Extreme Measures

In the newest devastatingly intense thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling phenomenon Vince Flynn, his deadly and charismatic hero Mitch Rapp wages a war against a new enemy with the help of a fellow soldier as dedicated – and as lethal – as they come.

Vince Flynn’s thrillers, featuring counter-terrorism operative Mitch Rapp, dominate the imagination of readers everywhere. In them, Flynn captures the secretive world of the fearless men and women, who, bound by duty, risk their lives in a covert war they must hide from even their own political leaders.

Now, Rapp and his protegé, Mike Nash, may have met their match. The CIA has detected and intercepted two terrorist cells, but a third is feared to be on the loose. Led by a dangerous mastermind obsessed with becoming the leader of al-Qaeda, this determined and terrifying group is about to descend on America.

Rapp needs the best on this assignment, and Nash, who has served his government honorably for sixteen years – first as an officer in the Marine Corps and then as an operative in an elite counter-terrorism team run by Rapp – is his choice. Together, they have made careers out of meeting violence with extreme violence and have never wavered in the fight against the jihads and their culture of death. Both have fought the war on terrorism in secret without accolades or acknowledgement of their personal sacrifices. Both have been forced to lie to virtually every single person they care about, and both have soldiered on with the knowledge that their hard work and lethal tactics have saved thousands of lives.

But the political winds have changed in America, and certain leaders on Capitol Hill are pushing to have men like Rapp and Nash put back on a short leash. And then one spring afternoon in Washington, DC, everything changes.

Using his insider knowledge of intelligence agencies and the military, Flynn once again delivers an all-too-real portrayal of a war that is waged every day by a handful of brave, devoted souls. Smart, fast-paced, and jaw-droppingly realistic, Extreme Measures is the political thriller of our time.

The ninth book in the Mitch Rapp series

BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN

M
IKE Nash glanced anxiously at his watch and then eyed the twin flat-screen monitors. Both prisoners were sleeping soundly. If all went according to plan, their slumber wouldn’t last much longer. The prisoners had been picked up seven days earlier on a routine patrol. At the time, the young GI’s had no idea whom they had stumbled upon. That revelation came later, and by accident. The brass at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan quickly separated the two men from the other 396 enemy combatants and alerted Washington.

Nash was one of the first people called. The secure phone began ringing at 2:23 in the morning the previous Sunday. The watch officer at the National Counterterrorism Center gave him the news. Nash thanked him, hung up, and contemplated whether or not he should get out of bed and head in to the office. Catching a couple of high-value targets was exciting, but Nash knew from experience that people would be tripping over each other trying to take credit. Having just returned from London, he needed the sleep a hell of a lot more than he needed recognition.

Less than a minute later the phone started up again. This time it was his boss’s boss, Irene Kennedy, the director of the CIA. Nash listened without comment for a good twenty seconds and then replied, “I’m on it.” With that, he kissed his wife, got out of bed, threw on some comfortable travel clothes, checked on each of his four kids, grabbed his go-bag, which was always packed, left a brief note by the coffeepot, and was out the door. Given his job, it was all too likely that his family would not be surprised by Nash’s absence when they awoke.

Twenty minutes later he arrived at the private airstrip and climbed aboard a fully prepped Gulfstream V. As soon as they were airborne, Nash’s thoughts turned to the two prisoners. He didn’t need to look at their files. He’d already memorized them. He had been building them for years, each time a new piece of intelligence came in. That was one of Mike Nash’s gifts. It didn’t matter if it was baseball stats or the details on the who’s who of terrorists around the world. If he read it, he could recall it. Nash began to construct his line of questioning. With as much instinct as logic, he laid his traps and anticipated their lies. It would likely take weeks to completely break them, but they would talk. They always did.

Somewhere over the eastern Atlantic he received his first secure message that there was a problem. As the plane raced along at 47,000 feet the drama unfolded via a painful exchange of updates from Langley. Three senators, who had been at the base on a fact-finding mission, had caught wind of the two new detainees and requested to see them. The base commander, through either sheer stupidity or a calculated desire to please those who could advance his career, relented and let the senators sit down with the high-ranking prisoners.

If Nash had been forced to compile a list of the three politicians he most despised, two of these “Fact-Finders” would have been on it, and the third would have made honorable mention. As chairmen of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, they were a powerful group. They also happened to despise the CIA. After their one-hour meeting with the prisoners, the three senators told the base commander in very stark terms that his ass was on the line. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee went one step further and told him if the Geneva Conventions weren’t followed to the letter she would haul him before her committee and make him answer for his crimes in front of the American people.

