Book Review – Vince Flynn’s “Extreme Measures”
Today (yes, today — December 8, 2013) I finished reading Vince Flynn‘s Extreme Measures, the ninth book in Flynn’s main series of novels.
Once again, Extreme Measures takes readers into the world of Muslim extremists and terrorism. It’s up to Mitch Rapp to solve the puzzle and save the day. But does he succeed in this book, or do the terrorists win?
Let’s take a look and find out.
Extreme Measures begins at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
CIA operative Mike Nash arrives at Bagram to interrogate two high-profile prisoners: Abu Haggani and Mohammad al-Haq. Abu is a senior Taliban commander who used to be in charge of suicide operations in Afghanistan. Mohammad was the Taliban’s liason with al-Qaeda, a trusted man in the organization. The only problem is that neither man is willing to give up an information, and the air base was recently visited by several U.S. Senators on a fact-finding mission. Should the prisoners be tortured in any sort of way, then there will be hell to pay.
Fortunately, CIA man Mitch Rapp doesn’t care about regulations when it comes to withdrawing information from terrorists. That’s especially true when two terrorist cells have been recently captured, and evidence is quickly pointing towards a third cell. Both Mitch and Mike beat and extract some information from the captured terrorists, and they make a deal for one of them to reveal even more information.
Those talks are stopped when Captain Trevor Leland alerts the air base commander, Brigadier General Scott Garrison, about the presence of the men from the CIA. The interrogation is halted and, after noticing the injuries on the prisoners, Captain Leland insists that Mitch Rapp be placed under arrest. General Garrison isn’t too sure, but he’s convinced when Captain Leland convinces him to basically cover his ass. He’s aware of violations in place. He should at least temporarily detain Rapp until somebody higher in the chain of command gives him a different order.
The biggest problem occurs when Captain Leland gets pushy with Rapp. He makes a threatening move to his sidearm and Rapp reacts, disabling the captain and knocking him to the ground. The move injures the captain’s arm and he gets a black eye after hitting his face against a table. Now we’re talking about a charge of striking an officer, a major crime in the military.
Rapp is taken into custody at the air base. He’s later released after promising to apologize to Captain Leland. Unfortunately, Leland does not accept the apology and decides to press charges against the CIA operative. General Garrison tries to talk Leland out of doing so, and even offers him a promotion in rank and relocation to a base of his choosing, but Leland insists on his legal route. Rapp is going to have to deal with that back in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, the third terrorist cell is training at Ciudad del Este, a small compound outside of a remote town in South America. The leader of the terrorists is Karim Nour-al-Din, and he’s determined to make a name for himself in al-Qaeda.
Karim insists on training his men in a program similar to that of the U.S. special forces. The men are kept to a strict exercise schedule, they become very disciplined, and they become experts with their firearms and explosives. These are warriors trained in combat operations and ready to kill at a moment’s notice.
Karim is also aware that the other two terrorist cells have been compromised. All contact from them has stopped. Nobody can be trusted, whether it’s an informant within his cell or a high-ranking terrorist leader back in the Middle East. Instead of following the attack plan designated for his cell, Karim creates a new plan. He cuts off all communication and proceeds with things his way.
When it’s time for the terrorists to leave for America, Karim has his men capture a small airfield near their compound. The airfield is operated by drug smugglers, and the lazy and poor drug cartel soldiers are no match for Karim’s superior soldiers. They kill all the smugglers and easily capture not only the airfield and the transport aircraft, but the millions of dollars worth of cocaine as well.
Piloting the aircraft is Hakim, Karim’s old friend from childhood. More importantly, Hakim is a trusted person who has a plan for smuggling the terrorists into America.
The terrorists load the drugs into the aircraft and ultimately make their way to Cuba. Hakim has already prepared for their arrival in that country. Some of the drugs are used to bribe the corrupted police force, and some powerful boats and weapons are ready to take them to Florida. The plan goes smoothly, and apart from the U.S. Coast Guard helicopter that gets shot down, the terrorists arrive in South Florida. Arranged transportation is waiting for them there, and the terrorists begin driving up the east coast towards Washington, D.C.
In Washington, Mitch Rapp’s chief opponent is Senator Barbara Lonsdale, the chairwoman of the Judiciary Committee. She had received news of Captain Leland’s assault along with the beating of prisoners at Bagram Air Base. Lonsdale insists that Rapp is in the wrong, and she’s determined to bring him down for his actions. The fact that there’s a third terrorist cell doesn’t phase her one bit. The senator has a vendetta for crushing the CIA’s methods and setting an example.
Mitch Rapp is eventually placed in front of the Judiciary Committee and required to testify about Captain Leland’s injuries as well as the treatment towards two high-profile prisoners at Bagram Air Base. To Senator Lonsdale’s surprise, Mitch does not plead the Fifth Amendment as most CIA operatives do. He willingly answers all of the senator’s questions right there in the open.
