9:25 A.M. Tehran Time
A laboratory
In a tunnel network north of Tehran
“The rat showed weakness within the first thirty minutes,” Dr. Ansari noted carefully, typing the observation into the computer in front of him.
His assistant looked up from their charts. “Vomiting of blood followed three hours later-veins bloated and blackened within eleven hours of exposure.”
“Eleven hours, seven minutes,” Ansari corrected, glancing over at the young man. “Precision is a requirement in such matters.” He turned back to the screen. “The rat was dead thirty-one hours, five minutes and twelve seconds from the time of exposure.”
“Weaponizing the bacteria should not be difficult-this seems to be an especially virulent strain.”
Ansari nodded, repressing his internal shudder. “The plague that swept Europe killed far more slowly, which was their damnation, for people could travel long distances before dying, spreading the disease to others in their path. No matter-in these days a man can travel far in thirty-one hours. Once the archaeologists arrive from the base camp, we will be able to conduct further tests.”
“No you won’t.”
The voice came from behind them and both men turned, startled from their calculations. A man in the uniform of an Iranian Army captain stood in the doorway of the laboratory.
“The base camp was raided early this morning by an unidentified group of foreign commandos. They succeeded in freeing the archaeologists. They are gone.”
“They made it out of the country?” Ansari demanded, startled by the revelation.
The captain shook his head. “As yet unknown.”
Sighing, the doctor turned back to his computer. “Well, that’s the end of that.”
Sharp footsteps resounded across the sterile tile of the floor. Ansari turned to find the military man at his shoulder. “Yes?”
“The bacteria is to be weaponized and deployable within the next two weeks.”
“According to whom?”
“The highest authority…”
10:03 A.M.
The mountains
It was the third one he had seen, Thomas thought, pressing himself flat against the canyon wall as a helicopter roared by overhead, rotor wash stirring pebbles and dust into a tornadic frenzy. It hadn’t taken Tehran long to mobilize. That alone bothered him. The thought that it had taken him three hours to get less than a third of the way to LZ RUMRUNNER only added to his problems. He listened for a moment, hearing the rotors fade away in the distance, then picked up his rifle and continued on his journey. The Iranian search would only intensify. That much he knew.
10:30 A.M.
The base camp
“We’ve searched these three quadrants. So far, no sign of them. But we will.”
“What makes you so sure?” Hossein asked wearily, adding the perfunctory “sir” at the end of his question.
Colonel Harun Larijani gestured to the map with his finger, ignoring the three bulletholes which pockmarked the wall it hung from. “Well, it stands to reason, major. You cannot honestly expect that they can escape the cordon we’ve thrown out.”
Hossein kept a straight face, looking hard into the eyes of the young man in front of him. Straight out of military school most likely, green beyond doubt. His only redeeming feature was that he seemed to hold Hossein’s service record in awe, an awe measurably diminished by the report of the previous night.
And the only answer he could give was the impossible one. So he held up the radio instead. “This was given me last night. By one of the commandos.”
Larijani’s eyes narrowed into sharp, glittering points. “One of the commandos? How is this?”
“Tehran did not tell you of this?” The major asked, enjoying for a moment the advantage he held over the junior officer. “BEHDIN. Do you know what that means?”
The young man looked puzzled. “Of good rite, of good religion, a man pure of heart.”
“Wrong,” Hossein stated flatly. “It is the codename for one of the Republic’s most trusted sleepers. The man who gave me this radio. He works for the American CIA.”
“The Central Intelligence Agency?” Harun asked in astonishment.
The major replied with a short nod. “The same.”
“Then why can’t you triangulate their position from monitoring their radio network? This could have saved us hours this morning. We could have had them by now. We could have gotten to the bottom of this. Why didn’t-”
Hossein held up a hand to stop the flow of words. “Very simple. While complex, these radios are also limited. In this case, to a eight-kilometer range in which the signal can be detected. And if they’re demonstrating anywhere near the level of professionalism they showed in their strike on this camp, they’ll be keeping their transmissions brief, almost impossible to pick up.”
“Then what do we do?”
Hossein smiled, eyeing his companion’s crisp, spotless dress uniform. Rising, he laid a greasy, oil-soaked hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You’re in command now. Do whatever Allah wills you to do. I’m going to go see if the showers still work around here.”
11:00 A.M.
The hides overlooking LZ OSCAR
“FULLBACK, check in.”
“All quiet, EAGLE SIX. Nothing’s moving.”
“Roger,” Harry replied quietly, ending the transmission. “Let’s pray it stays that way,” he added, almost to himself.
The next moment his ears pricked up, catching a noise, off to the south. Past Tex’s position, way past it. Coming closer.
A helicopter. “EAGLE SIX to all, keep your heads down. This ain’t the cavalry.”
He lowered his binoculars from the slit of the hide, reverting to the naked eye. Nothing that could be picked up, no glint to be detected from the air. The young woman rose up from the bottom of the hide and came to stand beside him. “What is it?”
She hadn’t heard the chopper. No matter. He wouldn’t have either save for the fact that he was listening for it.
“Lie down in the hide,” he ordered crisply. “Stay as low as possible. We have an enemy helicopter coming in for a look-see.”
Harry glanced at his watch. Just past eleven hundred hours. They had another nine hours before it would be dark enough for the Pave Low to cross the border and pick them up. By that time, the hills would be swarming with soldiers. But there was no other option-no clever way to throw them off trail, to distract their attention elsewhere. This wasn’t the movies.
And in it came, an Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship sweeping low over the ridge, the chin turret swiveling menacingly. Its pair of 23mm cannon could rip the hides to shreds if they were detected. They possessed nothing capable of taking it down. Which meant one thing.
They would not survive detection…
3:29 A.M. Eastern Time
A residence
The suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Vibration jarred Michael Shapiro awake. He slipped his hand carefully to his pillow and retrieved his cellphone from under it. Flipping it open, the screen lit up with a number he knew all too well.
The CIA’s deputy director(intelligence) slipped from the bed, casting a glance back at his sleeping wife. A good woman. If only he had been as good a man.
“Here.”
“What news?”
“Are we secure?”
“You’re at home, aren’t you?”
“I was in bed with my wife till you called,” Shapiro retorted curtly.
“That’s nice,” the voice replied. “We’re secure. What do you have?”
“Nothing. I haven’t heard status on the team since several hours before I left work. They may be out by now.”
“They’re not. I need their position.”
“How do I get that?”
“You’re the head of the intelligence directorate, aren’t you? Everything crosses your desk.”
“I don’t know-” Shapiro hesitated, casting a glance backward at the partially-open bedroom door. “There’s something going on-I’m out of the loop, I don’t understand why.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lay’s running this one straight through Kranemeyer and the NCS. They’re working their own intelligence through several of their own analysts-they’re not talking to me.”
“Well, find a way to get it out of them. Get to work and find out,” the voice ordered, its tone brooking no argument.
“Right,” Shapiro acknowledged after a long silence. “Let me just get dressed here and I’ll get right in.”
“This has turned into a mess, and you understand the terms of our agreement. Get in there and make it spotless.”
The other end of the line went dead with an ominous click.
“What’s going on, dear?” The DD(I) turned to find his wife standing in the doorway of their bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“I need to go in to work,” he replied, pushing past her and grabbing his pants off the closet door. He couldn’t bring himself to look her in the face.
“But it’s three o’clock in the morning!”
“I know what time it is…”
12:28 P.M. Local Time
An undisclosed location near Tel Aviv
Israel
“What did they want? Why did they attack your team? Why?” Gideon turned back to the archaeologist, his frustration slipping through the veneer of calm he had endeavored to compose.
Tal’s face was expressionless, a mask that revealed nothing and everything at the same time. “You left them to die,” he repeated, his voice no more than a whisper, his words the same ones he had repeated over and over again since the rescue.
“That doesn’t matter now, blast it!” Gideon exclaimed. “What matters is what the Iranians are planning to do now, not to your friends, but to your country. Your country! The reason you took your team into danger in the first place.”
Moshe’s gaze wavered and he looked down at his hands. “I never should have. Never…”
Gideon nodded, sensing a crack. A chink in the armor. He leaned forward in his chair, only two feet away from the archaeologist as they sat within the confines of a small holding cell, their surroundings illuminated by a single lightbulb hanging the ceiling by its cord.
“Perhaps not, but you did,” he reasoned. “And their sacrifice will be in vain unless you give us some idea what the Iranians are planning.”
It was the wrong thing to say, Gideon realized a second later. The gap closed, the armor sealing over again. And the man’s face was just as impassive as before. “I will tell you nothing. You left them to die…”
1:45 P.M. Tehran Time
The base camp
“Any progress?” Hossein asked as he strode back into the trailer he and the colonel were using as a makeshift tactical operations center. About the only good thing of the colonel’s arrival was the fact that he had brought more sophisticated comm equipment with him. The only good thing.
Harun shook his head. “Patrols reporting in as we speak.”
“How often do you have them checking back in?”
“Every thirty minutes.”
The major shook his head. “Not good enough. After this, every ten minutes. If one of them is taken out, we need to know as soon as possible. You’re giving them twenty-nine minutes to take out a patrol and make good their escape over the hills.”
Harun glanced up from his work. “Who did Tehran entrust with the command here, major? Report-back will stay as is.”
Hossein smiled, leaning back in his chair, his eyes on the mountains outside. The young man knew nothing of this terrain. Knew not that it was as merciless an enemy as the American commandos. And did not care to learn. But that was the colonel’s responsibility now, not his.
Footsteps. Thomas pressed himself flat against the rocks as they came closer to his hiding place. The Kalishnikov was slung over his shoulder, his Beretta clutched tightly in both hands. The long grey cylinder of a suppressor extended from the pistol’s barrel.
