The last run (queen and country)

by Greg Rucka

  Crocker, for the first time in ages, felt himself smile. "Keep the channel open."

  "Confirmed."

  The screen flickered, changed, showing an exploded close-up of the northern edge of the Persian Gulf, satellite image overlaid upon the graphic. A small green dot appeared, moving from a position south, marked HMS Illustrious, tracking quickly north, towards southeastern Iran, the large, deep delta south of Bandar-e Khomenei, the largest oil refinery in the region. A timer appeared beside the moving dot, a countdown, seconds quickly ticking past.

  Crocker watched for a moment, then turned to Seale, who was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin held in a hand. He slid his eyes to Crocker, grinned.

  "Special Projects Team happy to be let out of their box to play?" he asked.

  "More than you can imagine," Crocker said.

  It took thirty-six minutes exactly from the time Daniel Szurko stepped out of Crocker's office to the time that Colonel Richard Moss, the head of the Special Projects Team, stepped into it. He arrived the way he always did when asked to report to D-Ops, snapping to attention and offering a crisp salute, even though, technically, there was no need for it. SIS fell outside of the Ministry of Defense, and thus was not a military institution.

  That said, the SPT existed in the gray area between the two, the unit primarily comprised of combat engineers and military-trained technical specialists in a variety of fields. Theoretically, the unit existed to supplement D-Ops' operational capabilities, to take on those jobs or mission-related aspects that required specialized knowledge. If an operation required a dam breached, or a bridge blown, or power to a certain section of a certain city in a certain country cut at exactly the right time, it was the SPT that would make it happen. Moss was proud of his team's abilities, but as jealous of his men as Crocker was of his Minders.

  "Paul," Moss said.

  "You know Nicky Poole," Crocker said.

  "Of course, good to see you, Nick."

  "And you, Colonel."

  Moss nodded, looked from one man to the other, then settled, as appropriate, on Crocker. "And what can the SPT do for you today, sir?"

  "You're going to put a hole in a boat," Crocker said. "A reasonably sized hole, in a very big boat."

  Moss's military bearing cracked as he smiled with pleasure.

  "Live for it, sir," he said. At two minutes, Crocker put his headset back on, signaling to Lex. The screen flickered, the satellite transmission resuming. On the screen, Poole, Lankford, and Moss were all in profile, watching a separate monitor, and past them, Crocker could see at least two other members of the SPT who were aboard HMS Illustrious in the Persian Gulf. He slid his eyes up the clock, saw that it was less than ten minutes to eight in the morning in Iran.

  "Closing to target," Moss said, glancing to the camera. "Awaiting the order to arm, sir."

  "Arm," Crocker said.

  "Arm, arm, arm," Moss repeated, turning away, and the command echoed again, distant. "Would you like to see it, sir? We've got a nice visual on her."

  "Safe?"

  "As houses, sir."

  "By all means."

  One of the SPT technicians moved, sliding back in his chair, and the screen flickered, went dark, then lit again, displaying the live feed from the torpedo speeding through the water. Another flicker, and now a new image, morning sunlight shining off the Gulf water, and the image magnified once, twice, again, bringing the view of a massive oil tanker closer and closer to the camera. Two pilot boats were running alongside it, escorting it out of the delta channel.

  "One minute to impact, standing by."

  "Hello, Hadi," Seale said from behind Crocker. "Good-bye, Hadi." "She's the same tanker the Somalis tried to hijack back in '07," Crocker told C. "Iranian Navy managed to arrive in time before she could be boarded. It is conceivable that an action against it could be taken as the Somalis seeking revenge."

  "The Somalis hijack ships, they don't sink them, Paul." She looked up from the photographs that Szurko had supplied to Crocker, staring at him as if not entirely certain he was joking. "You want to blow it up?"

  "Not precisely," Crocker replied. "The problem is that both Chace and Cougar are being actively hunted. We have to find a way to clear a route for them, to open a passage through which they can make their exfil. Nothing overland is viable, and Chace can't fly. The water is the only option left to us, but we still need a distraction."

  "Meaning you want to spill oil into the Persian Gulf."

