Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(84)

The tractor likely contained the gasoline he needed, but accessing it would be more than he wanted to deal with. Fortunately, just past a pile of rotting pallets, he found a much more convenient five-gallon gas can. A gentle nudge confirmed that it was almost full, prompting him to start screwing the suppressor to his Glock. Once secured, he weaved back through the equipment toward the front of the building.

The plan had been simple. Kick in the door. Shoot everyone inside using muzzle flashes for illumination. A little gasoline. A match. And then run for the hills.

Unfortunately, that plan broke down before he even made it to step one. When he arrived at the door, it was wide-open.

Rapp pulled his T-shirt over his nose and mouth before edging toward the threshold. He flicked a lighter, letting the brief spark illuminate the interior.

Empty.

The shooting started a moment later. He spun instinctively but then realized it wasn’t coming from anywhere near him. Through the trees, he could see that the side of Esparza’s home was lit up with the wavering light of automatic fire. And while it was impossible to determine how many guns, their location was easy to pinpoint. His bedroom.

Rapp retrieved the gas can, emptying its contents on the shed’s exterior walls. When he reached the door again, he tossed the empty container inside and then circled again, this time with his lighter. By the time he was finished, the flames on the far side were already ten feet high.

The sound of gunfire at the house had stopped and the shouting had begun. He couldn’t understand any of it, but the tone suggested that they’d finally realized they were shooting at an empty bed.





CHAPTER 43


“BACK up, idiots!”

As the tight group of guards lurched back into the hallway, Esparza made sure to stay slightly lower than the men surrounding him. The one exception was Vicente Rossi, who looked like he wanted to drop to his knees and crawl.

The morons he was currently using for cover had fired on an empty bed, most completely emptying their clips in one terrified burst. Now they were retreating down the hall toward an exit on the south side of the compound. Everyone remembered what Rapp had done to their comrades and the few who had been unwise enough to leave themselves without ammunition looked like they were ready to break ranks and run.

“Stay together!” Esparza shouted. “If we separate, he’ll pick us off one by one.”

It was a lie, of course. Mitch Rapp had no interest in the guards that Esparza was using as a human shield. In fact, it was possible that he wasn’t interested in any of them. It was the Arabs he wanted. The fucking lying towelheads who had—

The deafening roar of automatic fire suddenly filled the hallway and Esparza stumbled as the men in front of him began to fall. A few tried to return fire, but their position crammed together in the corridor caused them to jostle each other to the point that accuracy was impossible. Esparza could see muzzle flashes around the far corner of the hallway, but most of the body and face of the shooter was obscured. The men behind Esparza began to flee and he followed, shouting at them to cover him from the rear, to no effect.

The two guards just in front of him went down and he felt a searing heat in his right ear as a bullet grazed him on the way to tearing through another of his men.

The shooter—almost certainly Rapp—turned his attention to the overhead lights and Esparza was showered with glass as the corridor turned to shadow. Next to him, Rossi tripped but managed to stay on his feet as the men in front disappeared around a corner.

Instead of following, Esparza ducked into an expansive, unused library. He began shoving the door closed, but was stopped when Rossi slammed into it from the other side. The younger man fought his way through the gap, gasping for air as Esparza slammed the bolt home. Outside, everything had gone silent. Only the stench of gunpowder remained.

“It’s not going to stop him!” Rossi said, stumbling down a short set of stairs that allowed him to reach the far side of the room. The floor had been sunken almost two meters in order to create a dramatic sense of space beneath an open-beamed ceiling. Walls lined with unread books towered over the only furniture in the room—an ultramodern acrylic desk and leather chair. Rossi took cover behind the latter, his university-educated brain unable to comprehend that it would offer little protection.

Esparza was wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants, loafers with no socks, and a shoulder holster containing his Desert Eagle. He pulled the weapon and aimed it at Rossi.

“What are you—”

Esparza fired a single round into the top of the chair, punching a hole in it and showering his assistant with vaporized leather.

“Go out there and talk to him, Vicente.”

“No! He’ll shoot me!”

“Why would he do that? He doesn’t care about drugs, right? Just explain to him that we knew nothing about the anthrax. Find out what he wants.”

“We just tried to kill him, Carlos. You just tried to kill him. He—”

Esparza fired another round into the chair, causing Rossi to dive to the floor. “Stop shooting!” he screeched.

“The next one’s going in your face, you useless piece of shit! Now get out there!”

The younger man remained frozen for a moment but then seemed to process the fact that his boss wasn’t bluffing. He moved reluctantly back up the stairs as Esparza watched over his sights.