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“Put me down, you idiot. What are you doing?”
“Saving your fat ass, dumb shit.” Coleman reached the second floor and stopped at the ladder that led to the roof. The rotor wash from one of the helicopters was blowing through the opening. Coleman didn’t think he could climb the ladder with Rapp over his shoulder, so he set him down.
Rapp’s pupils were as big as saucers.
“Shit,” Coleman muttered. He turned Rapp toward the ladder and placed his hands on the rung just above his head. “Come on, climb. Let’s go.”
Rapp turned his head and gave him a blank stare.
Coleman screamed at him, “We’re going to die if you don’t get moving. Snap out of it!” Coleman grabbed him by the waist and started pushing him up the ladder.
Rapp seemed to finally come out of his stupor, his hands grasping at the rungs above him.
“That’s right,” Coleman prodded him on as they made painfully slow progress. Fortunately, Maslick appeared in the hatch opening. He grabbed one of the shoulders on Rapp’s vest and practically yanked him onto the roof. By the time Coleman cleared the ladder, the big former Delta Force Operator had Rapp on his feet and was dragging him toward one of the waiting Little Birds.
Coleman watched as bullets began impacting the ground around Rapp and Maslick. He snapped his M-4 up to his shoulder, flipped the selector to full automatic, and began raking the roofline across the street with fire. Coleman marched steadily forward, and when his weapon locked out he ejected the spent magazin
e and inserted a fresh one, charging the weapon and then releasing another volley.
Ducking under the Little Bird’s rotors, Coleman kept up the suppressive fire and jumped onto the portside external bench. He looked inside the back compartment and saw Rapp and Gould in a pile on the floor. Maslick was sitting on the starboard side bench laying down suppressive fire. Coleman took his finger off the trigger and reached forward, slapping the pilot on the shoulder. Coleman gave the man the thumbs-up signal and the bird immediately lifted into the air.
They banked to the right, which gave Coleman a good vantage point to fire at the building with the men on the roof. No one, however, was getting up to shoot at the helicopter. They were either all dead or had finally taken the hint that it was a good idea to stay down. As they gained elevation and distance Coleman released his rifle and strapped himself in. That was when he noticed that Rapp was out again. He reached in and slapped him on the cheek. Coleman had seen a lot of concussions, and this was not the norm. Gould was lying next to Rapp with a bullet hole in his shoulder, his face tight with pain. Coleman seemed to remember seeing some blood on Maslick as well. A hospital was more important than getting back to the embassy. Plus, the CIA had its detention facility at the Bagram Air Base.
Leaning forward, he shouted above the roar of the rotors and engine, “We need to go to Bagram. Straight to the base hospital.”
The pilot nodded and began speaking into his lip mike. About five seconds later the Little Bird and one of the Black Hawks broke formation and headed to the northeast for the fifteen-minute flight to the main U.S. air base and its level-one trauma center. The Black Hawk pulled alongside, and Coleman could see Mike Nash sitting in the back of the much larger Black Hawk, talking on a headset. The fallout from what had just happened was going to be huge. Nash was probably already dealing with it. Coleman checked on Rapp again. He was still unconscious, which from a medical standpoint was a concern, but there was a silver lining. If Rapp were awake right now, he’d probably have them on their way to assault the police headquarters in Kabul.
No Afghani politician or State Department official would be able to calm Rapp down. Even Kennedy would have a hard time convincing him to stand down. The only thing that could stop him would be a hospital bed. Once Rapp started, Coleman knew there would be no stopping him. He’d kill every last corrupt official he could get his hands on.
CHAPTER 21
JALALABAD, AFGHANISTAN
RICKMAN no longer wondered if his ribs were broken—he was convinced. Three of them, he was pretty sure. Both eyes were now firmly closed, the skin so swollen and tight that he probably looked like he was morphing into an insect. His tongue told him that two of his teeth were knocked out and a third was chipped. He had finally broken. He’d heard the maxim many times before—everyone broke. He was no different, of course, and no one would expect him to hold out for very long. He had lived a life insulated from physical pain. He’d been hired for his intellect, not, like Mitch Rapp, for his predatory instincts. Emotional agony Rickman could write the book on, but this physical stuff was an entirely different game. He had prepared himself. In a broad conceptual sense, he understood what it would be like and that it would not last forever, that the physical scars would heal.
Nothing, however, no amount of meditation and careful consideration could prepare him for the absolute brutality, the hair-splitting agony that would result from his nerve endings being so assaulted. There was some embarrassment that he couldn’t even last two days. Barely twenty-four hours after the torture started, Rickman caved. The secrets came flowing out in a torrent. He babbled from one subject to another like a crack addict who could not keep a train of thought. It would take multiple experts to decipher what he had really said, and that was intentional on Rickman’s part. There was just enough truth in his words to make them believe him, but there were also traps and deceptions that would give the CIA the time they would need to maneuver and possibly save a few people. There were also a few scores to be settled, some enemies who would now have to answer to the Taliban and defend what he’d said they’d done. The words would be a waste, as they always were with groups like the Taliban. The group was all that mattered. Individual needs were not important. The more the person tried to deny something that couldn’t be proven, the more it looked to these obtuse fools as if that person was putting himself before the needs of the group. Unable to decipher what had really happened, the Taliban would act predictably. They would kill the perceived traitor. It was a complex mix of facts, outright lies, half-truths, and complicated misinformation that was possible only with Rickman’s genius.
They thought they were in control, but they weren’t. By the time he was done with them, Rickman would have these fools killing each other. Terrorist would be pitted against terrorist. Unfortunately, a few allies would be killed, but his side was not without fault. Soldiers died every week in this war. A few intelligence assets weren’t worth getting too spun up about.
Rickman heard the door open, and he didn’t bother to try to open his eyes. He’d stopped trying hours ago. They were too puffy to work properly. He felt a certain sense of calm. The end was near, and then the pain would stop.
“It is time,” a steady, soft voice announced.
Rickman sighed. He so much preferred this one to the others. He was smart and actually knew what questions to ask. “But I’m having so much fun.” Rickman tried to smile through his swollen lips.
“I know you are, but we all have our orders to follow.”
“Yes,” Rickman said, “we all must be good soldiers.”
The man squatted next to Rickman, keeping his back to the camera. Deftly, he slid an unseen syringe into the crook of Rickman’s left arm while pretending to take the man’s pulse. He depressed the plunger. He doubted Rickman noticed the prick. The man’s body was so overwhelmed with pain that this little stab wouldn’t even register.
“So now that I’ve begun talking it would be nice if we could conduct the follow-up questions in a more civilized setting.”
“Hmm . . .” The man seemed to be pondering Rickman’s request. “There’s only one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You lied to us.”
