12:07 A.M. Tehran Time, September 30th
The Alborz Mountains
The temperature fell quickly in the mountains after the setting of the sun. Harun Larijani rubbed his hands together vigorously before scanning the valley again through a pair of night-vision binoculars.
Waiting. The young colonel did not count patience among his virtues. His men were tense, as well, the battalion of Revolutionary Guards at his command. The Kurds should have walked into the trap by now.
That they had not indicated things were not going according to plan. The thought made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Maybe they were watching him…
Harun dismissed the thought angrily, turning his focus back to the task at hand. Fear had no more place in his future than mercy did.
A cold chill seemed to seize hold of him as he remembered his uncle’s words of the previous morning.
“…no true Muslim will stand by and let the desecration go unavenged. The slaughter of peaceful worshipers will bring the condemnation of the world down upon the head of Israel. No one will stand by her side when war comes.”
“And what of us?” he had asked. “What judgment must befall us for the sacrilege?”
He would never forget the light in Shirazi’s eyes as he crossed the room to lay a hand on his shoulder. “Sacrilege?” his uncle asked. “There is no sacrilege in destroying the infidel. Remember the words of the hadith-paradise is found ‘neath the shade of swords.”
So it was, in very truth. Harun stamped his feet in an attempt to restore circulation to his freezing toes, steeling himself against the doubts that plagued his soul.
This was the will of Allah…
3:57 P.M. Eastern Time
Dulles International Airport
Virginia
The call came just as Harry had checked his bags. “Afternoon, Danny. What’s the good word?”
“Not good,” Daniel Lasker replied. “Our back-up team arrived on-site at Richards’ apartment in Falls Church to find Agent Sarami lying near the back of the apartment, knocked unconscious. His gun and satellite phone were both stolen, along with his wallet. We’re doing an inventory on the apartment as we speak, but nothing seems to have been disturbed.”
“Blast it!” Harry exclaimed in frustration, startling the woman in line ahead of him. “I told him to stay put. Any luck running the tags on that Suburban?”
“That’s where it get’s interesting, Harry. We ran it through the Homeland Security intranet, but the Bureau has put a Level-1 Priority block on the tag. Our best guess is that they’re running a big investigation and-”
“Don’t want other agencies stepping on their toes,” Harry finished for him, thinking aloud. If anyone had thought that the bureaucratic infighting would be cleared up by the reorganization following the 9/11 attacks, they should have known better. If anything, things had only gotten worse.
“Does Kranemeyer want me to come back to Langley? I’ve not boarded yet.”
“No. Everything is still go-mission. Contact information for Richards will be uploaded to your TACSAT when you land in Israel. He’s in position.”
“Copy that.”
3:05 A.M. Tehran Time
The Alborz Mountains
Iran
It was cold on the valley floor, the type of cold that makes up in bitterness what it lacks in actual temperature. The two men waited in the shadow of the cliff, out of the sight of any watchers.
“Thanks for coming,” Thomas said after a long moment.
“My sister told me to bring you back alive,” was the reply, Sirvan’s tone filled with amusement.
Thomas flushed, thankful for the darkness to hide his face. He could still see the look in Estere’s eyes as the two of them had left camp-the look of a proud young woman holding her emotions fiercely in check.
The young Kurd cleared his throat. “Time?”
“Five minutes to drop,” Thomas replied, cupping a hand round the luminous dial of his dive watch.
The silence was well-nigh unbearable, just a faint breeze there below the cliff. Thomas found himself holding his breath, waiting senselessly for the sound of airplane engines. They would be flying too high, he knew that. Coming in with their transponder disguised as that of an airliner.
The laser designator was there, fifty meters ahead of them, hidden in the scrub brush of the valley floor.
Waiting.
It came like a ghost out of the night, the parachute a faint shadow in the pale light of the crescent moon.
The two men exchanged a tight-lipped smile before leaving their cover. So far, so good…
4:21 P.M. Eastern Time
Cypress, Virginia
“They’re not leaving,” the man announced grimly, eyeing the old antebellum mansion with binoculars aimed through the tinted windshield of the Suburban.
“You read the audio transcripts, Vic,” his companion retorted. “A security detachment was dispatched twenty minutes after you took out Sarami.”
The man called “Vic” sighed. “Call the rest of the team and tell them to rendevous with us in Falls Church. Time for Plan B.”
“Plan B?”
“Sit tight and wait,” came the terse reply.
3:25 A.M.
The village
Iran
They drifted into the village from the north, a pair of strange, misshapen figures shuffling awkwardly forward.
The thick biosuits made communication difficult, so the two men communicated largely by hand signals, punctuated by an occasional hissed instruction.
Death hung over the village like a cloud as they moved forward, picking their way through the detritus of human life. Mutants in the land of the dead.
A girl of perhaps five years of age lay across the threshold of her home, her face still distorted in the agony of death, her body bloated from a day in the sun. Thomas looked down for a moment in pity, then passed on. He could hear Sirvan whispering a prayer behind him.
They both stopped beside the body of a middle-aged Kurdish man, lying on his belly in the dust of the street. His arm was splayed out from his side, the flesh ridged with black veins of blood.
Thomas looked over at Sirvan and saw the Kurd nod through the helmet of his biosuit. The two men knelt by the body and Thomas drew his combat knife, laying it beside him as he moved to roll the body over.
Suddenly, Sirvan’s hand descended on his arm with a grasp of iron as a gasp broke from the Kurd’s lips.
“Stop!” he hissed, never slackening his grip.
“What?” Thomas demanded in surprise.
Sirvan’s index finger shot out, pointing below the dead man’s armpit. There, stretching from beneath the bloated body, barely visible in the shadow, was a thin wire.
The corpse was booby-trapped.
“A pressure trigger,” Sirvan whispered, struggling to make himself understood. “If we roll the body from off the mine…”
He didn’t need to finish. Thomas knew all too well what he was talking about. A bouncing betty. Once the pressure came off the trigger, the mine would bounce two or three feet into the air and detonate, spraying shrapnel in every direction.
His skin crawled at the thought. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.
“Why the wire?” he asked at length, unsure as to whether it was simply a back-up mechanism, or something more sinister.
Having apparently wondered the same thing himself, Sirvan’s fingers were already tracing their way along the wire, careful not to touch the thin strand separating them from death.
“More explosives,” he hissed a moment later, pointing to the house on the other side of the street, pantomiming an explosion from its walls. “A trip-wire,” Sirvan announced, coming back to Thomas’s side. “Tension-sensitive.”
Thomas nodded, understanding what he meant perfectly. Trip wires were often activated by pressure against them, essentially pulling a trigger. This was a dead man switch at its most basic. Whether tension was applied or relieved, the end result was the same.
Annihilation.
“Can it be disarmed?” Thomas asked. He already knew the answer, so it didn’t surprise him when Sirvan shook his head “no”.
“We do not have the time,” the Kurd replied. “Given daylight, I could try. Now-no. I was ordered to bring you back in one piece, remember?”
Thomas laughed, the tension broken for a bare moment in time. “Then, we move on?”
Sirvan looked ahead, his eyes probing the dust of the street. “No. Look there-and there. Claymores.”
Something was wrong. Very wrong. Thomas could feel his skin crawl, and his eyes searched the darkness for an unseen enemy. This had been prepared-for them, for someone…
He picked up his knife and thrust it back into its ankle sheath. “Then that leaves us with the child,” he said slowly.
Sirvan nodded with equal reluctance.
The two men moved cautiously back to where the little girl lay, their eyes on the ground now, watching ever so carefully for the telltale signs of disturbed earth.
Thomas knelt by the corpse, an unspoken question in his eyes as he glanced over at Sirvan. Was the child’s body mined?
Sirvan extracted a thin, wicked-looking knife from a sheath under his armpit and slid it under the girl’s body, probing gently.
“A grenade,” he announced a moment later, his voice curiously emotionless. “She’s lying on the spoon of a hand grenade. The pin’s gone.”
Thomas nodded, his mind running through their options, considering and rejecting each scenario in turn.
Finally he drew his combat knife and motioned to Sirvan. “Hold the body still.”
There was pain in the Kurd’s eyes as he took his place at the girl’s head, pinning her arms tight to hold the corpse completely still.
Thomas reached up with the knife in his hand, gently slicing away her garments until the thin, malnourished torso lay exposed in the moonlight, the flesh blackened by the spread of the plague.
A muffled curse broke from Sirvan’s lips and Thomas took a deep breath, the oppressive heat of the biosuit suddenly closing in upon him.
His fingers trembled as they closed once more on the hilt of the knife. He had never been a religious man, but his actions seemed suddenly obscene.
Thomas raised the knife above the corpse, looking down into the girl’s eyes, wide-open and staring with death. “God forgive me,” he whispered.
And the knife swung down…
3:40 A.M.
There were only two men. Harun could hardly understand it. Their garb puzzled him even more. They were wearing what looked like Western-made biological warfare suits. It was as though they had been prepared.
It would not do to expose the full force of the men under his command to deal with these two. They needed to be taken out quickly.
He turned to the sniper at his side. “Can you take them?”
The soldier nodded. “I could make sure of it closer in.”
“Then do so.”
“Tubes,” Thomas ordered. Sirvan passed the sample tubes over from the bio-kit wordlessly.
Working carefully, Thomas squeezed the syringe in his right hand, filling the tubes with the black blood. The cassettes filled with tissue already lay in their tray of formalin at his feet.
He replaced the tubes in the bio-kit and closed the lid, his fingers trembling at the thought of the death that reposed inside.
“We’re done here,” he announced, his voice flat and void of elation. One glance at the gutted body of the girl-child at his feet robbed him of any joy he might have felt.
Sirvan nodded, touching the girl’s forehead with a gloved hand as he rose. “This is what they have done to my people,” he whispered, anger present in his tones.
Thomas started to speak, started to respond to his friend’s question, when suddenly the report of a rifle shot exploded from the heights to the east.
The young Kurd groaned in almost the same instant, pitching slightly forward and staggering against the side of the house.
He caught himself at the last moment, a hand clutched tightly to his left side. Blood seeped from between his fingers.
Things seemed to slow down. Thomas reached forward, shoving Sirvan to the ground just as the sniper fired again.
Two shots. Harun swore in frustration as he watched the men start to move. They had wounded one, but they were still mobile, running now toward the edge of the village.
All at once, the faint crack of a rifle smote his ears and the sniper beside him collapsed into his arms, the top of his head blown off.
Splattered with blood, the young colonel dove for the cover of the rocks, unslinging his AK-47 as he lay there. His marksman was dead. His fingers felt wooden, clumsy as he toggled his field radio on. They needed fire support…
They reached the edge of the village in a weird, halting run, Sirvan’s arm flung over Thomas’s shoulder as he struggled to support the Kurd.
No more shots followed their footsteps. “Estere,” Sirvan whispered. “She took them out.”
Thomas nodded, then pushed him on, his heart hammering against his chest as they moved across the rocky terrain. No time. Wherever the Iranians were right now, they would be on their heels soon.
The first Katyusha rocket came in at a low trajectory, exploding in the village behind them.
