The Last Run

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The red circuit had opportunity to ring only once before Paul Crocker had the phone to his ear. "D-Ops."

"Duty Ops Officer, sir, flash traffic from Tehran Station, Immediate and Urgent. Rescue attempt intercepted en route stop. Minder One taken by VEVAK forces and in custody stop. Number Two minor injuries stop. Require instruction as to how to proceed stop. Message ends."

"I'm…"

"Sir?"

Crocker coughed, feeling as if his head was beginning to spin, as if the room had suddenly lost its balance.

"Sir?"

He drew a breath, slowly, felt his heart pounding hard in his chest. "Send to Tehran Station, immediate and urgent, as follows: imperative you determine location where Minder One detained. Authorized to use all available means, including activation of network assets. Message ends. And Ron?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Tell MCO to get an open line to the Station, and bring in Minder Two, get him up to speed."

"Right away, sir."

Crocker set the handset back in its cradle, stared at it for a moment, and was about to key his intercom when the door opened, Kate standing there.

"She's at the embassy?"

"No." Crocker got up, took his suit coat from the stand, began slipping into it. "VEVAK hit the car before they made it in. Is C still in the building?"

"In her office," Kate said quietly. "She was waiting on… she was waiting for the good news."

"Tell her I'm coming up," Crocker said. For several seconds after Crocker was done speaking, C sat in silence, her face set in stone, impossible to read. Then it cracked, an overwhelming sadness settling on her, and she sighed.

"It's over, then," she said. "Certainly, if they have her in custody, it's over."

Crocker shook his head, refusing the analysis. "I've directed Tehran Station to try to determine where Chace is being held. Minder Two is on his way into the Ops Room, I can have him briefed and on his way to Iran tonight if I can get MOD transport."

"And what is he supposed to do when he gets there? Attempt a rescue? Attempt a second rescue?"

"If feasible, yes. Poole is ex-SAS, as well as a Minder. We have time. D-Int confirmed that the Iranians released the news of Falcon's death earlier today, but attributed it only to 'foreign agents.' They'll try to fit her for it, and that certainly means a trial, most likely a very public one. We have some time."

She shook her head, her expression softening, almost affectionate. "I applaud your loyalty to your people, Paul, but the proposition is absurd. Even if Barnett were to locate Chace, it's too late, the damage is done. It's over."

"Poole-"

"Poole will never leave England, Paul!" She got up from behind her desk, exasperated, frustrated. "Have you stopped to consider what you're asking? Even if, by some grace of God, Tehran is actually able to verify where Chace is being detained, even if the location isn't, for some absurd reason, a maximum-security site, it will never happen. The risk of a rescue attempt going wrong is simply too great. Bad enough they've got one of our agents alive, one that they'll undoubtedly put on trial for murder, you would send them a second one?"

"If we find the location, a rescue attempt becomes viable. If we go through MOD, with Poole as lead, if we can get an SAS brick in support, we can get her out of the country."

"You're not listening to me, Paul. It's not going to happen, the PM will never allow it."

"We owe her a rescue. We can't just abandon her."

C's voice turned cold. "We owed her the effort, and we made it as best we could."

"There's more we can do."

"It doesn't matter. The Prime Minister will never authorize an incursion into Iran to save the life of one SIS agent, you know that, certainly not after the failure of Coldwitch. And certainly not in the face of Minder One being the lead story on the morning news. Chace is lost to us, Paul. Our priority now must be determining how we will respond to the Iranians when they put her in front of the cameras, how we can mitigate the damage."

Crocker stared at her, knowing that everything she was saying was true, knowing the logic, feeling it boiling, foul, inside of him. "We have to try."

"We have done," C said. "To the best of our abilities, we have done."

"It's not enough."

She considered him, and he realized what he was seeing from her was very close to pity.

