Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(19)
The Agency had implemented round-the-clock overhead surveillance on the building full of former ISIS soldiers that Rapp had found. And the NSA had cracked all their communications with the exception of a couple of burner phones they couldn’t get a bead on. Unfortunately, all that had been accomplished was to confirm his first impression. Those men were nothing more than a bunch of violent dipshits whom Halabi would have no use for other than maybe to stop bullets.
Rapp let himself be drawn back into the conversation, but it was a waste of time. There was no solid intel to be gained from restaurant gossip—particularly in a country where no one drank alcohol. Either the politicians needed to let the Agency commit resources to this part of the world or they needed to get out. Half measures against a man like Sayid Halabi were pointless. He was all-in, and anyone going up against him had better be the same.
The conversation had just turned to Syria when the voices around Rapp began to falter. He followed the gazes of the men around him to an old CRT television set up in the shade. The endless stream of Arab music videos had been interrupted by something that seemed almost like a twisted homage to them. Images of young people dancing and singing were replaced by ones of violence and death, with a sound track voiced over by none other than Sayid Halabi.
Rapp had seen the prior version of the video, but not this update. The backing music was more somber and the footage of the assault on the village more extensive. Halabi droned on about Muslim unity and combining forces against the West, but Rapp focused on the footage of the ISIS team tearing through the village. The men couldn’t have been more different than the ones he was keeping tabs on in Al Hudaydah. They moved more like SEALs than the undisciplined psychos he’d come to expect from ISIS. More evidence of Halabi’s efforts to turn his organization into a tighter, more modern force.
The video ended and was replaced by a CNN interview with Christine Barnett. The men around him began an animated discussion of Halabi’s role in the region but Rapp remained focused on the television. The flow of the interview was pretty much what he would have predicted, with the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee insisting that she’d been assured that Halabi had been taken out.
So after managing to flail her way to a massive lead in the polls, Barnett had finally found her message: that the current administration had lied about Halabi’s death for political gain while leaving the American people completely unprotected from the threat ISIS posed.
It was a demonstrable lie, but she’d probably get away with it. Sure, there was endless footage of Irene Kennedy saying that Halabi’s body had never been found, but why would the press want to dredge that up? They knew a ratings grabber when they saw one.
Barnett went on to blame the very security agencies she’d been hamstringing for failing to utterly eradicate terrorism from the face of the earth. And, of course, she rounded out the interview the way all politicians did—by implying that she, and only she, had the answer. All the American people had to do was elect her president and they’d be guaranteed safety, wealth, a hot spouse, and six-pack abs.
The scene cut again, this time to a couple of know-nothing pundits speculating about the type of attack that the kidnapped medical team could conjure up. The debate had devolved into nonsensical shouting about Ebola and plague when Shamir Karman came up behind Rapp and whispered in his ear.
“A call for you just came in. Use the phone in the office.”
? ? ?
Rapp took a seat behind Karman’s desk and made sure the door had swung all the way shut before he picked up the handset.
“Go ahead,” he said in Arabic.
His greeting was met with silence on the other end and he suspected he knew why. Since taking over logistics for Scott Coleman’s company, Claudia Gould had been diligently trying to learn Arabic. Unfortunately, she was still in the “See Dick run” stage. Partially it was his fault. She was also the woman he lived with, but he always found a reason not to get involved in her language education. Patience wasn’t his strong suit.
“Hello,” he said, simplifying his Arabic. There was no way he could use the English or French she was fluent in. One overheard word and he might as well tattoo CIA to his forehead.
“It’s good to hear your voice, Mitch.”
He hated to admit it, but it was good to hear hers, too. The soft lilt was a reminder that, for one of the few times in his life, he had something to go home to.
“First,” she continued. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he said, keeping his responses basic.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t call just to ask that question.”
“Then why?”
“I assume you’ve been watching the news and you’re aware of Halabi’s videos?”
He grunted an affirmation.
“The Saudis have located the village he burned. It’s in central Yemen about five hundred kilometers east of you.”
“And the people?”
“The ones he kidnapped? The reporting has been pretty accurate about them. What hasn’t hit the networks is that they were there caring for the victims of a respiratory disease similar to SARS. Based on the Agency’s analysis of Halabi’s videos, he must have known about it. He went in when none of the medical personnel were in the infirmary they’d set up and his people burned everything without coming in contact with the villagers.”