Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(15)

Schaefer began stalking toward Halabi’s vehicle with her translator in tow, apparently unsatisfied by the response she was getting from the lead car.

“We speak English,” Halabi said, noting the frustration in her expression as she came alongside.

“Then what in God’s name are you doing here? Didn’t you see the sign? Why did you move the rocks we put up?”

Halabi gave a short nod and his driver fired a silenced pistol through the window. The round passed by the woman and struck her translator in the chest. He fell to the ground and she staggered back, stunned. A moment later, her instincts as a physician took over and she dropped to her knees, tearing his shirt open. When she saw the irreparable hole over his heart, she turned back toward them. Surprisingly, there was no fear in her eyes. Just hate.

Only when Halabi’s driver threw his door open did she run. Chasing her down was a trivial matter, and she was bound with the same efficiency that had been deployed to clear the rock barrier. Once she was safely in the SUV’s backseat, Halabi’s men spread out, mounting a well-ordered assault on their target.

The handful of villagers outside realized what was happening and began to run just as the woman had. All were taken out in the same way as the translator—with a single suppressed round. It was an admittedly impressive display. The last victim, a child of around ten, was dead before the first victim had hit the ground. It was unlikely that America’s SEALs or Britain’s SAS could have acted more quickly or silently.

His driver stopped fifty meters from the first building and Halabi watched the operation through the dusty windshield.

Two men went directly for the building that their spotter confirmed was currently occupied by both Gabriel Bertrand and Otto Vogel. The other men penetrated the tiny village to carry out a plan developed by Muhammad Attia.

Each carried a battery-powered nail gun and they moved quickly through the tightly packed stone dwellings, firing nails through the wood doors and frames, sealing the people in their homes. As anticipated, the entire operation took less than four minutes. The muffled shouts of confused inhabitants started as they tried futilely to open their doors. One woman opened shutters that had been closed against the heat and was hit in the forehead by another perfectly aimed bullet. The round wasn’t audible from Halabi’s position, but the shouts of her husband and shrieks of her children penetrated the vehicle easily.

As the Frenchman and German were dragged from the lab, Halabi’s men began prying open shutters and throwing purpose-built incendiary devices into the homes and other buildings, carefully avoiding the structure that had been repurposed as a hospital. The screams of the inhabitants became deafening as they began to burn.

Halabi finally stepped from the vehicle, walking toward the village as a man followed along, filming with an elaborate high-definition camera. He focused on Halabi’s face for a moment, drawing in on the patch covering his useless left eye—a battle scar all the more dramatic for having been inflicted by the infamous Mitch Rapp. Halabi’s awkward use of a cane to help him walk, on the other hand, would be artistically obscured. While that too was a result of Rapp’s attack, it made him appear old and physically weak—things that were unacceptable in this part of the world.

Smoke billowed dramatically over him as he gazed into the flames. A woman managed to shove a crying child through a window but he was shot before he could even get to his feet. The Frenchman was blubbering similarly, lying on the ground in front of his still-intact lab while the woman and the German were pushed down next to him.

Halabi took a position next to them and his videographer crouched to frame the bound Westerners with the mullah towering over them. Halabi looked down at the helpless people at his feet and then back at the camera.

“Now I have your biological weapons experts,” he said in practiced English. “Now I have the power to use your weapons against you.”

The man with the camera seemed a bit dazed by the brutal reality of the operation, but gave a weak thumbs-up. In postproduction he would add music, terrifying stock images, and whatever else was necessary to turn the footage into a propaganda tool far more potent than any IED or suicide bomber.

A few moments later, Muhammad Attia took Halabi by the arm and helped him back to the vehicle. His driver already had the door open, but Halabi resisted being assisted inside.

“The smoke could attract the attention of the Saudis,” Attia warned. “We need to be far from this place before that happens.”

Halabi nodded as the medical people were dragged to another of the vehicles.

“Be that as it may, your men will stay.”

“Stay? Why? I don’t understand.”

“Because he’s coming, Muhammad.”

“Who?”

“Rapp.”

One of his men had survived the recent assault on the cave where Halabi had recovered from his injuries. The description of the attackers could be no one but Rapp and the former American soldiers he worked with.

“He missed you in the cave,” Attia protested. “Why would he still be in Yemen?”

“Because he doesn’t give up, Muhammad. He’s still here. I can feel him. And when he finds out I was in this village, he’ll come.”

“Even if that’s true, we can’t spare—”

“Tell your men not to kill him,” Halabi interjected. “I want him captured.”