In his mind, all he saw was a threat, and Bishop’s instincts told him what to do next. He reached his hand around Dawoud’s throat and started to squeeze. The muscles in his massive arms bulged as his grip tightened, and Dawoud sputtered and cursed as he tried to claw at Bishop’s forearms. Soon the terrorist’s head turned an ugly shade of purple.
A loud crack sounded through the room, and at first Bishop thought he had broken Dawoud’s neck, but then the pain in his shoulder registered and his left arm dropped from Dawoud’s throat. It took him a moment to realize he’d been shot. His field of vision opened up, and he was able to see everything clearly. His mother squatted next to the chair he’d been strapped to, a small knife in her hand. As strong as Bishop was, he hadn’t been the one to break the plastic bonds. It had been his Faiza’s—his mother’s—blade. He would have to thank her. Later. His current concerns were Dawoud’s men, who pointed their pistols at him and continued shooting.
Amateurs, Bishop thought. They could have killed Dawoud. That the men had poor aim was a good thing. But their inexperience also made them dangerously unpredictable.
He released Dawoud and dropped to the floor just as a round buzzed by his head. He rolled to the side and hid behind one of the tanks just in time to avoid another bullet as it passed within an inch of his shoulder.
From behind the tank, he saw that Faiza had gone. She must have used the distraction to escape. The only people left in the room were Dawoud and a pair of his henchmen. Dawoud was getting to his feet while the two men fired at Bishop. They weren’t very good with their pistols, but at this range, they didn’t have to be. If not for his instincts, Bishop would be full of holes.
“No,” Dawoud screamed, “You’ll release the Ergot-B!” But it was too late. The man on the right fired a shot that penetrated one of the tanks, and ergot-contaminated water began to spray into the room. “You fools! The ergot can soak through the skin!” he turned to run, and Bishop needed no further urging. He leapt out from behind the tank and ran after Dawoud.
He only made it halfway across the room when a heavy weight crashed into him from behind and he tumbled to the floor, landing on his injured shoulder a few feet from the growing puddle of poisoned water. Bishop winced in pain, and the guard who had tackled him saw an advantage. He pressed his knee into the back of Bishop’s shoulder, sending waves of pain through him. For a moment, Bishop’s vision blurred, and then he heard the unmistakable click of a pistol slide behind his head.
The pain vanished, and Bishop rolled to the side just as the shot went off. The bullet tore a chunk of stone from the floor just to the left of Bishops head, sending rock fragments everywhere. A few chips of stone flew into his face, stinging but doing little damage.
The guard who’d been sitting on his back lost his balance and fell over into the spreading puddle of ergot-contaminated water. The other guard stood over Bishop, pistol in hand, as he adjusted his aim. No time to do anything fancy. Bishop launched a kick to the man’s groin that lifted him off the floor. The man grunted in pain as he fell to the stone, just missing the puddle that was even now lapping at Bishop’s shoes. His pistol clattered away, coming to a stop underneath a bank of computer equipment.
With a manic shriek, the guard who’d fallen in the puddle of ergot shot to his feet. He craned his head back and forth, looking at the room with wide, confused eyes, as though he’d just woken up from a nightmare. Then his eyes locked on Bishop. The man’s fingers curled. He was clearly mad, and about to attack, but it wasn’t the man’s physical prowess that gave Bishop pause, it was the fact that the man was dripping with Ergot-B.
If the man landed a punch, or even managed to scratch Bishop, he would descend into madness.
“Not again,” Bishop said. “Never again!”
The man charged.
Bishop sidestepped at the last moment and delivered a spinning kick to the man’s back, sending him spilling into the stone wall. The impact would have made any rational man think twice about continuing the fight, but this man couldn’t be talked down from his ergot-induced mania. He shoved himself up and charged again.
This time, Bishop didn’t sidestep. He needed to end this fight.
Permanently.
He stepped back, into the pool of Ergot-B, protected from its effect by the thick rubber soles of his boots. As the man closed the distance between them, Bishop pushed himself up between two of the big tanks and kicked out with the steel-toed tip of his boot. There was a crack, and he felt the man’s head cave a little beneath the force of the kick. The man crumpled like God had reached down and yanked his power cord from the wall.
Bishop lowered himself carefully and stepped out of the puddle, making a mental note to be very careful when he took off his boots. The other man stirred, pushing himself up. Bishop stopped, smashed his sledgehammer fist into the man’s head, knocking him out, and then ran toward the exit. Along the way, he saw his pistol lying on the stone floor, miraculously untouched by the ergot water. He reached down to pick it up.
He took off down the hall after Dawoud, having no clear idea where he was going. He couldn’t let the man get away, though. The information in the man’s head was too valuable. Abbasi was a terrorist leader, with knowledge of perhaps hundreds of active cells and their locations, possibly even their planned attacks. If he could bring him in, there was no telling how much they could learn from him. Not to mention it would give him a large amount of satisfaction to give the man a few good punches to the gut.
He caught a glimpse of Dawoud up ahead and sped up, dodging aside as a bullet pinged off the stone to his right. Dawoud fired two more shots, and Bishop returned fire. Then he turned the corner and ran up a hallway, catching sight of Dawoud again as the man ran through a doorway.
