All of his doubts over the last several days rushed back at him. Why did they send a man with his experience to a place like this? Why the secrecy and the flight in the middle of the night?
He put the envelope back in his coat pocket. Now he understood.
----
“Who is it?” Mayfield asked. He was in the thick of a meeting with the Prime Minister’s people discussing security for the last two days of the conference.
The officer leaned in the door of the meeting room. “He said it is very important, sir.”
Mayfield put the pencil down on the map of Tehran. “But you don’t know who it is? I’m terribly busy at the moment.”
“He didn’t give his name, but he said to tell you he was calling from Bandar Shahpour, I believe he said.”
Mayfield was instantly at his feet, brushing through the door—rather rudely as the officer remembered later.
----
Isafahan.
They took the Fiat out of the city. Once it became dark, Salinger switched on the headlights and followed the road.
He turned south toward the river and parked the sedan on a side street. It would be several days before it was found, and by then this would all be over. He phoned the number Eva had given him. On a narrow street they waited. The streets were dull gray, but Salinger could see the river and it was like he remembered full of boats and sails.
Twenty minutes later, their contact walked up to them at the café terrace and introduced himself. He was a small-framed man, as Eva said, well groomed and wearing a gray suit, a newspaper tucked under his arm.
“I have a place for you to stay. And transportation.” His smile was disarming. “It is a favor for Eva.” He gave a mock shrug. “And besides . . . I don’t care much for the Russians. This is my job to wait and help whenever I can.”
They walked down the street until they stopped at a yellow French-built Citroen. “This is for you,” he said proudly. “Get in and I will drive.” He pulled the Citroen out onto the narrow street. Salinger noticed a blue sedan slip in behind them.
“Friends,” he said.
He drove through the dark mountains until he came to the farmhouse. It had a large yard and looked European. “Wait here,” he said, and walked to the front door, knocked, and disappeared inside. After several moments, he came back followed by a medium built, thin-haired man who walked away to a white cottage behind a row of trees at the side of the large house. He came to the sedan and leaned in the window.
“He will take care of you. Do not ask his name. He doesn’t like the Russians either. That’s all you need to know.”
Salinger thanked him.
The Iranian said, “Abbosi goes for a walk every morning at around eight o’clock after his breakfast and on the road that follows north along the river. He returns in one hour give or take a few minutes. One man accompanies him and follows perhaps twenty meters behind.”
He walked to the road where the sedan waited. In the distance, yellow lightning cracked an indigo sky. The other man came up and said, “Stay as long as you like,” he said. “If you come to the house, I will give you some food.”
“We’ll need to stay here only tonight,” Salinger said.
The man nodded. “As long as you like,” he said and walked away.
Salinger and Goli walked to the cottage. It was a large room and smelled of green wood. Two cane chairs faced a fireplace where the man had built a fire. There was a narrow kitchen off to the side. On the table were two rifles and two handguns. In the bedroom a large farmhouse bed set on a redbrick floor under whitewashed rafters. In the corner an enamel washbowl and pitcher sat on a table. The bathroom was off a side hallway where a steel-framed mirror hung on the far wall. Beneath was a table where towels were folded and carefully placed.
Goli collapsed in one of the chairs. “Why are people helping you so much?” She asked.
Salinger came by the fire. “It’s the Communists. At first they were friends. Maybe even liberators. Now, they don’t like them.”
A shadow crossed her face.
----
Later Salinger left Goli and went through the trees between the cottage and the farmhouse. At the kitchen door, the man handed him a plate of cheese and bread, and a bottle of wine.
When he returned, Goli was sitting at the window smoking a cigarette. He placed the plate on the table. “I think he feels nervous with an American around,” Salinger said. Goli came to the table and broke of a piece of bread. Then she took a bite of cheese while Salinger poured two glasses of wine. “I’ll sleep on the couch, you take the bed. The old man said he would come and wake us before daylight.”
