Tom Clancy Under Fire

by Grant Blackwood

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a plan to run a rail line from northern Iran, through Azerbaijan, Dagestan, then into Ukraine. Moscow is pushing for a branch line in Georgia as well. The project’s been going on for twenty years, but half of that time on hold. About five years ago it restarted.”

  “I’ll bet Georgia loves that idea.” Given Russian president Volodin’s aggression in Ukraine and Estonia, the last thing the government of Tbilisi wanted was a direct line from Russia to Georgia’s doorstep.

  “Anyway, I’m still digging into Hamrah, but on the surface it seems to be what it is.”

  “It isn’t. Or someone there isn’t.” Jack told him about the exchange he’d found between Yazdani and Farid Rasulov.

  “I’ll be damned. You know that Gmail address you gave me, the one belonging to, what was the agent’s name, Ervaz?”

  “Right.”

  “That also links back to Hamrah. The alternate Gmail contact is listed as info@hamrahengineeringarch.com—same as this Rasulov guy’s address.”

  Ervaz and Farid Rasulov were the same person.

  “Focus on Rasulov, see what you find,” said Jack. “Do the same for a guy named Suleiman Balkhi with a company called the Bayqara Group. They’re out of Mashhad.” Jack gave him Balkhi’s cell-phone number.

  “I’m on it.”

  Jack disconnected, then switched to his main phone and texted Seth: IT’S JACK. URGENT. REPLY.

  He waited, staring at the screen, hoping for a quick reply, but none came.

  He came out of the bedroom and found Ysabel on the couch, her MacBook on her lap. Before making the call to The Campus, Jack had uploaded the photos he’d taken at Yazdani.

  “Nothing so far,” she reported. “All of their accounting is done in-house, as is their banking. I haven’t found any financial connection to Hamrah. We did, however, hear back from Ervaz.”

  “And?”

  “He’s agreed to meet us. I haven’t replied yet.”

  “Where and when?”

  “Day after tomorrow, eight p.m., at a farmhouse outside Nemin. It’s about four hundred kilometers northwest of here, near the Azerbaijan border.”

  “How near?”

  “Eight kilometers or so.”

  “And how far from Nemin to Archivan?”

  Ysabel studied her laptop’s screen for a few seconds. “Twenty-eight.”

  Jack did a quick conversion in his head: about five miles and twenty miles, respectively. It couldn’t be a coincidence Ervaz wanted to meet so close to the border and so close to Hamrah’s Archivan branch. Jack mentioned this to Ysabel.

  “I agree,” she replied. “Okay, so, Balaclava Man used one of Yazdani’s vans to kidnap you, and Yazdani is under Farid Rasulov’s thumb, a man who shares the same e-mail address as Ervaz. Right so far?”

  Jack nodded. “Go on.”

  “So, ipso facto, Farid Rasulov, aka Ervaz, one of Seth’s own agents, is behind your kidnapping.”

  If true, Jack thought, Seth had even bigger problems on his hands than Wellesley and Spellman hunting for him.

  “And just to remind you, Jack, this is the man who wants to meet us in the dead of night in a village in the middle of nowhere,” said Ysabel.

  “It’s all we’ve got. Reply to him. Tell him we’ll be there. Wait . . . Add a dollar sign at the end of the message.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Hoping to make up all the time they’d wasted building a movement pattern on the wrong Amy, Yegor had spent the previous twenty-four hours tailing the right target. Helen had sent Olik along, wary of how Roma might behave on a campus full of young women no better than whores whose fathers should have long ago killed them to restore honor to their families. Roma was not just an extremist, Helen had come to realize, but one who had little impulse control and even less fear of consequences. Sooner or later, he would get tired of taking orders from a woman. Helen only hoped this job would be over before that happened.

  • • •

  YEGOR AND OLIK returned mid-afternoon, pulled through the double garage doors, and shut off the engine. Helen walked down from the apartment, shut the doors, and met Yegor as he climbed out of the driver’s seat.

