The last run (queen and country)

by Greg Rucka

  The house was small, used by VEVAK for long-term interrogation of prisoners, normally politically sensitive ones. Zahabzeh questioned their using it, wondered why they weren't taking Chace directly to one of the hospitals in Tehran, and then to prison.

  "Two reasons," Shirazi said. "We don't want her anywhere public, anywhere her people can find her. Second, too many ears, too many people listening who might report back to the Minister. Her confession must be the confession we want, Farzan, remember. Or have you forgotten it was Kamal's bullet that killed Hossein?"

  "I haven't forgotten," Zahabzeh said. "We should inform the Minister we have her, at least. Call off the search."

  "Not yet. Not until we have the confession."

  "I don't like it."

  "You don't have to like it, Farzan. I am in charge, and this is what we are going to do. All of us together, remember?"

  Zahabzeh had said nothing for a moment, watching while Parviz checked the security camera for the cell, making certain it was working. "We'll need the confession quickly."

  "I am aware," Shirazi said, drily. "Once we have her in place, I'll go back to Tehran, make certain the office knows how to proceed."

  "You're going back?" Zahabzeh looked at him curiously. "Why not use the phone?"

  "I want to put in an appearance at the office, maintain a presence for the search." Shirazi smiled at him. "You're afraid I will go to the Minister, claim all the credit?"

  "He should be informed."

  "No, not yet. I told you at the start, we would take the credit together. I gave you my word."

  "Yes," Zahabzeh said. "You did."

  Kamal stepped out of the small room used as a cell. "We're ready."

  "Help Javed move her inside. Be gentle with her, I don't want the wound reopening."

  "Yes, sir."

  Shirazi and Zahabzeh watched as Chace was moved into the house, followed as she was carried into the cell and laid on the cot. They had cut the blanket she had used as a makeshift manteau away during the drive, to better visualize her wounds, and now Kamal used a new blanket to cover her.

  "Her boots," Zahabzeh said.

  Kamal nodded, used a knife to cut the laces on Chace's shoes, tugged them free, then took her socks. Shirazi frowned, but didn't say anything; taking her shoes was logical, a means of keeping control over the prisoner, and objecting to it would have only heightened Zahabzeh's already acute suspicions.

  Zahabzeh took the boots, and the four men left the cell, Javed closing and locking the door after them. Parviz was seated at the table, watching the monitor, and Shirazi glanced at the screen, saw the woman lying precisely as they had left her.

  "Her things," he asked. "Where are they?"

  "Here."

  Zahabzeh set the boots on the edge of the table, removed the items they had taken from the spy from the pockets of his jacket. There was a satellite phone, a GPS unit, a folding knife, and several wads of rials. Shirazi looked through them all in the light, noting that both the satellite phone and the GPS unit were switched off. He turned each on, checking their respective memories. The phone's battery was nearly dead, its call log holding only one outgoing and one received in memory, each from different numbers within the U.K. Nothing else was stored. He showed the contents of the log to Zahabzeh.

  "Calls to headquarters," Shirazi said. "That would explain how Mr. Lewis knew where to find her."

  "Useless now."

  "Most likely. I suppose we could call and find out." Shirazi gave Zahabzeh a thin smile, received one in turn, then switched the phone off and set it down again, picking up the GPS unit. There were over a half-dozen points logged in memory on the device, but without a map, there was no way to determine where they were, or their purpose. Most of them, Shirazi suspected, were false entries, inputted simply to make things look proper. Which of them would have been the rendezvous point, again, he couldn't know without a map. It was just as likely that the coordinates hadn't been set in the unit at all, that Chace had held them in her memory. He hoped it was the latter.

  "Bag these up," Shirazi told Zahabzeh. "We'll need them for the trial." He left the house at ten minutes past four in the morning, and despite the late hour and the lack of sleep, felt better than he had in months. The nervousness, the tension, both were still with him, but for the first time since taking Hossein, he allowed for a slight optimism. Things had gone wrong, yes, but now, finally, they were proceeding as he had planned all along. There were complications, of course-Chace's injury foremost amongst them-but Shirazi was confident they could be managed. The hard work was done.