  "The Iranians are practiced at cleaning up their spills," Crocker said, quickly, trying to diminish the indictment. "They'll respond immediately, and the damage will be relatively minimal. But it will justify foreign interest, bringing ships in closer. And it will divide their attention-no matter how badly they want to find Cougar, they won't be able to ignore this."

  Gordon-Palmer frowned, studied the photographs again. "It'll have to go to the Prime Minister for approval, and the only way I can see him allowing it is if he can maintain deniability."

  "I'll take responsibility."

  "Of course you will."

  "I'm sending Poole with the SPT to Iraq within the hour," Crocker said. "Lankford will rendezvous with them, but they'll need to proceed to one of our ships in the Gulf for this to work."

  "The Admiralty has agreed to the plan?"

  "Provisionally. If we can get permission to hit the tanker, they'll bring in HMS Illustrious to stage from, and they're offering SBS support for the exfil, as long as we can get Minder One and Cougar out onto the open water."

  "They won't go inland?"

  "They have expressed reservations. Something about armed soldiers and foreign soil, I believe."

  "Ah, yes, I'm told that's called 'an act of war.' " She actually smiled before asking, "And they can make it onto the open water?"

  "Working on that part now. But if we're going to use the Hadi as a distraction, we'll have to do it by morning tomorrow in zone. Any later and instead of a distraction, we'll have confusion, and that will hinder as much as help."

  "Yes, agreed. Very well, Paul, I'll sell it to the Prime Minister. But I know what he'll say."

  "He'll say that if we don't pull this off, it's my job."

  "Ah, at long last, Paul," C said. "You're learning."

  On the plasma wall, the Hadi floated placid and stable, beginning to steam forward, into the Persian Gulf. On the headset, Crocker listened to the countdown.

  "Impact, impact, impact," Moss said. "Good impact."

  Nothing visibly changed on the screen.

  "Not seeing anything," Seale murmured.

  "Confirm impact," Crocker said into the mike. "No visual."

  "Above the waterline, you'll not see anything yet," Moss said, and Crocker thought the man was decidedly pleased. "Triple-D device, sir, directed charge low to the hull. She's bleeding now, sir, trust me."

  As if in response, Hadi began to turn to port, and on the screen Crocker could now discern motion on the deck of the ship, antlike figures moving aboard the massive oil tanker. Crocker wasn't certain, but on the surface of the water he thought he was seeing the first striations of color, the rainbow refraction of oil on water.

  "Congratulations, sir," Moss said in his ears. "It's a bouncing baby environmental disaster."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  IRAN-HORMOZGAN PROVINCE, ABADAN

  13 DECEMBER 1658 HOURS (GMT +3.30)

  TO: HEAD OF STATION, TEHRAN-BARNETT, L.

  FROM: DIRECTOR OPERATIONS-CROCKER, P.

  OPERATION: ICECROWN

  MESSAGE BEGINS_

  REQUIRE YOU DISPATCH STATION NUMBER TWO TO ABADAN. SECURITY DIVISION TO PROVIDE BACKUP DURING TRANSIT AND ON GROUND. STATION NUMBER TWO DIRECTED TO SECURE TRANSPORT DOWNRIVER ABADAN BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY. VITAL TO REACH RZ ALPHA WITH MINDER ONE AND PACKAGE: COUGAR AT 2245 LOCAL, NO LATER, THEN PROCEED RZ BRAVO ALL SPEED FOR EXFIL.

  STATION NUMBER TWO DIRECTED TO CLOSE BUSINESS OUTSTANDING PRIOR TO DEPARTURE.

  STATION NUMBER
TWO AUTHORIZED TO DRAW ANY MATERIEL IN SUPPORT OF ACTION.

  STATION NUMBER TWO AND SECURITY ESCORT ORDERED TO DRAW ARMS.

  _MESSAGE ENDS It wasn't until Barnett had handed him the Beretta compact from the gun safe in the office, along with a box of ammunition, that Caleb realized, whatever happened next, he was finished in Iran.

  "Hope to God you don't have to use it, Caleb," Barnett said around his cigarette. "And hope even more that if you do, you kill whatever bastard is aiming at you."

