Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(7)

“And ISIS did no better,” Halabi continued. “I and my predecessors became intoxicated by the vision of a new caliphate. The Middle East was fractured and the West was tired of fighting wars that couldn’t be decisively won. We deluded ourselves into believing that we were ready to come out of the shadows and stand against the U.S. military.”

He paused, considering how much he wanted to say. In the end, though, this was the age of information. Withholding it from his inner circle would lead only to another defeat.

“It was all a waste of time and martyrs. The moment for that kind of action had not yet arrived.”

“Has it arrived now?” one of the men said, his youthful impatience audible even over the cheap computer speakers. “America is as weak as it has been in a hundred and fifty years. Its people are consumed with hatred for each other. They see themselves as having been cheated by the rest of the world. Stolen from. Taken advantage of. The twenty-four-hour news cycle continues to reinforce these attitudes, as do the Russians’ Internet propaganda efforts. And the upcoming presidential election is amplifying those divisions to the point that the country is being torn apart.”

“It’s not enough,” Halabi said. “The Americans are people of extremes, prone to fits of rage and self-destructiveness, but also in possession of an inner strength that no one in history has been able to overcome.”

The faces on the screens looked vaguely stunned at what they saw as adulation for their enemy. It was one of many lessons Halabi had learned in his time confined to a hospital bed deep underground: not to let hatred blind one to the strengths and virtues of one’s enemies.

“If no one has been able to overcome it,” the British man said, “how can we?”

It was the question that Halabi had been asking for almost his entire life. The question that God had finally answered.

“We’ll continue to distract them by fanning the flames of their fear and division,” he said.

“And after that?” the man pressed.

“After that we’ll strike at them in a way that no one in history has ever even conceived of.”





CHAPTER 3


AL HUDAYDAH

YEMEN

THE port city still had more than two million residents, but at this point it was just because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. Some buildings remained untouched, but others had taken hits from the Saudi air force and were now in various states of ruin. Almost nightly, bombing runs rewrote the map of Al Hudaydah, strewing tons of rubble across some streets while blasting others clean.

Rapp walked around a burned-out car and turned onto a pitted road that was a bit more populated. Knots of men had formed around wooden carts, buying and trading for whatever was available. Women, covered from head to toe in traditional dress, dotted the crowd, but only sparsely. They tended to be kept squirreled away in this part of the world, adding to the dysfunction.

One was walking toward Rapp, clinging to the arm of a male relative whose function would normally have been to watch over her. In this case, the roles had been reversed. He was carrying the AK-47 and ceremonial dagger that were obligatory fashion accessories in Yemen, but also suffering from one of the severe illnesses unleashed by the war. The woman was the only thing keeping him upright.

He stumbled and Rapp caught him, supporting his weight until he could get his feet under him again. When the woman mumbled her thanks, Rapp figured he’d take advantage of her gratitude. The map he’d been given by the CIA wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.

“Do you know where Café Pachachi is?”

Her eyes—the only part of her visible—widened and she took a hesitant step back.

It wasn’t surprising. As ISIS lost territory, a lot of its unpaid and leaderless fighters were turning to extortion, drug trafficking, and sexual slavery to make a living. Rapp’s physical appearance and Iraqi accent would likely mark him as one of those men.

“Café Pachachi?” he repeated.

She gave a jerky nod and a few brief instructions before skirting him and disappearing into the glare of the sun.

It took another thirty minutes, but he finally found it. The restaurant was housed in a mostly intact stone building with low plastic tables and chairs set up out front. A few makeshift awnings provided shade, and improvised barriers kept customers from falling into a bomb crater along the eastern edge.

Despite the war, business seemed good. The patio was filled with men leaning close to each other, speaking about politics, God, and death. Waiters hustled in and out of the open storefront, shuttling food and drinks, clearing dishes, and occasionally getting drawn into one of the passionate conversations going on around them.

It was hard to believe that this was pretty much the sum total of the CIA’s presence in Yemen. It was one of the most lawless, terrorist-ridden countries in the world, and the United States had ceded its interests to the Saudis.

America’s politicians were concerned with nothing but the perpetuation of their own power through the next election cycle. The sitting president was playing defense, trying not to do anything that could cause problems for his party in the upcoming presidential election. The primaries were in full swing, with the sleaziest, most destructive candidates on both sides in the lead. And the American people were laser-locked on all of it, goading the participants on like it was some kind of pro wrestling cage match.