Whiplash

53

Flash picked up the others in the van he’d rented at the Tehran equivalent of Hertz. The man at the desk had never rented to a foreigner before, but he was in Rome a few years back and happily engaged in small talk as he handled the arrangements on the computer. Flash had only been to Italy as a passenger on military flights stopping to refuel. He’d memorized a great deal of information about pipelines and related tools, but knew very little about the country he was supposedly from. He didn’t let that stop him, however — he told the man several stories of the incredible things going on in the country, including a plan to extend Venice’s canals to Rome.

“Roma? Really?” asked the man.

“Si, si,” said Flash. The conversation was in English — fortunately for him — but Nuri had advised him to throw in an Italian phrase every so often. Si, si—yes, yes — and dove il bano were about all he knew.

“Canals up the mountains?”

“Under,” said Flash. “Tunnels. Si?”

“Ah, yes.”

Flash’s congeniality got a hundred thousand rials knocked off the rental price as a special perk. But while he thought the van would be perfect because of its size, it turned to be less handy that he’d hoped. It barely fit down some of the streets in the old part of the city, and kept threatening to stall when he stepped too hard on the gas.

By the time he got over to the hotel, Tarid had already gotten into a taxi. Nuri and Hera flagged down their own, leaving Danny to wait for Flash.

The Voice steered them away from the knotted traffic in the center of the city, following as Tarid had the taxi take him southeast. They were still about five miles away from him when he stopped in Kahrizak, a small village in an agricultural area south of the city. They continued until they got to within a half mile, and then the Voice started picking up Tarid’s conversation. Flash pulled off to the side of the road while Danny listened.

Everything was a confused jumble for the first minute or so. Gradually, Danny realized this wasn’t the meeting they’d hoped to be led to. Tarid was looking up an old friend who apparently had died a year before. The woman who owned the house now had no idea where the family had moved.

Nuri called in from the taxi, which had been stuck in traffic and was still several miles away.

“Sounds like he’s looking up an old friend,” said Nuri. “What do you think?”

“Has to be.”

“We’re going up to Qemez Tappeh,” Nuri told Danny. “We’ll see what happens from there.”

Qemez Tappeh was a slightly larger village a little north of Kahrizak.

Within minutes, Tarid had gone back to his cab and was heading for the highway.

“They’re on their way to Tehran,” Danny told Flash. “We’ll have to turn around.”

“Just a wild goose chase?”

“So far.”

Tarid decided he couldn’t face the temptation of the hotel keeper’s daughter for even a few minutes. He had the driver take him to a café he was once a regular at in Punak, on the northwest side of the city. It would be as good as anywhere to kill time.

Once a hangout for young men and university types, it now catered to a much older, quieter crowd. In truth, many of the people Tarid remembered still came here; they had simply grown older. But his mind couldn’t quite adjust, and while some of the faces seemed familiar, he couldn’t attach a name to any.

He took a seat by himself in the corner, then brooded over a tea, trying to convince himself that Aberhadji wasn’t going to have him arrested, or simply executed.

Finally it was time to leave. He paid his bill and went outside, walking down the block to a gas station that he knew rented cars. He didn’t see anyone in the office as he walked up, and for a moment a fresh dose of panic upturned the melancholy stoicism that had settled over him: Aberhadji would not like him to take a cab to the meeting, though he had cut things so close now he might not have an alternative. But the man who ran the station had merely gone to the restroom; he yelled from the back as soon as Tarid rang the bell at the front desk.

The rental was quickly arranged, and within a half hour Tarid was wending his way through the mountains north of the city.

The bright sun glinted off the metal roofs of the large warehouse buildings north of Darreh Bagh as he hunted for the turn he had to take off the main road. The terraced hills above still showed traces of snow, and he worried about the shape of the roads. He’d come here once during the dead of winter — one of the worst ever on record in Iran — and nearly got stuck before reaching the farm.

Aberhadji called it a farm, though the buildings hadn’t been used for agriculture in more than two decades. They’d been falling down when Aberhadji found them, neglected and forgotten in a dead-end valley in the hills. Their obscurity was exactly what Aberhadji wanted. It was doubtful that anyone except those who’d had business here even knew that they existed.

