Pursuit of Honor_A Thriller Read online

  As Hakim took a sip of tea he wondered if it had been an illusion of sorts. Had they ever really been that close? Hakim wanted to believe they had been the best of friends, but it was possible that the relationship had always been one-sided. It was hard to tell the difference between a driven individual and a self-centered ass—maybe they went hand in hand. Whatever the case, there had been a change, although it was possible that it was more of a progression. His old friend was proving to be every bit as narcissistic as the rest of the al Qaeda leadership. With each passing day he was increasingly obsessed with the coverage of the attacks and the aftermath. The prophet had warned against such self-love.

  Hakim was attempting to reconcile the thorny theological aspects of their struggle when he heard the voice of his friend.

  “Good morning.”

  Hakim was not surprised. He had long ago grown used to Karim’s ability to move about silently. He looked over his shoulder and nodded. Glancing at the nearby clock he noticed it was 6:00 A.M. His shift was over and he wouldn’t be back on again for eight hours.

  “Anything interesting happen on your watch?” Karim asked.

  “No,” Hakim said honestly.

  “Any news?” Karim asked, pointing at the small TV on the table.

  “I did not turn it on.”

  “Reading again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Those same blasphemous American books you read when we were kids?” Karim asked with an edge of disapproval.

  “I would hardly call For Whom the Bell Tolls a blasphemous novel.”

  “Do you think Imam bin Abdullah would approve?” Karim asked as he grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

  Hakim thought of the imam of their local mosque back in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The man was perhaps the most unenlightened cleric he had encountered in all of his travels. As much as he wanted to tell his friend just that, and then some, he decided to bite his tongue. The week had been peppered with these little fights. They were both on edge and Hakim was too tired to engage.

  “Look at this,” Karim announced, as he pointed the remote control at the TV and began pressing the volume button.

  Hakim looked at the screen. It was turned to one of the American news channels. It seemed that his friend could not get enough of the coverage of the attacks they had perpetrated the previous week. He took an almost perverse joy in keeping track of the death count and the names of those who had been killed. He kept a running tally in a small spiral-bound notebook. Two cabinet members and seven senators had perished in the initial explosions. The first part of the mission had gone with clocklike precision. Three car bombs in front of three of Washington’s most celebrated haunts all detonated at the height of the lunchtime rush. Those bombs alone had killed nearly 125 people. A fourth bomb was then detonated several hours later, during the height of the rescue operation, killing many more and dealing a devastating psychological blow to the satanic people of America.

  At least that’s how Karim chose to describe it. Hakim, however, was not so exuberant. The secondary explosion had killed dozens of firefighters, rescue workers, law enforcement officers, and civilians who happened to be standing nearby. Hakim had argued against the tactic. He saw no honor in the use of such underhanded moves, and that was only the beginning. One of his greatest struggles within al Qaeda was trying to get his fellow members to take a less myopic view of the world. Very few of his fellow jihadists were widely traveled, and even fewer had spent any real time in America. They had no understanding of America’s sense of fair play. An explosion that was designed to target and kill rescue workers would enrage the American people. Karim and the others who thought such tactics would weaken the American resolve to fight couldn’t have been more wrong. Dastardly tactics like this would only drive young men to the military recruiting centers. This would prolong the war and hurt their cause in the eyes of the international community. Hakim had stated his case as forcefully as he dared, and once again he’d lost.

  “Look,” Karim said almost gleefully. “This is why they will never win this war. I have been telling you this for years.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hakim was more irritated than interested. As he stepped closer to the TV, he saw a picture of a man in his late twenties. The screen suddenly changed to a still photo of a smiling woman and a baby girl.

  “He was supposed to meet them for lunch,” Karim said. “He works for their Treasury Department. Or I should say worked,” he added with a chuckle. “He was more than thirty minutes late for the lunch last week. The mother and daughter were killed in the explosion. He survived.”

  “And why are you so happy?” Hakim asked.

  “He just committed suicide.” Karim started laughing. “Can you imagine such a thing? They are so feeble.”

  Hakim watched him take out his spiral-bound notebook. He scratched off the previous number, and with a self-satisfied smile, wrote down the new tally.

  In a tired voice, Hakim said, “And you worry about what I’m reading.”

  Karim, having not really heard his friend, closed the notebook and looked up. “Excuse me?”

  “What do you think Imam bin Abdullah would think of your merriment over the pain of others?”

  With a dismissive grunt, Karim said, “He would thank me for killing another infidel.”

  Too tired to get into another heated debate with perhaps the most obstinate person he knew, Hakim ignored his friend and headed down the short hall to a warm bed and what he hoped would be a long and undisturbed sleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  LAKE ANNA, VIRGINIA

  MITCH Rapp looked down at the calm, glassy lake as a bright orange sun began climbing over the trees on the eastern shore. Pockets of fog clung to the inlets, but the middle of the lake was clear. Somewhere around the bend he could make out the whine of an outboard engine, more than likely carrying a fisherman to his favorite early morning spot. Rapp had been to this place often since the murder of his wife. It was always a bit conflicting in the sense that it reminded him of the good times they had shared but also of the harsh reality that she was gone.

