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"Gag him and sit him down over there by the trucks."
Urda was on his mobile phone. He held up a finger signaling to Rapp that he needed a second. He walked a few steps away and continued to listen. "All right. Thanks for the update. Call me as soon as you learn anything else."
Urda flipped the phone closed and approached Rapp. The other three prisoners were kneeling on the ground bound and gagged about fifty feet away. Urda hooked Ahmed by the arm and said to Rapp, "Follow me."
The three of them walked over by the trucks where Urda deposited Ahmed. He fastened the gag over his mouth and grabbed a smelly burlap hood to throw over his head.
Rapp stopped him. "He doesn't need the hood."
Urda threw the hood on the ground and gestured for Rapp to follow him. He led him around the corner of the building and in a voice barely loud enough for Rapp to hear said, "That was one of my guys calling from the base. They found a couple of interesting dossiers on some guys who we've been looking for. Care to take a guess who?"
Rapp was not in the guessing mood. He'd allowed his thoughts to wander briefly and was thinking of the city of his youth. The place he called home. The faces of innocent people going about their honest lives. They were all in jeopardy. "I have no idea."
"You know those missing Pakistani nuclear scientists we've been trying to track down?"
All Rapp could do was shake his head. "This just keeps getting worse."
"The dossiers are detailed. Filled with surveillance of their activities going back five years in one case. They were recruited by agents at the local mosques where the scientists were posted just like we thought."
"Any more good news?" he asked sarcastically.
"No."
Rapp leaned back around the corner and checked on Ahmed. "Khalili says he left Karachi last Friday when Abdullah ordered them to pack up and head for the mountains."
"The mountains?"
"Reprisals. They think those damn mountains will actually protect them."
Urda looked off to the south. From this distance the mountains looked like a distant wall of clouds. "Those mountains have protected them for centuries."
"Not this time, Jamal. If they've got a nuke, and they set it off in D.C., the mountains will become their tomb." Rapp stepped around the corner and looked at the three prisoners he had yet to interrogate. He could feel the rage building, which wasn't always a good thing, but considering the time constraints they were up against there was no delicate way to handle the situation.
"Follow me," he said to Urda, "And let's get this over with."
* * *
Twenty-Two
Rapp dragged Hassan Izz-al-Din into the room by his long black hair. The man's personal hygiene left a lot to be desired, and that was before he'd been rolled around in pigshit. Al-Din's gag was still in place, so the curses he was trying to fling at Rapp weren't getting very far. Rapp deposited the Yemeni-born extremist like a bag of garbage on top of his dead comrade. Al-Din struggled wildly against his bonds while simultaneously trying to writhe his way off his dead friend.
He squirmed his way clear of the corpse just in time for Urda to deposit Waheed Ahmed Abdullah in the space he had just vacated. Abdullah's reaction to being placed on top of his lifeless friend was much the same as al-Din's.
Rapp pulled al-Din to his knees, and as soon as Abdullah had rolled clear he yanked h
im off the ground by his hair. The two men were left kneeling side by side with the body of al-Houri in front of them. Rapp took one man's gag off and then the other. The curses flew forth in furious Arabic. The dignity of Rapp's mother was assaulted right off the bat, and then their attention turned to his wife.
Rapp just stood there, arms folded, watching the bearded mongrels spew their hatred. He wanted them to get all of this off their chests and then he would react. Finally, Rapp asked in Arabic, "Are you done?"
The men spat in his direction and launched into a second tirade every bit as vituperative as the first. Many of the same insults were used, only uttered with redoubled vigor, but as before, they ran out of steam and grew a bit bewildered at Rapp's refusal to engage.
Rapp knew a fair amount about each man. He knew from where they hailed, and where they'd received their religious indoctrination. Although he couldn't recall all the names, he also knew the CIA had a list of their family members.
"Are you done?" he asked again.
This time they only muttered a few curses before stopping.
"Good," replied Rapp in a satisfied tone. He drew his 9mm FNP-9 from his thigh holster, pulled the hammer back into the cocked position, and leveled it at al-Din. Without a question, or word of warning, he squeezed the trigger once, a loud pop and muzzle flash erupting from the weapon. Before Abdullah could react, Rapp brought the weapon to bear on him and fired again.
