by Cindy Dees
He grinned. “You’ll get no argument out of me.”
Tessa rolled her eyes. “It’s this stupid hat that’s going to be the death of me.”
All three women had been given dopey little red pillbox hats that had to be pinned to their hair to even stay perched on their heads.
Torsten grinned. “Think of them as your big red buttons. Someone hits one of those, I give you full permission to take out the transgressor.”
“Done,” Piper muttered.
“You may regret telling them that,” Zane commented. The two men traded wry smiles.
“How much longer till we land?” Piper asked no one in particular.
Torsten got up and walked forward past a half-dozen plush armchair-style seats to ask the pilots. He wore an identical uniform to those of the two men in the cockpit, and his hair was cut to match theirs. She had to admit he wore a suit well. But then, all military men tended to. They had the right physiques for it.
“About an hour left,” Torsten announced, returning through the snazzy, tricked-out passenger space. “Any last-minute questions before we land?”
Piper shook her head. They’d been over the mission parameters so many times she could probably recite them in her sleep. Zane sat across from her, wearing an exceptionally well-cut suit. He was posing as a sales representative of the TrevAir Jet Manufacturing Company. Poor guy had had to memorize more information about airplanes in the past two days than she could even begin to imagine.
Luckily, her job was to act like a bubblehead and flirt with the Iranian officials. The challenge would be to flirt enough to disarm them without flirting so much as to offend them. Zane had spoken with all three women at length about it, explaining that, as infidels, they would not be perceived as fully human. They were something...less. Particularly with the ultraconservatives who tended to populate the government.
He avoided using words like whores or sluts, but Piper got the idea. And it left a sour taste in her mouth.
The descent and landing at Mehrabad, in downtown Tehran, went uneventfully. Out her window, Piper spotted a row of tan C-130s, American military cargo planes sold to Iran in another age, when the shah was still in power and a friend to the United States. On the other side of the runway from the military ramp was a blocky, ugly 1970s-style terminal. And in the distance, dry, dark mountains rose above the skyline of Tehran. High-rise apartments and offices rose in clusters growing out of the lower, older sprawl of the ancient city. The contrast was stark.
The airport’s tarmac was crowded with business jets from all over the world, every major aircraft manufacturer angling for this lucrative contract with the Iranian government. The Medusas had timed their arrival for after most of the other airplanes arrived, giving them a big, chaotic crowd of jets and crew members to blend into.
The air tasted like bitter dust and thick diesel exhaust. A wall of city noise struck Piper as she paused on the top of the steps to the jet—vehicles and people living in overcrowded proximity. Over eight million of Iran’s not quite seventy-five million citizens lived in Tehran.
They passed through customs control without issue. The immigration officers had spent the past two days checking in crews for the air show and were overworked and sloppy.
Thank God. Piper noted that the customs agent didn’t look twice at Zane with his black hair, dark beard stubble and thick, horn-rimmed glasses, nor at his papers declaring him to be the crew’s translator.
The first hurdle was crossed. She and Zane had made it into Iran without incident. Now to make it out the same way.
Piper rolled around the unfamiliar gold wedding band on her left ring finger and glanced sidelong at him. She murmured, “Should I drop back three steps behind you as befits a proper wife?”
“Don’t you dare.”
He had a quick conversation in Farsi with two cab drivers at the front of the taxi queue outside the main terminal, and then he loaded Torsten, Tessa, Rebel and one of the pilots in one cab, and Piper, the second pilot and himself in the second. She was careful not to touch him because he’d stressed that public displays of affection between men and women were deeply frowned upon.
The taxis delivered them to a nearby hotel, and Zane efficiently checked them in and passed out room keys. Piper followed him to their shared room.
The decor was hopelessly outdated, but the unit was clean. She commented, “Well, it’s better than that last place we stayed in.”
He shot her a rueful smile. He’d also told everyone to expect their hotel rooms to be bugged and to guard their speech accordingly. “Are you tired, darling, or would you like to go out and see a bit of the city?”
They had a short window of three days to find Mark Black and arrange to sneak him out of the country. Which was to say they didn’t have a minute to spare. “Ooh, I’d love to go sightseeing,” she gushed. “Just let me get out of this uniform and into something a little more appropriate.”
Appropriate being loose long pants, a high-collared blouse, a loose long sweater and a scarf tied around her head. Thankfully, it was a cool day in the city and she wasn’t going to swelter under all the clothing.
Zane gave her a quick once-over and nodded in approval at the modest attire. He drew her into his arms for a quick kiss that ended up being a long, slow affair that left her rethinking having turned down a nap with him. She was pleased to see him breathing a little hard when he finally broke it off.
“I can’t ever get enough of you,” he whispered against her temple before he stepped back from her and opened the door.
“Ditto,” she murmured as she moved past him into the hall.
Tehran was crowded and dusty, but the streets were bustling and energetic.
“I’ve never seen traffic this bad,” she commented as she watched a group of pedestrians nearly be run down by several motorcycles diving between gridlocked lines of cars.
