by Greg Rucka
"Go get checked out, the both of you," Barnett had said, already unlocking the coms cabinet. "I'll handle London."
"I'd rather stay here, sir," Caleb had said.
Barnett had just given him a look, paternal and stern and sad, then gone back to activating the deck, switching on the phone. Some three hours later, Caleb returned to the office alone, he and MacIntyre having parted company after each receiving their clean bills of health. The coms cabinet was locked and cold, all the office lights off but for the one by Barnett's desk. Barnett himself sat chain-smoking in the near-dark, listening to the State-run radio playing softly on the shelf behind him.
Caleb stood in the center of the tiny office, feeling overheated in his winter coat, at first confused, and then, ultimately, defeated.
"No orders?" he asked.
Barnett's answer was in two forms. The first was to lean out and take one of the mugs from the tea tray, and then to fill it with whiskey from the bottle Barnett kept in his desk. He offered it to Caleb, waited until he took it.
"From D-Ops, to Tehran Station," Barnett said. " 'Action as normal.' "
Caleb smelled the vapor rising from the mug, stared into the alcohol. "Have they announced it?"
"Not yet."
"I had her." He looked from the mug to Barnett. "I had her, I had my arms around her, she was in the car, next to me. And then there they were, and they just… I just let them take her."
Barnett crushed out his cigarette, then took a mug for himself, fixed a drink of his own. "You didn't let them do anything, lad."
"I didn't do anything at all."
"You weren't supposed to. They made it so you couldn't."
"I know. I know. I do. They'd have shot us, I recognize that."
"Then don't go beating yourself up over it."
Caleb shook his head, set down his drink long enough to get out of his coat. His arm caught in the sleeve, and he pulled at it, then again, until finally, furious with it, he yanked it free, swearing. He sat at his desk, took the mug in his hands.
Barnett lit another cigarette, blew smoke, watching him. The radio murmured notes, soft music, designed to soothe any rebellious tendencies. "You're angry."
"I am." Caleb said it quickly, glared at Barnett, challenging him to argue, to invalidate what he was feeling.
Barnett sipped at his mug, took another drag from his smoke. "I am, too."
"But I wasn't before."
"What were you, then?"
"I was scared. I was fucking terrified. The whole time I've been here, I've been terrified, just… always afraid."
Barnett started to respond, then stopped as a voice came over the radio, marking the hour, giving the news. They both listened. Hossein's death led, followed by word of the search for his killer-slash-killers. Then they heard about tomorrow's weather.
"That's normal, lad," Barnett said.
"Was it?" Caleb asked him. "Then what is it now? I sat, some doctor shining a light in my eyes, and all I could think was how angry I was. How I'd go out and shoot Shirazi now if I could do it. She was supposed to be safe, Lee, I told her she was safe."
Barnett drained his mug, set it down on the desk.
"I told her she was safe."
"No one is ever safe, Caleb," Lee Barnett said. "Especially not in Iran." He turned the radio on as soon as he returned to his apartment, kept it on while he showered and shaved, listening to it as he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and peeled the bandage from his forehead. The collision had thrown him against the side of the Benz, bounced his head against the window frame, and now uncovered, he could see the bruise, yellow and green, the skin angry, shining, where it had torn.
Before climbing into bed, Caleb made his checks of the apartment, doing everything they had taught him to do at the School, and more. VEVAK had identified him now, and it was certain he would be at the head of their surveillance list, that he had graduated to being a priority target. They would try to bug the apartment, monitor his movements, document everything he did, everywhere he went, everyone he talked to. He knew it, and that drove his search, and the fact that he found nothing out of place, nothing altered, no signs of tampering or invasion or search was infuriating, and only stoked the anger he was feeling.
He brought the anger with him to bed, still listening to the radio, and it kept him awake in the dark for over an hour longer, despite his enormous fatigue. He heard the news five more times, and not once was Tara Chace mentioned. No word of an arrest.
That would change come the morning, Caleb was sure.
