Lethal Agent (Mitch Rapp #18)(99)

The CIA man pointed his pistol toward Attia’s forehead, but then readjusted his aim to the man’s chest before firing a single round. He’d already made too much of a mess as it was.

Rapp glanced down the slope and saw Mason trying to control his descent with mixed results. Wicker and Maslick were approaching from the east but Rapp waved them back. Attia was dead but maybe more dangerous now than he had been when he was alive. Despite the fact that his heart was no longer pumping, the wound in his face continued to pour blood—likely infected with YARS—onto the asphalt.

He leaned over the body, hesitating for a moment before grabbing it under the arms and dragging it back to the cab of the truck. By the time he got it inside, he was so covered in blood that he looked like an extra in a low-budget zombie flick.

“Wick!” Rapp said into his throat mike. “There’s a shitload of blood on the road. You need to clean it up.”

“Clean it up? With what?”

“How the fuck would I know? Maybe punch a hole in your fuel tank and use that. Call Gary and ask him what’ll work.”

“Roger that,” came the unenthusiastic reply.

“Bruno,” Rapp said, starting Attia’s truck and putting it in gear. “Did you find me a turnaround?”

“About two hundred yards over the top of the hill. It’s going to be about a ten-point turn, but we’ll get it done.”

“All right. Once I turn around, we’re heading full-gas for the border. Bruno and Mas, you’re blocking for me. Try not to kill any civilians or cops, but if you don’t have any choice, do it. I’ll take the heat for any casualties. Wick. Once you’re done with that blood, head out into the desert and lay low until someone from Statham’s team can pick you up.”

He crested the hill and saw McGraw’s truck parked sideways across the road, blocking oncoming traffic. Someone got out and motioned angrily at him but then thought better of it when McGraw pulled an HK416 assault rifle from the backseat and fired into the air.

“Scott!” Rapp said into his radio. “You dead?”

“Not yet, asshole. But we’re down. Fred swears he can fix it. He says thirty minutes.”

“You have fifteen. I want that fucking chopper in the air, do you understand me?”

“Roger that, Mitch.”

The music that had been playing over the truck’s radio suddenly went silent and a panicked Arabic voice came on.

“Muhammad? What’s happening? Did we hit something? Was that shooting we heard?”

Rapp reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a few antibiotic pills from a box soaked through with Attia’s blood. He tossed them in his mouth, breaking them apart with his teeth and savoring the bitterness.

“Muhammad! Answer! Was that shooting?”

Of course that asshole Gary Statham would lecture him on how antibiotics didn’t work against viruses, but screw it. The taste made him feel better. It was like soft body armor when the rifles came out. Sure, it wouldn’t save you, but there was something strangely comforting about the weight.





CHAPTER 51


NORTHERN MEXICO

“WE’RE looking good,” Joe Maslick said over Rapp’s earpiece. “Road’s pretty open and still no cops. ETA to the border at our current speed is approximately one hour, three minutes.”

“Roger that,” Rapp said, leaning forward over the truck’s steering wheel and scanning the terrain surrounding the highway. Empty.

His speedometer was reading one kilometer an hour under the speed limit and he was keeping the vehicle steady despite increasingly powerful gusts coming from the south. Maslick was a couple of miles in front of him, completely out of sight. Bruno McGraw was visible in his side-view mirror.

The CIA had dedicated no fewer than three dozen native-level Spanish speakers to interfering with the police in the region. They were calling in false reports, scrambling communications, and impersonating officers in an effort to create confusion. It was a house of cards for sure, but one that only had to last for a little longer.

“We’re back in the air,” Scott Coleman said over a spotty connection. “Sorry it’s a little late. The damage was worse than it looked. If Fred’s jury-rigging holds together, we should be able to get to you in thirty. If not, it’s going to be another exciting landing.”

“Copy,” Rapp said.

A shrill ring filled the cab and Rapp glanced at the bloody sat phone lying next to Muhammad Attia’s body. He leaned down to reject the call like he had four times before but then Claudia’s voice came on the comm.

“Mitch. The NSA says Attia’s phone’s ringing again. They think they can trace the call. You need to pick up.”

He rolled the window down a couple of inches before complying.

“Muhammad! Are you there?”

Even on speakerphone and mixed with the wind, Sayid Halabi’s voice was unmistakable. Rapp had only heard it a few times, but the sound of it was indelibly burned into his mind.

He downshifted, increasing the engine noise and then shouting over it. “I’m here!”

“I can barely hear you. What’s your status?”

It was exactly the question he wanted to hear—one that proved Halabi didn’t know what was happening. Attia hadn’t had time to get a call out and if the ISIS leader was tracking the truck via GPS, the slight detour toward Monterrey had been chalked up to a signal anomaly.