The last run (queen and country)

by Greg Rucka

  "Good," Ricks said. "Next one, code name is Phantom, she's a student at Tehran University. Ideological, but is taking payment…" The first Saturday in December, and Caleb woke cold and immediately scared, eyes coming open to find himself staring into his pillow. He sat himself up with a start, certain he'd overslept, checked the clock and saw he hadn't, and fought off the near-overpowering urge to collapse back beneath the warmth of his blankets. Tehran had turned surprisingly cold in the last three weeks, never rising above ten degrees Celsius. Rain had started falling the night before. Sitting on the side of his bed, he could hear it spattering against the windows still.

  Caleb roused himself, showered and dressed, took his backpack from its peg, and then, with a moment's hesitation to gather himself and marshal his courage, stepped out of his apartment. He made his way down the two flights onto Mellat Street and into the rain. A car sped past him as he emerged, an old Fiat, and he avoided the spray it kicked up, only to be rewarded twenty yards to the south with a soaking from a speeding Khodro as he crossed Amir Kabir. He shook himself off, continuing towards the Tehran Bazaar, most of the shops not yet open. It wasn't yet six in the morning. He ducked into the first open cafe he found for a quick cup of coffee, exchanging pleasantries with the owner, and used the opportunity to again try and spot anyone who might be following him.

  That he didn't see any surveillance did nothing to ease his fears. In its own way, it made things worse. There were three drops for him to check, Mini, Cayman, and Quattro, and Caleb took them in reverse order this morning, in an effort to continually vary his routine. No signs set for Quattro or Cayman, and he was beginning to think that maybe he might be home and warm and dry before eight, when, at the entrance to the Park-e Shahr, at the foot of the trashcan, he saw a crushed pack of 57s. The cigarettes were manufactured by the Iranian Tobacco Company, named 57 after the year 1357 in the Iranian calendar, 1979 in the Gregorian, the year of the Revolution.

  Without stopping, Caleb continued into the park. The rain began pelting him with thicker drops, and he struggled with the sudden desire to look back over his shoulder, to check, once again, for anyone who might be following him. Thus far he'd seen no one who raised undue suspicion, had seen nothing out of the ordinary, but that gave him no confidence. His contact with Mini since arriving in-country had been limited, only one message two weeks earlier, marginal value about movement on the Guardian Council and a statement that he had to be careful, that he was afraid he was under suspicion. Given everything Ricks had told him about Mini, Caleb had expected a longer silence.

  He trudged his way deeper into the park, along the broad central main path, stepping over piles of scattered, sodden leaves. A bicyclist swooped past him, continued on, speeding towards the central fountain. Caleb turned west, onto a thinner trail, overhung with branches, the sound of the rainfall louder on their leaves. The near-constant noise of Tehran's automobile traffic had faded, and now he could hear his own footsteps. There was a bench on his right, ahead of him, and he stopped at it, propping up his left foot and bending to fix the laces on his trainers. He straightened, wiped water out of his hair, and still he saw nobody who might be following him. He turned south, switching paths, then east again, and twice more he stopped to admire the trees, or to look north, as if trying to spot the Alborz Mountains behind the rain.

  Finally, his route took him towards the footbridge, fifty meters away now, and he saw the bicyclist who'd passed him earlier, still perched on his seat, one leg down to hold his balance, peering about, and Caleb was slowing his approach when the rider pushed off once more, speeding away, down the trail. Caleb waited until he was out of sight. Then he followed the narrow pathway down the embankment, to where it joined the walkway beneath the bridge.

  The sound of the falling rain was louder beneath the bridge, but Caleb didn't idle to enjoy the shelter. He located the brick, shifted it, and inside there was, indeed, a scrap of paper. He pocketed it, replaced the brick, then continued down the path. It had taken him two, perhaps three seconds total to clear the drop.

  He used the east entrance to leave the park, marking the south post as he passed it with the chalk he carried in his pocket. His Number One, Lee Barnett, was in their office when Caleb reached the embassy.

  "Drowned rat," Barnett said.

  "Pardon?"

  "As in what you look like."

