Rapp suppressed his initial reaction, which was to tell Urda what he could go do with himself, and tried to look at it from his perspective. He needed Urda, and his people, and he'd rather have them as willing partic.i.p.ants than have to threaten them with losing their jobs. Rapp was so used to running closed ops that the thought of alerting the Agency's man in Kandahar that he was going to be running an op in his backyard hadn't even occurred to him.

In very uncharacteristic fashion Rapp said, "I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads-up, but this thing came down fast."

"So fast you couldn't pick up the phone?" Urda scratched his heavy black beard and waited for a reply.

Rapp had given it this one weak effort to act humble, and it wasn't working. He was hungry, tired, and not really in the mood for anything other than people following his orders. He looked over his shoulder and saw the base's medical staff racing forward to take care of the wounded. The one seriously injured trooper had been evacuated more than an hour ago and was already in surgery. The surgeon said he'd make it, but the young man's days as a Delta Force operator were probably over. There were nine others who were in need of medical treatment, though fortunately, none of the injuries was life threatening. Rapp, however, had planned on using the confusion of the postmission triage to quietly load the prisoners into Urda's two trucks. Which meant that he could ill afford to waste time arguing with this capable man who just might have a Napoleon complex.

"Jamal, I have five prisoners in the back of that Chinook over there." Rapp pointed to one of the large twin rotor birds. Six tired and dirty Delta Troopers were standing guard at the ship's aft ramp. "One of those men is Ali Saed al-Houri."

Rapp watched Urda's demeanor change instantly at the mention of one of al-Qaeda's top lieutenants. "I flew eight thousand miles and, in one day, did what you've been trying to do for almost two years. So don't give me this s.h.i.t about professional courtesy. I don't know you, and I don't give a s.h.i.t if I get to know you. All I care about is whether or not you're good at your job and whether you get me the results I'm looking for. Now, if you have a problem taking orders from me, let me know right now, and I'll make sure your a.s.s is on the next plane back to the States. I'm sure I can get the director to find a nice desk job for you somewhere."

Rapp paused long enough for Urda to get a clear picture of himself sitting at the desk in question, and just how embarra.s.sing it would be for him to get sent packing back to Langley, and then he offered the man an out. "I admire the sacrifice you've made, and I'd prefer to have you involved in this*especially since we don't have a lot of time. So do me a favor. Take your two trucks, pull them around to the back of that Chinook, and let's load these prisoners up and get the h.e.l.l out of here."

Urda looked at the helicopter and then back at Rapp. "I heard you could be a real p.r.i.c.k."

"I heard the same thing about you." Rapp gave the man a wry grin and said, "Let's go."

Eighteen

Finding a CIA station in a new town was a little bit like looking for a Catholic cathedral. Scan the horizon for the highest point and that was most likely where you would find it. Kandahar was no different, except there were no cathedrals, or even churches-only mosques. The Agency had set up shop at a villa that overlooked the entire town. The place had been built and occupied by a wealthy Afghan family who had fled like all the other well to do families when the Soviet Union had invaded their country. During the eighties the compound had been occupied by the Soviets and then in the nineties by the Taliban, and now it was the Americans.

The recently paved road to the station snaked its way up the hillside to a checkpoint manned by U.S. Marines. The Toyota 4 Runners did not turn off on the road, though. Rapp had told Urda of his plans, and his fellow CIA officer thought it best if they steered clear of both official and unofficial types of U.S. installations. There was a place a little further down the road that Urda knew of. Rapp didn't bother to ask him how he knew of it, or if he'd actually used it. There was no need to ask prying questions in their profession. They only led to liabilities and answers that one was better off not knowing. At the CIA the att.i.tude toward torture was a little bit like the military's policy on h.o.m.os.e.xuality: don't ask, don't tell.

Rapp was perhaps more comfortable with this state of intentional ignorance than anyone at the Agency. His entire recruitment into the CIA was part of a plan launched by the then director of operations Thomas Stansfield. Stansfield had been a member of the CIA's precursor, the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. He'd distinguished himself during WWII when he became a highly effective and decorated operative, serving behind enemy lines in both Norway and France. After the war, when the CIA was formed, Stansfield became one of the Agency's first employees.