The fact that one of the prisoners had earned his stripes with the Taliban by blowing up coalition-built schools with little Afghani children in them seemed to be of little consequence to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Neither did she care that the prisoners and their organization were not signatories of the Geneva Conventions. Apparently, she had other priorities. Affording tolerance, respect, and compassion to the bigoted, sadistic, and cold-hearted sounded very noble in principle, but in reality it was a great way to lose a war.

One of the most difficult aspects of Nash’s job was dealing with the opportunistic politicians he answered to. These same senators had clamored for action in the months after the attacks on New York and Washington. Behind closed doors they expressed concern that the CIA wasn’t being aggressive enough with their interrogation techniques. They pushed for the use of extreme measures, and gave Langley assurances they would be protected. Now, Nash was reminded of the fable about the scorpion who promises the frog he will not sting him if the frog gives him a ride across the river. They were now halfway across the river, and just like in the fable, instincts had taken over, the stinger was out, and they were all on the verge of drowning.

Nash looked at the two prisoners sleeping peacefully in their warm, clean beds. On the left screen was Abu Haggani, a senior Taliban commander in charge of suicide operations in Afghanistan. It was estimated that his attacks had claimed the lives of more than three thousand civilians and another forty-three coalition soldiers. The man was notorious for intentionally targeting women and children in an effort to intimidate his fellow Afghanis from cooperating with coalition forces. The second man was Mohammad al-Haq, the Taliban’s liaison with al-Qaeda and one of Mullah Omar’s most trusted aides. While Nash unashamedly relished the thought of inflicting severe pain on Haggani, it was al-Haq who interested him most. The man was an integral link between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The secrets he held would be invaluable.

Nash had been allowed a maximum of four hours with each man per day for the first three days. Everything was strictly supervised and recorded. No stress positions, no sleep deprivation, no loud music or yelling, no hitting or slapping, no manipulation of diet, and no manipulation of temperature in their cells. Even the mere threat of physical violence had to be approved by lawyers back in Washington.

On Wednesday, Nash’s session was ended early when he told al-Haq that he had spoken to General Abdul Rashid Dostum. The former Northern Alliance commander and leader of the Uzbek community was widely known for his hatred of the Taliban. Nash told al-Haq that he had arranged to have him transferred to Dostum’s custody in the morning. Al-Haq nearly shit a brick over the prospect of being handed over to a man who was every bit as vicious as he and his colleagues. The fear in al-Haq’s eyes was obvious. Nash watched him closely as the prisoner searched for a way to forestall the nightmare. Nash had put dozens of men in this situation before. They always looked down at first and then nervously to the left and then the right as they scrambled to come up with something that would save their asses. The truth didn’t matter so much at first. Nash just wanted them talking. He could sort out the lies later.

Unfortunately, just as al-Haq was about to start talking, an air force officer burst into the room and stopped the questioning. Nash was put on the phone with the Justice Department lawyers back in D.C. and warned that he had crossed the line. The incident set off a firestorm between the CIA, the White House, the Justice Department, and Senator Barbara Lonsdale, the chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee. While the lawyers argued, Nash began to look for a way to get around the wall rather than over it. That was when he put a call in to Mitch Rapp.

Nash glanced at his wristwatch. It was a few minutes before midnight. Rapp and the cavalry were due to arrive any minute. The two sleeping thugs were in for a rude awakening. They’d been given three square meals a day, beds nicer than the cot Nash was sleeping on, prayer rugs, a fresh copy of the Koran, and hot showers. Their defiance had grown with each passing day as they realized they would not be subjected to torture. That false sense of security was about to vanish in a very real and possibly violent way.

TRIPLE FRONTIER, SOUTH AMERICA

T
HE man walked slowly around the room, his hands clasped firmly behind his back. He observed the seven men seated at the rough-hewn plank table with growing concern. It had been six months since they’d left Pakistan, and still they weren’t ready. They were close, but that was not good enough. The slightest misstep could bring disaster, as it had brought to others who had gone before them.

Karim Nour-al-Din thought back on their journey and all of the painstaking work he had put into forming his elite unit. They had traveled to Peshawar as a group, handed in their weapons, cut their hair, shaved their beards, and had photos taken for their new passports. A week later each man took possession of an expertly forged set of documents, two credit cards, and plane tickets. Some traveled through Africa, others the Orient and the Pacific Rim. Not one of them, however, traveled through Europe, Australia, or the United States. They were off-limits. Two weeks later they converged on one of the world’s most wicked and depraved cities.