  He had his prize.

  He had Chace.

  By ten in the morning, he had completed his work, issuing new directives and narrowing the search corridor for the spy to the area around Tabriz. He returned to his office, closed the door, and after some searching, found the number for Captain Bardsiri.

  "Captain? This is Director Shirazi. We spoke yesterday."

  "Yes, sir." The captain's nervousness radiated out of the phone.

  "Regarding the incident at the checkpoint, you have filed your report?"

  "No, not yet, sir. I was preparing it for submission-"

  "Good. When you have completed it, I require it sent directly to my office, to me personally, along with any notes or other information about the incident. Do you understand?"

  "That's… that's quite irregular, sir."

  "I am aware of that, as I am also aware that my office took steps last night to capture the spy regardless of her diplomatic cover. I am trying to protect you, Captain, do you understand?"

  "Yes, sir. Thank you. I'll… I'll have everything sent to you this afternoon."

  "Sooner would be better, Captain," Shirazi said, hanging up. He booted up his computer, found his files on Chace, and proceeded to securely delete each one in turn. Then he checked his desk, looking for anything he might have missed or forgotten, but found nothing. The files on Hossein had already been disposed of, as per the Minister's direction, and no hard-copy information existed about Chace that Shirazi was aware of.

  It wasn't yet eleven in the morning when he departed, climbing back into his car to make the return trip to Natanz. He was in no hurry and stopped to do some shopping before leaving Tehran, picking out a new manteau for Chace, and a maqna'e that matched. At eleven minutes past one in the afternoon, Shirazi walked back into the house in Natanz, and the first thing he noted was that Zahabzeh was nowhere to be seen. Javed was seated at the table, watching the monitor, and on the screen he could see Chace, lying on her back, the blanket no longer covering her. Parviz and Kamal had each taken a portion of floor as a bed, dozing with their coats bundled beneath their heads.

  "Where's Farzan?" Shirazi asked.

  Javed turned slightly, still keeping one eye on the monitor. "He went back to Tehran, sir, as you ordered."

  The sense of triumph that Shirazi had allowed to rise within him since that morning vanished entirely. "Tell me what happened."

  On the floor, Parviz stirred, lifting his head. Javed glanced away from the screen, to Shirazi, puzzled. "She awoke around six this morning. Deputy Director Zahabzeh indicated he wished to question her, he took Parviz and Kamal in with him."

  Parviz was up, shaking Kamal's shoulder. "He said you had given permission."

  "What did you do to her?" Shirazi demanded. "Did you drug her?"

  "Another shot of ketamine," Parviz said. "She wasn't talking, and the Deputy Director was concerned, he said he would have to report to the Minister. He questioned her, wanted her to confess-"

  "Did he take her things?" Shirazi demanded. "The evidence we took from the spy, did Zahabzeh take them when he left?"

  Javed nodded, his confusion turning to concern. "He said he was operating on your orders, that he was to present our findings to the Minister."

  Shirazi moved forward, taking a closer look at the monitor, at Chace, now stirring on the cot. She was clearly still sedated, though beginning to surface. He straightened, l
ooked over the room, then grabbed one of the chairs at the table and set it in the center of the space.

  "Bring her out, now," Shirazi ordered, and Parviz and Kamal hastily got to their feet, heading for the cell door. He hadn't wanted to do it this soon, but now Zahabzeh had forced his hand. Now he had no choice.

  From where he carried it at the small of his back, Shirazi drew his pistol, and waited for Parviz and Kamal to bring Tara Chace to the execution.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  IRAN-ISFAHAN PROVINCE, NATANZ

  12 DECEMBER 0600 HOURS (GMT +3.30)

  She was alone when she awoke, the room small, pale yellow walls lit by sunlight slanting through the narrow grate of the window high above her head. Her neck was sore and her chest ached, but it seemed to her that it was less acute than before, more diffused, a muscle pain. The taste in her mouth made her think of rotten fruit.