  The setting reminded him of both his place on the Chesapeake, where they had fallen in love, and her family’s place back in northern Wisconsin. He’d only been there a few times while she was alive and would not go back now that she was gone. He’d made the one trip to Chicago to apologize in person to her parents and brothers. He’d dreaded every minute of that conversation, but knew he would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t face them. Rapp hadn’t been the one who killed her, but he was the selfish idiot who had pulled her into his shitty little world where, all too often, innocent people got caught in the crossfire. He’d been a fool to ever think he could have a normal life.

  He remembered, as he looked down at the smooth morning water, how she and her brothers liked to ski first thing in the morning. He thought of all those family photos that hung on the knotty pine walls of the cozy family cabin. Shots of Anna as a little kid, all legs, like a fawn, skiing knock-kneed on two old boards—her golden brown skin and the freckles around her nose. Those amazing green eyes that still haunted him every night. He’d never known anyone as beautiful, and would have bet everything he had that he never would again. He had decided after several years of mourning that it was hopeless to think otherwise. There’d been a couple brief relationships, but he still wasn’t over her, so each woman was doomed from the start.

  The squeak of a screen door caught his attention and Rapp looked over at the main house. It was a story and a half with three big dormers on the second floor and a wraparound porch that covered three sides. The four-inch siding was painted white, and the trim around the windows and the doors matched the green asphalt shingles on the roof. The owner stepped out onto the porch and struggled with the zipper on his khaki jacket. After a moment he got it started and then stepped forward with the help of a cane. His name was Stan Hurley, a seventy-eight-year-old veteran of the CIA. He’d been officially retire
d for nineteen years, but unofficially he was still very involved. The irascible Hurley had handled much of Rapp’s training those first few years after he graduated from Syracuse University. On more than one occasion Rapp had wondered if the bastard was trying to kill him. Most of that training had taken place right here on the banks of Lake Anna.

  Rapp had been an experiment of sorts. The clandestine men and women at Langley all went through the CIA training facility near Williamsburg, Virginia, known as the Farm. A group of veterans at Langley, however, felt the changing political winds and decided they would have to begin hiding things from the opportunists on Capitol Hill. That was when Hurley left the Agency and set up shop an hour south of Washington, D.C. Rapp didn’t know how many others they had auditioned, but he gathered that Hurley had chewed up and spat out at least three guys before he arrived on that hot, humid summer day almost two decades ago. He knew because Hurley referred to them as Idiot One, Idiot Two, and Idiot Three. He’d say things like, “I spent two days trying to teach Idiot Three how to do this, and then the jackass nearly killed himself.”

  Watching the old prick hobble across the asphalt driveway, Rapp had to admit that he was still a bit intimidated by the man. There weren’t many guys who could give him that kind of feeling. Rapp remembered showing up for training as if it were yesterday. He was in his early twenties, and he thought the best shape of his life after finishing a near-perfect season captaining the Orangemen lacrosse team. There was nothing as humbling as getting your ass kicked by a chain-smoking, bourbon-drinking, sixty-some-year-old man who was all cock and bones. It had happened only a few feet from where Rapp was standing. In the big barn, on the old stinky wrestling mat that Rapp had been forced to manhandle seven days a week for nearly four months.

  Looking back on the situation now, Rapp could see Hurley had been in complete control, but back then, he seriously wondered if he was going to survive. Hurley woke him up at 4:00 A.M. with a cigarette dangling from his lips. When Rapp didn’t get out of bed fast enough, Hurley flipped his military-issue cot and dumped him onto the hard, dusty floor of the barn. He was told that the barn was where he’d be sleeping until he proved himself worthy to sleep in the house. The real trouble started when Rapp came up swinging. In hindsight it had been an extremely stupid move. The geezer was far more agile than he looked. Rapp threw the punch and then next thing he knew he was back on the floor, the wind knocked from his lungs, gasping for air like a fish flopping around on a dock.

  Hurley had announced while standing over him, “A fighter! Idiot One was a fighter. He only lasted a week, but at least he was a fighter!”

  Rapp made it through that first week despite being knocked to the ground on average probably eight times a day. He was also called every dirty name in the book and ordered at least once an hour to quit. Hurley would tell him over and over in the foulest possible language that Rapp was wasting his time. Rapp had seen enough movies to know what was going on. He’d also run enough captains’ practices to understand that Hurley was trying to figure out if he had what it took to make the cut. Knowing it, and experiencing it, however, are two very different things. Rapp had never quit anything in his life, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now, but Hurley and his sadomasochistic trials tested him.

