Beep. Beep. Beep.
As I headed in his direction, Martha and Alex rushed into the room.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Alex quickly walked over to a wall console and entered some numbers on a keypad.
The beeping stopped.
Seconds later, the intercom from the security gate squawked. Greg started to answer it, but Jim motioned for Martha to take it.
She took a deep breath and pressed the button.
Calmly she said, “Yes.”
The female voice on the other end was high-pitched and had a Boston accent. “Oh, Martha, it’s me, Teresa. I just need to drive up and have you sign this petition. It won’t take a minute. I hope I’m not bothering you and Greg.”
Before hearing Martha’s reply, Jim ushered me past the pantry door, through a false wall at the back of the pantry and into a large room. It contained a wall of security monitors, computers, and several different kinds of communications equipment.
On one of the monitors, I saw a very thin woman dressed in a pair of black slacks and a yellow blouse. She was standing outside the security gate speaking into the intercom. As I watched, she got back inside her Mercedes and waited for the gate to slide open.
Jim was watching the other video feeds from around the grounds, while also keeping an eye on a nearby computer screen as it rapidly scanned through thousands of images using the Agency’s facial recognition software. As soon as a match for Teresa came up on the computer screen, he hit the button for the gate to open.
Speaking into his wrist mike, he said, “We have benign contact. Repeat. Benign contact.”
Alex keyed back, “Copy. Benign contact.”
Jim looked over at me. “She’s just a neighbor. She called Martha earlier in the week to see if she would sign a petition to keep the city from cutting down a tree on the right-of-way. It’s creating a traffic hazard.” He shook his head. “Teresa’s a champion of lost causes.”
I took the chance to look around.
I felt sure the door on the opposite wall led to a safe room. Once a person was inside, the room could not be breached—at least not easily.
Jim glanced up at me. “Yeah, that’s the safe room, but we’re good right here. Martha knows how to deal with this situation.”
We watched as Martha opened the front door and invited Teresa inside the foyer. They were smiling and chatting like actors in a silent movie.
Everything seemed fine, but I found myself wishing I were armed.
Along with Jim, I scanned the monitors showing the video from the grounds.
“Where’s the feed from the pool house?” I asked, nervously.
He pointed to a split screen. “It’s this one. It’s shared with the feed from the garage.”
We went back to watching the action on the screen, and I asked him to turn the audio on.
Martha and Teresa moved into the living room where Greg joined them. He was carrying a book, trying to look as if Teresa’s arrival had interrupted his reading. He and Martha sat down on the sofa, and using Greg’s book for a hard surface, they signed Teresa’s petition.
As they played out their deceptive scenario, I could see the differences in their operational styles firsthand.
Greg’s face was stiff, devoid of any expression; his hand movements were jerky and nervous, and his voice was just a bit too loud. However, Martha appeared relaxed, even comfortable, as if she were enjoying herself. Her body posture mirrored Teresa’s movements, and she stayed in sync with Teresa’s conversational pattern.
After a few minutes, Jim and I watched as the three of them walked toward the front door together.
“She’s consistently good,” Jim said. “Greg’s always twitchy, though.”
My nerves eased up, and I turned away from the security console and walked around the room, poking my nose into a wall cabinet, running my hand over some books on a bookshelf.
“The gun safe is downstairs.”
I turned and smiled at him. “I’m that obvious, huh?”
“I’ve been in your shoes, that’s all.”
He opened the door to a cabinet and took out a pistol.
“I keep an extra firearm in here. It would have been yours if our security had been breached.”
“Good to know.”
He quickly put the gun back in its hiding place.
“You didn’t hear it from me, though.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Of course, no one hears anything in here.”
I made a mental note of that information. Since everything was being monitored throughout the safe house, at least the communications room was one place I could have a frank conversation without fear of blowback.
I turned my attention back to the monitors and watched Teresa pull her car into the street. When the gates closed behind her, Jim gave Alex the all clear.
I looked around the room one last time.
I said, “Well, I guess I’d better get back out there.”
Jim flipped a switch to unlock the door leading through the pantry to the kitchen.
As I walked past him, he put his hand out to stop me.
“Look, Titus, I know I’m not supposed to know as much about you as I do, but there’s always talk, you know that. Well . . . I want you to know, I’m here if you need anything or if you’d just like to talk to someone.”
“Thanks, Jim.”
I started toward the door, but then I turned back and said, “Could I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“What’s the most important thing in the world to you?”
At first, he seemed taken aback by my question.
Then, he quickly recovered and said, “I’d have to say it’s my family. My wife and two kids mean everything to me.”
I nodded.
“Why would you ask me that?”
“An asset asked me that question just before he was murdered.”
He gave me a look of understanding.
“So, how did you answer him?”
“I never got the chance.”
END OF CHAPTER 2
If you enjoyed this excerpt from One Night in Tehran, Book I in the Titus Ray Thriller Series, you can download a Kindle copy from Amazon for 99¢ and continue reading. Available on Amazon here.
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