The narrow road was muddy but passable. Tarid drove carefully, avoiding the largest of the ruts as he negotiated the hairpin turn that marked the midway point from the main road to the actual driveway. Within a few hundred feet of the turn, he came under surveillance from a sentry. He didn’t know exactly where this point was, nor did it matter to him — he had felt he was being watched from the very moment he left Tehran, and acted accordingly. If he was not resigned to his fate, he was at least under the impression that he was trapped, with no way out. Running would only prolong his agony and deprive him of any slim chance he had of talking Aberhadji into sparing his life.

Tarid’s fears had doubled each hour over the past twenty-four, pushing not just logic but every other thought from his mind. He drove up to the large yard in front of the ruined main house a condemned man, as if arms and legs were bound in chains to his waist. There were no guards near the car parked there before him, and he saw no one at the front of the large building slightly downhill on the left, which was used as the compound’s headquarters.

Had Tarid been thinking clearly, he would have interpreted this as a positive sign. But he was no longer thinking, clearly or otherwise. He closed the car door and walked slowly down the path, each step measured, each length the same.

He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Once more there was no answer. He pulled open the door.

Aberhadji was standing over a table at the far end of the room, distracted, studying a schematic.

“You are ten minutes late,” he said.

“I—”

“It’s all right.” Aberhadji waved his hand. “I was delayed myself.”

Tarid stayed near the door, frozen by his fear.

“I’d call for tea, but there’s no one to make it,” said Aberhadji. “The crew has been dismissed until June.”

“Is the operation — are we shutting down?”

Aberhadji looked up, startled by the question. “No, no. Just the normal lull in gathering materials. So — your report?”

“My report.” Tarid’s throat narrowed to the size of a straw. He could barely breathe.

“What happened in Sudan?” asked Aberhadji.

“Sudan…”

“What is wrong with you, Tarid?” Aberhadji came out from around the table for a better look at his lieutenant. Even in the dim light near the door, Tarid seemed paler than normal. “Have you been drinking?”

“No. Drinking? Of course not.”

“Don’t pretend to be what you are not,” said Aberhadji sharply. “What does this arms dealer want? What does he know about us?”

“I don’t know. They—”

Tarid stopped speaking. Blood was rushing from his head. He had been wrong — Aberhadji wasn’t going to confront him about his skimming, and hadn’t sent Kirk to catch him.

“Are you all right? Have a seat. Here.”

Aberhadji took Tarid’s arm and gently led him to the side. Tarid didn’t smell as if he’d been drinking, though that might not prove anything. Still, it seemed more likely he had caught the flu.

“I — Kirk is in Tehran,” said Tarid.

“Tehran?”

“He wants — he wants to strike a deal. There was an attack in Sudan. I was captured. I was shot.”

“Shot?”

“Yes. In the leg. Nothing. It’s nothing. He freed me.”

“He freed you?”

While Aberhadji had made inquiries about Kirk, the information the intelligence service had turned up — that he had been active in Somalia and had contacts in South Africa and Germany — did not completely rule out the possibility that he was working for a foreign spy service, such as the CIA, or even the Israelis. The story that now unfolded from Tarid worried him further. This Kirk clearly had impressive resources — perhaps too impressive.

On the other hand, would someone who worked for the CIA or the Zionists dare come to Iran?

“Were you followed here?” Aberhadji demanded when Tarid finished telling him about his misadventures.

“No, absolutely not.”

“You’re a fool, Tarid. How many people followed you here?”

“I wasn’t — No one.”

“How did Kirk know you were in Tehran?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Did he follow you from the airport?”

“Impossible.”

“So he guessed?”

“I thought he was working for you.”

Another possibility presented itself to Aberhadji — Kirk was working for the government. Yes, the Iranian spy service could easily arrange all of this.

But to what end?

The past two days had been a terrible upheaval for Aberhadji. He wasn’t sure which way to turn. The CIA, the Zionists, his own traitorous government — everyone had fallen under Satan’s spell.

He could trust no one.

“This Kirk wants a really big arrangement,” said Tarid. “He’s greedy. He thinks he can supply weapons to all of Africa, through us. I’ll bet he killed Luo to get in position. But it might be something we should consider. He does have—”

“Stop,” said Aberhadji. “How are you to contact him?”

“I have a phone number.”

“Give me what you have.”

Tarid reached into his pocket and took out the half-torn card Kirk had given him in the restaurant. His hand trembled as he turned it over, realizing that Aberhadji thought it was an elaborate trap.

“You checked his background,” said Tarid. “You know as much about him as I.”

The glare in Aberhadji’s eyes told him immediately that saying that was a mistake.

“I want you to go back to Tehran,” said Aberhadji. “I will contact you in a day or two. You’ll call Kirk and set up a meeting.”

