Zac vented the excess air from his equipment and descended below the surface. The unlighted instruments on his dive gear were almost impossible to read. Only by holding them inches from his mask could he see the glowing dots on his gauges and compass. A cold trickle of seawater ran down his back when he reached a depth of ten feet. He was an avid warm-water diver but had never used a dry suit before. He ignored the water against his skin.
The strong winds on the surface had abated somewhat, but the heavy seas had not. Each time a wave passed over him, Zac felt an uncomfortable and disorienting change in pressure. He began to feel nauseated. He would have an easier swim if he dove deeper, but he would also use more air. Because of its weight and bulk, he’d taken only a single air tank from Dieppe and it was nearly a two-mile swim to shore. He couldn’t risk running out of air. Swimming on the surface in such rough seas would be exhausting after just a few minutes.
Zac descended to twenty feet to reduce the effect of the heavy swells but the additional water pressure turned the trickle of water inside his suit into a stream. The fleece lining along his back was soaked. He guessed that the suit had ripped when he’d been thrown against the railing on Serenité, or maybe it had already had a leak when he’d taken it from the shop, but it didn’t matter how it had gotten there. Now he needed to manage the problem. He ascended to fifteen feet and tightened his dive vest. It staunched the flow of new seawater, but the cold stayed with him.
Zac kicked steadily for the next half hour, yet he worried about his heading as he swam. The absence of visual references in the dark, murky water made his survival dependent upon the gauges attached to his dive gear. When he’d decided to swim north to the beach he hadn’t factored in the current. Even on Serenité he’d noticed it pushing the boat up the Channel. Now he feared that it might be taking him far off course. He surfaced briefly to recheck his heading and discovered that the lights along the beach were off to his left now. The current was indeed pushing him to the northeast, but because of the shape of the shoreline, it was also bringing him closer to land. He decided to keep swimming straight in. He would miss the beach, but it would be easier to walk to Hastings along the shore than to swim against the current.
Zac dove back down to fifteen feet. The change in water pressure caused the hole in his suit to open up again and icy seawater soaked most of his torso. He began to shiver. His best hope for survival was simply to reach shore as soon as possible.
Exhaustion and cold took their toll on his body and mind. He began to drift deeper into the sea. A torrent of cold water gushed into the dry suit at twenty-five feet, soaking his entire body, but jolting him back to alertness. He kept kicking. He had no other choice.
A muffled crash rolled through the water. It sounded like distant thunder, but it was too rhythmic to be thunder. It might be the surf breaking on a nearby shore, but he was still twenty-five feet below the surface. Fatigued and confused, he simply swam on.
The crashing became louder and he soon felt himself rising and falling with the swells. Frigid seawater gushed into his suit with each oscillation. His teeth began to chatter around the regulator that supplied his air for breathing, breaking the watertight seal. Saltwater leaked into his mouth with every breath.
Zac desperately hoped that the breaking waves meant that he was almost to shore. In such rough surf, it was critical that he swim underwater until his hands and knees hit the beach, until there was no more water in which to swim. Any one of these waves would topple a standing man and leave the undertow to suck him down.
Still twenty-five feet underwater and kicking hard, he swam with his hands out in front, reaching into the darkness for the shoreline. After a few minutes his hands hit something, and then his mask, but whatever he’d hit wasn’t a sandy beach. It was rock hard. He tried to feel his way around the obstacle but the surge became faster and more violent. Zac rose and fell several feet with every wave, but still the object blocked his path. He swam to the left and right, searching for open water, but the obstruction seemed to go on forever.
The utter blackness of the water left Zac blind to whatever it was that blocked his path. Though he’d vowed not to surface again before reaching the beach, he found himself with no alternative. He began to ascend. The water in front of his mask burst into a galaxy of bubbles with each crashing wave. The sound was deafening. The moment he reached the surface, a wave lifted him up and slammed him into the barrier. He took the hit with his shoulder and pushed off feebly. He looked for an easier path to shore but came to a grim conclusion as he looked around.
When he’d left Serenité, he’d planned on swimming north to a sandy beach, but the strong current had carried him far off course. Now he was staring at a cliff. A hundred-foot-high cliff that had been carved over eons by the fast-moving English Channel. To each side, for as far as he could see, the heavy surf pounded against the rock face, exploding upward with each impact. He felt faint.
A wave broke on top of him, slamming him face-first into the wall before dragging him underwater. The impact tore the mask off his face and ripped the regulator from his mouth, taking his supply of air with it. Zac gasped for air, but his lungs filled with saltwater. He kicked weakly for the surface, but the undertow sucked him down.
FIFTY-FIVE
THE “SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP” between the United States and Britain was based on centuries of common heritage, laws, and cultural and religious values. In many ways it was a familial relationship, with America playing the part of the idealistic and headstrong child, while Britain played the wizened parent, who had gone through her own period of global hegemony before the sun had finally set on the British Empire. The two nations provided each other with balance, sage counsel, and a trustworthy ally in the best and the worst of times.
