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Rapp could hear Stilwell passing on the information to the Kurds. A moment later there was a slight lull in the shooting. Rapp stayed low and scrambled the thirty-odd feet to the front fender of the Toyota. The dead security contractor was lying a few feet away. From this new angle Rapp could see a group of the militiamen moving hurriedly toward two big late-model American sedans. There was a brief opening, and he got a glimpse of Kennedy. She was being forced into the backseat of the sedan by one of the men.
Rapp was on one knee; his eyes surveying the tactical situation. From left to right he counted eleven men, not counting the ones in the vehicles. They were all carrying machine guns. About half of them were in positions of cover, and they were alert. At best he could take down two or three. The rear door of the first sedan closed and the tires began spinning on the pavement. Rapp’s hope sank as the vehicle took off. Through the back window he saw the man grab his boss by the hair and force her down.
“Stan,” Rapp said tensely. “Irene is alive. I repeat Irene is alive. They just put her in the back of a gray Ford LTD. There is a second car following with a bunch of militia guys inside. It’s a white four-door. Maybe a Chevy. I can’t tell for sure.” Rapp watched both vehicles take a right at the next corner. He passed the information on to Stilwell and then said, “Tell the base commander Kennedy has been kidnapped. He needs to get roadblocks set up ASAP, and I want every Predator and helicopter he has in the air immediately. Then call global ops and tell them to light a fire under everyone’s ass.”
Rapp had a vision of Stilwell having to explain the situation from start to finish with each call. Rapp realized he needed to speak to the president directly, so the orders could be issued from the top down—without question. He was about to tell Stilwell to get him a line to the White House when he noticed a police officer in a hood come running up to one of the men standing by Kennedy’s smoking Suburban. The police officer pointed in one direction and then the other. The man he was talking to began barking orders to the men around him.
“Stan, I need three of your Kurds down here right now!” Rapp holstered the .45, scooted back a couple of feet, and lay down on his stomach. He was just behind the driver’s-side front wheel of the Toyota. Looking under the SUV he could see both men from the knees down. Rapp switched the 9mm to his left hand and lined up the shot. The men were approximately fifty feet away.
“Tell them to hurry up,” Rapp whispered and then gently squeezed the trigger. The bullet spat from the end of the circular suppressor, and seconds later the man on the left collapsed to the pavement. Rapp already had the sights trained on the second man. He fired again with the same results. The police officer joined the first man on the ground, both of them writhing in pain. Rapp stayed right where he was and waited for the inevitable. Two men appeared at the exact same time. They both bent over to grab the man Rapp guessed was their leader. These guys were well trained. Rather than administer first aid on the spot they were going to drag him to a safer location. Rapp dropped both men with shots to the head. They crumpled to the asphalt; the one on the left motionless, the one on the right twitching.
“Stan, where are those Kurds?” Rapp whispered as he searched for more targets.
“They’re on their way, and the Stryker column is two minutes out.”
“Tell your boys not to shoot me when they get here.”
Another man showed up to drag his commander to safety and Rapp put a bullet through the top of his head. Knowing he was pushing his luck, he got to his feet and quickly moved to the rear fender of the Toyota. He leaned against the truck, ejected his magazine, and put in a fresh one. The cops and militia to the north were in full retreat. A block away he spotted a group of men disposing of their weapons and tearing off their hoods and uniforms. Rapp circled around the back of the Toyota and looked back down the street toward the two wounded men. Beyond them he found two militia members taking cover behind Kennedy’s still-smoking Suburban and three more hiding behind parked cars. At the far end of the block there were more men fleeing on foot. As far as Rapp could tell, the five remaining men must have figured there was a sniper in one of the buildings across the street.
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sp; Rapp looked over his shoulder and saw four of Stilwell’s Kurds approaching the Impala he had slid over when he’d first reached the intersection. Rapp waved his hand to get their attention and then motioned for them to stay put on the other side of the vehicle. He took one last peek around the fender of the Toyota and decided to make it quick. Rapp drew the .45-caliber Glock and put it in his right hand. With a gun in each hand he crouched and ran for the sidewalk. As he passed around the end of the first parked car, he hit the sidewalk and began sprinting toward the three men who were taking cover behind a parked car. They paid him no attention.