Bishop followed as fast as he could, but the pain in his shoulder and the loss of blood combined with the aftereffects of the drugs to slow him down. He wheezed and coughed, but kept running, even after he lost sight of Dawoud again. After a few minutes, his steps slowed. The passages of Naqsh e-Rustam were larger and more complex than he would have thought. He tried to remember where he was through the growing fog in his brain. Had he taken a right or a left back there? He couldn’t remember. He was completely turned around. Still, he kept going.
Dawoud could not escape. He would not allow it.
Bishop ran around a corner and slammed right into a person on the other side. Dawoud! He raised his pistol to fire, but it was knocked aside. He staggered back and raised his fists, ready to brawl with Dawoud if he needed to.
“Be calm, Somers,” a voice said. “We are here to help.”
Bishop took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Through a haze of pain and exhaustion, the person’s face came into focus. He looked familiar, but Bishop couldn’t quite place him. The man reached into his pocket and Bishop tensed, but he only pulled out a badge. “My name is Massai,” the man said. “Iranian Special Forces.”
Behind Massai, Bishop saw a man holding on to a squirming, cursing Dawoud Abbasi.
“That’s Ahmad,” Massai said. “We were supposed to meet you at the airport, but you got into a taxi and left with the Joker.”
Of course. The two men from Imam Khomeini. That’s where he knew them from. They must be the men that Deep Blue had sent. And they were never trying to kill him. Just Joker.
“You guys are Special Forces?” Bishop asked, wheezing.
Massai nodded.
Bishop sat down, breathing long and loud. “You guys suck,” he said.
15.
Dawoud couldn’t believe it as he was led back through the facility. The two Iranian agents had captured him right as he was leaving the Naqsh e-Rustam. How had they known how to get inside?
Faiza, it had to be her. She must have known more than she allowed him to believe.
A flood of Iranian soldiers poured into the facility, shooting first and not bothering with questions. Of course now that he had been exposed, the government would move fast to mak
e it seem as though they had no idea what was going on here. They would pretend Dawoud had acted alone, and without the cooperation of the Iranian government. No one would believe them, of course, but it wouldn’t matter. The UN would never investigate for fear of insulting the current regime.
At least they fear us enough for that, he thought, a bitter smile on his lips.
Of more concern was the United States. Somers would insist on taking Dawoud back to America to face trial, but Dawoud knew the truth. There would be no trial if he went to America. There would only be a cell, some ratty clothing, and a handful of specialists who knew how to extract information from reluctant prisoners.
He regretted the loss of his pistol. It had run out of ammunition during his failed escape and he’d tossed it away. He should have saved one last round just in case. If he’d had it in his possession when Massai corralled him, he could have at least put a bullet in his own head and died with honor. Dawoud knew his worth. He knew his strengths and weaknesses, but he also knew how interrogations worked. He’d seen plenty of them firsthand, even participated in a few. One thing he knew for certain: sooner or later, everyone talked. He would be no different.
He was led into the room with the large tanks. The spilled ergot water had been hosed away, and the bodies lined up along the wall. Faiza was there, as well as her son. She was dressed like a Westerner, her habib nowhere to be seen and her face bare for every man in the room to see. Her face was streaked with tears, but Erik’s simmered with anger. The two stood far apart, and he felt a small bit of satisfaction knowing that her betrayal had not helped her to reunite with her son. The man seemed to want nothing to do with her. As well he might, given the circumstances. She had lied to every one of them.
Still, she would have the last laugh as she watched the American dogs drag him away in chains. The thought bothered him even more than the idea of being arrested. That she should get to watch him in his disgrace seemed like the ultimate insult. She deserved to die for her infidelity and her lies, yet there she stood, her attention split between her bastard of a son and her husband. She would be ushered out of the country to live the American lifestyle she’d always wanted, while he would scream for mercy in a cell somewhere. It wasn’t fair.
How he longed for the pistol now. Death would be far better than this humiliation. But as he looked around, he saw one last chance for redemption.
And he meant to take it.
***
Bishop stood looking down at the body of Anwar Muaddah, driver for Dawoud Abbasi and also his biological father. His face looked familiar to Bishop, and he realized it was because he’d seen those same features every day for his entire life. He resembled the dead man so much that it was no wonder Dawoud knew the truth right away.
He turned to look at his mother, Faiza Abbasi, who stood about ten feet away with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Bishop’s own shoulder had been cleaned and bandaged, and his left arm hung in a sling. The woman in front of him looked exactly like the picture. Pretty, in an older woman sort of way. Her dark hair streaked with gray. The only real difference was her outfit.
Instead of her black habib, Bishop noticed, Faiza was dressed in blue jeans, sneakers and a dark blouse with the top button undone. Quite daring for a conservative Muslin town like Shiraz. And then the reason came to him.
“You were leaving,” he said from across the room. “Weren’t you?”
She nodded, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “I know Shahid Millik, the Commander of Iran’s Special Forces. I’ve been sending him information for months. After I sent him the text message explaining how to get inside the Naqsh e-Rustam, I called Anwar. His wife died several years ago, and we have been planning to leave the country for months. With everything that was happening, today seemed like a good day to do it.”