Of course, Mitch has an ace up his sleeve. As far as the “assault” against Captain Leland, Mitch has a letter written by General Garrison explaining the incident. It exposes Captain Leland’s motives as being politically motivated, and that Rapp did nothing wrong. As far as gaining information from the terrorists, Mitch reveals that he used physical force against them. He also makes an offer to Senator Lonsdale, offering to make this a public trial and exposing all of the evidence about an upcoming terrorist attack, or having her place this issue back in the Intelligence Committee where it belongs, and letting him go about his work of stopping terrorists.
Meanwhile, Karim and his terrorists make their way to their secret headquarters inside of a mosque in Washington, D.C. Hakim has been handling the shipment of the weapons, and everything appears to be ready to go. That is, until they discover a spy, Chris Johnson, in the mosque. Karim has the spy brutally tortured until he speaks the truth about working for the CIA and having Mike Nash as his handler. The spy is then executed by having his throat slit, and his body is set on fire in the trunk of a car.
Mitch and Mike both learn about the dead spy right after Rapp’s hearing with the Judicial Committee and Senator Lonsdale. Fortunately, Rapp knows which mosque was under investigation, and he had even been inside of it on several occasions. They quickly grab their gear and head to the mosque to try to get some answers.
That’s when Karim’s terrorist cell strikes.
Disguised as delivery people, the terrorists strategically place car bombs outside of several restaurants frequented by members of Congress. All of the drivers escape moments before the bombs detonate and hundreds of people are killed and maimed. A short while later, a secondary bomb detonates, killing some spectators as well as rescue workers. It’s straight out of the Middle Eastern terrorists’ manual.
Just after the bombs detonate, Mitch and Mike arrive at the mosque. They’re able to grab Aabad bin Baaz, a Middle Eastern man suspected of being a terrorist. Time is an issue and the terrorist cell is attacking the city, so Mitch takes Asbad to the National Counterterrorist Center for his interrogation instead of other federal buildings. Nobody gets in the way this time as Mitch uses force and brutal tactics to gather information from Aabad.
That’s when the second part of Karim’s terrorist plan takes place.
For the second phase of his attack against America, Karim has his men disguise themselves as SWAT police officers. The disguises look authentic and nobody stops or questions them. When the terrorists arrive at their destination, the National Counterterrorist Center, they go in shooting. They use explosives and reach the sixth floor of the building where the heart of the operations center is located. It also happens to be where Aabad bin Baaz is being interrogated.
Mitch and Mike quickly take up arms when the terrorists begin shooting the federal workers. It’s a bloodbath until Mitch and Mike use a simple tactic and quickly gain the upper hand. All of the terrorists are shot and eventually killed. As Mitch is examining one of the terrorists he notices a suicide bomb vest underneath the SWAT uniform. And the clock on the timers is quickly counting down to zero.
Acting fast, Mitch shoots out one of the windows, and he and Mike Nash toss one of the terrorists outside. Other people follow suit, and all of the terrorists are outside of the federal building when their bomb vests detonate. Inside of the building, many of the workers were killed by the terrorists’ precise gunfire.
Before the terrorists assaulted the building, Senator Barbara Lonsdale arrived to speak with Mitch Rapp. The bombing has changed her heart towards the subject matter. She was supposed to be in one of the restaurants that was destroyed, and her chief of staff was killed. Now she wants payback.
Extreme Measures ends as Senator Lonsdale gives her consent for Mitch Rapp and Mike Nash to continue chasing the three terrorists who escaped from Washington, D.C. She wants them dead.
So is Extreme Measures a good book?
Not really.
As a Vince Flynn novel, Extreme Measures falls short in several areas.
First of all, almost half of the book covers the circus trial in one form or another against Mitch Rapp. Whether it’s the preparation, the conspiracy, or the trial itself, this plot element consists of way too much of this book’s content. What makes it worse is that A) The hearing is easily solved, and B) Most of it is useless. It feels like filler material to give readers something different than Vince Flynn’s normal writing style.
And it stinks.
Another area where Extreme Measures falls short is that the book appears to focus more on Mike Nash, a secondary character, than Mitch Rapp himself. The book barely covers CIA Director Irene Kennedy, and we hear basically nothing of Scott Coleman. Neither do we hear anything about the president of the United States this time, either.
And just who is Mike Nash?
Mike is a CIA operative who answers to Mitch Rapp. He’s a former Marine Corps officer and also quite a family man, though his family life is rather boring. For some reason we have to read about his lame problems outside of the office. None of it is exciting, and hardly any of it seems relevant to the story itself. It sounds like Vince Flynn is almost trying to replace Rapp with Nash, but that’s inconclusive at this point in time. Perhaps we’ll have a better understanding when reading the next book in this series.
Another problem with Extreme Measures deals with the al-Qaeda terrorists. Nearly everything in the book is simply too easy for the terrorists. These guys are trained as special forces soldiers, and they hardly encounter any problems during any point in the book. Whatever problems that may arise are simply glossed over as the guys use precision firepower to easily eliminate everybody.
It’s so easy for the terrorists that the book itself is rather boring. It’s just a matter of learning the terrorists’ final plans and how many people are killed in the end.
Extreme Measures is a simple book that’s easy to read if you’ve read other Vince Flynn books. Don’t look for anything sophisticated, or too difficult, in this book.
K.I.S.S. — Keep It Simple, Stupid!
