The Colonel's Mistake (19 page)

Mark grabbed two pistols and full clips from the equipment bag and started to run. Daria kept close on his heels. After he’d gone a hundred yards or so, he turned and, through the trees, caught a glimpse of the Land Cruiser careening out into the middle of the tea field. Shots were fired from the helicopter, followed by shots from Decker, still hidden in the woods.

Daria looked up at the sun. “If we keep going south we should hit a road I know in a few minutes. From there I can take us to a
trail through the mountains and get us over the border without running into guards.”

“How long are we talking?”

“Border crossing’s not more than a mile away. That’s why we had the safe house up here.”

“I’ll follow you,” said Mark, and then they both turned and ran.

Port of Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates

The two-story steel warehouse was one of thousands of freight stations clustered on the eastern edge of the port. It was remarkable only in that on the inside, instead of being crammed full with goods for import or export, it lay empty save for a thirty-foot-long powerboat and a group of soldiers.

Three of the soldiers wielded spray guns and were painting the boat, which had been propped up on jack stands and blocks.

A fourth, the leader of the group, stood in the background observing his men and occasionally glancing at a photo of an actual United Arab Emirates Coast Guard boat that he held in his hand. Tomorrow, when the gray paint had dried, two red stripes would be affixed to either side of the hull, and the marine radar dome and other antennas would be installed. The details would have to be perfect, he thought, because anything approaching the
USS Reagan
that was perceived to be a threat would be blown out of the water.

Under normal circumstances, not even the Emirates Coast Guard would be allowed to get too close. But if the coast guard was in direct pursuit of a hostile craft…well, the soldier couldn’t see the Americans firing on the coast guard until it was too late.

Washington, DC

A man in his midtwenties, wearing khakis and a wrinkled Oxford shirt, sauntered up to the office of Vision Financial Consulting and Cash Advances on Georgia Avenue. In one hand he held a set of keys, in the other a giant Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup. He took a sip and nodded to Henry Amato, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the locked entrance to the building.

Morning rush-hour traffic was noisy and a car alarm was going off nearby.

“You were supposed to open at eight,” said Amato.

“It is eight.”

“It’s five after.”

The guy shrugged. He was tall, with floppy brown hair and an untrimmed soul patch under his lip. Amato noted the enormous metal-ringed hole in the guy’s earlobe and scowled. Why people chose to deface their bodies like savages was beyond him.

“Sorry. We’re open now.” He unlocked the door. “Come on in.”

It was a small store. The gray carpet was black with street grime in front of the main counter, over which hung a sign that read
Paychecks Cashed Here.
An old air conditioner stuck out from the
wall. In the back lurked an office separated from the main area by glass partition walls and a flimsy wood door.

“Here to cash a paycheck?”

“I’m a retired colonel in the US Armed Forces,” said Amato, standing tall. “And I need a cash advance on my pension.”

“Colonel, huh? Don’t see many of those down here.”

It disgusted Amato that this kid who, if he had even gone to college, had probably spent the time drinking himself silly and smoking marijuana, and who had certainly never seen military service—probably even looked down on those who served—it disgusted him that this kid would, for even this brief moment in time, hold the key to something Amato desperately wanted. It was a prime example of the degeneration of values across the nation, Amato thought. A degeneration he’d tried but had so clearly failed to prevent. This punk, he thought, was what America had become.

“I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“You bring a copy of your most recent pension statement?”

“I did.”

“You working now?”

“For the government. I brought pay stubs.”

“How’s your credit?”

“It’s fine,” said Amato sharply.

He was ushered into the back office, told to take a seat in front of the desk, and handed an application. Amato filled it out in five minutes.

The guy leafed through it. When he got to the last page, he whistled. “That’s quite a figure.”

“Can you do it?”

Since Daria and Sava clearly didn’t plan to take refuge at the embassy, Amato figured his only hope was to pay private
contractors to intercept Aryanpur’s men. But private contractors were extraordinarily expensive.

When it came to money, Amato had never been a saver. With social security and his government pension due to kick in soon, he’d always figured he didn’t need to worry about socking money away.

And anyway, too much money was an affront to God.

“I’ll need to confirm your pension of course, and run a credit report and all that. But if everything checks out, you should be OK.”

“What kind of timing are we talking about?”

“Two weeks or so.”

“Your website says immediate cash advances.”

“Yeah, on paychecks. The pension buyouts are another animal.”

“If I can’t get it today, it won’t do me any good! How long does it take to run a credit check and confirm my pension? You should be able to do that in ten minutes.”

“You can pay for us to expedite it, but honestly sir, I wouldn’t recommend it. You’ll take a huge hit in fees, see. You’d do better to wait.”

“Expedite the application, son. I’ll pay what I need to.”

“I don’t know if we can even do this figure this quick. I’ll have to call my boss.”

