by Jack Mars
The detritus of food containers littered the areas around the computers. He and Trudy had taken all of their meals here, waiting for a call from Luke.
Stone’s satellite phone used a voice scrambler at his end, then bounced up to a black satellite, back to earth at a CIA undercover op site in Pakistan, then around the world—China, Japan, New Zealand, Brazil, Morocco, and finally here, before the voice was unscrambled. Anyone who keyed in on Stone in Iran and managed to trace the call would think he was calling Pakistan, and they wouldn’t be able to make out what he was saying. The security measures created an odd delaying effect, and made Stone’s voice sound like a robot calling from the bottom of a tin can.
Before Swann had done anything, Trudy had already pulled up the name of the prison.
“Evin Prison?” she said. “He wants to go into Evin Prison?”
Swann was on his computer. “What’s the location?”
“North Tehran. In a neighborhood called Evin. Right up against the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, and just north of Sa’adat Abad.”
“Got it.”
She turned her monitor toward him. The monitor showed him a bleak image of sheer gray walls, four stories high, with looping razor wire running along the top. She showed him another image of a similar wall in a different location. She showed him an image of the main entrance—a steel gate with a manned checkpoint and machine gun pillboxes on either side.
“It’s the place they send political prisoners to be tortured,” Trudy said. “Everything I’m pulling up makes it sound straight out of Midnight Express.”
“Uh, Luke? At first blink, it doesn’t look good.”
“Keep blinking,” Luke’s robot voice said. “Until it starts looking better. I also need information on a man named Hamid Bahman. He’s inside that prison, and I need to know where. We don’t want to be wandering around the hallways, calling out his name.”
“Hamid Bahman,” Swann said.
“Who is he?” Trudy said.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s for you to figure out.”
“What’s the place look like from the sky?” Luke said.
“I don’t know, Luke. You have to give me a minute.”
“Okay. But one more thing. I have an idea. I need to know if people hang glide around here, and if they do, where they buy their gear.”
Swann looked at Trudy. His shoulders slumped. She wasn’t wearing his headset, so she had no idea what Luke was saying.
Trudy was scrolling through a wall of data and shaking her head. “Yeah, he doesn’t want to go in there. This is the list of people executed inside those walls. It’s a long list. Here’s an account of the various tortures used. It’s pretty long, too. Whipping of the soles of the feet.”
“Ouch,” Swann said. He didn’t really want to hear about the tortures. It cut a little close to home for him.
“Whipping of the back,” Trudy said, beginning to move through the list in a kind of singsong, matter-of-fact way. “Submersion in water. Electrocution. Crushing of the hands and feet. Cigarette burns. Flaying of the skin. Rape. Forced confessions broadcast on TV and radio. Forced participation in the execution of other prisoners. Mock executions.”
Swann felt the goose bumps rise along his back.
“Hmmm. In terms of actual executions, they apparently just did away with stoning in 2010. No rush. They still throw prisoners off the roof and into the streets surrounding the prison, though. Four stories ought to do it. Firing squads are still done. Hmmm. Sometimes they hang especially well-known prisoners from gallows above the prison walls. You can see the body hanging from the streets below. Here he is, guys.”
“Trudy, are you done?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It’s just interesting.”
“Luke, I’m going to call you back,” Swann said.
“Okay, but don’t take your time.”
Swann nodded. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
* * *
They worked steadily, barely speaking. Within fifteen minutes, they had put it all together.
“Hamid Bahman,” Trudy said. “Fifty-two years old. Former nuclear physicist. I say former because I don’t think he’ll be going back to work. He’s been sentenced to life in prison. Suspicion of treason. He’s been inside for three years. Eighteen months ago, Amnesty International announced concern for his welfare, claiming that their information suggested his health was faltering rapidly.”
“Where is he?”
“The notorious Section 209. That’s the torture wing. My data suggest he is in cell C31, where he is kept in solitary confinement.”
Swann nodded. “Good. I’ve got a layout. I see 209 here, though I can’t see the cell numbers. They’ll just have to find that cell when they get inside.”
The satellite phone rang. Swann pressed the answer button.
“I thought you were going to call me back,” Luke said.
“I was. We weren’t done yet. Where are you?”
“Walking through alleyways, trying not to stay in one place for any length of time.”
“I’ve got the layout for you,” Swann said. “A layout of the larger prison, along with one of Section 209, which is the wing you’re looking for. But you’ll need a way to receive it, like a smartphone. Obviously one that’s operational on an Iranian network, but also that no one has ever used before. When the layout comes in from a satellite link, I’m guessing that phone is going to become hot rather quickly.”
“No good,” Luke said. “It’s not like we can walk into a store and buy a cell phone. We don’t exist, and we don’t want to call attention to ourselves. Anyone on the street we steal a phone from, eventually the government will trace it, and we’ll bring the ayatollahs down on the heads of some innocent person. I’ll have to call you from there, and you’ll just have to guide me through.”
