Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(12)
When she finally pushed through the door of the stone structure she found a lone man scribbling in a notebook. He was only partially visible behind the battered lab equipment she’d borrowed from fleeing NGOs. Usually while wearing a black turtleneck and driving a van with the headlights turned off.
“You were supposed to relieve Otto more than a half an hour ago,” she said.
The initial reaction was an irritated frown—intimidating to the grad students who hung on his every word, but not as weighty in Yemen.
“I’m in the middle of something,” he said. His English was grammatically perfect, but he took pride in maintaining a thick French accent. “I need to work through it while my mind is fresh.”
Gabriel Bertrand was a world-class prick but unquestionably a brilliant one. He’d started his career as a physician, but after discovering that he didn’t like being around sick people, he’d moved into research and teaching.
“I appreciate that,” she said, her good mood managing to hold. “But we’ve got people dying in that building. Otto and I can’t handle—”
“Then let me help them, Victoria! You know perfectly well that we don’t know how to save those people. What I’m doing here could prevent future victims. It could—”
“Get you a big prize and invitations to all the right Paris cocktail parties?”
That condescending frown again. This time aimed over his reading glasses. “If this disease ever defeats our containment measures, it’s going to be my work that’s important. Not what’s being done in your little infirmary.”
“Tell that to the people in the little infirmary.”
“There’s a bigger picture here. In fact, I’m guessing that a few minutes ago, you were trying to impress that very fact on Ken Dinh.”
He stood from behind his improvised desk and moved a little too close, rubbing a hand over her bare shoulder. She was quite a bit older than the coeds he normally hit on, but she was still trim, with long blond hair and the tan that she’d always aspired to while growing up in the Pacific Northwest. More important, she was the only game in town.
“Your narrative can be featured prominently in my work. It would come off as very heroic. That wouldn’t be bad for your career.”
In her youth, she’d have probably gone for him. The brilliant, distinguished ones had always gotten to her. But not anymore. She’d seen way too much.
“Ten minutes, Bert,” she said using the shortened version of his name that he despised. “After that, I’m going to have Otto drag you out of here.”
CHAPTER 5
AL HUDAYDAH
YEMEN
“TWO orders of saltah,” Shamir Karman shouted through the open door of the restaurant. “And do we still have any bottled cola?”
Rapp was sitting alone at one of the tables outside, drinking coffee and working through the pack of cigarettes he always traveled with in this part of the world. It was still early and the sun was at a steep enough angle to shade the improvised terrace. Around him, about a quarter of the tables were occupied by men sipping from steaming cups, gossiping, and shooting occasional jealous glances at Rapp’s smokes.
If he ignored the bomb crater behind him and the collapsed buildings in front, it all seemed pretty normal. Not much different than a thousand other cafes Rapp had eaten in over the last twenty years of his life. According to Karman, though, the illusion of business as usual would disappear sometime around lunch.
Apparently, his restaurant—along with all the other struggling businesses in the area—was being shaken down by an organized crime outfit made up of former ISIS fighters. The gang had their hands in just about every dirty enterprise going on in Al Hudaydah, but that wasn’t what had attracted Rapp’s attention. No, his interest was in the whispers that they were still connected to Sayid Halabi.
The question was whether those rumors were true or just marketing. Staying in the glow of the ISIS leader’s legend would be good for the images of men who were now nothing more than unusually sadistic criminals. Anything they could do to amplify the fear of the desperate people they preyed upon worked in their favor.
If it was true that Halabi was trying to build a smarter, more agile organization, it was possible that he’d completely severed his ties with the morons terrorizing Al Hudaydah. On the other hand, men willing to martyr themselves could be extremely powerful weapons. Maybe too powerful for Halabi to give up.
After four more hours, all the tables were full and the conversations had turned into an indecipherable roar. Waiters weaved skillfully through the customers, serving coffee, tea, and dishes prepared by Karman’s harried kitchen staff. Tattered umbrellas had gone up and people huddled beneath them, trying to escape the increasingly powerful sun.
Rapp was almost through his bowl of marak temani when the buzz of conversation began to falter. He glanced behind him and quickly picked out the cause of the interruption: two hard-looking young men approaching. They were armed with AKs like just about every other Yemeni male, but these weren’t fashion accessories. They were slung at the ready across their torsos with fingers on the trigger guards. That, combined with their sweeping eyes and cruel expressions, suggested they weren’t there for the food.
Rapp waited for them to enter the restaurant before following. The sparsely populated interior had gone dead silent except for Karman, who was standing in the kitchen door inviting the men inside.