They were on the far outskirts of the base now. “So here’s the deal,” said Bert Harris. “Do you want to die now or die later?”
Danny had no fear. He knew that the man behind him, who could end his life and who had ended the lives of many, would not now harm him. They had been together too long — not that that counted for anything but that they knew each other — and trusted each other, and with a big job ahead of them, this was the only time they were going to have to get the ground rules straight. “That’s pretty much the same choice everybody has every day, so what’s so special about it today?”
“Because we’re going to Iran and we may not come back.”
“Iran? Where?”
“How does Desert One sound? Payback time.”
“Tabas,” said Danny. “Eagle Claw.”
“Eagle Clusterfuck was more like it. Your unit was born in its wake. Interested in a little payback?”
They were nearly at the wire now, the demarcation line that separated the base from the civilians. It looked like an innocent chain-link fence with barbed wire on the top, but Danny could tell at a glance that it was far more than that. Everything that came near the fence was photographed, recorded, monitored. If by chance some miscreant attempted to scale the wire with a cell phone on him, the SKIPJACK chip that Apple had agreed with the government to insert in every phone in order to trace its owner’s movements would give him away.
“So where are we going with this?” asked Danny. “I was going to tell you that I wanted out. I’m getting married again. To Hope. You remember Hope.”
The voice was soft. “I ought to. I saved her son.”
“And you got her husband killed. I guess I ought to thank you for that. Funny how life works out. And we both saved her daughter. My daughter now. So why should I listen to you?”
“Because you don’t have any choice. Listen up and listen good…”
For the next five minutes, Danny heard just about everything he had never wanted to hear in his life, his worst fears. Only a few men could prevent them from full realization, and two of them were standing out in field in the Central Valley of California, in a godforsaken part of the world, trying to decide what to do.
“That doesn’t explain what I saw in Coalinga,” said Danny.
“Or what I saw in California City,” said Devlin.
“Which was?”
“Roses. Roses and hyacinths… but let’s stopping worrying about what we may or may not have seen — what we think we saw — and start worrying about how we’re going to fix our problem. Because if we don’t, the whole world is going to have a problem.”
Danny started to say something and then, without warning, wheeled around. If Bert Harris or Tom Powers of any of the other names he had used in their work together over the years was going to kill him… well, let it happen, here, now, in front of the security cameras. Danny had so much to live for now that he almost didn’t care — if he died on the spot, he would die happy, his life once again given meaning and shape.
He was not surprised that the man he was suddenly confronting was so ordinary. It was entirely possible that he had walked past him every day for years, that he had seen on the street in L.A., or in a diner in Kansas City, or in a thousand other places both at home and abroad. His was the kind of face you saw all the time and never noticed: not handsome, not ugly, not remarkable but not plain either.
It was only when you looked into those deep blue eyes that you saw what was special about him: cold, unemotional, lethal. The perfect killing machine on behalf of president and country disguised as Everyman. No wonder he was so effective. No wonder he was so miserable.
Because Danny also was not surprised to find that, no matter how fast he had been, the man was holding a knife to his throat.
“Are you in or are you out?” was all he said.
Danny didn’t even have to think. “Payback’s going to be a real bitch. When do we leave?”
“An hour soon enough? First stop, Washington. There’s some folks you need to meet.”
“What about… you know?”
“They’ll be safe here. Admiral Atchison extends his hospitality. Rory will have the run of the base. Girls will be girls.”
“Deal,” said Danny.
But Devlin was already gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tehran
The lights in the stairwells were either dim or nonexistent. For a rich country, Iran was remarkably poor. Everything was just this side of shabby, even in a nice hotel, the modern carpets already threadbare. The workmanship was poor. Revolutions would do that to a country.
She moved softly, purposefully. This was the only part of her plan that she could not foresee. If she encountered anyone…
But she did not. She made it to the basement without incident. She might have been picked up on a camera, but she was sure the chances that the indolent public servants would have noticed on their monitors were nil. And if anyone looked at the tapes later, all they would see was darkness.
There was the room. She produced her key, unlocked it, and slipped inside.
There were no lights in the little storage room, because neither luggage nor the dead needed lights. She would have to work by the light of her phone.
She unfastened the top of the coffin. Even before she got it off she could hear the sound of Maryam’s breathing, strong and regular. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Maryam sat up. There was a puddle at the bottom of the box, but that was a good sign. It meant she had been drinking the water, and flushing the poison from her internal organs.
“Yes. Now let’s get out of here.”
This was the worst part of the plan. Now that she was faced with the moment, Amanda Harrington wasn’t sure she could go through with it. But she had to go through with it. The Black Widow would have her revenge, at whatever personal cost to herself.
She gave Maryam the bag. “Clothes and some other things. I think they’ll fit you.”
“Where are we?”
“The Azadi Grand. You know it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because this is where we must part.”