Thomas looked back in shock, watching the village go up in a fireball, the concealed explosives adding to the conflagration.
The Iranians had been waiting for them. He slipped an arm around Sirvan’s waist and pushed on, toward the mountain path. They could still make it, if only…
In the shadow of the mountain, Sirvan pulled away from him, standing there swaying weakly in the pale moonlight. “It’s done, my friend,” he whispered, coughing as he did so. Flecks of blood stained the visor of his bio-suit.
Thomas stared at him, unable to speak, though the protests rose to his lips.
Sirvan put a hand to his side, leaning back against the wall of rock. “Tell me the truth-when the suit is punctured-the bacteria…”
Thomas nodded wordlessly.
“Then there’s nothing to be done,” the Kurd continued, his words more a statement than a question. “Give me an extra magazine.”
“I’m not leaving you here,” Thomas retorted, finding his voice at last.
Sirvan didn’t respond at first, just stared off into the night at the fires lighting up the village. Another rocket slammed into the mountainside above their heads and seemed to goad him into speaking.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said finally, holding out a hand toward him. “One of us needs to live.”
Thomas drew a loaded mag from the pouch at his waist and placed it in Sirvan’s outstretched hand.
“Good luck,” he whispered, the words falling empty and banal from his lips. Good luck, indeed. A meaningless wish to one whose luck had run out.
Sirvan nodded, laying the AK-47 on the rock ledge in front of him. Preparing to do battle. “May Allah go with you, my brother.”
Thomas turned away, picking up the bio-kit and disappearing into the darkness…
Ten minutes passed as the young Kurd waited, leaning forward against the ledge of rock he had propped his rifle upon. His side was numb, and he was weakening, weakening by the moment as the wound in his side continued to bleed. He had taken off his gloves and shoved them into the bullet hole, as a rude bandage. It wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t need to.
Everything seemed plain and crisp, as though the hastening approach of death had served to clear his mind. A stone dislodged on the path below him, its rattle warning him of the approach of his enemy. He picked up the assault rifle and held it tightly, his knuckles whitening around the pistol grip, the folding stock extended fully against his shoulder.
It couldn’t be much longer. He prayed that it would not be-that the Iranians would come while he still possessed the strength to fight them.
Another rocket slammed into the mountain above him, the explosion lighting up the night sky. There-a flash of movement on the path, silhouetted so briefly. He dug into the rucksack at his waist and brought out a grenade.
He waited, listening, then pulled the pin with his teeth, rolling the grenade ever so gently over the ledge.
It bounced once on the rock below him, then exploded. Screams. Sirvan smiled, his cheek pressed against the folding stock of his Kalishnikov as he aimed down the path.
A head appeared in his line of vision and he swung the rifle to cover it, triggering off a short burst. The man moaned and collapsed, his body sprawling on the ground.
He should have moved after the first shots. He knew that. But his body was drained of its strength. So weak. So he stayed where he was.
He saw an Iranian soldier dragging a wounded comrade off the path, to the shelter of the rocks. Both of them were dead a moment later, as he calmly took aim and fired, killing first the helper, then the wounded man.
And still he stayed.
A movement out of the corner of his eye alerted him to danger and he threw himself against the rock, bringing the AK to bear on the threat. Knowing even as he did so that he was too late.
His mind barely registered the man standing there among the rocks before the pistol in the man’s hand exploded in fire…
Harun lowered the Makarov semiautomatic and walked forward, to where the body of the intruder lay crumpled against the mountainside. The mask of the biosuit was half-off and he could clearly see the man’s face. He was a Kurd.
And he was still living. As Harun moved closer, the intruder turned his head and spat in contempt, a filthy stream of phlegm and blood.
Harun raised his pistol and shot the man once more, between the eyes.
1:57 A.M. Local Time
The marina
Eilat, Israel
The marina at night was not a quiet place, light splashing across the water from a thousand boats filled with tourists.
Everyone seemed to be playing their own brand of music, and the ocean itself seemed to move to the discordant beat.
Chaim Berkowitz walked along the pier, a deliberately insolent swagger to his step as he moved in and out of the crowd of tourists. An FN Five-SeveN pistol was tucked into his waistband, covered by the loose Hawaiian shirt he wore. The suitcase in his left hand held a field-stripped Remington M24 sniper rifle.
A few moments later, the GPS unit in his cellphone beeped and he paused, looking left and right. Ahead of him, in the alcove of a boathouse, was where he would set up his hide.
Time to move…
3:57 A.M. Tehran Time
Alborz Mountains
Iran
Thomas didn’t need to look back. The brief bursts of gunfire and abrupt silence following immediately thereafter told him the whole story.
His friend was dead.
He moved more quickly now, his bio-suit discarded in the swift-flowing mountain stream a hundred meters back, a crude procedure Langley had recommended for cleansing himself of the toxin. Heavy as his clothes now were with water, he could move freely.
Voices sounded ahead of him, a body of Kurdish fighters moving down the mountain. Another moment and Azad Badir appeared, at the head of a score of rebels. At the sight of Thomas he held up a hand to halt his men.
“Did you retrieve the samples?” the guerrilla leader asked, seeming only then to realize that Thomas was alone.
Estere appeared behind him, her face pale as she stared into his eyes.
Thomas saw her lips form the question, and in that instant it felt as though his heart would break.
“He’s gone,” he whispered, unable to say more.
“No,” she responded, shooting him a look of fragile defiance as she shook her head. She placed a hand against the trunk of a nearby tree to steady herself. “No.”
Badir stepped forward, placing a hand on his granddaughter’s shoulder. “Allah has appointed unto us a time for mourning,” he began, his own voice trembling with emotion, “but it is not now. Mr. Patterson, I trust that you were successful in your mission?”
Thomas nodded, a lump forming in his throat. “I was.”
The Kurd spoke sharply in his native tongue and the guerrillas began to scatter, taking up defensive positions farther down the mountain. In a few moments, it was only the three of them standing there by the tree.
“The time has come for us to part,” Badir announced, turning back to Thomas.
Thomas nodded in reply, but the old man wasn’t done.
“My granddaughter will guide you to the border,” he continued. “In a cave twelve kilometers to the west you will find two horses. They are young and strong, and should make the journey easily.”
“I do not know how I could repay this kindness,” Thomas responded formally.
“I do,” was Badir’s blunt reply. “I want you to escort Estere across the border to Qandil Mount. Our people are there and she can find safety in their ranks.”
“But what about you?” Estere exclaimed, seizing hold of the old man’s arm, anger not unmixed with grief in her voice.
A burst of rifle fire from down the mountainside served as the answer to her question. Badir unslung the Kalishnikov from his shoulder, extending the stock with a single, purposeful motion.
“I am a soldier!” she hissed, fighting back tears as he turned away from her. “My place is here!”
The old shepherd cast a final look back over his shoulder. “If you are to be counted a soldier, you must follow the orders you have been given. Take our friend to the Qandil. Do not return.”
5:00 A.M.
Isfahan, Iran
Hossein was standing on the steps of the mosque when his cellphone went off. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced at the screen before answering. It was the Supreme Leader.
“Good morning.”
“I don’t think so,” came the reply, sending a chill down the major’s spine. “It’s begun…”
7:13 A.M. Local Time
Eilat, Israel
The job had taken all night, but it was done at last. Farouk leaned forward, placing his laptop on the hood of the explosives-filled Jeep Grand Cherokee.
“You will drive here along the road,” he instructed, tracing an imaginary line across the on-screen map. “Then turn into the Hotels Zone. Park here-approximately two hundred meters from the Crowne Plaza Hotel. You will await my call to close in on your target, which will be approximately-here.”
A young jihadist from the Eilat cell nodded, his face pale with excitement. Farouk turned away to hide a smile of contempt.
It would be the young man’s first and last mission. He had been chosen for a reason. Simply put, he had not shown enough skill to justify continuing his training. So, he was expendable.
The Hezbollah leader fingered the cellphone in the pocket of his jeans. The bomb was wired for remote detonation should the boy’s nerve fail at the last moment of the suicide mission, as it often did.
Sad, he mused, that devotion to Allah should waver in the face of death. Had they not read the sacred verses of the Quran?
7:59 A.M.
The Crowne Plaza Hotel
Eilat, Israel
“I think I’ve got it here.”
“What is it, Sarah?” Gideon asked, still focused on the Uzi submachine gun he was loading.
“I’ve got the name,” the young woman replied, looking up from her laptop.“Nichols is registered here at the Crowne Plaza under the name Joseph Isaac. Fifth floor, room 347.”
Laner laid the gun on the bed and crossed the hotel room to stand behind her, his hand resting easily on her shoulder. “Good work-how hard was he to find?”
“Not hard,” she responded, smiling up at him as she touched his fingers lightly. “The hotel system was an easy job-a relatively simple firewall backed by Blowfish encryption. Once in, they scan the photo IDs provided at the desk and store them on the intranet. It was just a matter of cross-referencing the photos with our database and Nichols came up. Apparently, he’s a low-level diplomat with the U.S. State Department, because he’s traveling under a diplomatic passport.”
Gideon chuckled, his hand moving to stroke her mane of dark hair. “Not the last time I checked.”
He walked back across the room and replaced the Uzi in its specially-designed briefcase, casting an affectionate glance back at the young woman as she returned to her work.
In addition to being the resident tech expert, Sarah Halevy was a bat leveyha, an escort agent whose task on this particular assignment consisted of posing as his spouse.
They had worked together before, and although official Mossad regulations prohibited romantic entanglements between personnel, in reality it prevented very little. Gideon cast a glance around the room where they had spent the night and smiled with the realization. They had moved beyond acting a long time ago.
“Do we have confirmation from Chaim and Yossi?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sarah replied without looking up. “They are in position as of 0300 hours. Currently-Eiland has the gun.”
10:08 A.M. Tehran Time
The Alborz Mountains
Iran
“The cave is just ahead.” Thomas’s head came up at the sound of her voice-the first words she had spoken since they had left the band of peshmerga. They had walked the twelve kilometers in dark, brooding silence, silence broken only by the rattle of small-arms fire from the east, punctuated by the occasional scream of a rocket.
Turning a corner in the mountain path, he saw the cave, there in the side of a cliff and nearly invisible to the casual eye, obscured by a carefully planted screen of pistachio trees.
“A mountain shepherd tends to the needs of the animals,” Estere explained, pushing her way through the brush covering the entrance. “The border peoples are forbidden to own horses, but the order is disregarded more often than not, particularly by those friendly to our cause.”
He ducked his head to enter the cave behind her, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. There, in rough-hewn stalls cut into the side of the mountain, were stabled two large horses, a black and a dappled grey. Slinging her rifle over her shoulder, Estere walked into the stalls and brought out the mounts, one by one.
“This is Kejal, the gazelle,” she announced, handing the reins of the grey to Thomas. He looked up at the massive flank of the horse and grimaced, suddenly feeling rather foolish.
He had just begun to place a foot in the stirrups when her voice arrested him. “No, no. Kejal is my horse. You will ride Bahoz, the black.”
“Oh,” he responded, flushing in spite of himself. She reappeared in a moment leading a black stallion that seemed even larger than the grey, if that were possible.
