On the Road
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 9:17 p.m.
We drove for miles, killing time to make damn sure we weren’t being followed. Tehran is a massive city, bigger and more densely populated than New York. We avoided main roads where security checkpoints would be more common and instead threaded our way through the poorer outskirts of the town.
“Let’s find someplace quiet,” I suggested. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Another safe house?” asked Lydia, who was driving.
“Not a chance.”
Luckily there were plenty of abandoned buildings, and we found one with no squatters. It had once been a building-supply company but it looked like no one had set foot in it for decades. Lydia parked inside. We huddled inside the ruins of an office. Smith stood by the window and watched the access road that led from a little-traveled street to the loading bay.
“That guy back there,” began Lydia. “The Iranian guy. Friend of yours?”
“We just met, but he was one of the good guys.”
She nodded. They all did. At some later time we would talk about it. I’d want to tell them about the man and his kindness, about his photos, and the unspoken tragedy implied in those simple images. Such discussions are not for the battlefield. While they can strengthen us by connecting us to our shared humanity, to talk about it while we were still in danger was to invite in weakness. Everything in its place and time.
I straddled a crooked office chair that was missing its wheels. Bunny and Lydia sat cross-legged on the floor-near to each other, which is something they’d started doing a lot lately. Khalid sat on a crate and Top remained standing. John Smith was outside setting up an observation post and was listening in via the team channel.
Ghost flopped down in front of Bunny and Lydia and was getting his full share of petting.
“How much do you know?” I asked them.
Top spread his hands. “The big man was feeling unusually chatty today,” he said. “Told me just about everything you and he talked about. Nukes, Rasouli, Arklight, your girlfriend with the sniper scope.”
“Put laser sights on your nuts, huh?” asked Bunny. I ignored him.
“And he told us some weird shit about vampires.”
“Right,” I said, “and you met the fearless vampire hunters back at Jamsheed’s.”
Top ran a hand over his shaved head. “Cap’n, how much of this is happening and how much of this is Mr. Church having some kind of neurological incident?”
“It’s all happening,” I said, and gave it to them again from my side, filling in any details they might not have gotten from Church.
When I was done, my guys stared at me, at each other, and ultimately into the middle distance as seconds fell off the clock.
Top Sims was the first to speak. “Cap’n, I think I can speak for everyone when I say, what the fuck?”
“I hear you.” I looked at their faces. “Ask your questions.”
Lydia held up a hand. “Sir? Permission to return to reality.”
“Denied,” I said. “If I have to deal with this stuff then so do you.”
“Permission to shoot myself?” she asked hopefully.
“Let me get back to you on that.”
“Where the Christ do we start?” asked Bunny.
“Nukes,” suggested Khalid. “We have to start there. But… that’s problematic. I mean, do we have even a clue as to the players and their teams?”
“Lots of clues, but no idea where we stand with them,” I said.
Khalid shook his head. “Where does Rasouli fit into this? How does it make sense that he brings this to us?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”
“Whatever it means, he seems to be the only one on our side,” said Lydia. “Kind of makes me feel dirty.”
“Good dirty or bad dirty?” asked Bunny, which earned him a hard elbow in the ribs.
“Okay,” Top said slowly, “all of this is fascinating as shit, but who has the damn nukes?”
“We don’t know,” I admitted. “Though the Sabbatarians seem to think it’s the Upierczi.”
“Why the hell would vampires want nukes?” demanded Bunny. “I mean… they’re fucking vampires, right?”
“Guess they want to blow something up,” answered Top. “Same as anybody.”
I told them about the conversation I’d had with Hu and Church about the Upierczi and my still-in-the-development-stage doomsday theory.
“Right,” said Top, “Okay, I’m with Lydia now. I’d like to catch a cab back to the real world.”
Bunny shot him a sour look. “Which real world would that be, old man? This time last year we were shooting zombies.”
“Yeah,” Top conceded. “Fuck me.”