On his way to the embassy the next morning, Caleb stopped for his usual cup of coffee at the cafe near the Tehran Bazaar, then stepped next door to pick up copies of the day's newspapers. It was nearly noon, and the streets were busy, despite a new, cold rain that had begun falling sometime after he'd finally managed to go to sleep. He bought copies of the Iran Daily, as well as the hard-line Kayhan International, and the government mouthpiece Tehran Times. Then, instead of turning north, towards the embassy, he continued heading west, to the Park-e Shahr.
There were no signals marked at the entrance, and Caleb continued on, walking steadily, the bundle of papers tucked under his arm. It was too cold and too wet for a lunchtime in the park, and there were very few people around. He made his circuit, trying new turns, and it was on his way out of the park again that it struck him as odd, very odd, that he had seen nothing at all to indicate he was being followed. While he didn't hold great faith in his own skills as an agent, he was certain that he wasn't that incompetent, that useless.
Either whoever Shirazi had put on him was very, very good, or there was no one on him at all.
Of the two possible conclusions, only the first made sense. What had they called it at the School, the system the CIA claimed they had created? The Moscow Rules? Number One, Assume Nothing; but it was Number Four that Caleb kept thinking of as he started towards the embassy: Don't Look Back, You Are Never Completely Alone.
Fair enough, then, but shouldn't he have seen something by now? MacIntyre was on duty at the door into the Security wing when Caleb arrived, greeted him with a noncommittal, "Good afternoon, sir." Caleb asked how he was feeling.
"Sore," MacIntyre replied, and Caleb didn't think the man meant physically.
In the office, Barnett was at paperwork, the coms cabinet closed. Caleb greeted him, dropped the newspapers on his desk, took his seat.
"Anything?"
"Nothing," Barnett said. "Not a crumb."
"I'd have thought they'd have said something by now. Made some announcement."
"As would I. Given the state she was in, I can't imagine she'd be able to hold out for long."
Caleb looked at him, Barnett head-down to his work. It wasn't something he had wanted to think about, what VEVAK might do to Chace to get her to talk, and he felt a jagged, sudden anger at his Number One for making such a mention so casually. Misplaced anger, he admitted, turning his attention to the papers. He gave them the better part of an hour, reading each one carefully, and there were the expected stories about Hossein's murder and the ongoing search for his killer, including a long quote from the Supreme Leader himself about the outrage, the injustice, of the crime. But nothing else, nothing substantive, and even the details in the Tehran Times, which by all logic should have had the most accurate information, were vague.
He closed the papers, slid them off his desk and into his trashcan. His head hurt, the same headache that had nagged him since the crash, and Caleb put his face in his hands, closed his eyes, gingerly rubbed at his bruised temple with a fingertip.
Maybe, just maybe, he was right, Caleb thought. Maybe the reason that he had seen no signs that he was under surveillance was because there were no signs to be found. But why? Why would Youness Shirazi, having positively identified him as SIS in Iran, leave him room to run? Was he baiting another trap, the way Caleb now understood he had done with Falcon? To what end?
It made no sense, none at all, unless Shirazi wan
ted SIS to have room to run.
Caleb lowered his hands, opened his eyes, entirely uncomfortable with his conclusion. "Sir?"
"Caleb?" Barnett answered.
"What if Falcon never intended to defect?"
"Think that's given, at this point."
"No, that's not what I mean. If he was the wrong defector. If Falcon was just bait, to get us to put everything right, to put the operation in motion."
"You mean Minder One was meant to take someone else at the last minute? London would've told us, even if not in the first instance, once it all went tits, they'd have said."
"I don't think they knew," Caleb said. "I think it was Shirazi."
Barnett's cigarette, stuck in the corner of his mouth, jerked towards the ceiling as the man grinned. "You think Youness Shirazi set Falcon up to run, planning to take his place at the last minute?"
"Yes."
The grin got bigger, became a laugh.
"I think that knock to your head did more hurt than we thought," Barnett told him.
