Once again, Ethan caught himself wondering just how Bretta managed to make fairly unremarkable clothes look so…remarkable.
“Morning,” she said casually.
Ethan and William responded with a small wave and a grunt respectively.
“Who cooked breakfast?” Bretta asked, dumping her bag on to one of the cheap wooden seats that surrounded the little breakfast table.
William gestured with a thumb at Ethan. “That’s be the early bird over here. And don’t waste your breath askin’ for him to whip you up a plate. The Dolphins have got more chance at winnin’ the Superbowl than you have at gettin’ a crumb out of this guy.”
“I shared my bread with you...” Ethan objected.
“Come on, man, what do you think this is? The fifteenth century? A growin’ boy needs a little protein in the mornin’. Look at the size of me. I’ve got to keep this engine runnin’.”
Bretta poured herself the last of the coffee, set a new pot on to brew and turned on the small television set that stood in the corner of the room. She flicked through the channels for a few moments before her channel-changing thumb was arrested by what looked to be a local news station. “Look at this.”
On the screen was IRIB’s TV5 or Local Tehran Channel. Currently, it was showing some footage that looked to have been shot on someone’s phone. It was, unmistakably, the forecourt that fronted the university’s canteen. In the video footage, what had been an empty area of clear pedestrian-friendly concrete was now playing host to about six cars and two tactical vans belonging to Iran’s Law Enforcement Force. The red lights swirled and blinked on top of the green and white IEF police cars, casting harsh black shadows across the scene.
The three members of the DIA watched the footage in concentrated silence, not one of them so much as taking a sip from their coffee cups. The amateur footage showed armed police officers walking about the scene in pairs for a little while. The news reader, or whoever it was that was commentating on the video, was busy explaining that, as of yet, the IEF had no real clue as to who had broken into the Physics Research Center or why. Initial investigations had recovered a huge number of bullet casings at the scene.
“What about bodies?” Bretta muttered.
As if in answer to her question, the screen cut to steadier, more professionally shot footage of ambulance crews walking out stretchers containing filled body bags.
“The bodies of several night security officers were recovered from the scene but, as none of these officers appear––according to credible sources––to have drawn their firearms, the identity of their attackers remains a mystery,” the reporter explained.
“I knew it was going to be a little too much to ask to see a pile of Kidon bodies sprawled out on the steps, fallen beneath a rain of police gunfire,” Bretta said, peering at the television with an unfriendly eye and moodily swirling the dregs of her coffee around in her cup.
She had told Ethan and William about how she had had one of the Kidon dead to rights with her gun only to have the hammer fall on an empty chamber or a dud round. The venom in her voice, when she had told them about how she had almost reduced their enemies by one, had made William fervently thank the Universe that she was on their side. He would not have liked to have her gunning for him.
“Yeah, those guys didn’t seem to be the type o’ fellas who’d wait around to re-enact the final scene from Bush Cassidy with the local deputies,” William commented.
“I wouldn’t give those cops much chance of stopping the Kidon, even if they’d arrived in time,” Ethan said. “I probably don’t need to say it, but we were pretty lucky last night.”
“Never turn your nose up at luck,” William said as he packed up his duffel. “Blind, dumb or otherwise, luck is one of those things you take when you can. Besides, there’s always an element of luck in any operation. You work with what you’re given.”
Bretta nodded.
Just then, the other bedroom door creaked open and Kiana stepped cautiously into the room. She was clutching her satchel to her chest like it might be some sort of talisman.
“Good morning,” she said softly, in English.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan saw Bretta fumbling with the remote, trying to turn off the replaying images of the body bags being carried out of the front of the bullet-riddled Physics Research Center.
“Good morning, Doctor,” Ethan said. “Would you like some coffee? A little breakfast?”
At the mention of food, the young woman’s face paled. “No, thank you. And, please, call me Kiana.” She gave Ethan a smile that could have stopped traffic, then sniffed the air. “I will not turn down the offer of coffee though, if that’s all right?”
Ethan got to his feet and busied himself making her a cup.
“I wouldn’t mind some breakfast, boss man,” William said from behind him.
Ethan ignored him. “How did you sleep?” he asked Kiana, handing her the steaming cup of fresh coffee.
Kiana gave him a wan smile. “About as well as might be expected. Terribly.” She looked at him, her kind green eyes almost apologetic. “I am sure that last night was just another day in the office for you, but for me...” Her eyes became distant. “The sight of my friend lying there… I have never seen that before.” A tear welled in her eye, and spilled onto her cheek.
William noticed Ethan was staring at those brilliant jade eyes for longer than was polite––or professional.
Ethan finally seemed to realize this, and he cleared his throat, looking away as he said, gruffly: “It’s not the sort of thing that many people outside of the military are used to seeing.”
William glanced at Bretta. “Interesting,” he told her. She scowled.
Ethan picked up a paper napkin from the table containing the leftover shawarmas. He handed the napkin to the scientist so she could wipe her wet cheeks, and when he turned away, he caught eyes with Bretta. She was looking at him, William thought, with something that very much resembled coolness.
