The White House: A Flynn Carroll Thriller (11 page)

The car passed quickly through Tehran's traffic in a protected official lane. Flynn noted that the traffic was extremely heavy—in fact, the heaviest and most chaotic he had seen in any city. He would not forget this.

As they moved into the governmental area, Ghorbani said, “We won't be going to the ministry.”

“Oh?”

“To a home.”

So they assumed that their ministry was bugged and under observation by the West. And they were probably right.

Five minutes later, they were in a quiet, leafy neighborhood, with houses set back from the wide, empty streets. They passed the Canadian, then the French embassies. As they drove on, ascending into higher, even quieter precincts, Flynn drew a map in his head. In case he had to do a runner, he needed to know where these embassies were. Diplomatic refuge would likely be his only escape.

The car turned into a park rioting with flowers and centered by a large house, a Spanish colonial dressed with Persian touches.

“A Shah House,” Ghorbani commented. He chuckled. “But not recently.”

As they pulled up to the tall front door beaded with large studs, a man in a white soutane appeared. Silently, he opened Flynn's door. Flynn noted a pistol on his left hip, and that there was a specially tailored slit in the soutane that would enable him to reach the gun quickly.

An older man, the left side of his face immobilized by a stroke, came out and hurried down the steps. He wore a western suit, Saville Row. “Welcome, Herr Grauerholtz.” His mustache and eyebrows were curly and white. His toupee, as black and slick as a polished shoe, hung low over his face. His left hand was clenched, his right extended.

Flynn got out of the car, noting that this man, also, was armed. He carried a very small pistol in a shoulder holster, no more than a .32. Flynn wished to hell he had a pistol of his own right now.

As he entered the house, he gauged the accessibility of each weapon. He could remove the larger pistol, the one under the arm of the man in the soutane, before either armed man could react. If the older one had a very fast draw, he might be able to get a shot off before Flynn killed him, although this was not likely.

So Flynn was safe from a direct assault. At the moment.

They entered a library that must have been constructed by a Westerner. Although the volumes in it were Persian, the design, with two tiers of bookcases around three walls, was something out of an English country house.

“This was the residence of the last president of Aramco,” the older man said. He sat heavily in a wing chair and motioned to Flynn to sit opposite. “A man of impeccable taste.”

Flynn took the seat, noting that the guard in the soutane was now standing behind him. Ghorbani was behind the minister. They had formed a defensive box, and Flynn was no longer safe from assault. If they were going to try to subdue somebody very fast and very dangerous, this was the sort of positioning they might choose. Flynn hadn't seen a weapon on Ghorbani, but he must be carrying one.

“And now, my dear Mr. Flynn Carroll,” Ghorbani said, smiling, “why do you imagine that we have brought you here?”

Flynn froze any and all reactions.

“Calculating the odds, are you, my dear superman? You will find that they are against you.”

He heard the faint sound of movement behind him as the guard readied himself.

Flynn's heart rarely raced, but it did so now. The boyish unease had left Ghorbani's smile. In fact, he wasn't smiling at all, and probably never had been. He was showing teeth. To the “minister,” he said, “You may go now, Habib.” The old man dutifully got up and left the room—fast. He knew very well what might be about to happen here. For some time, Ghorbani regarded Flynn. “Your cover was, I am sorry to say, puerile,” he finally said.

Flynn estimated that he could get to the Canadian Embassy in six minutes running flat out.

“Ah, my friend, you are still calculating.” He stood up and came around the desk, put his hands on Flynn's shoulders, and looked up at him. “A human war machine,” he said. “How magnificent you are.” He stepped back. “I feel that I know you better than I do my own son. Oh, I must show you—” He took out his smartphone and put his arm around Flynn's shoulder. At the same time, Flynn felt the barrel of a pistol touch, ever so gently, the small of his back. If it was fired, it would sever his spine but not kill him. He'd be left helpless, but still available for interrogation.

“Now look.” On the phone's screen was a photo of Flynn with Diana. They were in their office at CIA headquarters. “We have eyes on you.” Ghorbani's face was now blankly reptilian. He snapped a command in Farsi, then extended a hand to Flynn. “Come, my treasure. I think you'll find what I'm about to show you quite interesting.”