“He can’t be Mossad. He’s black.”

Aberhadji exploded. “You fool! You think the Zionists aren’t smart enough to hide behind a black man? And so what? You said yourself from his accent he’s American. He is probably CIA.”

“No. He risked his life—”

“Out! Before I lose my temper.”

Danny, Nuri, and the others were parked in the van about a half mile below the farm. They’d heard the entire exchange.

“Let’s get back to the highway,” Nuri told Danny. “Before he reaches the car.”

“He’s right,” Danny told Flash. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are you guys going to tell us what’s going on, or are we just along for the ride?” asked Hera.

“Tarid just met with the person in charge of the program,” said Danny. “He wants to set up a meeting with me. They think I’m CIA.”

“Or Mossad,” Nuri said. “Or maybe just a greedy arms dealer.”

“So they know we’re on to them,” said Hera.

“They suspect it,” said Nuri. “They don’t actually know it. If we can get the ringleader to that meeting, we can tag him. Maybe even bug him. We have a couple of days — we can get some special bugs made up.”

“You’re not going to go ahead with a meeting,” Hera told Danny. “That would be suicide.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“No, no. We’ll set something up.” Nuri studied the map on the Voice command unit, looking for a place they might stop to eat before Tehran.

“Set something up? You’re nuts,” said Hera. She leaned forward from the backseat. “You can’t go to the meeting, Colonel. There’s just no way.”

“If we arrange it right—”

“We have to get close to him,” said Nuri. “We have to follow him.”

“Then you should take the meeting if you’re so gung-ho,” said Hera.

“Maybe I will,” he told her.

“You don’t have to actually meet him,” said Flash. “Just have him walk through a populated area, brush by him and mark him.”

“It’ll need to be more elaborate to get a bug on him,” said Nuri.

“It’s not for another couple of days,” said Danny. “We have plenty to do in the meantime. I want to get inside the compound and take a look at it.”

Danny’s heart pounded at the idea of meeting with Tarid’s boss. Hera was right — it would be a setup, one almost impossible to escape from. And yet, part of him believed he had to agree to it, had to go, just to prove he was brave.

Why should he have to prove that now? Hadn’t he been brave in Sudan? He’d frozen for a moment, the briefest moment. No one else had seen, or known. How much courage was enough?

He’d acted bravely, yet he felt like a coward.

Because McGowan had died. That was part of it. His man had died. The cost, the terrible cost.

He was measuring himself against an impossible standard, yet he couldn’t help it.

“That farm isn’t on any CIA surveillance list,” said Nuri. “It’s most likely just an arbitrary meeting place. There probably won’t be anything there.”

“Then it’ll be easy to check out,” said Danny. “We weren’t doing anything interesting tonight anyway.”

As soon as tarid left the building, Aberhadji slipped out the small two-way radio he kept his pocket.

“Have someone take the car and follow him,” he told the head of the resident security team. “Make sure he goes to Tehran. I want to know everything he does, everyone he meets. Go yourself.”

“That will leave you with only one guard to watch the building. And yourself.”

“I can count.”

“Yes, Imam.”

The security team had assured Aberhadji when Tarid arrived that he wasn’t followed, but Aberhadji no longer knew what or who to trust. For this reason alone, prudence suggested he shut down the operation, keep it completely inactive for six months, a year, then arrange for a new incarnation. There was already the one warhead, after all, with material hidden for two more; he could wait.

Especially given that the council had decided to back the president and his treacherous acts.

They were the more serious problem. He would have to increase his influence before the president could be dealt with.

Aberhadji felt a headache coming on. It had been months since he’d had one.

He bent to pray, asking forgiveness for his sins, and requesting that the pain be lightened.

Allah was merciful. The metal prongs that had begun to tighten around his skull receded.

So he would lay low. That was the best direction now. He would dismantle everything, starting here. The tools would be moved to the mines. The material and the warhead would be relocated.

He’d need a crew here immediately. And more security as well. Even if it attracted attention.

He picked up his sat phone and started to dial, then stopped. The Americans were very good at stealing transmissions and breaking encryptions. He would have to assume, for the time being, that they would be able to listen into any conversation he had.

It meant inevitable delay, but it couldn’t be helped.

He took the radio out again.

“I am going into town,” he told the lone watchman. “We will need reinforcements. I will arrange for them to arrive as soon as possible. In the meantime, shoot anyone you find on the property.”

“It will be done, Imam.”