  With great care, Chace tried to sit up, pushing away the blanket covering her, hearing the metal-frame cot creaking as she moved. Her feet were cold, bare, became colder as she set them on the concrete floor. Her boots were gone, and her top, but she was still wearing her bra and jeans. There was a mark near the inside of her elbow on her left arm, a fresh bruise spreading, and she looked around for the IV, but didn't see one. There wasn't much to see, truth to tell, aside from the cot and the blanket and herself. Only a plastic pitcher, set on the floor nearby, and a plastic cup beside it.

  There was also a surveillance camera, high in the corner.

  Chace reached for the pitcher, making new muscles ache. Along her back, where she'd been shot, she felt a momentary stab of pain, stopped her movement cold, checking her breathing. No change. There was something on her back, a new bandage, perhaps; she could feel it pulling on her skin when she moved. She extended a hand again for the pitcher, more carefully, discovered there was water inside. She drank, ignoring the cup, washing the paste out of her mouth. Metal rasped over metal, and she lowered the pitcher to see the door, painted the same yellow as the walls, swinging open, inward.

  Three men entered, two of them younger, clean-shaven Persians, following after the first, slightly older, with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. The two split, each taking the corners by the door, and the third closed it behind him, then turned back to stare at her. For a moment, no one said anything, Chace looking at them, they looking at her. The scent of soap reached her, slight, and she noticed their clothes were fresh.

  The one with the beard, she remembered him, or thought she did, from when Falcon had died. It seemed a distant memory, hazy, weeks old, but she doubted if it had been more than a day, perhaps two since fleeing Noshahr.

  "It will save us time, and you distress, if you confess now," the man with the beard said, speaking English. He spoke it with a slight British accent, as if he'd practiced the language using the BBC World Service.

  "Je ne vous comprends pas," Chace told him.

  "Vous me comprenez tres bien." His French, like his English, was practiced, the accent almost perfect.

  "Je m'appelle Pia Gadient, je suis professeur a l'universite de Fribourg," Chace said earnestly, doing her best to look bewildered. "On est ou? Comment je suis arrivee la?"

  "Non. Vous vous appelez Tara Chace," the man answered. "Vous etes une espionne, une espionne britannique. Vous etes un agent des Operations Speciales des Services Secrets, vous etes meme a la tete de cette section. Vous etes responsable des meurtres de trois hommes: deux policiers a Chalus et Hossein Khamenei, le neveu de notre Leader Supreme, a Noshahr."

  His expression remained placid, even patient, as he let his words sink in. The two men by the door were staring at her, their expressions betraying nothing.

  "Je ne comprends pas!" Chace cried, plaintive. "Je suis Suisse, je suis le professeur Pia Gadient. Je fais de la recherche sur les poissons, j'etudie les esturgeons-"

  The man snapped something in Farsi, and the two others immediately moved towards Chace, reaching for her.

  "Laissez-moi!" she shouted.

  They didn't, each one taking hold of her by the arms, grasping her at the wrist and elbow, and the man gave them another order. Chace was pulled to her feet, found herself being pressed face-first against the concrete wall, her arms stretched out at her sides.

  "You have been shot," she heard the man say, switching back to English.

  His fingers touched her back, dug into the skin at the top edge of the bandage. She realized what he was about to do, cried out, struggling, and the men holding her arms slammed her back into the wall, harder this time. A nail scraped her skin, and she felt the adhesive pulling away, and again the pain rushed into her chest, crushing her from within, choking her.

  "The bullet is still inside of you," the man told her. "The wound is still open. We can save your life, we would like to save your life, but you must give us something first. You must give us your confession. You must admit to the murder of Hossein Khamenei."

  Chace shook her head, or tried to, but the pain in her neck made it impossible. She managed a gasp, barely able to draw the air to replace it, her vision already swirling. Panic was rising with the swelling pressure in her chest, and this was different from when she'd had to treat herself, this was worse, infinitely worse, the sadism of it making her feel powerless and weak and ashamed, and she felt that she would tell them anything if they would just make it stop.

