Moradi reflexively accepted.
Like the viper of Moradi’s youth, Rapp struck. But unlike that hapless snake, Rapp didn’t miss. The American snared Moradi’s wrist while body-checking him into the railing. The steel bit into Moradi’s rib cage, driving the air from his lungs while pinning his other arm against his chest.
That was the least of his worries.
Rapp used his newfound leverage to torque Moradi’s wrist. He couldn’t quite see what the American had done, but he could feel it.
Oh, how he could feel it.
“Release the pistol or I will snap your fucking wrist like kindling,” Rapp said.
Moradi complied.
“Now grab the railing with your free hand.”
The pressure grinding him into the railing eased slightly, but the agony from his snared wrist doubled as bones shifted and tendons strained.
“Okay,” Moradi hissed. “Okay.”
He worked his hand free from the folds of his robes and dutifully grabbed the cool steel. With movements too quick to follow, Rapp relieved him of the concealed Glock. Then, as if he were caught in a python’s tightening coils, Moradi felt the crushing pressure against his midsection return as the American smashed him into the railing.
“Listen to me, you ungrateful little pissant,” Rapp said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “I already don’t think much of Iranians. Your Quds Force thugs snatched one of my closest friends and beat the shit out of her.”
Rapp’s words seemed to be coming from far away. As if the pain radiating up Moradi’s arm had fogged his brain. The American’s voice was the faintest of lights flashing a warning atop dark waves of agony.
What friend of Rapp’s had been snatched by the Quds Force?
Then Moradi knew.
“I had nothing to do with Director Kennedy’s kidnapping,” Moradi said, fighting to keep the terror from his voice. “Nothing!”
“Which is why you’re still breathing,” Rapp said, “but lately I’ve been second-guessing that decision. Know what a doctor does when he finds cancer? He cuts out the tumor and some of the surrounding tissue, just to be safe. You might not be the cancer, but you’re damn sure surrounding tissue.”
Somehow Rapp’s whisper was more terrifying than a scream.
“I want to help,” Moradi said, hissing the words through clenched teeth.
“You bet your ass you do,” Rapp said. “When I punch someone’s ticket, it’s clean and professional. Just like the way I did that Hezbollah shitbag who kidnapped Director Kennedy. But if your MOIS or Quds Force comrades think you’re a traitor, your death won’t be nearly so clean. How long do you think someone like you would last in Evin Prison?”
Rapp cranked Moradi’s wrist, and a white-hot poker stabbed him in the forearm.
He thought he’d known pain before.
He hadn’t.
Moradi stifled the urge to vomit as he stumbled out a question. “What do you want to know? What? WHAT?”
“Everything,” Rapp said. “Start talking.”
Moradi did.
CHAPTER 54
“YES?”
“Irene, it’s me.”
Rapp did the time conversion in his head as he waited for his boss to respond. He and Irene complemented each other well. While not prone to going off half-cocked, Rapp also wasn’t one to dither. In his experience, the simplest solution was almost always the correct one. Operatives who spent too long analyzing the third- and fourth-order effects of their actions tended to fall into one of two camps.
Ineffective or dead.
“Where are you calling from?”
On the other hand, there were times when deep thinking was necessary. When strategy rather than just tactics should be consulted. If this were a football team, Rapp would consider himself the quarterback and Kennedy the coach. While he was perfectly comfortable calling the plays 99 percent of the time, sometimes it made sense to talk with someone who had a bird’s-eye view of the field.
This was one of those times.
“That’s complicated,” Rapp said. “I need to run some things by you, but I’m not in a position to place the call from the office.”
In this context, the words the office referred to the US embassy in Islamabad. Deep within the bowels of this building lay a space guarded by multiple cypher locks and insulated from prying eyes and ears both human and otherwise. The CIA annex held the secure voice and video communications that would have allowed Rapp to connect with Kennedy in a much more mundane manner.
Rapp was not in the embassy.
After leaving Moradi, he had made his way back to his car as quickly as possible without running and thereby attracting attention. He’d thought about calling Irene from the garden’s parking lot but hadn’t. His time-sensitive information would be useless if he was sitting in a jail cell and thereby unable to relay it. While he didn’t think Moradi would go to the Pakistani authorities, it was better to be safe than sorry, which meant he needed to put distance between himself and the scene of their rather forceful conversation.
With this in mind, Rapp had driven along the road that wound through the park at precisely the posted speed limit. After reaching the entrance, he had motored southeast down Seventh Avenue past leafy jogging trails and two colleges before reaching the intersection of busy Jinnah Avenue. From here Rapp had proceeded west for several blocks before pulling into the parking lot of a combination Kentucky Fried Chicken and gas station. Nosing the car into a slot that offered excellent sight lines in all directions, Rapp shut off the engine and paused to think.
As anyone with passing familiarity with the world of espionage knew, embassies came with embassy watchers—employees of foreign intelligence services who documented the comings and goings of everyone who entered the island of US soil. Like every case officer worth his or her salt, Rapp had snuck into an embassy before. These entrances ran the gamut from high-tech solutions like disguises meant to defeat the biometric devices employed by watchers to the decidedly low-tech stow-away-in-a-car-trunk solution.
