Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(61)
Unfortunately, endearing himself to people had never been Rapp’s forte. Kind of the opposite, actually.
Not that any of this was likely to matter. Esparza was probably just flying Rapp to Mexico so he could put a bullet in his head personally. The timing was kind of a shame. He finally had the blank presidential pardon he’d always dreamed of, and instead of taking it out for a spin, he was going to end up buried in the jungle.
And while that was all bad, it wasn’t enough to keep him awake on a plane. No, that went deeper, to a question that was easy to ask but hard to answer.
What the hell was he doing there?
He’d given Claudia’s diatribe more thought than she’d probably give him credit for and come to the conclusion that she was largely right. Christine Barnett was going to be the next president of the United States and she’d use that position to destroy him and anyone else who refused to kneel.
Best-case scenario, Rapp would survive this mission and be forced out of government service by her. Much more likely, though, was that Barnett would dedicate a significant amount of government resources to seeing him and Kennedy enjoying adjoining cells in a maximum security prison.
And it wouldn’t exactly be hard. Rapp had just killed—technically murdered—two drug smugglers, and forced his brother to create a web of illegal transactions that spanned the globe. Even if Steven sat down in front of a Senate panel and demonstrated that it was all smoke and mirrors, it wouldn’t be enough. Rapp would end up being used as a weapon in Christine Barnett’s war against the intelligence and law enforcement communities that she saw as a check on her power.
The plane finally touched down, and Rapp remained in his seat while the rest of the passengers rummaged around in the overhead bins. He’d leave the plane without the carry-on he’d brought. It was just a prop to make him look less suspicious to the people at the airline desk. At this point, his only meaningful possessions in the world were a fake passport, a GPS watch, a phone, and a wallet containing five hundred U.S. dollars and a couple of high-limit credit cards.
When Rapp stepped into the terminal of Angel Albino Corzo International Airport, he immediately noticed the man flicking his gaze nervously from his phone to the crowd. He likely had nothing but a hazy drone photo to work with, so Rapp decided to help him out. He adjusted his trajectory toward the casually dressed Mexican and pointed to the exit.
“That’s me. Let’s go.”
The man led Rapp out of the building and they crossed to the parking area under clear skies and temperatures in the mid-nineties. Rapp’s thin linen shirt was already starting to soak through by the time they reached a large black SUV parked at the far end of the lot.
Tinted windows made it impossible to see inside, but when Rapp climbed in the back, he found pretty much what he’d anticipated. Two men who looked like former Mexican soldiers frisked him and shoved him to the floor, pulling a cloth bag over his head and closing a set of handcuffs around his wrists. He resisted his natural urge to snap their necks. Driving around in an SUV full of corpses asking random people if they knew where Carlos Esparza lived wasn’t going to get him very far.
It was impossible to measure the passing time, partially because his watch was secured behind him and partially because the warmth and vibration of the vehicle’s floorboard finally put him to sleep. For some reason, lying there with two cartel killers’ feet on his back was a lot more relaxing than the time he’d spent getting sucked into his own mind on the flight. There were no longer options to consider. No secondary concerns. No political agendas. His only job now was to survive long enough to find Sayid Halabi and kill him.
The trip started out on smooth pavement, eventually degenerating into rough asphalt and then a dirt track that jerked him fully awake. In the last half hour or so, they crossed two streams deep enough for water to seep under the door and a few ruts that seemed even deeper.
After what Rapp guessed was somewhere between three and four hours, they finally came to a stop. He was immediately dragged from the vehicle and shoved to his knees on the damp ground. Voices speaking Spanish swirled around him for a few minutes before the bag was pulled off.
He squinted into the filtered sunlight and counted eight guards within his field of view. All were wearing camo, all were armed with AKs, and all had the look of former Mexican cops or army. Nothing special, but head and shoulders above the men he’d killed in California.
Much more interesting was the house intermittently hidden by the jungle in front of him. From the exterior, it had the look of a primitive village, with clapboard sides, scavenged materials, and a roof of corrugated tin and palm fronds. From the air, it would be completely indistinguishable from the other tiny villages in the area, but from where Rapp was kneeling, it was quite the architectural marvel. Massive windows revealed a luxurious modern interior of marble and glass. A swimming pool was hidden under a roof held up by pillars designed to look like trees. Behind and to the north, some kind of crop—food, not drugs—had been planted in a way that suggested subsistence farming.
A man in slacks and an open-collared shirt appeared from the house and approached to within ten feet of Rapp. He was probably in his early thirties, with vaguely stylish glasses and an expensive haircut. Certainly not Esparza. More likely some kind of business advisor. Rapp ignored him, craning his neck to get a better feel for his operating environment. It wasn’t too complicated. Jungle. Men with guns. Big house.