Words, spoken in Farsi. He couldn’t understand what was said, but heard the familiar squawk of radio static. They were reporting in.
He glanced anxiously toward the heavens. The day was wearing on, and he had little to show for it. Was his team even still in the country? He had no idea. Back-up communications gear was cached at LZ RUMRUNNER-if he could reach it.
For the moment, that was a question. More footsteps, soldiers rounding the bend of the canyon wall, picking their way over the tortuous landscape.
Two of them. Both looked tired and dusty, young men in their twenties. The point man had his rifle in the crook of his arm, his bearing languid.
Another moment passed as Thomas waited, his body tensed. Waiting for the right moment. The right time.
The point man passed his position. The second soldier started to, then stopped short, spotting scuffed dirt where Thomas had run. His lips opened, starting to say something in Farsi. An inquiry, a cry of warning, an alarm, whatever it had been, he never had a chance to finish it.
Thomas moved from the shadows, the suppressed Beretta in his outstretched hands…
4:59 A.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“A busy morning, sir,” the guard said cheerfully, handing Lay’s identification back through the car window.
“How so?”
“The DD(I) arrived here almost an hour and a half ago.”
Lay’s brow furrowed in astonishment. “Shapiro?”
The guard grinned, his expression one of, He was DD(I) last time I checked. “Yes, sir.”
“Well, we all must keep unusual hours from time to time,” Lay replied, forcing a smile in return. “Drive on, Pete.” But the Banker?
Two bodyguards met the car as it arrived at the DCIA’s space in the parking garage. It was the only routine thing of Lay’s day. A different time every morning, a different time home every night, several different routes home. A decoy car. The experts said it was as fool-proof as it could get, that his route would be impossible to figure out, that he was safe from any would-be assassin.
Lay hadn’t lived to be as old as he was by trusting the experts. His bodyguard held the door for him as he exited the SUV. The man, a former Navy SEAL, lived with Lay, sleeping one door down the hallway from the DCIA’s bedroom.
Ron Carter met him at the elevator, a thick folder clutched beneath the analyst’s right arm.
“I hear the Banker’s already to work,” Lay stated as the elevator doors closed on the two men, his tones clipped. Shapiro had earned the derisive nickname for his habit of keeping minimal hours. He was a political appointment, like Lay, but from the Hancock administration, and they had crossed swords more than once.
Carter glanced at him across the top of his glasses. “Does it mean something?”
“Does it?”
“Perhaps,” the analyst shrugged, handing Lay the folder. “Here’s the update on Operation TALON.”
“Break it down for me.”
“Status quo. No comm with Parker, regular burst contact with Nichols and the team. General Benet’s got a Pave Low saddled up and ready to fly at twenty hundred hours.”
“Has Nichols been informed?”
“Yes. He’s holding tight, but the Iranians have launched a massive air and ground search. According to his last report, they’ve had a Hind fly over more than once. He believes it’s only a matter of time.”
“Will they break off the search at nightfall?”
“Impossible to say, sir,” Carter said, pressing a button to keep the elevator doors closed a moment longer. “China’s been funneling the Iranians increasing supplies of high-quality NVGs for years. It appears that the detachment at the base camp was not supplied with them last night. I’m sure that’s changed.”
Lay nodded, his mind elsewhere. “Keep me posted, Ron,” he stated, walking out of the elevator. He turned to face the analyst just before the doors closed again. “And keep your eyes open.”
2:25 P.M. Tehran Time
The base camp
“Anything?” Hossein asked, coming back into the operations center. The young colonel shot him a dark look and shook his head in the negative.
“Patrol Five reports hearing something that sounded like a burst of gunfire coming from the west about thirty-five minutes ago.”
The major didn’t need to look at the map to know what Larijani was implying. Patrol Two had been west of Patrol Five. “They were taken out. Just after their transmission. I warned you to reduce report-back times!”
“We don’t know that,” the young man replied defensively, ignoring Hossein’s bitter indictment. “I’m converging patrols on that area as we speak. If the Americans are there, we will find them.”
“Have the patrols double-up outside the contact zone,” Hossein instructed, drawing a circle on the map with a dull, stubby pencil. “That way they will be less vulnerable. Two men are too easily taken out.”
Just then, the radio crackled with static. Harun bent down, his brow furrowing as he listened intently to the transmission. He straightened up.
“They’ve located the bodies. Both men were shot dead.”
3:07 P.M.
LZ Rumrunner
Thomas laid the assault rifle on the ground beside him, digging away at the rock with his bare hands. The cache was here, he knew it. It was the only place surrounding LZ RUMRUNNER that matched the tells he had memorized before leaving Q-West.
The team was nowhere to be seen, no trace that they had ever been there. Again, Thomas cursed the loss of his team radio, the severing of that link with Harry and the rest. Perhaps plans had changed.
The rock came away suddenly, nearly rolling back on him. A satchel lay behind it, a small desert camouflage rucksack. US Army issue, appropriated by the Company through one of the myriad back-channel procurements used to equip the NCS.
Inside was a silenced Beretta, three magazines of 9mm ammo, a small pair of night-vision binoculars, a GPS unit, and last but not least, a TACSAT.
Thomas resisted the temptation to place the call from where he was. He was too exposed, and the Iranians were still in full search mode.
He put the rock back where it was, smoothing the dirt around it once again and darted up the hill to find better cover.
A large rock seemed to offer it and he hunkered down, the AK-47 at his side, his service Beretta on his hip. The new automatic he left in the bag, for emergencies.
He opened the TACSAT and tapped in the encryption sequence. “Phone home,” he murmured, hitting speed-dial…
6:07 A.M. Eastern Time
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
“Boss, I think you’d better have a look at this.”
Barney Kranemeyer’s eyebrows went up, a facial expression thought characteristic by those who knew him well. He tended to affect an air of being completely surprised, when that was seldom the case. As Director of the National Clandestine Service, it was his job to make sure that it was seldom the case.
“What is it, Michelle?”
“A call just hit our servers. It’s coming in on an Agency TACSAT, from GMT +4.”
“Take it here,” Kranemeyer ordered crisply, his voice brooking no argument.
He reached down, past the half-eaten bagel on her workstation, taking the second headset and adjusting the microphone to his lips.
“Hello.”
“This is Parker,” a voice announced on the other end of the line.
“We’ve been waiting. Where in the devil are you?”
“RUMRUNNER. Has the rest of the team been extracted?”
“Negative, Parker. How are things going?”
“They’ve been better, boss,” came the reply, avoiding the duress code. Kranemeyer nodded. They were clear. If Parker had used the word good in any context, they would have known that he had been compromised.
“The team is waiting at OSCAR. They’ll be picked up at twenty-one hundred hours, your time.”
There was a muffled curse from the other end of the line. “Apologies, sir,” Thomas said finally.
“Can you make it to OSCAR by twenty-one hundred hours?” the DCS asked. There was a pause, and for a moment he thought the line had gone dead. “Parker, do you copy? I repeat, can you rendevous at OSCAR by twenty-one hundred?”
“Negative. The Iranians are conducting an extensive land-air search, it took me all day just to get here.”
“I see. Do you foresee difficulties extracting the rest of the team?”
“Well, for goodness’ sake, director,” Thomas continued conversationally, “the whole day has been one big difficulty. Why should extraction be any better?”
“What is your status?”
“A little gouge in my thigh from a ricochet, bandaged it up with the med kit here at RUMRUNNER. It’s just a scratch, I’m still fully mobile.”
Kranemeyer turned, covering the receiver with one hand. “Anya, I need a run-down of our available assets in the area. ASAP.”
“Right on it,” the woman replied, tapping a command into her terminal.
“Hold one, Parker,” Kranemeyer ordered, returning to the phone. “We’re investigating our options.”
“Gee, thanks, boss,” Thomas replied, sarcasm in his tones. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Sending to your terminal, sir.” Kranemeyer looked down at his computer to see the list. “Listening, Parker?”
“Copy.”
“There’s a PJAK controlled camp approximately twenty-five kilometers northwest of your present position…”
3:37 P.M. Tehran Time
The camp
Northwestern Iran
It had been a dry fall, the old shepherd thought as he kicked absently at a clump of grass. Dust flew up, blowing in the wind. Very dry.
Clucking in Kurdish to his sheep, he turned away toward the camp that was, for this day, his home.
It was at that moment that a sharp buzzing stabbed at his ribs, startling him from his reverie.
Sweeping aside his robes with one hand, he reached for his belt with the other, disclosing a semiautomatic Glock and a small pouch containing a satellite phone.
The screen was bright with the caller’s number and he tapped in the encryption sequence. “Azad,” he answered briefly, his lips suddenly dry.
The voice on the other end was familiar to him, though he had only heard it once before in his life.
He listened in silence for a few moments before responding, “What you are asking is difficult. My young men encountered a Guard patrol not ten kilometers west of here within the last fortnight.”
6:39 A.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“I’m not asking you to shelter him, only to ensure his safe passage to the Iran-Iraq border,” Kranemeyer retorted, flipping the shepherd’s dossier open on his desk. The black-and-white photo was a few years old, but revealed the face of a man old before his time. Intelligence reports indicated that Azad Badir had only just passed his sixtieth year, but he looked far older.
“I understand your request,” the shepherd replied in perfect, educated English. No wonder, thought the DCS, scanning down the first page of the dossier. Educated at Princeton, Badir had returned to his people only months before the 1979 Revolution. He had never completed college, but it had clearly left its imprint upon him.
The shepherd was still speaking. “…young men are in short supply, and we continue to lose them, Mr. Crane. A few every month, and yet still we fight. I can hardly spare those needed to escort your man to the border.”
