The Last Refuge

by Ben Coes

  “Yes, on the larger objective, you did,” said Foxx. “But it was a sloppy operation with unnecessary casualties. That’s my only point. And on this thing, we’re the equivalent of Millar and Iverheart. Unless we know the details, you can find someone else to carry your fucking water.”

  Dewey was silent. He stared at the young, innocent-looking face of Katie Foxx. She looked like she would have been more at home in a college dorm than planning black-on-black operations for the CIA and other well-heeled clients. She was blunt, arrogant, and smart. And she was right.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, smiling. “‘Who the hell is this girl? She thinks she knows everything.’ Right? Well, I don’t. On the Pakistani coup, I’m an armchair quarterback, assessing the facts after the events have taken place. That’s easy. All I’m saying is, I don’t want to die or anyone else to die on the next one, including you.”

  Dewey smiled. He nodded.

  “I get it. So what do you want to know?”

  “What’s the OP?” she asked. “What are you hiding from us?”

  “Iran has a nuclear bomb,” said Dewey. “Kohl Meir was working on an operation to destroy it with an informant high up in the Iranian government. Hezbollah or Quds Force is going to bring the bomb by water to Tel Aviv, then detonate it. It’s going to happen in days, not weeks.”

  “So why not tell the Israeli government? Our government?”

  “The informant doesn’t know where the bomb is located, so we can’t just take it out. More important, there’s a mole inside Mossad. Kohl knew if he told anyone in the Israeli military or intelligence hierarchy, Iran would find out, then move preemptively to detonate the bomb.”

  Tacoma whistled aloud, shaking his head in disbelief. Foxx was silent.

  “Kohl Meir saved my life,” said Dewey. “That’s it. I owe him. I owe the Israelis who lost their lives that night in Beirut.”

  “You also see it as a challenge, right?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I read your psychographic, Dewey,” said Foxx.

  “Oh, did you now?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Dewey was silent.

  “Loner,” said Foxx. “Heavy drinker. Not afraid to kill first and ask questions later. The loss of your wife and son over a decade ago only exacerbated your tendency toward self-reliance and your drinking. Tell me this, did you drink during the Pakistani coup?”

  Dewey stared ahead, into the distance, at the empty field.

  A phone in the house started ringing. Tacoma stood up and walked inside.

  “Your file goes on to say that you blamed yourself for the loss of your wife,” said Foxx. “I don’t mean to bring that up, but is it true? Was it your fault?”

  Dewey stared at Foxx. He said nothing.

  “If you want my help, I need to understand you,” continued Foxx. “I’m not going to risk my life, or Rob’s, because I didn’t understand a piece of your character that might endanger us inside the theater of operation.”

  “It was my fault,” he said, still staring out at the field. “I should have been there for Holly. I should’ve quit Delta. But I didn’t.”

  “One of the conclusions of the psychographic is that blaming yourself for your wife’s suicide enables you to take a higher level of risk than most people,” said Foxx. “In other words, you hate yourself, so you’re willing to expose yourself to higher risks.”

  Dewey smiled.

  “Of course, the implication of this, for us, is that being involved with you on a mission is also going to be higher risk,” continued Foxx. “The problem is, unlike you, I don’t want to die. I’m only thirty years old. I have a long life in front of me. Kids. Marriage. You name it. So what I need to ask myself is, do I want to ride shotgun with a kamikaze pilot, so to speak.”

  Dewey stared into Foxx’s pretty blue eyes. Her blond hair was tucked back behind her ears. The perspiration had dried on her tanned, freckled face. He let his eyes move down to her arms, then to her legs. Dewey appreciated beauty in women; he appreciated Foxx and he wasn’t shy about it. She knew it, and let him look at her, without apology or shyness.

  “I don’t care what your fucking report says,” said Dewey. “I don’t have a death wish. I take risks to save lives, including my own. It’s why I agreed to the coup. I take risks for my friends. I take risks for the United States of America.”

  “Killing Aswan Fortuna?” Foxx asked. “Vic Buck? Who was that risk for? You didn’t need to do that.”