Those two are going to be rubbing shoulders in the days to come. Oh well. Guess I’ll have to break out the popcorn.
Ethan walked over to his own duffel bag and made what seemed a bit of a show of fastening it. When he straightened, Kiana seemed to have gotten herself together and was sipping at her coffee. Bretta was no longer looking his way, but William thought that there was a faint twist to her mouth that might have been the shadow of a sardonic smile.
“All right,” Ethan said. He glanced at William. “Have you got enough cash for the tickets?”
William smiled patiently. “Sure do. They’re a little pricier than usual thanks to the craziness, but there were enough funds in the lockbox to cover it. I took riels over dollars to raise fewer eyebrows and to make us harder to track.”
Ethan nodded. “We’re just two Spanish couples heading back home after a nice holiday in the Middle East gets cut short, okay? We leave here masked up. Ladies you’re wearing your hijabs. William, I’ve got a couple of baseball caps for us for the airport. Like I said, chances are the Mossad are going to pick us up, but there’s nothing wrong with trying to make it a little harder for the bastards.”
“There’s also a chance the Iranian government will clue in...” Bretta said.
“There’s no guarantees of anything,” Ethan agreed.
“All right then, guys,” William said, hefting his duffel bag, “you heard the man. Vacation is over.”
10
Ethan had the team stagger their exit from the safehouse. The Iranian passports were dumped and incinerated by Bretta, in a flaming oil drum that doubled as an incinerator in many back alleys in Tehran, shortly before she flagged down a taxi and made for the airport with William. They were followed by Ethan and Kiana five minutes later.
Part of the reason that Sam had purchased this particular apartment in the Yousef Abad neighborhood as a safehouse––through one of the many DIA’s front companies––was because of its accessibility to two of Tehran’s main roads. This
proximity, coupled with the fact that most of Tehran’s vehicular traffic was comprised of white cars––white cars being cheaper in Iran for some reason––meant that slipping off to the airport and blending into the traffic was an easy feat. A twenty-minute blast along the Kordestan, Hakim, Sheikh Fazlollah Nuri, Jenah and Lashkari Expressways, and the team decanted outside the departure area of Mehrabad International Airport.
Seemingly unintentionally, the two “couples” reconvened at the ticket desk of Qatar Airways. As previously agreed, Ethan and Kiana stood side by side, while William and Bretta resided next to each other behind them in the line. To all intents and purposes they were, outwardly, simply two anxious couples eager to get home.
While they stood in line, Ethan tried not to get distracted by the mere closeness of Kiana. Ethan was a man who was almost more at home in the Middle East than he was in the States, having spent so much of his life soldiering in that part of the world. However, as used to the people as he thought he was, there was something indefinably exotic about the Iranian scientist that kept drawing his gaze in her direction. It was taking an inordinate amount of his professional willpower to stop his eyes from darting to the woman at his side, and the task was not made any easier by the fact the scientist was clutching him tightly.
To be fair, Ethan thought, she is doing a great job of acting like a wife or girlfriend eager to get the hell out of here. If only she didn’t smell so good...
Even as he thought this, the young woman’s hand slipped down the inside of his forearm and grasped his hand.
Ethan gave himself a mental shake and a stern reprimand at this point, and went back to canvasing the immediate area for anyone that looked as if they were paying him or his team too much attention. However, it was an exercise in futility in a way. Just as the surgical masks were helping them blend in and disguise themselves from unfriendly eyes, so too did it make identifying potential hostiles that much harder.
Is that person’s mouth moving under their mask because they are chewing gum, or because they’re communicating into a hidden mic?
Ethan had perfected––over years, and on countless clandestine operations––his technique for constantly, but unobtrusively, scanning an area for potential watchers. There was a science, of sorts, involved in blending boredom, open inquisitiveness and the ballsy disregard that some people have when watching others they’re confident they’ll never see again.
As the line shrunk and he and Kiana edged closer to the Qatar Airways desk, Ethan became aware that there was a man six spaces behind Bretta and William who was travelling even lighter than he was. The man looked, as far as Ethan could tell, to be local, though there was something in the sharp, hawkish nose that spoke to Ethan of the Bedouin people somehow. He, too, had a mask on, and was dressed fashionably in chinos, Timberland boots and a denim jacket. Nothing about him would have stood out to Ethan, had it not been for the lack of luggage. The fact that the man had nothing with him, especially in these stressful times when everyone seemed to be desperate to get back to their home country, rang an alarm bell in the back of Ethan’s head.
The man was not looking his way, he was gazing blankly off to one side. Ethan stared hard at the side of the man’s head, willing him to turn. Ethan was well read on the phenomenon of “gaze-detection.” Though, like many neurological studies, it was full of holes and inexplicable nuances, apparently the human body was able to––for lack of a better word––“sense” when it was being watched. It was a fundamental part of being a predator at the top of the food-chain.
Even if gaze detection wasn’t real, if the man was a totally innocent party, he should have turned by then. Instead, he continued to gaze fixedly off into the mass of humanity swirling through the airport, as if avoiding his gaze.