“Your efforts are appreciated,” Kranemeyer answered cautiously. The official stance of the US State Department and the administration was that PJAK was a terrorist organization, but the outlook of the Clandestine Service rarely matched that of Foggy Bottom. “A deal, Mr. Badir. Get my man safely to the border and we’ll see that you get the weapons you need.”
“The weapons we need? Almost everything we need, we can ‘acquire’ from the Revolutionary Guards.” There was a trace of amusement in Badir’s voice.
“Then what?”
“My words, Mr. Crane.”
“Excuse me?”
“My word was ‘almost’. We cannot get everything we need. For some things we must rely on the munificence of the outside world. Such as Stinger missiles.”
The DCS took a deep breath, massaging his forehead with his fingers. Stinger missiles. Azad Badir could scarcely have asked for something more difficult, and the old fox knew it, Kranemeyer realized with a wry smile. The US still remembered how some of the old man-portable surface-to-air missiles it had supplied to Afghanistan back in ‘89 had fallen into the wrong hands, and subsequent administrations had clamped down upon their export.
“I will do my best, Mr. Badir. In the mean time, is my man welcome in your camp?”
“Mr. Crane, strangers are always welcome in my camp,” the shepherd replied, his voice rich with irony. “Send him to these coordinates…”
7:02 P.M. Tehran Time
LZ OSCAR
The world seemed to have gone silent, Harry mused. The desolate plateau showed no signs of life.
The young Australian was asleep, her knees drawn up to her chin as she leaned back against the earthen bank of the hide. It was just as well.
He didn’t want to talk. He had a man out there, somewhere in the gathering twilight. A man he was being forced to leave behind. Two hours.
Two hours before the spec-ops Pave Low would come in to pick them up. Two more hours in which Thomas might show up.
When his radio crackled with a burst of static, it startled him. “FULLBACK to EAGLE SIX, I have movement. A man coming in from the south-southwest.”
“Ident?”
“Unknown.”
“Hold your fire. It may be a friendly.” Let it be Thomas, Harry prayed briefly, his eyes never leaving the slit of the hide.
The figure moved into his line of vision and his posture shifted, tracking its movement with the barrel of his AK.
Then a second figure appeared, slightly to one side of the first. And a third.
“EAGLE SIX, contacts hostile.” Tex’s voice over the radio. “I repeat, contacts hostile. Another pair converging on the area from southwest.”
“I copy,” Harry replied. “Hold tight.” He laid his Kalishnikov to the side and drew the Beretta from his belt, racking a cartridge into the chamber of the silenced pistol.
The five men spread out across the plateau, moving like shadows in the dusk. Harry adjusted his NVGs, illuminating them as green shapes, clearly silhouetted. One of them passed nearby and Harry held his breath. The hides were well camouflaged, but there was always the risk.
Should one of them step on the “roof” of a hide…
7:30 P.M.
Seven kilometers south of the PJAK camp
The indicator light on his GPS told him that he had arrived. Thomas shut down the instrument and stepped toward the shelter of a rocky outcropping, his pistol drawn in his hand.
Where were the Kurds?
The question answered itself in the next moment as a figure of an older man materialized out of the shadows.
“Mr. Patterson?” a voice enquired in English. The man was attired in a western-style shirt and jeans. In his hands he carried a Kalishnikov-style assault rifle similar to the one slung over Thomas’ back.
“Yes?” Thomas replied, half-turning toward him. Two more men appeared over the rise, surrounding him. Their rifles were leveled at his chest.
“ ‘Strange,” the man began, “ is it not? That of the myriads who before us passed the door of darkness through…’”
“ ‘Not one returns to tell us of the Road, which to discover we must travel too,’” Thomas responded with a smile, finishing the ancient Khayyam proverb and completing the countersign.
“Very good,” the man replied, still in the same smooth, cultured English. “We were told to expect you. Your weapons, please, Mr. Patterson?”
Thomas turned, looking him full in the face. “How do I know I can trust you?”
10:49 A.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“Can we trust him?” Director Lay asked, glancing up from the photo on his desk.
Ron Carter shrugged. “He’s been on the Agency’s payroll off and on ever since EAGLE CLAW,” the analyst replied, referring to the botched hostage rescue operation launched by the Carter administration.
The DCIA’s eyebrows went up. “Really? An old-timer. Motivation?”
“Hatred.”
Lay nodded. “Good. Reliable intel?”
“All of it, sir. We have no indication that he’s ever lied to us.”
“He’s never had an American in his possession either.”
“Sir?”
The director leaned back in his chair. “Devil’s advocate, Carter. Let’s worst-case this. Assume we can’t trust Badir. What happens now?”
Ron closed his eyes, his mind running through the possible scenarios. “Worst-case? He tries to use Parker as a bargaining chip with the Iranian government-to gain political recognition for the Kurds, to secure the release of imprisoned compatriots, anything, really. They just might concede in order to secure an American prisoner and the proof that we violated their borders with a spec-ops team.”
“Anything in his profile to indicate this might be a possibility?”
The analyst’s face was grim as he replied. “His services have always come at a high price, sir. In our every negotiation, he has sought to secure something to aid the cause of his people. Never in a duplicitous manner, but certainly self-serving.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s a patriot, sir, but not ours. His people come first and his attitude toward us is that of a businessman. He earned the nickname “The Horse Trader of Tabriz” from the intel boys a couple decades ago. In summation, I would say that he views the United States government as a tool to be used.”
“Precisely as we view him.”
“A cynical person might say that.”
8:00 P.M. Tehran Time
The base camp
“Two patrols have converged on the ridgeline-here, and set up overwatch,” Colonel Larijani noted, tapping the map with his finger.
Hossein nodded approvingly. “I know the place. Have them stay there-from that position they can cover the surrounding territory for some kilometers. Do they have night-vision?”
“Yes. I sent them the first sets that came in. From that position they should be able to pick out almost anything that moves. Even in the darkness. And, major…”
Hossein turned to look the young man in the eye. “Yes?”
“I am in command here. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
8:24 P.M.
LZ Oscar
“FULLBACK to EAGLE SIX. Looks like they’re settlin’ in.” Hamid’s voice over the radio.
“Concur,” Harry retorted. “We’ve got an hour and a half before the Pave Low arrives. Do you have clear LOS on the group?”
“Roger that. About ten meters to my front.”
“If they don’t move, we’re going to have to take ‘em out, hard and fast. JSOC won’t send the chopper into another hot LZ.”
“Copy.”
A low moan at his feet and Harry turned, bending down to clasp a hand over Rachel Eliot’s mouth as she awakened. Her eyes widened in surprise.
“Quiet,” Harry whispered. “Just keep quiet.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, still bewildered. It seemed to take a few moments for her to remember where she was.
“Awaiting extraction,” Harry replied, his voice patient. “You’re safe. Just keep your voice down.”
“Why?”
“The Iranians are close, very close. Just stay quiet and we’ll be okay.”
Harry rose from her side and peered over the lip of the hide, down the ridge to where the Iranian soldiers were patrolling.
“EAGLE SIX to GUNHAND. It looks like our friends have NVGs. Do you copy?”
A moment’s pause, then the Texan’s voice came on in a burst of static. “Affirmative, boss.”
“Hold your position for the moment. When we strike I will need you to alert Davood on your way in. The loss of his radio has made coordination problematic.”
“Roger.”
7:51 P.M. Baghdad Time
Q-West Airfield
Northern Iraq
The MH-53J Pave Low lifted off from the helipad at Q-West as dusk fell, its twin General Electric T64 turboshafts whining as they propelled the twenty-one-ton helicopter skyward.
The dull-black sides of the helo were innocent of any identifying markings. Its six-man crew were clad in equally nondescript grey flight suits, making the red scarf wrapped around the neck of their pilot shocking by contrast.
Major Dominic Padilla’s fingers caressed the flight controls gently, correcting the helicopter’s pitch as it shot suddenly forward.
“This is Cowboy three-niner to tower. Go-mission clearance?”
“Copy that, Cowboy three-niner. You have go-mission. Bring the boys home, Dom.”
“You got it,” was the major’s reply as he reached upward to toggle the comm switch, turning it to intercom.
“Let’s rock and roll.”
12:20 P.M. Eastern Time
NCS Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“Kranemeyer speaking.”
“Please hold for the DCIA.”
Lay’s voice came over the line a moment later, its tone decidedly chilly. “Kranemeyer, a memo just crossed my desk.”
“Sir?”
“You apparently cut a deal with Azad Badir. The safe extraction of Agent Parker in return for a shipment of Stinger SAMs. Am I to assume that I have this information correct?”
“That is correct, sir,” the DCS replied, taking a deep breath. “The deal had my authorization.”
“Are you out of your mind, Mr. Kranemeyer?”
“Not that I am aware of, director.”
“In case you’ve not been here long enough to find out-people have long memories in this town! And a lot of people in high places remember the last time we supplied dissident forces with shoulder-launched SAMs. Do you?”
“Afghanistan, sir. 1989.”
“And twelve years later, we were fighting the selfsame people we had given weapons to. American servicemen died because of those weapons’ deployment. And PJAK is a Communist rebel group. Now, I’m going to ask again, what were you thinking about when you gave this deal your authorization?”
“The face of an American operative on the front page of the Tehran Times. A trial and execution broadcast to the world. This was the only quid pro quo I could get Badir to agree to. Heaven knows the Revolutionary Guard would reward him generously to hand over Parker. And all due respect, David, but we no longer have the luxury of living in a world where Marxist guerillas are this agency’s top priority. The red star was eclipsed by a crescent moon a long time ago.”