  Caleb peeled off his jacket, nodding, then took a seat at his desk. For a moment he relished the modest relief in the safety of his surroundings. Their office was buried deep within the embassy itself, unmarked, and always locked, the only keys possessed by Caleb and Barnett. According to Barnett, they indeed had "posh digs," at least compared to other Stations the Number One had experienced. Most often SIS was stuck in something more akin to a closet, with barely enough room to allow a man to change his mind, let alone his shirt. Here, there was space for the two of them to have their own desks, with enough to spare for an ample cabinet that held the secure communications array used to speak with London. Opposite Caleb's desk was the office safe, large and ancient and impenetrable, flanked on either side by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The room had no windows, not even ceiling lights, but was instead illuminated by two standing lamps, positioned at opposite corners. Instead of being dim, however, that gave the room a feeling of warmth, something Lewis was more than a little grateful for at the moment.

  Barnett moved to their little tea table and plugged in the kettle. "Long walk this morning?"

  "Had to check the flags on Mini, Cayman, and Quattro," Caleb answered, digging into his pocket. "Mini had loaded the drop, so I took an extra hour before moving to clear it, just to be sure I was clean."

  "I thought Mini was keeping his head down?"

  "That's what I thought." He unfolded the note. There was a pause, only the sound of the kettle beginning to chatter. "Sir?"

  "Hmm?"

  Caleb smoothed the note out on his desk, looked at Barnett. "Mini uses code words."

  "Is that a question?"

  "No. Mini uses code words, the lexicon that Ricks worked up before he got PNG'ed."

  "If you need the lexicon, it's in the safe, I-"

  "No, this is a number code," Caleb said. "Mini's drop, but it's not Mini's code. This one's different, in English, not Farsi. Looks like a substitution code."

  "Give here."

  Caleb handed the note over, watched as Barnett's thin face seemed to stretch in confusion, the normally cheerful smile absent. Caleb liked Barnett; it was, in fact, Barnett who had made him feel that his fear was both to be expected and to be managed, and there was something paternal about the man that appealed greatly to Caleb. He was a tall man, veering close to gangly, with a thick head of black hair that had begun showing the gray of distinction at his temples. If Caleb had any problems with Barnett at all, it was that the man smoked like a refinery, and had no qualms about doing so in their office, official embassy no-smoking policy be damned.

  Barnett had lowered the note, was staring at the wall, deep in thought. The kettle rattled to crescendo, then shut itself off with a click.

  "You weren't followed?" Barnett asked him.

  "If they were on me, I never saw them."

  The Number One handed the note back to Caleb, reached for the pack of Silk Cut Blue resting on his desk beside his lighter. He shook one free and set fire to it. After another moment he left his cigarette to dangle on his lip, moved to the kettle, and fixed each of them a cup of tea.

  "Doesn't make any fucking sense." Barnett handed one mug to Caleb. "If they know the drop, why the hell didn't they nab you when you went to clear it?"

  "Not following, sir."

  "Mini uses the lexicon, Caleb. This isn't the lexicon. Ergo, Mini didn't load the drop."

  "Oh, Jesus," Caleb said. "Mini gave up the drop."

  "No, lad, you're not thinking it through. If Mini gave up the drop, why wouldn't he have given up the lexicon, too? And if the drop's been blown, then why didn't Shirazi's goon squad just pin you
to the ground the moment you came to clear it? Or, better yet, after you'd cleared it? Did you see anyone else around, anyone at all?"

  "There was a bicyclist, just before I got to the bridge, but he was gone before I moved in." Caleb examined the note again, all the more certain that he was looking at two different codes, a primary number key, followed by a rudimentary substitution code, reading:

  E N M S A E K H

  N H MH A K A SM

  Caleb counted up the figures in the first part, fourteen numbers, apparently grouped in twos. "The second part is definitely substitution, but I think this first part is a book code."

  "Could be he's waiting until you return." The ash on the end of Barnett's cigarette dropped onto the back of his hand, narrowly missing his mug of tea. He wiped his hand against his pants, leaning forward to examine the note again. "First time to see if the drop is real. Now that it's confirmed, they'll grab you on the next trip. PNG express, if you're lucky."

