Pandora's Grave (37 page)

“What of the lab trailers?”

Harry turned to meet Gideon’s question. “He and the team were isolated following their arrest. He wasn’t able to provide any conjecture as to their nature.”

The two Israelis exchanged glances. “Why did you disrupt our surveillance of the interrogation room?” Shoham demanded, clearing his throat.

Harry leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. “You’ve witnessed for yourselves the emotional state I found Dr. Tal in. He was insistent that everything he shared must stay between the two of us. I needed to take steps of good faith. The man is a basketcase. I frankly don’t know what you’ve done to him, but…”

He let the comment hang there, an unspoken accusation dangling in the air. The Mossad commander seemed on the brink of an angry retort, but he choked it down. “We don’t torture our own, Mr. Nichols. I regret that you could not be more helpful, but I appreciate your willingness to try.”

“Of course,” Harry responded, rising from his chair. The bodyguard opened the door and he exited, stage right, into the corridor.

“He was lying,” Gideon observed, moments after the door had closed.

Avi ben Shoham sighed heavily, his eyes scanning the rough notes in front of him. “I know it.”

The lieutenant’s hand moved toward the phone on the table. “I can call security.”

“To what purpose? His government knows exactly where he is. Causing an incident with the Americans is not in our best interests, particularly if the Iranians have something in the offing. This will be a waiting game, lieutenant. In the mean time, we work with what we still have. Get a team working on Tal again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re dismissed.” Gideon had made it half-way to the door when the general’s voice arrested him. “And, Lt. Laner.”

“Yes?”

“I will need the contact information for Nathan Gur’s next of kin. See that it gets to my desk by this evening, if you please.”

“Of course, sir.”

The car from Station Tel Aviv was waiting for Harry in the parking garage and he got in, beginning a careful search for bugs. He was exhausted, emotionally drained from the stress of the interrogation. Tal was a good man, of that he was sure.

He leaned back in the seat of the car, closing his eyes. It didn’t help—the face of the Israeli rose before him, playing across the back of his eyelids. A basketcase, yeah, he was that. And he had helped make him that way.

Harry had seen men like Tal before—it wasn’t Stockholm, but a syndrome similar in effect. Men who seemed to shut down, forsaking their mission in a panicked attempt to save those around them. The world seemed to withdraw into narrow focus, a world in which nothing else mattered.

Playing upon those loyalties had been the only way to break him. And despite what he had told Shoham, the results had been worth it.

He found a mike under the steering wheel and ripped it out, crushing the small instrument before tossing it from the window as the car left the underground garage. Reaching inside his pocket for the TACSAT, he allowed himself a small, tired smile.

“This is Nichols,” he announced when the encryption sequence finished. “I need you to run an inter-agency database sweep for me. Yes, of course I have a name. Achmed Asefi.”

2:13 P.M. Tehran Time

The training camp

Isfahan, Iran

The door opened abruptly and the Ayatollah Isfahani emerged from the room where he had been in conference with Hossein for the past several hours. “It’s time to go,” he announced quietly, turning to the man who had been standing outside the door the entire time.

Achmed Asefi nodded wordlessly and led the way out of the building, his eyes alert to any and all potential threats. There had been two attempts on the Ayatollah’s life in the thirteen years he had served him as bodyguard. He had killed both assassins with his own hand, earning himself the implicit trust of his master.

But now… They were wading into treacherous waters. The sentry at the helipad saluted briskly at their approach. Asefi regarded him with the hooded eyes of a bird of prey, considering and then rejecting him as a source of trouble.

He opened the door of the helicopter, ushering the Ayatollah inside before entering himself. Seating himself at the side of his principal, he caught a glimpse of the major standing outside the mosque.

“I don’t trust that man,” he observed. “He is not a true believer.”

“Hossein?” Isfahani asked, casting a sidelong glance at his bodyguard.

A nod served as the only reply, Asefi’s eyes still fixed on the subject of their conversation as the helicopter rose into the air.

