“Son..of…a…”
“Terrorist?” CJ offered, laughing. “Nope. That’s you, my friend. And he’s very anxious to meet you.”
Bishop tried to reply again, but he could no longer move his jaw. A few seconds later, he couldn’t keep his eyes open.
***
The sleek black Sikorsky S-70 flew south toward Shiraz, with Massai and Ahmad seated in the back. The state-owned aircraft was specially modified for speed, and it sped across the sky at over 450 kp/h. They had contacted Shahid, their commander, the moment they drew close enough to Hassi to receive a signal on Massai’s cell phone, and he had arranged for the S-70 to pick them up.
After boarding the plane, Massai had called Shahid back to confirm their pickup. To save time, he turned the phone on speaker, so everyone could hear, including the pilot.
“Not Shiraz,” Shahid said. “Naqsh e-Rustam.”
“The tombs? Why?”
“That is where Abbasi is, and we have reason to believe that Joker will take Somers there to meet him. Our contact has hinted that something big is happening there, somewhere deep inside the stone itself.”
“A contact, who remains anonymous,” Massai replied. He had little use for such contacts.
“A contact that has not proven incorrect yet,” Shahid reminded him. “It is not a request, Lieutenant Massai. It is an order. You and Ahmad will go to Naqsh e-Rustam right away.”
“Yes, sir,” Massai replied, and ended the call. He turned to Ahmad. “I guess we are going to Naqsh e-Rustam.”
Ahmad nodded. “So I heard.”
“‘Somewhere deep inside the stone itself,’” Massai repeated. “How do we get inside the stone?”
“I do not know,” Ahmad replied.
“I do,” the pilot said.
Massai and Ahmad both turned to face the pilot, a middle-aged Iranian name Ishak.
“How do you know?” Massai asked.
“I was raised near there. I know all the local rumors and histories.”
“And?”
“And there is a story about a panel near the rear of Xerxes I’s tomb that, if pressed, will slide inward and admit the visitor to a secret network of caves and passages. According to legend, the ancient priests used these chambers to keep vigil over the dead kings to ensure they did not rise again.”
“Have you ever seen this panel?” Ahmad asked.
“No,” Ishak said.
“Then how do you know it is there?” Massai asked.
“I do not,” Ishak admitted.
Massai looked at Ahmad, waiting for his friend to tell him that Allah would provide, but Ahmad merely shrugged his shoulders.
“We have nothing else to try.” Ahmad said. “Shahid has ordered us to Naqsh e-Rustam.”
“Massai nodded. “And so that is where we will go.”
“If there is an entrance into the stone,” Ahmad said, “we will find it when we get there.”
12.
Dawoud rose from his seat as CJ entered the room, followed by two men carrying a stretcher between them. On the stretcher lay his son, unconscious.
“What happened?” Dawoud asked.
“He grew suspicious,” CJ answered. “Someone must have leaked our information.”
Faiza. It had to be. Only she would be so bold as to go against him in this. He had thought she didn’t know about his plans, but perhaps he was mistaken.
“It does not matter,” Dawoud said. “I have my son and the Ergot-B. Everything is moving along as planned.”
He walked over to the stretcher and took his first look as his son and heir, who had spent his entire life ignorant of his heritage. But as soon as he saw the man’s face, he knew something was wrong. It took a moment for the thought to come full circle, but then he realized the truth. He had been lied to for decades.
“This man,” Dawoud said through clenched teeth, “is not my son.”
“What?” CJ asked. “Sure he is. That’s what Faiza told me.”
“Faiza lied!” Dawoud’s face grew bright red, and the two men holding the stretcher flinched. “She has been lying for decades. Look at this man’s nose, his cheekbones, his lips. He is not my son.”
CJ looked at Bishop. After a moment, he looked back to Dawoud. “I think you’re right.”
“I know I am right.”
“Then whose son is he?” CJ asked.
