voice making incoherent accusations. Rapp frowned as he sliced off another piece of steak. It was a perfect example of everything he’d been thinking about. He was happy to risk his ass saving people from ISIS or the Russians or al Qaeda. But when had he signed on to stop people from inflicting wounds on themselves?
Finally, the sobbing started. Terrified and barely audible through the door, it sounded so pathetic, Rapp figured it’d calm things down. Instead, it had the opposite effect.
Listening to that asshole tear around the room made Rapp think about other people he’d tried to protect over the years. And about how many were dead now. The innocent women and children guilty of nothing but being born in the wrong part of the world. The men who just wanted to make a life for themselves and their families but who found themselves conscripted into terrorist groups. The soldiers who did everything they could with the shit sandwich they’d been handed.
And now here he was sitting in some swanky hotel listening to two pampered screwups try to kill each other. They might as well have been spitting on those people’s graves.
When something hit the door hard enough to knock off part of the molding, Rapp finally stood. His preference would have been to let them finish each other off, but one of them ending up dead wasn’t going to reflect particularly well on Coleman’s organization. He owed the man too much to let his company’s name get splashed across every newspaper in the world.
Rapp tapped his key card against the lock and pushed reluctantly through the door. The scene inside was pretty much what he’d expected. Martin was in the middle of the room in his boxer shorts, high as a kite and slurring some nonsense that Rapp didn’t bother to listen to. His pale skin was covered in tattoos and a baseball hat turned sideways completed the impression of a suburban kid playing gangster.
At his feet was a skinny young girl wearing nothing but panties and a cut-off T-shirt. She was beautiful in that over-the-top reality star kind of way, but the blood flowing from her nose and the heavily dilated pupils didn’t enhance the package. When her gaze shifted to Rapp, Martin spun.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” he screamed.
“I keep asking myself that.”
Rapp was surprised when the little prick grabbed a lamp and rushed him. He deflected the lamp with one hand and rammed the other into his stomach, leaving the singer spewing his dinner all over the marble floor.
Then it was the girl’s turn. She leapt to her feet with energy Rapp would have bet she didn’t have and mounted a similar charge. This time he just stepped aside. Her momentum took her right past him but then she hit the vomit. Her feet went out from under her and she landed hard, cracking the back of her head on the tile.
Rapp looked down at them for a few seconds and then went back out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. He sat and pulled the cheesecake from the lower shelf of the cart before digging his phone from his pocket. Coleman picked up on the first ring.
“What? Why are you calling me?”
“There’s been a problem,” Rapp said through a mouthful of dessert.
“You didn’t kill them. Please tell me you didn’t kill them.”
“No, I didn’t fucking kill them.” He paused to swallow. “But you might want to call an ambulance.”
CHAPTER 20
NORTH OF HARGEISA
SOMALIA
WHILE his objective was still within sight, the vantage point from which Sayid Halabi was viewing it had changed significantly. The Western-style office he’d constructed in Yemen had been left far behind. He was now sitting on a broken stool behind a desk constructed of scavenged plywood. Lighting was minimal—an exposed bulb dangling from a spike driven into the rock overhead. It provided barely enough illumination to see a map of North America similarly anchored to the cave’s wall. The few creature comforts they’d managed to bring into Somalia had been given to the Frenchman to keep him motivated.
In many ways, Halabi welcomed the change. The laptop on his improvised desk remained turned off. His worldly belongings were contained in a modest wooden crate in the corner. A prayer rug, faded and worn, was neatly rolled at his feet. The austerity made him feel closer to God, though he recognized that the sensation was a false one. In order to succeed in a world ruled by the enemies