Callsign: Bishop - Book 1 (An Erik Somers - Chess Team Novella)

by McAfee, David

  Manifold had been making a stronger, more potent form of some poison called ergot. Bishop knew that ergot had been used as an effective weapon in the ancient world, but the new strain could be much, much worse. No one knew what it did, but the fact that Manifold was involved boded ill for everyone. Ridley never did things on a small scale.

  But even worse than making a dangerous new bio-weapon, Manifold had let it fall into the hands of Iranian terrorists. Bishop shook his head, wondering who in the hell had let that happen. Ridley was a lot of things, but unorganized wasn’t one of them. Of course, Ridley was out of the picture and without his oversight, someone in his company screwed up, or just jumped ship, and now Bishop had to clean up the mess.

  Just like always.

  A soft beep sounded through the cabin and a pleasant female voice came over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent into Tehran. We will be landing at Imam Khomeini International Airport in five minutes. Please fasten your seat belts and ensure that all electronic devices have been turned off.” The announcement repeated itself in Persian, Spanish and French.

  Bishop checked his lap belt, making sure it was cinched tight, and relaxed. He’d be on the ground soon enough, and afterward he’d have to find transportation out into the Kavir Desert. He had the coordinates of the Manifold station, but getting there would be a problem. First, he’d have to get a charter flight to a small village on the edge of the Kavir, then hire a car to actually go into the desert itself. It would probably cost a pretty penny, but he was sure he could accomplish both.

  Money talks, he thought. Even in Iran, money talks.

  After his mission briefing, he’d been given over 10 million Iranian rials. Even though it only equaled about $1,000 in US currency, it should be more than enough to purchase anything he needed while in Iran, especially after he left Tehran. Should the need arise, he had access to more funds, but more likely he would simply acquire anything else he might need. His Delta training had included numerous techniques for gathering supplies, foraging, stealth and even hotwiring foreign and domestic cars. Iran was the twelfth largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world, even though few of the vehicles made in the country found their way to the US. Bishop was confident he could find a car that would get him to the Kavir Desert, even if he had to steal it.

  He began to go through his checklist. First, he would need to get to the Manifold outpost and look for signs of occupation. If the site was occupied, he would try to infiltrate or identify the group. If the place was empty, he would need to go inside and see if the terrorist had left behind any clues. Most of the time, people couldn’t help but leave clues behind, especially jihadists, who wanted the world to know what they had done. Bishop’s next steps would be based on what he found at the site.

  The plane touched down on the runway, and Bishop looked out the window. The sprawling metropolis of Tehran sat in the sun, waiting for him. Skyscrapers reached for the clouds with concrete fingers, reflecting the hot Iranian sun back from a million windows. He was too far away to hear the bustle of the city’s people as they went about their day, but he could imagine it well enough. Bicycles and mopeds threading their way through cars and pedestrians. The sound of thousands of horns and millions of voices rumbling through the city streets like a wall of sound. The thick haze of smog that hovered over the city.

  First time visitors to Tehran were often surprised by its modern look and vast scale. Western tourists often pictured huge, spired mosques and horse driven carts in cobbled streets filled with men in turbans and women in long black habibs. Bishop had been here several times and knew what to expect. Tehran was a city on the hub of the world, more populous even than London or New York, and played home to a large and diverse gathering of people. It would be easy enough for him to blend in. He was born here, after all.

  The plane taxied to a stop outside its assigned gate, and after a few minutes, Bishop and the other passengers began to disembark. He shuffled down the central aisle, a prop carry-on briefcase in hand, and tried not to think about Dawoud and Faiza Abbasi.

  First things first, he reminded himself. Tend to business, then you can go to Shiraz and see what you need to see.

  Easier said than done.

  ***

  Inside the airport, two men stood by a souvenir shop and watched as the latest round of passengers exited the gate. A steady stream of people walked through the door, including several Americans, an Asian couple, and a group of Hispanics, all walking side by side with the Muslims who belonged here and those that did not. Ordinarily the two would be watching for freedom fighters, but today was different. Today their attention was focused on one visitor in particular: a large, burly man in a dark gray suit. He looked Iranian, as well he should, but he wasn’t. Not really. He was an American with an Iranian face. The two men spotted him right away.

  “Is that him?” one of the men asked.

  The other nodded. “It is.”

  “Should we go now?”

  “Not yet. It is too crowded here. Wait until he is outside.”

  “I will call ahead and let them know we will be bringing him shortly.”

  The man walked through the door and into the airport. He carried a black briefcase in his right hand and a map of the airport in the other. After consulting the map, he turned to his right and started to make his way to the exit.

  The two men fell into step behind the foreigner and followed him to the exit.

  4.

  Bishop stopped at the exit to the airport, watching as dozens of taxis vied for position outside the doors. Amidst the taxis, a large number of shuttles sat idling in the parking lot, waiting to carry passengers to one hotel or another. Private vehicles were prohibited from this area, and with good reason. With all the people milling around the waiting cabs and shuttles, there was barely enough room to breathe. He kept his eyes forward, scanning the vehicles for an empty taxi, but occasionally he glanced into nearby windows and mirrors, checking to see if the two men from the gate were still tailing him.