She took the reins of Kejal from his hand and swung herself into the saddle with the grace of a bird.
Oh well, here goes, Thomas thought, placing one foot in the stirrup in an attempt to swing himself up.
Something went wrong-he would never quite figure out what-but he ended up on the dirt floor of the cave, rolling over in a crude approximation of the parachute landing fall as Bahoz shied away in fear, a loud whinny of protest issuing from the stallion’s mouth.
“What is going on?” cried Estere, grasping the reins of Bahoz in one hand while trying to calm her own mount.
Thomas picked himself up and stared at her, a hot flush of embarrassment once again spreading across his face. “I–I’ve never ridden a horse before,” he responded.
“You haven’t?” Her tones were filled with disbelief.
He shook his head with a wry grin. “Never actually been this close to a horse before, let alone ridden one.”
She muttered something in Kurdish under her breath-what, he didn’t know, but he was sure it wasn’t complimentary.
“Let me dismount,” she said after a long moment, “and I’ll show you. And here-give me your gun, we don’t need that going off.”
10:39 A.M. Local Time
The Eilat Marina
Israel
“It’s been thirty minutes,” Yossi Eiland announced, checking his watch. “Time to shift over.”
Moving cautiously in the small confines of the hide, the two men traded places, Chaim Berkowitz taking his place behind the bipod-mounted Remington. “I have the gun,” he announced into his lip mike. It was standard protocol to rotate shooter and spotter every thirty minutes. Any longer and field studies showed a degradation in situational awareness.
He nestled down, pressing the buttstock against his shoulder as his eyes focused in on the scope.
Suddenly Eiland reached over and tapped him on the shoulder. “We’ve got a subject at your two o’clock. Is that him?”
Chaim swung the barrel of the M24 around, the cross-hairs resting on the subject’s face. It matched the file photo they had been shown, older, to be certain-but a positive match.
“We’ve got Harold Nichols at the south entrance of the hotel. He appears to be making a phone call. Do you copy?”
Gideon’s voice came crystal clear over the comm channel. “Yes. I’ve got Nathan following him. Sarah tried to tap into his cell phone frequency, but she’s not getting anywhere. Our best guess is that it’s the new-gen CIA TACSAT.”
“What are we looking at, Tex?” Harry asked, looking out over the palm-shadowed courtyard of the hotel. A swimming pool nestled in the middle of the courtyard and it was already crowded with tourists taking advantage of a mid-morning swim. Or splash, which seemed to be what most of them were doing.
“Hard to say, really,” came the Texan’s laconic reply. “I’ve been on the scope for an hour-no sign of the Israeli agents yet.”
Harry cast a cautious look back inside the lobby restaurant. “I’ve got one of them on my tail if I don’t miss my mark. Youngish guy, mid-twenties I’d say, medium-build. He’s wearing a photographer’s vest, my guess is he’s packin’. Carries himself like an operator.”
“I’ll keep an eye out.”
“You do that, I’m going to call Langley and give them an update. Hour and fifteen minutes till showtime.”
“Blast it!” Sarah Halevy exploded, pulling off her headphones and throwing them to the floor in frustration. “I almost had him.”
“Easy, love,” Gideon replied. “What were you able to get?”
“I ran a trace on some of the diplomatic communications channels that American intelligence typically uses. Sure enough, he’s using one of them. Here’s the thing-it’s a satellite phone, so I can track the satellites he’s using to bounce the signal.”
“So?”
“So, I was able to ascertain that he’s placing a call to someone here in Israel. Another couple minutes and I could have run a locator trace on their phone as well.”
“You’re saying he may have back-up here in Eilat?”
“Maybe. Just two or three more minutes and I could have known for sure.” She glared at the laptop as though it was responsible for the failure.
Gideon placed his hands on her shoulders and began to knead the tight muscles there. “Don’t be so tense,” he admonished, leaning over her. “Just relax.”
“Right…”
4:15 A.M. Eastern Time
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
“What’s the latest?” Barney Kranemeyer demanded, arriving in the NCS op-center like a gust of wind.
Carter looked up from his terminal. “Not much. According to a call we got from Nichols about thirty minutes ago, everything’s still on course. He’s got a Mossad agent tailing him, but that’s to be expected.”
“As much for his protection as anything else,” Kranemeyer added.
Carter acknowledged that comment with an affirmative nod. The senior analyst yawned and took another sip from the coffee mug at his desk. The clothes he wore looked like they had been slept in, his tie pulled loose from his throat, the shirt wrinkled like an accordion, his pants devoid of crease, giving him the over-all appearance of a bedraggled starling.
Kranemeyer stared at the bank of screens filling one wall of the op-center. “We should have positioned more assets,” he stated, filled with sudden misgivings.
“How?” the analyst asked rhetorically. “What did you want to do, activate Station Tel Aviv’s strike team? The Israelis don’t miss that much. I think we were lucky to get Richards in the back-door.”
“Maybe so.” Kranemeyer never looked away from the screens in front of him. “It’s important that we emerge from this one on top. This isn’t a game anymore.”
Carter drained his mug and cast a weary look in the direction of the DCS. “I don’t think you need to worry. Nichols doesn’t know how to play games.”
11:25 A.M. Local Time
Crowne Park Plaza Hotel
Eilat, Israel
The cleaning cart rumbled down the hall on the fifth floor of the hotel, its wheels creaking ponderously.
Fayood al-Farouk’s eyes roved from left to right as he proceeded along the hallway, scanning for threats.
A door opened behind him and he looked carefully back just in time to see a young couple exit, the man’s arm wrapped around the waist of a dark-haired Sabra girl. Farouk smiled. Such would serve him in paradise.
Five rooms down, he stopped and knocked on the door. The rattle of a chain greeted the knock and the face of a young man stared out.
“Salaam alaikum.”
“Alaikum salaam, my brethren.”
With another judicious glance down the corridor, he pushed the cart inside and closed the door behind them, hearing the lock click into place. Two men occupied the hotel room, both young Palestinians in their early twenties.
The bag on the side of the cart held a pair of stripped-down Kalishnikov assault rifles and loaded magazines for both. With a quick, cat-like movement, Farouk moved to the balcony door of the suite, pulling the blinds aside just long enough to glance out.
It was eighty, maybe a hundred meters to the courtyard where he had been told the meeting would go down.
“Remember,” he instructed, turning back to his men. “Do not fire until our brother has given his life.”
11:45 A.M.
“He’s at your eight o’clock,” the voice in Sarah’s ear observed. The young woman withstood the temptation to turn her head in the direction indicated. Instead, she focused her attention on massaging the sunscreen lotion into the skin of her arms, protection against the sun beating down upon her body through the spotty shade of the palm fronds above.
“He’s coming your way,” Yossi’s voice announced once more through the earbud.
She glanced over to where Gideon reclined on a pool chair a few feet from her own. He looked deceptively relaxed, the sunglasses hiding his eyes.
“Do my back,” she asked, extending the bottle of lotion toward him. Gideon stood and walked over to her, suddenly alert at her use of the prearranged code. She handed him the bottle of lotion and sat up, leaning forward on the lounge chair.
“Where?”Gideon asked, his mouth close to her ear.
“Ten o’clock,” Sarah whispered back. “Moving this way.”
“Coming in early?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“That would be Nichols,” Gideon admitted with a wry smile. He wiped his hands on the front of his khaki shorts and turned back to his chair, deliberately not looking in Nichols’s direction.
Sarah capped the bottle of lotion and reached down, unzipping the pack beside her chair and dropping the bottle in, right beside her 9mm Glock.
She had no sooner finished zipping up the pack than a shadow fell across her chair and she looked up into the startlingly blue eyes of the American.
“Good morning,” Harry said, flashing a quick smile at the bat leveyha before turning his attention to Gideon. The Israeli commando waved his hand casually and removed his shades. “Early, Harry?”
“As always,” was the reply. “Still looking for the Messiah, Gideon?”
Gideon laughed. “Tell you what, Harry. If He shows up and says ‘This place looks familiar’, put in a good word for me. On the other hand, if He hasn’t been here before, I’ll tell him you’re a mensch.”
A chuckle escaped Harry’s lips as he pulled up a lounge chair and sat down across from the couple. What had started as a joke before their mission into the Bekaa four years previous had become their own personal code. The meeting was cleared to proceed.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Gideon said with a smile, sitting up in the chair. It was only then that he realized he no longer had Harry’s attention.
Sarah looked up to meet the American’s gaze, suddenly aware of just why Nichols was not wearing sunglasses. His eyes were weapons.
She found the expression on his face as difficult to place as it was unsettling. It was not the sort of look a man might typically give a woman. She knew that look all too well. Rather it carried an air of cool, detached confidence. A threat assessment, she realized with a start.
He broke the stare after a long, awkward moment and when he next spoke, it was to address Gideon. “Would you tell your lady friend to get rid of the wire?”
Laner just stared back at him for a moment, a look of disbelief on his face. Then he started laughing. “Take it off, Sarah.”
Harry held out a hand as the woman removed a tiny earbud headset from her right ear. She shot a look at Gideon as though awaiting orders. He nodded, and she placed the small headset in Harry’s palm.
“May I ask how you noticed?” Gideon asked, still chuckling.
“You may,” Harry replied, placing the earbud on the concrete of the courtyard and casually crushing it with a downward thrust of his foot, “but I’m not going to tell you.”
“Fair enough,” Gideon agreed, glancing over at Sarah. Her attention was still focused on Nichols, the expression on her face somewhere between anger and annoyance.
“Now, let’s get down to business,” Harry continued, “why did you ask to meet with me?”
“I think we have something you want. And you have something we need.” Gideon paused for a moment, well aware of the ambiguity of his statement. It was only the opening dance.
“Is that so?”
11:53 A.M.
“Do we have two? I know, I know-but we need two,” Farouk protested, the cellphone tight against his ear as he moved along the promenade.
“Hold off a few more minutes-maybe the other American will show up. Yes, we must get both of them. No, you may not. Move on my command only.”
11:55 A.M.
“And what would be the nature of this exchange you speak of?”
Gideon looked across at Harry, aware that he must answer the question, and quickly. This was poker-sometimes you needed to play it close to the vest, sometimes you needed to bluff-let the other fellow believe you were holding a full house.
Time to bluff. “Five days ago, you took a CIA strike team into the Alborz Mountains of Iran. Your mission: to rescue an international team of archaeologists.”
The American’s expression didn’t change. For a moment Gideon wondered if he had even heard the statement.
“That a fact?” Harry asked, his face slowly breaking into a grin. “It’s always fascinating to hear the stories of what I’ve not done.”
He leaned forward in his chair, staring intently into Gideon’s face. “Listen, you need something, so why don’t you cut the bull and tell me what it is?”
Harry watched the Israeli’s eyes, clearly reading the struggle there. A child ran between their chairs, chasing an over-sized beach ball, and the conversation fell silent for a moment.
A few hundred meters down the street, a Jeep Grand Cherokee pulled out of traffic and parked near the entrance to the resort, almost seeming incongruous among the expensive European cars that swarmed the waterfront. Harry took note and logged it away before turning his attention back to the matters at hand.
