Double Tap

The novel opens in the early 1990s in Iraq's Zagros Mountains, where a young Kurdish shepherd named Azad Barzani and his companion Rizgar watch as Iraqi armored vehicles mass below. Kurdish fighters, encouraged by the American president to revolt against Saddam Hussein, await promised US air support. Instead, Iraqi gunships appear and unleash chemical weapons on the Kurdish positions. Azad realizes the tribal elders never expected American help and sent the younger men to safety. He vows revenge.

Four years later in Verona, Italy, Mitch Rapp, a young CIA assassin in the covert Orion program, a classified initiative that sends operatives to eliminate terrorists and their enablers, surveys the Pakistani weapons scientist he has been sent to kill. Before Rapp can act, Italian police spook the scientist, who bolts. A red panel van stops and two masked men seize the scientist before speeding away. A man with a Lebanese accent presses a gun to Rapp's back, expresses interest in his abilities, and invites him to meet at a local café the following evening before vanishing.

Eliana Levy, an officer with the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, discovers that her Syrian asset in Verona has disappeared and his apartment has been sanitized. With her operation unraveling, Eliana orders her team to follow Rapp, the only remaining thread. In Tel Aviv, Mossad director of operations Ben Friedman reports the failure to Director David Rothenberger and secures authorization to approach the unknown operative.

At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Rapp's handler Irene Kennedy, a counterterrorism expert not yet 30, reviews satellite imagery with analyst Hannah Edwards. The images show Iraqi military trucks crossing from Syria into Iraq empty, reversing their normal pattern. CIA Director Thomas Stansfield, Kennedy's surrogate father figure, instructs her to investigate and to share findings with the Israelis, hoping to rebuild a relationship damaged by the Jonathan Pollard espionage scandal, in which a US intelligence analyst had been convicted of spying for Israel.

In Doha, Qatar, Stan Hurley, Rapp's grizzled mentor and the Orion program's trainer, narrowly survives an assassination attempt by an operative from Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant organization. His interrogation of the gunman yields one lead: a travel agency called Sunshine Vacations serving as a front for a Hezbollah cell. When Hurley investigates, he discovers plastic explosives inside. The occupants detonate the explosives rather than be captured, destroying the building and his lead.

Back in Verona, Rapp senses surveillance and lures his tail into underground catacombs, where he ambushes and incapacitates the Mossad operative. He contacts Irene and requests a surveillance team to investigate Enzo Romano, the Italian intelligence officer who provided the Pakistani's itinerary. When Rapp enters Romano's apartment, he finds the man executed. That evening, Rapp meets the Mystery Man, who identifies himself as Ali. Ali reveals his organization kidnapped the Pakistani and intends to weaponize the scientist's expertise against America. He offers Rapp a share of the chemical weapons in exchange for a job in Rome and instructs him to attend afternoon prayers at the Islamic Center in Rome.

At a Virginia safe house, Irene leads a contentious meeting with Israeli counterparts. Both sides share intelligence confirming that Iraq's Directorate of General Security, or DGS, periodically replaces border guards to protect sensitive smuggling convoys. Combined with Hannah's satellite imagery, they conclude Iraq conducted a dry run for transferring chemical weapons to Syria. The Israelis demand to know America's response; Irene declines to answer, and they storm out.

Irene and Stansfield brief the president, who demands a ground-based raid by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to seize chemical weapons evidence for an upcoming ceremony celebrating Kuwait's liberation. Stansfield wants Rapp embedded with the convoy as the eyes and ears for the assault force. He negotiates with the director of MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service, who agrees to provide Rapp with a fabricated cover identity, or legend, as a Kurdish fighter. In Istanbul, MI6 officer Victoria Lyon provides materials for Rapp's new identity and reveals a critical development to Irene: The DGS plans to use a civilian smuggler named Ibrahim and his trucks to move the weapons, hiding in plain sight. Victoria can embed Rapp in Ibrahim's convoy through her contacts among the Peshmerga, the Kurdish militia forces.

