Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(87)

Halabi stood and began limping back and forth through the small chamber. In fact, it was possible that Esparza still knew nothing about the anthrax report. And even if he did, why would he care enough to devote significant resources to finding Attia? Esparza’s concern would be damage control—protecting himself not only from U.S. authorities who would label his cartel a terrorist organization, but from the Mexican government and other drug traffickers.

“What are your orders?”

Halabi didn’t answer immediately, though his decision was made. In truth, it always had been. God had provided this crossroad in history—

a span of a few short hours when a handful of people could dismantle everything the West had built over the last two thousand years.

The arrogance that had corrupted men’s hearts would disappear. Once again, humanity would prostrate itself at the feet of God and beg for his mercy. Once again, they would understand that nothing they had done—nothing they had built—meant anything.

“We move forward as planned,” Halabi said finally. “But be cautious.”

“Understood.”

Halabi disconnected the call and looked around him. They were already in the process of fleeing. While their communications were relatively secure, he couldn’t risk trying to stay in contact with Attia from a fixed position. No communications were invulnerable, and there was no telling from day to day what new capabilities the Americans could bring to bear.

He walked to a plywood box on the floor and retrieved the pistol it contained. A Glock 19. The same model that Mitch Rapp used.

By the time he exited the chamber, the activity in the rest of the cave system had reached a fevered pitch. Evidence of their time there was being erased, equipment was being dismantled, and supplies were being transferred to trucks waiting outside. Once loaded, the vehicles would scatter, staying on the move for some time before crossing into Ethiopia. A storm system was forecasted, bringing periods of rain and critical cloud cover over the next three days. They would take advantage of it to foil Western surveillance before finally converging on a similar cave system to the west.

Halabi turned right when the corridor split, finally arriving at the chamber he sought.

Gabriel Bertrand looked very different than he had only a week before. The relatively opulent surroundings he’d been provided were gone now, replaced with . . . nothing. He was sitting in the dirt with one wrist handcuffed to a bolt driven into the stone. His body and hair were filthy, streaked with mud, blood, and what appeared to be his own excrement.

The man turned toward Halabi but his dull eyes didn’t seem to understand what they were seeing.

“I thought you’d want to know before you die that the plan you devised is in motion.” Halabi raised the Glock. “Nothing can stop it now.”





CHAPTER 45


SOUTHERN MEXICO

“BUT you’re all right?” Kennedy said, her tinny voice emanating from the satellite phone lying on the Humvee’s fender.

“Yeah,” Rapp said, opening a cabinet at the back of the garage and fishing the vehicle’s battery from it. “For now.”

“And you’re sure that anthrax shipment’s been neutralized?”

On the floor near the open bay door, Carlos Esparza craned his neck, trying desperately to see what was happening. He was bound with items Rapp had found in a drawer—hands with a length of framing wire and feet with a colorful bungee cord. The bleeding in his leg had been slowed with a greasy rag and roll of duct tape.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. That was never Halabi’s play—it was a diversion.”

“A diversion? From what?”

“He didn’t kill all those sick villagers in Yemen. He took at least one of them and used him to infect his people with YARS. You’ve got six of them headed for the border with Muhammad Attia.”

There was a brief pause over the line. When Kennedy came back on, she sounded uncharacteristically shaken.

“I’m showing a roughly thirty-hour drive time to get from your position to Texas. Do you know where they are now? What their plans are?”

“No,” Rapp said, finishing reinstalling the battery. “But I’m about to find out.”

Esparza tried to scoot away, making it only a few centimeters before Rapp crouched down and grabbed him by the hair.

“I don’t know anything about anthrax or Yemen!” he said in a panicked shout. “You know this. I just wanted to partner with—” His words turned to shrieks when Rapp clamped a hand around his shattered knee.

“The only thing that comes out of your mouth from now on is answers to my questions. Is that clear?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s clear. But I—”

Rapp gave the wound another squeeze and once again the garage echoed with the man’s screams.

“?‘Yes’ was the only answer required.”

Esparza clamped his lips together, muffling himself.

“The Arabs, Carlos. Where are they?”

He looked legitimately confused. “What . . . What do you mean?”

Rapp reached for the man’s knee again and he tried to jerk away. “Stop! You killed them! You burned them.”

“I burned an empty shed. They were already gone when I got there. And so is the van they came in.”