be him. He got us into this.”
“Shut up!” Gaffar said in a harsh whisper. “We got ourselves into this. It’s our country to fight for. Our people who have destroyed it. Not his.”
He raised his hand to strike the man, but Rapp caught it.
“Look, all you have to do is hold it together for a little longer. Then this’ll all be over.”
He retrieved the food he’d brought and divided it among them. “Now eat up and gather your gear.”
“Then she can come?” Mohammed said.
Rapp nodded. “Five minutes.”
CHAPTER 2
Rabat
Morocco
JOE Maslick looked through the dirty windshield at the neighborhood around him. It was better lit than he would have expected but there were still plenty of shadowy corners to park in. At six foot one and 220 pounds, his ability to blend into this part of the world—hell, any part of the world—was crap.
Reason number forty-eight that he shouldn’t be here.
Fortunately, it was late, and human activity was at a minimum. That wouldn’t last forever, though. Before he knew it, early risers would start searching for their morning coffee, kids would begin the march to school, and vendors would begin positioning themselves to pick off the customers who preferred not to shop in the full heat of the day. Someone from that last group would undoubtedly bang on his window and ask him to move his car. But he wouldn’t really know for sure, because he didn’t speak Arabic.
Reason number forty-nine.
“Mas?” Bruno McGraw’s voice over his earpiece. “You copy?”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve got a car bearing down on your position. Kinda unusual. Makes me think it might be our guy.”
“Unusual how?”
“Shiny new Mercedes S-Class. Two men in front, one in back.”
“So now terrorists are driving hundred-thousand-dollar cars?” he cracked to cover his nervousness. “Maybe we’re fighting for the wrong side.”
This whole op was fucked. His commander, Scott Coleman, was still recovering from almost being killed in Pakistan, and Rapp was off screwing around in Iraq. That left him squinting into the glare of the misplaced confidence of everyone from the director of the CIA down.
“Might be a false alarm, but he’s coming up on the Bani Street turn,” McGraw said. “We’ll see if he takes it.”