- Mills, Kyle.
Lethal Agent.
New York: Atria Books, 2019.
ISBN 978-1-5011-9062-9.
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This is the fifth novel in the Mitch Rapp saga written by Kyle
Mills, who took over the franchise after the death of Vince
Flynn, its creator. On the cover, Vince Flynn still gets top
billing (he is now the “brand”, not the author).
In the third Mitch Rapp novel by Kyle Mills,
Enemy of the State (June 2018),
Rapp decapitated the leadership of ISIS by detonating a grenade
in a cave where they were meeting and barely escaped
with his life when the cavern collapsed. As the story
concluded, it was unknown whether the leader of ISIS,
Mullah Sayid Halabi, was killed in the cave-in.
Months later, evidence surfaces that Halabi survived,
and may be operating in chaotic, war-torn Yemen. Rapp
tracks him to a cave in the Yemeni desert but finds only
medical equipment apparently used to treat his injuries:
Halabi has escaped again.
A Doctors Without Borders team treating victims of a frighteningly
contagious and virulent respiratory disease which has broken
out in a remote village in Yemen is attacked and its high-profile
microbiologist is kidnapped, perhaps by Halabi's people to
work on bioweapons. Meanwhile, by what amounts to pure luck,
a shipment of cocaine from Mexico is intercepted and found to
contain, disguised among the packets of the drug, a brick of
weaponised anthrax, leading authorities to suspect the
nightmare scenario in which one or more Mexican drug cartels
are cooperating with Islamic radicals to smuggle
terrorists and weapons across the porous southern border of
the U.S.
In Washington, a presidential election is approaching, and
President Alexander, who will be leaving after two terms, seems
likely to be replaced by the other party's leading contender,
the ruthless and amoral Senator Christine Barnett, who is a
sworn enemy of CIA director Irene Kennedy and operative
Mitch Rapp, and, if elected, is likely to, at best, tie them
up in endless congressional hearings and, at worst, see them
both behind bars. Barnett places zero priority on national
security or the safety of the population, and is willing to
risk either to obtain political advantage.
Halabi's plans become evident when a slickly-produced video
appears on the Internet, featuring a very much alive
Halabi saying, “Now I have your biological weapons
experts. Now I have the power to use your weapons against
you.” The only way to track down Halabi, who has
relocated to parts unknown, is by infiltrating the Mexican
cartel behind the intercepted shipment. Rapp devises a
plan to persuade the cartel boss he has gone rogue and is
willing to sign on as an enforcer. Having no experience
operating in Mexico or more than a few words of Spanish,
and forced to operate completely on his own, he must somehow
convince the cartel to let him inside its inner circle and
then find the connection to Halabi and thwart his plans,
which Rapp and others suspect may be far more sinister than
sprinkling some anthrax around. (You don't need an expert
microbiologist to weaponise anthrax, after all.)
This thriller brings back the old, rough-edged, and unrelenting
Mitch Rapp of some of Vince Flynn's early novels. And
this is a Rapp who has seen enough of the Washington swamp
and the creatures who inhabit it to have outgrown any
remaining dewy-eyed patriotism. In chapter 22, he says,
But what I do know is that the U.S. isn't ready. If
Halabi's figured out a way to hit us with something
big—something biological—what's our
reaction going to be? The politicians will run for
the hills and point fingers at each other. And the
American people…. They faint if someone
uses insensitive language in their presence and
half of them couldn't run up a set of stairs if you
put a gun to their head. What'll happen if the
real s*** hits the fan? What are they going to
do if they're faced with something that can't be
fixed by a Facebook petition?
So Rapp is as ruthless with his superiors as with the enemy,
and obtains the free hand he needs to get the job done.
Eventually Rapp and his team identify what is a potentially
catastrophic threat and must swing into action, despite
the political and diplomatic repercussions, to avert
disaster. And then it is time to settle some scores.
Kyle Mills has delivered another thriller which is both in
the tradition of Mitch Rapp and also further develops his
increasingly complex character in new ways.
October 2019 