Starbox Coffee
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 7:41 a.m.
That was how it ended. At least for me. Top, Bunny, and Khalid still had to get the college kids out of the country, but circumstances cut me from that team. I knew it was going to be a nail-biter for the guys, but Top was the best team leader in the business. If there was a way, he’d see it done.
I made it back to my hotel room without further incident. John Smith and Lydia weren’t there, but I hadn’t expected them. Each of us had a different bolt-hole and pickup point for a ride out of town.
I didn’t have much in the way of weapons or equipment left at the hotel. Our local contact, Abdul, whom I hadn’t yet met-had come by and cleared everything out. All that was left was my suitcase filled with locally made and purchased street clothes and my shaving kit.
Abdul wasn’t scheduled to pick me up until noon. Plenty of time, I’d thought. I’ll just go get some coffee and a roll and read the paper.
Jeez.
While I waited I thought about the conversation with the mystery lady. She was clearly working for someone-possibly the person I was now waiting for-but there was something extra hinky about the way she “confirmed” my identity. It felt more like she didn’t know who I was and was fishing for that information. And yet she’d known enough about Church to make a crack about how tough it is to make him laugh. Did that mean she knew Church? Or was that a slice of information she’d been given to use to convince me that she knew more than she does. Apparent omniscience is frightening; it intimidates people into saying things they shouldn’t. Cops use it all the time, mostly faking it, to get suspects and witnesses to open up.
So, what did she know about me? That I was a smart-ass. That’s not exactly the best-kept secret in the world. That I worked for someone named Church who didn’t always appreciate my humor? That was a single fact that suggested intimate knowledge. At the time, out there in the awkward moment of having laser sights on me, it encouraged me to perhaps read more into it than was necessary.
The fact that she knew about Church at all was spooky. I was certain that Church’s name was fake. Since I’ve known him I’ve heard people call him Colonel Eldritch, the Deacon, Dr. Bishop, Mr. Priest, and a few other names that were equally phony. I knew of only one person who definitely knew his real name; and one other-his daughter-who probably did, but even I wasn’t certain about that.
Another question was how she found me?
Either I was spotted on the street, ID’d, and followed-which I don’t think is likely, not given how elaborate this all was. Or my hotel was being watched and they’d acquired me there. Safer to brace me on a city street than in my lair. They couldn’t know that the only thing I had in my “lair” was a hungry dog, an extra pair of clean boxers, and a shaving kit. No James Bond gadgets. No lurking ninja army waiting to spring to my defense.
The real bitch was the fact that she had my phone number. That’s really hard to get. It’s not like I’m listed in the phone book under “DMS team leaders with a wacky sense of humor.”
So that was all disturbing on a lot of levels.
Minutes limped by and no visitor. People came into the Starbox for coffee, but most of them left again, joining the burgeoning flow of office drones heading to work. They shambled in like zombies, ordered tea or coffee, and shambled out again with barely a word spoken. It was the same here as it was everywhere else in the world. People are people and most of them have enough on their minds with family, jobs, bosses on their ass, bills to pay, kids to raise, and futures to get to that they don’t give much of a shit about the things that go on in my life. Back in the States we tend to think of Iran as an evil place because we don’t like the extremist ruling government. But… we don’t like most ruling governments, and even the ones running the countries that we do like don’t give much of a shit about us. The one percent at the top of the money heap care about each other, or hate each other, but they all play with each other. The rest of us go about our jobs, and raise our kids, and do our best to stay out of it all.
I watched them come and go. Just folks. I never saw one person that looked alien or evil to me. Not one.
Until he arrived.
This was the guy I was here to meet, no doubt about it.
“Uh-oh,” I murmured.
No need to worry about them reading my lips-they’d probably expect me to say exactly that.