  As the tough old spy hobbled along the drive with the help of his cane, Rapp couldn’t help but smile over the fact that the guy used to kick his ass six ways from Sunday.

  “What’s so funny, dickhead?” Hurley asked in his throaty three-pack-a-day voice.

  “Nothing.” Rapp’s smile got bigger.

  “Bullshit. You think this cane is funny?” He picked it up and shook it at Rapp. “I’d like to see how you get along when you’re my age. Doc says most guys are all whacked up on drugs for the first week after they get their hip replaced. I haven’t taken shit.”

  “That’s if you don’t count the fifth of bourbon you drink every day.”

  Hurley stopped, his dark eyes zeroing in on Rapp. “Are you trying to ruin my life?”

  “No,” Rapp replied with a grin and threw one of Hurley’s favorite lines back at him, “just trying to keep it real, Stan.”

  Hurley looked toward the barn with his baggy eyes and stuffed his right hand into his jacket pocket. After digging around for a moment he retrieved a soft pack of unfiltered Camels. “Yeah . . . well things are about to get as real as they can get.”

  “You sure you’re up for this?” Rapp asked, wanting to give him another chance to skip it. “I can handle it.”

  Hurley cupped his left hand around the tip of the cigarette and spun the wheel on the old Zippo. The flame shot up, and after a long, deep pull he exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, “I know you can, but I need to do this.”

  Rapp would have preferred to handle it himself, but he knew there would be no changing Hurley’s mind. “Well . . . let’s get started. I have to be back up at Langley by nine.”

  CHAPTER 6

  THE big double doors to the barn were closed, so Rapp and Hurley used the smaller service door around the corner. A medium-sized tractor, a couple of ATVs, and a Ford F-150 pickup truck were parked on the side closest to the big doors. The other side of the floor was dominated by what looked like a large safe but was actually an industrial kiln that Hurley used for his incongruous hobby of pottery and a few other things.

  The two men walked to the opposite wall and approached a large oak card catalog cabinet. The brown wood was scuffed and dusty and a few of the old brass pulls on the drawers were missing. Even without all the various screws, nuts, bolts, nails, and assorted knickknacks that filled the eighty drawers, the thing looked as if it weighed a thousand pounds. Hurley reached around the back, pressed a button, and the cabinet began to swing away from the wall, revealing a concrete staircase. Rapp went down first, and once Hurley’s head was clear, he punched a code into a keypad. The cabinet began sliding back into place.

  Once the cabinet was back in place, Rapp punched in another code. When the light turned green, and he heard the electric motor release the lock, he turned the knob and stepped into a rectangular room with poured-concrete walls. There were two battleship-gray metal desks, a couch, and a round table with four chairs. One man was sitting behind the closest desk. He stood when Hurley and Rapp entered. The second man was on the couch, lying on his back, his feet up, a Baltimore Orioles hat covering his face. He was either sleeping or didn’t care to look and see who had just arrived.

  The room had the heavy, sour smell of nicotine. When Rapp had gone through his training this place didn’t exist. Hurley used a discreet contracting firm that was run by a former operative and had it built after 9/11. The floor of the barn was excavated and the foundation underpinned, to make room for the basement. The walls were poured and Spancrete sections were placed on top to create the roof for the new rooms and the floor of the barn. Within a two-hour drive of Washington there were three similar facilities, all of them built with private funding, and each one known by only a handful of individuals. Necessity was, after all, the mother of invention. In order to fulfill its mission the CIA needed to be able to conduct most of what it did away from prying eyes and in secret. Hurley had explained on many occasions that during the Cold War they had more than a dozen such places that they would use to debrief defectors as well as the occasional traitor.

  “Where’s the doc?” Hurley asked the big man who had been sitting behind the desk.

  The muscular man pointed toward the steel door at the far end of the room and said, “Talking to Adams. Been in there almost two hours.”

  The big man’s name was Joe Maslick. He was a native of Chicago, and a former Airborne Ranger, who’d done three tours, one in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. He was wearing a black Under Armour T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

  Hurley looked at Rapp and asked, “Is he drunk?”

  Rapp nodded. “He was pretty much on his way when we picked him up last night.”

  “And since then?”

  “I gave
him a few drinks on the plane ride down.”

  “No problems at the airport?”

  Rapp shook his head. “Loaded him in the hangar right there at Teterboro.”

  “The pilots?” Hurley asked.

  “Cockpit door was closed the whole time.”

  Hurley mumbled something under his breath and then said, “Why didn’t you just drive him down?”

  Hurley’s words were less a question than a criticism, and Rapp did not do well with either. If it were anyone other than his old instructor, Rapp would have asked him why he hadn’t gotten his lazy ass out of bed and handled the job himself, but it was Hurley, so he gave him a pass. “Stan, these pilots have flown me all over the world. They’ve seen a lot of shit.”

  “And if they’re asked at some point who was on that plane . . . ?”