“Dr. Moshe Tal,” Gideon began slowly. “He was the leader of the team of archaeologists I mentioned.”
Harry nodded, his face betraying no signs of recognition.
“Tal was an archaeologist, but he was also a patriot. And a Mossad agent.”
“Was?” Harry asked, moving with caution. “Tal has died?”
Laner shook his head. “No. He was sent into Iran to excavate the ancient city of Rhodaspes. That was his cover. In reality, he was in communication with the Ayatollah Isfahani, helping subvert the Shirazi government.”
“The Supreme Leader?”
“The same. There are-there were rifts to be exploited. The potential for actionable intelligence, if not regime change on a massive scale.”
The Jeep was still parked in the same place, Harry noticed, a sense of disquiet growing inside him. Something didn’t seem right. From where he sat, he could see the driver out of the corner of his eye, still seated behind the wheel. He hadn’t moved.
There were no passengers.
“May I ask why it had to be Tal?” he asked. “Why did he need to be in-country?”
“Isfahani has a passion for archaeology that is only surpassed by his love of Persia. It was necessary to place Dr. Tal inside Iran so that they would have a reason for communication.”
“Code, I take it?”
“To be sure. And something went wrong,” Laner added.
“I see.”
“We lost all contact with the archaeologists on the 13th, after an odd distress call was received from Tal. As you know, satellite imagery showed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards setting up a base camp on the plateau near the dig.”
Harry’s face didn’t change, though inside he was chuckling. The Israeli had lost none of his wiles. “How would I know that?” he inquired innocently, casting a sideways glance toward the entrance of the resort. The Jeep was still there. The driver still inside.
“As you said earlier, Harry, let’s cut the bull,” Gideon replied, his voice level. “You know I’m right.”
“I know you’re fishing,” came the reply. Harry held up his hand as the Israeli started to continue. “I know this is a sensitive question, but-”
“Since when has that stopped you?”
“First off, you didn’t tell me that you would have surveillance teams in place, shadowing my every movement.”
Gideon laughed. “I would have considered it an insult to your professionalism to have done so. You know the score.”
“That I do,” Harry replied evenly, gesturing with a quick jerk of his head. “Tell me, the guy in the Jeep, is he one of yours?”
Laner looked toward the entrance of the Crowne Park Plaza resort, his eyes narrowing as they focused in on the parked vehicle. “No. Been there for awhile?”
“Long enough to make me uncomfortable,” Harry replied.
The two men exchanged glances, an almost telepathic communication. “Sarah,” Gideon began, turning his head toward her, “be a love and get Yossi on the phone.”
Sarah nodded and reached over to where her cover-up lay on the chair, extracting a satellite phone from a pocket of the robe.
“Everything going all right?” Yossi asked, motioning for Chaim to take the gun. “We got worried when your comm unit went off-line.”
“The American spotted the wire,” Sarah replied, irritation in her voice. “We may have a problem-I need you to scope out the entrance. See the Jeep there about fifty feet from the entrance?”
Sarah listened for a couple moments, then turned off the phone. “The driver is a young Arab, probably late teens, early twenties. Yossi says he keeps looking down, as though he’s checking his watch.”
“Fits the profile,” Harry said finally.
“Yossi says they can take him out if you give the word,” the young woman added. “Chaim’s got a clean shot.”
Gideon shook his head. “We need more than that. Send Nathan over to check it out. Why don’t you go along to provide back-up,” he amended, after a moment’s thought.
Sarah nodded, pulling on the robe over her swimsuit. Harry cleared his throat, an odd grin spreading across his face. “Why don’t you take your handbag? Might not hurt to have that Glock.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then apparently thought better of it, shooting Harry a dirty look.
12:11 A.M.
Sweat was streaming in rivulets down his face, the sun heating the interior of the closed-up Grand Cherokee to an almost unbearable temperature. He tapped the steering wheel nervously, endeavoring to bring the verses of the Quran to remembrance. They would give him strength.
The cell phone lay silent in his pocket. Call! his mind screamed, desperate for the call to come before he lost his courage. Lost the nerve to sacrifice his own life for the jihad.
He could see the meeting place from where he sat, could see his targets. So close. And yet the phone remained silent.
“I’m moving.” Nathan Gur stepped through the pedestrian entrance of the resort, his hand slipped deep inside the pocket of his photographer’s vest, fingers wrapped around the butt of his Beretta 92.
The Jeep Wagoner was about fifty meters ahead of him, engine running and windows tightly closed. The young Israeli agent took a deep breath and began to move through the crowd. Toward his target.
About forty feet behind Gur, Sarah Halevy emerged from the resort, her handbag slung across her chest, the Glock easily accessible. How the American had seen it, she didn’t know. Gideon had told her Nichols was good, but his perception still took her off-guard. It was almost uncanny.
She banished the thoughts from her mind, focusing on the task at hand. The distance between her and Nathan was increasing-his bulk making it easier for him to elbow his way through the crowd. Where?
There he was-she caught sight of him again, working his way diagonally toward the parked Jeep. Sarah quickened her pace and began to close the gap…
Something was happening. Tex knew that much. The bat leveyha had left abruptly, making her way to the entrance of the resort before he lost sight of her in the crowd. Harry’s attitude had changed, tension pervading his body language.
Tex was laying on his stomach on the thick carpet of the hotel room, about five feet back from the opened balcony door. With the bipod-mounted FN-FAL, he could easily cover the courtyard from there.
“Kill them wherever you find them,” the young man whispered, reciting the sura under his breath, “and drive them out from whence they drove you out.”
He opened his eyes, calmed by the sacred words, and began scanning the crowd once more. A mindless sea of licentious Western tourists, careless of their danger. Invaders in the house of Islam…
And then he saw him. A big man, dressed in shorts and a tank top, a photographer’s vest over the upper half of his body, pushing his way through the crowd. Moving with purpose.
His calm evaporated like the morning dew. “Ya, Allah,” he gasped. Oh, God. He reached in his pocket for the cellphone, his fingers shaking uncontrollably.
There was no time. The realization smote him with the cold certainty of death. The Jew would be next to the vehicle in a few moments.
His trembling hand moved forward, fingers closing around the detonator…
“Something’s wrong,” Yossi observed, his binoculars aimed at the young Arab in the Jeep.
“This is MARKSMAN ONE, requesting permission to terminate.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Gideon’s voice came over the headset. “Execute.”
Almost in the same instant, the Jeep vanished in a fireball, the explosion’s concussive force spreading across the lagoon.
She was thirty-five meters from the Jeep when it blew up, the explosion knocking her to the ground. “Nathan!” Sarah screamed, her eyes watering as she stared through a spreading cloud of thick, oily smoke, into the explosion’s epicenter. There was no way anyone had survived.
Harry threw himself flat against the concrete of the courtyard as the explosion went off, flames and smoke arising from the entrance of the resort. He looked over to see Gideon still standing there, as though frozen in place.
Then the shooting started. First a single shot, barely audible over the screams of agony and fear arising from the resort, then the chatter of assault rifles on full-automatic.
“Move!” Harry yelled, scrambling to his feet and drawing his.45 in a single smooth motion. His voice seemed to jar Gideon into action and the Israeli grabbed up a suitcase from beside the overturned pool chair, extracting a Uzi submachine gun from its depths.
“Go! Go! Go!”
The Israeli sniper team was caught off-guard when the shooting started, Chaim well-nigh blinded by the explosion, Yossi several feet from the gun.
Tex swiveled the FN-FAL on its bipod, identifying the source of the hostile fire. Two men, kneeling on the bow of a boat in the marina. The scope’s cross-hairs centered on the forehead of one of the shooters and he squeezed the trigger.
Target eliminated, Tex thought coldly. The man collapsed, the top of his head nearly blown away by the heavy bullet. Next target.
Before he could draw down on the second shooter, a rifle boomed from somewhere in the marina and the man toppled over the rail, his body falling into the lagoon.
When the shooting started again, it took him by surprise, coming, as it seemed, from right over his head. Shooters were in the hotel.
He hesitated for only a moment, then sprang to his feet, leaving the FN-FAL where it was. It was too bulky.
He left his hotel room and hurried down the corridor toward the stairs. Reaching the covert of the stairwell, he reached down and jerked the Smith and Wesson from his ankle holster. He had six shots. Time to go.
The ineptitude of the Eilat cell was truly unamusing. Farouk swore in frustration as he lowered the binoculars and turned away. He needed to leave-quickly, before the Zionists mopped up the rest of his fighters.
Come on, Tex, Harry thought, crouched behind the engine block of a Corvette near the edge of the resort. With the shooters firing from the dark interior of a hotel room eighty meters away, the pistol in his hands was largely useless. This wasn’t Hollywood.
Gideon was five meters to his left, behind the bullet-riddled hulk of a Hummer H2. The courtyard and street outside had all but emptied in the six minutes since the car bomb went off. Those not under cover were dead or dying, lying in their own blood in the street.
With a twinge of regret, Harry realized he hadn’t seen the bat leveyha since the explosion. Such a waste.
“You have an angle on the window?” he hissed across at Gideon.
The Israeli nodded, slapping a fresh mag into the butt of his Uzi. The question was clearly visible in his eyes.
Harry nodded. “Cover me.”
Small-arms fire sputtered from the fifth floor of the Crowne Park Plaza hotel as Sarah crawled forward on her hands and knees, forcing herself to ignore the cries of the dying. The shooters had to be stopped. Sirens sounded in the distance, their discordant wail adding to the cacophony of noise surrounding her.
She bit her lip, striving to hold back the images of Nathan in the last seconds of his life. Walking confidently toward the explosives-laden Jeep. He was dead, she knew it in her heart. He had been a scant five yards from his target when the bomb went off.
Her hands were bleeding and raw, the hard polymer of the Glock clutched between them as she moved forward, from cover to cover.
“Now!” At Harry’s shout Gideon rose up from behind the hood of the H2, aiming at the hotel window, burst after burst of fire erupting from the muzzle of the Uzi.
Harry plunged forward, feet drumming a dark tattoo against the pavement as he rocketed toward the hotel entrance, bent low at the waist. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete in his wake as the shooters above took aim at the runner.
His shoulder hit the revolving glass door of the hotel restaurant and he pushed his way through. The restaurant was full, people huddled under the tables. A woman screamed as he burst in, gun in hand.
“Stay down!” he bellowed in English, brandishing his wallet in his left hand. “Police!”
Tex paused at the top of the stairwell, aware suddenly of footsteps on the other side of the door. Back and forth.
A small window in the top of the door afforded a view of the corridor, and he waited as the footfalls came closer, watching as a masked head came into view. They were patrolling the hall.
He thumbed the hammer of the revolver back to full-cock and crouched there, his hand on the door handle.
Footsteps. Coming closer as the terrorist completed his circuit. It was all about timing. Almost. There!
He pushed the door open with a violent thrust, slamming the steel fire door into the body of the gunman. The man recoiled, nearly dropping the rifle as Tex stepped into the hall, the Smith amp; Wesson already at eye level.