  He’d picked up on their attention the moment he stepped off the plane. They tried to be subtle, but his years of experience, combined with his extensive training and natural paranoia, made them easy to spot. Two men of medium height and build, both dressed as laborers, had followed him to the exit. One of them had already made a call with his cell phone, so Bishop knew they had friends waiting somewhere up ahead. But what did they want with him?

  There were several Americans on board the plane, most far less intimidating than Bishop. If these two men and their allies were jihadists, why didn’t they latch onto one of them? Were they after him specifically? If so, did they know who he was? How? He’d chosen a commercial airliner because he wanted to get into Iran undetected and the Crescent was already in use. As far as he knew, only Deep Blue and Keasling knew he would be coming to Iran, so how did these guys find out?

  Whoever they were, they would probably wait until after he left the airport before they tried anything. Airport security at Imam Khomeini was pretty tight, and the men would have had a hard time smuggling guns into the building. Additionally, the whole airport could be locked down in seconds if anything remotely resembling a terrorist plot were detected. So as long as he stayed in the airport, he would probably be safe. But then he would never find out who they were, not to mention that he couldn’t investigate the Manifold site from an airport restroom. If he wanted to get on with his job, he would have to get going and trust his training to deal with any obstacles that might come up along the way.

  Bishop spotted an empty taxi idling down the lot. The driver must have just arrived, because he was far back in the crowd of cars and shuttles and he didn’t have a fare yet. Bishop tightened his grip on his briefcase and started toward the taxi. Along the way, he glanced into the windshield of a waiting shuttle. There were the two men, milling around near the exit and watching his back. He chuckled. They weren’t very good at this. They might be able to stalk an unwitting
tourist, but if they hoped to surprise him, they were going to be sorely disappointed.

  Out of habit, Bishop checked the back seat of the taxi to make sure it was empty, then he swung open the door and climbed inside, watching as the two men following him climbed into another taxi about fifty yards away. His driver—a dark-skinned man with short, curly black hair and a black baseball cap—sat in the front seat, separated from the passenger compartment by a solid piece of Plexiglas, most likely bullet proof. Such things were common in Tehran, he recalled. Hell, they were common in New York and Los Angeles, too. Big cities tended to attract crime, no matter where in the world they were located.

  “The Evin Hotel,” Bishop said in Persian, referring to a newly renovated hotel about half an hour from the airport. Once there he would change into different clothes and hire transportation out to the Kavir. He thought about how the two men had been waiting for him and realized he couldn’t come back to Imam Khomeini for a while. He’d have to look for charter planes leaving one of Tehran’s other airports.

  The driver nodded and put the car into gear. A minute later, they were speeding and bobbing through airport traffic as the driver weaved and honked his way out of the Imam Khomeini complex. Bishop lost sight of the men following him, but he reasoned that they probably lost sight of him, as well. Good.

  Of course, if they did know who he was and why he was here, then it wouldn’t matter. Somewhere up ahead, their friends would be waiting for him. He would just have to be ready.

  Outside the airport grounds, the traffic didn’t improve. The driver switched lanes at random and cut back and forth between other cars trying to make headway, but it was still slow going. Tehran was home to over 8 million people, and such a large number made travel through the city itself inherently slow going, especially at certain times of the day.

  After about an hour, Bishop spotted the street leading to the Evin Hotel. He’d been there before a few years earlier, and he’d been to Tehran enough times to have a good working knowledge of the city’s layout, so he was a bit surprised when the driver passed right by the street.

  “You should have turned left at that last light,” he offered, again speaking Persian.

  “I don’t think so,” the driver said in English. “We lost your tail back at the airport, but they’ll look for you at a place like the Evin. It’s too obvious. I’m taking you somewhere else.”

  For a moment, Bishop was too stunned to speak, then everything clicked into place. In addition to Keasling and Deep Blue, there was one other person who knew Bishop would be coming to Iran. But he would have expected that person to be in Shiraz.

  “Nice to meet you, Joker,” Bishop said.

  “Call me CJ,” the driver replied, smiling.

  “How did you know I would be coming to Tehran?”

  CJ chuckled, and Bishop took the hint. CJ knew, and that’s all there was to it. He would never reveal the source of his intel, any more than Bishop would. He smiled.

  “All right, then. Where are we going?” Bishop asked.

  “There is a plane waiting to fly us both out to a small village on the outskirts of the Kavir. You have the coordinates of the Manifold facility, right?”

  Bishop nodded.

  “Good,” CJ continued. “The village is called Hassi. There’s not much left of it, but I know a guy there who can arrange transportation for us into the desert.”

  “Not much left of it? Why? What happened?”

  “The men who found the Manifold site also stormed through the village. They didn’t leave much behind.”

  “But there’s a guy with a car?”

  “A ride,” CJ corrected. “I never said anything about a car. How are your riding skills, anyway?”

  Bishop shrugged. “I can get by.”

  CJ smiled. “I bet.”