“I’ll wait.”

Mark recalled that there had once been a border fence separating Iran from Azerbaijan, a mini-Berlin Wall that had stood for decades during the Soviet era. But there were more Azeris in northern Iran than there were in Azerbaijan itself, so as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Azeris on both sides of the fence had just ripped the thing down.

Ever since, illegally crossing into Iran from Azerbaijan had involved little more than racing along a well-trodden path from one side of the border to the other. Which is exactly how he and Daria did it.

Not far from where they crossed stood a cluster of well-kept farmhouses. Inside a mud-walled garage attached to one of them, Mark hotwired an old Paykan—a cheap Iranian car—and left $2,000 in its place on the dirt floor.

They raced south toward the city of Esfahan, passing perfectly symmetrical green rice paddies, tea fields planted on steep mountain terraces, roadside kebab restaurants that smelled of grilled lamb, and roadside stores that displayed open barrels of dried fruit amidst unruly stacks of blue oil drums.

Soon they hit the cool air of the craggy Alborz Mountains, followed hours later by the intense heat of the westernmost tip of the vast Kavir Desert. They chose roads that kept them far from the
crush of people and stink of cars in the cities. On the wide open stretches, where Mark could be sure there were no cops for miles around him, he kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor.

As he stared out across a dry desert salt marsh, Mark was reminded of the desert south of Baku, which in turn led him to start thinking about Nika and her son. He remembered the last dinner they’d all eaten together. It had been at an unpretentious little Georgian restaurant south of Baku, not far from the beach where they’d spent the day. After dinner, Nika had put her son to sleep at her parents’ house. And then she and Mark had gone back to his place to drink wine and have sex on the balcony. That must have been just about the time everyone in the Trudeau House was being slaughtered, he realized, struck by the absurdity of his own obliviousness. He hoped Nika was safe.

He turned to Daria. “Tell me more about this physicist who helped you steal the uranium.”

She was sitting in the passenger seat, still wearing a black chador robe that covered her hair and upper body.

“His girlfriend was an Iranian-Kurd reporter who was murdered by the regime.”

“What’s his name?”

“He’s a source.”

“Who’s already bolted.”

“His disappearance was made to look like he was abducted by the Mossad or the CIA. I’m not going to put his extended family in danger. If you were ever captured—”

“Who are we meeting in Esfahan?”

“An MEK courier. Whose name you also don’t need to know. I should go to meet him alone.”

“Give me a break.”

“I protected my sources even when I was with the CIA. You know that. I’m not treating you any different now than when you were my boss.”

“We’ll go together—I’ll back you up like I did when you met your agents in Baku. You want some advice?”

“No.”

“Tell me everything you know about this mess and then walk away, or better yet, run before you do any more damage.”

“I already did tell you everything I know. We made a deal, remember?”

“Create a new identity and start a new life somewhere. The world’s a big place, you’re resourceful.”

“Try taking your own advice, dude.”

“You’ve had your revenge on the CIA. You’ve settled the score. Leave it at that.”

A long time ago, her CIA father had betrayed her Iranian mother and to return the favor, she’d betrayed the CIA. So the Agency had suffered a little bit of blowback. And in truth, Mark thought the CIA deserved a certain amount of blowback when it came to Iran—overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected government in the fifties, for example, hadn’t exactly been a stroke of genius. Supporting the Shah and his secret police probably hadn’t been such a hot idea either. But the operations officers who’d died at the Trudeau House hadn’t been involved in any of that. They’d died for other people’s old mistakes, other people’s old grievances.

Daria said, “By the time I was working for you, it wasn’t about settling scores anymore. I’d moved on from that.”

“Enlighten me, Daria. What did you move on to?”

“Do you always have to be so sarcastic?”

“Only when it’s called for.”

“Toppling the mullahs could help a lot of people in Iran. A lot of good people.”

“You don’t think maybe people get the government they deserve?” When Daria didn’t respond, Mark said, “I do. Let the Iranians deal with Iran.”

“I’m half-Iranian. I’m dealing with it.”

“You’re American.”

“Whatever.”

Mark sensed that she wanted him to sympathize with her. To say he understood what she was going through, that she wasn’t a traitorous backstabber after all because her ultimate cause was just.

Screw that, he thought. Too many people had died, likely as a result of her actions, for him to have any sympathy left.

So they sat without speaking for a while, as the Paykan rattled violently and the oven-like wind coming off the Kavir Desert buffeted the little car. Finally, Mark said, “Did you ever actually learn anything about other operations officers, or anything about the Agency’s policies, that I wouldn’t have told you under ordinary circumstances?”

“No. I tried. You were too careful with your files. And if I had, I wouldn’t have compromised any individual agents or operations officers. I wasn’t out to hurt people. I’m not a monster.”

After a long time, Mark said, “I didn’t say you were.”