  “She’s got a late class today, a lab in the Sanderson Building that goes until eight-fifty. She takes the number twenty-two bus back to Pollock Halls. From Sanderson to the bus stand, four minutes.”

  Olik said, “We followed the bus twice. From Sanderson to Pollock, between ten and twelve minutes. At night, probably a bit less than that.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  Olik nodded.

  “And the route from the bus stop to Chancellors Court?”

  Yegor answered, “Fifty meters on a narrow path with plenty of trees.”

  “Vehicle access?”

  “A hundred meters directly north of Pollock, Duddingston Low Road. It heads directly east. Eight minutes after we leave, we’ll be in Joppa. This will work, Helen. We should do it. Tonight.”

  Helen thought for a few moments, then nodded. “Olik, go upstairs and start packing our things. Tell Roma to start cleaning; I don’t want a trace of us, or the girl, left behind.”

  “Right.”

  Olik trotted up the stairs. Once he was out of earshot, Helen whispered to Yegor, “Watch Roma tonight.”

  “You had another run-in with him?”

  “Just watch him.”

  • • •

  AT EIGHT-TEN P.M. with the sun almost fully set, they left the garage, Yegor behind the wheel, Helen beside him, and Roma and Olik in the rear seats.

  Before leaving the garage Olik had made sure the drug had taken effect and Amelia was sleeping soundly in the garage’s bathroom, her gag and bonds secure. Once they had the real target in hand and they were clear of Edinburgh, Helen would place an anonymous call to the police and give them Amelia’s location. The girl’s jaw would heal, as would, eventually, the trauma of what had happened to her. It was better than Roma’s solution, Helen told herself.

  As she’d instructed, Yegor drove them east to Portobello Bay, then north into Joppa, then Duddingston, where they spent fifteen minutes driving the narrow and winding streets. Yegor and Olik were right, she decided. If the worst happened and they failed to get cleanly away after taking the girl, they could get lost in one of these villages, which might buy them enough time to make their way to the safe house. Maybe, she thought.

  At eight forty-five she told Yegor to head for the campus.

  • • •

  WITH YEGOR DRIVING slightly under the speed limit, they reached the entrance to the campus, Holyrood Park Road, at 9:00. Helen instructed Yegor to pass it and pull onto the darkened shoulder and shut off the headlights. From the glove box Helen pulled a spray can of synthetic snow they’d picked up at a dollar store. She got out, walked to the front of the van, sprayed the front license plate, then the rear one, then climbed back into the van.

  Yegor pulled out, then U-turned onto Holyrood Park Road.

  Helen could see Chancellors Court silhouetted against the night sky out Yegor’s window behind a screen of trees. Almost all the top-floor windows were lit, some of the curtains open, but most of them closed.

  “Her room is on the second floor, third from the right corner,” Yegor said.

  Helen saw it; the window was dark.

  “She’ll be on the bus by now,” Olik said softly from the backseat.

  “Show me where she gets off,” Helen told Yegor.

  He reached the intersection and turned left.

  “The stand’s up ahead on your side,” Yegor said.

  Three people, all carrying book bags or backpacks, were waiting in the dimly lit stand. Waiting for the number twenty-two, Helen thought. She checked her watch: 9
:02.

  “The path she’ll take is directly across from the stand. Coming up on my side now.”

  “Good,” Helen replied. “That will work. Turn right up here.”

  Yegor passed the bus stand and turned into the parking lot. Out her window, Helen saw a sign that read ROYAL COMMONWEALTH POOL. She told Yegor to pull up to the curb, then turned around in her seat. “Olik, pick her up at the bus stand and follow her down the path. Don’t crowd her. Text me when she’s on her way. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  Olik climbed out and shut the door behind him.

  “Back to Pollock,” Helen told Yegor.

  He made a U-turn, then turned left, heading back the way they’d come, then right onto Holyrood. Helen checked her watch again: 9:04. “Slow down, Yegor.”

  She didn’t want them sitting in the Chancellors Court parking lot for more than three minutes. The one variable they hadn’t accounted for was the routes and timing of the university’s security patrols. If one happened by at the wrong time, Helen would have no choice but to call it off.

