As soon as the little mouth started to open, Rapp knew what would follow. He hesitated for only a fraction of a second and then brought his gun up just as the girl let loose a bloodcurdling shriek. A subsonic 9mm round spat from the end of the silencer striking the nearest kidnapper in the side of the head, instantly dropping him into the lap of the man who was sitting next to him. The terrorists were sitting around a rickety table, and for the briefest of moments they froze.
With a tone of urgency, but not panic, Rapp shouted the Go word over and over into his lip mike, as he moved from one target to the next. His gun moved as an extension of his arm, efficiently seeking out targets, sweeping from left to right. The pistol carried sixteen rounds, one in the chamber and fifteen in the grip. Each depleted round registered in his mind as its brass casing was ejected.
He got off three clean head shots before the tent became so filled with terrorists diving and lurching every which way that he had to resort to aiming for chests and backs. One of the men got hold of his weapon and Rapp shot him in the shoulder, sending him sprawling and the gun clattering to the floor.
Remembering Jackson and his men, Rapp yelled, "Spray down the right side of the tent! The hostages are all down by me!" The last thing he wanted was to hit one of them with a stray bullet as they came through the tent. Or worse, have one of them hit him coming the other way.
Rapp saw two muzzles coming around. One was tracking toward the hostages, but Rapp couldn't get a clear shot. A body was in the way. Screaming "Shoot at the damn tent!" he squeezed off three quick rounds directed at a target he couldn't fully see.
The terrorist teetered backward, the dead body of his comrade knocking him off his feet. His finger squeezed the trigger on the way down, sending a three-round burst tearing through the wall and roof of the tent. Rapp saw more movement to his right. His eyes moved faster than his gun. He saw the flash of the rifle muzzle and then the wood floor in front of him splintered with the impact from a bullet, followed by another flash and another. The man was shooting the assault rifle on full automatic, shredding the rotten floorboards before him.
Rapp rushed his first shot, hitting the man in the shoulder. He needed only a split second more to place the terrorist's head in his sights, but he never got the chance. The searing pain of a bullet slammed into his flesh, sending his shot wide of the target.
Before he could react to what had just happened, a fusillade of bullets ripped through the canvas wall of the tent, sending the terrorist who had just shot him into a spastic sideways dance. No fewer than six shots propelled the man over a plastic chair and to the ground. The bullets did not stop coming for another five seconds, over a hundred of them in total.
Rapp finally called out for Jackson and his men to secure the hostages. Keeping his weapon and eyes trained on the mass of bodies at the other end of the tent, he tensed as the first wave of pain radiated to the extremities of his every limb.
He watched as Jackson 's men came into the tent. Several quick shots were fired from the end of the thick silencers, but most of the work had already been taken care of. They were just mopping up. Letting his head rest on the ground, he looked over at the huddled family in the corner. He was about to call out over the radio that he'd been hit, but stopped. The other elements would still be in the thick of it.
Coleman didn't need the distraction just yet. No, Rapp decided he would just lie there and relax for a bit.
FORTY ONE.
A slight headache gnawed at the base of Kennedy's brain. She knew in truth it was due to the second cosmopolitan that she'd had with Anna Rapp. It had been worth it, though. Her private conversation with Anna had broken through some barriers.
The two women had reached an understanding of sorts. Mitch was their link. They both loved him, and if they truly cared about him they would make the effort to get along. Kennedy was magnanimous in her understanding of Anna's plight, but insistent that Mitch would not be happy leading the indolent lifestyle of an intelligence analyst. He was an incredibly talented individual who just so happened to be in the business of counterterrorism. His skills and his commitment had aided countless individuals and led to the prevention of death and destruction.
Now, as Kennedy was returning to the scene of last night's festivities, she wondered how she could look like anything other than a liar to the woman whose confidence she had just gained. She'd gone to great lengths to calm Anna's fears over her husband's safety. Speaking with true conviction in regard to Rapp's talents and penchant for survival, she'd told Anna that Mitch had been involved in much more dire operations, and that he, in fact, would be nowhere near the point of battle while on his current mission. Since he had already succeeded in eliminating General Moro, she felt this was close enough to the truth.
Others would be taking care of the hostage rescue, and Mitch would be monitoring the operation from a safe distance.
That had at least been her understanding of how things would proceed. All that changed when her phone rang this morning at precisely 5:00 a.m. Jake Turbes, the director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, awoke his boss to inform her that the operation in the Philippines had been a success. This fruitful conclusion to an international situation was all a very big surprise to Kennedy, since the operation wasn't supposed to have begun yet. After thanking the director of the CTC, and giving him no sign that she'd been somehow left out of the loop, Kennedy pulled herself from her bed and went straight to Langley.
When she got there the puzzle of what had occurred some six thousand miles away began to fall into place. The mission had been a complete success. The Andersons and all of the operators were safely onboard the Belleau Wood sitting out a rather ferocious tropical storm, and there was only one injury to report. All things considered, Kennedy should've been very pleased with the outcome.
On the surface she appeared her calm, cool self; nodding at the right times and asking only the most pertinent of questions, but inside, she was seething. Someone had been shot, and as luck would have it, it was none other than Mitchell Rapp.
Kennedy was furious. How in the hell did Rapp get shot when he was supposed to be sitting on a warship ten miles off the coast, and more important, why in the hell was the timetable for the rescue operation moved up without her knowing about it? Kennedy resisted the urge to call General Flood and ask if he'd given the green light. She would need some time to gather her thoughts, and her intuition told her that Flood had also been left out of the loop. Asking halfcocked questions that she didn't know the answers to was a good way to invite inquiry into how she ran her agency.
Mitch Rapp was going to have to answer some very tough questions when he got back. Kennedy's only solace right now was that ultimately, Rapp would pay for his cowboy attitude far worse at home than he would at work. At Langley he was the golden boy, capable of doing no wrong. A mythology had been structured around him. He was a walking, talking legend, a man with rugged good looks who could point to a dossier of more successful clandestine operations than any operative in perhaps the history of the Agency.
That resume would protect him. There wasn't a person at Langley who would dare lock horns with him, and only a handful of politicians on the Hill who would even consider taking such a risk. Not that this most recent incident would offer them any real opportunity. Rapp was a hero, and Americans loved their heroes.