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“I serve the one true God.”
Rapp switched to Arabic. “You butcher your way through civilian populations.”
Jesem just stared blankly at him.
“Are you kidding me?” Rapp said, switching back to English. “You’re sitting there lecturing me about Islam and your parents didn’t even teach you to speak its language?”
“You have to take me home! I’m an American citizen.”
“Sure. I’ll just run you back to Denver so you can get some great medical care and do a little skiing before you get back to your genocide.”
“No,” he said, starting to sound a little less certain of his position.
“No what? You don’t ski?”
“I just . . .” Tears started to flow, mixing with the dried blood on his cheeks. “I just want to go home.”
“Don’t you dare start crying about missing America. I will fucking yank your dick off and feed it to you.”
Jesem managed to stifle his sobs just as the satphone in Rapp’s pocket started to vibrate. The number on the screen was immediately recognizable. Irene Kennedy.
“Go ahead,” he said, picking up.
“I just got a call from Umar Shirani. It seems your plan worked.”
“He’s even more of a coward than I gave him credit for.”
“He says there are five more canisters missing and that his people are going to send a full report within the hour.”
“Give it to Craig. He’s in the process of analyzing samples from the warhead I brought him.”
“Mitch, I don’t have to tell you that this situation has just gone from dire to potentially catastrophic. Even if the people who took the fissile material don’t have a way to detonate it, they have enough to build a dirty bomb that could make Washington or New York uninhabitable.”
“Who are you talking to?” Jesem said. “I want a lawyer. Tell them I want a lawyer!”
“What was that?” Kennedy asked.
“The television,” Rapp said, leaning against the wall and examining Jesem. His beard and hair were almost identical to Rapp’s, but the similarities didn’t end there. They had the same coloring and build. And, though it was hard to judge exactly with him seated, they even seemed to be about the same height. He was undoubtedly younger than Rapp, but with all the damage done by Shirani’s men, someone would have to be looking pretty closely to notice.
“We’re out of time,” Kennedy continued. “Anyone with the ability to coordinate an operation this sophisticated has a plan that’s equally sophisticated. That fissile material could already be coupled with bombs small enough to smuggle across the U.S. border.”
“Agreed. Any movement on finding the man who took out Scott?”
“Yes, but it’s not an easy task. There are a lot of white spec ops men with athletic backgrounds in the world.”
“Hello!” Jesem said, getting as much volume as he could out of his raw throat. “Who’s there? Who’s on the phone? Is that the embassy?”
Rapp looked down at him. He stared back defiantly. Like Kennedy said, the clock was ticking. It was time to act. Rapp nodded toward Maslick and ran a finger silently across his throat.
Jesem clearly understood the gesture and immediately started jerking back and forth, trying to free himself. “Stop!” he yelled as the two-hundred-twenty-pound Delta man walked up behind him. “I’m an American citizen, you can’t do this! You can’t—”
Maslick grabbed his long hair with one hand and his chin with the other, twisting the young Coloradan’s head a full one hundred eighty degrees before kicking over the chair and spitting on his corpse. Normally, Rapp would have considered the last part a little unprofessional, but under the circumstances, it was hard to criti
cize.
“Mitch? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
