Shock Warning

CHAPTER TWENTY

The lights in the stairwells were either dim or nonexistent. For a rich country, Iran was remarkably poor. Everything was just this side of shabby, even in a nice hotel, the modern carpets already threadbare. The workmanship was poor. Revolutions would do that to a country.

She moved softly, purposefully. This was the only part of her plan that she could not foresee. If she encountered anyone…

But she did not. She made it to the basement without incident. She might have been picked up on a camera, but she was sure the chances that the indolent public servants would have noticed on their monitors were nil. And if anyone looked at the tapes later, all they would see was darkness.

There was the room. She produced her key, unlocked it, and slipped inside.

There were no lights in the little storage room, because neither luggage nor the dead needed lights. She would have to work by the light of her phone.

She unfastened the top of the coffin. Even before she got it off she could hear the sound of Maryam’s breathing, strong and regular. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Maryam sat up. There was a puddle at the bottom of the box, but that was a good sign. It meant she had been drinking the water, and flushing the poison from her internal organs.

“Yes. Now let’s get out of here.”

This was the worst part of the plan. Now that she was faced with the moment, Amanda Harrington wasn’t sure she could go through with it. But she had to go through with it. The Black Widow would have her revenge, at whatever personal cost to herself.

She gave Maryam the bag. “Clothes and some other things. I think they’ll fit you.”

“Where are we?”

“The Azadi Grand. You know it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because this is where we must part.”

“What?” Maryam’s head was clearing, her limbs moving again. She could feel her strength coming back. She still had little memory of what had happened that night in Hungary, but she remembered Amanda, and she trusted her. She had to. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Amanda threw a blanket down on the bottom of the coffin. She was a little taller than Maryam, but she would fit. “You’re leaving, to do whatever you have to do. I’m staying.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Listen to me,” said Amanda urgently. “We don’t have much time. Skorzeny has sent someone to pick up the coffin. He expects someone to be in it. I don’t know who’s supposed to pick you up, but I can only imagine what your fate was going to be. That’s why I’m taking your place.”

“I can’t let you.”

“You have to let me. You have to get away and stop this monster. He’s got something going with the mullahs. He didn’t tell me because he doesn’t trust me the way he used to, but it has something to do with lasers. He’s going to attack the West again, but this time he’ll have the force of a nuclear state behind him. And the West will be too weak to try and stop him. So we’re going to have to.”

Amanda clambered inside the coffin. There was still plenty of water, and the tank still held oxygen. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was sleeping peacefully in her lover’s arms, instead of the arms of Morpheus.

“They’re in Baku,” she continued. “He still has your computer, but he hasn’t touched it yet. He knows it’s rigged or that it will give away its position the minute he turns it on. He wants to use it as a bargaining chip or, rather, a homing device, to bring… to bring…”

“Frank Ross. That’s the name I call him. Frank Ross.”

“To bring ‘Frank Ross’ into his orbit. So he can finally kill him.”

Maryam hardly dared ask, but she did. “What news of him? Of Frank?”

“Gone to ground. We think he was cashiered after they got word of your defection. You probably don’t remember signing the postcard. Just before Skorzeny drugged you into insensibility, he had you send a message from the laptop, which he redirected through an IP address in Tehran. So ‘Frank Ross’ thinks you’re here, in Iran. And now you are.” Amanda smiled, her teeth white in the faint light of the PDA. “So maybe it will all work out somehow.”

“Maybe.” Mixed news indeed. Frank might be on his way here — but to rescue her or to kill her? She had to get a message to him somehow.

“There’s a plane ticket waiting for you at the airport under my name,” continued Amanda. “My identity documents are in that bag. We look enough alike that you can pass for me in a pinch. I figure we have maybe to the end of the day before he begins to suspect something is amiss… ”

“And by that time, he may have a nasty surprise coming to him,” finished Maryam.

“Who do you suppose they’re sending for you?”

“I don’t know. Some goons. But I think I know where they’re taking me — taking you. Evin University. That’s what we call it, anyway. It’s really Evin prison. It’s where they hold the political prisoners. Where they execute them.”

Evin prison was the most notorious in Iran. Built on the site of the home of a former prime minister, it sat at the foot of Alborz Mountains in northwestern Tehran, the natural beauty of the setting contrasting vilely with the horrors within.

Amanda was still sitting up. She stuck out her hand. “Sorry, forgot my manners. I’m Amanda Harrington,” she said.

“Maryam.”

“That’s all? Just Maryam?”

“That’s all.”

“Good luck, Maryam-that’s-all.”

“I’ll come back for you. As soon as they see you’re not me, they won’t hurt you.” She wasn’t exactly certain that was true, but that was about the only reassurance she had on offer at the moment.

“I know you will,” said Amanda. “One more thing. Something’s happening in Qom, in the mosque.”

“The well at Jamkaran, where Ali, the Mahdi, lies occluded and dreaming.”

“Yes. Whatever Skorzeny is up to, I think it has something to do with that.” She paused and collected herself. “Now, fasten the top down and get out of here.”

Amanda lay back. There was nothing more to say.

Maryam fastened the top down. Then she picked up the bag and left the room, locking the door behind her.

She exited the hotel by a side door and glanced in the bag. Amanda had thought of everything: clothes, documents, money in various currencies. Best of all — her secure PDA. How Amanda had sneaked that out, past Skorzeny, Maryam would never know. But Amanda didn’t have to worry about his finding out, because she wasn’t planning to return anyway.

She could handle this.

The sun was coming up as she stepped into the street and breathed in the familiar smells.

She was back home in Tehran. With a few innocuous phone calls, she’d be back in touch with the NCRI network. They’d taken a beating during the recent protests against the government, and some of them had wound up either shot to death on the street or taking classes for extra credit at Evin University, but the mullahs couldn’t get them all.

She’d be in Qom in couple of hours. But there was something she had to do first.