“You have a plan?”
Salinger stared out the window. What did it really matter? Tomorrow this was going to end badly anyway. Regardless, Abbosi probably wouldn’t be taken alive. “Men like that seldom allow themselves to be prisoners.”
After another moment she turned back to him and drew deeply on the cigarette. She drank wine he had placed in front of her. Salinger placed one of the revolvers the Iranian had given them and placed it on the table. “How good are you going to be at this?”
“I can shoot if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Goli went back to the window and watched the storm. She flipped the spent cigarette through the window and walked back to the fire. She sat on the floor, deep shadows dancing across her face. “Your plan, let’s hear it.”
-Twenty-Three-
Dawn. The road running in front of Abbosi’s villa.
From among a grove of birch trees thirty yards down the run, Salinger watched as Abbosi talked to the woman on the bicycle. She appeared frustrated. Troubled. A flat tire, perhaps. The morning was clear, with only the fog on the lake shining silver and fresh beyond the trees.
It was a good plan. Salinger and Goli had approached from the south after Abbosi walked north and over a hill. Salinger had slipped through the trees to the top of a narrow ridge overlooking the driveway as Goli had played her part, pedaling down the road. Then, just in case someone was watching from the villa, she had acted out the frustration of a flat tire. They waited for Abbosi to approach, returning from his walk.
Abbosi’s man stood in the middle of the road twenty paces behind, between the Iranian and the driveway that led to the villa. A sedan was parked, facing out toward the road. Anxiety ticked in the back of Salinger’s mind. The man the previous night hadn’t mentioned the car when he told them of the Iranian’s morning walks.
Abbosi’s man made it to the center of the road when Salinger’s first bullet hit him. His face showed surprise as blood poured from a third eye in his forehead. He dropped to his knees, trying to wave to Abbosi, before falling face down.
An unnoticed man stepped from the sedan.
Salinger slumped back against the tree. His throat tightened. This wasn’t supposed to happen. A shot kicked in the dirt inches in front of him. There was yelling, and he could see Abbosi running away. Goli fell into the ditch.
Salinger slipped around behind another tree. The man was standing only fifteen meters away. From this distance he could see that he was a large man with a rifle. He had the advantage. Salinger moved quickly.
Another shot.
Swinging up his revolver up, Salinger fired once, the weapon bucking in his hand. A shot struck the fender, but he had his rhythm now, and fired back. The shot scattered the shooter’s collarbone. A second shot tore into his chest. For a moment he froze like a statue, stumbled forward, then his legs folded.
Abbosi ran into the villa.
Salinger followed as Goli ran around the side of the house.
The gunman inside the house was another surprise. His first shot missed Salinger by inches and splintered the door facing as he dove against the far corner as the second shot exploded into the wall.
Goli’s shot blasted the left side of the shooter’s face away. She fired another shot into him as he fell. She glanced quickly at
Salinger, then back at the empty doorway. Abbosi ran into the hallway, then down the stairs, and out the back.
Salinger waited for a moment, listening for any movement, and then eased through the doorway. The shot ripped away a chunk of door facing above his head. He dove into the shadows to the left. At the end of the hallway, Abbosi moved out and fired again, breaking for the back door. Salinger followed through the room into a back porch, catching a last glimpse of him as he disappeared down the steps.
Abbosi crouched against a far wall as Salinger reached the steps and out onto the porch.
An eerie sight was playing out as the Iranian crouched before a fire, tossing papers a handful at a time from a leather valise into the flames.
Salinger eased down the back stairs and was only ten yards down the alley and heard a shot from the side of the house.
Another shot. Abbosi’s man, his brown raincoat twisted beneath him, lay spread out awkwardly in the middle of the alley. When Salinger looked back, there was only the fire. The tossed aside valise lying in the mud.
Abbosi vaulted from behind a stack of boxes, firing.