Given the history between the two countries, the U.S. ambassadorship to Great Britain was perhaps the most prestigious foreign posting in the State Department. Appointed by the president, many ambassadors were political donors, powerbrokers, or behind-the-scenes kingmakers. Walter Stephens was not one of them.
Like Winston Churchill, he was the product of an English father and an American mother, but Stephens’s parents had chosen to settle in America after World War II. Young Walter served in the Marines for six years before he and his brothers inherited their father’s modest machine tool shop. In twenty years they had turned it into the third largest manufacturer of military and commercial jet engines in North America and Europe. Stephens retired from the business to serve his country again, this time as a U.S. congressman. But after four terms, he became so disillusioned with the political machinations of the nation’s capital that he chose not to seek reelection. Upon hearing the news, the president had reached across party lines and offered him the ambassadorship to Great Britain, stating that the country wasn’t ready to lose such a gifted and principled leader.
And so it was that Peter Clements and Ted Graves sat in Stephens’s outer office awaiting the meeting that the ambassador had requested. The tension between the two men was palpable. Neither knew why the ambassador had summoned them and each assumed that the other had initiated the call. As the chief executive of the American government in Britain, the ambassador wielded enormous power. He had been heavily involved in intelligence matters since he’d arrived in London and was generally a friend to CIA. Yet when the doors to his office opened, his demeanor was anything but friendly.
Stephens directed the two men to chairs in front of his desk.
“What’s the status of that SNAPSHOT operation you two were arguing about last month? The one I had to sign off on because it involved SIS, a bunch of civilians, and a $400 million British airliner.”
Graves spoke up immediately. “Sir, we’ve had some issues with the officer that was deployed. He failed to check in from either Iran or Singapore and he’s blown two attempted exfiltrations. He’s also wanted for a murder in Paris and another one in Singapore.”
&nbs
p; Stephens glanced at his computer monitor. “This is Zac Miller, right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Graves. “He’s contacted us twice. First, he claimed to be in Dubai, but we sent a team to recover him and he was nowhere to be found. We scoured the UAE, Oman, and Saudi. We even risked alerting a few of our sources inside Iran, but we came up dry. Most recently he claimed to be back in France, where he’d previously made unauthorized contact with a DGSE agent. I had a team airborne from the Paris embassy forty minutes after he called. They were in position in Antibes an hour early and there were no signs of him or any trouble. I’m not sure he’s been playing straight with us.”
The ambassador looked at Clements expectantly.
“The mission got fouled inside Iran and Miller escaped to Dubai,” Clements responded. “He said the Iranians and the local police were after him, and there was gunplay in the neighborhood right before the rendezvous, so that’s probably why he went to ground. I don’t know what happened in Antibes. I was on a videoconference with the Seventh Floor at Langley when he called in and Ted handled it. I can’t speak to the murder allegations either, but I’ve worked closely with Miller for three years, and I stand by him.”
Graves spoke up again. “Sir, it’s possible that the reason Miller insisted on going on the operation was because he had to skip town after the Paris murder, and when he arrived in Singapore, he committed a second murder. I think he’s snapped. Having him on the loose is a risk to the Agency and the United States.”
“OK. Enough of this. You two obviously haven’t worked this out since we last spoke and I think I’ve just seen how the process broke down on our end. The reason I called you in here is that I just had a very interesting visit from a woman I know. She’s a dame of the British Empire or something; not normally my cup of tea, but she’s friendly with my wife and I’ve seen her a few times at events here in London, so I met with her. Funny thing is, she said she sat next to an American by the name of Zachary Miller on a British Airways flight out of London. She told me about how the plane landed in Iran and how Miller was taking photographs of a mountain range near the airport.”
Ambassador Stephens leaned across his massive desk. “I was sitting right here, about to have a heart attack thinking that this woman had stumbled onto one of the most highly classified missions I’ve ever heard of, and she smiles. You know that smile when you’re holding a pair of twos and the guy across from you is about to lay down a royal flush? That smile. I don’t know how she knows, but she knows. Anyway, she tells me that when they finally got to Singapore, not only was Miller not on the goddamn plane, but there was a guy who looked like him wearing his clothes and carrying his bag. So it sounds to me as if the Iranians put a double, or a lookalike, or whatever the hell you guys call it, in his place, which means that Miller is probably running for his life and you two have him on ice.”
Graves spoke carefully. “Sir, how would you gauge this woman’s credibility?”
“Better than yours,” said the ambassador. “You two need to fix this, now. Dismissed.”
FIFTY-SIX
IT WAS NIGHTTIME and he was deep underwater, kicking furiously toward the brightly lit beach. He looked down at his right hand. He was holding the scuba regulator that was supposed to be in his mouth, but he wasn’t panicked. He seemed to be breathing fine without it. When he looked up, the cliff wall came rushing at him, moving impossibly fast and obliterating his view of the beach. It stopped a split second before impact.
