Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(50)

Someone started banging on the steel door from the outside but the specially designed doorstop didn’t budge. The cartel man’s attacks continued for another minute or so, becoming slower and clumsier as the blood loss took its toll.

Finally, he couldn’t rise. He tried to crawl in Rapp’s direction but only made it a few feet before collapsing facedown on the floor. The pounding on the door stopped around the same time, undoubtedly because Braman was on the phone, desperately trying to connect with the DEA director’s office.

The sudden silence was surprisingly pleasant, and Rapp wiped some of the blood off the only chair in the room before sitting.

The surviving cartel man looked a little shell-shocked.

“How’s your English?” Rapp said.

The man’s eyes locked on his colleague and the blood flowing from the stump where his hand had been a few minutes before. “It’s good.”

“All right then. Let’s talk about how the rest of the afternoon’s going to go. You’re going to die. There’s nothing that’s going to change that. If you tell me everything I want to know, it’ll be quick. If you don’t, I’m going to use those bolt cutters to remove your balls. And if you don’t tell me after that, things are going to get serious. Do you understand?”

“Don’t tell him anything!” the man on the floor gurgled.

Rapp retrieved his Glock from a holster hidden beneath his shirt and shot him in the temple.

“Do you understand?” he repeated, laying the weapon in his lap.

The man managed to nod.

“Good. What’s your name?”

“Miguel Arenas.”

“There was a specific package in that shipment of coke, Miguel. It was different than the others. What do you know about it?”

When Arenas responded, his voice sounded a bit distant. Exactly what Rapp had been going for. People facing certain death tended not to concern themselves with their professional obligations or the problems of their multimillionaire employers.

“There was one packet with markings that could be seen with black light. We were told to separate it out and deliver it to a different contact.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

It was undoubtedly true. Cartels ran a lot like the CIA—need to know was one of their main mantras.

“You have a description though, right? You had to be able to identify him to meet him.”

“Six feet. Dark hair and skin. Beard. He doesn’t speak Spanish.” The man nodded toward his dead friend. “That’s why Paco and I were chosen for this job. We speak good English.”

“Where?”

“In the desert. The coordinates are on our phones.”

The NSA had the phones, but hadn’t been able to crack them yet.

“What’s the password on your phone?”

“Calvillo386. All capital letters.”

“When are you supposed to meet?”

“Four days ago.”

Rapp swore under his breath. Not that he was surprised, but he’d been hoping to get lucky. The goal had been to deliver a package of harmless simulated anthrax to the contact and then follow him as he distributed it to his network. And if it hadn’t been for all the grab-ass going on in Washington, he might have had time to pull it off. Now, though, he was screwed.

“What cartel do you work for?”

“Lacandon.”

“Any other orders?”

“No. Just make the delivery and cross back into Mexico.”

Rapp picked up his pistol. “Then I only have one more question. Head or chest?”

The man sagged against the handcuffs securing him to the pipe. “Head.”

Rapp aimed and squeezed off a single round. Predictably, someone started pounding on the door again, but it lasted only a few seconds.

He leaned back in the chair, contemplating the two dead men. As usual, options were pretty much nonexistent. He was either going all in on this thing or he was getting on a plane to South Africa with Claudia and letting the world go to shit without him.

Maybe she was right. Maybe it was inevitable. He and people like him had managed to hold back the tide for this long, but the modern world was generating too many threats coming from too many different directions. Eventually he or someone else was going to miss. Did it really matter if it was now or a year from now? Maybe it was time to hit the reset button on the world. Make people see that there were consequences to their actions. Make them remember what they had and value it enough to protect it.

Who was he kidding?

He dialed Claudia and, not surprisingly, she picked up on the first ring.

“Are you all right?” she asked in a tone that was impossible to read. The hat she was wearing now was that of Scott Coleman’s logistics director, and it meant her personal feelings for Rapp had to be temporarily put aside. At least that was the theory.

“Yeah.”

“How did it go?”

“We’re shit out of luck on the meet. It’s come and gone.”

“You weren’t able to get anything on the contact?”

“He didn’t know anything. The password on one of the phones is Calvillo386 in all caps. It has the coordinates of the meeting place. Worth checking out, but I’m guessing you’ll just find a piece of empty desert.”