  “Those guys were waiting for me, weren’t they?” Bishop asked. “They know who I am and why I’m here.”

  CJ nodded. “And they have friends. Lots of them. And all of them want to talk to you.”

  “What do they want with me?”

  “You remember that picture I sent you of Dawoud and Faiza Abbasi?”

  Bishop nodded. Of course, he remembered.

  “Did you ever ask yourself why the United States Government would have such a picture? Why would a Delta team place cameras inside the home of an Iranian citizen and then monitor his activities?”

  Bishop hadn’t considered that. He had assumed the picture was a fluke occurrence. But now that he thought about it, it didn’t make sense. The picture had been taken from inside the Abbasi home. Why would the US Government be spying on the Abbasis in their house? Unless…

  “Damn,” he said.

  “Yup,” CJ replied. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, Bishop, but your biological father is a terrorist.”

  ***

  Several miles from the airport, another taxi slowed to a stop outside the Evin Hotel. Two men stepped out of the backseat. One of them went around to the front to pay the driver, while the other pulled out a cell phone and made a call.

  “Yes, he is here,” he said into the phone. “No, we do not have him. He hired a taxi at Imam Khomeini before we could…of course we followed him, but our driver was not… At this moment? We are at the Evin Hotel. Ahmad believes the man might be staying here. Do not worry. If he is here, we will find him and bring him to you.”

  Ahmad stepped toward the rear of the taxi as the car sped away, putting his wallet back into his pocket. He started to speak, but closed his mouth once his partner pointed to the phone.

  “I will,” the man said. “I will. I assure you, we will find him. Do not worry.”

  The first man closed his phone and looked at Ahmad. “He is not happy.”

  “I did not think he would be,” Ahmad said. “What did he say, Massai?”

  Massai shoved the phone into his pocket. “He said we better find Somers soon, or it will be very bad for us.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at Ahmad, wanting to make sure his partner understood his full meaning. “Very bad.”

  Ahmad paled, then nodded his head. “Understood. We should get to work, then.”

  The two men turned toward the entrance of the Evin Hotel and started walking.

  “Do you think he is here?” Ahmad asked.

  “I hope so,” Massai replied. “For our sake.”

  “And if he is not?”

  Massai shook his head. “We will keep looking. We dare not return without him.”

  5.

  Bishop felt like CJ had just punched him in the gut. “You sure?”

  “Oh, yeah,” CJ said, weaving around a slow moving truck. “No question. We’ve been watching him for a long time. He’s not just a terrorist, he’s also a top terrorist recruiter. He spent several years recruiting for Al Quaeda, among others. He’s pretty high up the food chain.”

  “Why haven’t you taken him in?”

  “No proof.”

  Bishop snorted. “This isn’t Law and Order. What’s the real reason?”

  CJ looked back at him via the rearview mirror and laughed. “All right, you got me. The reason we don’t take him down is that we like Dawoud Abbasi right where he is. As long as he doesn’t suspect that we’re wise to him, we can completely monitor his operations and keep tabs on every new terrorist he recruits. We’ve been able to neutralize quite a few potential threats with this information. Just last year a finger of Al Quaeda was planning another series of hijackings, but because we were able to stay on top of the people involved and put a stop to it. Probably saved thousands of lives. We—”

  “All right,” Bishop said. “I get the picture. Abbasi is more valuable out here than behind bars.”

  “You better believe it.”

  “What about…” Bishop found the word difficult, but he spat it out anyway, “…my mother. What about her?”

  “She’s clean, as near as we can tell. Dawoud has nine other wives, several of which are actively involved in his recruiting proc
esses—record keeping, contacting families, that sort of thing—but Faiza stays clear of it. She seems to dislike that side of her husband a great deal, and contrary to the accepted norms of Iranian society, she has voiced her displeasure with her husband’s work many times. To be honest, we aren’t sure why Dawoud keeps her around at all.”

  “Why he doesn’t kill her, you mean,” Bishop stated.

  CJ nodded. “Exactly.” He sped through a red light, earning a chorus of honks from irritated drivers as he passed. He stuck his hand out the driver’s side window and gave them a gesture that made them honk even more, though Bishop couldn’t see it from his seat. “His personal life would be a lot simpler without her in the picture.”

  “Other children?”

  “Dawoud has plenty, but Faiza only had one.”

  “Me.”

  “Yup. You.” CJ nodded, then laid on the horn and stuck his head out the window to swear at another driver in perfect Persian. The other driver said something back, and CJ called him an asshole—in English—and withdrew his head. “You’re his first, too. The eldest son. The heir to his empire, so to speak.”

  “His empire?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? The Abbasis are rich. Worth over half a billion dollars.”

  Bishop’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “How’d you find all this out?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  They rode on in silence for a while. Bishop watched CJ dart and honk his way through Tehran traffic until they left the city limits, then he steered the car onto Freeway 7.

  “Are we going to Qom?” Bishop asked, referring to the large city about a hundred miles south of Tehran.

  “No, just heading south. Our plane is waiting for us in a hangar about 20 minutes outside of Tehran.”