‘Everyone loves an American 4x4,’ said Kroll. ‘If they have no taste. Maybe we could pass ourselves off as US Special Forces.’
‘It’s not exactly inconspicuous.’
‘Right now anything with wheels that isn’t an APC is conspicuous.’
‘I like it,’ said Vladimir. ‘It’s bigger than my old cell.’
Kroll opened a door.
‘It seats five easy.’
‘Six. Amara’s fleeing for her life with her loyal security detail: that’s us.’
‘Kaffarov’s going to buy that?’
‘He doesn’t have to. It’s just to help us get past the guards. She’ll call Kristen from the gate.’
‘How do we know she’s even there?’
Dima smiled.
‘Amara called her on Gazul’s satphone: she said to come right over.’
He looked at Gregorin and Zirak.
‘Anybody want to bail out?’
No one did. There was just one thought chipping away at the back of Dima’s mind: what did Amara want out of all this? And when the time came for her to ask for it, would he want to comply?
40
Camp Firefly, Outskirts of Tehran
A dirty orange sun was seeping through the smoke and dust over the east side of Tehran. Inside the tent, Blackburn faced his interrogators across a folding table. It was just gone 0700. He had been allowed three hours’ sleep before being roused for questioning.
Lieutenant Cody Andrews from the US Military Police Corps did the smiling. Captain Craig Dershowitz, Marine Intelligence, did the writing.
‘Sorry about getting you up so early.’ Andrews’ smile widened. ‘We’d just like to get this done while it’s all fresh in your mind.’
Or too tired to figure whether I’m digging myself a great big hole, thought Black. Outside, Cole was waiting, doing his best to listen in on the proceedings.
Black recalled the events in the bank, the contents of the vault, the maps of New York and Paris, the circled locations and the two men on the security monitor.
‘Bashir and one other, right?’
‘Like I said, Sir.’
Dershowitz maintained an expression of deep disdain.
‘And you believe that the second man was the guy in the videos.’
‘Solomon, yes, Sir.’
Dershowitz renounced his vow of silence.
‘Solomon who?’
‘Just Solomon. Bashir spelled it out as he was dying.’
Dershowitz waved a pen in the air.
‘A first name, a last name, a codename. .?’
‘He didn’t say. He died.’
Dershowitz suddenly snorted. ‘Sure he wasn’t saying Salaam?’
Andrews put his head on one side as if he was trying to make up his mind which dessert to order.
‘Kinda strange name for a PLR, or an Iranian for that matter.’
‘Maybe if he’d lived another minute I’d have asked him that.’
‘Moving on to your motivation, Sergeant. You were pretty pissed about what happened to Harker.’
‘Is that surprising?’
‘And we understand you’ve been given some rough treatment by his buddies?’
Black shrugged. ‘It didn’t amount to anything, Sir.’
Dershowitz was evidently reading more into this than was good for him.
‘The bullet that killed him was from his own gun. What reason do you think he had for shooting himself?’
Black had the sensation of a man who was about to add two and two and get seven.
‘He had just fired it at me. I grabbed his arm through the windshield.’
‘When you were on the hood, holding on to the wiper.’
Andrews grinned, trying to lift the mood.
‘Superhero stuff, huh?’
The mood didn’t lift.