  Yegor turned into the Pollock parking lot. Helen craned her neck, looking for pedestrians and parked, occupied cars; there was one of these sitting in front of the lobby to Chancellors Court, some thirty meters away, headlights off and a trickle of exhaust illuminated by the lobby’s interior lights. Helen could see no one inside the car. For now. They had to assume the owner would be back soon. She felt her heart rate increase.

  Her cell phone vibrated in her hand. The screen read: OFF BUS. COMING YOUR WAY.

  To Yegor she asked, “Where does the path come out?”

  “Ahead on the right. Almost there.”

  Yegor followed the road as it curved toward the tree-lined exit of the path. He pulled up to the curb and put the van in park.

  Helen’s phone vibrated again: I see you. Twenty seconds.

  She turned in her seat. “Roma, get in the back and be ready to open the doors.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Roma!”

  “I heard you.”

  “Ready, Yegor?”

  “Yes.”

  Helen glanced out her side window and saw a figure emerging from the path; ten feet behind her, the silhouette of Olik. Helen waited until Amy was twenty feet from the van, then opened her door and climbed out.

  “Excuse me, miss, I’m looking for Chancellors Court.”

  Amy, her arms full of books clutched to her chest, stopped.

  This was the right girl, Helen realized with relief.

  “Oh, you’ve found it,” Amy said.

  “Where? Can you show me?”

  Amy walked to the rear of the van and stopped at the bumper. Helen followed. Amy pointed toward Chancellors’ lighted entrance. “Right there—”

  Yegor came around the other side of the van and strode toward Amy, hood in hand.

  “Hey, what are you—”

  Amy dropped her books and started fumbling in her purse.

  Helen pushed her forward as Yegor stuffed a balled-up sock into her mouth and slipped the hood over her head. Amy started wriggling. Helen knocked on the van’s rear doors. They swung open; crouched inside, Roma reached for Amy, who began kicking and screaming through the gag. Olik appeared beside Helen and together the four of them began wrestling the girl into the van. She was surprisingly strong. Helen felt one of Amy’s arms break free, then felt a blow to the side of her head. “Get her in, get her in,” Helen called.

  “Hey, stop!” A voice shouted. “Amy!”

  Helen heard footsteps pounding on the pavement behind Yegor, and over his shoulder she saw a man charging toward them. “Behind you, Yegor!” Helen rasped.

  He turned, but not quickly enough. The man, now running at full speed, tackled Yegor and together they fell in a heap on the pavement.

  “Olik, help him,” Helen said, as she bodily shoved Amy into the van. Roma grabbed her by the neck and dragged her the rest of the way. “Bitch!” he rasped.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Helen told him.

  Behind her, Helen heard a thump, then a grunt, then another thump. She turned. Yegor was pinned beneath the inert figure of the man.

  Helen made a split-second decision: “Take him, put him inside.”

  Olik rolled the man off Yegor and together the three of them lifted him up, manhandled him over the bumper, and rolled him inside. Helen slammed the doors shut.

  “Get in,” Helen told Olik and Yegor.

  She took a moment to look around. She saw no one, but several previously dark windows above the Chancellors Court lobby were lit; in one of them, a curtain slid open.

  Helen walked to the passenger door and climbed in.

  “Drive.”

  Tehran

  JACK AWOKE to his sat phone buzzing on the night table beside the bed. He rolled over and checked the screen: Raymond Wellesley.

  “Good morning, Raymond.”

  “My apologies for waking you so early, Jack.”

  “No problem. What can I do for you? I haven’t heard anything from Seth.”

  “Nor us, sadly. Might you have time to meet this morning? Come by the apartment and I’ll have a hearty English breakfast for you.”

  Wellesley was back to jovial British bobby. Did Wellesley’s use of “I’ll” mean Spellman wouldn’t be joining them? He hadn’t been at their last meeting, either. Did that mean something?