Karim had never been to Ciudad del Este, and it would not have been his first choice, but as soon as Ayman al-Zawahiri had suggested it, Karim knew that was where he was going. The number two man in al-Qaeda was rarely open to suggestions and never open to debate. Those who had been bold or foolish enough to argue with him were all gone. So when Zawahiri suggested the remote South American city, Karim simply nodded and reasoned he would make it work. He arrived in the city first, and after spending one day roaming its filthy streets, he decided he would have to risk Zawahiri’s wrath and move his men.

Ciudad del Este was run by drug dealers, flesh merchants, gunrunners, and mobsters. Counterfeiting of currency as well as products was rampant. There were more gambling houses than houses of worship. Tax cheats, rapists, pedophiles, and murderers all ran to Ciudad del Este to evade the long arm of the law. Perfectly located in the Triple Frontier where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina came together, the city was a free-for-all. The competing authorities, the dense jungle, and the murky water of the Parana River combined to create a toxic stew of all things illicit.

Zawahiri had even gone so far as to tell him that he would like Ciudad del Este. He said the city would remind him of Peshawar, the Pakistani city that was the main supply center in their struggle to expel the infidels from their lands. But the only things the two cities had in common were drugs, guns, and poor people. Other than that, they couldn’t have been more different. Peshawar was a city on a war footing. It was a city with many opinions and clans, but a unified purpose. It was a city on a religious mission.

Ciudad del Este was a godless place. Chinese, Mexicans, Colombians, Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Eurotrash, Russian thugs, and every other sort of reprobate roamed its streets, each person caring only about himself. There was no larger purpose, no restraint whatsoever. The very lawlessness of the place was bound to attract the attention of the Americans.

Karim reasoned the CIA would have little trouble penetrating the various factions. He imagined their intelligence assets crawling all over the city of nearly two hundred thousand. With their endless sums of cash and their technological advantage it would be easy for them to discover what was going on. He and his men would be photographed within the week, and within the month they would begin to disappear. Just like the other teams that had been dispatched. If the Americans, British, and French weren’t afraid to grab his fellow warriors off the streets of major European cities, what would stop them from doing it in this lawless place?

Karim spent two days searching for a solution and then stumbled across something that he thought might work. He met a Lebanese arms dealer who had been implicated in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. After two years of living on the run, his name had finally been cleared, no doubt because large amounts of cash were given to the right people. Now, he was returning to his native Lebanon. The man had a remote parcel of land he was looking to unload. With a hushed tone and conspiratorial glance, he explained to Karim that if was the perfect place to get away from the city.

The man was right. The 250-acre site had been cut out of the rain forest and was accessible only by helicopter or on foot. The closest road was almost ten miles away, but the trek through the rain forest made it feel more like a hundred miles. The site’s buildings consisted of nothing more than concrete slabs, corrugated metal roofs, and screens running along the perimeter. There was a diesel generator to run the lights. Considering his lack of options, Karim thought the place was perfect. He bought it all for $50,000 and had the money wired to the man’s account. His men, who had arrived by then, were transported to the camp and the training began in earnest.

That had been nearly six months ago, and they had come a long way in a relatively short time. Karim looked down with satisfaction as the first man finished assembling his bomb. It was Farid, of course. He was always first. Three more men completed the task in quick order. Karim checked his watch. Not so long ago it took them almost an hour to assemble the bombs. The goal was ten minutes or less. They were at nine and counting. Two more men finished with seconds to spare, leaving Zachariah as the only one to fail.

The lone Egyptian in the group set down his tools and looked up with a sheepish smile, “My uncle would be very disappointed.”

A couple of the men chuckled. Karim did not. He found none of this amusing. They were scheduled to depart in a few days, and thanks to this idiot sitting before him, they were not ready. Karim had driven them without rest for nearly six months in an effort to hone them into elite warriors. He had succeeded with at least four of them. Two more were adequate, but he would have to keep a close eye on them. One was a total failure, and he was holding them back.

Karim turned away from the group and looked through the rusty screen at the steady rain. He felt isolated. Everything was foreign about this place. It was too lush, too humid, and there were far too many bugs. The desert was a much better place to commune with Allah, and the high altitude of Afghanistan was a much, much better place to discuss tactics with the other leaders. He missed the counsel and advice of his equals. He was alone in the jungle, faced with an extremely difficult decision. He had to decide what to do about Zachariah, and he had to do it quickly.