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Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany
THERE WAS A slight jolt followed by a hydraulic whine. Mitch Rapp was yanked from his deep sleep and jerked forward in his seat, simultaneously reaching for his Beretta and looking to his left. He breathed a sigh of relief, and slowly his hand released the grip of his gun. Harut was still there, hands and feet cuffed, with a black hood over his head, lying strapped to the leather couch of the Learjet. His turban and robe had been replaced with a green flight suit.
Rapp rubbed his eyes and looked out the small window on his right, quickly realizing that the bump that had awakened him was the landing gear locking into position. They were almost level with the German countryside. A second later they cleared the trees, and the concrete runway was beneath them. The green fields were replaced by a rank of gray hangars and planes. First a row of large C-130s, then several flights of F-16s, and then finally they touched down. Rapp continued to rub his eyes with clenched fists. He felt almost as if he had been drugged. The past three nights had been marked by a total of six hours of sleep. Rapp checked his watch and estimated that he had been out for almost four hours. It was a good start, but he wouldn’t mind getting a couple more hours of shut-eye as they crossed the Atlantic. There was no telling how quickly he would have to go out in the field again.
The plane taxied off the main runway and came to a stop next to a fuel truck and a blue van with blacked out windows. Rapp unbuckled his seat belt and got up. His appearance had changed since leaving Bandar Abbas. The unkempt black-and-gray beard was gone, replaced by a cleanly shaven face. With the beard gone, a scar was now visible on Rapp’s left cheek. It was narrow, less than an eighth of and inch, and it started by his ear and ran straight down to his jaw—the pink scar tissue offset by his bronze skin. The doctors at Johns Hopkins had done a good job minimizing the knife mark. At first it was almost half an inch wide, but after the plastic surgeons were done, there was only a thin line. This scar, more than any of his others, was a daily reminder to Rapp that what he was doing was very real and very dangerous. A streak of gray could still be found in his long, thick hair, but most of it had been washed out during the fifteenminute shower he took after the helicopters had landed in Saudi Arabia. Rapp had shared a quick Miller Lite with Harris and his men and then headed for the showers to wash a week’s worth of dirt and grime from his body. He stood under the hot water and scrubbed every inch of his filthy skin three times. When he had finished washing the dirt and smell away, he stood under the hot water for another five minutes and savored a second Miller Lite.
By the time he was clean and dressed, the Learjet was ready. Rapp went back into the room where Harris and his marauders were already into their second case of beer and found Harut changed into a green flight suit, medicated, and lying on a cot in the corner. Congratulations were exchanged once again, and then Rapp threw Harut over his shoulder and headed for the flight line.
Now on the ground in Germany, Rapp looked down at Harut and yawned. Rapp would have just as soon put a bullet in Harut’s head back in Iran, but if it meant finding out where Aziz was, the young American was willing to do almost anything. Rapp walked to the front of the jet with his head tilted to the side. When he reached the door, he grabbed the handle and twisted it clockwise. There was a slight hiss as the pressurized air escaped. Rapp let the door out and eased it toward the ground. Despite the overcast morning sky, he still had to shield his eyes from the light. His lean biceps bulged under the fabric of the black polo shirt he was wearing, and a brown leather shoulder holster held his Beretta securely to his side.
The door of the blue van opened, and a woman stepped onto the tarmac. Two men followed her. It wasn’t often that Rapp felt uneasy, but as he watched Dr. Jane Hornig walk toward him, he found himself suddenly wishing he were elsewhere. Hornig, in her mid-forties, scurried toward the jet with one hand clutching the lapels of her blue blazer and the other holding her metallic briefcase. As Rapp watched her approach, he couldn’t help but think of the scene from The Wizard of Oz when the mean neighbor, who turns out to be the Wicked Witch of the West, shows up on her bike to take Toto away. The music was even playing in the back of his mind.
Rapp was convinced that Hornig’s face had seen neither sun nor makeup in over a decade. She had the classic demeanor of a scientist, disheveled and low-maintenance. Clothes and appearance didn’t matter to Hornig; only her work did. Standing just a touch over five feet tall, she still wore her hair in a bun and dressed as if she had never found her way out of the sixties. On the one occasion that Lt. Commander Harris had met Dr. Hornig, he had, in his typical smart-ass way, dubbed her Dr. Strangelove, after the hilariously abused character played by Peter Sellers in the 1964 Cold War spoof.
Hornig, for all of her eerie qualities, was far more than just a psychologist. She also had advanced degrees in both biochemistry and neurology and was considered the foremost expert in America on the history and evolution of human torture. She had an interesting business relationship with the CIA. Langley provided her with guinea pigs for her experimental drugs and techniques, and in return she gave them what they wanted—information pulled from the deepest recesses of the human brain. This often included details that the subjects would not be able to remember on their own. Rapp had watched Hornig and her henchmen work on one occasion, and after about ten minutes, he decided he could wait for the Memorex version when they were done.
As Hornig approached the foot of the stairs, she looked up and said, “Hello, Mr. Kruse.”