The pistol barrel in Flynn's back pressed a little harder.

Ghorbani opened a door at the far end of the room. It led into an office, windowless, lit by blue neon. There was a digital map on one wall that revealed every detail of Flynn's journey, right down to his meal in Dubai.

Lying on a steel desk were dossiers on him, Diana, and a number of other individuals in Detail 242. Dozens of stills of them were tacked up on corkboards in one area of the crowded room. There were also pictures of Abby taken from the newspapers, pictures of Mac, of Cissy, of the president and the First Lady, of Mac's ranch in West Texas and Flynn's own house in Menard.

Flynn scanned them, noting that only the pictures of Abby dated from prior to Bill Greene's inauguration. So Iran's interest had been sparked by the arrival of the Greenes in the White House.

He filed that information away.

“My Flynn Carroll Room. Modeled after your Abby Room. Not as tragic an outcome, though. Must be very hard for you, not knowing.” His voice all but sang. This was a very happy man. Flynn could have killed him with a blow, but even he was not fast enough to escape the bullet that would immediately follow.

“I've learned so much about you, Flynn, I feel as if we are, in quite a profound sense, brothers.” The man's liquid face was now projecting menace of startling intensity. “Of course,” he added, “you must have had the same knowledge of Dr. Josefi.”

“Who?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You were very foolish to try spycraft, soldier. You lie like a stammering child. Now come, there's somebody waiting to meet you.” He gave him a wink. “She's
very
eager.”

He stepped through to another, more austere room. Flynn followed.

In the center of this room, made dim by what appeared to be blackout curtains, there sat a woman of perhaps forty in a black head scarf and a gown. Beside her were a solemn preadolescent boy and a little girl. The three regarded him with buzzing, hate-tight eyes.

“Now, Mrs. Josefi, I promised you that I would bring you the man who killed Ibrahim. This is Flynn Carroll of America. This is the man who planned your husband's murder, and whose life you may either spare or take.”

Slowly, she looked from one of her children to the other. Each gave a slight nod. She said, “Execute him.”

“Very well, then that's decided, Flynn. You see, here in Persia we are very civilized, not like you Westerners. The West buries its savagery in a flood of procedures and technicalities. Here, we are plain about sin and retribution.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Ah, you disappoint me. Spies lie, but not soldiers. I thought you a soldier.”

One of the guards hustled the family out a side door, through which Flynn glimpsed a courtyard filled with yet more flowers, and heard birdsong. Then the door slammed and there was a flash behind his eyes, the result of a terrific blow to the head.

He knew that he was falling, and that was all he knew.

 

CHAPTER NINE

THE PAIN
started in his groin, pulsing upward into his gut, bringing with it waves of nausea, while also burning down along his legs, as if his skin were being sanded.

“What an embarrassment, Flynn. You've been weeping like a baby. And here I thought you such a wonder. Brilliance, courage, and strength. That's what I thought, yes.”

Hands turned his head roughly to one side, and he found himself looking at a TV screen. On it was an image of a naked man. His mouth lolled open. A nurse in a white uniform was placing electrodes on his penis and scrotum, her fingers working with practiced dexterity, her face reflecting the concentration of a professional doing a familiar job.

She stood aside, and a man in a black uniform picked up an old-fashioned rheostatic control, which was wired to the electrodes. He turned the control knob, and the man on the table writhed and shrieked. Flynn had never heard himself sound like that, so abject. In his unconscious state, he had reacted like a terrified child.

They were really very skilled, to think to undermine a victim's will in such a diabolical way.

The screen went blank and the man in the black uniform approached the table. “You may call me Ishmael,” he said. “And now we try again, just to adjust and test the current.”

“I'll answer your questions.”

“You will indeed, and not with lies. But not just now.”

As he twisted the controller, Flynn's genitals seemed to catch fire. He forced his screams deep into his throat. Straps too thick even for him to snap bound him.

The pain rose until it was a seething, red-hot wave surging up and down his body.

