The Last Run

by Greg Rucka

  Her voice was gone now, she could hear herself squeaking like a rusted chain between gasps. The headlights on the Nasim were still on, enough light to see what lay ahead, and Chace heaved herself upright using the front of the car, swaying amidst the debris, looking about desperately, and there, top shelf, still standing, she saw the boxes, printed in Farsi, the line drawings of syringes in various shapes and sizes. She lurched forward, stumbled again, crashing into the display and bringing the whole thing down around her, boxes of gauze and cold remedies and herbal extracts and sanitary napkins. She abandoned the gun, both hands searching, hands and knees, saw blood dropping from her mouth in the glare of the headlights, spattering on white packaging, and she found the syringes again, the wrong size, and she shoved the box aside, blinking, shaking her head, knowing that she was wasting oxygen, that she didn’t have any to spare. She saw the label, printed in Farsi, the numbers Roman, grabbed at the box, the right gauge, the right size to save her life.

  Her fingers weren’t working properly anymore. She dragged at the flap twice, before using her teeth on the package, ripping the box apart and scattering its contents. Plastic-wrapped syringes flew away from her, out of the light, out of sight, and she whimpered, reaching out, found one again, and, this time forcing herself to slow down, brought it to her teeth once more. She peeled the plastic wrapping back, took the fat tube in her right hand, and, again with her teeth, ripped at the cap covering the large-gauge needle. The cap dropped out of her mouth, and she turned the syringe, bit at the base of the plunger, wrenching it likewise free and letting it fall.

  She worked herself upright, onto her knees, steadying herself with her left hand, then tore at the top of the manteau. Buttons popped free, spun away, clattered on linoleum out of sight. She ran her fingers down from her neck, over her left breast, pressing down, counting ribs, searching for the space between the second and third intercostals. Marking with her left hand, Chace brought the needle to her body with her right, and through the pain, the dizziness, felt the bite of the point against her skin. Her left hand moved, joined the right, and if she’d had the air to spare she’d have taken a breath then, steeled herself for what would come next, but she didn’t, and so instead drove the needle into her chest as hard as she possibly could. The last of her breath exploded out of her, a pitiful sound of pain and misery, the lance of steel sinking into her body, slowing imperceptibly before finally popping through membrane into her chest.

  Air hissed past her hands, spilling from the syringe, and Chace gasped, and then, discovering she could breathe once more, gasped again, falling back, needle still held in her body with both hands. Another breath, and another, and the pain was exquisite, but her vision was clearing, the roar fading in her ears, and she knew she had to move again, quickly, but for the moment all she wanted was to just lie there. Just to lie there, amidst the debris of the ruined pharmacy, on boxes of knockoff over-the-counter medications, of sticky plasters and cough syrups and disposable diapers and deodorants.

  Lucidity returned, self-diagnosis, understanding of what she’d known but hadn’t realized. She’d been clipped when Falcon had gone down, maybe on the way to the car, maybe at the car itself, but it couldn’t have been from the submachine guns, because if it had been, she was certain she’d be dead. A handgun, then, a small-caliber round, but whatever it was, it had punctured the chest cavity in such a way that air had invaded with it, had torn her left lung from the pleural wall, collapsing it, but the wound must’ve sealed itself, sparing her the misery of a sucking chest wound in exchange for a … pneumothorax, that was the term. The air pressure in her chest cavity had collapsed her lung to the size of a golf ball, and that same trapped air had begun pressing on the right, making it harder and harder to inflate. The needle had allowed the trapped air to escape, the pressure to equalize, and the lung had reinflated. She could breathe once more.

  Until it happened again.

  She had to move.

  With a tug, Chace pulled the syringe from her chest and tossed it aside, and the pain was no less awful, but now she had the air to fight it. She gave it a second, pressing a finger to the puncture site, assuring herself that the skin had closed, sealing her chest once more. She stumbled back to her feet, found the submachine gun again, then scanned the shelves and the floor, quickly pulling packages down, checking them in the light from the Nasim, discarding what she didn’t need. Three of the prewrapped, large-gauge syringes were visible on the ground, and she took them, stuffing them into the pockets of the torn manteau, along with two crumpled boxes of gauze and a roll of tape, as well as a package of something she thought might be amoxicillin, and another that she hoped was a pain reliever of some sort.

  Chace straightened, the act itself making her back ache, then turned her attention to the Nasim. There was no way in the world she would manage to get it running and out of the pharmacy. She picked her way out of the wreckage, stepping carefully over broken glass that shattered further beneath her boots, and the flashing lights cut into her periphery as she emerged onto the street, the police car slewing as it took the corner, its headlights falling full upon her as it skidded to a stop.

  There were two policemen, their doors opening immediately, each shouting at her in Farsi as they began to emerge. Maybe they had seen the submachine gun in her hand, maybe they had been warned, knew who she was; maybe they were simply responding to the crash. It didn’t matter, there was no choice for Chace to make.

  She brought her weapon up to her shoulder, settling it into place with the same instinct and practice that had driven her flight thus far. She felt her cheek against the stock, lined up her shot, squeezed the trigger once. She shifted, repeated, squeezing the trigger again, and the submachine gun went dry during the second burst, but not before its work was done.

