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“Very brave.” Saeed looked back to his old friend. “We have known each other for a long time. Have I ever been an unreasonable man? Have I ever burdened you with trivial requests?”
Rashid shook his head.
“I would not be here now asking for this if the cowards in Riyadh had honored my simple request and stood up to the Americans. All I asked for was the body of my youngest child, so that I could give him a proper burial. Instead, I am told he was defiled by Mitch Rapp so as to intentionally bar him from paradise. What would you expect me to do?”
Rashid sighed and said, “What is it you ask of me?”
“I want you to kill a man for me. It is no more complicated than that. An eye for an eye.”
He studied his friend cautiously. “That is no small request.”
“I would do it myself,” Saeed said eagerly, “but I am naïve in such things, whereas you, my old friend, have many contacts in the world of espionage.”
For eight years Rashid had been Saudi Arabia’s minister of the Interior, which oversaw the police and intelligence services. Then after 9/11 he was shamefully dismissed by his half brother, the crown prince, who had caved into pressure from the Americans. Yes, Rashid had the contacts. In fact he had just the person in mind for the job. “Who is this man you want killed?”
“His name is Rapp…Mitch Rapp.”
The prince concealed his joy. Rashid had been planning this moment for months. It had started when his friend had asked him to find out what had happened to his son, who had left the kingdom to fight in Afghanistan. Rashid had used his sources in the intelligence community and discovered a great deal more than he ever revealed. Slowly, he fed his old friend the information that he knew would lead him to demand nothing short of vengeance.
“Saeed, do you know what you ask of me?” The prince spoke in a well-rehearsed and dire voice. “Do you have any idea who this Mitch Rapp is?”
“He is an assassin, he is an infidel, and he is the man responsible for the death and defilement of my son. That is all I need to know.”
“I must caution you,” Rashid said very deliberately, “this Mitch Rapp is an extremely dangerous man. He is rumored to be a favorite of the American president and the king as well.”
“He is an infidel,” the bereaved father repeated as he turned to the religious man. “I have listened to your sermons. Are we not in a war for the survival of Islam? Have you not told us to take up arms against the infidels?”
What little face that could be seen through the thick gray beard showed nothing. The sheik simply closed his eyes and nodded.
Saeed looked back to the prince, his old friend. “I am not a politician or a statesman, or a man of God. I am a businessman. I don’t expect either of you to publicly or privately support what I am going to do. All I am asking, Rashid, is that you point me in the right direction. Give me a name and I will handle the rest.”
With the exception of Saeed’s public proclamation, Rashid couldn’t have been more pleased with how things were proceeding. He had predicted his friend’s response almost perfectly. He sat stolidly, not wanting to appear too eager. “Saeed, I know of a man who is very skilled in what you ask. He is extremely expensive, but knowing you as well as I do, I doubt that will be an issue.”
Saeed nodded his head vigorously. He had easily made billions, first by putting up phone and power lines around the kingdom and other countries in the region and now by laying thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable.
“I will send him to see you, but you must make no mention of our meeting here today to him or to anyone else. I share your anger, and I wish you success, but you must give me your word as my oldest friend that you will never speak of my role in this to anyone. The Kingdom is a very dangerous place these days, and there are brothers of mine who would not be as sympathetic to your plight as I.” Rashid’s reference to Saudi Arabia’s pro-American government was obvious.
Saeed sneered. “There is much I would like to say, but as you said the Kingdom is a very dangerous place these days. You have my word. I will speak of this to no one. Not even to the man you send.”
“Good,” smiled Rashid. He stood and helped his friend to his feet. The two began walking across the cavernous room, leaving the cleric sitting alone. “Because, my friend, if you succeed in killing Mr. Rapp, and the Americans find out you were behind it, the king will cut off your head. If you fail, and Mr. Rapp finds out you were behind it…he will visit you and your family with more pain than you can imagine.”
Saeed nodded. “How will I recognize the man you send?”
“He is a German. There will be no mistaking him. He is infinitely capable. Just tell him what you want, and he will take care of the rest.”
3
MONTREAL, CANADA
R app arrived the next morning on a Falcon 2000 executive jet leased through a front company in Virginia. A certified pilot, Rapp was the acting copilot on the flight and was dressed accordingly. With the uniform, and a well-used, but fake passport, he breezed through a cursory customs inspection at the private airport and hailed a cab to the hotel where the team was staying. It was Saturday morning. The team’s seventh day. There were four of them, including Coleman. Their history with Rapp went back a decade and a half. Each knew how the others operated, and they all trusted one another, which in their line of work was no small thing.
Coleman was waiting for him in the hotel room, ready to bring him up to speed on the tactical situation. The other three men were out keeping an eye on the target. The former SEAL was about an inch shorter than Rapp. He normally kept his blond hair close cropped, but he’d let it grow out, so it spilled over the top of his ears and touched his shirt collar in back. There was a wave to it with a slight curl. He was lean and athletic, but had a relaxed way about him that could be very deceptive. Confident in his abilities, he no longer felt the need to prove anything. He had done it all, survived some really nasty stuff, and lived to keep his mouth shut. That was the way of the SEALs. They might exchange war stories with each other, or other operators, but that was as far as it went. They were a tight fraternity—one that didn’t like braggarts.
Rapp set his flight bag down on the one bed and looked down at the map spread out on the other one.
“Here’s the hotel, here’s the mosque”—Coleman pointed to one spot and then the other—“and here’s his apartment.”
Rapp looked down at the map of downtown Montreal and the surrounding neighborhoods. “How long does it take him to walk from the mosque to the apartment?”
