The Natanz Directive (14 page)

For me, it signaled a cobbled alleyway on the far side of the square that led to a two-story, shacklike building called the Burnt Column Inn. It sounded quaint, but it wasn't. I walked through a rickety screen door into a shoebox-size lobby where a woman in a head scarf was working an ancient-looking adding machine.

I should have been surprised at how good her English was until I calculated the number of Americans and Europeans she had to deal with every day. “Room?” she said.

I nodded. “With clean sheets.”

She smiled at this. I didn't know if the smile meant,
Of course the sheets are clean,
or,
What the hell are clean sheets?
She said, “How many nights?”

I held up one finger. She smiled again and said, “Euros?”

“Dollars.” She nodded. The price was eighteen dollars per night. I gave her twenty-five and said, “No calls, please.”

The room key was actually a key attached to a plastic card that read “23.” Room 23 was a flight of stairs up and down a narrow hall. I passed a community restroom and realized my shower wasn't going to be as private as I'd hoped. I plunged the key into a standard dead-bolt lock, pushed open a hollow-core door, and stepped into a room that smelled of lavender and curry, a very odd combination.

I didn't care. I walked straight to a four-poster bed, built high off the floor, and pulled back the covers. The sheets sparkled they were so white. Hallelujah. I took the Walther from the shoulder harness and laid it on the bed. I set the alarm on my iPhone for 1500 hours and set the alarm in my head for the same time. I plugged the phone into a wall socket, knowing that even with my Mophie it could be a long haul before I was able to charge it again.

I could hardly get my shoes off before I stretched out on the bed, fully clothed. I gripped the Walther in my right hand and closed my eyes. Sleep was instantaneous and dreamless. My internal alarm woke me up two minutes before the iPhone's alarm sounded. Two hours wasn't much, but I felt 100 percent better.

I retrieved my iPhone. It was 0800 in Washington, D.C.

I activated an app called the Listening Bug. It was a sweeper program. I wasn't expecting to find anything in a room in the Burnt Column Inn, but the way my luck had been going, I did a thorough scan anyway: bed, lamps, window frame, closet. All clear.

Mr. Elliot first. I punched in the new number he'd given me during our last session. It rang four times—twice longer than usual—which meant he was tracking the call via GPS. He answered, saying, “You're not at the Hotel Marmara. Trouble?”

“My middle name these days,” I answered. I backtracked, starting with a quick account of the attempted poisoning. I rehashed the unexpected police reception at the airport and my introduction to Trevor McCormick, and ended with the motorcycle rider tracking us from the airport. “Your guy was Johnny-on-the-spot at the airport, and he handled the bad guy on the bike about as well as a man could. Maybe too good. You sure about him?”

“Shit, man, if you can't trust him,” Mr. Elliot replied, “then we're fucked. I trust him like I trust you.”

Good enough, then.
I said, “Alright. Then I need him for the ride out tonight. Can you arrange that?”

“Already done,” he said. Over the course of our thirty-plus years together as case officer and operative, I'd heard him say “already done” maybe a couple of hundred times. It didn't mean exactly that; it meant,
You can count on me. Don't give it a second thought.
And I learned never to give it a second thought, because he always came through. Always.

“Good.” I filled my lungs. He waited. “I was a split second away from drinking that drink.”

He read my mind. “Five years is a long layoff.”

“No excuse.”

“No excuse at all,” he said matter-of-factly. “But it begs the question, do we move to another option?”

He didn't mention what that other option was, but I knew what he was getting at. That I pull up stakes and return home with my tail between my legs. Meaning, the HUMINT part of the op inside Iran failed. Because of me. Wasn't going to happen.

“I'm still in,” I said calmly.

“You sure? There's no pressure from this end.”

Total bullshit. I fold and I'd never be able to look Mr. Elliot in the eye again, not to mention my relationship with General Tom Rutledge. But pressure had nothing to do with it; neither did my self-esteem. I'd been charged with developing indisputable intel supporting military strikes and covert assassinations inside the most dangerous country on the planet. Imagine coming home and telling my kids I couldn't hack it. A superpatriot no more. No chance.

