Under Fire

7

How do we even know it was him?” Ysabel said.

They were back at her apartment, again watching the sunrise streaming through her balcony windows and enjoying a cup of her nuclear-powered coffee. Jack had slept fitfully, half hoping for an update call from Gavin Biery while his brain worked the “Seth problem.” Jack wanted to move, to take action, but the smart course was to do nothing until he got Gavin’s results.

“We don’t,” Jack replied. “If it wasn’t him, it means someone’s got him. Or at least his phone.”

“If that’s true, and they were asking about what we found in the safe, it means you might have been talking to the men who took you. Oh, that reminds me…”

Ysabel got up, walked to the credenza behind her couch, opened a drawer, then returned with a fifteen-inch MacBook Pro and sat back down. When the laptop booted up, she started typing. After a minute she said, “The van’s placard was real enough — Yazdani and Son Electrical Contractors. The address is in an industrial part of town, on the east side — Ehsan and Tenth Street. Should we go?”

Jack considered this. While they weren’t going to find Balaclava and his partner loitering about in Yazdani’s offices, it was a lead. Seth’s trail was growing cold.

They drove Ysabel’s Range Rover to a public parking lot a half-mile from the Yazdani address, then got out and hailed a cab. As the car pulled to the curb beside them, Ysabel said, “When we get there, I’m going in alone.”

“No—”

“It’s better this way. Trust me.”

Jack hesitated. “Okay, but call me and leave the line open.”

“Worried for my safety, Jack?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sweet. Let’s go.”

The cab took them into the industrial district, two acres of streets lined with cracked sidewalks, sliding security gates, and warehouses fronted by faded red and green awnings and signs in Persian/Farsi. The driver pulled up to a strip of warehouses and stopped.

Ysabel said something in Persian to the driver, then climbed out and headed for the door to Yazdani’s office, dialing as she went. Jack’s phone rang. Ysabel said, “Can you hear me now?”

“Very funny.”

Ysabel slid the phone into her purse, opened the door, and disappeared inside.

After a minute of silence Jack heard her talking to what sounded like two men. The conversation quickly turned into an argument, Ysabel and the men talking over one another in rapid-fire Persian until finally only one man was replying to her questions, his voice softer. They spoke for another couple of minutes, then Ysabel emerged from the office. She got in the taxi, said something to the driver, and the car pulled away. Jack opened his mouth to speak. Ysabel shook her head slightly.

Once back at her Range Rover, Jack said, “Well?”

“Two men, both Persian. The owner — Vahid Yazdani — and an employee, maybe his son. They were old-school, angry that a woman was in their shop, wearing no headscarf and being shockingly assertive.”

“Sounded like you set them straight.”

“Those types are bullies at heart, Jack. Push back and they usually back down. Plus, I’m well dressed — wealth has some social currency. Anyway, Yazdani claims the van was stolen two nights ago. He informed the police, but nothing has come of it.”

“Dead end,” Jack muttered.

“Not at all. While I was storming and ranting, I peeked out the back door. There’s a fenced storage area behind the shop. The van was there.”

“You’re sure?”

“There was a bullet hole in the door. Right where I put it.”

Halfway back to Ysabel’s apartment, Jack’s phone trilled. It was Gavin Biery.

“Your phone should be there this afternoon,” he told Jack.

“That was quick.”

“We aim to please. I’ve got some info for you.”

With his phone braced between his shoulder and his ear, Jack pulled out his pad and balanced it on his knee, pen at the ready. “Shoot.”

“First, there’s no activity on your credit cards. Second, the van’s license plate belongs to an electrical contractor—”

“Yazdani and Son. I was just there. The van was there. The owner claimed it was stolen.”

“On paper, they look legit. I also checked out Dr. Pezhman Abbasi. Age seventy-two, been teaching at University of Tehran for thirty-plus years. No red flags, no criminal record, no interesting affiliations.

“Now, this David Weaver guy is interesting. The Albany address on his International Driver’s Permit is bogus; it’s actually a store that offers short- and long-term P.O. boxes.”

“How the hell does that work? Isn’t that something Homeland Security keys on?”

“More the Postal Inspection Service, but yeah. I’ll keep plugging, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. As for Weaver himself, I drew a blank. No Social Security number, no credit history — all the standard stuff, nothing. The guy stinks of special ops.”

“And his gun?”

“Now, that’s really interesting. It’s not a SIG Sauer, but an Iranian knock-off called a Zoaf PC9. The serial number is actually a version of what’s called an NSN — NATO Stock Number. In this case, it’s a DMC — Domestic Management Code. The two-digit country code makes it an export to the UK.”

Raymond Wellesley’s homeland, Jack thought. Too obvious, an oversight, or a coincidence? The black-market handgun business was booming, as it always had been. Heavy weapons were tougher to smuggle, especially after 9/11, but not so with handguns. Iranian or British or otherwise, the nine-millimeter’s origin was proof of nothing. Interesting, though, that it led directly back to Wellesley.

“What the hell are you into, Jack?” asked Gavin.

“I’ve already asked myself that more than a few times. Tell me about my phone.”

“It’s powered down now, but it was on, briefly, yesterday morning. The best I could do was a rough location. Somewhere between — and I’ll try not to butcher these names… Enghelab Road, Rashid Yashemi Street, and Vali Asr Street.”

Jack said, “Hold on a second,” then asked Ysabel: “The area of Enghelab Road, Rashid Yashemi Street, and Vali Asr Street — mean anything to you?”

“Of course. That’s the neighborhood where Seth’s apartment is — not the bolt-hole, his real one. It’s on the other side of Mellat Park, about a mile from mine.”