  “The only person at risk in those operations was me,” said Dewey. “And, of course, them.”

  Foxx smiled at Dewey, staring for a long, pregnant moment into his eyes.

  “As for your file, Katie,” said Dewey, “have you ever read it?”

  “Well, no, not exactly.”

  “I have. Hector gave it to me. You say you’re thirty and you don’t want to take risks because you want to someday get married? The CIA brain trust, just so you know, believes you’ll never get married. Your rise at NCS was in some measure predicated on a belief by your superiors that great value existed in the fact that you are unwilling to make personal attachments to people, especially romantic ones. According to your partner here, you rarely even go on dates, at least not that he’s aware of.”

  Foxx stayed silent, glancing at Tacoma through the French doors with a perturbed look.

  “Despite the fact that you’re smart, accomplished, and, at least to my eyes, pretty good-looking,” Dewey added, looking directly at her.

  “Flattery won’t get me involved in something that’s going to get me killed,” she said, adding, “and I’m more than ‘pretty good-looking.’”

  “Not all CIA reports are accurate. I don’t have a death wish. I would never put you or anyone else into an environment they weren’t trained and prepared for. And I have no doubt that you will soon be dating someone and on the road toward marriage and a white picket fence.”

  Foxx laughed, shaking her head.

  “Jerk.”

  “I need your help.”

  Foxx ran her hand back through her hair.

  “We won’t be able to exfiltrate him from Evin,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know. We’re not going to.”

  “How are we going to get him out?”

  “The barter system.”

  “And what in the world would cause the mullahs in Tehran to give up their prized prisoner?” asked Foxx.

  “A nuclear bomb.”

  “For Kohl?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where are we going to get a nuclear bomb?”

  “We’re going to steal it from them.”

  Dewey’s lips formed into a devilish grin. Foxx stared at him for several moments.

  “You’re crazy,” she said, then started to laugh. He joined her and for a few moments they laughed with each other.

  Tacoma returned from inside the house.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  * * *

  Down a flight of stairs, they came to a steel door. Tacoma stepped in front of a key fob next to the door and stared into a glass ocular. A bolt clicked. Tacoma reached for the door and swung it open.

  Inside, the windowless room was brightly illuminated by overhead lights. The room was large, perhaps forty-by-forty. The floor was concrete. A series of half a dozen plasma screens hung on the far wall. In the center of the room, a massive square glass and steel table held computers. Beneath the table was a neat stack of servers.

  Tacoma walked to a computer keyboard and keyed in his password. One of the plasmas came to life. A light blue screen suddenly appeared, followed soon thereafter by the letters, in black block letters, RISCON.

  Tacoma typed into his keyboard. A series of photographs burst onto the screen. All of them displayed the same man; a tile of photos populated the plasma. He had thick black hair, a bushy mustache, dark skin, and was handsome. The words, BHUTTA, AMIT G, appeared at the top o
f the screen.

  “Let’s get to work,” said Tacoma.

  28

  KHOMEINI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  TEHRAN

  Hasim Aziz walked quickly out of the main entrance of Khomeini International Airport. His eyes darted furiously about; he found the black Mercedes S500, with blackened, bulletproof windows, idling at a curb a hundred feet away, guarded in front and back by police cruisers, lights flashing. He walked to the Mercedes and climbed in the backseat.

  Abu Paria said nothing, a blank, unsmiling, severe look on his face.

  Aziz sat down and placed the steel briefcase on his lap. He adjusted the four-digit lock on the side of the briefcase and popped it open. He pulled a small stack of photographs out of the briefcase and handed them to Paria.

  There were six photos in all; all were black-and-white. The first three displayed Lon Qassou, taken by security camera as he walked through Odessa Airport. Next to him—in two of the three photos—was Sara Massood, the woman he’d just interrogated.

  The next three photos showed Dewey. In all three, he wore a dark blazer with a white button-down. His frame towered at the center of each photo. The last photo showed Dewey’s face from the closest point of view. His look was menacing. Paria stared at this photo for nearly a minute. Behind the photo was another small stack of papers; a report, written in Chinese.