Dawoud’s vision clouded, and his breathing and heart rate both sped up. His fists clenched at his side. He knew who the father was, but he would not share that information with CJ. The traitorous Delta operative didn’t have need to know the whole story, but Dawoud had seen those same features on a man he had known and trusted for many years. He wasn’t sure which betrayal hurt more, his or Faiza’s.
Either way, now he would have to kill them both, as well as this bastard in front of him.
***
In the back of the Rolls Royce, Faiza Abbasi shut off her cell phone and put it into her pocket. Weeks ago, she had sent information to an American soldier in Iran, hoping he would help her leave the country and reunite her with her son in exchange for years of information about her husband’s activities, which she had carefully and thoroughly catalogued for decades. But instead of helping her, he had taken the information of Erik’s whereabouts to her husband and sold it to him. Now that same man had her son, and was bringing him to Dawoud.
She should have left things as they were. If not for her weakness, Erik would still be in the United States, instead of flying through Iran on his way to his death.
Many years ago, Faiza had been given to Dawoud by her father as a bride in exchange for a lucrative business deal. She did not love Dawoud, and never had. He was an ambitious, aggressive man who was seldom home. Even when he was home, he treated Faiza as little more than a sex toy, only coming to her when he required a release. She came to despise his touch, but as a woman in Iran, she had no right to deny him. He came into her rooms often enough, but much to her dismay, they never had any children. She longed for a baby to care for, hoping that a child would soften her husband and provide her with someone to love. But no matter how many times they tried, no baby landed in her belly.
Soon enough he tired of her and brought in a new wife, and then another and another. She hoped she would be able to make friends among them, but they were jealous of her standing as Dawoud’s first wife, and wanted nothing to do with her. Miserable and lonely, she spent her days walking through the gardens, longing to break free of her stylish prison. It became so bad that she had even contemplated ending her own life.
But all that changed when Dawoud hired a new driver for her.
Anwar was strong, handsome and kind. He treated her well and respected her words, which no one had ever done before. At first, she thought his courtesy was the result of her husband’s status, but soon she realized that Anwar did not look at Dawoud’s other wives the way he looked at her. One day, as he helped her to load some packages into the car, his hand brushed against hers and she looked up at his face. In that moment, she realized that he loved her.
In all Faiza’s life, no man had ever looked at her the way Anwar did. Not her father, who cared more about what his beautiful daughter could bring him, nor her brothers, to whom she was just another female in the house, and certainly not her husband, who used her when he needed her and then left her alone; no man, she realized, had ever loved her.
Their affair was short but magnificent. Anwar’s passion sizzled, and his touch seared her flesh every time they met. They knew they could both be killed for their transgression, but neither cared. For her, life without him felt like death, and she would not give him up. Not even to save her life. But then, as so often seemed to happen, things changed suddenly.
Faiza became pregnant.
Now she had more to worry about than just her desires. Once the child was born, Dawoud would have known it was not his, and he would have killed her and the baby, as well. She ended her affair with Anwar, telling him it was wrong and the
y should be ashamed. He had stayed on as her driver, unwilling to give up on her, but eventually he moved on and found another love. She never told him about the baby, though she thought he suspected. And even now, he sat in the driver’s seat of the Rolls Royce, taking her back to her home in Shiraz.
After ending the affair, she sought her husband’s bed for the first time in years. Dawoud was so pleased by her aggressiveness that he began seeking her company again and again, and soon the two were spending almost every night in each other’s arms.
When she told him she was pregnant, his smile took up half his face.
Of course, she knew the math would not work. But she gambled that her husband would be out of town when her time came, and she was right. She had gone into labor while he was away in Saudi Arabia, believing she still had another month to go before delivery. By the time he was able to get back, the baby was gone.
He raised a tremendous row, threatening to bring legal and illegal retribution to everyone in the hospital, but in the end, it changed nothing. The Abbasi son was gone, and no one seemed able to find him. She played her part well, acting outraged and despondent. It was not difficult to pretend she was grief-stricken; sending her son away was the hardest thing she had ever done, but it was best. He would live, and so would she.