“It's a go,” I said. “I'll wrestle a gorilla if I have to.”

Mr. Elliot chuckled. “I'll put your driver on full alert. Give him thirty minutes' notice.”

“Roger that.” We hung up. I powered up the videoconference app and dialed General Rutledge's number. The call went through a series of clicks—security cues—and Tom answered. He was wearing a black warm-up jacket. “Caught me on the way to a tennis game,” he confessed, as if me being here in full-op mode and him being in D.C. playing tennis just didn't feel right. “News?”

I didn't bother with a full report: too much melodrama. “I'm a day away,” I said, knowing he would understand that I would have boots on the ground in the badlands tomorrow. “I need an ID infusion.” Meaning new passports with completely revised travel packets. I wanted to go in without any of the baggage I'd accumulated in Amsterdam and Turkey. Tom didn't need an explanation.

“They'll be in your deployment kit.”

“And my transportation?” Meaning the C-17 Globemaster III.

“Ready for a pickup, 0100 tomorrow morning, your time. Rendezvous point is seven hours away,” he said, referring to Field 27. “You better hustle.”

“And you'd better put in some time on that serve of yours. My daughter's got more juice on her serve than that weak-kneed thing you were sending over the net last time we faced off,” I told him.

“Is this the same daughter who's been kicking your ass since she was fifteen?”

I grinned. “Touché, my friend. Touché.”

Tom's grin didn't last. We were separated by thousands of miles and our images were nothing but tiny dots on an electronic screen, but I could still feel his concern.

“Godspeed, my friend.”

Honestly, that was the problem with working hand-in-hand with a friend: the emotional baggage couldn't possibly do either of us any good. I said, “Thanks,” and the screen went blank.

Time to go. I fished Trevor McCormick's card from my jacket and dialed his cell phone. It rang once. I could hear by the tone of his voice and a quick intake of breath that Mr. Elliot had put him on the alert. I asked how soon he could get to me. He said twenty-five minutes.

“Good. I'll be across the square from the Column of Constantine. In the gift shop.”

“What? Why there? What's up?” he wanted to know. So, Mr. Elliot hadn't told him about the screwup at the Hotel Marmara.

“I'll explain when I see you,” I said. “And if you can track down some coffee, I'd appreciate it.”

I spent ten minutes washing up at a communal sink at the end of the hall. I'd used a lot worse. There was a bar of soap attached by a piece of rope to the faucet. The water was lukewarm and only slightly rusty. There was an empty paper-towel dispenser and a cloth towel that looked as if it had been used by a construction worker or a gardener. I walked with wet hands and face back to my room and used a corner of the bedsheet to dry off.

I spent the five minutes rechecking my Walther. I spent another minute composing a text to the DDO, asking him to set up a safe house in Tehran, as close to Jomhuri as possible. Jomhuri was located in the city center, and I only knew about it because that's where everyone went to buy their computers and cell phones, and the bazaar there was apparently overrun by the younger generation. The request would keep Wiseman busy, even though I had no intention of using one of the Agency's safe houses, except perhaps as a diversion.

I checked myself in the mirror hanging over the dresser. I needed a shave. But other than that, the news wasn't all bad. At least there were no dark circles looming under my eyes. I shared an ironic grin with my reflection and headed for the door.

The woman behind the reception desk was still working the keys of her adding machine; apparently running a motel the size of the Burnt Column was more complex than I'd imagined. She smiled at me and her round face came to life, eyes bright, as if running a motel the size of the Burnt Column was a blessing.

Her smile compelled me to say, “Thank you,” but when I was outside the motel I still turned in the opposite direction, away from the square surrounding the Column of Constantine. I walked down the cobbled alley, turned left, and circled the block. I ducked into the gift shop I had mentioned to McCormick, thumbed through a local newspaper, and watched my tracks. I bought a copy of the English version of
HaberSkop
. I turned away from the counter, stopped to put the change back into my pocket, and saw two policemen patrolling the walk.