Stansfield was on the ground in Europe during the Cold War and had been the strategist behind some of America's greatest intelligence coups. During the Church Commission hearings on Capitol Hill in the seventies, when some of the CIA's biggest dunderheads were exposed, he was grateful to be ensconced behind the Iron Curtain. He was hopeful that the Agency would rebound from the hearings as an organization more focused and clear in its mission, but it was not to be. Stansfield watched his once great spy organization slide further into decline during the Iran-Contra fiasco, and saw long before anyone else what political correctness would do to the effectiveness of the CIA.

In the late eighties he reacted by creating a covert organization called the Orion Team. Its mission was to take the war to the terrorists. Stansfield understood, possibly more than any person in Washington at the time, that fighting religious fanatics by civilized means was a doomed endeavor, and ignoring them simply wasn't an option.

The twenty-two-year-old Rapp had been Stansfield and Kennedy's prized recruit. An international business major fluent in French, Rapp was an All-America Lacrosse star for the Syracuse Orangemen. During his junior year thirty-five of his fellow cla.s.smates were killed while returning from a semester abroad. The Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack had changed Rapp's life irrevocably. His high school sweetheart, the woman he planned on marrying some day, had been on the plane.

The pain from that tragedy had fueled Rapp's motive for revenge, and over the next decade he was honed into the most effective counterterrorism operative in America's a.r.s.enal. All of this was done without the official knowledge of either the Executive or Legislative branches of the government. There were certain key people in Washington who knew of the Orion Team, several esteemed senators and congressmen, but the specifics had been known only to Stansfield. These elder statesmen knew a full decade before the rest of their colleagues that there was a war on terrorism, and they also understood that neither their colleagues nor the American public had the stomach for what it would take to fight the rise in fanaticism.

Calling Rapp a counterterrorism operative was essentially a polite way of ducking the truth. When everything was stripped away, the reality was that he was an a.s.sa.s.sin. He had killed, and killed often, for his country, and in his mind 9/11 was proof that he hadn't killed enough. These zealots would stop at nothing to impose their narrow interpretation of the Koran, and that included the detonation of a nuclear warhead in the center of a civilian population. Rapp did not look forward to what he had to do, but he certainly wasn't squeamish about it either. There was a very real possibility that the men he had taken from the village possessed information that could save thousands of lives-possibly even hundreds of thousands, and Rapp would do whatever it took to ferret out what they knew.

Nineteen.

The vehicles turned onto a rutted and dusty road. After several minutes they came upon a series of ramshackle buildings. Rapp was a little taken aback to see that the place was occupied, but not as surprised as he was when he spotted a Soviet-made T-72 tank parked next to the largest of the buildings.

Sensing Rapp's unease, Urda turned to him and said, "Northern Alliance. My allies in this crazy war against the Taliban."

Rapp nodded and looked through the smeared and pitted windshield. "They going to be all right with this?"

"They hate these religious nuts more than you can possibly imagine. My boys," Urda pointed to the other vehicle that his two Afghani bodyguards were in, "are fiercely loyal to me. Good kids who lost their parents in the war. The Taliban did a lot of nasty s.h.i.t to a lot of people. Consequently, they have no shortage of enemies."

Rapp had already noted that Urda's two locals looked as if they were still in their mid-teens, which didn't do a lot to instill confidence.

Urda gripped the wheel and brought the SUV around the side of one of the buildings. "Whenever I have someone who doesn't want to do things the nice way I bring 'em out here, and let these guys get it out of them."

Rapp chose not to respond. This was not a part of his job that he enjoyed.

The two Toyota 4 Runners stopped next to a fenced-in pen of some sort. Rapp stepped out of the vehicle and was. .h.i.t with the pungent smell of animal waste. He looked over the top of the fence and saw several dozen pigs lying in their own excrement.

