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Rapp tossed him an AK before dumping the other guns into the bed of the pickup. By then Shada was behind him and he helped her over the gate. Gaffar jumped in next to her and began pulling the others over the side. Mohammed helped Yusef in before running for the passenger door of the cab.
By the time Rapp began accelerating up the road, Gaffar had the people in back holding their weapons in a way that would make them look enough like an ISIS patrol to fool the casual observer.
“There,” Mohammed said, pointing through the windshield. “Turn left and swing around. We’ll have a straight path out of the city.”
Rapp did as he suggested but didn’t otherwise acknowledge him. With a little luck, they would be on a chopper in an hour and he would never lay eyes on Mohammed Qarni again.
CHAPTER 4
Rabat
Morocco
HAYK Alghani stood at the edge of the window, looking down on the winding souk below. He’d seen the flash of headlights a few moments ago, but now they’d gone dark. The suddenness of it suggested not a passing vehicle but one that had stopped.
The dizziness he felt began to intensify, causing his stomach to churn nauseatingly. He gagged and was forced to run for the bathroom. Pulling open the cracked toilet lid, he vomited into its stained bowl. Not much longer, he told himself. Soon it would all be over.
Or would it?
There was no question that he had done this to himself, but it seemed like another life now. The arrogant young man who had fled authorities in Sevastopol to join ISIS no longer existed inside him. And perhaps never had.
As always in his life, his current problems had begun with a woman. She was beautiful and impassioned—a devout Muslim who thought about nothing but God and the struggle. Despite having abandoned Islam after leaving home as a teenager, he became infatuated with her unquestioning faith and unwavering sense of purpose. It was she who convinced him to flee into the welcoming arms of jihad. To give up his life of petty crime in favor of a far grander purpose: the creation of a new caliphate.
After a rushed marriage, they used contacts she’d made on the Internet to cross into Syria and then they were taken overland by ISIS representatives. To where, neither of them knew, but it didn’t matter. They were out of the European authorities’ reach and he was under the seductive spell of her beauty and her world of radical Islam. Wherever they ended up, they would fight for God against the evils of the West.
It was a simple matter to pinpoint the moment it had all gone wrong. They had been traveling for days, dodging Assad’s death squads, Russian planes, and American drones. Sleep had consisted of fleeting moments in bombed-out ruins or caves. Finally, they arrived in an ISIS outpost beyond the infidels’ reach. Mira went with a group of women to bathe. There she would have taken off her chador and been seen by them.
Later that day, he and Mira were separated from the rest of the recruits and put in a sweltering SUV that headed west across the desert. He started to become nervous when the driver refused to answer questions, but not Mira. Her certainty was unshakable. She believed that they had been chosen for some special purpose. That her destiny was to change the course of history.
When they were granted a personal audience with Mullah Sayid Halabi, she became even more ecstatic. To be brought before the man who was so loved by Allah. Who struck such terror into the hearts of the Americans. It was an honor that even she had never considered. He remembered her pledging her endless devotion and the amusement in the pale blue eyes that Halabi had been gifted by ancient invaders of his homeland.
Her eyes had been very different. Dark and filled with the glory of God. That quickly turned to horror when she was informed that her role in the struggle would be as a member of Mullah Halabi’s harem. Alghani could still hear her pleading with him to save her as she was dragged from the room. But there was nothing he could do.
Once she was gone, he’d found himself standing alone before the ISIS leader. The amusement was gone from his eyes. They now seemed dead. Like water pooled in the empty sockets of a skull.
He had quickly pledged his own emphatic allegiance to the mullah and expressed how proud he was to provide his young wife to the cause. When Halabi’s men began to close in from behind, Alghani desperately tried to find something that would make those eyes come alive again. He finally struck on it when he mentioned his great skill in financial crimes. The subtle change in the mullah’s expression made him speak even faster, boasting about his expertise in fraud, laundering, and concealing bank transactions from authorities. A motion from the mullah’s hand stopped the advance of his men and changed Alghani’s life forever.
He had spent more than a year in the service of Halabi, setting up financial networks and collecting money from sympathizers around the world, but particularly from Saudi Arabia. It was a squalid but bearable life right up until his existence came to the attention of the CIA.
Three months ago he’d been running a routine errand in Berlin’s financial district when two men jumped him and pulled him into a van. He awoke naked on a concrete floor, with zip ties securing his hands and feet. There was no light and no sense of time. He shouted to his captors but got no answer. He pleaded. He begged. He even prayed. Finally, the cold, hunger, and isolation eclipsed his fear of the mullah and he offered anything—everything—for a brief moment of human contact.
It was then that he had met Mitch Rapp. The American had the same dead expression as Halabi and the same capacity for violence, but the similarities ended there. Where the ISIS leader was volatile, unpredictable, and cared for nothing but his own perceived stature in the eyes of his god, Rapp was infinitely rational. He knew his enemies and what was necessary to defeat them. The question was whether Alghani could assist him in his efforts or whether he would be more useful with a bullet in his head.
Without Mira, he had once again lost his faith. In the end, he was just a criminal. A self-serving little man who cared nothing for Islam or the caliphate. He just wanted to survive.
Rapp had given him that opportunity. After telling the CIA everything, he was returned to ISIS with orders to provide regular reports on the work he did for them. When he informed the Agency of the Rabat meeting, Rapp decided he wanted the courier. And in exchange, Alghani would be given his freedom.
There was a quiet knock on the front door and Alghani rinsed his mouth out before striding across the empty flat. He had barely turned the knob when a powerful man in a dark suit forced his way in. He moved quickly through the apartment, searching for anything amiss. Finally, he shoved Alghani against a wall and frisked him. The only thing he had
was a phone and the man took it, removing the battery before dropping it on the floor. Satisfied that the flat was secure, he retreated to a corner and spoke into a microphone attached to his wrist.
A moment later another man entered. He was thin but had a belly that protruded over a belt that looked like it cost more than most people made in a year. Alghani took an involuntary step back and a satisfied smile curled the man’s lips. Who were they? He was supposed to meet a lone courier. An Egyptian in his fifties who knew more about the individuals involved in financing ISIS than anyone but Mullah Halabi himself. Had the CIA betrayed him? Had the Mullah discovered his treachery? Were these men here to kill him?
Alghani took another step back, but then noticed the suitcase in the man’s hand. Having had significant experience with these kinds of exchanges, he knew that it was the correct size to hold the amount of cash that was to change hands that day. One million U.S. dollars.
“You have the money?” Alghani asked, hoping to gain some understanding of his situation.
“Of course,” the man said. “But I’m sorry that Mullah Halabi couldn’t come personally. He and I have much to discuss. The creation of the caliphate and the spread of the one true religion is no small task. And the Western powers are no small opponent.”
