Protect And Defend

The most risky part for Stilwell was that he had to basically open up shop so people knew where to find him. The problem with hanging a shingle was that it also put a bull’s-eye on his back, and in a city like Mosul, with all of its vying factions any American, let alone a CIA officer, was a ripe target. Stilwell went to great efforts to protect himself. He never slept in the same place more than two nights in a row, he changed cars frequently, and he played himself off as a low-level CIA officer who had almost no authority. He created a fictional boss named Lady Di who was more like Margaret Thatcher than the deceased princess. She called all the shots and had all the power. Stilwell was merely a conduit. His meets usually took place at one of the city’s plentiful Internet cafés or one of the open-air markets. He had half a dozen Kurdish bodyguards who were seasoned fighters and were extremely loyal to the CIA.

The car rolled up to an intersection and stopped at the red light. They were headed south toward the airport to meet Ke

During a recent session with one of Langley ’s shrinks Rapp had been asked if he thought killing was too easy for him. He’d been through enough of these evaluations to know that accusations were made in the form of a question. If they were asking it, it was being written down in his file as an opinion or fact. For starters, Rapp had a hard time with people who had no practical field experience. He had no patience with anyone who second-guessed his work from the comfort of a predictable, climate-controlled office while making decisions with a warm cup of coffee at hand and no fear whatsoever of getting killed in the next five minutes.

Rapp would never tell one of the shrinks this, but he had found almost nothing more satisfying than tracking down a man who had the blood of i

The answer was less complicated than many believed. These were men, and make no mistake about it, they were always chauvinistic, bigoted men, devoted to a perverted interpretation of Islam. Men who had bought into violence and division in their youth and refused to let go. Men who had invested so much of their life in hate and blaming others for their troubles that they were too afraid to step back and really think about what they were doing. Men who were frightened to read the entire Koran because they knew they would be confronted with the words of a prophet who would never condone their actions.

These were the animals Rapp hunted. Men who had no respect for human life and consequently would be afforded none in return. There were only a handful of people who really understood the discipline that Rapp practiced. The satisfaction of tracking them, sometimes for months. Knowing when to strike and when to hold your fire. Looking for the perfect opportunity to get close enough to stick a knife through their brain stem and watch every bodily function below the neck shut down. Knowing that you had delivered justice for all the people whose i

Over the years, the mission had taken Rapp to some very forbidding places. He’d spent nights in the humid jungles of the Philippines and Southeast Asia with mosquitoes as big as hummingbirds dive-bombing him. He’d been forced to cross the northern edge of the Sahara Desert on foot to evade Libyan security forces. He’d nearly frozen to death in the Swiss Alps, and in Afghanistan once he was hit with such violent dysentery that he lost seventeen pounds in one week. Most of it while curled up in a ball on the floor of a dank, depressing apartment.

As he rode through the dusty, ancient city of Mosul, Rapp came to the conclusion that he would take his chances in those other places any day. The city of almost two million people gave him a nagging sense of just how divided this part of the world still was. Last night Ridley had gone back to the base so he could be in secure communication with Langley and help prepare for Ke

At one point a U.S. Army column of Stryker vehicles rolled by. The eight-wheeled armored combat vehicles stopped traffic and rattled windows. Rapp observed as some people stood and watched while others melted away down alleys and inside shops. The tension was obvious. Half of these people wanted the conquering army gone, while the other half desperately wanted them to stay and keep the country from sliding into a full-blown civil war. It was this tension that gave Rapp a sense of foreboding. Like a big storm was coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The inability to clearly assess who was a threat and who wasn’t complicated the situation in ways that caused immeasurable stress. It was nearly impossible to keep all the players straight, and even if you could, there was no guarantee that some of them wouldn’t switch sides in the heat of battle.

Stilwell was the one reassuring factor. The man had done his job to near perfection. The safe house was located directly across the street from where the meeting would take place. It was at one of Stilwell’s Internet cafés where he would meet his contacts. The owner was the cousin of one of Stilwell’s bodyguards. Stilwell slid him an extra thousand dollars a month in cash just to use the place. The second-story apartment across the street was stocked with provisions. It was a classic no-frills operation. They had military cots, military rations, and lots of military hardware in case the place came under siege. There was a grenade launcher, a half dozen M-4 rifles and Glock.45-caliber pistols, a big Barrett.50-caliber sniping rifle, two M249 SAWs, and a case of M67 fragmentation hand grenades. There was also body armor, a triage kit, a communications/surveillance package, and a stack of old magazines and paperbacks. All of this was protected by a reinforced steel door with three heavy-duty dead bolts. The windows were covered with bars, and tiny security cameras covered the stairwell, street, and the inside of the apartment. Stilwell had all four safe houses set up in the same ma