  “Who is he?” asked Paria.

  “His name is Andreas,” said Aziz. “He’s American, ex–special forces, a former Delta. Dewey Andreas. He has a long and rather interesting history, General.”

  “Talk,” said Paria, holding the report, which he couldn’t read.

  “He led the coup in Pakistan. He’s also the one who killed Alexander and Aswan Fortuna.”

  Paria again studied the photos of Dewey, his nostrils flaring with contempt. From his pocket, he removed the sketch done by the artist, based on Sara Massood’s description. There was an unmistakable similarity between the sketch and the photos, though it wasn’t definitive.

  “There is new information in the report, General,” said Aziz, pausing, looking at Paria. “Andreas is the one who killed Rumallah Khomeini.”

  “How did you get these?”

  “From Bhang,” said Aziz, referring to the head of the Chinese Ministry of Intelligence. “They’re from the Israeli.”

  “What I want to know, why would Mossad be interested in Andreas?” asked Paria.

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Aziz. “Technically, there’s nothing connecting Andreas to Qassou, other than the coincidence of their both being in Odessa.”

  “Two Quds commanders and an S7 were terminated the night these photos were taken,” said Paria.

  “And you believe it was this American?” asked Aziz.

  “Think about it,” said Paria. “It had to be Andreas. They were sent to Odessa to track Qassou. Andreas must have been tracking Qassou to see if he was being followed.”

  “It’s still circumstantial, General,” said Aziz.

  “The woman saw something,” said Paria.

  Paria flipped his phone open and pressed a button.

  “General—”

  “Don’t let the woman leave.”

  “It’s too late,” said Paria’s chief of staff. “She’s already gone.”

  “What?” demanded Paria. “Why?”

  “She had to be taken to a hospital, sir.”

  “Find her!”

  “The speaker of the parliament called. He’s called three times looking for you. Miss Massood has lodged a formal complaint.”

  “Find her!” barked Paria. “Now!”

  29

  SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT

  TEHRAN

  Meir awoke to the smell of cigarette smoke.

  He looked up. He was still in the cell, but not on the ground any longer. They had moved him to the steel bed sticking out from the wall.

  His entire body was sore. He trembled uncontrollably, like a leaf dangling from the branch of a tree. Soreness emanated from his nipple, a raw feeling that burned.

  His eyes adjusted. He saw legs in front of him; gray slacks. His eyes drifted up. Sitting in a chair in front of him, less than two feet away, was Achabar, his so-called lawyer.

  “You’ve been unconscious for nearly twenty-four hours,” Achabar said. He blew out a cloud of smoke that traveled toward Meir’s face. “The warden saved your life. Colonel Atta got into some trouble. Of course, if it were up to me, I would have let him kill you. Why is your life more important than the sergeant’s you killed? But what do I know. I do what I’m told. They have plans for you, obviously. A trial. Then you will be found guilty. Then the firing squad.”

  Meir focused his mind, then catalogued his pain. He saw a puddle in the middle of the cell. He smelled, and then recognized the stench of his urine. Somehow the fact that it was his own urine made it slightly better than if it had been someone else’s, but not by much.

  “So you know, I am having you moved, cleaned up,” said Achabar. “Frankly it’s for my benefit, not yours. I can’t be expected to work with the smell of your waste in the air. It’s inhuman. But don’t think it’s because I feel sorry for you. I hate you more than even the soldiers hate you.”

  Achabar caught Meir’s eye, smiled at him.

  “As I said before, I am your lawyer. There will be the tribunal. It will begin tomorrow or the next day. It will be filmed and they will release parts of it to Al Jazeera. They will cut it to make it look like the trial is a fair one. I will play the part of the fierce, fair-minded advocate.”

  Achabar reached into the pocket of his blazer, grabbed his pack of cigarettes, lit another one, pulled a long drag on the end, then exhaled.