Urda lifted the tailgate of the SUV, revealing three bound and hooded prisoners. He looked at his two Afghani bodyguards and said, "Hoods off and up and over the top."

The two Northern Alliance mercenaries grinned at each other and slung their rifles over their shoulders.

Rapp looked at him, somewhat puzzled.

"Pigs!" said Urda. "They freak these guys out. They think if they touch one before they die they won't go to heaven. You know, the whole ninety-nine virgins and all that s.h.i.t."

Rapp grinned, "You mean seventy-seven houri." Rapp used the Arabic word for the beautiful young virgins who supposedly awaited the Muslim martyrs when they arrived in heaven.

"Yeah*whatever."

Rapp actually laughed for the first time in days. He watched as they tore the hood off the first man and tossed him over the fence with no care whatsoever as to how he landed. Rapp turned to Urda. "Tell them not to drop them on their heads. Especially the old man. I need them alive*at least for a while."

He glanced into the pen and watched the man struggle against his bonds as pigs sniffed and licked him. His eyes were wide with fear rather than anger, and his shouts were stifled by his filthy gag. Rapp thought he'd seen it all, but this took the cake. He shook his head and walked away from the pen, fishing out his satellite phone. After flipping the large antennae into the upright position he punched in the number General Harley had given him.

A duty officer answered and Rapp asked for the general. Five seconds later Harley was on the line. "Mitch."

"General, have you ID'd the other two prisoners?" With reasonable certainty Rapp had already identified Ha.s.san Izz-al-Din, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, and Ali Saed al-Houri.

"Not yet, but we're working on it."

"What about Langley?"

"As per your request, we're scanning doc.u.ments as fast as we can and sending them back to the CTC."

"Have your guys, or Jamal's guys, found anything I can use?"

"Oh, there's stuff here," Harley said confidently, "it's just a question of getting it organized. We've got financial records, names, doc.u.ments on WMD, plans for terrorist attacks*my J2 is telling me we hit the mother lode."

"Good." Time was critical, however. Word would get out quickly that al-Qaeda's command structure had been compromised. Bank accounts would be emptied, people would disappear, and plans would change.

"Listen, General, I can't stress enough how time-sensitive this information is. Have your people made any progress on the computers?"

"Not yet."

"s.h.i.t." Rapp ran a hand through his thick black hair. "Does the CTC have Marcus Dumond on it?"

"Let me check."

Rapp looked back at the pen in time to see another body tossed in. Marcus Dumond was the little brother he'd never wanted. A bona fide computer genius and hacker extraordinaire, the social misfit had been personally recruited by Rapp to work for the counterterrorism center at Langley.

The general came back on the line. "They haven't been able to track him down."

Rapp's face twisted into an irritated frown. It was approaching midnight back in the states, and knowing Marcus he was probably hanging out at some cyber cafe with his friends. "Listen, General, I have to start interrogating these guys, so I need your people to work really fast. The second you learn anything, I want you to call me."

"Roger."

Rapp put the phone away and went back to the pen. His five prisoners were all on their backs writhing in agony as the dirty swine defiled their supposedly purified martyred bodies. He looked to Urda and said, "Have your boys bring them inside."

Rapp then gestured for Urda to follow him. The two men walked a safe distance away from any prying ears. Rapp looked around at the dusty hardscrabble landscape, and asked, "Off the record, how rough have you had to be?"

Urda shrugged. "Afghanistan is a rough place*h.e.l.l, it shouldn't even be a place. It should be four or five countries. We've got communists, war lords, or drug dealers*however you want to describe them, we've got the Taliban, we've got people who want democracy, and we have a lot of nice men and women who just want to live their lives, and the other a.s.sholes who won't let them do it, so what we've got is one gigantic f.u.c.king mess."

"You didn't answer my question." Rapp kept his eyes fixed on Urda's. "How rough have you had to be?"

Urda returned his stare with equal intensity. "You mean have I tortured people?"

"Yeah."

He looked back toward the warehouse, obviously not wanting to answer the question. "There have been times where I have let the locals get physical, but I prefer to stay out of it as much as possible."