He pulled the trigger at close range, the bullet striking the gunman in the neck, severing the brain stem as he dropped to the floor, his blood staining the carpet.
Tex paused over the body of the dying terrorist, listening. Another burst of gunfire gave him his directions. Ten doors down…
5:35 A.M. Eastern Time
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
“Anything from Nichols?”
“That’s a negative,” Carter replied, looking over his shoulder at the DCS. “The meeting is probably ongoing.”
A phone rang on the desk of the analyst’s workstation. “Yes, Monica?”
He listened for a moment, an expression of shock spreading over his countenance. “What is it, Ron?” Kranemeyer asked as he hung up the phone.
“Turn on CNN.”
The DCS picked up a remote and aimed it at one of the TV screens which lined the wall.
“This is Brenda Langford, reporting live from Eilat. As you can see, there’s been a bombing, near the entrance of the Crowne Park Plaza resort.”
Kranemeyer’s mouth fell open. “Dear God…”
12:36 P.M. Local Time
The hotel
Eilat, Israel
Tex paused outside the door, feeding another bullet into the empty chamber of his S amp;W. The bodies of two hotel security guards lay twenty feet down the corridor, gunned down as they had responded to the initial shots.
He tested the door with his hand. Locked. The possibility of it being booby-trapped went through his head, but he was out of time. Caution to the wind.
The big man took a step back and aimed a kick toward the door, his booted foot connecting just below the bolt. It flew in on its hinges with a crash and he stumbled into the suite, bringing the revolver up as he went around the corner.
The room reeked with the acrid, sulphurous smell of burnt gunpowder. Two men were kneeling four or five feet back from the open balcony window, shooting down into the courtyard of the hotel. The man on the right was firing, the man on the left loading another magazine into the mag well of his Kalishnikov.
Tex shot him first, to the back of the head, before he could pull the charging bolt of the assault rifle.
He screamed, the rifle falling from his lifeless hands as he collapsed on the floor. Alerted to his danger, the second gunman started to turn, rising from his crouch.
The revolver spoke twice. Tex stood there, the pistol still leveled in his outstretched hand as the terrorist staggered backward, arms flailing as he crashed into the balcony rail.
A pall of silence fell over the room.
Tex took a step back and fished a speedloader out of his pocket, only then realizing that he’d been holding his breath ever since his entrance into the hotel room.
Sirens sounded outside and he read their signal loud and clear. Time to go. He stepped from the room, closing the door with a gloved hand and proceeded down the hall…
Harry had reached the fourth floor when his TACSAT rang. “Nichols.”
It was Tex’s voice. “Shooters have been terminated. Exfiltrating.”
“Are you clean?”
“That’s a roger. The rifle is still in my room, no prints. Handgun is on its way down the laundry chute. Likewise.”
“I’ll try to keep them off your back. See you stateside, brother.”
Gideon’s phone buzzed against his ribs and he flipped it open, cradling the Uzi in his free hand. “Laner.”
“This is Nichols. The shooters are neutralized. I repeat, the room is clear.”
“Good work,” the Israeli replied grimly. He rose up from behind the Hummer and slung the Uzi around his neck. Police vehicles were starting to set up a perimeter, sealing off the entrance of the resort.
“Gideon!”
He turned to see Sarah stumbling toward him, the Glock still in her hand. Her robe was torn and blackened with smoke, her hands and knees bloodied, her hair a mess. She had never looked more beautiful.
He reached out to embrace her, and she fell against him, her arms around his neck.
“You’re alive,” he whispered, tears starting in his eyes. “Thank God, darling, you’re alive.”
Sarah kissed him on the cheek, embracing him fiercely, her emotions roiling with the events of the previous fifteen minutes. Nathan Gur lay dead only a few scant yards away, but none of that seemed to matter at this very moment. Gideon was alive. He had survived.
All at once, her vision seemed to clear through the haze of tears. A figure, moving from the cover of the building behind Gideon, an M-4 carbine in his hands. The figure of a teenage boy, his face obscured by a mask.
It was a vision of extraordinary clarity. Time itself seemed to slow down as the teenager moved forward, the carbine coming up.
Her hand seemed to move of itself, the barrel of the Glock moving to cover the target. Oh so slowly.
“Allahu akbar!” the boy screamed, the sound of his voice breaking the spell that had fallen upon her. She pulled the trigger of the Glock roughly, the gun going off just inches from Gideon’s eardrum.
He staggered to one side, a hand clasped against his ear as she fired again and again, watching her bullets strike the boy, high in the chest. The teenager reeled back as slug after slug entered his body. Falling down to the pavement, his head lolling to one side, body splayed out like a broken doll.
Dying.
Glassy-eyed, she lowered the pistol and safed it, her movements mechanical. Target eliminated…
2:45 P.M. Tehran Time
Alborz Mountains
It would be a never-ending source of amazement to Thomas that some people considered horseback riding recreation. After four hours of riding through the mountains, he was suddenly and painfully aware of muscles he had previously known of in theory alone.
Estere reined in her horse at the top of the rise, glancing back at his progress. “Come on!”
His only reply was a glare as he rode abreast of her. “Stupid beast,” he muttered, swearing under his breath.
When he looked up, her eyes were flashing like dark coals of fire. “Bahoz was Sirvan’s horse,” came her stinging rebuke.
She fell silent, jerking the reins of the grey with an angry gesture. Thomas turned to follow as she turned back to the west, kicking her horse into a gallop.
1:13 P.M. Local Time
Eilat, Israel
“We were set up,” Harry stated, his tones low as he spoke into the TACSAT’s receiver. “They knew both the time and place of the meeting.”
“You’re sure?” Kranemeyer asked.
“Listen, boss, I don’t believe in coincidence. There is no such thing. They didn’t get up this morning and say, ‘Y’know, it would be fun to bomb Eilat today.’ They had a target, and that target was us. We’ve got a leak somewhere.”
“I’ll see what I can find out,” came the noncommittal answer. “Zakiri and Sarami are deploying to Iraq this afternoon.”
“Oh?”
“Parker is being extracted. He made contact two hours ago. I want team members on-site for the debrief.”
“Sounds like a plan. Keep an eye on Petras,” Harry added after a moment. “She takes a dim view of operators playing in her backyard.”
“To be sure. What’s Richards’ status?”
Harry looked over his shoulder to see Gideon Laner approaching, flanked by two police officers. “Everything’s copacetic, sir. You’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go.”
He pressed END before Kranemeyer could respond, turning to face the Israeli commando. “Your sweep turn up anything?”
Gideon nodded. “Harry, I’m going to have to ask you for your gun…”
7:13 A.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
The clinic was just starting to buzz with the shift change as Davood Sarami checked out. Hamid was waiting for him at the door, Davood’s gun belt and government-issue Glock in hand.
“Take these,” Hamid instructed. “How do you feel?”
“A little light-headed when I went to bed last night,” Davood replied, buckling the belt. “After-effects of the concussion, or so the nurse said. I feel fine right now.”
“Glad to hear it. We’ve got a plane to catch.”
Davood’s eyebrows went up. “Where to?”
“Iraq. We’re extracting Thomas. And Sarami…”
“Yes?”
Hamid stepped in close, the carefree look disappearing from his face. “Kranemeyer put me in charge of the extraction. I want you to follow my orders to the letter. None of this hero routine you pulled at Richards’ house. Do we have an understanding?”
The Iranian-American agent stiffened. “I was just trying to-”
“I really couldn’t care less what you were trying to do,” Hamid snapped back, turning to lead the way out of the clinic. “You went against your orders and screwed up. I don’t want it happening on my watch.”
Davood bit his lip, holding back the answer that strained to burst free. “It won’t.”
“Good. Let’s roll.”
6:47 P.M. Tehran Time
The Alborz Mountains
Rice. Thomas reached into the plastic bag once more, scooping the pasty, white boiled rice out with his fingers. He had eaten worse.
Estere sat across from him in silence, her head down as she stared into the western sky, watching as the sun sank into blood-red clouds.
“Listen,” Thomas began, “I’m sorry for what I said about the horse.”
She ignored his words, seeming not to even realize that he had spoken. He crossed to where she sat, cradling the assault rifle against her chest.
“Sirvan,” he began, kneeling at her side, “Sirvan was one of the bravest men I have ever known.”
Still no response. She sat there as though chiseled in stone, gazing into the dying sun.
He touched her shoulder ever so gently. “I consider it an honor to have known him, to have fought at his side.”
She sighed, a weak smile crossing her lips as she reached over to touch his hand. “When do you expect contact from your people?”
“Probably not until the morning,” he replied, respecting her decision to change the subject. “They said they would make the necessary arrangements. How many days do you expect it to take before we reach the border?”
She smiled again. “That would depend on how hard you can ride…”
7:28 P.M. Local Time
Eilat, Israel
The door to the holding cell opened and Harry turned to see Gideon Laner standing in the entrance.
The two regarded each other in silence for a long moment, a silent game of “chicken” playing itself out. At last the Israeli spoke. “Where’s your partner?”
“My what?”
“Your partner. We know he was in the hotel.”
Harry smiled, a bit of the devil lurking in his eyes. “There must be some mistake. I’ve never fancied men.”
“Don’t give me that, Harry,” Gideon warned, swearing under his breath. “I lost a good man out there today and I want to know everything about the circumstances surrounding his death. The three dead Arabs in the hotel were shot with a.357 Magnum. A revolver. Hardly what you were carrying. A scope-equipped FN-FAL was found in a room on the fourth floor. A shell casing under the dresser. You had back-up. Who?”
Harry stood there, gazing intently into Gideon’s eyes as the Israeli fell silent. “Are you done?” he asked mildly.
Anger flashed across Gideon’s face. “Done! I’m not sure you understand the situation, Harry. We have-”
“I understand it perfectly,” Harry replied, his voice even. “I came to Israel because you wanted something from me. You haven’t got it yet. Nor will you if you keep going as you are. That’s the situation.”
Gideon subsided. “What do you want?”
“I want to see Dr. Tal. I want you to forget about the rifle you found. And I want you to call off the search for this so-called ‘partner’ of mine. Understood?”
“You drive a hard bargain,” Gideon replied, unsmiling.
Harry nodded. “Of course. I hold the cards. When can I meet with Tal?”
“Tomorrow.”
Chapter Twelve
4:45 A.M. Baghdad Time, October 1st
Baghdad International Airport
Baghdad, Iraq
Returning home always awoke mixed emotions within Hamid Zakiri. The country had changed so much, in the years since the withdrawal of American combat brigades.
So much of the old. So much of the new. He sighed as he retrieved the gun case containing his Glock from the baggage line. A car from the CIA station should be awaiting them.
“Hope the TiVo works tonight,” he observed to Davood as the pair exited the terminal. “The Ravens are playing the Cowboys.”
“You’ve got a bet on the game?”
Hamid laughed. “Of course. Don’t I always win the op-center pool?”
“Just about,” Davood acknowledged, with a grudging smile. “Which team are you down for this evening?”
“The Cowboys, of course. The Ravens defense hasn’t been worth a plugged nickel for the last couple seasons. Just can’t seem to pull it together in draft.”
