Michael Walsh Bundle

by Michael Walsh

  She placed the oxygen mask over Maryam’s face and opened the tank. Fugu poisoning shut down the body’s organs, especially the respiratory system, so it was crucial to keep her supplied with oxygen on the voyage. In fact, Skorzeny himself had insisted on it. He always liked to get his money’s worth. All Amanda was doing was protecting his investment by spending a little more of his money.

  The eyelids flickered again. Good.

  “Maryam, listen to me. You’re with a friend. We both know who and what he is.”

  The motion subsided. She was losing her.

  Another shot of oxygen. Another shot of life.

  “Stay with me. I’ve been there. You saw me. You saved me. Now let me help you.”

  Amanda put her head on Maryam’s breast. Faintly, faintly, she could hear her breathing. She was still with her.

  “Listen . . .”

  The Izbavitel docked without incident. Amanda Harrington’s papers were in order, as were the shipping documents for what she was bringing with her. The panel truck was right where it was supposed to be.

  There would be almost no time. Everything had to go perfectly. Everything would go perfectly.

  She had not worked with Emanuel Skorzeny for so long without learning something about secrecy, speed, and efficiency. As head of the Skorzeny Foundation, she had watched funds rocket around the world, moving them like chess pieces, always to the precise spot where they were most needed and could do him the most good. The sheer size of his fortune brought with it an aura of intimidation, and he used it as a blunt instrument on rivals and whole nations. He was the master of the tactical surprise, as well as the strategic plan.

  Their banking relationships in the Islamic Republic were first-rate, both with Bank Melli and the Saderat Bank. The whole notion of banking was, at root, un-Islamic, but the Iranians needed an interface with the West, as well as a way to transfer funds quickly to some of their most favored proxies. Naturally, Skorzeny was not averse to doing business with them.

  The two men who met her and her cargo at the port were not at all what she first expected. She had expected big gruff true believers; what she got were a couple of kids who looked like they would be equally at home in London or Los Angeles. Then she remembered that Iran was almost entirely a country of young people, brimming with ill-concealed resentment against the fundamentalism of the mullahs: you could practically smell the coming revolution.

  Of course, they both spoke English.

  “I am Habib,” said the first one, a curly-haired boy of about twenty. “And this is my brother, Mehrdad.” They were practically indistinguishable.

  They loaded Amanda’s cargo, which had cleared customs easily, into the back of the truck. They treated it carefully and with great respect.

  They should. It was a coffin. Nobody said anything as they loaded it into the rear of the panel truck and closed the doors.

  “Where you want to sit, miss?” asked Habib.

  It was not an idle question. Here, at the port, there was an international mixture of Persians, Russians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and Turks, but in Tehran itself an unveiled Western woman, riding with two unrelated men, might be an object for scrutiny. “I’ll sit in the back,” she said.

  “At your service, miss,” smiled Mehrdad, and off they went.

  Amanda looked at the time on her secure BlackBerry, the one he had given her especially for this trip. With it, she was supposed to check in at pre-arranged intervals, reporting on their progress by means of short transmission bursts. He knew she would be monitored wherever she went, and so had arranged for a direct satellite uplink relay; even if the mullahs shut down the entire Internet and the wireless services, she’d still be able to get signals in and out.

  The two boys in the front seat were laughing and joking a mile a minute in Farsi. She liked the Shiites, Amanda reflected. To her mind, they were far preferable to the Sunnis, consumed by tribalism and with nothing to show for thousands of years of existence except their faith and the oil the West had found for them. The Sunnis, mostly Pakistanis, dominated London’s Muslim society, and were busily transforming old Industrial Revolution backwaters like Leeds and Birmingham into Pakistani colonies—the colonial chickens coming home to roost. The visiting Arabs from the Kingdom and Emirates knew how to throw money around on opulence and women, but she had always found them charmless, overbearing, and desperately embarrassingly horny.

  The Shiites were different, especially the Persians. This part of Iran wasn’t much to look at, but as the car sped southeast toward the capital, the landscape began to change and you really could imagine yourself going back in time—not to the time of the Islamic conquest but before, to the Sassanid Empire. Someday, she thought. Someday . . .

  “If you don’t mind my asking, who has died, miss?” inquired Mehrdad, turning around to look at her. “Not a relative, I hope.”

  “No,” she replied. “A native, going home.”

  “I am very sorry to hear of this,” said Habib, “but it is good that she has come back.”

  She? Did they know something? What message had Skorzeny passed to them, if any? Were they someone’s sons, someone who owed him a favor? Or were they sent to dispose both of Maryam and of her?

  No, that could not be. It made precisely no sense for Skorzeny to trust her after what had happened, and yet it made perfect sense. She was the old fool’s one human weakness, the one person on the planet he trusted for the simple reason that he ought not to trust her, so convinced was he of his power over her, and of his own magnetism. Her freedom, however temporary, was both the ultimate compliment and the ultimate insult.

  “How do you like Iran, miss?”

  “I like Iran very much, thank you, Mehrdad.” She had almost no Farsi, but she knew that Mehrdad meant “gift of the sun,” and was a highly prized first name among Persian boys.