Caleb frowned, embarrassed, then nodded. That must be it, he thought, I'm just not thinking straight. Then the telephone by his elbow rang, jarring him, and Caleb fumbled the handset to his ear. The embassy switchboard, there was a call for him, asking for him by name.
"This is Lewis," he said.
"Caleb," Tara Chace said. "I need you to get a message to London."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LONDON-HYDE PARK, LOVERS WALK, PARK LANE ENTRANCE
12 DECEMBER 1111 HOURS (GMT)
Crocker found Seale waiting in the usual place, by the statue of Achilles that had been cast from captured cannons won by Wellington from the French. The day was dreary, cold and damp, not quite committed to rain, and the CIA Station Chief stood in his overcoat and gloves, a watch cap on his head. He tracked Crocker's approach, moving to meet him, and together the two men began walking deeper into the park.
They stayed in silence, each of them paying careful attention to their surroundings, more out of habit than necessity. Once upon a time, a walk in the park had been a very safe way to share information, and then had come the age of laser directional ears and parabolic microphones and Internet firewalls and secure phone lines, and it was thought that such rendezvous were passe. But, as with so many things, the wheel had turned, and face-to-face meetings had come, once again, to be recognized for their value. Information shared in person between two men, after all, could not be intercepted, even if there was a risk it would be overheard.
"No news?" Seale asked after a minute.
"Nothing." It was a question asked out of politeness, rather than curiosity, Crocker thought. Seale damn well knew that there'd been nothing out of Tehran since the previous evening.
"You guys formulated your response yet?"
Crocker shook his head. "C's still at Downing Street. According to Rayburn, there's an argument in the Cabinet as to what the response should be."
"I'd think a flat denial."
"The problem with that is there's no way to know what Chace has given them. If they have a confession, and they air it after the Government issues a denial, it'll make us look even worse."
Seale grunted in agreement, fell silent, and they continued walking, listening to nothing but the traffic running past in the distance, the crunch of their shoes on the gravel. After another minute, Crocker realized that Seale wasn't going to ask, and so he reached into his overcoat and withdrew a sheaf of papers, clipped at the corner and folded lengthwise, and handed them over without a word. They walked for almost another fifty yards as Seale went through them, sheet by sheet, then again, before slowing to stop. Crocker continued another couple feet, steeling himself, then turned back to face him. Seale looked genuinely stunned.
"Tell me this is wrong."
"I can't," Crocker said.
"Jesus Christ, Paul, this has to be wrong!"
"It's not."
"This is everything she had access to?"
Crocker shook his head. "That's the preliminary list. D-Int is still compiling a master document, but I wanted to get that into your hands as soon as possible. She had nine years as a Minder, five as Head of Section. There's no telling how much operational data she's retained."
"Jesus Christ," Seale repeated.
Crocker said nothing. That Chace would be interrogated, was being interrogated even as they spoke, was assumed, just as it was assumed that, eventually, she'd break. It wasn't held as a reflection of the woman she was, or the spy, and it wasn't viewed as a failing; it was simply true. Everyone, eventually, broke, and she would, too. When that happened, she'd begin talking, and when that happened, there was every reason to believe she wouldn't stop until there was nothing left. She would give them everything she had, or, more correctly, they would take everything she had.
Which meant that steps needed to be made now to protect what could be lost. Hence the list, a frighteningly long list of names and operations and networks and contacts and protocols and secrets, so many secrets, most of them belonging to SIS, but not all. Some of them were marked "US-UK EYES ONLY," information shared with or learned from the CIA. That was what Seale held now, the itemization of how Tara Chace could hurt them.
She could hurt them quite badly.
"You showed this to C?" Seale asked, after a second. "She knows?"
"It was on her desk this morning, before she returned to Downing Street."
Seale looked at the papers in his hand, then offered them back to Crocker. "I haven't seen this."
"Julian, you can't do that."