Watching every twitch of the man's bearded face, Rapp decided he was lying to him, or at least not telling the whole story. A notoriously impatient man, he said, "Jamal, let's cut the s.h.i.t. I'm guessing you're a pretty straight shooter, but you don't want to say too much because I'm a little too high up on the totem pole."

Urda shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with this line of questioning. Finally he said, "Those p.r.i.c.ks back in Washington have no idea how ugly it is over here. They want us to act like we're cops*everything by the book." He spit on the ground, then threw his arms out gesturing at the harsh landscape. "There is no f.u.c.king rule book over here."

Rapp nodded. He understood. Having worked in the field for so many years he had very little affinity for the people back in Washington who tried to tell him how to do his job. Before he took this next step, however, he needed to make absolutely certain that he and Urda were of the same mind. "Listen, I'm about to go in there and do something that is so far off the reservation it can never be discussed with anyone*and I mean anyone."

Urda looked away, obviously uncomfortable.

Rapp reached out and grabbed his arm. "I haven't told you the whole story yet. This is not going to be your typical interrogation. We don't have the time to do it properly."

"Why?"

"Because we have reason to believe these guys are planning to detonate a nuclear weapon in Washington, D.C., and we have absolutely no idea how close they are to doing it, or if the little raid we conducted last night will cause them to move up their timetable." Rapp watched the expression change on Urda's face, and he let go of his arm.

"That's right*a nuke," repeated Rapp. "We're talking casualty rates that you and I can't even begin to calculate and the clock is ticking."

Urda's jaw hung slack for a moment and then he said, "My ex-wife and kids live just outside the city."

Not for the first time Rapp thought how lucky he was that his wife was visiting her parents in Wisconsin.

Urda shook his head as if struggling to comprehend the full enormity of the situation. "How big a bomb are we talking?"

"I don't know. That's one of the things I need to find out, and we don't have a lot of time. I need your help. My Arabic and Farsi are good but my Pashto and Urdu are nonexistent."

Rapp pointed toward the pen where the soiled prisoners were being dragged away from the squealing pigs. "I know two of these guys are fluent in Arabic, English, and Pashtu, and one of them speaks only Pashtu and a little bit of Arabic. I don't know what the other two speak. I'm going to need your help translating, but more importantly, I'm going to need your eyes and ears, because we are going to interrogate all five of them together."

Urda turned his attention away from the prisoners and back to the notorious CIA operative. As far as Urda knew, there was only one reason why someone would want to interrogate all five of the prisoners at the same time. His lips twisted into a pensive expression. "There are people who will do this for us," he offered.

Rapp began shaking his head before Urda had finished his sentence. "Nope. It's too important to trust to some warlord's thugs." He pointed at the bound prisoners as they shuffled single file into the building. "The fourth man in line is none other than Ali Saed al-Houri. He helped plan and execute the 9/11 attacks, and if he doesn't start singing like a bird I'm going to kill him right here and now, and I can tell you honestly that I won't lose a wink of sleep over it."

Urda let out a long sigh and looked at the ground as if the burden of what was about to happen was too much.

Rapp's jaw tightened. "I am going to do whatever it takes to get those men to talk. Make no mistake about it." Rapp moved his head to make sure Urda was looking directly at him. "And I mean whatever it takes, so before we go in there I need to know without a doubt that you're going to have the stomach for this, and that when all is said and done, you will never breathe a word of it to anyone."

Urda's thoughts returned to his ex-wife and three children. He pictured all them in their beds, in the house that he used to live in before this job destroyed his marriage. He thought of the reasons why he'd picked his career over his family: his sense of duty, the feeling that he could make a difference in this crazy war on terror, and that someone had to man the ramparts. It was as if all of those previous decisions had led to this one defining moment. The moment where his actions really could make the difference. If there was ever a time to ignore the rule book, this was it.

A resolute look crept onto his face, and Urda said with confidence, "I'm in."

Twenty.

