Chapter 60
RAMADI, IRAQ
ARE you American?”
Rapp looked from the highway stretching in front of his truck to his passenger.
“Are you?”
Azad frowned. “You aren’t Kurdish.”
He made the statement as if daring Rapp to say otherwise.
Rapp sighed.
When they’d first departed Ibrahim’s warehouse for the journey west to Ramadi, he’d been glad to have been partnered with the Kurd.
Both Azad and the second Kurd, Rizgar, had performed their roles to perfection, just as his in-country Peshmerga contact had assured him they would.
While he still hadn’t been in love with the idea of working with Victoria as his handler instead of Irene, he had to admit that the British spy ran a tight ship.
After leaving Verona for Istanbul, he’d linked up again with the MI6 officer who’d facilitated his long journey using planes, buses, and the occasional automobile east across Turkey before entering the Zagros Mountains in northern Iraq.
From there, he’d been passed off to Victoria’s Peshmerga asset, who arranged for Rapp’s travel south to Baghdad, while ensuring that Azad was ready to welcome his cousin and Rizgar would be overjoyed to see his friend.
While it was not an experience Rapp wanted to repeat anytime soon, the trip gave him confidence in his ability to fit in. For the most part, people saw what they expected to see. Rapp spoke the language like a native, looked like he belonged, and Victoria’s Kurdish asset vouched for him.
This had been enough for his various traveling companions.
Until now.
“I’m exactly who Bahoz said I was,” Rapp said, evoking the name of Victoria’s asset and Azad’s commander. “Your Kurdish cousin Sipan.”
Rapp downshifted as the brake lights of the truck in front of him flashed.
His truck was not difficult to handle, but it didn’t stop on a dime.
When Azad had asked if he’d take the first shift behind the wheel, Rapp had readily agreed.
Best case, the other man would use the time to nap in preparation for his turn to drive, which meant that Rapp would be saved from the need to make small talk.
Worst case, volunteering to take the stretch of road that wound through both Baghdad and Ramadi’s infuriating traffic might endear him to the Kurd.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Now the decision appeared to be decidedly less so.
Rather than sleeping, Azad had directed a never-ending series of questions at Rapp.
They’d been inane enough at first, but had become more pointed over the last thirty minutes.
If Rapp had known he was going to have to weather the man’s interrogation, he would have chosen the passenger seat.
Drawing his pistol while steering the massive tanker truck would be difficult.
“I hate Americans,” Azad said.
“I don’t care.”
“Want to know why?”
“No.”
Rapp liked to carry his pistol in a shoulder rig or concealed at the small of his back.
Since he was sitting in a truck and not wearing a jacket, neither of those options had been available.
Instead, he’d used an inside-the-waistband holster to attach the Glock to his belt over his left hip.
The pistol and holster had been gifts from Bahoz, while the lighter in his right pocket had been a present from Irene and served a different purpose.
Rapp accelerated as the traffic jam cleared, shifting through the gears with his right hand and steering with his left. Once he regained the desired distance to the truck in front of him, he switched hands and began steering with his right.
His left hand came to rest on his left thigh.
Drawing a pistol while seated was a bitch. There was no way to clear the weapon from his shirt and belt without highlighting the movement. If push came to shove, he’d need to create a distraction first. Fortunately, when it came to Iraqi motorists, distractions were in no short supply.
“Americans killed my father.”
Azad’s declaration sounded like an accusation rather than a statement of fact.
A provocation.
He looked at Rapp.
The truck in front of them activated its turn signal and exited the highway.
Rapp followed.
“He listened to the American president and believed him. He joined in my people’s uprising against Hussein and was butchered alongside thousands of others. Gassed to death on our mountain. I saw it all. So did your president. And what he did to avenge my father?”
The question hung in the air.
Rapp ignored it as the truck ahead of his activated its turn signal again.
This time the vehicle turned left into the parking lot of what might have once been a factory.
The building’s exterior was covered in grime and had been sandblasted and sun-bleached to a nicotine color.
Jagged shards of glass glittered from the remnants of windows.
Something scurried into the night at the edge of Rapp’s headlights.
“Nothing. Your president did nothing.”
The lead truck tracked the cracked parking lot around the side of the building.
Rapp followed and his headlights swept across the reason they were here.
Five trucks—three tankers similar to the one he was driving and two flatbeds of the type on which pallets were typically stacked.
Except instead of pallets, these trucks had metal sides and tarps stretched across the cargo area.
The vehicles were dirty, dusty, and dented just like Ibrahim’s fleet.
In fact, they could have been Ibrahim’s fleet were it not for the men standing in a loose semicircle around the trucks.
Armed men wearing paramilitary uniforms intermixed with a few dressed in plain clothes.
DGS officers.
“Do you hear me?” Spittle flew from Azad’s mouth as he screamed the question.
Rapp reached into his right pocket, found the Zippo lighter, and squeezed.
The device vibrated in his hand.
“Hey!”
Ignoring the Kurd, Rapp guided his truck into place behind the one he’d been following.
Then he killed the headlights and turned Azad.
“I’m going to say this just once, so I need for you to listen,” Rapp said. “Are you married?”
“What?”
“Married. Do you have a wife?”
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“I don’t see—”
“Do. You. Have. Children?”
“Yes. A son and a daughter.”
Rapp nodded. “Good.”
“Are you threatening my children?”
Rapp shook his head. “I would never harm an innocent. Children are a gift from God.”
“Then why did you ask?”
Rapp allowed the tension to build.
When he finally broke the silence, his voice echoed through the dark cabin.
“Because I want you to understand the severity of what I’m about to say.
Who I am and where I’m from doesn’t matter.
All you need to know is that I come in peace.
Before Allah and his Prophet Muhammad, I swear that I have no malice in my heart toward you, but understand this—if you fuck with me, another man will raise your children. ”
Rapp didn’t know what Azad saw on his face, but it seemed to do the trick.
The Kurd swallowed.
“Do you understand?” Rapp said.
Azad bobbed his head.
Rapp snatched the Kurd by his shirt and yanked him across the cabin so that they were nose to nose. “I need to hear you say it, because I don’t want your children to grow up fatherless. Say I understand.”
“I… I understand,” Azad sputtered.
“Good,” Rapp said, shoving the Kurd back to his seat. “Now, get the fuck out of my truck.”