“Okay,” Swann said, anticipating Luke’s next thought. “About the roof, it could work. It’s a large building, with as many as fifteen thousand prisoners at any one time. The roof is long, with several stairwell doors that open out to it, including one above Section 209. And people do hang glide in Tehran, it turns out. They do it all the time. One place they jump from is the mountain cliffs above the North Shahran neighborhood, less than three miles west of the prison. And I’ve got a list of adventure outfitters you could hit that carry that kind of gear. I don’t understand how you plan to land, though. I mean, the guards are bound to spot hang gliders coming in low like that, aren’t they?”
Luke’s tinny robot voice sounded far away. “We’re not going to come in low.”
“What? I don’t know what you—”
“You ever been hang gliding… Albert?”
Swann nearly laughed. Luke had called him by his old alias, Albert Helu. During Swann’s paranoid days, he had started insisting on it.
“Yeah. I have. Quite a few times, actually.
“Well, I thought of a new way of doing it.”
“Luke…”
“Don’t worry,” Luke said. “Just leave that part to me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
9:20 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Situation Room
The White House, Washington, DC
“Agent Luke Stone is alive and has infiltrated Iran.”
Susan had walked into the room moments before, and Kurt had just called the meeting to order. The morning had been quiet so far. The fighting in Israel continued apace. The riots in Berkeley and Portland had spun out of control, but the one in Seattle had ended peacefully. The Iranians had crushed their own dissenters, and had imposed martial law across the country.
Susan had barely slept. The heavy paper cup in her hand was her third dose of java in the past half an hour.
Kurt had been going through a list of updates. Susan had been sipping her coffee. Aides and staffers were scrolling through websites and shuffling pages. Haley Lawrence was whispering to a young aide. Kat Lopez had been here a moment ago, giving Susan t
he rundown on the day’s schedule, but now she was gone.
“Israeli troops have penetrated Lebanon to within twenty miles of Beirut,” Kurt said. “Significant losses on both sides, and still no sign of the missing soldier. Hezbollah has managed to continue rocket attacks against northern Israel, despite heavy aerial bombardment by the IAF. Hamas is launching homemade rockets from Gaza, with little effectiveness. All border crossings from Gaza and the West Bank have been sealed by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Also, as you know, Iran has issued a threat against the American airbase outside Doha, in Qatar, as well as our embassy in Baghdad. Those are important and we need to get to them. I recommend putting that—”
Susan looked up and raised her hand.
“Kurt, what did you say about Luke Stone?”
Kurt looked at Susan, perhaps a few seconds too long. There was something in his eyes, but Susan couldn’t say what it was.
“We received a status report from his intelligence team in Tel Aviv. Stone and two other operatives, one American and one Israeli, have successfully infiltrated Iran, and made their way to Tehran. They have been in touch. The Israeli asset in Tehran they were going to meet is dead, probably murdered by the regime. Stone requested further information from his intelligence people, and apparently move on to question another possible source within Iran.”
Kurt paused.
“Who is the source?” Susan said.
Kurt shook his head. He glanced around the room. “I don’t know if this is the venue.”
“Out with it, Kurt,” Susan said. “There aren’t any loose lips in here.”
Susan looked around herself. Most people in the room seemed tired, distracted, just waking up or pulling themselves together.
“Hamid Bahman,” Kurt said. “Former physicist for the Iranian regime, and one of the architects of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. He’s been in Evin Prison for the past three years. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both issued official communiqués, condemning his treatment and sounding the alarm for his well-being. No one has any idea if he’s even alive or dead. The Iranians haven’t presented evidence that he’s alive for more than eighteen months.”
“Where do they plan to interview him?” Haley Lawrence said. “In prison?”
Kurt nodded. “Yes.”
“I meant that as a joke,” Lawrence said.
Kurt shrugged. “I know. But we’re talking about Luke Stone.”
“Is it dangerous?” Susan said. “What Stone is doing?”
She felt like a fool saying these things in front of Kurt, and in front of all these people. She felt like a schoolgirl with a crush. She felt too distracted to make sense of anything that was happening.
Kurt raised his hands. “Susan, with all respect, we have other, more pressing agenda items to attend to. Yes, it’s dangerous. It’s insane, actually. If he’s alive, Bahman is being held at Evin Prison, which is one of the facilities Iran uses for torturing dissidents. No one has ever broken out of Evin Prison, and while we don’t have any hard data about it, I’d be willing to bet that no one has ever successfully broken in there, either.”
Susan stared at him. She was still relieved to know that Stone was alive—so relieved, in fact, that most of what Kurt had just said went in her right ear, passed straight through her head, and exited out her left ear.
Stone. He had made it into Iran. Now he was going inside a prison. It didn’t make sense! People didn’t break into prisons.
Kurt continued. “Susan, I’d like to redirect this conversation. I think we need to focus on a contingency plan for if Iran carries through on its threat to attack Doha. We have ten thousand servicemen and women stationed at the air base there, along with another twenty thousand family members living on the base and nearby.”
A man in dress greens, a three-star general, raised a hand. Normally, generals from the Pentagon sat straight upright, like they had an iron rod inserted in their backs, but this man slouched to his left, his chin in his hand. His other hand held a Styrofoam cup of coffee. In fact, he was the most unstraightened general Susan had ever seen.