“The city was designed for about three hundred thousand cars but has more than five million vehicles on the road. You do the math.”
“Aren’t you just a font of information?” she teased.
“We’ll have to take traffic into account when we...need to get anywhere.”
He was referring to their plan to kidnap Mark Black back from the Iranians. Torsten had wanted to rent a large, covered truck to move the whole team covertly, but now Piper understood why Zane had insisted that motorcycles would be more practical.
They walked to the bazaar, an old but charming covered market in the old city. A huge white dome decorated with blue and gold mosaic tiles rose over the ancient wooden structure, shading the heart of the open-air marketplace.
“You look like you need a cup of coffee,” Zane announced as they wandered through the shops, full of textiles, brass and cheap electronics, while the scents of cinnamon, saffron and sewage swirled around them.
“Um, sure,” she replied.
He steered her into a grimy little coffee shop with plaster walls painted peach, faded turquoise ceilings and cobalt blue tables. This country was a full-on assault to her senses, noisy, brightly colored and smelly. Zane tucked her at a table in a dark corner and then went to fetch tiny cups of what turned out to be tactical nuclear espresso.
Thick and strong and bitter, it nonetheless left a pleasant aftertaste, and she definitely felt the zing of its caffeine punch within a few minutes.
Zane lingered over his cup of coffee and then wandered away again, bringing back sweet pastries this time, and warning her to take her time eating hers.
“What’s up?” she muttered from behind unmoving lips.
“Contact’s late.”
Whoa. This was a meeting, then? She smiled and nodded, leaning back in her chair and feigning exhaustion and relief to be seated and resting. Zane picked up a newspaper abandoned on the table beside them and began browsing through it.
“Can you read that
?” she asked, eyeing the Arabic script.
“Of course I can. Just because my family lived in the United States for a while doesn’t mean I didn’t learn my family’s native tongue.”
“I’m sorry. That was stupid of me. Of course you would have learned your family’s language and culture.”
He shrugged. “It came in handy in college in my Middle Eastern studies.”
He said that like she was supposed to know what he’d majored in at university. Oh, right. They were married. Did he think they were being eavesdropped on, even here? She had to give him credit; he was flawless at maintaining a cover.
“And here I thought I knew everything about you,” she replied.
Approval shone in his eyes, but he said smoothly, “I have to keep a few secrets from you, darling. How else will I keep you on your toes?”
They traded affectionate smiles that felt entirely genuine, and he went back to reading his newspaper.
Thankfully, she still had a few bites of the dry, stale cinnamon bun left on her plate when a young man approached their table. Zane stood up, exclaiming in pleasure, and hugged the man, warmly inviting him to share a cup of coffee with them.
She’d already noted that the locals generally seemed animated and demonstrative. They tended to talk loudly, laugh a lot and argue good-naturedly. Although the greeting was wildly out of character for reserved Zane, it was wholly in keeping with how everyone else was behaving. Yet again, she was impressed to death by how well he blended into his surroundings. The man was really good at his job.
Zane bought a round of espresso for all three of them, and Piper braced herself to have the jitters for hours to come.
The new man was introduced as Samir—an old friend of the family—although what family was never specified. And she didn’t ask.
Samir and Zane chatted in casual, quick Farsi for perhaps ten minutes. Just long enough to finish their coffees and trade pleasantries. Then Samir excused himself, citing not wanting to be late for a class, and rushed off. As far as she could tell, not one bit of useful information had been exchanged. There had been no message passed, no dead drop, nothing that would help them find Mark Black.
Zane was in no hurry to leave, but when they finished their drinks, he led her outside once more. “Wanna see something amusing?” he asked her.
“Sure.”
They walked a few blocks until they came to a blocky office building made of pink brick with iron bars on the windows. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s called the US Den of Espionage Museum.”
Her gaze snapped back to the facade. “Is this the old US Embassy? Where the hostages were taken?”
“The very same.”
“Well, that’s...gruesome.”
“You should see the inside. There’s a huge painting covering a wall, of the Statue of Liberty with a skull face.” He muttered under his breath, “It’s creepy as hell.”
“No, thanks.”
“That’s okay. I want to show you the Negarestan Garden, anyway. It’s only a few blocks from here.”
The garden turned out to be more of a park, but it was green and shady, with fountains sending the sound of tinkling water into the air. It was a pleasant break from the cars, jostling crowds and thick traffic fumes.
“What are we doing here?” she asked from behind unmoving lips.
“Dead drop to fetch,” Zane answered in the same fashion.
The CIA must have arranged this before they left Washington. Efficient bunch, those spooks.
They stopped in front of a turquoise blue pool of water shaped roughly like an embellished square, with elaborately swirled and curved edges in the ancient Persian style. “Let me take your picture in front of the fountain,” Zane announced.
“Uh, sure.” She took her place, obediently smiling. She suspected he had spotted someone following them and was snapping a picture of the unlucky tail.
They strolled a bit more, and then he suggested they take a rest on a bench under a row of young trees beside a long, narrow lawn. “I gather grass is a bit of a luxury in this part of the world?” she commented.