“Good work, Gavin. What time was Seth’s phone on and for how long?”

“About thirty seconds or so, at 10:09.”

“Thanks. Talk to—”

“Hang on, Jack. At exactly the same time, your stolen phone powered up, and it stayed on for the same duration.”

Someone had hijacked his old phone.

Twenty minutes later they were back at Ysabel’s apartment.

“Your phone? How is that possible?” she said, pushing open the front door and laying her purse on the kitchen counter. “Is that even doable?”

Jack closed the door behind them.

“It’s doable.” The Campus had done it before, and Wellesley and Spellman would have access to their own sophisticated tech nerds. “Assuming my phone was actually pinging from Seth’s Naseri Street apartment, somebody’s laying a trap.” He had to also assume they’d seen the earlier text exchange between him and Seth, though it would do them little good.

“You think they want the folder we got from Seth’s safe?”

Jack nodded. “It’s a good bet. Let’s see if we get an invitation.”

Jack’s new phone arrived mid-afternoon. He pored over his notes, trying to make sense of the glut of information he’d amassed over the past two days, and occasionally checked his e-mail; earlier he’d sent a curt “Contact me” e-mail to Ervaz, the other agent Ysabel knew about. He’d received no reply.

Jack wasn’t sure of his next move. Irrational though it was, he felt he had a lot of leads, and no leads at all. Wellesley, Spellman, Yazdani and Son, Balaclava Man, David Weaver, Seth/Not Seth texting him, and a pile of papers in Cyrillic that was clearly important to both Seth and… whoever.

Jack briefly considered going to Pardis and sitting on it, but decided against it. And while he couldn’t be sure the text had come from the apartment itself, Jack’s gut told him it had. Such a move made tactical sense. They knew he was looking for Seth, so why not lure him there with exactly that?

How could he turn the trap to his advantage? Contingencies, countercontingencies, evasion, and escape… It was a chess game with the highest possible stakes, and no matter how well pre-plotted your game, something would go wrong. Something always went wrong. What mattered is what you did about it. And with whom. He was mostly convinced that Ysabel was who she claimed to be, and she’d so far proven herself reliable, but part of him wanted to leave her behind. Was this sexism or overprotectiveness? The latter, he decided. He’d have to get over that. Ysabel was in this because she wanted to be. Plus, with him overprotectiveness tended to precede attachment, which tended to precede deeper feelings — in his case, a sequence that often happened prematurely. It was a complication he didn’t need right now. It’d be so much easier if she were unlikable.

Back to work. He opened Ysabel’s laptop, brought Google Maps up in the browser, then located the neighborhood around Pardis Condos and started putting the streets and building to memory. This would be their ground. They had some advantage: the bad guys would assume they’d be walking blindly into the trap.

A thought occurred to him. “Ysabel, can you do me a favor?” She walked up. He wrote a couple of items on the notepad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to her. “Can you get this stuff?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Should be able to find it in a military surplus store, if you have those here.”

“What’s it for?”

“An experiment.”

Once back from her errand, Ysabel spent the rest of her afternoon cooking in the kitchen and listening to her MP3 player, hair tied in a ponytail, humming as she moved among the simmering pots, stirring and tasting and adding spices. She was trying to keep her mind occupied, Jack suspected. Though her romantic involvement had ended with Seth, clearly she cared about him.

And here they were, Jack thought, sitting on their hands and playing house. At this thought, Jack smiled. Despite the circumstances, he didn’t entirely mind the feeling. Careful, Jack.

He got up from the dining table, stretched his arms, and rubbed his hands through his hair. He called to Ysabel, “Scotch?”

She removed her earbuds. “What?”

“Scotch?”

“Please.”

He poured two glasses and joined her in the kitchen. He handed her a glass and she took a sip. Jack said, “When do we eat?”

“This?” she replied, gesturing to the pots. “Tomorrow. It’s a complex recipe requiring great patience. Tonight we’re having last night’s leftovers again.”

“Khoreshteh qiemeh bademjoon? Persian eggplant stew.”

“Very good, Jack.”

“Iranians have a thing about stew, don’t they?”

She laughed. “We do.” Slowly the smile faded from her face and she said, “This feels wrong somehow, you know, enjoying ourselves while Seth is… out there. We should be doing something.”

“I feel the same. Right now there’s nothing to do but wait.”

“Well, I’m not a fan. Just so you know.”

At eight-fifteen Jack’s prepaid cell phone trilled. With Ysabel peering over his shoulder, he checked the screen:

Jack said to Ysabel, “Get your coat.”

“You’re not going to reply?”

“If I can track them, we have to assume they can track us. We don’t want to get a knock on your door. I don’t suppose you have binoculars, do you?”

“No, but Mr. Hamdi next door does. I’ll go get them.” Ysabel left.

Jack pulled out the prepaid cell, powered it up, and typed, OFF NIAYESH, RIGHT? APARTMENT 12?

RIGHT. COME ASAP. BRING STEAK. — S.

Jack disconnected and then from the table grabbed the product of Ysabel’s shopping trip, a silver bag about three times the size of Jack’s disposable phone. He put that and his cloned phone inside and sealed it shut.

“What exactly is that?” she asked.

“It’s called a Faraday bag. The plastic I asked for is ESD, electrostatic discharge material. Specifically, MIL-PRF-8170—”

“Just tell me what it does, Jack.”

“In theory? It blocks all outgoing signals. If they’re tracking us, this might make it impossible.”

“Let’s hope.”

“How close is Seth’s building to Mellat Park?”

“It’s southeast of here, about a mile. Right across the street from the park’s west entrance. What’ve you got in mind, Jack?”

“We’re going to kidnap a kidnapper.”