Abandoned Warehouse
Outskirts of Tehran
June 16, 1:34 a.m.
I needed to sleep, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Instead I walked the perimeter of the warehouse to make sure it was secure. It was. We could not have been farther from the flow of life here in Tehran if we were on the moon. The night sky was immensely dark and littered with ten trillion cold points of light.
I fished a stick of gum out of a pocket and chewed it, enjoying the mint burn, glad to be rid of the lingering taste of garlic. Ghost came sleepily out of the warehouse and trudged along with me, pausing now and again to leave his mark on useful walls.
I called in for Church but was rerouted to Aunt Sallie. She listened to my report without much comment except to make a biting remark about my “letting” Jamsheed get killed.
“You’re a charming lady,” I said. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Eat me,” she replied. “Church will be in touch when he wants you to know something. Until then, lay low and try not to get anyone else killed.”
A crushing reply was poised on the tip of my tongue but she hung up on me.
Almost immediately the phone buzzed and I hit the button in hopes of flattening Aunt Sallie with my rejoinder.
“Hello, Joseph.”
I smiled, “Hello, Violin.”
She paused and I strained to hear if there was any background noise, anything that I could use to get a lead on where she was. But there was nothing. Ghost must have heard her voice and he actually wagged his tail. Dog’s a little weird.
“Are you somewhere safe?”
“For now,” I said, though that was only true in the physical sense. Everything inside my head felt like it was a junk pile of hand grenades without their pins and bottles of badly stored chemicals. “Thanks for the help today.”
“I wish I could have warned you, but I found out where you were by following the Sabbatarians. There are teams of them all over Tehran.”
“I’m surprised they can operate so freely.”
“They can’t. There have been a lot of arrests over the years, here and elsewhere. They are charged as spies. The church doesn’t know about them and their own people disown them. Most of them die in prison.”
“Pity,” I said. “Are they really part of the Inquisition?”
“How did you-? Oh. You must have questioned some of them.”
“Only one and he didn’t know much.”
“You’re probably wrong about that. How hard did you try?”
Ouch, I thought. Ghost stood sniffing the wind as if trying to catch Violin’s scent on the breeze. Something caught his attention and he wandered off into the shadows. Probably some interesting jackal poop. Ghost is a scatological connoisseur.
“Since I already know some of it,” I said to Violin, “how about telling me more?”
“Yes,” she said.
It took me a two-count to catch up to that. “What?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think it’s time to tell you what’s going on.”
“First-whoopee, and I mean that sincerely. Second, why the change of heart?”
“It’s… complicated.”
“That seems to be a theme lately. Care to elaborate?”
“I asked my mother.” When I laughed, she said, “I’m not joking.”
“Your mother. Lilith, right?”
“How-? Ah… Mr. Church told you. Good, that will make it easier. She’s here in Tehran and she’s asked me to bring you to her.”
“When?”
“Now. Can you get away for an hour?”
“Maybe,” I said dubiously. “Where are you?”
“Right behind you,” she said.