Salinger fell back and got off a desperation shot striking the wall above Abbosi. His heart pumped wildly. The Iranian pulled himself against the wall. His pistol lay at his feet. Salinger aimed the revolver at his chest.
Abbosi stared at him, puzzled. “No,” he whispered.
“Bozorg Faqiri,” Salinger said.
Abbosi’s face pinched with realization. He lunged for his pistol. Got off one shot directly at Salinger falling back behind the steps.
Abbosi ran. Then Salinger knew there was no place for him to go. A wall ahead. Abbosi would make it over if he had time. Then he would be free along the shoreline. But if he had to climb, then Salinger would have a clear shot.
Salinger knelt.
Abbosi ran out from his cover, made his way to the fence.
“Abbosi,” Salinger yelled, raising his weapon. “Stop!” Goli was beside him. Abbosi was half way up the wall. Salinger hesitated. Abbosi glanced back in surprise over his shoulder. He clawed for the top of the fence, then one leg was already over, when he turned and aimed at them.
Goli was on her knees. “Stop!” She screamed. “Stop!”
Abbosi was there, ready to leap. Frozen, confused . . .
Salinger fired. At first he thought he’d missed him. Abbosi appeared ready to jump to the other side. He wavered. Lingered on top. Then he fell back against the base of the wall.
-Twenty-Four-
Standing at the rail encircling the villa’s stone patio overlooking the Zayanderud River, Salinger waited, contemplating the labyrinth of what Bredow knew and what Abbosi had known. In many ways, the answer had come to him already.
A car pulled up at the front of the house. The slamming of a door. Voices, at first loud, then softer. The approaching shuffling of feet at the doorway.
Walter Bredow walked out onto the stone patio, Goli holding a pistol against his back. He wore a dark suit and a pale button down shirt open at the throat.
“We’ve been waiting for you for a while,” Salinger told him.
“Eva told you this? She told you that I was coming here?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“She betrayed me.”
Salinger said, “It’s a terrible situation you put her in, Walter. Try and look at it that way.”
Bredow sat. Goli stood behind him. “Without your urging, I’m sure of that,” he said.
Salinger stared across the table as Bredow tried to act defiant. “I understand your lack of loyalty, Walter. You’re a German, and we weren’t. And, business is business,” he said, “Much like the situation we find ourselves here today.”
“Yes, business,” Bredow agreed. “What do you think I know?”
“Everything.”
“Don’t give me that much credit.”
“We don’t have time for games, Walter,” Salinger warned.
Bredow looked briefly at Goli, then back at him. “And what is her part in your plot?”
She said, “Bozorg was my husband.”
‘I see.” The German slumped back in the chair. He placed a blanket across his lap, suddenly appearing weak, and whatever fight in him was gone now. “So, you want to know everything.”
Salinger produced Abbosi’s valise and dropped it between them on the stone floor. “When we broke in he was trying to destroy the papers inside this valise. It appears as though someone had tipped him off.”
Salinger let Bredow think about that for a moment. “No more games, Walter.”
“I promise to you.”
“Right now your word isn’t any good. You’ll have to convince me. Who ordered the hit on her husband?”
“It was the Americans, wasn’t it?” Goli asked.
“Beautiful and a spy,” Bredow said. “And smart.”
“Is that true?” Salinger asked.
“Yes, it’s true,” he said. “That night everything was set up when I received the call. It was from the Americans. Maybe Abbosi bought his way into this deed with information.” Bredow shrugged. “Maybe that’s it.”
Salinger pondered. “But not any longer. Abbosi is dead,” he said.
Bredow’s face twitched, but he caught himself quickly. “Well, he led an exciting life, don’t you think?”
“I think he lived too long,” Goli said.
“When this started, that may have been enough for you,” Bredow said, “but not now. Now you have to learn more. There’s another step to the puzzle, then another. It may go on forever.”
“I’m offering you protection.”
“In return for what?”