But now her secret would be revealed, and her son would pay the price. Dawoud was an ambitious man, and he was intelligent. It would not take him long to realize that Erik Somers was not his son. And then he would kill Erik, her and Anwar, as well.
But she still had one more card to play, and she had just played it.
She hoped it would be enough.
13.
When Bishop awoke, he was strapped to a chair inside a stone chamber. Next to him on his right was a row of large metal tanks, at least a dozen of them, each labeled in Persian: DANGER. The tanks also had the biohazard symbol stenciled on the side. Bishop had no trouble imaging what the tanks contained. And from the sheer quantity of fluid the tanks could hold, it appeared Dawoud meant to poison the entire world.
Across the room, on a small metal table, sat Bishop’s things. His Sig Sauer pistol, extra clips, knife and backpack. The bottle of water was just visible under the flap, but the knife would have been the most useful. The straps felt like thick plastic zip ties—the kind used by police to secure prisoners—but he couldn’t see them. Most likely they would be too strong to snap. CJ would have seen to that.
He tried anyway, but he was too weak. All he managed to do was make enough noise to draw attention.
“He’s awake,” came a familiar voice from his left. Bishop turned to see CJ standing over him, the Beretta in hand.
“You were part of it,” Bishop said. “You were with the jihadists in Hassi.”
CJ nodded. “Took you long enough.”
“You set the trap,” Bishop said.
CJ smiled. “Good thing you kept me from opening it quickly.
Bishop frowned. CJ’s rush to open the hatch had been a ruse, as was his feigned surprise that caused him to fall off the edge.
“Though I was kind of worried you’d take the shot full on. How’s the arm, by the way?”
“Fuck off,” Bishop said.
“Come on, B, don’t be like that. I just wanted to reunite you with your folks.”
“You just wanted to get paid.”
“Fair enough.” CJ winked.
The man from the photo, Dawoud Abbasi, stepped around CJ and stood in front of Bishop, staring down at him. “You are not my son,” the man said.
“Best news I’ve heard all day,” Bishop retorted.
CJ chuckled, but Dawoud silenced him with a glare.
“Apologies, Dawoud,” CJ said. “He caught me off guard with that one.”
Dawoud nodded and then turned back to Bishop. “You are the bastard son of my wife and her driver. His features are stamped all over your face.”
Bishop said nothing, keeping his face neutral and calm, but inside, he felt a surge of relief that he was not, in fact, related to a terrorist leader.
“What are you going to do to him?” CJ asked.
Dawoud reached over to the small table and picked up the Sig Sauer pistol. He checked the clip, then slid it home and pulled back the slide. “I should think that would be obvious,” he replied.
“Sorry, B,” CJ said. “I never intended for you to get killed. You were supposed to be his son.”
Bishop just glared up at him.
“That’s right,” Dawoud said. “He was supposed to be my son.” Without another word, Dawoud whirled around, put the pistol to CJ’s head, and pulled the trigger. The sound inside the stone chamber was deafening, and Bishop winced in spite of himself. The side of CJ’s head exploded in a burst of red as blood and bits of brain and bone flew outward from the exit wound. As the body tumbled to the floor, Bishop couldn’t help but notice that CJ’s ever-present smile was forever replaced by a look of surprise and fear.
“I don’t like it when people fail me,” Dawoud offered by way of explanation. “I paid him a great deal of money to bring my son to me, and instead he brought you.”
Bishop looked up, knowing he was next and wanting to meet his fate head on. To his surprise, Dawoud turned away from him and set the pistol on the table. When he looked back at Bishop, his features hardened.
“I have sent men after my wife and your father,” he said. “They will bring them here soon enough. I want her to watch as I kill the two of you.”
***
Massai couldn’t believe his eyes when he read the text message on his phone.
