Chapter 42
RAPP eyed Hassan, considering how to respond.
After a moment of reflection, he elected to face the situation the way he dealt with most troubling issues.
Head-on.
“What makes you think I know any more about killing than I do chemical weapons?” Rapp said.
Hassan gestured to the tile. “Let’s call it a hunch.”
A bloodstain now marred the previously white flooring where the three Muppets had lain.
The tile really was porous.
“I’m sure you already have plenty of muscle” Rapp said.
“I require more than just skill with a gun. The target is well protected. Getting close enough to do the job will be difficult. The brothers in Verona had an operative with the requisite characteristics, but for reasons I’m sure you can imagine, that cell is no longer in a position to be helpful.”
Rapp turned the man’s words over, doing his best to read between the lines.
If he were calling the shots, the Verona cell would already be long gone.
The immense effort and resources they’d expended capturing the scientist and presumably smuggling him out of the country would be for naught if one of the jihadis was captured.
“You need someone who can pass as Western?”
“Can you?”
Rapp shrugged. “I attended an international boarding school as a child. I can’t talk about baseball, but I can say the word without arousing suspicion.”
“Will you do it?”
Rapp shook his head. “I don’t make these types of decisions on my own. I need to run the terms of our agreement past my organization. I’m a soldier, not a commander.”
“Congratulations.”
Rapp frowned. “For what?”
“You’ve just been promoted to commander. Operational security does not permit the sharing of what we’ve just discussed. What’s your name and that of your organization?”
“I never said I’d do the job,” Rapp said, flexing his fingers around the pistol’s grip.
“And I didn’t say you had to. Either way, I need to make inquiries to ensure you are who you say you are. Until they come back, you’ll be our guest.”
At first Rapp didn’t understand. Then he got it. “You have someone else?”
“We always have someone else.”
“Then why me?”
Hassan sighed. “Because our alternative is not as capable as you. They will likely fail, but I will still end them. If need be, I will pull the trigger myself.”
Put that way, it didn’t seem like Rapp had much of a choice.
No doubt there were men already outside the apartment’s door.
Men with guns. Unless he was prepared to shoot his way out, he would either conduct the assassination for the cell or be held as their prisoner until the second assassin finished the job.
A job that might end in his arrest anyway if the assassin’s trail led back to the mosque.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have much of a choice.
He had no choice at all.
“My name is Diaco Jaff,” Rapp said, using the legend Victoria had supplied. “I’m part of the Peshmerga. I’ll do your job.”
“Excellent,” Hassan said. “First, you’ll need to change.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to a party.”