Then it was gone. Flynn gagged, gasped, tried to fight down vomit, failed. He lay there choking in his own sour bile.

Ghorbani moved into his field of vision. “So embarrassing, Flynn. I'm really disappointed.”

“You and me both.”

“Oh, a quip, just like James Bond.” He clapped his hands. “Not a very good one, though. In fact, Flynn, quite lame. Now, let's get started with our questions.” He picked up an iPad, a rarity in Iran. “My goodness, so many questions we have! Every house on our intelligence street has added a few. We are so very curious about you, you may be flattered.”

“Go to hell.”

“As indeed I may. But you certainly will, you devil.” The words were full of hate, but the voice still contained not a trace of anger. This man expressed his anger through his work.

It had taken Flynn far too long to understand that he wasn't in the hands of the foreign ministry or even the Iranian intelligence service. These people were Revolutionary Guard, and when it came to torture, he could expect the worst from them. His life was also over; he understood that. Unless he could find some tiny sliver of inattention or miscalculation, he was going to die here.

In other words, he was going to lose this thing, and with it maybe a great deal more would be lost, maybe all the freedom in this world, and maybe the world itself.

He needed time, so he decided to cooperate. If he wasn't under torture, he would have a better chance of finding that one microscopic chink in their armor that he needed. He would answer every question they had.

“Oh, incidentally, throughout our time together, I'll be waiting to hear you tell me why you came here, given that the Josefi assassination had already succeeded.” He sat down on the table and laid a soft hand on Flynn's forehead. “Such nice skin. When we cut through it—we will be inserting electrodes into your brain—we'll have to leave a scar.” Stroking Flynn's hair, he added, “It's so unfortunate. But then again, that poor Mrs. Josefi and those two lovely children. Also unfortunate.”

“Who is this person?”

“No, Flynn, it's not you who ask the questions.”

Red, flaming haze, from his groin in flooding pain, the sense of fire within. Somebody screaming from far away, a memory of the ocean—a flash of peace—then back and plunging into greater pain.

It stopped. Flynn found himself gagging and gasping, his body heaving against the straps.

Silence fell. Extended. Sunlight crossed the room, lazy gold with the smoke of the nurse's cigarette curling through it. She got up from her chair, came and listened to his chest with a stethoscope. She put a blood pressure cuff on his arm and pumped it up. After a moment, it sighed and she nodded curtly to the torturers. She returned to her chair and continued watching, her young face as impassive as a sculpture. Iranian culture supposedly reverenced and protected women. But not this one, apparently. She obviously saw a lot of this, otherwise there would be some expression there, some emotion, but he saw only the mild indifference of somebody waiting for her coffee break.

“What do you know of Dr. Ibrahim's project?”

Flynn understood that he was in the worst possible situation. He was being tortured to extract information he genuinely did not know. He couldn't just deny, not if he expected to live through this, and he couldn't tell them anything useful about something they knew more about than he did.

Nevertheless, if he was to buy even a little time, he had to try. He took a flier. “He was run by Albert Doxy.”

“Run? How run?”

“Doxy was his controller.”

Ghorbani smiled. He came to the edge of the table and gazed down at Flynn. “Don't you understand how practiced we are at this? What we can do?”

“Doxy was his controller!”

He shook his head. “Flynn, Flynn, Flynn. There are worse ways to die than even you know.” He spoke in Farsi, and the nurse, sighing like a child forced to do a chore, came over and began loosening his straps.

His heart soared. Surely there would be a chance here. She was weak, inattentive. She would give him an opening.

“Now,” Ghorbani said, “turn onto your side.”

The barrel of a pistol was once again thrust into the small of his back.

He felt something very unpleasant being done to him, and knew that an electrode had been inserted into his anus.

“Flynn, please be reasonable. That thing will burn you from inside. The pain is so great, Flynn, that you will tell us everything to make it stop. We will remove it, for we are honorable that way, but you will die in any case, burned like that. It is a lingering death, too awful to tempt.” He lowered his voice. “We put them in a cell and return when the screaming stops.”