  “I would be most delighted to show you the sights if you are willing,” he said, switching to English.

  “Thank you. I shall certainly consider your generous offer after my business in Tehran is settled,” she said, “but only if your most handsome and charming brother accompanies us.”

  She smiled and dropped her eyes demurely, a signal for Mehrdad to turn back around and leave her alone. It was time to think about money. Lots of money.

  Which is exactly what she had access to. For years, she had been skimming from Skorzeny, ever so slightly, but even a little skim off the top of the immense sums of money laundered through the Foundation added up to a lot, and she had stashed it at private banks all over the world, hidden in plain sight among the Foundation’s legitimate assets, until such time as she really needed it.

  This was such a time.

  Near Ghazvin they stopped for petrol. This was the moment she had been waiting for. “Habib?” she said. “Would you and your brother mind giving me a spot of privacy? I’d like to change into something more modest.”

  “Of course, miss,” said Habib with only the slightest trace of a leer. Amanda was well aware that even the bestintentioned young Muslim men could not help but view a Western woman as both a Madonna and a whore, a prize to be wooed and won, and then kicked to the curb. “We come back quick.”

  “No,” she said. “Take your time. I’m a slow undresser.” This time they both smiled.

  Now.

  She got the coffin open. The breathing mask was right where it should be, the oxygen tank nestled under Maryam’s right arm. The woman looked as if she were sleeping, although Amanda knew from bitter personal experience that she had probably been awake the whole time she was in her own grave.

  “Maryam, can you hear me?” Once again, the eyelids fluttered. “Good. Now listen very, very carefully. I am going to give you a much stronger dose of oxygen and an adrenaline injection. You’re going to wake up. You’re going to feel terrible, but you’ll be functional. The dose he gave you was nowhere near as strong as the one he gave me.”

  She didn’t tell Maryam just why that was, although she s
upposed she could guess. Skorzeny had a special use in mind for Maryam, and damaged goods would not have served his purpose. That would work to their advantage.

  Amanda turned up the oxygen and sank the needle into a vein in Maryam’s chest. Almost instantly, her eyes shot open and she struggled to get up.

  “No, stay still. I’m going to have to keep you right here, but don’t worry. I’ll be with you the whole time. You will not be out of my sight.”

  For the first time, Maryam tried to speak. Amanda brought water to her parched lips. She knew Maryam would be desperately thirsty, but she had to control her water intake, so she wouldn’t drown herself.

  Inside the coffin were several bottles of water with a feeding straw attached to each. The straw would control the flow, so that Maryam could hydrate herself while shut away in the darkness. She was probably going to have to wet herself, but that couldn’t be helped. In any case, that was the least of their worries.

  “Why?” she croaked.

  “Because you saved my life once,” replied Amanda, stripping off fast and climbing into a modest dress. Before the revolution, Iranian women had been among the most stylish in the world and such a look was still not entirely out of place, especially for a foreigner.

  “And now we’re even.” Maryam was strong, coming round quickly.

  “No, not even. Not until I see you safe.” She pulled the dress on, rolled up her traveling clothes, and tossed them into a bag.

  Maryam smiled. “Safe is a word I don’t understand.” She shook her head lightly, trying to clear out the cobwebs. Amanda watched the change of light in her eyes, and could see that slowly the realization of what had happened to her was taking hold of her conscious mind. “Go ahead,” Amanda said. “Ask me anything—but quickly. They’ll be back any minute.”

  Amanda glanced outside, but there was no sign of the boys. She turned back to Maryam.

  “You know” was all she said.

  Voices, nearing.

  “I’m sorry, Maryam,” she said, closing the coffin lid.

  Amanda was applying the final touches to her makeup as the boys climbed back into the car.

  “You look good, miss,” said Habib, starting the engine and pulling out.

  “Very good, miss,” said Mehrdad. “Very good indeed.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lemoore Naval Air Station, California

  There were a lot of things you could say about Lemoore, but most of the nice ones wouldn’t be true. It was located, or so the brochures said, in a rich agricultural area, which meant it was hot, flat, dry, and dusty. It was, if you believed the base PR guy, close to the playgrounds of San Francisco and Los Angeles, which meant it was roughly halfway between them in the part of the Golden State where nobody wanted to live anymore. It provided a small-town, hometown atmosphere for the poor bastards unlucky enough to catch duty here, which meant that no one would in his right mind ever want to dwell in nearby Hanford, Tulare, or Visalia.

  It had exactly one thing going for it—it was the location of STRKFIGHTWINGPAC, the Pacific Strike Fighter Wing, which meant it was home to some of the most bad-assed Navy fliers in the service, hot-shit F/A-18 Hornet jockeys who flew their steeds five hundred miles inside enemy air defenses, bombed the crap out of whatever was pissing them off, and then fought their way out and were home before breakfast. Once upon a time, you didn’t want to fuck with STRKFIGHTWINGPAC.