Davood nodded, his mind elsewhere. “Is that who I think it is?” he asked suddenly.
“Mmm-hmm,” Hamid agreed, glancing in the direction his fellow agent had indicated. “Petras bothering to show up in person is not a good sign, wouldn’t you think?”
“Afraid so.”
6:09 A.M. Tehran Time
Isfahan
They had come far in these few days, Hossein thought, surveying his recruits with a critical eye. The constant training had served to harden their bodies, the incessant pressure quickening their minds.
Only twenty were left.
A helicopter came in low over the mountains. The former major watched with concern as it banked hard over the city of Isfahan and flew straight toward the small training camp. Concern that was only barely assuaged when a green flare burst from one of the rocket tubes on the pylons of the attack helicopter. It was the Ayatollah arriving from Qom.
Whatever the situation, it had to be serious to risk an unprecedented personal visit. Hossein turned over the command of training to a particularly apt pupil named Mustafa, and walked back toward the helipad in the center of the camp, tapping a baton nervously against the top of his jump boots. Trouble was coming. He could almost smell it…
“What is the condition of your readiness?” Isfahani asked later, in the headquarters building. He was sitting in Hossein’s chair, slicing a ripe peach with a jewel-encrusted Sassanid knife.
Hossein took a deep breath. “We’re not.”
“I sent you the best men I could find,” the Ayatollah replied, an accusative edge in his voice.
“You sent me your best religious scholars,” Hossein shot back, undeterred and defiant. “They were not fighters. They are now, but they have a long way to go.”
Isfahani took another slice of the peach, the razor-edge of the knife sliding easily through supple flesh. “We have a situation.”
The major remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
“The attack is to be launched within three days. Your men must be in position in Palestine to stop it.”
8:43 A.M. Local Time
Mossad Headquarters
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
Harry looked down as the Jetranger circled over the nondescript cluster of buildings, heading for the helipad on the roof of the central office building.
Gideon sat beside him at the controls of the helicopter, a look of intense concentration on his face as he guided the chopper in. The bat leveyha sat in the back, her hands bandaged.
The familiar figure of General Avi ben Shoham was standing to one side of the roof as the helicopter came to rest, giving Harry some idea of how much this meant to the Israelis. He had worked with Shoham three years before, a joint American-Israeli operation to rescue missionaries in Lebanon, and been impressed by the man’s professionalism.
“We’re here,” Gideon announced tersely, glancing over at Harry. There was palpable tension between the two men, had been ever since the previous night. The restrained violence Harry knew so well. The Israeli didn’t like being bullied.
Harry shoved open the door of the Jetranger and slipped out, his leather jacket rippling in the breeze created by the rotor wash. “Good morning, general.”
Shoham smiled, shaking Harry’s extended hand. “And the same to you, my friend. Come inside.”
The Mossad commander paused at the door of the elevator, nodding to his bodyguards to remain behind.
“I give you a token of my trust, Mr. Nichols,” he stated as the doors closed. “We are alone and you are armed.”
Harry nodded, shooting a pointed glance toward the general’s waistband. “As are you.”
Shoham smiled. “Ah, well, trust goes only so far. I must apologize for Lt. Laner’s reticence. He did as he felt best.”
“And you feel differently?”
“Laner was following my orders-orders I doubted could be fulfilled. You are not a man to give something up without expecting something in return.”
Harry leaned against the wall of the elevator as it continued its descent, watching Shoham carefully. “You speak in riddles.”
A wry smile. “Plain speaking is ever a danger in our business, is it not? In short, the Iranians are moving.”
“You have information indicating a nuclear deployment?”
Shoham replied with an emphatic shake of the head. “We don’t know. Only Dr. Tal knows the true nature of this threat.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“He believes that we abandoned the rest of his team to their captors. Now you see why we contacted you.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Well done, Harry,” the general retorted, his face creasing into a smile. “Remind me never to play poker against you. You would deny that your government rescued the remaining hostages?”
The elevator shuddered to a halt, doors sliding open. Two guards stood across the corridor, Galil assault rifles in their hands.
Harry looked from Shoham to them and back again. “Let me see Tal,” he responded finally. “I will give you my answer then.”
9:57 A.M. Baghdad Time
Station Baghdad
Iraq
“Khebat Ahmedi. He’s the commander of PJAK in the Qandil,” Rebecca Petras informed them, tapping a finger on the screen of her laptop. “Khebat means ‘struggle’ in the Kurdish, and we suspect it to be a nom de guerre.”
“An alias?” Hamid asked, an amused smile crossing his face at her choice of words.
“That’s what I said. Now, I want to make something absolutely clear to the both of you. Despite the watchlisting of PJAK by the Obama administration in 2008, here in Iraq we’re dealing with realpolitik. That said, Ahmedi’s friendship is vital to the stability of this region. If you do anything to offend him or jeopardize our relationship in any way, I will hang you from a nail.”
Hamid exchanged a glance with Davood before turning his attention back to Petras. He could have let it go, but diplomacy had never been his forte. Neither was dealing with bureaucrats.
“My orders from the DCS are clear, Petras,” he stated, rising from his seat at the table. “Extract Parker at all costs. I’m going to do that, no matter whose toes I have to step on. Read me?”
The CIA station chief stared back at him, unblinking. “Tough-guy antics aren’t going to change my mind, Zakiri. I have made my position plain and I will file a report to Langley to that effect.”
“File away.”
12:37 P.M. Tehran Time
The Alborz Mountains
If anything, the second day’s ride was worse than the first. His muscles almost rigid after a night’s sleep, Thomas gritted his teeth as the horses picked their way across the mountainside, each movement sending a jolt straight up his spine.
He’d barely been able to mount when they had risen that morning, but he had done so. Hanged if he was going to ask for help.
The air was cool against his face, the mountain breeze laden with moisture. It felt like rain, but the only clouds in the sky soared light and effortless high over the mountain peaks.
All the same, Estere kept glancing toward the sky as they rode, a worried look on her face.
“What is it?” he asked, after a time.
“The bahoz.” She lifted a hand to the breeze, sniffing at the air. “I can smell rain.”
“What does that have to do with the horse?” he inquired, aware he was treading on a sensitive subject.
Her face wore a puzzled expression for a moment, then it cleared in sudden realization. “Bahoz is the Kurdish word for storm. A storm is coming. We may need to take shelter.”
The TACSAT buzzed at his side and he motioned to Estere to halt. “Hello,” he answered cautiously, reining in the stallion.
“Thomas, this is Hamid.”
“How are things progressing?”
“Fairly well. We’re having to dance around Petras, but I think things are shaping up. Kranemeyer pressured CENTCOM to release a squad of Army Rangers as escort.”
“Is that necessary?”
“I’d prefer it. She’s wanting us to be particularly careful with a Kurdish warlord, one Khebat Ahmedi. She forgets that I was born in this country-I know these people. And I prefer a show of force.”
“Bluff and swagger,” Thomas expressed, summing it up succinctly.
“Exactly. I need to establish our rendevous. Do you have a map?”
“That’s a negative. One moment.” He looked over to where Estere sat on her horse. “How well do you know this area?”
“Quite well,” she replied. There was no bravado there, just a simple statement of fact.
Thomas raised the satphone again. “I’ll let you speak to my guide. She was raised in these mountains.”
“She?” Hamid asked, laughter in his voice “How do you always manage it, Thomas? Put her on.”
He extended the TACSAT to her and she took it, listening as Hamid laid out his plan of action. Thomas watched her as they talked, steadying the impatient stallion between his knees. At length, she closed the cover of the phone and handed it back to Thomas, shooting another anxious glance skyward.
Even in the intervening moments, clouds had begun to move in, darkness drifting across the face of the sun as the mercurial nature of mountain weather asserted itself.
“We need to ride southwest to meet with your military. There is a place-south of the Qandil. I know it well. It is about forty kilometers from here.”
“It looks like your storm may be upon us soon.”
“I know,” she replied, looking up at the clouds. “There is a mountain stream, about twenty-nine kilometers ahead of us. We need to reach the ford before the rain swells the stream.”
“Can’t we go around?”
She shook her head. “A detour of nearly seventy kilometers. It is the nature of these mountains, Thomas. It is what has kept my people alive.”
“Then let’s ride.”
10:45 A.M. Local Time
Mossad Headquarters
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
Harry raised his eyes from the dossier in front of him, staring through the one-way glass at the civilian in the interrogation room on the other side-Dr. Moshe Tal. In the previous two hours, he had gone through every scrap of information the Israelis were willing to give him on Tal. Unmarried, devoted to his work-and his country. Growing up on a kibbutz in the shadow of the Golan, Tal had early learned what it meant to defend his land.
And yet this reticence. Harry motioned to the guard, who had stood silently by the door the entire time. “I’m ready.”
Tal’s eyes flickered up at his entrance, then back down, a furtive, almost hunted look. Harry had seen it before, the look of a man broken beyond his endurance. For a brief moment, he wondered how far Mossad might have gone in trying to wrest his secret from him. Then he dismissed it without another thought. It was irrelevant to the task at hand.
He drew up a chair and sat down wordlessly, across from the archaeologist. Another long, interminable moment passed before Harry spoke.
“The Iranians are planning something, aren’t they?”
Tal raised his head, a strange light coming into his eyes. It was such a contrast to his previous browbeaten demeanor that Harry wondered for a moment if he was facing the same man. “Yes,” he replied. “They are.”
“What?”
The archaeologist shook his head. “I’ll never tell you. You left my people behind. You left them to die.”
It was as though Harry’s first question had given him a feeling of control, a sense of being in charge. Harry grimaced inwardly. Time to take that away. With a careful motion, he opened his sports jacket, withdrawing his diplomatic passport and identification, placing them on the table beside them.
“I’m from the U.S. State Department. I didn’t leave anyone behind.”
Tal took the passport and ID, scrutinizing them carefully. “You’re no diplomat,” he announced, looking back up.
Harry smiled. “Let’s call it a polite fiction.”
“Who are you?”
“Joseph Isaac,” Harry replied, tapping the ID before tucking it back in his wallet. “You can call me Joe. I’m your salvation.”
The archaeologist settled back in his chair, an expression of disbelief on his face.
“You see, there were Americans among your crew. President Hancock authorized a CIA strike team to rescue them. Our people arrived in the dark of night, just hours after Mossad brought you back here. And we were able to extract some of your team.”
Tal leaned forward, an almost painful eagerness on his face. “Some?”
Harry nodded. “Unfortunately, not all. The Iranians were on alert. We lost some people as well.”
“How can I believe you?”
Reaching once more into his jacket, Harry laid a cellphone on the table between them. A wire stretched from it to an earbud microphone, which Harry promptly inserted.
“We’re going to place a call to one of your colleagues. I believe you know Grant Peterson?”
“Yes, yes.”
“I will give you the number to dial,” he continued, fixing the archaeologist in a cold gaze. “And you will speak directly to Grant. This is a token of good faith. Don’t abuse it.”
Tal nodded his assent and Harry gave him the number to dial.
4:02 A.M. Eastern Time
A CIA safe house
West Virginia
“You said he would call, Roberto,” Grant Peterson said, looking up into the eyes of the man he had been staying with for the past week.