  "God." Caleb felt suddenly ill.

  "I think you're right, I think it's a book code. Caleb?"

  "No one in the network uses a book code, sir."

  "Thing is, if VEVAK does have Mini, then he certainly gave them the lexicon."

  "So it's not VEVAK?"

  Barnett straightened up, shrugged. "Guess we won't know that until we decode the bloody thing. By which, of course, I mean until you decode the bloody thing." He grinned.

  "But I don't know the book." Caleb shook his head, unsure if his Number One was making a joke or not. "It could be any book. And the substitution code-I mean, there's no way to even begin to guess the key."

  "Well, the book code at least, if it's a message for this Station, it's going to be found in one of those." Barnett used his cigarette to indicate the two bookcases, filled to bursting with all manner of reference, both technical and cultural. At least three different copies of the Koran, and that many again of the collected Omar Khayyam, anything that any previous resident to the Station had thought of merit, or, at the least, of use. "Can't be more than one hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred books there, tops. Crack part-the-first, maybe that gives you the key to part-the-second."

  "You can't be serious," Caleb said, and immediately regretted it. One look told him that, for all Barnett's humor, there was nothing about the current situation he found funny.

  "Look, Caleb, either this is Shirazi playing silly buggers with us, or it's someone else who's discovered that we use the footbridge in Park-e Shahr as a dead drop. In either case, the location is compromised."

  Caleb got to his feet quickly, suddenly possessed of a different fear, one that had nothing to do with his own well-being. "I've got to set the warning flag for Mini. Jesus, if he hasn't been made and they're watching the drop, he'll walk right into them."

  "No, sit. Drink your bloody tea."

  "But Mini-"

  "I'll do it. If Shirazi's crew has eyes on you, there's a chance I'll draw less attention. He's in Elahiyeh?"

  "Yes, in the foothills."

  "What's the flag?"

  "There's a streetlight at the corner of Razm Ara and Estanbol, on the north side." Caleb searched his pockets, pulled out the piece of yellow chalk. "Two horizontal lines on the east side of the post."

  "No school like the old school." Barnett took the chalk. "Right, I'll set the flag, you hit the books. I'd start with the ones in Farsi."

  "That's what I was thinking."

  "Good. Wish me luck."

  "I should go," Caleb said uneasily. "Mini's my agent."

  Barnett grinned, opening the door. "You're a good lad, Caleb." It was midafternoon before Barnett returned, saying the deed was done and that the rain had finally stopped, and that there'd been no sign of any VEVAK interest whatsoever. He noted the growing towers of books surrounding Caleb, fixed two more cups of tea, and turned his attention back to the reports he'd been preparing for delivery to D-Int earlier that morning. Each worked in silence.

  As Barnett was preparing to leave for the day, Caleb found the book. A copy of Hakim Abu'l Qasim Ferdowsi's epic poem, Shahnameh. Even when he had it, he wasn't sure it was correct. The intervening hours had been filled with so many pieces of nonsense, of what appeared to be the correct match of page and word to meaning, only to fall apart at the last moment. An article where a noun was needed, or a number that went to a page or word that didn't exist. Twice already Caleb had managed to decode the whole message, only to realize the sentence was utter, utter nonsense.

  Which was why, even after reading it through three times, he still wasn't certain he'd decoded it correctly.

  "The grapes are in the water. Falcon."

  Barnett, about to pull on his coat, stopped and stared at him. "What?"

  "I'm not sure, sir. I think that's the message. 'The grapes are in the water. Falcon.' Sounds like a keyword code now, but it still doesn't match the lexicon. And we're not running anybody under the name Falcon, are we?"

  "Not in this theatre. You're sure you've got it right?"

  "No," Caleb said, with utter sincerity. "I'm not."

  "Not really what I wanted to hear." Barnett had the communications cabinet open now, extended a long leg to hook a nearby chair, pulling it closer. He parked himself in front of the keyboard, began typing quickly. In addition to the signals deck, there was a headset, as well as a companion handset, for the secure audio link, but Caleb had yet to see them used. According to Barnett, he didn't want to see them used, either, because if one of them was on the headset here in Iran, the odds were it was Paul Crocker at the other end of it in London.