Rapp covered the ground in under two seconds. The men were talking among themselves, probably trying to figure out whether to grab their commander or abandon him. As Rapp drew almost abreast of the first man, he extended the silenced pistol, aimed it at the man’s right temple, and fired at near point-blank range. Before the other two men even realized what was going on, Rapp fired two more quick shots hitting both men in the face. Never breaking stride, he cut between two parked cars and charged at the last two men. He lowered the silenced 9mm and raised the .45-caliber Glock. Both men were kneeling. The man on the right tried to swing his rifle around. Rapp fired from a mere ten feet away and kept charging. The heavy round snapped the man’s head back into the Suburban. The man to the left was so startled by the shot he froze. Rapp closed the final few feet, and at the last second decided to take the man alive. He pivoted and snap-kicked the man in the side of the head, sending him tumbling to the ground. Rapp kicked his rifle clear and yelled for the Kurds to come over and help.
“Stan,” Rapp said, as he did a 360-degree sweep of the area. He looked at his watch; it wasn’t even noon. The president was more than likely in bed. “Send one of the Kurds down here with a satellite phone.”
The scene had changed drastically in less than a minute. The police and the insurgents were all gone. The gunfire had fallen silent. All that was left were dead bodies and broken vehicles. It was the aftermath of battle. Rapp eyed the two men he had shot in the knees. The policeman had rolled onto his stomach and was trying to crawl away. Rapp then looked to his feet at the four men from Kennedy’s security detail. They were all lying facedown with bullet holes in the back of their heads. McDonald wasn’t one of them. Rapp turned and checked the front seat of the Suburban. There was a body in the front passenger seat, but it was missing a face. Rapp knew it was McDonald. That was where he’d been sitting when they’d left the café.
The anger came boiling up from deep in his gut. Rapp made no effort to control it. He turned and eyed the pathetic piece of shit in the police uniform who was still trying to crawl away. Rapp raised the .45-caliber Glock and fired the weapon. The heavy round hit the man in the ass and blew out a chunk of his right hip socket. The man may as well have been hit by a bolt of lightning. His entire body snapped rigid for a moment and then he began screaming in pain.
Rapp holstered the 9mm, but kept the .45 ready. He pulled off his own hood and yelled for the Kurds to do the same as he walked over to the man the police officer had been talking to.
Rapp reached down to yank off the man’s hood. As he did so, the man’s right hand lashed out. Rapp stepped clear as the tip of a knife sailed wildly past his abdomen. Before the man could take another swipe, Rapp brought his right foot crashing down on his shattered knee. As he convulsed in pain, Rapp found the hand with the knife in it and sent his left foot crashing down with bone-crushing force. The knife was instantly released. Rapp kicked it clear and snatched the hood off the man’s head.
Rapp was not surprised to find a bearded man, with brown eyes, in his mid to late thirties. Wherever he had come from he was not Arabic. His skin was too light and brow too pronounced. He could be an Iraqi, but the pronounced brow and high cheekbones told Rapp the man was more than likely Persian or Kazakh.
“Where did they take her?” Rapp asked conversationally.
The man clenched his teeth and said nothing. Rapp stepped on his knee again. After a few seconds he released his foot and repeated the question, this time in Arabic.
“Fuck you!” the man screamed in English.
Rapp thought he caught a slight Persian accent. He answered the man in Farsi, saying, “I don’t think so.” Leaning in closer, he lowered his voice and asked, “Do you like being a man?”
The fierce brown eyes stared defiantly back at Rapp.
“The two of us”—Rapp pointed to himself and the man on the ground—“we’re going to find out the hard way.” Reaching under his shirt, Rapp drew his matte black ZT knife and dangled it in front of the man’s face. “That woman you just helped kidnap…she means a lot to me.” Rapp’s eyes turned crazed. “Trust me when I tell you you’re gonna tell me where she is.”
The man twisted his face into a frown and spit on Rapp.
Rapp didn’t even blink let alone bother to wipe the spit from his cheek. He took his knife and drove the four-inch blade into the man’s right shoulder socket. With a violent jerk he twisted the knife a quarter turn.
The man gasped at the sheer pain and then let loose a stream of profanities, all in Farsi.
The words confirmed for Rapp that the man was Iranian. Rapp leaned hard on the knife, and when the man opened his mouth to scream again Rapp stuffed the barrel of his .45 into his mouth. Bringing his nose to within an inch of the other man’s, he said in Farsi, “I don’t care how tough you think you are, you Persian piece of shit. You’d better hope for your sake that she gets returned quickly and she better not have a single mark on her, or you’re going to be eating your own nuts for dinner.”
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