A long moment passed, and then, on the other end of the line, Director Lay cleared his throat. “I will have to kick this upstairs to the DNI. Probably need Hancock’s signature on the project. My apologies, Barney.”
“None necessary, sir.”
“Any further word on Nichols and the rest of the tactical team?”
“I just received go-mission confirmation from General Benet. His Pave Low is in the air and should rendevous with the team in approximately forty minutes.”
“Any further word from the ground?”
“Negative. Nichols’ last message was to the effect that he was going dark to avoid the chance of the Iranians picking up his transmissions.”
“Get back to me when you have something,” Lay said finally.
“Of course, director,” Kranemeyer said, replacing the phone on its cradle. The screen above his head displayed steadily-updated satellite imagery of the ridgeline above LZ OSCAR.
“Do we have the infrared on that, Michelle?”
“One moment, sir. Interfacing the frames.”
“All right, do that, then…” The next moment, the infrared flashed on-screen and whatever Kranemeyer had been about to say died in his throat.
“Run the heat signatures again,” he demanded, sure that his eyes were deceiving him. There were too many signatures on the ridgeline. Too many to comprise merely the tac team and the rescued hostages.
The screen flashed again with the updated data and the DCS shook his head. He hadn’t been wrong. Not in the least.
Nichols had company.
He turned to the comm specialist at his side. “Get Nichols on the line. Now.”
9:35 P.M. Tehran Time
The PJAK camp
The light flashed on again with almost blinding force as Thomas’s blindfold was removed, leaving him blinking like an owl in the noonday sun.
“Mr. Patterson.” Thomas turned toward the voice, his eyes slowly adjusting to the light. He stood in a small, windowless room fashioned from concrete blocks. The light was coming a single bulb hanging just above his head.
The speaker was the same man who had met him at the rendevous, older than Thomas had realized at first, perhaps mid-sixties if appearance could be judged.
Two other guerillas flanked him, both younger, the one a bearded man in his early twenties, the other a young woman around the same age or younger. Perhaps brother and sister, Thomas couldn’t tell.
He caught her gaze for a moment, dark eyes staring back defiantly into his own. Her presence didn’t surprise the CIA man. He was well aware of the intelligence reports indicating one-third of PJAK fighters were women.
“Welcome to my camp.” Thomas turned his attention back to the older man and acknowledged his greeting with a nod. The guerilla extended a hand. “My name is Azad Badir.”
“It has been a pleasure,” Thomas grinned wryly.
“My apologies for the inconvenience, Mr. Patterson, but you understand the precautions we must needs take, I trust?”
“Of course.”
“Sirvan, untie his hands,” Badir ordered, speaking to the young man. “Mr. Patterson, I would like you to meet my grandchildren, Sirvan and Estere. They will see you to your quarters.”
Thomas flashed a smile in Estere’s direction, a smile she pretended not to notice, turning away and examining the clip of the AK-47 she carried.
“My quarters?” he asked, turning back to Badir. “Wouldn’t it be safer to start for the border at once, under the cover of darkness?”
The PJAK leader replied with a smile and a nod. “You are my guest, Mr. Patterson. It would be most inconsiderate to have you travel farther this night.”
Thomas chuckled. “Hey, they push us a lot harder than this at Quantico. I can do it, no sweat.”
The smile vanished from Azad Badir’s face almost as quick as it had come. “Your capabilities are not in question. However, you would do well to remember that I am in command here. And I say that you are my guest. Estere, do you have his satphone?”
The girl held up the TACSAT-10 by way of acknowledgment. “Do we understand each other?” Badir continued.
Thomas looked from one to the other, realizing the implications of his words. A grim smile crossed his face. “I believe we do, Mr. Badir. I believe we do…”
9:40 P.M.
The ridgeline
For the fourth time in fifteen minutes, Harry ignored the buzzing of the TACSAT on his belt. He couldn’t afford to have his concentration broken by a call from Langley. Not now.
The five Iranian soldiers were still moving around on the ridgeline, restless now, it seemed. As though they sensed something, perhaps the tension in the air.
“Stay here,” he whispered to the young woman. “Don’t move, no matter what happens.”
Taking the silenced Beretta from his hip, Harry laid it on the lip of the hide and briefly toggled the comm switch on his radio.
“EAGLE SIX to Alpha Team. Take ‘em out.”
Ordering the archaeologists to stay where they were, Hamid rose from their hiding place, flipping his NVGs down over his eyes.
Five targets glowed luminescent in his line of sight. Not human beings, not fellow believers. Targets.
His boots moved noiselessly over the terrain, his movements those of a ghost. Out of one corner of his eye he glimpsed Harry moving forward, the two of them closing in.
He brought the suppressed pistol up to eye level, aiming down the sightless barrel at the nearest target. And squeezed the trigger…
One of the soldiers cried out suddenly, a small red hole opening between his eyes as he crumpled to the ground. His comrades reached for their weapons just as another man went down.
Then there were three, Harry thought grimly, turning to engage the next target. The Beretta coughed softly and another man went down.
A shooting gallery.
He saw a guardsman reach toward the small tactical radio on his hip and pulled the pistol around, double-tapping the man. Center-of-mass.
The radio dropped from the man’s nerveless fingers onto the scant grass of the ridgeline as he slid toward the ground, dead.
“FULLBACK to EAGLE SIX, I have all clear,” Hamid announced. “Do you copy?”
Harry smiled through the darkness at his old friend. “I copy, FULLBACK. Team Alpha, collect all civilian personnel and move down the ridge to LZ OSCAR. The bird’s fifteen minutes out.”
9:50 P.M.
The base camp
Major Hossein knew from the moment he walked into the makeshift command center that something was going wrong. The expression on Larijani’s face told him everything.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ve been unable to raise Patrols Four and Six,” the young colonel replied. “Still trying.”
Hossein glanced at the map, but already knew everything it could tell him. They were the overwatch patrols on the ridgeline.
“Base to Four,” Larijani continued, speaking into the radio’s mike. “Base to Six. Come in.”
“Shut up,” the major snapped, jerking the radio from his hands. “They’re dead. We need air support in there at once. Now!”
Another moment and he was connected with the helicopter base nineteen kilometers to the south, receiving the assurance that an Mi-24 gunship would be scrambled. ETA on the ridgeline, twenty minutes…
9:56 P.M.
The ridgeline
They heard it well before they saw it, the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors beating against the still night air.
“Sit tight,” Harry told the archaeologists, instructing them to sit in a tight circle there in the middle of the plateau. He and Davood flanked them, AK-47s at the ready.
“Perimeter, what do you have?”
Hamid and Tex were still a hundred meters up on the ridgeline, providing cover for the extraction. “Nothing, Lead,” the Texan replied.
“Good. Hold there.”
And then they saw it, the huge helicopter sweeping in low, its rotors stirring up a sandstorm. A welcome sight.
“Time to go!” Harry ordered, shouting over the roar of the Pave Low. “Move!”
His gaze swept over the archaeologists as Davood herded them toward the open door of the Pave Low and the crew chief waiting there. They were frightened, still disoriented by the past twenty-four hours.
None of that mattered now. Another short while, and they would be safe. Just a short while.
“Perimeter, move in now,” he barked into his radio as the last civilian was loaded aboard. “Let’s roll this baby.”
“Roger.”
12:59 P.M. Eastern Time
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
“Any luck, Michelle?” Kranemeyer asked, leaning over to look at her monitors. The agent in charge of comm shook her head.
“He’s not answering.”
“What’s the update on satellite?”
“The Pave Low is on the ground at OSCAR,” she replied, tapping the keyboard a couple times to bring up the relevant screens on her monitor. “We should be receiving confirmation from JSOC any time now.”
The DCS extended a finger to a windowed infrared screen near the bottom of the monitor. “What’s that?”
Michelle turned to look and her eyes widened, grasping the image’s import in the same moment as Kranemeyer.
“Patch me into the Pave Low’s comm feed,” the director ordered. “Now!”
10:00 P.M. Tehran Time
The Pave Low
Padilla’s headset crackled with static. “Hold for Director Kranemeyer,” a female voice instructed. The major exchanged a puzzled look with his co-pilot, unsure what to make of the pronouncement.
“Listen quickly, Major Padilla, this is Director Kranemeyer of the National Clandestine Service. You have an attack helicopter inbound on your position. You need to take off now, get my people out of there no matter what. Do you copy?”
“Yes, sir. Leaving now.” He switched channels and reached up to flip on the intercom. “Take-off in forty seconds. Thirty-five. Thirty.”
A figure ducked through the door. It was the NCS team leader. “What’s going on here, major?”
“We have an Iranian attack helicopter coming in hot. My orders are to get you out of here, sir.”
“Not without the rest of my men,” Harry retorted grimly. “I’m not leaving people behind.”
“Then hurry things up, sir. We’re leaving ground.”
Harry left the cockpit and hurried back to the door to find Tex and Hamid materializing out of the night, dark figures.
Tex vaulted into the chopper, out of breath. Harry reached down a hand to help the shorter Hamid into the helicopter, grinning as he did so. “Let’s go home. Major! Go! Go! Go!”
The helicopter throttled into full power, lifting into the air. Padilla held his breath as the Pave Low jolted forward, slowly gathering airspeed as it swept over the plateau toward the shelter of the mountains. And beyond them Iraq.
If only they could stay below the Iranian radar…
10:45 P.M.
The ridgeline
Silence reigned upon the ridgeline, the silence of the grave. Major Hossein nudged one of the bodies with his boot, rolling the corpse over on its back.
The man had been shot twice, in the upper chest. Death had come quickly.