The Ayatollah shrugged. “Neither do I. Which is why you will accompany him to Al Quds.”

3:07 P.M.

The Alborz Mountains

Iran

It had taken over an hour to ride the final three kilometers to the ford. The horses were tiring, as were they. The wind was lessening, but the rain still beat down upon their soaked, weary bodies.

She urged the grey up the slope ahead, and over the thunder of the ebbing storm Thomas heard the sharp gasp that broke from her lips.

“What is it?” he asked, reining in his horse abreast of her. Before she could respond, his own eyes had given him the answer.

The ford could be seen below them, through a screen of trees. A ford? Swollen by the rain, it looked more like a raging torrent. They had lost their race with the storm.

Thomas looked over into her eyes, reading the exhaustion written there. Knowing it was mirrored in his own.

There was no time for indecision. They both knew it. After a long moment, Estere spoke. “We’ve got to go through.”

“What?” Thomas exclaimed. “Cross that?”

“I’ve seen it higher,” she asserted. She turned toward him, a stubborn look on her face. “It’s a ride of over a hundred kilometers to go around.”

“How long would it take to subside?”

“Days, if it stops raining.” She sat there in the rain for a moment or two longer, then announced her decision. “We need to find shelter—we’ll rest the horses till morning and then make the attempt.”

6:49 A.M. Central Time

A residential development

Outside Dayton, Ohio

“I have target clear, Vic. Subjects have left the residence.”

“Separately or together?”

“Separately. They were dressed for work.”

“Good.” Vic stuck the cellphone back in his pocket and exited the rental car, pulling a packet of tracts from his pocket as he moved up the sidewalk. The pamphlets bore the logo of the Watchtower Society and he smiled at the irony.

He left tracts at two of the houses on his way up the cul-de-sac, then approached the Sarami’s house. Kazem Sarami served as a lawyer in a prominent Dayton firm and was handling a case before the Ohio State Supreme Court this day. The house sat off the cul-de-sac, connected by a stone driveway.

Approaching to the front door of the imposing residence, he knocked loudly on the door, holding the tracts in his right hand, only inches away from his concealed automatic. A couple minutes, and no one came. Another knock. Still silence.

“I’m going in,” he whispered into his lip mike. “Cover me.”

“Roger that. The alarm has been disabled. You’re clear to move.”

Five minutes later, he had picked the lock on the back door of the Sarami residence and was standing in the mudroom, examining the alarm system. Sure enough, it was off-line. Never hurt to double-check, he thought, running a gloved finger over the unit.

A brief check of the living room and kitchen revealed nothing. Time to head upstairs…

5:30 P.M. Baghdad Time

The foothills of the Qandil

Iraq

“What’s the good word, sir?” Hamid turned to find Sergeant Jose Obregon standing at his side.

“It isn’t,” he replied, shoving the TACSAT back into the pocket of his Kevlar vest. “We’ve got some problems.”

Hamid turned without another word and walked back to the Humvee, the Army Ranger sergeant following in his wake, M-4 held at the ready.

The Humvee was of Iraq War vintage, additional armor plates bolted onto the sides. A .50-caliber Browning was mounted to the roof, manned by a nineteen-year-old technical from Kennesaw, Georgia.

“Everybody listen up.” Hamid called out as he stopped a few feet away from the vehicle. It had been years since his own days in the Army Rangers, but he remembered the command voice well.

“Everyone dismount and set up bivouac here for the night. We just received comm from Sergeant Brown,” Hamid continued. Due to the clandestine nature of their operation, they were using pseudonyms in front of the Rangers. Thomas was Sergeant Brown. “He and his guide are trapped on the other side of a rain-swollen mountain stream. To detour around would involve well over a hundred kilometers and several days of travel. They’re going to make an effort to cross in the morning. Then we will meet at the border as planned.”

“Why not keep pressing forward?” Obregon asked.

Hamid cast a critical glance in the sergeant’s direction. “I grew up in this part of the world, sergeant. I don’t want to spend any more time in Kurd-controlled territory than I have to.
Comprende
?” he asked, switching into Spanish for the sheer fun of it. He had enjoyed language school.