  Jack had no intention of stepping onto Wellesley and Spellman’s turf. “I’m pressed for time today. Why don’t we meet at my hotel, around ten, in the lobby.” Though Jack hadn’t been back to the Parsian since the day of his kidnapping, he hoped they didn’t know that.

  “Very good,” said Wellesley. “See you then.”

  • • •

  DESPITE HER PROTESTS, Jack managed to persuade Ysabel to stay at the apartment and do some research. Ervaz had chosen the ground for their meeting, Nemin, so Jack wanted to know as much about the place as possible. Plus, he didn’t want to run the risk of having Wellesley or his people spot Ysabel.

  Jack’s cab dropped him at the Parsian’s lobby at nine-thirty. He went to the front desk, asked if he had either any messages or visitors. He’d had neither. As it had the first time he’d seen it, Jack found the hotel’s lobby mildly astonishing, a gallery of khaki and ecru, from the tiled floors, to the row of columns running down the center, to the circular, lighted tray ceilings above. Seating areas with burgundy and brown wingback chairs bracketed by potted palms were strategically placed throughout the space.

  Jack took the elevator up to his room, slid the key card, and stood at the threshold. You’re getting paranoid, Jack. Then again, after the last few days, the feeling was forgivable. He walked in, closed the door behind him. Aside from signs the maid had come in to clean, nothing appeared disturbed. His briefcase, which contained Tehran sightseeing brochures, nonconfidential Hendley documents, and Jack’s passport, looked untouched as well.

  Jack pocketed his passport, but left the briefcase, then went back down to the lobby. He took a chair in a seating area facing the door. Wellesley arrived in a black Khodro Samand, Tehran’s version of a hired Lincoln Town Car, got out, and walked into the lobby.

  “Jack, there you are,” Wellesley said, walking over, his hand extended.

  Jack shook it. “Thanks for meeting me here. No Matt?”

  “He’s otherwise engaged.”

  Jack led Wellesley to the Parseh, the hotel’s twenty-four-hour café. The hostess gave them a booth in the back. A waitress promptly brought a carafe of coffee for Jack and a pot of tea for Wellesley, then took their orders. When she left, Jack said, “What can I do for you, Raymond?”

  “You’re not ones for small talk, you Americans.”

  “Sorry. I’ve got a busy day in front of me.”

  “Very well. I’ll come
to the point. A man was murdered outside Seth Gregory’s condominium the night before last.”

  The statement took Jack by surprise; without missing a beat, he let the emotion show on his face, then replied, “Tell me it wasn’t Seth.”

  “Jack, please, let’s not do this. You know as well as I do it wasn’t Seth. You were there. You saw the man die. Had I not put one of my men there, you would be in the city morgue alongside him. Tell me why you went to the park.”

  “I got a text message from Seth saying he wanted to meet me. When I got there, it was this other man. He told me he was going to take me to Seth. We started across the street, then . . . You know the rest. Who was he?”

  Wellesley shrugged, then asked, “Tell me this: Did he have an American accent?”

  “Yes. Who sent him?” Jack asked.

  “It’s very complicated.”

  “Spellman?”

  “Jack, please, I can’t answer that question.”

  “Then tell me how you knew to send someone to Pardis,” said Jack.

  “You’re in over your head, Jack. I told you once and now I’m telling you again: Leave it be. Go home.”

  “You know I can’t do that. Tell me how you knew to send someone to Pardis,” he repeated.

  “I had you followed.”

  He said, “You had me followed, or you and Spellman had me followed?”

  Wellesley hesitated, then said, “The former. As I said, it’s very—”

  “Complicated. I know.”

  “I can’t make you stay out of this, Jack, and I can’t force you to go home. Instead, do me a favor, if you would: Keep me informed. Night before last didn’t have to happen. You could have easily died on that street. If that had happened your father would have been looking for someone’s head on a pike—mine, specifically—and he’d damn well get it.”

  “You’re telling me to leave it to the professionals?”

  “That’s my strong recommendation.”

  • • •

  WHEN JACK WALKED into Ysabel’s apartment, she called from the seating area, “The police called. They found my Range Rover. You didn’t tell me you were going to torch it, Jack.”