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* * *
Rapp strapped his night-vision goggles to his CamelBak and slid a combat knife from the sheath at his waist. The darkness inside the underground passage was too deep for light amplification, and the sound from even a silenced pistol would bounce endlessly off the walls.
He passed through the cavern’s entrance and found himself completely blind. His other senses strained to compensate, but there was nothing for them to cling to other than the scent of earth. He kept his pace agonizingly slow, dragging his fingers along the left wall for reference. There was a significant risk of slamming his head into a rock outcroppi
ng and he had to test every footfall to ensure complete silence.
Despite these precautions, he cut his face on something jutting from a wall and nearly tripped twice, barely managing not to fall. He still hadn’t plummeted down a thousand-foot shaft, though. So that was something.
Because of the sensory deprivation and the focus necessary to remain silent, it was impossible to track time. For some reason he wanted to know how much had passed, but illuminating his watch was out of the question. In this kind of darkness it would look like an explosion.
Rapp slid his toe forward, but stopped when it touched rock. He brushed his fingers along the stone above him, confirming that it maintained its height but that the passage bent left. He altered his trajectory appropriately but barely made it two feet before again bumping into something. Not rock, though.
He brought his hand down and drove the man back, generating a mental map during the struggle that allowed him to get his palm over his opponent’s mouth. The metallic rattle of the man trying to bring his weapon to bear would have been almost inaudible under normal circumstances, but in this situation it assaulted Rapp’s ears, overpowering even the sensation of teeth sinking into his hand.
Rapp shoved the man’s head into the rock as a fist repeatedly slammed into his side and shoulder. The muffled thumps were way too loud, but there was still the possibility that no one had noticed the mortal battle taking place in the confined space. If his opponent’s finger found the trigger of his weapon, though, that anonymity would be gone forever.
He brought the knife up to what he thought was the man’s throat but missed, snapping the point off on the stone wall. It sparked, creating a split-second flash that finally allowed Rapp to drive what was left of the tip into the man’s neck. The dulled weapon didn’t penetrate as deeply as it should have, forcing him to follow his opponent into the dirt, holding on to him until he finally went still. Rapp lay there for another minute or so, listening for anyone bearing down on him. Nothing but the nearly imperceptible drip of blood from his wounded hand.
He ripped a piece of cloth from the bottom of his shirt and used it to secure the thick flap of skin that the man’s teeth had torn loose. Satisfied that the bleeding was at a manageable level, he continued his slow journey through the passage.
The sound of voices reached him first, followed by a dim glow. His movements quickened as his eyes, starved for so long, began picking out the walls and obstacles he’d been struggling to avoid.
The muddled conversation slowly separated into three distinct voices, all speaking Arabic. One calm, one angry, and one on the defensive. He didn’t recognize any of them, but the context suggested that the one making a case for himself was Aali Nassar. Much more interesting was the calm, superior tone of the man officiating. Was it possible that the last-minute plan he and Kennedy had hatched was going to work? Was he about to come face-to-face with Mullah Sayid Halabi?
It turned out to be even better than that. Rapp stopped ten feet from where the passage opened up, spotting Nassar as well as a number of men sitting on cushions on either side of him. Based on their ages, there was a good chance they were the officers whom Halabi had assembled from Saddam Hussein’s military. It was feasible that a significant portion of the ISIS command-and-control structure was in that cavern.
Nassar wasn’t moving around much, and his right collarbone was protruding noticeably—likely injuries he’d sustained in his leap from the vehicle. He was, however, swaying enough as he spoke to reveal glimpses of the man presiding over the meeting. Rapp’s heartbeat increased when he confirmed the man’s identity. Halabi.
Unfortunately, there was no clear shot at the ISIS leader from his position, and he could see only a portion of the chamber the men were set up in. Three armed guards were posted along the right wall and he suspected that there were at least that many just out of sight. Based on the slight movement of air, it was also probable that there were other exits.
If he fired a shot, all hell was going to break loose, and he was at a significant disadvantage—not only from the superior numbers of the enemy but from his confined operating environment.
That left a low probability of success and an even lower probability of survival. His first shot would have to be at Nassar to get him out of his line to Halabi, but after that everything was the luck of the draw. Would Halabi be able to make it to cover before Rapp got a clear shot? Was there someone at the chamber entrance who would immediately block it? Even in a best-case scenario he’d only have time to get Nassar and Halabi before he was forced to bolt for the cover of the corner behind him. Then it was just the not-so-simple matter of making it to the exit before the passage filled with ricocheting lead.
Rapp removed his CamelBak and crouched, digging a penlight and a grenade out of it. He laid them neatly in the sand and then pulled the Glock from his shoulder holster. A quick glance around him at the rock walls suggested that they were more hardened mud than stone. Not as structurally solid as he’d have liked.
With no better option, he pulled the grenade’s pin and tossed it toward the cavern. While it was still in the air, he snatched up the Glock and fired a single round, hitting Nassar in the back of the head. The round did what he needed, which was less killing the Saudi and more distracting the ISIS men from the explosive that had landed in the sand a few feet inside the chamber. Everyone went into motion, but instead of hitting the deck they stood and ran.
Three guards jumped on Halabi before Rapp could get a clear shot, so he turned and sprinted away. Even with his exceptional speed, there wasn’t time for him to reach the bend in the passageway. He heard the explosion and felt the sudden increase in air pressure before going down in a choking cloud of dust.
* * *
Rapp regained consciousness slowly, confused as to where he was. Home? Asleep next to his wife in their house on the bay? His throat felt raw and he was about to get up to find something to drink when he remembered that she was dead and the bay house demolished.
There was a surprising lack of physical pain—not much more than a bad headache that was probably a by-product of what he calculated to be his ninth concussion. The numbness worried him until he managed to wiggle his fingers and toes, ruling out paralysis. Much more movement than that was impossible. His legs were completely pinned, as was his right arm. His left was free and he used it to search for the penlight he’d been carrying. After almost a minute of feeling around, he gave up and started digging. The makeshift bandage came off his hand and he could feel the bite wound fill with dirt. Not exactly sanitary, but avoiding infection was pretty low on his priority list at this point.
After what seemed like about half an hour he was able to free his right arm enough to illuminate his watch. It provided sufficient light to see that the space above him went all the way to the original roof of the passage, but the length wasn’t much more than three feet. His legs were buried to his upper thighs but the weight didn’t feel too bad. He probably could have pulled them out if his head wasn’t wedged against the rubble in front of him. He tried to clear some space but managed only to cause a secondary collapse that filled what little air he had left with dust.
Rapp illuminated his watch again but turned it off after a few seconds. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to look at, and it just magnified his mild claustrophobia. On the bright side, the fact that he’d never made arrangements for his burial wasn’t turning out to be a problem.
He actually laughed out loud at that before letting the silence descend again. Finally he laid his cheek against the ground and stared into the darkness. His hope was that his mind would latch onto all the things he’d accomplished. The people he’d saved. The country he’d strengthened. Instead it got mired down in his failures. The relationship with his brother that he’d let turn into a couple brief phone conversations around holidays and birthdays. A world he’d seen through the sights of a gun. His hopelessly brief stint as a husband
and his recent hesitant steps at acting like a father.
It had been a hell of a ride, though.
* * *