Obregon nodded, a temporary flash of annoyance crossing his face before the iron mask of discipline once again asserted itself. The CIA was in control of this mission, whether he liked it or not.

“Take your men and start setting up a defensive perimeter. Sergeant Black!” Hamid called. “I need to talk with you.”

Davood appeared from the other side of the Humvee, an anxious look on his face. “Yes, Sergeant White?”

Hamid motioned for him to follow, then walked away from the path, until they were out of earshot of the Rangers. “Is Thomas all right?”

“Exhausted, but okay otherwise,” Hamid replied. “I hope they can cross the stream in safety.”

“Did he say where they were specifically?”

Hamid shook his head. “No. Just that they were on the east side of a stream there in the mountains. Keep your eyes open,” he continued, looking toward the mountains. “Hopefully the Kurds will leave us be.”

8:02 A.M. Central Time

The suburbs of Dayton

He had been in the house for an hour and three minutes, precisely, he realized, checking the luminous dial of his Armitron wristwatch. And he was stymied.

It would appear that the lawyer possessed a laptop. At any rate, it was gone, leaving behind an empty socket where it would have been docked with the flatscreen LCD monitor. Modern technology had such frustrating potential.

Despite this setback, he’d tossed the house. No dice. He moved back to the desk with the monitor, drawn there by a sudden impulse. A thin book lay there, with the word
Address
across the front in gold filigree. He picked up the book once again, unsure as to why he was returning. It was filled with personal contact information, the addresses of family and colleagues. The monotonous trivia of life in the suburbs. He turned all the way to the back and his breath caught in surprise.

All at once his earbud came to life with static, taking him off-guard. It was his partner’s voice, low and urgent.

“We’ve got an issue, Vic.”

His body tensed, every sense alert. He knew that tone. “What is it?”

“A car just pulled into the drive.”

“Oh, crap. One of theirs?”

“That’s a negative. It’s a little Honda. Ohio tags.”

Vic paused, torn by indecision. “A woman’s getting out,” his partner reported. “Looks like she’s got some sort of mop in her hand. I think she’s there to clean the place.”

He swore under his breath, standing there with the book in his hands. “I’ve got to have five minutes.”

“I don’t think you’ve got that kind of time, Vic. Get out of there. Now.”

“You’ve got to stall her somehow.”

“How?”

“I don’t care how, just do it,” he retorted stubbornly, whipping a PDA out of his pocket and running it over the open page. A scanned image appeared on the screen and he clicked Save. Next page. Rinse and repeat.

Plan B. Improvise. The man in the car sighed, disconnecting his lip mike and shoving it in a pocket. After ten years working with Vic, one might think you would become accustomed to this kind of thing.

A single coffee-stained pamphlet from the Jehovah’s Witnesses was crumpled in the center console, still there from their rehearsal of the night before. The trouble was, it was
Vic
that had rehearsed. Not him.

He took a deep breath, trying to smooth out the paper as he stepped from the car. Time to convert the lost…

8:06 A.M.

Air Force One

On approach to St. Louis

Missouri

“We have approximately twenty minutes till landing, Mr. President.” Hancock raised his head to smile at the brunette staffer who had just made the announcement. “Thank you, Mary.”

She smiled back, fairly glowing at his remembrance of her name. It was his specialty, he thought, watching as she returned to her seat.

“What do you think, Ian?”

“I think things would go much more smoothly if you would keep it zipped, Mr. President.”

Hancock laughed. Ian was among the very few men who would dare say such a thing to him. A straightforward opinion could be refreshing. At times. He tapped his fingers together and shrugged. “What could be the problem? Nicole stayed home on this trip.”

“And the wingnuts are already speculating as to
why
your wife wouldn’t accompany you. I would prefer not to throw any more bones their way.”

“Always the practical one, right, Ian? I take it you’ve seen this?” Hancock asked, throwing a paper with the headlines of the Eilat bombing into Cahill’s lap.