  “But it won’t be fair,” continued Achabar. “It’s rigged. Perhaps, before they shoot you, you can write a letter to the newspaper complaining? What do you call it in America, a ‘letter to the editor,’ yes?”

  Achabar laughed. Meir remained silent. He stared blankly ahead at Achabar.

  “I will ask this, however,” said Achabar, leaning forward. He put his face up close to Meir’s. “In theory, how do you expect me to represent you if you will not even say a word?”

  Achabar puffed the cigarette, then exhaled, blowing the smoke into Meir’s eyes. Meir blinked as the smoke burned his eyes.

  “Tough guy, huh,” whispered Achabar, shaking his head. “Shayetet thirteen.”

  Meir’s mouth was dry. He was thirsty. He felt sick to his stomach. He tasted the remnants of blood in his mouth, now sour.

  Achabar took another puff, then exhaled again, blowing the smoke at Meir’s eyes yet again. Again, he blinked as the smoke burned his eyes.

  Achabar began humming a tune, then smiled.

  “Smoke gets in your eyes,” he sang in a low, playful voice.

  Achabar puffed one more time, then leaned forward to exhale.

  Meir pulled his head slightly back, then thrust forward. He sent a bloody wad of saliva flying into Achabar’s face. It struck him in the right eye.

  Achabar lurched backward, the chair tilted, he lost his balance, the cigarette dropped from his mouth, then the steel chair with Achabar on it fell backward. Achabar landed on the ground, at the edge of the wet ring of urine in the center of the cell. He paused, horrified, then stood up. His face was as angry as any Meir had ever seen. He stood, his mouth ajar, breathing rapidly, glaring at Meir.

  “You asked for it,” said Meir, his first words since arriving at Evin.

  * * *

  Several hours later, three soldiers came into Meir’s cell. One of the men unshackled his feet and made him stand up. His legs were like two sticks of butter on a hot day. He could barely hold himself up. He was shirtless and one of the guards pushed Meir’s pants down to his ankles with the muzzle of a Kalashnikov rifle.

  Looking down, his left nipple was crisscrossed with red and black burn marks.

  “Come,” said one of the guards, then Meir felt his hands, shackled tightly behind his back, being forced
forward. He followed the soldier down a long hallway.

  He looked up. It was a different section of the prison and for the first time he saw the eyes of men behind bars, small slats no more than six inches by six inches, staring out at him as he shuffled slowly down the hallway. Meir knew Persian, but a few muttered words in a dialect he couldn’t understand.

  “Run while you can,” he heard in broken English from one of the cells. Then there were a few hoots and curses. Finally it spread out in a low din.

  Finally, one of the guards had had enough. “Shut the fuck up!” barked one of the soldiers behind him. “No water today if I hear another word!”

  They took a right, and continued down another long hallway, more eyes behind small openings and silence.

  Meir entered a large, windowless room that was tiled, the floor wet. The soldier pushed him against a wall. One of the soldiers turned a faucet on and he saw a long black hose being stretched across the floor. The soldier aimed the hose in his direction. Cold water sprayed from the end of the hose. For several minutes they shot cold water against his body, cleaning him off.

  The water helped awaken Meir. He felt gauzy, in a stupor, a natural reaction; he had been in shock from the torture. He probably should have received some sort of medical attention. But the body was an amazing thing, especially that of a healthy twenty-five-year-old. The electricity yesterday would have killed most men.

  They led him back to another cell, shut the door. It was a different cell from before; cleaner, with a small window. Meir could see the buildings of Tehran in the distance.

  After several minutes, the door opened again and Achabar stepped in. He removed his cigarettes and lit one. Then, he removed a black rectangular object, which he held in his other hand.

  “This is a Taser, Kohl,” said Achabar. “Set to the highest level. Spit at me again and I will take great pleasure in frying you until you scream.”

  “Then don’t blow smoke in my face, asshole.”

  Achabar smiled, but his nostrils flared, revealing anger.

  “Your trial docket has been set,” said Achabar. “It will begin this evening, in front of the judge. It will be a military tribunal. It will last at most two days.”