  Caleb stared at the pistol in his hand, alien and ugly and entirely unfamiliar to him. He had performed dismally on his pistol drills at the School, had barely qualified, in fact. It seemed to him absurd that he should be trusted with such a thing, especially now, especially with what was at stake. He tucked the weapon into his backpack, along with the box of bullets, setting them beside his sat phone and GPS unit, then took the stack of rials Barnett was now offering him. He split them up amongst the backpack and his pockets.

  "Medical supplies, you think?" Barnett asked him.

  "MacIntyre's already taking care of it," Caleb said. "He's bringing a full kit, think it's even got a bottle of oxygen in it."

  "Wise. No telling the state she'll be in when you get her."

  Caleb appreciated that Barnett hadn't said "if you get her."

  "VEVAK'll be on you the moment you step outside, you know that," Barnett said. "They'll be on the car to the airport, and they'll have the flight plan before you're in the air, and they'll be waiting for you when you touch down. Even with the confusion on the ground, all this running about because of the Hadi, you're still going to have a hell of a job losing them, and you're damn well going to have to do it if you're to pull this off."

  "I was trying not to think about that, actually."

  "That's enough of that. You're a better agent than you give yourself credit for being, Caleb. Doubt is good, it keeps us honest. But too much of it is a poison." Barnett put a hand on Caleb's shoulder for a moment, the paternal manner manifest once more. "You were a good Two, lad, and I'll make certain that goes in the permanent file."

  "Thank you, sir."

  They shook hands.

  "You're a hell of a spy, Caleb," Barnett said.

  The surveillance was blatant on the way from the embassy to the airport. Two cars, front and back, and only when they rolled out onto the field, to the airplane kept and piloted by the British mission in Iran, did the other vehicles back off, parking within twenty meters. Caleb lent MacIntyre a hand moving their few bags from the car onto the plane, and once everything was aboard, he looked back, saw that men had emerged from the cars. One of them, he was sure, was Zahabzeh, but at this distance it was impossible to read the man's expression, what he was thinking.

  Caleb couldn't imagine his thoughts were kind ones, and for a moment he felt an absurd kinship with the man. He didn't know him, in truth didn't want to, but both of them, he recognized, were subordinates, both of them followers, now asked to lead, and he had to wonder if it sat as uncomfortably on Farzan Zahabzeh as it did on himself. MacIntyre, like Caleb, had brought a go-bag. Or so Caleb thought. Until they were in the air and the man opened it, withdrawing a rifle with a folding stock. Caleb turned his attention from the map he had spread open before him, watched as MacIntyre checked the weapon, breaking it down and then reassembling it before stowing the long gun away once more. Then MacIntyre pulled a pistol from the bag, a Browning, and repeated the procedure.

  "You're loaded?" MacIntyre asked.

  "Not yet."

  The man looked over at him with brown sleepy eyes. "Think you'll have a better time to do it, then?"

  "I suppose not." Caleb folded the map away, unzipped the flap on his backpack, took out the Beretta and the ammunition. He loaded the clip slowly, struggling to get the last bullet locked into place, aware that MacIntyre was observing him the entire time. When he finished, he dropped the pistol into his pocket and looked at MacIntyre, not certain if, or even what, he should say.

  "Don't think of it as killing," MacIntyre told him. "Think of it as saying 'Stop that' in a very clear, very permanent voice."

  It was warmer in Abadan than it had been in Tehran, in the low sixties Fahrenheit, clear and without humidity. Caleb went to pick up the car from the rental station within the decrepit terminal. He had the keys in his hand and was headed to the vehicle itself before he caught the first hint of local attention. It wasn't at all surprising, but for an instant he felt near-panic, wondering what he might do or say if he was stopped with the gun in his pocket.

  But it wasn't going to happen, and he knew that. To Zahabzeh, Caleb was secondary, a consolation prize at best; and for exactly the same reason that they hadn't been stopped upon leaving the embassy, heading to the airport, they weren't going to be stopped in Abadan. At least not yet. Zahabzeh had to let them run. They were his only possible leads to Chace, to Shirazi. They were his bird dogs.

  Knowing that didn't particularly make him feel much better.

  The car was a Khodro, an old one, and Caleb brought it around, waited until MacIntyre had loaded the vehicle and hopped in before pulling out onto Route 37, heading south, then east, into the heart of Abadan. The sun was just beginning to set as they drove past the refinery fields. The massive storage containers loomed along both sides of the road for five, six kilometers before giving way to the city itself. On the outskirts, they passed old houses crowned with badgirs, the ingenious natural air conditioners that had been invented centuries earlier, which relied on convection to pull hot air out, to pull even the slightest breeze in and down.