“Adulteress!” came the shout from behind his back. Bishop turned to see Dawoud struggling to get free of the agent holding him. The agent slipped on the wet floor, and Dawoud took advantage of the moment to sweep his leg out from under him. Before anyone in the room could draw a pistol, Dawoud’s hand struck out for Bishop’s backpack.
The alarms in Bishop’s head started to fire. There was a knife in there! He moved out of instinct to push his mother out of harm’s way, certain that she would be the target. But instead of the knife, Dawoud pulled out the water bottle Bishop had taken from the Manifold site. The bright yellow biohazard symbol gleamed in the light from the room’s lamps.
“Stop him,” Bishop shouted, knowing what Dawoud meant to do.
Dawoud unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to his mouth. Before Massai tackled him, he managed to take several swallows of the infected water.
The effect was immediate. Dawoud started screaming and punching at Massai, shoving him upward like he was a toy. He sprang to his feet. He looked around, his eyes wild, and reached into the backpack for the knife. Bishop recalled the words of Deep Blue’s text.
NO CURE.
Dawoud must have known that.
The terrorist leader looked around the room, and then his eyes settled on Faiza. He flashed a lopsided grin, drooling from the corner of his mouth, and launched himself at her before anyone in the room had time to react. His fingers curled around the handle of the KA-BAR as he brought it up for a strike. His garbled words were unintelligible, but his intent was clear.
Faiza screamed.
Bishop kicked the man square in the chest, wanting to distance him and his mother from the man’s body in case Dawoud had spilled any of the Ergot-B on himself. A series of sharp cracks tore through the air and Bishop felt the man’s ribcage cave. Then the force of the kick sent the man flying backwards. As he sailed through the air, Bishop pulled his Sig and fired a single shot. The round entered Dawoud’s head on the left and exited on the right, spraying blood and gore around the room. The body fell twitching to the floor, blood pooling out.
Faiza’s eyes rolled into her head, then her limp body crumpled to the ground like a sack of laundry. Bishop reached out just in time to keep her head from banging into the floor.
He picked her up as the rest of the room exploded into chaos. Iranian Special Forces agents scrambled through the place, swearing and yelling in Persian. Bishop ignored them and lifted his prone mother over his good shoulder. She stirred as he carried her out of the room, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Her eyes opened, and she smiled weakly. She brought her hand up to brush against his stubbly cheek.
“Erik?” she said. “Can you forgive me?”
“Shhh,” he replied. “You’re safe now, mother.”
She smiled and put her head on his chest.
He’d found his mother, and was proud of what she’d done—and where he’d come from.
For the first time in his life, Erik Somers, callsign: Bishop, felt no anger at all.
EPILOGUE
Tehran, two days later.
Bishop walked into the restaurant and looked around. He spotted her right away, sitting in a corner booth. She was back to wearing her habib, which would be appropriate since she had not yet left Iran. The two Iranian guards behind her nodded to him as he approached. Since Dawoud’s death, the terrorist’s colleagues had made numerous attempts to silence anyone in Dawoud’s family who might know too much. So far, several of his wives had been killed, but with the help of the Iranian military, Faiza was smuggled out of Shiraz and into Tehran, where it would be easier for her to vanish. Soon she would be able to come to the States, and she could drop the habib in favor of blue jeans again.
She watched him approach. Her face still lined with grief. He had not been permitted to see her after the mess in Naqsh e-Rustam. The Iranian government’s position was that nothing unusual had occurred, and any rumors to the contrary were just that: rumors. The site had been closed for “renovations,” which is where the government claimed the rumors got their start.
But now, finally, the government had allowed the two to meet. They chose a public place, where their conversation co
uld be monitored and recorded. Bishop didn’t care. He’d expected no less. Besides, he doubted the Iranian government would be interested in their conversation, anyway.
As he sat down, a million questions ran through his mind. Questions about his grandparents, about Anwar, about her life as a terrorist’s wife. He wanted to know what it was like for her all those years, not knowing where he was or what he was doing. He had a feeling he already knew why she gave him up, but he would ask her that, too.
In addition, he could see on her face that she had questions for him, as well. He hoped he could answer all of them.
“Hello, Mother,” he said.
“Hello, Erik,” she replied.
“I think we should talk,” he said.
She smiled, which did nothing to erase the sadness in her face. “Yes, we should.”
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JEREMY ROBINSON is the author of eleven novels including PULSE, INSTINCT, and THRESHOLD the first three books in his exciting Jack Sigler series. His novels have been translated into nine languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.
Click here for a sample of Robinson’s novel, THE LAST HUNTER
Visit him on the web, here: www.jeremyrobinsononline.com
David McAfee is the author of the 2010 bestselling horror novel, 33 A.D., as well as several other horror titles currently available on Amazon Kindle and elsewhere. He is currently working on the third book in his Bachiyr series.
David lives in Tennessee with his wife, daughter, and infant son.
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Callsign: Bishop - Book 1 (An Erik Somers - Chess Team Novella) Page 9