“What?” Maryam’s head was clearing, her limbs moving again. She could feel her strength coming back. She still had little memory of what had happened that night in Hungary, but she remembered Amanda, and she trusted her. She had to. “Where are you going?”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Amanda threw a blanket down on the bottom of the coffin. She was a little taller than Maryam, but she would fit. “You’re leaving, to do whatever you have to do. I’m staying.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Listen to me,” said Amanda urgently. “We don’t have much time. Skorzeny has sent someone to pick up the coffin. He expects someone to be in it. I don’t know who’s supposed to pick you up, but I can only imagine what your fate was going to be. That’s why I’m taking your place.”
“I can’t let you.”
“You have to let me. You have to get away and stop this monster. He’s got something going with the mullahs. He didn’t tell me because he doesn’t trust me the way he used to, but it has something to do with lasers. He’s going to attack the West again, but this time he’ll have the force of a nuclear state behind him. And the West will be too weak to try and stop him. So we’re going to have to.”
Amanda clambered inside the coffin. There was still plenty of water, and the tank still held oxygen. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was sleeping peacefully in her lover’s arms, instead of the arms of Morpheus.
“They’re in Baku,” she continued. “He still has your computer, but he hasn’t touched it yet. He knows it’s rigged or that it will give away its position the minute he turns it on. He wants to use it as a bargaining chip or, rather, a homing device, to bring… to bring…”
“Frank Ross. That’s the name I call him. Frank Ross.”
“To bring ‘Frank Ross’ into his orbit. So he can finally k
ill him.”
Maryam hardly dared ask, but she did. “What news of him? Of Frank?”
“Gone to ground. We think he was cashiered after they got word of your defection. You probably don’t remember signing the postcard. Just before Skorzeny drugged you into insensibility, he had you send a message from the laptop, which he redirected through an IP address in Tehran. So ‘Frank Ross’ thinks you’re here, in Iran. And now you are.” Amanda smiled, her teeth white in the faint light of the PDA. “So maybe it will all work out somehow.”
“Maybe.” Mixed news indeed. Frank might be on his way here — but to rescue her or to kill her? She had to get a message to him somehow.
“There’s a plane ticket waiting for you at the airport under my name,” continued Amanda. “My identity documents are in that bag. We look enough alike that you can pass for me in a pinch. I figure we have maybe to the end of the day before he begins to suspect something is amiss… ”
“And by that time, he may have a nasty surprise coming to him,” finished Maryam.
“Who do you suppose they’re sending for you?”
“I don’t know. Some goons. But I think I know where they’re taking me — taking you. Evin University. That’s what we call it, anyway. It’s really Evin prison. It’s where they hold the political prisoners. Where they execute them.”
Evin prison was the most notorious in Iran. Built on the site of the home of a former prime minister, it sat at the foot of Alborz Mountains in northwestern Tehran, the natural beauty of the setting contrasting vilely with the horrors within.
Amanda was still sitting up. She stuck out her hand. “Sorry, forgot my manners. I’m Amanda Harrington,” she said.
“Maryam.”
“That’s all? Just Maryam?”
“That’s all.”
“Good luck, Maryam-that’s-all.”
“I’ll come back for you. As soon as they see you’re not me, they won’t hurt you.” She wasn’t exactly certain that was true, but that was about the only reassurance she had on offer at the moment.
“I know you will,” said Amanda. “One more thing. Something’s happening in Qom, in the mosque.”
“The well at Jamkaran, where Ali, the Mahdi, lies occluded and dreaming.”
“Yes. Whatever Skorzeny is up to, I think it has something to do with that.” She paused and collected herself. “Now, fasten the top down and get out of here.”
Amanda lay back. There was nothing more to say.
Maryam fastened the top down. Then she picked up the bag and left the room, locking the door behind her.
She exited the hotel by a side door and glanced in the bag. Amanda had thought of everything: clothes, documents, money in various currencies. Best of all — her secure PDA. How Amanda had sneaked that out, past Skorzeny, Maryam would never know. But Amanda didn’t have to worry about his finding out, because she wasn’t planning to return anyway.
She could handle this.
The sun was coming up as she stepped into the street and breathed in the familiar smells.
She was back home in Tehran. With a few innocuous phone calls, she’d be back in touch with the NCRI network. They’d taken a beating during the recent protests against the government, and some of them had wound up either shot to death on the street or taking classes for extra credit at Evin University, but the mullahs couldn’t get them all.
She’d be in Qom in couple of hours. But there was something she had to do first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Baku
Dawn over the Caspian was a beautiful sight, but Emanuel Skorzeny was not contemplating that kind of beauty. Instead, he lay dreaming — not of resurrection but of death.
Later, when he awoke from his uneasy slumbers, he would realize that these dreams were coming more often now. Skorzeny didn’t believe in signs from the heavens; he knew they were messages his own brain was sending to him, not communications from some imaginary higher power. Nevertheless, they disturbed him, and he was not a man who enjoyed being disturbed.