Very few people at Langley knew Rapp’s real name. To them he was Mr. Kruse, a case officer who specialized in the Middle East. People in the intelligence business knew not to ask too many personal questions when dealing with field personnel. Indiscretion usually guaranteed an official reprimand from one’s superior.
Rapp greeted the doctor and stepped back, allowing her room to enter.
Hornig looked to the rear of the plane. “How is he doing?”
“Fine. I gave him the exact doses you prescribed.”
“Good.” The doctor set a silver ballistic briefcase on the nearest seat and turned to the door. “These are my assistants, Sam and Pat.”
Rapp looked at the two men and nodded. Both were carrying two larger silver ballistic briefcases. “There is a bedroom at the rear of the plane.” Rapp pointed. “It’s probably the best place to get set up.”
Hornig agreed, and she and her two assistants continued single file toward the rear of the jet.
Rapp watched them move Harut into the bedroom and decided it would be a good time to get some fresh air. As he stepped down onto the tarmac, he felt the rare urge to smoke a cigarette. It was a nasty little habit he had picked up while working undercover, and from time to time he still found himself craving one. He looked to his left, where an airman was busy refueling the plane. Rapp almost made the stupid mistake of asking the man for a cigarette, but he saw the flammable insignia on the side of the green truck. Rapp stood awkwardly next to the plane and looked to his left and then right. The low gray skies and rows of sterile military hangars gave the morning a depressing and dirty feeling.
Rapp sensed the oncoming downturn in his emotions and fought it. There was the tinge of self-pity, triggered by either the dreary surroundings or the arrival of Hornig, or probably both. These little mood swings h
ad become more and more frequent over the last year. Rapp thought he knew what was causing them. When you spent as much time alone with your thoughts as he did, self-diagnosis became as normal as eating. He was nowhere near the pain and anguish that he had suffered almost a decade earlier. This wasn’t like that; it was different. This was more like a warning that if he didn’t do something, he would be stuck on a certain path for the rest of his life. A barren path marked by loneliness.
Before leaving on the most recent mission, he had talked to Kennedy about it. His parents were both gone, and although he still had friends outside of work and a brother in New York with whom he was very close, it wasn’t as if he could pick up the phone and talk about his day at the office. He could talk about his computer-consulting business all he wanted, but Langley was off limits. Officially, Rapp didn’t even work for the CIA. He was what they liked to refer to in the business asa private contractor. Rapp lived a life completely separate from the Agency. With the help of Langley, he ran a computer-consulting business on the side that just happened to do a fair amount of international business, which of course gave him the cover to travel. His only passion in life, outside of work, was competing in the annual Ironman competition in Hawaii—an event that the former all-American lacrosse player from Syracuse University had actually won once.
During these dark, brooding moments, Rapp had wondered how screwed-up his life was or, worse, how screwed-up it might get. He would continually ask himself if it was normal to want with such determination to kill another human being. He knew this was the crux of his problem and had once joked with Kennedy by saying, “Most people have lists of things they want to do before they get to a certain age, like go skydiving, travel to China, have a kid . . . not me. At the top of my list of things to do before I turn forty is kill Fara Harut and Rafique Aziz. How healthy do you think that is?”
Laughing and making jokes were all part of therapy for Rapp; without-humor, he would never make it. In his job he needed to stay loose or, like a watch wound too tight, he would explode. Rapp had studied it from every angle, and he believed that his position was both moral and just.
The problem, however, lay in the fact that Rapp knew the hunt was destroying him. He was increasingly losing touch with that segment of society that was labeled normal. His friends from college were all married and having children, and for him there wasn’t the hope of either on the horizon. He knew that to have a normal life he would have to finish what he had set out to do. He could not have a family and continue to work for the CIA. The two would not mix.
Rapp thought back to how nice his life had been just ten years earlier and to the weird twist of fate that had led him to this point in life, to this dreary military base in Germany. “No one ever said life would be easy,” his father used to say. Rapp laughed at the thought of his father telling him to “Suck it up,” as he had done countless times throughout Rapp’s youth. It had gotten to the point where Rapp’s father would say the three short words with a smile on his face. The short phrase had grown from words of criticism into words of encouragement.
The roar of a jet sounded in the distance, and Rapp stepped away from the plane to search it out. Looking down the long runway, he saw a lone F-16 racing in the opposite direction, its single engine on afterburner, glowing bright orange. The agile jet lifted into the air, above the mirage of dancing runway heat and instantly retracted its landing gear. As the plane climbed, Rapp watched it gain speed. He followed it for a minute or more until it was a speck in the expansive gray morning sky. A second jet pulled onto the runway and screamed into the air, chasing after the first.
Rapp gazed at the second jet and knew he was a possessed man. He would pursue Rafique Aziz wherever he went, even if it led to his own destruction. The trick would be to catch Aziz before he himself reached the point of no return, and Rapp could sense that point nearing, hovering just over the horizon.
Rapp watched the airman detach the fuel hose and climb into the truck. As the tanker pulled away from the Learjet, the plane’s twin engines began turning. Rapp took one last look at the dreary scenery and climbed into the jet. As he pulled the door up and secured it, he smiled and whispered to himself his father’s words of encouragement.
6
Washington, D.C., 8:05 A.M.
