Chapter 76
SIX HOURS LATER
GET up! If you want to live, you must get up!”
Rapp could make out the words, but they were muddled and seemed to be coming from a long way off. As if he were hearing them while swimming underwater. His body ached and his head pounded. He tried to open his eyes, but they felt thick and sticky.
Maybe it was better to just go back to sleep.
“GET UP!”
The sting of a slap ran the length of his jaw, and anger accomplished what the person screaming at him had not been able to do with words alone.
Rapp opened his eyes in time to see another blow heading for his face.
He instinctively got his hand up to block the strike, but he was still moving slow.
Part of the slap got through, snapping his head back.
The smack cleared most of the remaining cobwebs.
Anger took care of the rest.
“I’m awake,” Rapp said. “I’m fine.”
The first part of his statement was for the most part true. The second was not. His last moments of coherence came back to him. The Kurd’s strange behavior. The flash of light. The burning sensation.
The convoy had been attacked.
“Where—”
“On your feet!”
This time, Rapp was ready. He caught his attacker by the wrist before the slap could land.
Then he yanked on the man’s arm and pulled himself to a standing position.
The world tilted, blurred, and swam back into focus.
Cracked concrete floors, steel walls and ceiling, and rows of light bulbs dangling from exposed rafters suggested that he was in a warehouse of some sort. The kind of place where heavy equipment, extra vehicles, spare tires, and maintenance tools were kept.
“We have to go!”
Rapp turned from his surroundings to the man whose wrist he was holding.
Azad.
The Kurd looked how he felt. Blood was crusted across his face and head, his clothes were torn and dirty, and one of his arms dangled limply.
“Where are we?” Rapp said.
His voice was hoarse, his throat felt raw, and his lips were cracked and dry.
What in the hell had happened?
“Inside a building that is about to explode. Come!”
For the first time, Rapp saw his surroundings.
Saw and understood them.
A forest of portable fluorescent light stands stood to his right.
The antiseptic illumination revealed an orderly shelving unit, humming power strips, and a workbench covered with electronic equipment.
Rapp had studied business, not engineering, but he’d seen enough thriller movies to recognize an oscilloscope and soldering iron nestled among rows of electrical components precisely laid out on antistatic mats.
To his left was something even more chilling.
Bodies.
Ten corpses arranged in a neat row. Some he remembered from the convoy. Others he’d never seen before. The body closest to him however was very familiar.
The Pakistani scientist.
“We’ve got to—”
Azad swayed on his feet and dropped.
Rapp caught the Kurd and swore as he felt the crusted stickiness of Azad’s back.
The Kurd had an open wound. Hoisting the man onto his shoulder, Rapp staggered past the bodies and electronic bench to the sliding garage door on the far side of the room.
He reached it without falling and was stretching his fingers for the garage door button when he opted for the pedestrian door instead.
If the building really was about to blow, perhaps he shouldn’t wait for the motorized door.
Shouldering the pedestrian door open, Rapp burst into blinding sunlight.
He was in a gravel parking lot, empty save for a rusting van.
The fifty yards separating him from the van seemed like an impossibly long distance, but Rapp gritted his teeth and half ran, half stumbled across the loose stone.
He nearly lost his balance after mistakenly stepping into a pothole, but after drunkenly swaying for a stride or two, he made it to the vehicle.
Popping open the passenger door, Rapp dumped Azad into the seat.
Then he raced around the hood to the driver’s side.
He was mid-stride when a giant fist slammed into his back and smashed him into the hood.
Rapp slid along the metal and dropped to his knees.
He shook his head, trying to clear the fog, but the ringing in his ears didn’t subside.
The ground felt good beneath his legs. Steady.
It was so tempting to stay there for a moment, just to regain his balance.
A piece of debris banged off the hood, narrowly missing his head.
Groaning, Rapp dug his fingers into the van’s bumper and pulled himself to his feet. In fits and starts, he finished his journey around the hood, got to the driver’s-side door, pulled it open, and fell headlong into the driver’s seat.
Again, he had the unsettling thought that the ripped seat cushion was perhaps the most comfortable place he’d ever laid his head and maybe he ought to close his eyes for just a second.
Again, the burning husk of the warehouse helped to provide some much-needed motivation.
A secondary explosion rocked the van, jolting Azad out of his stupor.
“What was that?” Azad said with a groggy voice.
“The building exploded,” Rapp said as he pulled himself upright in the driver’s seat and shut the door.
“I told you.”
Then the Kurd promptly passed out.
Rapp dug his fingers into the man’s shoulder.
“Aaahhh!”
“You have to stay awake. You’ve lost too much blood. If you sleep, you die.”
That wasn’t precisely true, but it was close enough.
“Okay, okay. I’m awake. Why are we still here? You have to drive.”
“Why?”
Rapp could barely remain upright. He wasn’t driving anywhere.
“To stop them from using the chemical weapons.”
Rapp buckled his seat belt.