"Paul, if I report this to Langley, there'll be hell to pay. And if I have to bring them a second list, of the things you guys might've missed in the first one, it'll only make matters worse. Take it back, sit on it for twenty-four hours, at least. Give me the master document. If you're going to cut the throat of the Special Relationship, at least do it in one slice."
"Twenty-four hours." Crocker scowled, then reached out and took the papers, adding, "It won't help."
"Maybe, but it won't hurt, not at this point."
There was more to it, Crocker knew, but Seale had the good grace, unlike C, not to say it. If Chace died, she wouldn't be able to tell the Iranians anything, after all.
"You had lunch?" Seale asked. "Let the Company buy you lunch."
"I should get back to the office. I appreciate the offer, however."
"You know where I am."
"If we hear anything, I'll let you know."
"Do something about that list, Paul. You're going to kill us with that list."
Seale turned away, heading northeast, towards Grosvenor Square.
It started to rain.
"Where the hell have you been?" Kate demanded when Crocker stepped into the outer office. He was wet and cold and depressed, and from her words, he immediately assumed the worst, that the news about Chace had broken while he'd been talking with Seale.
Then Kate shoved a signal into his hand, from Tehran Station, flash precedence, immediate for D-Ops. STATION NUMBER TWO REPORTS CONTACT WITH MINDER ONE VIA TELEPHONE AT 1449 LOCAL, DURATION OF CALL 87 SECONDS…
Crocker read the rest of the signal in a rush, then almost threw the paper back at her, sprinting into his office, for the red phone, shouting, "Find C! Get D-Int and DC, tell them I need them to meet me in her office."
"She's still at Downing Street!"
"Then tell DC to get her out of the meeting, we need her here." He stabbed at his phone, wedging the handset between his neck and shoulder as he tried to remove his sodden overcoat.
"Duty Ops Officer."
"D-Ops, for MCO, get me the Tehran Number Two, secure voice, immediately. I'm coming down."
Crocker used a finger to kill the connection, jabbed another key, transferring the phone to his opposite shoulder, letting the coat dump onto his chair, where it then slid to the floor. He kicked it out of his way, looked up as Kate stuck her head into the office.
"DC needs a reason to pull C from the Cabin
et meeting. What can I tell him?"
"The first part, that Minder One's in the open again."
"That should do it."
"I'd fucking well hope so."
"Minder Two," Poole said in his ear.
"Ops Room, I'll explain when I get there," Crocker said, then hung up and rounded his desk, heading for the door. He stopped at Kate's desk long enough to point back to his overcoat, lying on the floor. "The list for Seale is still in my pocket."
"What should I do with it?"
"Destroy it," Crocker said, and then he was out of the office, racing down the halls, making for the Ops Room. Hoping that he hadn't been premature; praying that he wouldn't need a new copy of the list to hand to Seale anyway. "I need a name and an operation," Crocker shouted, as soon as he hit the Ops Room floor, on a straight line for the MCO Desk. Poole had just beat him in, was at Duty Ops with Arthur Grey, and grabbed the clipboard before Grey himself could.
"Name: Cougar," Poole called back. "Operation: Icecrown."
"It's a Special Op, put it up on the board, Minder Two allocated, and bring in a control." Crocker reached the MCO Desk, took the headset Lex was offering him, closed his fist around the mike. "And find out the status on Bagboy, if Lankford is free to move."
"Yes, sir," Grey said.
Crocker pulled on the headset, his eyes checking the clocks on the wall. "Caleb, D-Ops. Confirm, please, time elapsed since contact, sixty-seven minutes."
There was a pause, the static chatter of the scrambler filling the void, before Caleb Lewis answered, "I have sixty-seven minutes, yes, sir."
"Her location was south of Natanz at that time." Crocker snapped his fingers, pointing at the map, and someone knew what he meant, because almost immediately a callout appeared on the Iran map, marking Natanz, some one hundred and twenty miles southeast of Tehran. "Heading which direction, did she say?"
"No, she didn't, sir."