  And yet, today, most of the F-18 units had been moved east, to the naval air station at Oceana, in Virginia Beach, to be closer to the Navy bases at Norfolk and Hampton Roads. All part of the downsizing of the services that had started with Clinton after the end of the Cold War, and continued steadily through the Bush administration. Much of the training had moved over to Fallon in Nevada, but there was still a presence here. It was the perfect symbol for an America in decline, just as California was: The Golden State had been created from nothing, and to nothing it was returning. All except the coastal cities, which would be the last to fall.

  Someday, reflected Danny, West Los Angeles and Pacific Heights would get to experience the sensations felt by the inhabitants of fifth-century Rome as the Vandals poured through the gates. No doubt they would be congratulating themselves on their tolerance as their necks were stretched for the knife.

  Danny had expected a bit of trouble from the MP at the gate, but he, Hope, and the kids were waved right through. “There’s a canteen just up ahead, sir,” said the guard, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, “if y’all want to wash up. Admiral Atchison’s been notified and he’ll send someone round to collect you shortly.”

  “I’m sorry to bother the admiral so early in the morning,” said Danny. The sun was just coming up. Hope dozed beside him and the kids were all sound asleep.

  “No bother at all, sir. Around here, we never sleep.”

  “Just in case some bad guys need their ass kicked?”

  “You said it, sir.” He paused; it was lonely on sentry duty. “Heard about them dead cows?”

  “We saw them. Awful.”

  “Radio says something about botulism in the feed. Gonna be hell to pay for that, for sure.”

  “Going to be hell paying for a hamburger, you bet.”

  “Myself, don’t eat much meat. Tryin’ to stay lean and fit.”

  “You’re doing a good job, sailor.”

  “Thank you, sir. Y’all have a nice day now.”

  “You too. And thanks.”

  Danny drove slowly toward the PX, the commissary, and a cluster of other small buildings. He hadn’t been on a post in a long time, not officially anyway, not since his days with the Night Stalkers. That would be the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), 2nd Battalion, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he had learned his craft and become, if he did say so himself, the finest chopper stud in the country.

  “What?” said Hope drowsily.

  “Sleep,” he whispered.

  There was something about being on a base, something both forbidding and comforting. It was a closed community, off-limits to outsiders, a community of like-minded men and women, all self-selected and assembled by merit to get the job done. It was the thing he missed most about military life, and even though he had lived among the civilians for many years now, even though he wouldn’t trade his comfortable home in Los Feliz and the money he made from Xe (the old Blackwater) and his other freelance assignments, there were times. There were times....

  The PX was closed, but the commissary was just opening. The canteen was attached to it, so they could get something to eat there while they were waiting for the base commander. They were all frazzled from their experiences of the night before.

  What the hell had happened back there? The only miracles Danny believed in were the ones he performed himself at the controls of a helicopter. Taking out that punk on the East River had been fun, just like old times, darting over and under the East River bridges until they’d finally trapped the bastard on his boat and that cop in the air with him putting a couple of .50-caliber rounds into the sonofabitch.

  His phone vibrated. He looked at the display: HARRIS.

  He switched on encryption. They wouldn’t be using voice contact at this point, certainly not here. All their traffic would be monitored as a matter of course; on a base like this, every computer terminal on post would be equipped with keystroke-loggers, and all voice traffic would be intercepted and analyzed, then sent back to Washington to the Defense Intelligence Agency and to the Central Security Service in Fort Meade. Op-sec was everything, even here in small-town, hometown America.

  SEEING THE SIGHTS?

  THE VALLEY IS LOVELY THIS TIME OF YEAR

  Well, that made it official. The trip to San Francisco was going to have to wait. The proposal was going to have to wait. The new life that they both wanted to start together was going to have to wait.

  He glanced over at Hope, but she was fast asleep once more.

  SO I GATHER

  That meant h
e was in, although that was a foregone conclusion. When “Bert Harris,” or whatever name he was using at the moment, called, Danny was in. They had been together too long for him to question either the operation or its necessity. It would be high-risk, high-reward, that much he already knew, and it would be a matter of national security.

  What did a bunch of dead cows have to do with all that? He’d find out soon enough. He reached for Hope’s hand—

  The rap on the window startled him; he must be getting old, to let someone sneak up like that on him. Or soft. Or maybe just in love.

  “Sir?” he heard as he rolled down the window. “Admiral Atchison requests that you follow me, please.”

  The lieutenant commander glanced into the backseat. “Nice-looking bunch of kids you folks got there,” he said.

  Hope awoke. “Why, thank you, Officer,” she said.

  “This way, sir,” said the lieutenant commander, getting into an official vehicle. Danny swung in behind him as they headed toward the officers’ housing area.

  “You call cops ‘officers,’ ” he said to Hope with a smile. “In the service, you call them by their rank.”

  “How do you know what rank they are?”

  “You look on their shoulders—dead giveaway.”

  “But—”

  Danny leaned over and gave Hope a quick kiss. “Good morning to you, too.”

  She smiled, softened—and then remembered where they had been and what had happened. “Is everything okay? What does the radio say? What happened? Why were those men shooting at us?”