Whoever the Americans had sent, they had been skilled professionals. Hossein straightened up, looking into the eyes of Colonel Larijani.
“A good man,” he announced, “too good to die this way.”
The young colonel flinched at the tacit accusation, but his mind was too preoccupied with other matters to pull rank. “Are you sure they have gone?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
The major smiled at the pallor of Larijani’s cheeks. “Not quite sure,” he responded wickedly, grinning at the way the young man jumped.
“Of course,” he amended. “You can see the marks of helicopter downwash on the plateau below here. They were secluded on this peak during the daytime, and took out our patrol only moments before they were extracted. No doubt they are safely within imperialist lines in Iraq by this time.”
“Your man was supposed to prevent this!” Larijani exploded suddenly, his confidence returning with his feeling of safety.
“My man? BEHDIN?”
“Yes!”
“Another few years in the field, sir, and you will find that the impossible cannot be prevented. No doubt there were extenuating circumstances that prevented his further communication with us.”
“Tehran must hear of this,” the colonel continued, still fuming.
Hossein sighed, his eyes locking with those of the young man. “Never fear, my colonel. They will…”
9:56 P.M. Baghdad Time
The Pave Low
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Major Padilla announced over the helicopter’s intercom, “we’ve crossed the Iraqi border. We’re in friendly territory now. ETA in Q-West is thirty minutes.”
Harry allowed himself a weary smile, leaning back against a crate of machine-gun ammo stationed near the pintle-mounted 7.62mm. Time to stand down.
Reaching over, he removed the clip from the ammo port of his AK-47 and separated rifle from ammo. His pistol remained at his hip, loaded as it always was, mission-status notwithstanding.
The archaeologists were huddled together toward the back of the cabin, their faces still showing bewilderment from the events of the last forty-eight hours.
The roar of the Pave Low’s turbos made conversation impossible, which was just as well, from Harry’s point of view. There wasn’t a great deal he wished to discuss, at least nothing that couldn’t wait for the debriefing at Q-West.
Someone had betrayed his team. And he had lost a man because of it. There was nothing in all that to take pride in. Nothing at all…
11:25 P.M. Tehran Time
The camp
Perhaps they expected him to sleep, Thomas pondered, sitting down upon the rude wooden cot in the corner of his room. Cell would be a more appropriate name for it, for that’s what it was.
At least an hour had passed, he surmised, maybe more, it was impossible to tell. His Doxa dive watch had been taken from him, along with the rest of his belongings, including his clothes. His tradecraft told him they were likely burning them, well away from the camp, to destroy any possible electronic tracking devices. In their place he was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt loaned him by Badir’s grandson. His request for shoes had been turned down with the smile from Sirvan. Whatever their plans for him, they had no intention of him going anywhere without them, and despite his physical stamina, Thomas doubted that he could make it through the terrain barefoot.
The room wasn’t wired. He had been searching for a bug ever since his “hosts” had departed and hadn’t found one yet. Just stark concrete block.
Thomas leaned back against the cot, taking off the t-shirt to ball up and use as a pillow. He needed rest before he could try anything. Haste would accomplish nothing.
2:30 P.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
The phone on Director Lay’s desk rang suddenly and he reached over to press the speaker button. “Yes?”
It was Carter’s voice. “We just got confirmation from JSOC. The Pave Low is on the ground in Iraq. Hostages and remaining team are safe.”
Good, Lay thought, a sigh of relief escaping his lips. Relief, however, was a transient feeling. Back to business. “Is Petras in position?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have her set up a video uplink from the base to us. I want to be patched into the debriefing live, along with Director Kranemeyer.”
“I believe the uplink is already on-line. I can stream it through into your terminal when the team is ready to start.”
“Do it.”
10:34 P.M. Baghdad Time
Q-West Airbase
Northern Iraq
Harry and his team were down the rear ramp of the helicopter almost as soon as it was lowered. Each of his men had a hostage by the arm, leading them down the ramp. To safety.
A line of Marines was drawn up about fifty feet from the chopper and a tall woman stepped from among them at the team’s approach. She looked to be in her mid-forties, perhaps a touch older, dressed in a business-like blue pantsuit that seemed strangely incongruous there on the desert airbase. Her gaze never wavered as the rotor wash continued to swirl around her, kicking up a veritable sandstorm.
“As I live and breathe,” Harry murmured, recognizing the CIA’s Chief of Station(Baghdad). “It’s Rebecca Petras.”
“Mr. Nichols!” she greeted, shouting to make herself heard as the Pave Low shut down behind them. “You will please turn over your weapons, gentlemen. Leave them with the Marines.”
She moved past Harry toward the hostages, but he turned to face her. “What’s going on here, Petras?”
Their eyes locked together and he felt her gaze wash over him. “Your team is being isolated, Nichols. Langley needs answers for what happened out there. Do we have a problem with that?”
“No, ma’am,” Harry replied, biting his tongue to suppress the retort that sprang to his lips. No matter the folly being perpetrated here, angering her wasn’t going to get him anywhere.
He turned away, unclipping his holster to hand the Beretta over to a fresh-faced Marine corporal.
“Briefing room, Mr. Nichols,” Petras ordered as she moved back past him after ensuring that the hostages’ needs were being seen to by Navy corpsmen. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Roger that.”
Harry felt a presence at his shoulder and turned to find the newly disarmed Hamid standing there, his gaze following the retreating form of the CIA official.
“Any idea what’s going on?”
“No.” Harry shook his head. “But they sent her, and we both know what that means.”
A faint spark of humor glinted in the Iraqi agent’s eyes as he nodded. “Brace for storms.”
2:43 P.M. Eastern Time
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
“Uplink completed. Time to briefing-four minutes.” Kranemeyer acknowledged the message with a nod. This, the debriefing, the after-action report, was nearly as important as the mission itself. Particularly when as many things had gone wrong as had on this particular mission.
“Boss.” Kranemeyer turned to find his communications officer standing in the doorway of his cubicle.
“What is it, Michelle?”
“I just received the status update on Parker.” He could tell from the look on her face that the news was not good.
“And?”
“Both trackers we were using to pinpoint his location stopped transmitting twenty minutes ago.” There was a distinct look of worry on her face and for a moment the DCS wondered if there wasn’t a touch more than professional concern for Thomas’ well-being in play here.
If there was, there wasn’t time to worry about it. “Do we have a fix on his last location? Or shall I say, the last location of the trackers.”
She nodded. “It’s a cave about eighteen kilometers north of the PJAK camp that Azad Badir has made his headquarters.”
“Clearly,” Kranemeyer stated, his tone insufferably calm, “Badir doesn’t want us to know our man’s exact whereabouts.”
“But we’re on his side,” Michelle replied.
He shook his head, a grim smile crossing his face. “Azad Badir is a canny old goat-hasn’t survived this long in that region by trusting anyone. Which, incidentally, is a good example to follow. Back-time the satellite to see if you have anything from the timeframe. He’s more than likely covered his tracks, but…” Kranemeyer shrugged. “See what you can find.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned back to his terminal just as the video uplink went live and the face of Harold Nichols filled the screen.
“Mr. Nichols,” the disembodied voice of Rebecca Petras began, “you’re on with Director Lay and Director Kranemeyer. I have been requested by Director Lay to oversee the debriefing from Operation TALON. Shall we begin at the beginning?”
The devil danced in the agent’s eyes, a faint sardonic smile flickering across his face. “That sounds logical.”
Four hours later, it was the face of Jack Richards before the camera as the debriefing continued.
Director Lay’s brow furrowed as the agent answered a question posed by Petras, and he toggled the voice-over-internet mike.
“Let’s go back, Richards,” he interjected. “You and Agent Sarami were tasked with blowing the base camp’s fuel supplies. Correct?”
A nod was the only reply.
“Yet, one of the tankers escaped. How did that happen?”
Richards hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with the direct question. “It was parked at some distance from the others-too far to rely on chain ignition. We had to blow it separately, and something went wrong with the charges. Simply put, we fouled up.”
Kranemeyer broke onto the live feed. “I am going to assume that in the interests of time, the tactical responsibility for the tankers was split between the two of you. Is that an accurate assumption?”
Another nod.
“Then, the tanker that failed to ignite, in whose area of responsibility did it lie?”
Lay could see the reluctance in Richards’ eyes. These men were like a brotherhood, and though a rookie, Davood Sarami was already far more accepted than a man like himself could ever be.
Finally the Texan’s eyes lifted to face the webcam, all emotion gone from their black depths.
“Agent Sarami’s.”
“Thank you, Agent Richards. Please continue, Rebecca.”
Rebecca Petras glanced from the clock on the wall back to the CIA officer in front of her. The debriefing had been going on for five and a half hours.
Davood Sarami was the only member of the NCS team that she had never met before, and she had studied his dossier during the helicopter flight up from Baghdad.
Overall, if she were going to find out anything irregular that had happened on the mission, the rookie would likely be her source. She had worked with Nichols in Basra back in ‘05, when she had first arrived on station and he was running spec-ops liaison with the military.
Technically, that put her in charge of his operation, but the two of them had never quite seen eye to eye on where the division in command fell.
They had hardly hit it off well back then and the hour-and-a-half long debrief of him she had just conducted had done nothing but convince her that the years had not changed him.
He was still as aloof and impenetrable as he had ever been, and Rebecca had little doubt but that he had told her exactly what he wanted her to know. Nothing more. Not that he would deliberately jeopardize national security, she believed, but his loyalty to his fellow team members might cause him to neglect certain facts. Perhaps.
Loyalty. The other thing she remembered about Nichols was his ability to command intense personal loyalty from those who followed him into battle. A useful asset, to be sure, but as she had noted in a fitness report back during the Basra days, it had its dangerous points.
