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“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” the man said in a tone that suggested he wasn’t. “If you could please remove your jacket and shoes, and empty your pockets.”
He did as he was told and then turned to walk to the other side of the conveyor, but was immediately stopped.
“Your belt, too, sir.”
He smiled accommodatingly but felt a surge of nervousness as he removed it. It had been made to order in Asia back in the seventies. The buckle was secured to the leather by a two-inch-long metal strip that had been sharpened on all sides. It was sewn in with permanent stitches, but the pattern and thread were purposely weak. One hard jerk and it would break free, giving him a weapon that was complete crap but still better than nothing.
“A lot of security,” Hurley observed, trying to distract the man looking at the X-ray screen. The belt had been all over the world, passing through even Israel’s airports more times than he could count. Still, this rundown was anything but routine.
“Yes, sir,” he said, not looking up. The conveyor paused for a moment and Hurley focused on the man’s gun. It’d be a hell of a way to go out—grabbing the guy’s weapon and spraying down the courtyard. Just wishful thinking, though. If he so much as raised his voice, they’d immediately harden up on Obrecht. The operation would be finished before it even started. No, if they questioned the belt, he’d tell the truth: that he’d bought it outside a Thai whorehouse before most of the men
around him were even born. What did he know about how belt buckles were attached to belts?
It turned out to be unnecessary. His things came rolling out of the machine unchallenged while he was being wanded. A moment later he was fully dressed and moving toward the mansion.
The guard was two paces ahead as they started up the broad marble staircase leading to the front door. He had a sidearm that was within reach, but he wouldn’t give it up easily. Even with surprise on his side, Hurley questioned how he would fare against the man. Twenty—even ten—years ago, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. A quick twist of the neck accompanied by the quiet crunch of vertebrae, and it would be done.
The chemotherapy and the hip surgery had taken more out of him than he let on, though. If Rapp knew the real extent of it, he’d have left him in West Virginia. But there was no way Hurley was going to fade away in a rocking chair while that piece of shit Louis Gould replaced him.
They stayed on the first floor, walking through a palatial entry hall lined with antique furniture and original portraits of people spanning a good five centuries. Most were probably Obrecht’s ancestors and all looked like they were posing with sticks up their asses. Yet another reminder that crime actually did pay.
“Wait in here.”
“Thank you,” Hurley said, stepping inside a spacious parlor. “Do you know when Mr. Obrecht will be available?”
One of the few advantages of being his age was that hearing aids were expected. His were tied into Coleman’s tactical radio setup and had microphones that picked up his voice as well as the ambient sound around him. He depressed a button on the key fob in his pocket to toggle the transmit function and broadcast the man’s answer to Rapp. They wouldn’t be able to coordinate the op to the second, but if Obrecht was as anal-retentive as he was reputed to be, they’d be able to nail it to within a minute or so.
“I don’t know.”
“Could you give me some idea? I need to be back fo—”
The door closed, leaving Hurley staring at the ornately carved back of it. Prick.
He walked around for a few minutes, pretending to look at the expensive furnishings and finally settling into a chair near a set of west-facing windows. Two guards were visible, but there was nothing to see that Dumond’s drone hadn’t picked up.
Hurley suspected the room was full of hidden cameras and microphones, making it a bit challenging to communicate. He stood and depressed the key fob button again.
“Just one time, I’d like it not to be hurry up and wait,” he muttered angrily, as if to himself. “I don’t know how long Obrecht expects me to sit by the door watching the sun go down. Like I don’t have better things to do.”
“Confirm,” Rapp said over his fake hearing aid. “You’re alone on the first floor, windows facing west.”
“Yeah. Just great.”
“Understood. Stand by. We’re three minutes from the tunnel entrance.”
Hurley began pacing, feeling the irritation he was supposed to be faking turn real. He was accustomed to being on the action side of these ops and being dead in the water while Rapp crawled through the dirt and Coleman set up sniper positions was driving him insane.
He got a little satisfaction from imagining opening the door and smashing that Eurotrash merc’s head in with a priceless statuette. And the image of Rapp and that frog showing up to find Obrecht already tied and gagged was downright uplifting.
The mission he’d been charged with, though, was very different. Nothing more than confirming the banker’s location in the house and keeping him occupied with conversation until the two younger men could come to the rescue. But that wasn’t the worst of it. In order to create even more confusion, he was to act like a second hostage if they were confronted by Obrecht’s security. The theory was that it would give Hurley the element of surprise, but he wasn’t sure that Rapp really believed he was still capable of taking out anyone tougher than a Girl Scout.
He sat again, staring at a blank section of wall and thinking back to when the twenty-two-year-old Mitch Rapp had showed up at his training facility. Some college boy lacrosse player who didn’t know one end of a gun from another.
Hurley had wiped the floor with the sniveling little puke. And despite decades of friendship and countless ops, he’d like nothing more than to do it one more time before he died.
CHAPTER 18
ISLAMABAD
