Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(53)

“Please follow.”

Rapp did, lagging a bit as they entered the house. Simple layout. The steps to the second floor were built into the wall with no railing and made of the same stone as everything else. It would be possible to jump from the top of them and land on a table that looked like it could take the weight of a dump truck. Then it was a straight run to the front door with no cover. Not that any of that would likely be necessary, but best to be prepared.

The door they passed through was at the end of a narrow hallway on the second floor. It led to a large room with a single window on the north side. Furniture was a weird mix of ancient wood and the plastic and stainless steel of various medical machines. A hospital bed set up in the center dominated, making the wheelchair-bound man by the wall seem even smaller than he was.

Ruiz slurred something in Spanish and the guard left, closing the ill-fitting door behind him. His red-rimmed eyes had a yellowish hue beneath a wrinkled scalp still holding on to a few clumps of white hair. Time didn’t care about Ruiz’s time as an enforcer for Spain’s dictatorship. Or the fact that he’d managed to beat the Africans at their own brutal game. Or even about the immense fortune he’d amassed. Kings, peasants, killers, and victims. Everyone ended up in the same place eventually.

“Mitch Rapp,” the man said. Based on those two words, his English was excellent. According to Claudia, he’d had a British mistress in the seventies and British nannies had raised his kids. “What is your interest in Claudia Gould?”

Rapp tried not to react to the Spaniard’s words, but still Ruiz managed to pick up on his surprise.

“It’s a curse,” Ruiz explained. “Most men’s minds weaken along with their bodies. Mine’s gotten stronger.”

“Then why don’t you tell me?”

Ruiz used a joystick to bring the chair around to fully face his new opponent. A smile played at his chapped lips. “Gustavo Marroqui sent men to her house in South Africa to kill her. But, because he’s a moron, he sent other morons to do the job. You were the man who executed them and then you destroyed the entire mountaintop he lived on.” The Spaniard hacked out a laugh. “You live up to your reputation, Mr. Rapp. Or do you prefer Mr. Burhan now?”

He clearly loved having the upper hand. It was a sensation he probably hadn’t experienced in years. But he wasn’t clairvoyant. More likely he’d already had the pieces to the puzzle and Rapp’s appearance just showed him how to put them together.

“So you got the email. The dossier on her,” Rapp said.

Another smile, this time wide enough to reveal teeth stained by the better part of a century of smoking.

“I did.”

“When?”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“My interest in her is personal.”

He nodded slowly. “That was the only logical conclusion I could come to, but I found it hard to believe. Weren’t she and her husband responsible for your wife’s death?”

“Yes.”

“Then you and I should want the same thing.”

“And yet we don’t.”

“You’re a much more complicated man than I would have thought, Mr. Rapp.”

“Now you answer my question.”

“What question? Oh, yes. The dossier. Some three weeks ago.”

“And what did you do with it?”

Ruiz pushed himself into a slightly more upright position. “What a strange surprise life has given me. This morning I was resigned to sit here staring out the window like I do every day. And now I have Mitch Rapp in front of me with hat in hand.”

“That’s not a hat, Enzo. It’s a gun.”

Again, he choked out a laugh. “As useless as tits on a bull. Isn’t that what you Americans say?”

“How do you figure?”

“Death didn’t scare me when I had something to live for. It certainly doesn’t now. But maybe you’re thinking you can use torture to extract the information you want. Look at me. How long do you think I’d last before my heart gave out? So, now you’re considering threatening my family. Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? Do you think I don’t know it was them? That they were the ones who hired Louis Gould to kill me and then, when he failed, left me here to rot? If you do decide to kill them, please bring them here and do it in front of me. I’d love to watch.”

The old bastard was right. But he was also a simple creature with even simpler needs. He wanted dominance over others. In Rapp’s extensive experience, there were only two ways to deal with the Enzo Ruizes of the world: kill them or give them what they want. And since the former wasn’t going to get him very far, Rapp had no choice but to choose the latter.

“You’re holding all the cards,” he admitted. “What do you want?”

It was a question that had already been answered, really. And while Rapp wasn’t particularly happy about whacking Ruiz’s kids, they weren’t exactly innocent bystanders.

“It’s not what I want, Mr. Rapp. It’s what I don’t want. I don’t want to die of old age sitting in this chair. That’s not a fitting end for a man like me.”

“What’s that have to do with me?” Rapp said, not sure anymore where this was going.

“I want to be killed by the world’s most infamous assassin.”