She had known from the start of the debrief that nothing would be said by his fellow team members to reflect negatively on Nichols. She had hoped the new man would be another story, but so far it wasn’t working.
Her eyes flickered to the computer monitor at her side. A speech-to-text program was running on-screen, transcribing every word spoken during the debriefing for later review.
“Agent Sarami, you said earlier that you had lost your team radio. Could you elaborate more for us on the manner in which you lost it?”
She saw a look of surprise flicker across the young man’s face. It was an old interrogation trick. Move past a topic as though it was unimportant, and then return to it unexpectedly. And despite what everyone might wish, debriefing was very much like an interrogation.
“I don’t really know. I remember having it as I descended into the canyon toward the helicopter to rescue Colonel Tancretti, but that’s all I remember. Both of us were knocked to the ground by the explosion of the helo’s fuel tanks and the headset was gone when I regained consciousness.”
“So you believe that you lost it sometime either during your rescue of Colonel Tancretti or the subsequent explosion?”
“That is correct.”
The snare was set. Now to coax the quarry within. Rebecca lifted her gaze to look coolly into the young agent’s eyes. “According to Agent Nichols, he attempted to contact you while you were in transit to the crash site, prior to the explosion, and you did not answer. Is that an accurate statement?”
Once again the look of surprise, this time not unmingled with hurt. “I don’t understand how I could have missed a transmission-although I suppose it is possible-perhaps I had already lost the radio by that time.”
At that moment, the rabbit was well within the snare. “Perhaps,” Petras began hesitantly, springing her trap, “you would give us your assessment of Agent Nichols’ performance on this mission?”
Director Kranemeyer sighed wearily as Petras escorted the Iranian-American agent from the room in which the debriefing had taken place and turned to face the camera once again. He reached for the cup of coffee on his desk and made a face. It was cold.
“I could have told you it was pointless to try that tack,” he spoke into the mike, addressing Petras.
Her head came up from her monitor. “I would beg to differ, Director. Someone betrayed this mission, either deliberately or through an inadvertent breach of protocol-either way, it is imperative that we find the person responsible.”
“It is also imperative that we don’t waste time attempting to crucify the man responsible for salvaging the mission from disaster,” Kranemeyer replied heatedly. “I’ve read your dossier, Petras. I know you and Nichols have a history back to Basra, but now is neither the time or place to be satisfying personal grudges.”
There was not a flicker of reaction in her eyes as she stared back into the camera. “My report will be filed with the DD(I) in the morning.”
“When will the hostages be debriefed?” This time it was Director Lay asking the question.
“Sir,” Rebecca Petras responded, “it is currently well past four in the morning here-and no one has had any sleep. The hostages have been taken into protective custody by Colonel Foreaker’s Marines and I hope to interview them tomorrow-later today,” she corrected herself.
“Thank you, Ms. Petras. Please forward the tapes to my office when you complete the interviews. And make sure you contact your counterpart at the Australian consulate to notify them of Rachel Eliot’s rescue.”
“Of course, sir. Petras out.”
Early morning
The camp
Thomas rolled onto his side, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of his cell as he came awake. What time it was, he had no idea, but he felt rested, so it must be near dawn.
He swung his legs off the cot and sat up, his bare feet brushing against the cool earth of the floor.
Something had gone wrong-that was about the only thing of which he was sure. Perhaps the man who had met him was not even the CIA’s contact. Perhaps they had been compromised. Perhaps-the questions were endless.
Could he have imagined himself here fifteen years ago? Hardly, he thought, a sardonic grin crossing his boyish face. A desert cell, rugged tribesemen?
No, back then the Middle East’s only importance to him had been what it did to the oil futures. He had been the manager of a Wall Street investment firm in those days, a true wunderkind in the eyes of some. Certainly no one could have denied that he had a knack for the market and his pioneering market trading website had raked in subscribers by the thousands in the late ‘90s.
By the age of twenty-two, he had been a multimillionaire, a fortune built on a shrewd grasp of both the market and information technology. Shrewd enough to survive the bursting of the Dot-com bubble when so many of his competitors had gone under. A young man of unbelievable potential, with a bright future ahead of him.
That bright future had choked in the dark clouds of ash rising from the Trade Center Towers. In Asia on a business trip at the time of the terrorist attacks, Thomas had returned to New York to find many of his colleagues dead, the Fortune 500 company he had built his life upon in shambles.
And he had thrown himself into the fray, working feverishly to reestablish the company and hire new people to fill the shoes of the dead. Yet the Street had lost its lure-the game no longer satisfied in the way it once had.
Nine months later, turning over the revived company to new management, he left Wall Street for good, a man adrift.
Thomas sighed, stretching in the darkness. Remembering. He had left Wall Street with no idea where he was going or what he wanted to do when he got there. All that had once satisfied him was empty, no longer fulfilling. Restoring the company had been one thing-he had owed that to his investors. Continuing on the Street was a different proposition entirely.
And then he met Bernard Kranemeyer at a Heritage Foundation dinner one snowy evening in Philadelphia.
He grinned at the memory. Kranemeyer had been anything but eager for Thomas to join the reorganizing Directorate of Operations. The Agency, he had found, had reservations about recruiting someone motivated largely by bitterness. And Thomas had fought serious doubts of his own. Before heading to the Farm that spring he had never fired a gun in his life. How fast that had changed…
The sound of a key in the door jarred Thomas back to the present, a bright glare nearly blinding his eyes as the light came on.
“Good morning, Mr. Patterson.” It was Sirvan, a plate of food in one hand and a 9mm in the other.
“I trust you slept well?”
Thomas shot him a look of disbelief, then accepted the plate and utensils. All plastic, he noted, not a one of them serviceable as a weapon. “Decently, thank you.”
“My grandfather wanted me to offer his sincere apologies for the way we have been forced to treat you.”
“Forced?” Thomas asked, his voice rich with irony. “I didn’t see anyone forcing you. Or perhaps I didn’t look hard enough.”
To his surprise, the young Kurd looked embarrassed by his retort. “The CIA director agreed to deliver a shipment of weapons to us in exchange for your safe return. My grandfather is a cautious man and believes we should keep you here until we have the proofs of your government’s good faith.”
“I see. So you’re not going to sell me out to the Iranians?”
“We discussed it,” Sirvan responded with an alarming frankness. “However, it is difficult to see what might be gained. To parley with them would be like juggling with scorpions, Mr. Patterson. No matter how carefully done, you will be stung in the end.”
Thomas chuckled. “I’m glad to hear that. Am I to stay here, then, until the weapons arrive?”
“No. Once you have finished your meal I will be happy to escort you around the camp. We have no objections so long as you do not stray beyond the perimeter. In which case, you will be shot.”
“Really?” Thomas’s eyebrows shot up. “And what would happen to your precious weapons in that case?”
“We would undoubtedly lose them, of course. But those are my grandfather’s orders, and they will be followed. Make no mistake of that.”
“Of course,” Thomas replied, shoveling the food into his mouth with the fork that had been provided him. “That is quite understandable…”
7:00 P.M. Baghdad Time
Q-West Airfield
Northern Iraq
The knock came at the door just as Harry had taken a razor to the week-old beard enshrouding his face.
“A message for Harold Nichols, sir.” It was a young woman, one of the orderlies he had seen with Petras the previous evening.
“That would be me.”
“I’ll need you to sign for it, sir,” the brunette replied, extending the clipboard to him.
Harry took it, briefly scrawling his name across the cover sheet before reading the message beneath. When he had finished, he handed it back to her with a smile. “Give Ms. Petras my regards.”
“Of course, sir.”
Harry closed the door behind her and strode across the room to an adjoining door. He rapped hard on the wooden paneling.
“Yes?” came Hamid’s voice.
“Get everybody up and moving. We’ve got a plane to catch.”
8:25 A.M. Tehran Time
The base camp
Devastation. That was the only word Hossein could find to describe it. Even now, forty-eight hours after the commando strike, his soldiers were still repairing the damage.
And despite his confident words to Larijani the previous night, he was far from sure that Tehran would smile upon his part in it. More than likely, he would be relieved of command. And then…
He didn’t like to dwell upon it.
“Major! Major Hossein!” He turned to find a sergeant running across the plateau toward him, a satellite phone in his hand.
“Who is it?” Hossein asked, reaching out his hand.
The soldier’s eyes were wide as he handed the phone over. “It-it is the Supreme Leader himself…”
The major stiffened, his mouth suddenly dry. “Give it here,” he whispered. The Ayatollah Isfahani was the last person he had wanted to hear from this morning.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Is it?” the elderly voice on the other end of the phone asked skeptically. “Major Hossein, I need you to come to Qom immediately.”
Hossein paused, but only for a moment. Despite the rise to power of the IRGC and Mahmoud Shirazi, the Ayatollah was still a man to be feared. And obeyed. “Of course.”
“There is a Colonel Harun Larijani there at your base. I am authorizing you to requisition his helicopter for you to fly here.”
“Where do I meet you?”
“Fly directly to my home. You are to go dark, major. I want you to discuss this call with no one, is that understood? As far as anyone knows, you are flying to your execution.”
“Sir?”
“The Americans have escaped, major. The President will be looking for a scapegoat, and believe me when I say his gaze will not settle upon the incompetence of his nephew.”
“You mean-Larijani?”
The voice that replied was heavily laced with sarcasm. “Surely, major, you did not believe that he earned his rank through his skills as a tactician? Now, we must hurry-I will expect you at my residence by noon. Any questions?”
There were many, but none that Hossein believed diplomatic or safe to ask. “No.”
“Good. And remember, major, not a word to anyone. You’re a condemned man. Act the part.”