He sighed and put his arm around Kiana, as easily as if they really had been lovers. The woman gazed at him awkwardly above her mask, but did not draw away when she saw the penetrating look in his eyes. Ethan smiled at her and leaned in, as if to whisper some sweet nothing to her.
“The Kidon are here,” he hissed softly into her ear.
He felt Kiana stiffen in his embrace.
“Where?” she whispered back through her mask.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that they’re here and have eyes on us.”
“How do you know?” Kiana asked him.
“Intuition,” Ethan replied.
“But how can they have picked us out with our masks and everything?” Kiana pressed.
Ethan had neither the time nor the inclination to run Kiana through the astonishing array of software, equipment and personnel that most airports utilized.
“What do we do?” the scientist pressed when he remained silent.
“We cross our fingers and hope I was right when I said they wouldn’t start anything in the middle of an airport,” Ethan said. Via his peripheral vision, as he spoke to Kiana, he noticed the man he had clocked shooting more than a couple of scrutinizing glances their way. “Remember, the Mossad are not with your government. As much as the Israelis might want you, I doubt their brief extends to starting an international incident with Iran in the process. They are a patient organization.”
When Ethan stepped forward to purchase his and Kiana’s tickets––speaking English but using an iffy Spanish accent that he had modelled on Antonio Banderas’ performance in Once Upon a Time in Mexico––he asked the masked woman behind the counter whether there was a whole middle row free on the flight to Barcelona.
“Yes sir,” she said, taking his and Kiana’s fake Spanish passports. “I think you will find your flight fairly empty.”
“I see,” Ethan said, trying to speak slowly, as one whose first language is not English. “In that case, may I request two seats in whatever free row you might have closest to the front exit, por favor?”
The woman inspected the phony passports, entering details from each in her computer. Then Ethan handed over a handful of Iranian riel, smiled and took the tickets she proffered him.
“Gracias,” he said.
As he and Kiana turned away and walked past Bretta and William, Ethan, straining his Spanish to its limits, said to the nuclear scientist at his side, “Nosotras estamosen la fila trienta y dos.”
He had no clue as to whether she understood him, but his words were more for William, who was just as fluent in Spanish, and would take the hint about he and Kiana being in row thirty-two.
Ethan made a point of avoiding the suspected Kidon team member. He also kept well clear of any other passersby, not wanting to give anyone a chance to rub nerve gas or other poison on Kiana as he made his way toward airport security.
The four team members sat in the departure lounge. They had maintained their pairings; Kiana with Ethan and Bretta with William, and did not speak to one another. They sat not quite opposite one another, studiously ignoring each other’s eyes as people do when they are in close proximity to strangers. However, seated as they were meant that one pair was able to keep an eye on what was going on behind the other pair’s back.
Ethan was acutely aware of the amount of Iranian IEF police patrolling the airport. He could not be certain, but he was fairly sure that the amount of armed men and women making circuits of the terminals had been significantly stepped up compared to when the team had landed only a couple of days previously.
Is this some sort of bizarre show of strength to prove that the Iranian government is taking this viral outbreak seriously? Or are they here looking for Dr. Avesta?
The latter idea made his skin prickle. It was the same sensation that swept over him just before a firefight. That same breathless, tingling anticipation, when the future teetered on the edge of a knife.
He forced himself to breathe slowly in through his nose and out through his covered mouth. Across from him, Bretta caught his eye and held it for the briefest of moments. Her pale azure eyes flicked meaningfully to her left. Casually, Ethan looked to where her eyes had motioned and saw the
smartly dressed man from the ticket line sitting at the end of the row of seats.
So, Bretta noticed him, too. That means, if we’re right, three more of the bastards are in this lounge, or close by.
Surreptitiously, he took a slow scan of the departure lounge. He made a display of stretching his neck from side to side while he did so, wincing as if it pained him. Apart from the man with the sharp Bedouin features, there was not really anyone else that aroused Ethan’s suspicions.
He craned his neck around as if to gaze at the board that showed the status of all the departing and arriving flights. As he did so, his extended foot was kicked rather unceremoniously by someone. He almost reached for his thigh where a pistol might ordinarily be holstered, but he stopped himself at the last minute. Ethan looked around sharply.
One of the many IEF officers was looking down at him. The officer was a man with a dense salt and pepper beard and a pair of thick, wiry eyebrows. Ethan had spotted him only a moment before, but hadn’t paid much attention, because he had seemed preoccupied, and had been walking the other way. But apparently he had made a sudden directional change when Ethan had looked at the board. Had it been a mistake to ignore him? Was he truly an IEF officer? Was he carrying nerve gas?
One of the man’s eyebrows was raised in an inquisitive manner. His narrowed gaze locked on Ethan’s face. There was a PC-9 ZOAF pistol at his belt.
“My apologies, sir,” the man said in Farsi from behind his mask. He had a pleasant Abadani accent, which told Ethan he was from somewhere in the south of the country; Bushehr perhaps, or Omidieh.
The last thing Ethan wanted was to become the center of attention here. He opted, therefore, for the clueless, polite, guileless smile of the foreign tourist
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