Solomon's Gold

CHAPTER 56

Abbas Javadi sat in his office in VAJA headquarters, looking out the window at the rooftops of Tehran, brooding on the events of the past weeks. The mission had failed in every respect, and the responsibility was his. The Supreme Leader was not happy.

The gold of the Jew king had not been recovered. Men had died for no results, including Dalir, one of his best operatives. His beautifully formulated plan to attack the Jewish conference had come to nothing. None of the suicide bombers had completed their missions. The sarin had not been released.

How had this happened?

A photograph had appeared in one of the American papers of a man being placed in an ambulance outside Grand Central Station in New York. The shot wasn't very good, and the man was not identified, but it was enough for VAJA's facial recognition programs to identify him as Nicholas Carter, an agent for a secretive American intelligence unit. Somehow the Americans had discovered the plot to release the gas and managed to stop it at the last moment.

It was ironic that Carter had been shot by an American policeman. He might die, but it was small compensation. Failure was not well-tolerated in Tehran. Javadi had served the regime for many years, but that was no guarantee he was exempt from the wrath of the Supreme Leader. Javadi had promised much and delivered little.

People were avoiding him in the halls. Nothing important had crossed his desk for two days. Those were ominous signs.

It was late in the afternoon. Javadi decided to call it a day. He took his pistol from his desk, an Iranian copy of the Sig-Sauer P226. Javadi always carried a pistol, a holdover from his days as a field agent. Today he was in civilian clothes, so the pistol went into a shoulder holster concealed under his jacket.

He took the elevator down to the parking garage reserved for high-ranking officers like himself. His car was a new ICKO Samand. Javadi rated a driver and an armored SUV, but he preferred the comfort of his own car and the sense of privacy it offered to him. He had little enough time alone and he felt no need for extra security. No one would dare to attack him in Tehran.

He started the car and took a moment to enjoy the smell of newness that emanated from the leather upholstery and upgraded carpet. He drove out of the garage and turned onto Negarastan, the wide street that fronted MOIS headquarters. He headed for the Kordestan Expressway and his home outside the city. He climbed the entrance ramp to the elevated roadway and settled down for the drive. He was coming up on the intersection with the Resalat and Hakim Expressways, when a tractor-trailer pulled alongside and slammed into the side of his car.

Javadi fought for control. The truck pushed against him, driving him toward the low barrier on the side of the road.

"No," Javadi cried.

The truck pushed the car through the barrier. It tumbled off the raised expressway, down onto the road below, and exploded in a dramatic fireball that appeared on the evening news.

The truck continued on. The driver spoke into his headset.

"It's done," he said.

"You're certain."

The driver looked in his rearview mirror. A column of black smoke touched with orange spiraled up toward an indifferent sky.

"I'm certain," he said.