DENIED ACCESS

In current-day Barcelona, Spain, Mitch Rapp just wants to spend time with his girlfriend, Greta Ohlmeyer, who knows he’s a killer for the CIA. Greta’s grandfather is a prominent banker who has connections with interim CIA Director Thomas Stansfield. But someone is threatening all the Ohlmeyers, and Mitch will do anything to protect Greta. His fans already know what impressive talents he has: He’s fluent in French, Arabic, and Italian, and he speaks passable Persian. More germane to the story, he’s abundantly capable of speed and violence. His most fearsome weapon is his mind, according to the narrator, but the former traits are what draw the blood. Rapp says he’s not a killer for hire, but he surely can dispatch the bad guys. Indeed, “once Rapp decided to kill someone, very few people could change his mind.” His CIA handler sends him to Moscow to help prevent a war between Russia and Latvia, because the job requires his—ahem—nondiplomatic skills. Unsettled scores drive the story from the beginning, when in 1945 Stansfield kills a patrol of Soviets who are trying to claim 100 tons of German uranium oxide. But one Soviet survives, and decades later Stansfield, now in the CIA, may yet suffer retribution. And Rapp, the CIA’s most talented off-the-books assassin, also dishes out some personal payback. Of course it can’t be easy. Only a fool would willingly enter Lubyanka in Moscow, the intelligence service’s headquarters, because it’s like sneaking into hell. The local joke is that Lubyanka is Russia’s tallest building because you can see Siberia from the prison cells in its basement. Not knowing if he will come out alive, Rapp goes after a target there and is treated to a rambunctious elevator ride. Imagine being in a confined space with a mortal enemy just as tough as you are—what fun!