  "Give it to me again," Barnett said. "And the substitution code at the end."

  Caleb relayed the message once more, Barnett typing more slowly this time as he took it down. Task completed, Barnett turned the transmit key, then whacked the "send" button with his palm. The machine hummed for an instant, then went utterly silent. Barnett removed the key, scooted himself back in his chair, closed and locked the cabinet.

  "London's problem now," he told Caleb Lewis.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LONDON-VAUXHALL CROSS, OPS ROOM

  6 DECEMBER 0910 HOURS (GMT)

  Tara Chace rubbed the goose egg on the back of her head gently, still swollen from her fall on the obstacle course, and with her free hand took a sip of the traditionally god-awful coffee the Ops Room seemed to run on. Across from her at the briefing table, William Teagle, from Mission Planning, and Chris Lankford, her Minder Three, were talking about what a grand holiday Chris was about to have in Iraq. Despite the theatre of operations, Chace wasn't overly worried for Lankford's safety; the mission was remarkably mundane, barely worthy of a Minder, in her opinion. As a result she allowed her attention to wander around the room.

  Chace adored the Ops Room, with its clean lines and clearly demarcated regions, even this renovated version that was a far cry from the one she'd first come to know nine years earlier. You always knew where you were in the Ops Room; you always knew the state of things. When the world was behaving, as it was apparently doing at the moment, there was a feeling of palpable, controlled efficiency, even self-confidence. Everyone to their duty, everything at its place.

  All that would change at the drop of a hat, or, more literally and much more frequently, at the ring of a phone. The word would come, something had happened, was happening, was about to happen, and then the orders would ring out, and the whole of the Ops Room would transform, exploding into motion, and still, everyone to their duty, everything at its place.

  Chace thought of the letter she was carrying in her pocket, resting against her heart, and had a moment of hesitation. The Ops Room was one of the few places in the world where she felt she truly belonged, and the thought of leaving it pained her. She hoped she wouldn't have to.

  Architecturally, the space was nothing more than a giant cube, with all workstations oriented to have clear line-of-sight to the wall of linked plasma monitors at the far end that perpetually displayed a map of the world. In the left rear, wh
ere she sat with Lankford and Teagle, was the Briefing Table. Left front was the Mission Planning Desk, for the moment empty. Right front was the Main Communications Desk, staffed at the moment by Alexis Ferguson, who'd been in the Ops Room for as long as Chace could remember. Right rear, the Duty Operations Desk, with Ronald Hodgson seated at the raised platform, another old-timer, acting as the shift's Duty Operations Officer. At the moment that was the entire Ops Room complement-with the addition of two runners, who were ferrying paper between the various desks.

  Chace noted that Lankford's mission had already gone up on the map. A cherry red dot now pulsed on Mosul, a golden halo around all of Iraq. The mission had been designated "Bagboy," with a callout stating that Minder Three had been allocated.

  "MOD estimates some two hundred of the crew-served weapons have gone missing in the last three months," Teagle was telling Lankford, in answer to some question Chace had missed.

  "They've done an audit of the base?" Lankford asked. "They've actually tipped the place on its side and looked for them?"

  "So we're told. Can't be found anywhere."

  "Wonder if they checked behind the sofa cushions," Lankford said to Chace.

  "They think they're being sold?" Chace asked Teagle.

  "That's the fear. The question is who's doing the buying. Bad headline if British troop is killed with British weapon wielded by Iraqi insurgent."

  "And their own internal investigation turned up nothing?"

  Teagle nodded, then added, "This is why they are asking for our assistance."

  "What's the window?"

  "Five days turnaround."

  "You're going to have loads of fun on this one," Chace told Lankford, certain that he wouldn't. The investigation would be tedious, and already she suspected that MOD had requested SIS assistance merely to cover their own ass. Five days for Minder Three to uncover what, presumably, they had been working months to resolve. It was a token investigation, and it was already assumed by the MOD that Lankford would fail.