They were still in the Sikorsky, but were nearing their destination. He and Ahmad had been going over every piece of information they could get on the tomb of Xerxes I, hoping to find a clue about how to get inside the Naqsh e-Rustam. They hadn’t found anything, and were beginning to worry that they might not be able to get inside.
Then he’d received the text.
After reading it, he looked up from his mobile device. “I know how to get in,” he said.
“How?” Ahmad asked.
Massai showed him the text.
Ahmad smiled. “See? Allah will—”
“Provide,” Massai finished. He turned to Ishak. “How long until we reach the site?”
“Twenty minutes,” Ishak replied.
Massai put the phone back in his pocket and began to check his pistol, wanting to make sure it was fully loaded. Twenty minutes, and now they knew how to get inside the facility. He took a deep breath, said a rare prayer and waited. His muscles itched in anticipation, but he forced himself to stay still. His arms and legs would get a workout soon enough.
14.
The sound of a metal door clanging against stone brought Bishop to attention. He couldn’t see the door, but he heard the voices. One of them, a woman’s voice, pleaded for mercy.
“Please do not do this,” she screamed. Her cries ended with the sound of a slap.
“Bring them,” Dawoud said.
In a few seconds, two people were dragged in front of Bishop’s chair—a man and a woman; both looked as though they’d been roughed up by their captors. He recognized the tear-streaked face of the woman, having seen it in the photo. The man with her must be his real father. This was not at all how he envisioned meeting them.
“Erik!” the woman cried. “Erik, please forgive me.”
Bishop would have liked to forgive her, but at that moment, he was too angry. The pressure in his head had been building up ever since Dawoud had told him the truth, and by the time his biological parents were brought in front of him, all he could see was a wall of red. At the center of that wall stood Dawoud Abbasi, his pistol loaded and pointed right at Bishop’s head.
“Tell your son goodbye,” Dawoud said.
“No!” Faiza cried. “No, please, Dawoud. Please!” She reached over to clutch at his leg, but he kicked her away.
“Tell him goodbye, Faiza!” Dawoud’s face was bright red, his jaw clenched and tense
. “Tell him goodbye or I will kill him slow.”
Faiza squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Bishop understood. She couldn’t do it.
“Goodbye,” Bishop said for her.
Movement to the side caught his eye as the man, his father, jerked free from his captors and launched himself at Dawoud. Voices filled the chamber as four men swore in Persian. Dawoud had just enough time to turn and fire before both of them fell into a heap on the floor.
“Anwar!” Faiza screamed.
Bishop watched as the limp body of his biological father fell to the ground. He saw the splotch of blood begin to pool under the man’s chest, and he watched as Dawoud struggled to push the dead weight off of him. As he struggled, Bishop saw Dawoud’s face, glaring at him.
Bishop’s vision narrowed with a surge of adrenaline. He could see nothing except the body of his father and the face of the man who murdered him. Nothing else in the room registered. He tried to stand, but something held him back. In his state, he could not tell what it was, so he pushed against it. Bishop’s muscles bulged as he struggled to move forward.
Seeing the life drain from his father’s body—a man he would now never get a chance to know—focused Bishop’s rage. He strained tighter against his bonds. Had he still been able to regenerate his body, he would yank until the flesh peeled from his bone. The sting of fresh wounds on his wrists and the trickle of warm blood over his palms told him he was about to do just that. But he banked on his muscles and bones being strong than plastic, and pulled harder. His wounds might not heal in an instant, but they would not kill him.
He would heal in time.
His father would not.
Bishop gave a quick, hard tug, and the plastic relented to his brute strength. With the resistance gone, Bishop stumbled forward, off balance. Free of his restraints, he saw Dawoud sitting up, reaching for his pistol, which lay on the floor next to him. Bishop got there first, however, and kicked the gun across the room. Then he reached down, grabbed Dawoud by his shirt collar and picked him up. He didn’t even notice the weight.
Callsign: Bishop - Book 1 (An Erik Somers - Chess Team Novella) Page 8