“He will,” the man called “Roberto” replied, in one of his longer speeches. Whether he had a last name or not, Grant had no idea. Whatever his skills, conversation was not among them.
Almost at that moment, the man’s hand went to his pocket, withdrawing a vibrating cellphone. He cast a quick glance at the screen before handing it over to Peterson.
“Answer it.”
“Hello, this is Grant.”
“Grant!” It was Dr. Tal, nervous excitement in his voice. “Thank God you’re alive. Where are you?”
“Here in the US,” Grant replied, looking over at Roberto as though to ask if he should be more specific. Something in the man’s face told him he should not. “Are you okay, doctor?”
Tal seemed not to hear him, rushing on as if the question was irrelevant. “The rest of the team, Grant. Are the others all right?”
Grant opened his mouth to speak, but in that instant, the line went dead.
11:06 A.M. Local Time
Mossad Headquarters
Tel Aviv, Israel
“Wrong move,” Harry stated calmly, replacing the phone on the table. “I told you not to abuse it.”
Tal stared at him, his eyes wide with sudden fear. “You’re sick.”
A shrug was the only reply Harry gave to the accusation. “You and I have business to discuss. You give me what I want, I’ll tell you who lived and who died. Not until.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You can’t. But you’re running out of options. You know Grant is alive and safe. Let’s work from that basis.”
“What do you want?”
“I think you know.”
The archaeologist looked away, towards the blank wall of the interrogation room. “All right,” he said at last, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ll talk.”
Rising from his chair, Harry moved across the darkened room, punching a gloved fist through the drywall. His fingers closed around a thin wire. Just where Carter said it would be, he thought before snapping it as he would a twig.
Circling the room, he came up against the opposite wall and retrieved the other parabolic mike, disabling it in similar fashion. The bugs were dead.
“What is he doing?” Shoham wondered aloud, watching the scene live on the TV screen in the Mossad operations room.
Gideon leaned forward. “I can take my team in.”
“No,” the general replied, shaking his head. “We gain nothing by direct action. Let Nichols run his course.”
The next minute, their TV screen went black as someone draped a jacket over the camera lens.
“Move to my chair,” Harry instructed, returning to the table. “Sit with your back to the glass.”
“Why?”
“With that camera dead, they’re going to move next door. I don’t want them to be able to read your lips.”
“Who are you?”
Harry turned back to the table, his gun hand resting on his hip, near the holstered.45. Time was running short. He stared at Tal, not bothering to respond to the question. “Talk.”
4:39 A.M. Eastern Time
The White House
Washington, D.C.
“Thank you for coming in early, Director,” President Hancock said, looking up from his desk as a pair of Secret Service agents ushered David Lay into the Oval Office. “It is the imperatives of the campaign season, you understand.”
“To be sure,” Lay responded, acknowledging the presence of Lawrence Bell with a brief nod. “Missouri today?”
Hancock nodded. “Air Force One departs from Andrews at seven o’clock.”
Preliminaries out of the way, the DCIA opened the folder in front of him. “First on the agenda is the Eilat situation.”
“So I saw,” Hancock nodded, a biting edge to his voice. “I’m sure you understand, David, that this is one of my concerns with these so-called ‘deniable’ operations. They have a way of ending up on CNN.”
Lay bit his tongue. “There was a leak.”
“Isn’t there always,” came the President’s irony-laced rejoinder. “How many people did we lose?”
“None. A couple from Savannah were in the crowd and killed in the blast, but other than that collateral damage, no one. Our operations personnel extracted safely.”
The President paled. “Collateral damage? Dear God, David, do you realize how cold you sound?”
Lay briefly looked at the ceiling of the Oval Office, sighing heavily. “That’s the spy business, Mr. President. People get hurt. People get killed. We’re busy tracking down the leaked information as we speak.”
“Do the Israelis know about the biological weapon?” Hancock asked, a sudden intensity creeping into his voice.
“No,” Lay replied, looking surprised. “You gave orders to that effect, and they have not been contravened.”
“Good.” Hancock sank back into his chair. “See that they aren’t…”
11:57 A.M. Local Time
Mossad Headquarters
Tel Aviv, Israel
After Moshe Tal finished talking, silence reigned in the interrogation room for the space of about two minutes.
Harry sat there, silently regarding the archaeologist as he processed the information he had been given. None of it was recorded, unless Ron Carter’s intel had been bad and there was a device he had missed. He had taken no notes. Everything was committed to memory.
Taken all together, Tal’s information tallied with the intelligence the CIA had gotten from the debrief of the rest of the team. The pneumonic plague had been contained in the mass grave of the Persian city, lying dormant over the centuries until its release by the archaeologist’s dig. Opening Pandora’s grave, to speak of it figuratively.
He stood, turning toward the door as if to leave. “What about the others?” Tal asked, a plaintive note in his voice.
“What?”
“You promised. Who lived?”
Harry turned back, leaning across the table until his face was only inches from that of the archaeologist. “They all did,” he whispered, his lips barely moving. “And if you want to keep it that way, you need to do exactly as I say.”
The expression on Tal’s face was a curious blend of surprise and relief, mingled with an overwhelming fear. “What?” he asked, his hands trembling uncontrollably.
“Tell anyone what you’ve told me and your friends die. And if anyone asks, you told me nothing. Can you remember this?”
The professor nodded mutely. Harry walked over and lifted his jacket from over the lens of the surveillance camera. “Good. Your friends are depending on you.”
And then he was gone, opening the door and disappearing into the corridor. Shoham was waiting outside…
2:03 P.M. Tehran Time
The Alborz Mountains
Iran
The rain had come. First in huge droplets, heavy orbs of water splashing down from on high. Then steady rain, soaking their garments. Finally wind-driven sheets of water, falling from an ink-black sky. Lightning lit the scene as the riders pressed on, mounts splashing through pools of standing water.
Thomas bent low over the neck of the stallion, urging him forward against the fury of the storm, endeavoring to keep pace with the girl on his right.
“How much farther?” he called out. For a minute, he thought she hadn’t heard him, his words whipped away in the teeth of the wind. Then, her hand flew out, three outstretched fingers giving him his answer. Three kilometers.
12:09 P.M. Local Time
Mossad Headquarters
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
“So, that’s all you were able to get out of Tal?” General Shoham asked, glancing up from his notes.
“Yes,” Harry replied, lying easily. “Nothing actionable, unfortunately. His best guess is that his communication with the Ayatollah was hacked.”
“What of the lab trailers?”
Harry turned to meet Gideon’s question. “He and the team were isolated following their arrest. He wasn’t able to provide any conjecture as to their nature.”
The two Israelis exchanged glances. “Why did you disrupt our surveillance of the interrogation room?” Shoham demanded, clearing his throat.
Harry leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. “You’ve witnessed for yourselves the emotional state I found Dr. Tal in. He was insistent that everything he shared must stay between the two of us. I needed to take steps of good faith. The man is a basketcase. I frankly don’t know what you’ve done to him, but…”
He let the comment hang there, an unspoken accusation dangling in the air. The Mossad commander seemed on the brink of an angry retort, but he choked it down. “We don’t torture our own, Mr. Nichols. I regret that you could not be more helpful, but I appreciate your willingness to try.”
“Of course,” Harry responded, rising from his chair. The bodyguard opened the door and he exited, stage right, into the corridor.
“He was lying,” Gideon observed, moments after the door had closed.
Avi ben Shoham sighed heavily, his eyes scanning the rough notes in front of him. “I know it.”
The lieutenant’s hand moved toward the phone on the table. “I can call security.”
“To what purpose? His government knows exactly where he is. Causing an incident with the Americans is not in our best interests, particularly if the Iranians have something in the offing. This will be a waiting game, lieutenant. In the mean time, we work with what we still have. Get a team working on Tal again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re dismissed.” Gideon had made it half-way to the door when the general’s voice arrested him. “And, Lt. Laner.”
“Yes?”
“I will need the contact information for Nathan Gur’s next of kin. See that it gets to my desk by this evening, if you please.”
“Of course, sir.”
The car from Station Tel Aviv was waiting for Harry in the parking garage and he got in, beginning a careful search for bugs. He was exhausted, emotionally drained from the stress of the interrogation. Tal was a good man, of that he was sure.
He leaned back in the seat of the car, closing his eyes. It didn’t help-the face of the Israeli rose before him, playing across the back of his eyelids. A basketcase, yeah, he was that. And he had helped make him that way.
Harry had seen men like Tal before-it wasn’t Stockholm, but a syndrome similar in effect. Men who seemed to shut down, forsaking their mission in a panicked attempt to save those around them. The world seemed to withdraw into narrow focus, a world in which nothing else mattered.
Playing upon those loyalties had been the only way to break him. And despite what he had told Shoham, the results had been worth it.
He found a mike under the steering wheel and ripped it out, crushing the small instrument before tossing it from the window as the car left the underground garage. Reaching inside his pocket for the TACSAT, he allowed himself a small, tired smile.
“This is Nichols,” he announced when the encryption sequence finished. “I need you to run an inter-agency database sweep for me. Yes, of course I have a name. Achmed Asefi.”
2:13 P.M. Tehran Time
The training camp
Isfahan, Iran
The door opened abruptly and the Ayatollah Isfahani emerged from the room where he had been in conference with Hossein for the past several hours. “It’s time to go,” he announced quietly, turning to the man who had been standing outside the door the entire time.
Achmed Asefi nodded wordlessly and led the way out of the building, his eyes alert to any and all potential threats. There had been two attempts on the Ayatollah’s life in the thirteen years he had served him as bodyguard. He had killed both assassins with his own hand, earning himself the implicit trust of his master.
But now… They were wading into treacherous waters. The sentry at the helipad saluted briskly at their approach. Asefi regarded him with the hooded eyes of a bird of prey, considering and then rejecting him as a source of trouble.
He opened the door of the helicopter, ushering the Ayatollah inside before entering himself. Seating himself at the side of his principal, he caught a glimpse of the major standing outside the mosque.
“I don’t trust that man,” he observed. “He is not a true believer.”
“Hossein?” Isfahani asked, casting a sidelong glance at his bodyguard.
A nod served as the only reply, Asefi’s eyes still fixed on the subject of their conversation as the helicopter rose into the air.
The Ayatollah shrugged. “Neither do I. Which is why you will accompany him to Al Quds.”
3:07 P.M.
The Alborz Mountains
Iran
It had taken over an hour to ride the final three kilometers to the ford. The horses were tiring, as were they. The wind was lessening, but the rain still beat down upon their soaked, weary bodies.
She urged the grey up the slope ahead, and over the thunder of the ebbing storm Thomas heard the sharp gasp that broke from her lips.
“What is it?” he asked, reining in his horse abreast of her. Before she could respond, his own eyes had given him the answer.
The ford could be seen below them, through a screen of trees. A ford? Swollen by the rain, it looked more like a raging torrent. They had lost their race with the storm.
Thomas looked over into her eyes, reading the exhaustion written there. Knowing it was mirrored in his own.
There was no time for indecision. They both knew it. After a long moment, Estere spoke. “We’ve got to go through.”