  Chace ran awkwardly towards the police car, dropping the empty gun, a fresh bloom of pain wrapping around her torso as she moved. The driver was dead already, his partner dying, and she searched them quickly, taking their wallets, tossing them into the still-idling police car. Each carried a pistol, a Sig-Sauer knockoff, and spare magazines, and she took those, as well. The partner coughed blood up at her, eyes unfocused and vision fading, and for a moment, Chace thought about sparing him, thought that he was her only a few hundred seconds earlier, that his life could be saved.

  But she was hunted and he was hunter and she had already left too much behind.

  “Sorry, mate,” she murmured.

  She shot him with his own pistol, once, between the eyes.

  Three and a half miles along the road, heading northwest, before curving to follow the shore of the Caspian westward, Chace pulled in to the lot of a large manufacturing facility. Sodium lights and steam wafted distantly in the air, mixing with light fog, but the lot itself was dark enough, and she killed the engine and exited the vehicle. Outside, she could hear the machinery churning, and beyond and above, the sound of a helicopter as it circled back towards the center of Chalus. There was a vague smell of fish in the air.

  There were several cars to choose from, more of the same makes and models she had seen at the airport what seemed like a lifetime ago, and this time she went with another Samand, simply because its door was unlocked. She threw the pistols, wallets, and spare magazines onto the passenger seat. Back at the police car, she popped the trunk, where she found a first-aid kit and a large wool blanket. She took both, moved them to the Samand, then stopped and made another survey of the immediate area. There was no one to be seen, no voices to be heard, only the constant grind from the plant. Even the helicopter had faded.

  Chace checked her pockets, found the folding knife and snapped it open. The car immediately beside the Samand was another Peugeot. She dropped to her knees behind it, experienced another sharp surge of pain from her back as she did so, a warning that seemed to both climb and fall at once. Her breathing was, at least for the moment, steady and sure, but each inhale, each exhale, came with a constant discomfort.

  As qu
ickly as she dared, she unscrewed the bolts holding the license plate to the Peugeot. Then she moved to the next car in the line, a Sarir, and removed its rear plate. She did the same to a Suzuki Vitara, and to a Miniator, and a Mercedes-Benz, and finally to a Citroën Xantia, all parked in a row. She closed the knife, took her collection of plates back to the Samand, and set them on the floor of the passenger’s seat before cracking into the ignition and hot-wiring the car.

  The original exfil plan had been to the west, via Tabriz, and it made good sense; good enough sense, in fact, that Chace was certain anyone searching for her would see it, as well. From Tabriz, one could run to Iraq, to Turkey, to Azerbaijan, to Armenia, and every single one of those borders would be monitored, watched, guarded. With the ruined pharmacy, the dead policemen, the abandoned cars, and now with the license plates, her trail would only confirm the suspicion: she was running to the west.

  So not west. But a run east was out of the question, too far and too long and ultimately ending in western Afghanistan, where the Republican Guards had made strong inroads with the local populace. Given the state she was in, the pain still cruelly riding her, taking to the Caspian wasn’t any more viable; the RHIB was gone, and even if she could secure another vessel, even if she could somehow avoid the airplanes and boats that would surely be patrolling the coast, there was still the threat of the weather. “Drowning” was just another word for asphyxiation.

  Which left south, back to Tehran.

  Chace put the Samand into gear, and feeling her chest twinge, pulled out of the lot, turning east, then south.

  Back into the heart of enemy territory.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  LONDON—VAUXHALL CROSS, OPS ROOM

  11 DECEMBER 2359 HOURS (GMT)

  The silence had come upon Alexis Ferguson calling to Crocker, “Tehran Station, update on Coldwitch,” all activity ceasing instantly, all movement, all motion, coming to a stop. Crocker felt the weight of every gaze in the room as he crossed the floor, took the offered headset, and pressed it to his ear.

  “D-Ops,” Crocker said, and then he listened, aware that the room was listening with him, to him, as Lee Barnett in Tehran told him that everything he had feared had been true, that he had been right all along. He took it all in, staring at a point beneath the toes of his shoes, and when Barnett concluded, he asked the one question that hadn’t been answered already. “Minder One?”

  “No idea, sir,” Barnett said. “Lewis thinks she’s still at large, but believes she may be injured. He confirms it was Youness Shirazi who came to the safehouse, which has to mean that VEVAK is all over this, they’ll be turning out the Sepah, the Basij, everyone and everything.”

  “But it means they haven’t caught her yet.”

  “I’d think it’s only a matter of time.”

  Crocker considered, looking up at the map, the clock above it reading the current time in Iran. To his left, he heard Nicky Poole speak, asking for maps of northern Iran, times of the next available flights, and that broke the silence, the death-watch, and the room came alive again even as Crocker continued staring at the map on the wall.

  “Sir?”

  “Find out what the hell happened, Lee,” Crocker said. “And see if we can’t get confirmation on Minder One, if she is wounded, if they’ve taken her.”

  “Working on it, sir.”

  “Notify immediately with any new information, no matter how small. I’m handing you back to MCO. Keep the line open.”