  Traffic was thicker near the heart of the city, end-of-the-day commuters, one shift returning from the refineries as another went out to continue feeding the petrobeast. Caleb kept his eyes open for a place to stop, somewhere he and MacIntyre could get a meal. He finally parked outside a cafe just south of downtown. They exited the car, and while Caleb went inside to buy them each a cup of chay, MacIntyre stayed behind and searched the Khodro.

  When Caleb returned, MacIntyre was holding a small, black square in his hand. "What should I do with it?"

  Caleb set his tea on the roof of the Khodro, took the tiny tracking device, then tossed it underhand into the road. Traffic had crushed it to bits before he'd had a chance to pick up his tea again.

  "You hungry?" Caleb asked. "I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat." They found a downscale food stand another two kilometers south, closer to the forest of palm trees that grew all along the banks of the river. Water flowed past Abadan to the east and the west, river channels that had been artificially deepened and widened to accommodate the loading of pure light crude. The soil closest to the banks was lush and, even now, in winter, green. They ate outside, MacIntyre keeping one eye on their car, Caleb watching the people around him. For the first time since reaching Iran, for reasons he could not explain, he felt relaxed, and chatted cheerfully with the vendor who made their dinner.

  Then MacIntyre said, "Mr. Lewis," and Caleb turned to see a black van pulling up, double-parking beside their Khodro, two jeeps with soldiers accompanying it. The soldiers stayed put, but out of the van came Farzan Zahabzeh, followed by two others. Zahabzeh turned back to them, spoke something Caleb couldn't hear, but its meaning was clear enough, and when he reached their picnic table, he was alone.

  "Mr. Lewis," Zahabzeh said, in English. "I wish to speak with you."

  "Have you eaten?" Caleb indicated the bench opposite him. "The chelo mahi is outstanding."

  Zahabzeh shook his head, dismissing the offer and the pleasantry together. He looked meaningfully at MacIntyre, then back to Caleb. "I should like to speak with you alone."

  Caleb shrugged, and MacIntyre got to his feet, went back to where the car was parked, leaning against it, watching them.

  "We want Youness Shirazi," Zahabzeh said, after a moment. "You want your agent back. Let's make a deal."

  Caleb didn't answer, looking at the man opposite him. While he'd seen him before, could remember him
perfectly from the night in Noshahr when he'd tried to enter the safehouse, he didn't look quite the same. Caleb suspected it was mutual, and not solely because of the bruise he was now sporting at the side of his head. But the weight of what had transpired in the last two days-God, was it only two days?-clearly sat much more heavily on the man opposite him.

  "You are planning to rendezvous with her," Zahabzeh said. "That is obvious; that is the only reason you can be here."

  "I'm here to monitor the cleanup of the Hadi," Caleb said.

  "We are past playing games. I am offering you a deal. We take our man, you take yours, and that will be the end of things. We will reset the board. We will forget everything. Even Hossein."

  "I really don't know what you're talking about," Caleb said. "I'm here to report on the oil spill in the Gulf. That's all."

  Zahabzeh made a noise, anger breaking free of its confines, and Caleb saw the man's body tense before Zahabzeh was able to force himself to relax again. He got to his feet.

  "Youness Shirazi is a traitor," Zahabzeh told him. "He will be executed for what he has done. Anyone assisting him is either a traitor or an enemy of Iran. If the former, they will be shot. If the latter… we will do what we must to protect ourselves."

  He turned, returning to the van, not bothering to look at MacIntyre, not bothering to look back.

  Caleb watched as Zahabzeh and his men loaded up once more, pulled away. One of the jeeps went with them, but the other one drove halfway down the block before stopping. The soldiers within remained seated, but he could see them watching him.

  He thought about that for a bit, then decided he wanted to finish his dinner. It was full dark by the time he was finished, and when they headed to the car, he told MacIntyre it was time for him to drive. They settled into their seats. MacIntyre started up the Khodro, driving easily, heading northward again. The jeep that had remained parked, watching them, pulled out to follow.