The concrete floor could be seen only in patches, mostly where it was cracked and heaved upward. The rest of the floor was covered with a matted layer of gummy brown dirt. The building was approximately thirty feet wide by eighty feet long with large doors at each end to accommodate vehicles pulling in to drop off and pick up product. In this case the product was opium, both the bane and blessing of the Afghani people. Great wealth was derived from the opium poppy, and with that wealth came tribal rivalries that made the infamous prohibition-era Chicago gangland wars seem infantile. These people didn't simply use machine guns to settle disputes, they used heavy armor, as was evidenced by the Soviet-made main battle tank parked outside.

The warlords who oversaw the growth, production, and distribution of opium were fabulously wealthy, ruthless men who had proven time and time again that they would use whatever force they had at their disposal to settle disputes. And that force was significant. Each had his own militia comprised of seasoned fighters, and almost endless funds to resupply his troops with the best that the former Soviet Union and her satellites had to offer, including guns, artillery, armor, and even helicopters in a few cases.

For now a partnership of sorts had been struck with the Americans. For their part, the warlords had agreed to join forces with the Americans to rout the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In return the Americans were to turn a blind eye to the once again burgeoning opium trade. As always the CIA had been asked to take the lead on making and maintaining this Faustian alliance. Kennedy felt that this arrangement would eventually bite the CIA in the a.s.s, but for now it was the most reasonable course.

Despite the inevitable criticism and probable Congressional investigation that would someday be launched by political opportunists, the alliance had worked. The Taliban had been thrashed in just months, and with minimal loss of American lives, and the country, while still not safe by Western standards, was as secure as it had been in over twenty years.

As Rapp stood in the dark corner of the poorly lit warehouse, he had accepted all of this and more. He eyed the bags of opium stacked to the rafters and briefly wondered how much it was all worth. He quickly decided he didn't want to know the answer. The potential for corruption among government-salaried CIA operatives was enormous. They worked in an alluring world of opium, cash, spies, drug lords, illegal arms shipments, and blackmail. Simply being in this building could cause him problems he didn't need.

Rapp wondered if this was the right place to conduct the interrogation, but he knew he had neither the time nor the resources to do anything else. The job had to be done and done quickly. Immediate results were paramount. Any fallout, he would have to suffer later.

America was at a distinct disadvantage in this war. International aid groups and reporters were keen to jump on any story about Americans committing atrocities, while they were seemingly numb to the day-today horrors perpetrated by the holy warriors on the other side. In the safe and sterile newsrooms, in the marble halls of Congress, it was easy to second-guess decisions and find fault. Out here on the field of battle things were far less certain. Moral ambiguity, rather than clarity, was the norm. What Rapp was about to do would be seen as barbaric by many of the same people whose lives he was trying to save. This was the sad irony of his life-that he would have to kill to save.

At his request the five prisoners were lined up on their knees in the middle of the warehouse. They were still bound and gagged. Rapp asked Urda to tell the two guards to wait outside, then retrieved a pair of earplugs from his black bulletproof tactical vest. He compressed the soft foam and inserted one plug into his left ear. Then he stepped from the shadows.

As he approached the five kneeling men he wondered if any of them would recognize him. During Kennedy's confirmation hearing, Rapp's cover had been blown by a senator who was seeking to derail Kennedy's nomination by exposing Rapp as a freelancing a.s.sa.s.sin in the employ of the CIA. The president stepped in and let much more be known. For the first time, Rapp's role in several major counterterrorism operations was acknowledged, most notably one that had saved the lives of hundreds, including that of the president himself. The president had dubbed Rapp America's first line of defense in the war on terror, and the press bit hard, publishing and broadcasting countless stories, replete with photographs. The fanatical Muslim clerics in turn dubbed Rapp enemy number one and demanded that he be killed.

As Rapp stepped into the faint light, he could tell by the expression on one of the younger man's faces that he did indeed recognize him. Rapp removed the man's gag and in Arabic told him to tell the others who he was.

The prisoner looked to the ground, afraid to stare into the eyes of the man standing before him. Rapp repeated his order, this time more firmly.