“What?” Thomas exclaimed. “Cross that?”
“I’ve seen it higher,” she asserted. She turned toward him, a stubborn look on her face. “It’s a ride of over a hundred kilometers to go around.”
“How long would it take to subside?”
“Days, if it stops raining.” She sat there in the rain for a moment or two longer, then announced her decision. “We need to find shelter-we’ll rest the horses till morning and then make the attempt.”
6:49 A.M. Central Time
A residential development
Outside Dayton, Ohio
“I have target clear, Vic. Subjects have left the residence.”
“Separately or together?”
“Separately. They were dressed for work.”
“Good.” Vic stuck the cellphone back in his pocket and exited the rental car, pulling a packet of tracts from his pocket as he moved up the sidewalk. The pamphlets bore the logo of the Watchtower Society and he smiled at the irony.
He left tracts at two of the houses on his way up the cul-de-sac, then approached the Sarami’s house. Kazem Sarami served as a lawyer in a prominent Dayton firm and was handling a case before the Ohio State Supreme Court this day. The house sat off the cul-de-sac, connected by a stone driveway.
Approaching to the front door of the imposing residence, he knocked loudly on the door, holding the tracts in his right hand, only inches away from his concealed automatic. A couple minutes, and no one came. Another knock. Still silence.
“I’m going in,” he whispered into his lip mike. “Cover me.”
“Roger that. The alarm has been disabled. You’re clear to move.”
Five minutes later, he had picked the lock on the back door of the Sarami residence and was standing in the mudroom, examining the alarm system. Sure enough, it was off-line. Never hurt to double-check, he thought, running a gloved finger over the unit.
A brief check of the living room and kitchen revealed nothing. Time to head upstairs…
5:30 P.M. Baghdad Time
The foothills of the Qandil
Iraq
“What’s the good word, sir?” Hamid turned to find Sergeant Jose Obregon standing at his side.
“It isn’t,” he replied, shoving the TACSAT back into the pocket of his Kevlar vest. “We’ve got some problems.”
Hamid turned without another word and walked back to the Humvee, the Army Ranger sergeant following in his wake, M-4 held at the ready.
The Humvee was of Iraq War vintage, additional armor plates bolted onto the sides. A.50-caliber Browning was mounted to the roof, manned by a nineteen-year-old technical from Kennesaw, Georgia.
“Everybody listen up.” Hamid called out as he stopped a few feet away from the vehicle. It had been years since his own days in the Army Rangers, but he remembered the command voice well.
“Everyone dismount and set up bivouac here for the night. We just received comm from Sergeant Brown,” Hamid continued. Due to the clandestine nature of their operation, they were using pseudonyms in front of the Rangers. Thomas was Sergeant Brown. “He and his guide are trapped on the other side of a rain-swollen mountain stream. To detour around would involve well over a hundred kilometers and several days of travel. They’re going to make an effort to cross in the morning. Then we will meet at the border as planned.”
“Why not keep pressing forward?” Obregon asked.
Hamid cast a critical glance in the sergeant’s direction. “I grew up in this part of the world, sergeant. I don’t want to spend any more time in Kurd-controlled territory than I have to. Comprende?” he asked, switching into Spanish for the sheer fun of it. He had enjoyed language school.
Obregon nodded, a temporary flash of annoyance crossing his face before the iron mask of discipline once again asserted itself. The CIA was in control of this mission, whether he liked it or not.
“Take your men and start setting up a defensive perimeter. Sergeant Black!” Hamid called. “I need to talk with you.”
Davood appeared from the other side of the Humvee, an anxious look on his face. “Yes, Sergeant White?”
Hamid motioned for him to follow, then walked away from the path, until they were out of earshot of the Rangers. “Is Thomas all right?”
“Exhausted, but okay otherwise,” Hamid replied. “I hope they can cross the stream in safety.”
“Did he say where they were specifically?”
Hamid shook his head. “No. Just that they were on the east side of a stream there in the mountains. Keep your eyes open,” he continued, looking toward the mountains. “Hopefully the Kurds will leave us be.”
8:02 A.M. Central Time
The suburbs of Dayton
He had been in the house for an hour and three minutes, precisely, he realized, checking the luminous dial of his Armitron wristwatch. And he was stymied.
It would appear that the lawyer possessed a laptop. At any rate, it was gone, leaving behind an empty socket where it would have been docked with the flatscreen LCD monitor. Modern technology had such frustrating potential.
Despite this setback, he’d tossed the house. No dice. He moved back to the desk with the monitor, drawn there by a sudden impulse. A thin book lay there, with the word Address across the front in gold filigree. He picked up the book once again, unsure as to why he was returning. It was filled with personal contact information, the addresses of family and colleagues. The monotonous trivia of life in the suburbs. He turned all the way to the back and his breath caught in surprise.
All at once his earbud came to life with static, taking him off-guard. It was his partner’s voice, low and urgent.
“We’ve got an issue, Vic.”
His body tensed, every sense alert. He knew that tone. “What is it?”
“A car just pulled into the drive.”
“Oh, crap. One of theirs?”
“That’s a negative. It’s a little Honda. Ohio tags.”
Vic paused, torn by indecision. “A woman’s getting out,” his partner reported. “Looks like she’s got some sort of mop in her hand. I think she’s there to clean the place.”
He swore under his breath, standing there with the book in his hands. “I’ve got to have five minutes.”
“I don’t think you’ve got that kind of time, Vic. Get out of there. Now.”
“You’ve got to stall her somehow.”
“How?”
“I don’t care how, just do it,” he retorted stubbornly, whipping a PDA out of his pocket and running it over the open page. A scanned image appeared on the screen and he clicked Save. Next page. Rinse and repeat.
Plan B. Improvise. The man in the car sighed, disconnecting his lip mike and shoving it in a pocket. After ten years working with Vic, one might think you would become accustomed to this kind of thing.
A single coffee-stained pamphlet from the Jehovah’s Witnesses was crumpled in the center console, still there from their rehearsal of the night before. The trouble was, it was Vic that had rehearsed. Not him.
He took a deep breath, trying to smooth out the paper as he stepped from the car. Time to convert the lost…
8:06 A.M.
Air Force One
On approach to St. Louis
Missouri
“We have approximately twenty minutes till landing, Mr. President.” Hancock raised his head to smile at the brunette staffer who had just made the announcement. “Thank you, Mary.”
She smiled back, fairly glowing at his remembrance of her name. It was his specialty, he thought, watching as she returned to her seat.
“What do you think, Ian?”
“I think things would go much more smoothly if you would keep it zipped, Mr. President.”
Hancock laughed. Ian was among the very few men who would dare say such a thing to him. A straightforward opinion could be refreshing. At times. He tapped his fingers together and shrugged. “What could be the problem? Nicole stayed home on this trip.”
“And the wingnuts are already speculating as to why your wife wouldn’t accompany you. I would prefer not to throw any more bones their way.”
“Always the practical one, right, Ian? I take it you’ve seen this?” Hancock asked, throwing a paper with the headlines of the Eilat bombing into Cahill’s lap.
“Yes,” the chief of staff replied. “Any word leaked of our involvement?”
“No. That’s one thing the Jews are good at-keeping secrets.” The President smiled. “I want her transferred to my personal staff. Call it a performance promotion.”
“What?” Cahill asked, caught off-balance by the sudden change of subject.
“Not what. Who. Mary.”
8:09 A.M.
The suburbs of Dayton
He could feel the woman’s eyes bore into his back as he turned to walk away, leaving her holding the crumpled leaflet. Better have made good use of that time, Vic, he thought, rubbing his palms on the front of his suit pants. He didn’t reach for the phone until he had returned to the safety of his car.
“Are you out of there?” he demanded when the connection finalized.
“Yes.”
“Well it better have been worth it. Felt like a fool. I’ll bet she figured I wasn’t a JW within five seconds.”
“It was,” Vic replied, ignoring his partner’s complaints. “His computer was gone, but I have account numbers, passwords-we can access the whole blasted system remotely. Try to figure out how he ties in with his son.”
“Good, good. Now let’s get moving before the maid decides to call the cops.”
8:30 P.M. Tehran Time
The Presidential Palace
Tehran
“They were using classic rearguard tactics,” President Shirazi commented, looking up from the reports in front of him.
Larijani stood there before the president’s desk, stiffly at attention. Hearing an appraisal of the tactics used against him was not pleasing. He had lost good men against the Kurds, only to have the peshmerga melt into the mountains, denying him a decisive victory. Sixty soldiers killed, by the last count. An indeterminate number of dead Kurds in exchange. And their targets had slipped away.
But when his uncle looked up again, he was smiling. “Fortunately, you have another chance to prove yourself.”
“Sir.”
“We have received communication from BEHDIN.”
It took a moment to register in Harun’s tired brain. Then he nodded in understanding. “The American succeeded in escaping with vials containing the bacteria,” Shirazi continued. “He’s an experienced field operative named Thomas Parker and considered to be extremely competent. Clearly, he has survived thus far, so it is best to believe that assessment. But he has not yet crossed the border into Iraq.”
“Do we know where he is?”
“Not exactly,” the Iranian president acknowledged, spreading out a map on his desk. “Based on the intelligence provided by BEHDIN, he must be somewhere in this area-here. He’s on horseback, so an aerial search is necessary.”
“Do you wish me to conduct the search, sir?”
“In the morning,” Shirazi responded, a smile creeping out from behind his beard. “You deserve your rest, nephew.”
6:19 P.M. Eastern Time
Dulles International Airport
“Nichols?” Despite the seriousness of the past forty-eight hours, Harry couldn’t help but smile at the sight of Daniel Lasker in the uniform of a cab driver, holding a sign that read Nichols in bold lettering.
“How was the flight?” Lasker asked, taking Harry’s briefcase as the two of them walked from the terminal.
“Like normal. Jet lag is a pain in the neck, but the trip was uneventful, thank God. The Agency short on personnel?”
“Because they sent me?”
Harry nodded.
“No,” the watch officer replied. “Carter’s in the cab. Word from the top is that you’re to be debriefed on the way in to Langley.”
“No rest for the weary,” Harry commented. Lasker returned the briefcase as they reached the cab, and Harry slid into the back, beside Ron Carter.
“What’s Richards’ status?”
The analyst looked up from his laptop computer. “On an Athens-Bern flight as we speak.”
Harry leaned back against the seat of the cab, momentarily closing his eyes. “Good. The Alps are beautiful this time of year.”
“How long do you give it before the Israelis get the same information out of Tal that you did?” Carter asked. Harry opened his eyes to find the analyst staring intently at the screen of his laptop.
“Depends. They don’t have the same chips. What, exactly, did I get out of the good professor?”
“Achmed Asefi is the personal bodyguard of the Ayatollah Isfahani. Served him for thirteen years. Has Isfahani’s implicit trust.”
“And served as the cutout between Isfahani and the archaeologist,” Harry added, impatience in his voice. “We know all of that from Tal. What do we have besides this?”
Carter grinned, an unusually satisfied expression flickering across his dark face.
“We have a way to contact him. And, did I mention? He likes boys…”