He was back in Dresden, in 1945. Winter. Mid-February. Very cold. Working with Vater Otto in rooting out the hidden enemies of the Reich. And who better than him, since his parents had once been among those hidden enemies?
They were in a restaurant. Everyone was singing — Schubert’s “Erlkönig.” That’s when they heard the sirens.
You rarely heard sirens in Dresden. The beautiful city on the Elbe was far inland, far removed from the western front. True, the Americans and the British were flying relentless sorties over the other major German cities, pounding the Reich into rubble while Goering’s useless Luftwaffe sat on the ground, unable to attack and unable to defend. Teenaged boys, he had heard, boys his age, were manning the antiaircraft guns in Berlin.
But in Dresden they didn’t worry much about bombing raids. True, there had been a couple of attacks on the rail yards, but the Florence of the Elbe had no military targets to speak of, and its status as one of the architectural wonders of Europe, the visible manifestation of all that was great about German Kultur, would certainly spare it from destruction. The real worry was the Russians to the east. They were coming and, since the epic defeat at Stalingrad, there was no one to stop them. That had been two years ago, almost to this day, and the rest was commentary. Indeed, Father Otto was already making arrangements for their escape.
He knew, because at night, asleep upstairs in their small house, he could hear voices, talking treason. The war was lost, they all said, and now the only question was what to do about it, and where to flee. After all, Father Otto was among the most-wanted men in the Reich, but he had got out of tougher spots than this in the past. He would think of something. And he would not leave his Sippenhaft son behind.
They were celebrating Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent, not that either he or Father Otto cared about such things. Religion was something that had abandoned him with the death of his parents, a death they forced him to watch as part of his reeducation as a loyal and dedicated citizen of the Reich.
It was just before ten o’clock in the evening; at midnight, it would be Ascher Mittwoch, the beginning of the penitential season that would culminate with Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday forty days later.
At the sirens, Father Otto knew right away what was coming, that much was clear. He rose immediately and, without a hint of concern, took Emanuel by the arm and led him into the cellar. And then he did a remarkable thing. He picked up one of the chairs and smashed right through the foundation of the building, opening a hole into the next building.
That was impossible. German cellars were famous for their thick stone walls. But in many of the Dresden buildings, the cellar walls had been replaced by mere partitions, so that people would not get trapped in them if the house above collapsed after a bombing. Father Otto knew that. Father Otto knew everything.
But in the dream, Skorzeny did not know that. In the dream he watched in wonder as the wall vanished and they dashed through where the stones once had been.
The bombs were already falling as they emerged into the street. Not ordinary bombs. Firebombs. Much of the city center was already in flames.
“Run, Kurt, run!” commanded Father Otto. Kurt was his new name, the one they gave him when they placed him with Father Otto. He could barely remember his old name.
They ran.
Over dead bodies, past people aflame. The heat was already incredibly high, so high that those closest to the center of the raid had simply burst into flames. Others toppled over from lack of oxygen, which was being sucked into the vortex.
The bastards above knew this was going to happen. They knew, and yet they did it anyway. They had done it to Hamburg, Bomber Harris and the others, and now they were doing it to Dresden.
They were doing it to him, personally. And he would hate them forever for it.
The car was nearby. Emanuel jumped into the front seat as Father Otto landed behind the wheel. People were rushing toward them, impl
oring them to help them escape, but they had no time for people. They barely had time for themselves.
The attack had come from the east, so it was to the east they fled as the flames roared up behind them.
Father Otto sang as they drove:
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind
Er hat den Knaben wohl in den Arm
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm
Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?
Siehst Vater Du den Erlkönig nicht?
Der Erlkönig mit Kron’ und Schweif?
Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif
Something hit the roof, hard. It sounded like one of the balls from the Kegelbahn. “Why are they throwing things at us, Father?” he cried.
Another bowling ball hit the roof, only this time it wobbled and then rolled down the windscreen and onto the hood. It wasn’t a bowling ball, it was a human head.
Then another, and then another.
Not only heads but limbs were flying through the air, some of them on fire. Arms and legs and hands and feet. A legless, headless, and armless torso hit the street right in front of them, but Father Otto just drove right over it.
Emanuel turned back to look at the city, which was now a gigantic fireball. The planes were coming in ranks, their progress barely disturbed by the antiaircraft fire.
“I hope that fat pig Goering burns in hell,” said Father Otto.
They were leaving the city. There was no urban sprawl in the Germany of that time; the city simply ended and the countryside began. Soon they were in a deep forest, the big Benz bouncing over potholed and damaged roads but making good time, speeding, speeding always toward the east. He saw a sign for Görlitz.
Then, even in his dream, he fell asleep.
When he awoke they had stopped somewhere in a clearing. There were no signs of life anywhere near them. Father Otto was rooting around in the trunk of the car, searching for something.
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