Free Kill Shot by Vince Flynn Page A

hell had gone wrong. He still couldn’t figure it out. How did the advance team miss a five-man detail? How did he miss them? Rapp had watched Tarek come and go for two days and not once had he seen a single bodyguard accompany him, let alone five heavily armed men. Rapp had played it by the book and then some. He followed him loose, he followed him close, he watched him from afar and waited patiently to see if there were any trailers or foreign assets connected to the Libyan. There were none. Rapp hadn’t seen a single clue, but even so there had been that unshakable feeling that something wasn’t right. Slowly, the thought began to occur to him that someone had laid a trap for him, and he had walked right into it. That he’d managed to get out of that room alive with all of those bullets flying sent a shudder down his spine. He was lucky to only have been struck by a single bullet.
    Rapp stood under the water for a few more minutes and then felt the urge to move. He needed to find someplace secure where he could rest and try to sort this whole thing out. There was the safe house in the Montparnasse neighborhood and the protocols he was supposed to follow, but all that had changed. How well did he really know his handler and the other people on the team? How many different people did they report to, and could they all be trusted? Until he had some answers his survival instincts told him to do what he was trained to do—operate on his own and under everyone’s radar, including the CIA’s.
    Rapp stepped from the shower and started checking lockers. They were all locked. Rapp retrieved his silenced Beretta and shot the first combination lock through the guts. The lock spilled open and he set it on the bench with his clothes. He was rewarded with a dirty rag and not much else. He shot off two more locks and found a decent towel. Rapp dried off and then set about scrounging for some dry clothes. When he was done raiding the lockers he had a pair of gray coveralls, a pair of work boots, a worn blue canvas jacket, and a black wool hat.
    He secured all of his weapons and equipment in his new clothes and then went back to the break room. After some more foraging, he found a paper bag for his wet clothes and a prepackaged serving of ramen noodles. Rapp added water, tossed it in the microwave for ninety seconds, and then devoured the noodles. After putting his clothes in the bag along with the shot-out locks, he started for the front of the building, feeling much better than when he’d arrived.
    When he looked out at the yard, he was relieved to see that he didn’t need to deal with a guard—just a chain-link fence and barbed wire. In the gray morning light, Rapp spotted the separate gate for employees. He checked the door for security wires and then left the building, closing the door behind him. He walked casually across the yard to the gate and drew his silenced Beretta one more time. Two shots disabled the lock. He stuffed it in the oversized pocket of his jacket, opened and then closed the gate. Rapp crossed the street to the sidewalk and headed away from the rising sun. His mind turned to the operation, and he once again began asking himself how well he knew the people he worked for. The answer was that he didn’t and that even at his relatively young age of twenty-five he could spot dysfunction, and there was some major dysfunction in his group. He decided the safe house was out of the question.
    Three blocks later, he found himself crossing the river, his mood dark and cautious. Halfway across the bridge he began casually tossing the shot-out locks over the side and into the river. He didn’t want to throw away the Beretta, but he knew he had to. He still had his backup pistol, and the silencer would fit it as well, but he would lose the capacity of the Beretta 92F. With his gloves on, he drew the weapon from his holster, unscrewed the silencer, and stuffed it in the oversized jacket pocket. Using his nearly