  “Understood.”

  Crocker handed the headset back to Lex. “Open line.”

  “No matter how small, yes, sir.”

  Crocker strode across the room, heading for Duty Ops. “Ron, call C at her home and inform her that Coldwitch has gone bust. Tell her that we have reason to believe Minder One is running in the open, still at liberty, but no word on disposition of Falcon. Soon as she arrives in the building, I want to know. And someone get me a line to Grosvenor Square.”

  “Yes, sir. Here, sir.”

  “Julian?”

  “What’s our status?”

  “We’ve been fucked,” Crocker said. “Best guess right now is that Hossein was bait all along. No confirmations, but we’ve reason to believe Chace is still at liberty, though she may be wounded.”

  “Falcon?”

  “Not a word, no idea. Is USGS still en route to the RZ?”

  “Last I heard. You want me to tell them to abort?”

  “Not if there’s a chance in hell of Chace making it in time.”

  “Is there?”

  “Again, no idea. Can you beat the bushes on the Iraqi side of the border, see if your lot has intercepted any traffic, anything that can put light on this? We’re in the dark.”

  “I’ll get on it now. You want me to come over?”

  The question threw him, Crocker uncertain if Seale was simply offering professional courtesy or something more, something that might approach sympathy. The question was enough to make him think of Chace, of Tamsin, and of the visit he would have to make if Coldwitch had really become the nightmare it appeared to be. That Coldwitch had failed was already understood, but until Seale had offered company, Crocker hadn’t allowed himself to believe Minder One was lost.

  “Your choice,” Crocker said.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Seale told him, hanging up.

  “Just how bad is it?” C demanded.

  The question was one that Crocker had spent much, if not all, of the last eight minutes pondering, while waiting for C’s arrival, and although he’d begun to describe the edges of understanding, he’d yet to reach its center.

  “You want the worst-case scenario?” he asked.

  “No, Paul, what I want are facts.” She shrugged the coat off her shoulders, let it fall onto her chair as she turned to face him from behind her desk. The haste and the hour, Crocker thought, both were telling on Alison Gordon-Palmer’s face. “Speculation later, for now, what do we know?”

  “Very little. According to the Station Number Two—lad named Caleb Lewis—he and one of our Security personnel, Adrian MacIntyre, dispatched Chace with Falcon to the exfil point directly as ordered.”

  “They were supposed to go out tomorrow night, weren’t they?” She took her chair, indicated for Crocker to take one for himself.

  “Initially, but weather in zone made that unviable.”

  “Continue.”

  Crocker sat, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Lewis reports that shortly after he and MacIntyre completed their sterilization of the safehouse, they heard helicopters making overflight, and within a minute of that a team of VEVAK security personnel presented themselves at the location and demanded entry. They claimed they were seeking a foreign agent and had reason to believe that agent was in the house.”

  C’s eyes narrowed. “They knew the location of the safehouse.”

  “Gets better—or worse, depending on your point of view. Lewis reports that the team was led by Youness Shirazi.”

  “I don’t know the name.”

  “Not surprising; we don’t have much on him.”

  “Significance?”

  “Shirazi is the director of VEVAK’s counterintelligence group. Lewis reports that Shirazi addressed him by name, made the request to enter and search. Lewis refused, citing diplomatic grounds.”

  “Did he just?” C managed a bare smile. “A stance on principle?”

  “Perhaps. It was only Lewis and MacIntyre in the house. Shirazi pressed the issue, Lewis said he could not make the decision to allow them entry, Shirazi in turn told him to speak to someone who could. Lewis rang up the Station Number One—”

  “ ‘Budgie’ Barnett, yes.”

  “Barnett told him to grant entry. Lewis made to allow Shirazi and his men to search the premises, but instead found them in the process of departing. The conclusion that Lewis reached, and with which I agree, is that between him contacting Barnett and relaying permission to enter, Shirazi got a lead on Chace in another location, and was ab
le to discount the safehouse. It was around this time that Lewis overheard enough conversation between Shirazi and his deputy to ascertain that Chace may have been wounded.”

  “And no mention of Falcon at all?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Yet every indication that a manhunt is under way for Chace as we speak.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  C gazed at him thoughtfully, then closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose between forefinger and thumb. Her brow creased, and Crocker had to wonder if her head was hurting as much as his now was. For fully half a minute she remained silent before speaking again.

  “So you were correct, Paul. We were set up.”

  “I’m not certain,” Crocker said.

  Her eyes opened in surprise. “Chace was ambushed at the exfil point with Falcon. She managed to escape, Falcon told … Shirazi, is it? … told Shirazi the location of the safehouse.”

  “But why wait?” Crocker asked. “If it was a setup, they were tracking Falcon. Why wait? Why not take him at the safehouse?”

  “Mr. Lewis’ excuse. Diplomatic privilege at the site.”

  Crocker grimaced, shook his head slightly. “But they could have taken everybody at the house, there were only four of them there. Arrest our three and what would we say? You can’t do that, that’s our safehouse? Lewis could only claim embassy involvement after the fact.”

  “Paul,” C said slowly. “What are you getting at?”