"I don't know any other way to put this that you'll understand," C said. "So I'll say it like this: if you send Poole to Iran, I shall recall him, and then fire you. If you order Tehran Station to do anything other than the most routine intelligence-gathering, I will countermand your directive, and I will fire you. If you do anything at all that could further exacerbate the situation as it stands right now, I will reverse its course, and fire you. Iran is now off-limits to the Ops Directorate until I say otherwise. The priority now is damage control, nothing else, and I cannot-I will not-permit you to make things worse."

Crocker said nothing. C pressed the button on her intercom, summoning her PA, and as soon as the door to her office cracked open, spoke to the unseen assistant, saying, "My car, please. And inform Downing Street that I'm coming over with an update on the Iran situation."

The door closed silently.

"What am I permitted to do?" Crocker asked.

She looked at him sadly. "Go home, Paul." Poole was waiting when Crocker returned to his office, and from the look on Minder Two's face, Crocker knew he had already heard the news.

"Got tired of waiting in the Ops Room," Poole said. "When do I leave?"

"You don't." Crocker reached for the red phone, punching a key, and when Ron answered, said, "Inform Tehran Station to stand down, repeat, stand down. Require full report soonest, otherwise Station to resume normal operations."

He hung up before he heard Ron's confirmation of the order, turned back to Poole, to see the man standing, hands clenched, glaring at him.

"We're not doing anything?"

"There's nothing we can do, Nicky."

"You can bloody send me to go and get her!"

"Alone? Really?"

"Lankford's still in Mosul, he can meet me in Basra, we deploy from there-"

"It's not going to happen, Nicky." Crocker dug a thumb against his temple, feeling his head throb. "I couldn't even if I wanted to. C has declared Iran off-limits. No operations, no action, nothing."

"God-dammit, Boss!" Poole's voice exploded in the tiny office. "We owe her!"

"I know."

"Then fuck C and fuck the rest of them and send me to Iran to get her!"

"Knock it off."

"Go to the CIA, then!"

"It'll be the same response. They've already written off Coldwitch."

"She's in some goddamn VEVAK interrogation room right now, they're using rubber hoses on her or needles or whatever the hell's the method of the month over there, and they're going to get everything she knows, you realize that? Never mind that she's my friend, and that maybe, maybe, you even think of her as yours. She's a fucking intelligence gold mine for them!"

"You think I don't know that?" Crocker asked. "You think C doesn't know, the CIA doesn't know? If there were even a chance of getting her out of there, you think I'd let C stop me? But there isn't, Nicky. There just isn't."

Poole stared at him for several seconds, struggling, warring with himself, until finally swearing, turning away. His fists tightened, then relaxed, and with it his posture slackened.

"They'll take good care of her." The consolation sounded hollow and false, even to Crocker's own ears. "Reasonably good care. A doctor for her, at least, the medical attention she needs. They'll want her healthy for the cameras."

"Well, that makes it so much better, now, doesn't it?"

Crocker had no response.

"So they'll put her on trial, and then what? Prison for five years before we get her back?"

"The assumption is that she'll be tried for the murder of Hossein Khamenei," Crocker said. "In which case they'll execute her once she's found guilty."

"Lovely."

"Not really."

They looked at each other, the antagonism gone.

"So this is everything," Poole said. "This is all we are going to do."

"For now, at least. Once the Iranians reveal they have her we'll know more. They might not take it public."

"Go to the FCO you mean? The Ambassador?"

"It's possible. Depends what they want."

"Maybe we can work an exchange? Trade her for somebody?"

"Maybe."

"You don't sound hopeful."

"We're not holding anyone they would want, certainly no one of equal or greater value." Crocker shook his head. "And I doubt the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister would think Chace's life is worth any concessions the Iranians would ask for."

"Bastards," Poole muttered, the one word an indictment, encompassing each and all of them: the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary; C and Seale and the CIA; VEVAK and Youness Shirazi; even Crocker and Poole, himself. They'd lost. Chace wasn't dead, but she might as well have been, because she was never coming back. Chace was gone.

Bastards, all of them.

Crocker had to agree.