Hossein thumbed the “end” button on the phone and shook his head. Very little of what he had just been told made any sense. Or perhaps it did, in the twisted corridors of power that the Ayatollah inhabited. He would be there soon enough…
7:35 A.M. Local Time
Along the beach
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
The salt breeze rippled through Avi’s hair as he jogged along the nearly deserted beach. It was a morning ritual for the Mossad chief, an iron refusal to bow to the increasing demands of his aging body.
“So, what is the latest after-action report from RAHAB?” he asked of the aide panting at his side. Shoham suppressed a quiet smile as the young man struggled to catch his breath sufficiently to reply. He might be getting older, but he could still set a pace that would put young men to the test.
Some young men, he reflected, casting a critical eye on the bodyguard flanking him on his right, matching his stride effortlessly. There were a full score of Mossad agents spread along the narrow beach, deployed to ensure his safety.
“We-we’re getting the first daytime sat shots now,” the aide gasped out. “It would appear that the Iranians are still cleaning up the damage.”
“We knew that-any indication as to who caused it?”
“No. Another of our satellites picked up abnormal activity at the American base at Q-West late last night.”
“Such as?”
“An MH-53J took off from the airfield at approx twenty hundred hours local time last night, flying north, then turning west before disappearing off the edge of our sat coverage. It returned at a little over two hours later.”
Avi kept jogging, slowly turning over the information in his mind. The MH-53J was a Special Forces helicopter-but the Americans had a large Special Forces presence in Iraq, so that by itself was indicative of nothing.
“Did it show up elsewhere?” The aide ducked his head, gulping in air, then gasped a “no”.
“Th-there is one other thing, sir. SIGINT assets reported a spike in activity at the helicopter base south of the Iranian base camp at 2200 Tehran time, followed by more activity at the airfield in Tabriz.”
“What type of activity?” Shoham asked. SIGINT, which stood for SIGnals INTelligence, monitored Iranian communications.
“Units were being scrambled and sent airborne-gunships, fighters-our photoanalysts are trying to determine whether they may have even scrambled their F-14s.”
Avi chuckled in disbelief. Given to the Shah in the ‘70s by the American government, the once state-of-the-art F-14 “Tomcat” fighter planes were barely flyable now, shoddy maintenance and lack of replacement parts taking an inevitable toll. His mind returned to the matter at hand.
“They were reacting to a penetration of their airspace,” he observed coolly, slowing as he made the turn of the beach to head back to their SUV.
“The Americans?”
“Perhaps,” Shoham whispered, his mind occupied with other thoughts. If it had been the Americans, then perhaps they had rescued the remainder of the archaeological team. There was no certainty, but then again, there never was. The odds were good enough to bet on.
“We getting anything actionable from SCHLIEMANN?”
The aide shook his head. “No. Nothing at all.”
“I see,” was the Mossad chief’s only reply. Roll the dice…
9:47 A.M. Tehran Time
The PJAK camp
Northwestern Iran
Thomas blinked as the morning sun struck him full in the face. Sirvan stepped aside, leading him out of the mouth of what Thomas slowly realized had been a cave.
The PJAK camp was nestled in a valley of one sort or another, perhaps a mile in breadth at the widest point, clumps of trees and scrub brush breaking the monotony of the arid terrain. Steep, craggy mountains of sheer-faced rock towered on both sides of the valley, shielding them from effective aerial assault. At the foot of the cliff, off to his right, a small herd of six or seven donkeys were tethered to a leafy bush that they were in the process of devouring.
The smell of smoke reached his nostrils and Thomas turned to see a cooking fire not ten meters away.
“Good morning, Mr. Patterson.” It was Azad Badir, kneeling by the fire, a half-eaten plate of rice in his hands. He scooped the last few bites into his mouth and rose. “We march in fifteen minutes,” he announced, addressing Thomas. “Make sure you’re ready.”
A grin tugged at the corner of Thomas’s mouth. “I’m not sure I can do that, boss. Your men have left me with so much to pack.”
Azad Badir threw back his head and laughed, clapping Thomas on the shoulder. “A man with a sense of humor. I like you, Mr. Patterson-life leaves us with little to laugh at here in Kurdistan.”
Thomas’s eyebrows went up. “But I take it my likeability would not spare me should I choose to part company with your people at this point?”
Badir smiled. “That is correct. I will not demean you by binding your hands, but I must assure you that if you stray from the line of march, you will be shot out of hand. My people rarely miss.”
“A comforting thought.” Thomas’s gaze shifted, caught by an object resting beside a nearby fire. It was a British-made Parker-Hale M-85 sniper rifle. He hurried over to it before either man could stop him.
“Where did you get one of these?” he asked, picking up the rifle and looking back toward them. Neither one was smiling.
It seemed as though every eye in the camp was suddenly focused on him, the Kurds frozen in place, waiting for an order from their leader.
Finally, at a nod from Badir, Sirvan advanced to take the rifle from Thomas’s hands. “We have our friends in Europe, Mr. Patterson.”
“It’s a good weapon,” Thomas observed objectively. “I used one of them in Latin America a few years back. Who’s your sniper?”
“I am,” a voice announced before either man could respond. Thomas’s head swivelled to the left to see Estere standing there, tucking her long black hair beneath the camouflage ball cap she wore.
“Then may I compliment you on having such a fine weapon,” Thomas replied, adroitly concealing his surprise.
“You may,” she retorted, crossing the camp to take the rifle from Sirvan’s hands, “so long as you leave it alone. You might break it.”
Cradling the M-85 in her arms like one might a child, she turned her back on the men and went back to kneel beside her bedroll.
Thomas turned to find Azad Badir regarding him with an amused smile. “We march in ten minutes, Mr. Patterson. Don’t wander off.”
11:45 A.M.
The Residence of the Supreme Ayatollah
Qom, Iran
“Time?” The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Yousef Mohaymen Isfahani, asked, turning to the attendant at his side.
“Fifteen minutes until noon,” the man replied, bowing deeply. Isfahani acknowledged his words with a nod, looking northward from the portico as though fancying he could see the approaching helicopter.
Failing in that, he turned away, placing both hands on the balustrade as he glanced into the courtyard beneath him. So much had changed in the last few years. And the world had barely noticed.
Gone was the theocracy that had ruled Iran for over three decades. Not truly gone, perhaps, but gutted of all true power. Men might still call him the Supreme Leader, but he was a figurehead, little more.
This meeting had the potential to change all that. A chill ran through his aging body, despite the pounding heat of the noonday sun. It was a terrible risk.
He smiled with a grim humor. The West was too consumed with its worsening economic troubles to keep track of events in Iran. And outwardly, little had changed in the years since a military cabal had seized power in Tehran. Led by then-general Mahmoud F’Azel Shirazi, the conspirators had succeeded in corrupting large numbers of the Revolutionary Guard and regular army to their cause. The revolt had been sudden and swift, leaving the ayatollahs with no time to react.
Those few Western press agencies that had taken notice had hailed the end of Iran’s theocracy in terms of the demise of radical Islam in Iran.
The Ayatollah’s lip curled upward in a sneer of disdain at the memory. The fools! Had they bothered to investigate Shirazi and his compatriots, their blood would have run cold. Despite his apparent interest in increased openness to the West, Mahmoud Shirazi was odds-on the most radical leader Iran had ever seen.
The twelfth imam. To some Iranians the concept was more figurative than literal, just as some in the Christian world regarded the revelations of John to be allegorical in nature.
Others saw him as their messiah, who would return in the midst of apocalypse to save true believers. And still others believed that they must bring about that apocalypse to usher in his return…
Isfahani sighed at the reflection. It was a theological debate that traced its roots back to the very foundations of the Islamic faith. The world of Islam had begun to fracture before the body of its Prophet had even cooled.
On the one hand, there were those who believed that in the absence of a directly appointed successor, one should be elected from among their ranks. Their name, Sunni, clearly indicated that they felt they had chosen the “Right Path”.
On the other hand, however, a minority faction of Mohammed’s close followers and kin put forth the idea that a close relative of the Prophet should succeed him and named Hazrat Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, as successor.
Looking back, the ayatollah thought, the debate seemed trite, but it had split Islam in two. In the midst of a bloody civil war, Hazrat Ali, the “Lion of God”, had been slain by Sunni assassins, who then replaced him with one of their own luminaries. The partisans of Ali withdrew in defeat, to become a persecuted minority, known as the Shiah, a name taken from the Arabic word for partisan.
But they had kept the bloodline pure, through the ravages of war, persecution, and assassination. Over the following two centuries, eleven men carried the title of imam in the Shiite world. Eleven men-warriors, scholars, and theologians. Descendants of Hazrat Ali and pure of both blood and faith.
And then there were twelve.
What mark this twelfth imam might have left on the world was unknown-or rather, as Shirazi and his followers believed, yet to be seen.
He had been a lad of four years old when he disappeared down a well in the year A.D. 874, never to be seen again. But what might have been written off as a tragic accident took a different shape in the Shiite mind. The twelfth, and last, of the imams had not fallen to his death. Nay, rather, he had been occultated or hidden away by Allah until his return at the end of the world, when he would return in a flaming vengeance to cleanse the earth of unbelievers.
He heard the helicopter before he saw it, the steady drumbeat of the rotor intruding itself upon his thoughts.
The old man’s eyes brightened. “That should be Major Hossein now,” he said, turning to his attendant. “Bring him to me as soon as he lands.”
10:20 A.M. Local Time
C-141 Starlifter
Final approach to Ramstein Airbase, Germany
The small knot of men in Air Force uniforms near the back of the Starlifter’s cargo hold bore no resemblance to the men that had just spent two days deep inside hostile territory.