“Water’s in terribly short supply. Hence grass is, too.”
Zane leaned back, stretching his arm across the back of the bench behind her but not touching her shoulders. Still, the move was possessive, and sent warm fuzzies through her tummy. “It’s good to be home,” he sighed.
“Do you miss it?” she asked, playing along. Rashid Farouk had been born here, according to his legend, which she, as his “wife,” had memorized along with her own.
“I miss the big family gatherings. And the food. There were always cousins around to play with. Although there were also always aunts and grannies around to grab your ear and tell you to behave, too.”
She smiled wistfully. “That sounds nice.”
“It was a good way to grow up.” He paused, then added, “You’ll see for yourself in a few days, when you meet my family.”
They’d agreed that it would look strange for a native Iranian not to visit his family if he was in the country. The CIA had undoubtedly arranged for some family in the suburbs of Tehran to pose as his relatives and go through the motions of preparing for a big family get-together. She’d already figured out the agency was nothing if not thorough in building cover legends.
“Would you ever consider moving us back here?” she asked Zane speculatively.
“Would you come with me if I wanted to live here?”
“Of course. You’re my husband. I’ll follow you to the end of the world and back.”
His gaze snapped to hers, and the look they traded was loaded with intensity. And questions. Did she mean that for real? What would their life together be like if they were really married?
A slow smile unfolded across his face, growing to encompass all his features. “I think it’s time for us to go back to the hotel, Mrs. Farouk.”
“Indeed, Mr. Farouk.”
They left the gardens, and he surprised her by hailing a cab. In a hurry to get her into bed, was he? More warm fuzzies coursed through her. Good. She was in a hurry to get naked with him, too.
Not that a cab ended up being much faster than walking. The traffic really was incredible. Their driver yelled out his window and honked, and she was pretty sure he went the wrong way on a one-way street before they finally made it back to the hotel.
When they got back to the room, Zane announced that he wanted a shower and disappeared into the bathroom. After a few minutes, he called, “Can you come scrub my back, wife?”
That was a strange request. Nonetheless, she played along and slipped into the fog-filled bathroom. The shower ran loudly, but he sat on the toilet, fully clothed and holding a wrinkled strip of paper. He passed it to her, and she realized it was thin onionskin that could fold into a tiny space.
Holding it open, she read aloud. “‘MB, guest of honor. Appears at Club Musika Retro tomorrow. Don’t miss it—one-time show!’”
She looked up at Zane, frowning. He stood, took her in his arms and whispered in her ear, “MB is Mark Black. Guest of honor means he’s under arrest, as in he’s a guest of state security. Club Musika Retro—CMR—Center for Materials Research. Tomorrow is when he’s due to inspect that facility. And the one-time show comment undoubtedly means that he’s expected to see the facility only once and then disappear after his report on the CMR is delivered to the Iranian government.”
“How did you know to pick this up?”
“Samir showing up at the café meant the message had been successfully dropped. All we had to do was go collect it.”
“Was the pickup point prearranged?”
“No. Samir and I talked about playing as children in the park and he remembered that fountain and liking to sit and listen to the sound of water.”
She smiled at Zane. “Well, aren’
t you clever.”
He smiled back at her, and then he stood up, drawing her into his arms. Their smiles mingled, turning into a kiss fully as steamy as the shower.
Breathless and distracted, she pulled her mind back to business with great reluctance. “What time will Black be at the lab tomorrow? How much security will be around him?”
“No idea. If the CIA’s informants knew it, that information would also have been in the note. This is the part where we get to improvise.”
“Weapons?” she asked in a low voice.
“Gunnar’s going over to the airport later today to get the equipment out of the plane.”
That had been the hardest part of getting ready for this trip—asking the manufacturer of the airplane to quickly build in a hidden compartment large enough to carry all the operational gear for an entire special operations team. Apparently, a team of cabinetmakers had worked around the clock to finish the construction and installation.
She asked, “Do we have wheels yet?”
“No. We have to go take care of that tonight. We have supper with the Iranian contract officials this evening, and after that, we’ll need to go over to Club Musika Retro in case the message was discovered. We’ll sneak out of there, get transportation and then meet up with the others.”
She nodded in understanding.
He said gently, “Time for you to leave the bathroom if we don’t want to arouse suspicion. If you want to take a nap, I’ll join you when I’m done in here.” His hands fell away from her and he stepped back, but reluctantly. Her heart warmed. She knew the feeling.
When she glanced back over her shoulder at him as she slipped out of the bathroom, though, his eyes were alight with the promise of delights to come.
Yes.
She stripped out of her tourist clothes and washed off with a damp cloth. Refreshed, she lay down on a mattress only marginally softer than concrete. But having slept on concrete recently, she was able to perceive and appreciate the slight difference.
She was half-asleep when Zane slipped under the sheet beside her, gathering her into his warm, slightly damp embrace and murmuring, “I never get tired of how you feel in my arms.”