In Rome, Rapp attends prayers at the Islamic Center and is led to an apartment where Hezbollah operatives vet him. A battered young Lebanese woman serves as their runner. When one operative threatens to kill him, Rapp subdues all three. Abu Hassan, a bald Hezbollah commander and Ali's brother, emerges and reveals he leads Unit 910, Hezbollah's expeditionary assassination arm. Hassan discloses that Hezbollah plans to produce chemical munitions for a devastating attack. Rapp agrees to carry out a murder in Rome to preserve his cover and learn the scope of their plans.

The target is Kuwaiti Ambassador Mariam Al-Hamad, appearing at a Rome hotel. Rapp retrieves a hidden pistol but realizes too late that he is a decoy: When the ambassador's security identifies him as a threat, they rush her toward the exit, where a planted bomb detonates, killing her and her bodyguards. Hurley extracts Rapp. Near the hotel, Rapp encounters Donatella Rahn, a Mossad-trained assassin who also works as a fashion model. Donatella reveals she recruited Romano and tells Rapp to find her by looking up, a cryptic reference to an Armani billboard featuring her image.

Rapp returns to the mosque and discovers the young Lebanese woman dead, murdered by Hassan for knowing too much. Through a brutal interrogation of another operative, Rapp learns Hassan's true name: Haider Nasser. He asks Hurley to add Nasser to the Orion kill list and accepts the Iraq assignment.

In Baghdad, Rapp joins Ibrahim's convoy as "Sipan," vouched for by Azad and Rizgar. At a staging area near Ramadi, DGS trucks carrying chemical weapons merge with the civilian convoy. Rapp activates his concealed transmitter to signal the CIA, then discards it before a security sweep. Irene sees the signal and authorizes the JSOC mission.

SEAL Team 6 commander Scott Coleman lifts off with his assault force. Simultaneously, Israeli F-16 pilot Yossi Cohen launches an independent Israeli airstrike. The operations collide over Iraq: Israeli escorts spot the American helicopters and order an abort seconds before bomb impact. Coleman's SEALs assault the convoy and discover it is a military decoy. Rapp is missing.

On the real convoy, Azad had seized Rapp's steering wheel because the Peshmerga had secretly struck a deal with Hassan to ambush the convoy and share the chemical weapons. A rocket-propelled grenade strikes Rapp's truck and he loses consciousness. Hours later, he awakens in a warehouse in Kuwait City alongside the badly wounded Azad. The warehouse contains dead convoy members, the Pakistani scientist's body, and bomb-assembly equipment, all rigged to explode. Rapp carries Azad out moments before the building detonates.

Azad explains that Hassan betrayed the Kurds, shooting them when they refused to become suicide martyrs. Hassan's fighters and Hamas bomb-maker Rafique Aziz fashioned the chemical weapons into a vehicle-borne weapon. Rapp calls Irene, who deduces the target: The president is speaking at Kuwait University's stadium alongside Gulf State leaders. She identifies a raised highway bridge upwind of the stadium as the likely detonation point.

Rapp races to the bridge and finds a flatbed truck loaded with metal tubes wired with explosives, designed to loft chemical agents over the stadium crowd. Azad drives Rapp alongside the truck cab, then dies from blood loss. Rapp kills the two terrorists, climbs into the truck, accelerates through the guardrail, and plunges off the bridge into the ocean. The saltwater shorts the bomb's electronics and degrades the chemical agents. Rapp escapes the sinking cab and swims to shore.

In the epilogue, Hurley finds Rapp at a café in the Kuwait airport. Rapp expresses frustration that Ali and Haider Nasser remain at large and the ambassador is dead. Hurley advises him to take downtime. Rapp says he plans a layover in Italy, and when Hurley asks how to reach him, Rapp echoes Donatella's earlier words, telling Hurley to look up.