Hostile territory, Harry mused, running a hand over his smooth-shaven chin. Completing the job had been necessary to once again pass himself off as an Air Force colonel, despite the lack of time.
With Rebecca Petras in the picture, he very much fancied himself still in hostile territory. Or at least less than friendly.
From the looks on the faces of his fellow team members, he knew they were thinking the same thing. Such was the world of an operator. Caught on the knife’s edge between the cold, hard facts of life in the field and the political maneuvering of bureaucratic desk jockeys more interested in advancing their own careers than protecting their country’s interests.
Not that it mattered in the end. Going in, they had known the score. They had done the job they had been given to do. Now the trick was to survive the fallout.
“What’s our play, boss?” Hamid asked.
Harry smiled. It was sometimes difficult to imagine the football-crazed Zakiri as a kid growing up in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. As with most of those who’ve learned English as a second language, Hamid’s speech was very proper and correct, but when slang slipped in, it was invariably sports-related.
The question remained. “Keep our mouths shut,” Harry replied, answering it. “Answer everything they ask-volunteer nothing more.”
“It’s our duty to help them in any way we can,” Davood blurted out, a look of surprise on his face as he glanced up. “We’re all on the same side.”
Harry and Tex exchanged a quiet smile, then Harry responded. “You think so? Get a few more missions under your belt before you go drawin’ those conclusions. We’re a team. We think like a team, we act like a team, we depend on each other. Why? Because no one’s on our side-and don’t fool yourself into thinking any different. Each other-that’s all we can count on. Do you understand?”
Davood looked from one team member to another, then responded with a quiet, “Yes.”
With the same grim smile on his face, Harry reached out and clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Good. Let’s stick together on this. We’re a team.”
Yet even as he said the words, Harry could see the doubt in Davood’s eyes. He was young, he was inexperienced, and perhaps worst of all, trusting.
Just above them, the “Fasten Seatbelts” light came on and the men retreated to their seats to prepare for landing. Harry watched the young agent out of the corner of his eye as he collected his personal effects. Recognizing the danger there.
Trust. It was the currency of human relationships, perhaps the most basic and sacred element of personal life. Extended to the wrong people, he had seen it kill. Often enough to question whether there were any “right” people.
Harry turned away, looking out the window as the Starlifter’s wheels touched down on German soil. These were his people. His team. And he would do whatever it took to protect them. They would do the same for him…
12:23 P.M. Tehran Time
The Holy Shrine of Hazrat-e Ma’sumeh
Qom, Iran
The last echoes of the muezzin’s call had scarcely died away when an attendant scurried forward to retrieve the prayer mat. Isfahani rose, looking toward the golden dome of the shrine.
He cast a sidelong glance at the man rising next to him, a cool appraisal. The ayatollah had long prided himself in his ability to take the measure of a man in a single glance.
Major Hossein was proving measurably more difficult. He was a tall man, his features undeniably Persian.
Farshid. His name too was Persian, not Islamic, taken from the secular Shahnama saga, and meaning “bright as the sun”.
Bright as the hope flickering in the ayatollah’s heart.
They made a strange couple as they, flanked by Isfahani’s bodyguards, walked across the square toward the mural-bedecked cemetery of the Martyrs.
The holy man and the warrior.
“You understand why I have brought you here, do you not?” The ayatollah asked a few short moments later, gesturing to a mural of a slain fighter, fallen, like all the rest in this cemetery, during the Iran-Iraq War.
The major nodded, his face well-nigh expressionless, the only trace of nervousness visible in the twisting of the coral beads between his fingers.
He is not a religious man, Isfahani realized with a sudden start, recognizing the awkwardness with which Hossein handled the tasbih, the Muslim equivalent of the rosary, a beaded recitation of the hundred names of Allah. For a moment, doubt smote his heart, but he pushed it aside with an effort. The will of Allah would be fulfilled regardless.
“They died fighting, major. Fighting their fellow Muslims. Your own father among them,” the ayatollah finished, a warning lurking in his words. A warning that Hossein’s past was an open book.
A nod was the major’s only reply, for Isfahani had gone on without waiting for one. “It is happening again. Think of it, my son, if these forces were but united against the infidel.”
“ ‘I against my brother,’”quoted Hossein, “ ‘my brother and I against our cousin-my brother, my cousin, and I against the infidel.’”
“Such has always been our weakness,” Isfahani mused bitterly. “Ever since the days of the Prophet. So it will always be. Unity is more than we can hope for, major.”
“Then what is our objective?” Hossein asked, the military man rising to the surface as his confidence returned.
Isfahani turned, his steel gray eyes seeming to pierce to the very soul with the intensity of their stare. “To prevent desecration…”
2:11 P.M. Tehran Time
Northwestern Iran
They had seen the flames shortly after fording the stream. It had taken them two hours to reach this small Kurdish village-or rather what was left of it, Thomas thought, standing in the smoldering ruins. Beyond him lay the body of an aged grandmother, her skull crushed in by a rifle-butt. A couple of feet to her right, the corpse of a small child, face charred beyond recognition by the flames. The odor of burnt flesh hung in the air.
Butchery. The body of an aged man lay across the threshold of his house, a bolt-action Mosin-Nagant clutched in his stiff, lifeless hands. Thomas’s mind registered the futility of the old man’s resistance even as his heart moved in silent admiration of its raw courage.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, Thomas reflected. The old laws of vengeance had never died here in the East. He was standing amidst the fruits of it. The ashes of dreams.
Thomas saw several of the women among the PJAK group kneel among the rubble, weeping over the bodies of the dead. Estere was not among them. He turned to find her standing by a shell crater, looking out over the valley, the British-made sniper rifle still cradled in her arms.
“I am sorry,” he whispered, walking up to stand at her shoulder.
It was a long time before she even turned to look at him. “Sorry,” she murmured, almost spitting the word from her mouth. “We have been abandoned here.” Estere turned toward him, and a chill went down his spine at the look in her eyes. “They slay our people as they sleep, and when we strike back, your President calls us terrorists. We fight for our liberty,” she continued, her voice trembling, “nothing more. And nothing less.”
She fell silent once more as Sirvan came up to join them. “Regular army,” he announced grimly. “Likely in retaliation for our ambush two weeks ago.”
A shovel was in his left hand, and he tossed it to Thomas with the words, “Let us bury the dead.”
Thomas took it without a word and followed the young Kurd through the streets of the village. Yet even later, as they dug the graves, he could not get Estere’s face out of his mind. The look in her eyes. He had seen it, so many times before, in the eyes of his comrades through the years. The look of death.
Your President calls us terrorists…
6:04 A.M. Eastern Time
The Oval Office
Washington, D.C.
“So, we’re negotiating with terrorists, are we?”
David Lay lifted his eyes from the folder in front of him to meet President Hancock’s gaze. “PJAK’s status has been a matter of dispute over the years. Under the previous administration, they were removed from the US terrorism watch list.”
“A mistake I was quick to rectify,” Hancock interjected coldly, cutting the DCIA off. “Did you know about this, Lawrence?”
Lawrence Bell, the National Intelligence Director, shook his head slowly. “I was not briefed on the situation till late yesterday afternoon. By then PJAK had already sequestered our agent.”
The President turned back to Lay. “Is there a reason you did not send this through the appropriate channels, director?”
Lay sighed. This was going about the way he had expected. Not well. “With all due respect, Mr. President, the situation was moving very fast. Our man was in danger of being picked up by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Given that possibility and the difficulties intrinsic to conducting an E amp;E through northwestern Iran, I authorized Director Kranemeyer to work our contacts with PJAK in order to secure our agents’ safety. I believe the actions of my people were necessary to avoid compromising the mission and I signed off on every step,” the DCIA finished boldly, his eyes locking with those of the President.
Hancock traded an irritated glance with the DNI, then turned back to Lay. “One of our agents is in the hands of Kurdish terrorists and you believe the mission isn’t compromised?”
He glanced down at the dossier in front of him, then went on without waiting for Lay to answer. “Director Bell informs me that you established some sort of quid pro quo with Badir in order to secure the return of our agent. What were the terms of this agreement?”
“An agreement pending your authorization, Mr. President,” Lay replied, choosing his words carefully.
“Of course. What were the terms?”
The DCIA took a deep breath. This was going to be the difficult part. “Badir is in need of surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs-Stingers, more specifically. He has requested a shipment in exchange for delivering our agent to our forces in Iraq.”
Hancock’s expression didn’t change. “So,” he said finally, “we’re now paying for the release of a hostage, is that it?”
“I would prefer not to put it in those terms, Mr. President,” Lay said with a grimace. “Look upon it rather as rewarding Badir for his services. One could hardly expect the man to risk his forces for nothing.”
“And when an Iranian airliner is brought down on final approach to Tehran, what then?” the President demanded.
“There will be nothing to tie the missile to us,” Lay responded without the barest hint of compunction. “We can easily forge armory records in Germany to show a theft. In the end, sir, a crate of SAMs is far more deniable than an American agent.”
“I will need time to consider the decision,” Hancock replied finally. “In the mean time, I want you to keep a lid on this thing. Do you understand?”
“Of course. Also, we are launching an internal investigation to determine the source of the leak which initially compromised Operation TALON.”
“Very good, director,” Hancock pronounced. “That will be all, I believe. I’ll let you get back to running your agency.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.” Lay rose, exiting the Oval Office past the Secret Service agents stationed at the door.
Hancock waited until the door closed behind the CIA director before turning to Lawrence Bell.
“Something further, Mr. President?” the DNI asked.
“I think we both know the efficacy of ‘internal’ investigations, Lawrence. Have the FBI launch a probe into the matter…”