  Then the agent's voice, the one in the back of her mind, the one that always sounded, to her, like Tom Wallace, asserted itself. They're not going to let you die, it told her. This is only pain. You can endure pain.

  She stopped struggling, sucking at the air instead, feeling her nostrils flaring. Her vision was swimming once more, the lights returning at the edges of her vision, white dots that danced and sparkled. The man was speaking again, but she couldn't hear him.

  Then the pressure stabilized, stopped increasing, and she saw the ceiling, felt the rough blanket on the cot beneath her back. The man was shouting at her, then turning away. Movement, someone joining them, another face above hers, and she saw the needle, a proper tool, the tip of the catheter, and fingers pressing along her ribs, then the stabbing pain, making her eyes water. Air hissed out of her chest once more, and she wondered how many more times they would do this to her, how many more times before her lungs would collapse altogether.

  The needle withdrew, leaving the catheter in place, and the new face moved out of her vision, and the man was looking down at her again. Something pierced her right arm, near the shoulder, spreading warm lead through her body, and she felt herself cooling, becoming heavy, knew she'd been drugged. The man spoke in Farsi, turned away, and she heard footsteps, the room emptying of everything but echoes. The door rang closed, sang to her as it locked.

  Chace lay still, blinking the tears out of her eyes, feeling her breathing slow, the pain rolling through her body becoming fainter.

  They would do it again, she realized languidly. They would keep doing it until she confessed, until she confessed to everything.

  She didn't know how much of this she would be able to take. Drowsy half-images and broken conversations snuck back to her, rambling through her head. Crocker and C and Caleb Lewis, arguing about what to do with her, saying they had to inform the Minister in Tehran that she had been taken. It was what was required, yes, they understood, no, no one was to leave, not yet, but it had to be done. There was no rush. She wasn't going anywhere, no one was coming for her.

  The door was opening again, and she saw the same two men who had accompanied the one who'd hurt her, but this time only them, alone. Once more, they took her by the arms, brought her to her feet carefully, keeping hold of her, walking her out of the room. She shook her head, trying to clear it, felt the concrete beneath her feet turn to carpet, saw that this room, unlike the other, was not a cell, that she was in a house of some sort. The sunlight had changed, coming through windows opposite where it had before. There was a chair, and there were two more men, one of them young, like the others, but the other o
ne middle-aged, balding, beard and mustache, glasses.

  He was holding a pistol in his hand.

  They put her in the chair, released her arms, and the man with the glasses spoke to her, speaking English. "Tara Chace, my name is Youness Shirazi. I am the Director of Counterintelligence for VEVAK."

  Chace heard the hammer on the pistol lock back, felt the barrel against her temple, and that didn't make sense to her at all. If they needed her alive, why were they going to execute her in this chair, in this room?

  Then the barrel swung away from her skull, and Chace flinched as the gun went off, two shots, two more, then three, and the men standing all around her fell, one after the other, their blood soaking quickly into the carpet. She watched as the man with the glasses, Youness Shirazi, stepped forward, moving from body to body, and at each one he fired again, another round, into the brain.

  He turned to her, the pistol held at his side, speaking, and Chace stared at him dumbly, the gunshots still echoing in her head. She wondered if she was still hallucinating, hearing voices, seeing things, because she was certain she hadn't heard him correctly.

  "What?" Chace asked. "What did you say?"

  "I am the Director of Counterintelligence for VEVAK." The man tucked the gun away at his waist, and stepping forward, helped her to stand. He met her eyes, smiled weakly.

  "I wish to defect," Youness Shirazi told her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  IRAN-TEHRAN, 198 FERDOWSI AVENUE, BRITISH EMBASSY

  12 DECEMBER 1429 HOURS (GMT +3.30)

  His head still hurt, and Caleb Lewis knew it wasn't from the knock he'd taken when they'd been ambushed. No, that had been seen to already, Barnett insisting that he and MacIntyre go to the hospital and get X-rayed as soon as Caleb had finished delivering his report the night before, as soon as he'd told his Number One that they had lost Chace.