“What made it so important that a man like Faqiri should be killed?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Salinger removed a writing pad from his pocket. “I hear Italy is beautiful this time of year.” He wrote a name and address of a house on Lake Como, then tore the page off and handed it to Bredow. “This will be easy unless you’re lying to me. Then I’ll come for you. Take the diplomatic pouch and the papers and go here. Stay there and don’t talk to anyone.”
Bredow folded the paper and put it in his breast pocket. He stood. “If it weren’t for Eva and the boy you’d kill me, wouldn’t you?”
“Probably,” Salinger said. “And if this conversation gets out, I’ll come for you. I’ll come to Italy and kill you in front of your wife. Not in front of the boy, but so Eva can see you die.”
Bredow stood there stiffly for a long moment. The perfect German. “I understand.” And then he turned on his heels.
Goli led him to the door. A motor started, and then died in the distance. She was back at the door, the pistol at her side. From the river, Salinger heard the mumbling of an Iranian patrol boat slipping through the gray fog.
----
Salinger and Goli drove back to the farmhouse without a word between them. Goli rolled down the window and let the wind blow in her face. Salinger was certain Goli didn’t feel the satisfaction she believed she would now Abbosi was finally dead.
----
At the cottage Salinger started a fire.
Goli disappeared into the bedroom. He heard water spilling into the enamel bathtub while he sat at the table attempting to read from the burnt remains of the papers from Abbosi’s case. He found that a futile effort. On the other hand, in a travel bag found in an upstairs bedroom there had been travel papers. Several international newspapers. Opinions on certain intelligence stations throughout Persia. Abbosi was more than a politician—he was involved in intelligence. But who knew that? And how many men—like he had—knew what was in Abbosi’s papers . . . and . . . the papers that Eva had shown him at the hotel last night? Together those two pieces of information revealed a truth few people involved really knew. From that thought, Salinger designed a plan.
He sat the valise aside, went to the kitchen sink and turned on the water. Cupped his hands in the stream and washed his
face. Then he combed his hair back with his fingers. He went to the table for a cigarette, but the pack was empty.
So, he went to the bedroom door and knocked. When there was no response, he slipped through the door to get cigarettes on the side table.
The room was in half-shadow. In the bathroom Goli had turned on both a lamp and the wireless that sat on a side table. There was muttering, the crisp BBC news voice broadcasting through the crackling static explaining that the world had continued to slip by without them since they had left Tehran.
Salinger turned to leave the room. The bathroom door was ajar.
Goli leaned over the tub toweling her legs beneath a circle of light. Her hair was wet and in her face. She turned toward him and instead of trying to hide herself, she only stared.
Then she was at the door, shadows dancing across her face.
Salinger stepped out of the room closing the door behind him.
----
A square of blanched light spilled across the floor.
The cottage was stuffy, so he got up and opened a window. When he lay back down in the couch by the window, Goli stirred in the bed, rested on her stomach, then she was quiet and very still.
Salinger rolled over for a cigarette from the table, lit one, and lay on his back staring at the ceiling. He imagined Tehran, soaked copper-colored leaves scattered along the narrow stone-floored sidewalks. Flowers peddled from quaint homemade wooden stalls. He remembered how Julia loved Tehran. A comforting thought.
But now his life was spinning wildly out of control again. Fate had betrayed him.
He wondered if there was time to change.
Tiring of thinking of such things, Salinger crossed his arm across his face covering his eyes, and realized he was impressed with the silence of the room, and the enormity of his situation.
NOVEMBER 29. MONDAY
-Twenty-Five-
Salinger arrived back in the city at midmorning without Goli. She had remained in Isafahan on business she told him sending him off at the airport, ‘promising to phone him the next day.’ Salinger’s call to Mayfield’s office secured him a car waiting for him at the Tehran airport. He told Mayfield he was going to see Julia and to meet him there within the hour.
A Spy in the Shadows (Spy Noir Series Book 1) Page 18