Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(14)

Normally he didn’t emerge during the day. His life was lived almost entirely underground now, an existence of darkness broken by dim, artificial light, and the occasional transfer beneath the stars. The risk he was running now was unacceptably high and taken for what seemed to be the most absurd reason imaginable. One of his young disciples had said that this was the time of day that the light was most attractive.

It was indeed a new era.

He was positioned in the center of a small convoy consisting of vehicles taken from the few charitable organizations still working in the country. A bulky SUV led the way and a supply truck trailed them at a distance of twenty meters, struggling with the rutted track.

The Toyota Land Cruiser he was in was the most comfortable of the three, with luxurious leather seats, air-conditioning, and the blood of its former driver painted across the dashboard.

The men crammed into the vehicles represented a significant percentage of the forces under his direct command. It was another disorienting change. He’d once led armies that had rolled across the Middle East in the modern instruments of war. His fanatical warriors had taken control of huge swaths of land, sending thousands of Western trained forces fleeing in terror. He had built the foundation of a new caliphate that had the potential to spread throughout the region.

And then he had lost it.

That defeat and his months convalescing from Mitch Rapp’s attack had left him with a great deal of time to think. About his victories. His defeats. His weaknesses as a leader and failings as a disciple of the one true God. Ironically, the words that had been the seed of his new strategy were said to have come from an agnostic Jew.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

While his current forces were limited in number, they were substantially different than those that came before. All would give their lives for him and the cause, of course. But the region was full of such fighters. What set the men with him apart was their level of education and training. All could read, write, and speak at least functional English. All were former soldiers trained by the Americans or other Westerners. And all had long, distinguished combat records.

His problems had come to parallel the ones that plagued the American military and intelligence community: finding good men and managing them effectively. The well-disciplined soldiers with him today were relatively easy to deal with—all were accustomed to the rigid command structure he’d created. The technical people spread across the globe, though, posed a different challenge. They were temperamental, fearful, and unpredictable. Unfortunately, they were also the most critical part in the machine he was building.

The lead vehicle came to a stop and Halabi rolled down his window, leaning out to read a large sign propped in a pile of rocks. It carried the Doctors Without Borders logo as well as a skull and crossbones and biohazard symbol. In the center was text in various languages explaining the existence of a severe disease in the village ahead and warning off anyone approaching. Punctuating those words was a line of large rocks blocking the road.

Muhammad Attia, his second in command, leapt from the lead vehicle and directed the removal of the improvised barrier.

It was a strangely disturbing scene. They worked with a precision that could only be described as Western. The economy of their movements, combined with their camouflage uniforms, helmets, and goggles, made them indistinguishable from the American soldiers that Halabi despised. The benefits of adopting the methods of his enemy, though, were undeniable. In less than three minutes they were moving again.

The village revealed itself fifteen minutes later, looking exactly as expected from the reconnaissance photos his team had gathered. A few people were visible moving through the spaces between stone buildings, but he was much more interested in the ones running up the road toward him. The blond woman was waving her arms in warning while the local man behind her struggled to keep up.

She stopped directly in front of their motorcade, shouting and motioning them back. When the lead car stopped, she jogged to its open side window. Halabi was surprised by the intensity of his anticipation as he watched her speak with the driver through her translator.

Of course, Halabi knew everything about her. He’d had a devoted follower call Doctors Without Borders and, in return for a sizable donation to her project, the organization’s director had been willing to answer any question he was asked. In addition, Halabi’s computer experts had gained access to her social media and email accounts, as well as a disused blog she’d once maintained.

Victoria Schaefer had spent years with the NGO, largely partnered with a German nurse named Otto Vogel. Though she was a whore who had been through multiple husbands, there was no evidence of a relationship between her and the German that went beyond friendship and mutual respect. She was ostensibly in charge of the management of the operation there, but it was the as-yet-unseen Frenchman who was the driving force behind the research being done.

Her relationship with Dr. Gabriel Bertrand was somewhat more complex. Based on intercepted messages sent to family members, she despised the man but acknowledged his genius and indispensability. Bertrand’s own Internet accounts were even more illuminating, portraying an obsessive, arrogant, and selfish man dedicated largely to the pursuit of his own ambition. He had no family he remained in regular contact with and was blandly noncommittal in his responses to correspondence sent by the various women he had relationships with in Europe.