* * *
• • •
ZAC WOKE UP breathing hard, soaked in sweat, and lying in a hospital bed. He had no idea how he’d gotten there. There was an intravenous drip in his arm and an oxygen tube up his nose. A battery of medical instruments surrounded his hospital bed. He could wiggle his fingers and his toes, but it hurt when he breathed. Maybe he’d cracked a rib or punctured a lung. He tried to sit up but was too weak to do much more than lift his head off the pillow. He remembered surfacing at the end of his swim. The breaking waves had thrown him against the cliff face until he’d finally gone under. He couldn’t remember anything more.
He looked around, wondering if he was in a CIA facility, Iranian custody, or maybe a French or an English hospital. His gaze drifted out the window but the overcast sky told him nothing. Moving anything more than his eyes required concentrated effort. His body resisted every action, as if the earth’s gravity were ten times its normal strength. The urge to sleep was incredible.
The soft squeak of rubber soles on the hallway floor gave him time to feign unconsciousness before two nurses walked into his room. If they thought he was still out cold he could avoid answering questions that might make people suspicious. Questions like: Who are you? What were you doing scuba diving in the middle of the night during a raging storm? Where did you come from and how did you get there? Little things like that.
“This one’s had a horrible time,” said the first nurse. Zac listened intently to her voice. She sounded older and compassionate, a mother if not a grandmother. Most important, she was speaking the Queen’s English. Zac had made it to Britain. Still, he couldn’t risk divulging his identity until he knew he was in friendly hands. He would call Peter Clements at the first opportunity.
“Where did they find him?” said the other one. She was younger, and sounded skeptical.
“Someone out for a morning stroll saw him washed up on the rocks just north of the cliffs. He was wearing diving equipment and a dry suit, but it didn’t keep him very dry. The ambulance brought him in on blues and twos but he was nearly dead . . . had a core temperature of twenty-three degrees. The crash team downstairs took a full day to warm him up.”
The younger one recited Zac’s vital signs while the older one changed his IV bag.
“Is there any brain damage?”
“We don’t know. He’s been unconscious since he came out of the emergency department. The doctors said the cold water might have protected the brain but it depends how long he was underwater without oxygen.”
The two nurses worked in silence for a few minutes until the younger one spoke again.
“It sounds very dodgy to me. Who goes diving at this time of year? I’d like to hear the story behind this.”
The two nurses finished their tasks and stepped into the hallway. Zac couldn’t quite hear the older one when she spoke again.
“Well, you’d better hope he wakes up soon if you want to ask him yourself. He’s not going to be with us much longer.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
THE DASSAULT FALCON 2000 rolled gracefully out of its turn and lined up on final approach for runway twenty-one. The wide-body corporate jet had been specially configured for the day’s mission. Two banks of seats had been removed and a custom Aeromed stretcher had been fastened to the floor. Complete with an EEG, a defibrillator, and enough medicines to fill a small pharmacy, the air ambulance was on its way to pick up a very special patient. But those weren’t the only modifications that had been made to the aircraft. The lavatory in the back of the plane held a false panel that led to a secret compartment in the tail. In a body bag surrounded by dry ice, lay the corpse of the young Iranian agent who had framed Zac in Singapore. His passing resemblance to the American had swiftly changed from a career-enhancing asset to a terminal liability.
Inspector Olivier Boucher of the French police judiciare shifted anxiously in his seat as a few low-level gusts of wind buffeted the jet, but it was not the weather that made him uncomfortable. Many years had passed since he and Arzaman had had their fateful encounter with Abdul Assad in Tehran after the downing of Iran Air Flight 655. That meeting had been the cornerstone of a two-decade campaign of espionage and counterespionage operations against the West. Today Arzaman and Boucher were together again to protect a secret vital to the security of the republic, to protect the sword of Islam. If they failed, the very existence of Iran might be at risk.
Boucher stared out the window a
s the jet touched down smoothly on the runway. He never could get used to the gray skies of England. He was not in his element here. At least in France he carried a badge and a gun. Few people would dare challenge him there. But here . . . the British were so officious, so proud, yet their erstwhile empire and its ill-conceived borders had left the world a mess for centuries. How Boucher loathed them. He did not fear death, but he did fear rotting away in an English prison for the rest of his life. The sooner he got out of Britain, the better.
He had lived in France for many years in secret service to his native homeland. It was a noble and important job, but he was growing weary of the duplicity, of the constant paranoia and the separation from his family and his culture. In eight hours his mission would be accomplished and he would consider returning to Iran for good.
The Falcon turned off the runway and Colonel Arzaman spoke to the men accompanying him inside the aircraft.
“Today, we will recapture the spy who seeks to destroy our national security. Today, we will deliver a crushing response to our enemies’ cowardly attack. We will show our strength and vigilance in the face of their arrogance. From their aggression, they will gain only defeat and humiliation. This mission is not just for the Guardians, not just for the president and the supreme leader, but for the entire Republic of Iran.”
The others nodded as he began to review the plan.
“Olivier, you’ll ride in the front of the van with the driver. Remember, he is one of ours, but he is not cleared for all aspects of the operation. He knows only that we are picking up a prisoner and flying back out. He has weapons in the van and has practiced the route several times, but he will remain in England. Do not discuss anything else in front of him or they will be the last words he ever hears.”
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