Ten-to-one they had nothing to do with me, but I got out my iPhone and called McCormick anyway. “Change in plans. Come down Isil Street. Slow down when you see the Yildiz Market. It'll be on your right. But don't stop.”

“I'm sixty seconds away.”

I stepped through the gift-shop door. I rolled the magazine in my palm and fell in behind an Asian couple with a map of the old town opened in front of them. The police were looking in the direction of the square and the ever-present crowd taking in the sights. I turned down Isil Street and heard a car rolling up beside me. I dropped the magazine into a curbside trash can. I walked into the street just as the Mercedes rolled past and slowed. I heard the door locks click. I jerked the door open and slipped into the front seat.

“Everything okay?” McCormick asked.

“Just a couple of cops in the square. Better part of valor, if you get my meaning.”

“If you mean you're not overly enamored with the Turkish police, yeah, I get your meaning,” he replied. He took the first turn away from the square. “So why the change in location? The Hotel Marmara not to your liking?”

I wasn't going to mention anything about the poisoning. The embassy would learn what had happened when I filed my after-action report. Although McCormick and I were on the same team and Mr. Elliot had vouched for him, he really didn't need to know anything extraneous to the task at hand.

“Nah,” I said casually. “I was just in the mood for a little sightseeing.”

McCormick stared across the front seat at me. I didn't move. Then he said, “Okay. Where to?”

“We might want to start with a full tank. We got a helluva drive ahead of us.”

I flicked on the navigation app on my iPhone. Field 27 was due east, nearly 400 miles away. I plugged it into the GPS on the Mercedes dash. It popped up on the navigation screen. McCormick studied it. Shrugged. “Glad I brought coffee.”

He reached into the backseat. The thermos was stainless steel and good for ten or twelve cups by the looks of it. The cups were paper. I poured. He drove.

We stopped for kebabs and manti at a food stand near Korfez. Typical Turkish fast food served with hot tea. I was famished, and even food on a stick tasted good. McCormick tried to make small talk, but I spent most of my time retraining my mind for a HALO jump from forty thousand feet in the air.

I offered to drive, but McCormick shook his head and smiled. “You're in good hands,” he said. “If I were sitting in that seat and had my choice between the Turkish landscape and sleep, I'd already be sleeping.”

“In good hands, huh? That's what a friend of mine said, too.” I looked across the console for three seconds. Made a decision. I lowered the back of the seat and closed my eyes. “Wake me up when we get to Sorgun.”

He did. I opened my eyes, repositioned my seat back, and stretched. My eyes went immediately to my watch. The time was 12:22
A.M.
An hour and twenty minutes of solid sleep.

“Thanks. I needed that,” I said, and he seemed to know what I meant. I gazed into the pitch black of a moonless night. Two minutes later, I pointed to an exit leading into the low hills off the E88 highway. “Left here.”

The road angled north through plowed fields set against shallow clay hills. Lights from farmhouses shone within the draws surrounding us. Clusters of stars peeked through a ghostly layer of feathery clouds.

I followed our progress on the iPhone map, searching for the road to the airstrip. It had been years since I was last here. It was dark as the inside of a gun barrel, and the rugged terrain was not marked by a plethora of outstanding landmarks. At least not ones that I recognized.

Always have an escape route in mind in case of trouble—basic tradecraft—and McCormick and I were mindful of both the potential trouble and the potential exit strategy. He slowed to a crawl and shook his head at the same time. “We're shit out of luck if this goes south,” he said, but his voice was calm when he said it.

We rounded the bend, and our headlights shone against the back of a pickup truck parked beside the road fifty meters ahead. Its lights were off, but the vapor wisping from its tailpipe told me the motor was idling.

I slipped my hand under my jacket and gripped my pistol.

McCormick eased off the gas. “We expecting company?”

The placard on the tailgate of the truck came into view. It read:
MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR
.

“What the hell's a government truck doing out here?” he hissed. “Coincidence?”

“Like hell.” My chest tightened.

A man in a dark uniform stepped into the road from the left side of the truck. Strips of reflective tape glowed on his jacket. He cradled an MP5 submachine gun and called us to a halt with a raised hand.