“General Kirby?”
“Madam President, I’m Nat Kirby, United States Army Intelligence.”
“General, thanks for being here.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. And nothing against Stone—I knew him when he was a young man in Delta Force. He was an excellent soldier, one of the best, and I’m sure he’s still an exceptional covert operator. But he’s on a fool’s errand and a suicide mission. Breaking into Evin Prison? Stone was always a little bit of a cowboy. One of these days he’s going to get himself killed. With that in mind, I’d suggest that we do two things. One is to put a plan in place for plausible denial of Stone’s operation, in the very real eventuality—”
“That’s been done,” Kurt said. “The Israeli commando on Stone’s team has no identity—a so-called ghost in spy craft parlance. For Stone and his partner Ed Newsam, we’ve planted false DNA and fingerprint data with the Pakistani ISI, the Egyptian secret police, and Interpol—the three likeliest places the Iranians will turn for information. If the Iranians bother to look, they will discover that Newsam and Stone are private intelligence contractors, seeking inside information on the Iranian energy industry.”
Susan didn’t like the sound of this. Stone hadn’t mentioned anything about a cover story in case he was captured.
The general nodded. “Good. Second thing is rather than wait for Iran to attack Doha, or to fire nukes at Israel, we need to start talking about a preemptive strike. We can’t wait around for Stone to find out if Iran has nuclear weapons. We should just assume they do, worst-case scenario, and consider engaging them with a massive, overwhelming attack, or a decapitation strike aimed at their leadership.”
He raised a bound sheaf of paper from the table in front of him.
“I’ve brought an intelligence assessment of both options. I’d like to summarize its findings, if I may.”
Kurt looked at Susan.
“Susan?”
Susan shook her head. “I’d like to ask a question of the general.”
“Of course.”
She looked at him. Stared at him, in fact. She tried to make her eyes hard. She tried to frighten him, though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Kirby knew the deal about Susan—they all did. The generals she’d fired, the time she put the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in prison for treason. Kirby didn’t care. He was slumped so low, and leaning so far to one side, that his face seemed ready to slide off sideways onto the floor.
“Are you really in the United States Army?” she wanted to say. “I’ve never seen anyone in the Army with such bad posture.”
She kept that in check, however.
“Tell me something,” she said instead. “This is where you inform me that we have no good options, right? That we should bomb them back to the stone age when they least expect it, killing tens of millions of people, but they’ll get some of their own missiles out anyway, killing a few million Israelis and everyone at Doha, and the Persian Gulf will become a lake of fire for the next seven generations. Is that about it?”
Kirby looked at the report on the desk in front of him. His fingers did a funny sort of dance across its surface, like five stubby ballerinas.
“I commend your acumen, Madam President. You’re not that far off, actually. It’s really not an ideal situation.”
Susan felt the anger rising inside of her. She resented this. The constant drumbeats for war. All the countries with all their endless battles with each other. The generals with their dispassionate reports concerning abstract future bloodbaths.
“General,” she began, “why is it that every time we have a crisis, someone comes in here from the Pentagon, waves a booklet in my face, and tells me we need to start bombing people? Why don’t you guys ever have a report to share about a possible negotiated settlement?”
He shrugged. He didn’t seem the slightest bit nonplussed, or even surprised, by her q
uestion. He didn’t attempt to sit up straight. In another minute, if the trajectory of his slouch continued, he might disappear under the conference table.
“Madam, we’re the military. Bombing people is our job. We’re very good at it. If you want to send the Iranians flowers, I think you’d better call a florist.”
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
7:30 p.m. Tehran Time (11:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Evin Prison
Tehran
Ed had never been hang gliding before.
That turned out to be just as well because there were only two gliding rigs to steal from the adventure store. The shop, which had closed at 5 p.m. (and which they had entered through a back door fifteen minutes after the owner had locked up), was like a hopeful combination of Eastern Mountain Sports and some church basement fundraising sale—they had plenty of outdoor gear you could buy, but a lot of it seemed left over from back when Junior was in middle school.
They did have parachutes, though, a whole mess of them.
They had carried the whole mess up into the foothills above a modern college campus in the North Shahran neighborhood. It had started to snow, a wet early season precipitation—heavy, almost as much rain as snow. Luke gazed out at the lights of the vast city. Visibility was dropping. He couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
“What did you say you weigh again?” he said.
Ed shrugged. “Two-forty, let’s say.”
Luke calculated his own 195 and Ed’s alleged 240. He didn’t even count the guns Ed was carrying, or the rolled-up fire ladder Luke had inside the gear bag strapped to his back. “Four hundred and thirty five pounds, that’s heavy.” The hang gliding rig was old. It was very heavy, yet somehow flimsy and rickety at the same time.
“Two-forty? You sure?”
“Call it two-fifty.”
Luke shook his head. Icy granules were clinging to his beard. The wind seemed to slip straight through his windbreaker jacket. “This is going to be a short flight.”
