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CHAPTER 15
FAISALABAD
PAKISTAN
THE soldier was angling in from the right, running across an empty lot piled with garbage. His weapon was still holstered but he was young and respectably fast. Avoiding a confrontation was going to be impossible if Rapp wanted to get into position for the chopper closing from behind.
They continued on their collision course, with Rapp at a full sprint, dodging through the alarmed pedestrians sharing the sidewalk. Predictably, the soldier slowed when he got within ten yards, shouting for Rapp to stop and reaching awkwardly for the pistol on his hip.
The problem with military men in this part of the world was that they expected people to do what they were told. A good bet ninety percent of the time, but today he was going to get an education in the other ten.
Despite the stifling heat and his aching lungs, Rapp managed a brief burst of additional speed, aiming directly at the young soldier. The gun snagged before clearing its holster and Rapp stuck an arm out, clotheslining the man. He landed hard, the back of his head hitting the concrete with a dull crack.
The maneuver had multiple benefits. First, the kid was done with his chase but still breathing. And second, the pedestrians crowding the area started to panic. Instead of his having to dodge them, now they were getting out of his way.
No plan was perfect, though. The two cops coming at him from the north saw the soldier go down and pulled their weapons. Neither looked like he could hit the broad side of a barn, but that actually made the situation worse. If they decided to open up, the most likely outcome would be that they’d take out a bunch of innocent bystanders.
The buildings that Maslick had told him about appeared on his right and Rapp abruptly slowed to a walk, stepping through a set of doors as he wiped at the sweat pouring down his face.
He had no idea what the people working in the building did and there were no clues in the modest lobby. A receptionist sitting at a desk to his left looked at him with a friendly but inquisitive expression. There was a single open door at the back and he could see the cubicles lined up beyond it.
“Hi, I have an appointment to see Mr. Gajani,” Rapp said, trying to control his breathing. It was the most common Pakistani name he could think of on the spur of the moment and he got lucky. The woman still looked a little perplexed but there was apparently someone working there by that name and the idea that an American might visit him was within the realm of possibility. She reached for the phone but Rapp waved a hand and gave her as friendly a smile as he could muster. “Don’t bother. I’ll just go on back.”
He picked up his pace as he passed through the door. The receptionist didn’t protest, instead just nodding submissively. In terms of her cultural situation, she was the exact opposite of the soldier he’d left lying on the sidewalk. In male-dominated Pakistan, he would expect deference while she would expect to be dismissed.
His luck held as he weaved through the cubes. A few people glanced up at the sweat-drenched man in their midst but most remained focused on what they were doing. By the time the sound of the front doors being thrown open reached him, he was already approaching the back of the building.
Demanding shouts reverberated through the building, but a moment later they were drowned out by the dull thud of chopper blades. The people around him began to stand and wander out of their cubicles when the vibration started to shake the structure.
“Stop!”
Rapp ignored the shout, continuing to walk casually toward a door in the back wall. More yelling and the sound of running feet didn’t prompt him to look back. The combination of the cops and the fact that the chopper was close enough to start knocking pictures off the walls was creating a panic that would be enough to cover him for the next few seconds.
Yanking the door open created a blast of air that felt like a convection oven. He used a hand on the jamb to pull himself forward into the hurricane of rotor wash. There was a red climbing rope whipping around the narrow alley and Rapp went for it, catching the carabiner dangling from the end and attaching it to the harness beneath his shirt. A quick wave and the helicopter started to rise, lifting him off the ground.
Rapp reached for his fanny pack and retrieved his weapon, pumping a couple rounds into the wall next to the door when one of the cops poked his head through. He disappeared back inside and stuck a hand out, firing blindly around the jamb. The rounds ricocheted through the alley but by then Rapp was well clear. The chopper continued to rise until he was out of practical range of anyone on the ground and then dipped its nose and started in the direction of the warehouse Coleman had infiltrated.
A voice crackled to life in his earpiece but he couldn’t understand what was being said over the roar of the air around him. He grabbed the rope to steady himself and looked up, spotting Joe Maslick hanging out of the helicopter’s open door. He pointed and Rapp followed his finger to a large building to the north. It took up the entire block and had a ring of windows around the top. Despite the sun glare, intermittent flashes of gunfire were visible through them.
With no idea of Coleman’s position, the floor plan, or the strength of the opposing force, entering through one of the broken skylights was a no-go. Instead, Rapp motioned toward the roof of an adjacent building.
“Scott!” Rapp said, activating his mike. “I’m going for the high ground on the northeast side of the building. I should be in position in two.”
There was no response as the aircraft started to descend. Rapp hit hard, rolling across a melting asphalt roof and coming to his knees near the low concrete wall that encircled it. The rope dropped on top of him and he looked up, pointing at the HK416 assault rifle in Maslick’s hand. The former Delta operator nodded and let it drop. The rotor wash put it into a flat spin as it fell but Rapp managed to catch it. He moved right, lining up on a broken window in the side of the warehouse.
As planned, he was high enough to see about seventy percent of the building’s floor. The relative darkness inside didn’t make for great visibility, but it was enough.
The chopper started to rise, taking the noise and the wind with it. The oppressive heat, thou
gh, remained.
“Scott, I’m in position. I can’t see the first fifteen feet of the north side of the floor because of the wall and I’m blind to the last thirty feet at the back because of the light. I have full view of the center section all the way to the east and west walls. That’s your cover area. Do you copy?”
Rapp could see muzzle flashes coming from the back but they weren’t enough to pick out individual targets. About all he could do was make an educated guess that Coleman was dealing with three to four men with automatic weapons.
“Scott, do you copy?”
“Fifteen feet from the north and thirty from the south,” Coleman repeated back.
