by Jack Mars
“Do you have any way for us to confirm what you’re telling us?” Luke said.
Zadeh shook his head. “Just my own word. I no longer work in government. I never kept any materials or paperwork. Possessing such things is dangerous.”
“What if you’re lying?”
“Why would I do that?”
Luke shrugged. “To make us look bad. To make us use overwhelming force against Bandar Abbas, causing civilian casualties.”
“Do you really think,” Zadeh said, “that in the eyes of the Muslim world, the United States and Israel could look any worse than they already do?”
Luke shook his head. “I don’t know. Anything else?”
That had to be it, right? Three nuclear sites. That’s all Israeli intelligence had been expecting, and they’d been keeping a pretty sharp eye on this place.
Zadeh stared at him for a long moment.
“Look, I don’t have all day, and neither do you,” Luke said.
“There is one more,” Zadeh said.
From the corner of his eyes, Luke noticed both Ari’s and Ed’s shoulders sag. Too many. Too many nukes to hit.
“It is a rumor only. I’ve never seen the facility—it was from before my time in government.”
Luke found himself calculating backward. Before this man’s time? The 1980s, the 1970s…
“The Shah?” he said.
Zadeh nodded. “Yes. From before the Revolution. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the one you call the Shah of Iran. It is said that this despot and traitor deployed several very large Cold War–era nuclear missiles just west of the city, in Khojir National Park, high in the mountains and very near to the ski resort at Tochal. They were meant to threaten the Soviets. That all seems rather quaint now.”
“We were allies with the Shah,” Ed said.
“The Americans? Yes. Who else would want to threaten the Soviets?”
“And we gave nuclear missiles to Iran? You know this for a fact?”
Zadeh shook his head. “I don’t know anything for a fact. It is, as I indicated, a rumor. The weapon transfer, if it took place, happened in the early 1960s, before satellite surveillance had become so… thorough, shall we say? I have never confirmed it. No one from my department ever visited the facility, if it even exists.”
Luke needed to call Swann and Trudy. There was a lot to check out.
It was possible, he knew. There were cover-ups and secret histories. Certain operations remained carefully undocumented. Evidence was destroyed. Deniability was maintained. The right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. Then the people on the left hand grew older, moved on, forgot everything, died.
As he watched, three shapely young women in flowing but form-fitting white robes and white hijabs entered the room from the hallway Luke and his team had come down.
“Teacher,” the first one said. “The congregation is awaiting your arrival.”
She looked at Luke and Ari. For a moment, she didn’t seem to understand what she was seeing. Then she looked at Ed. His hood was off. His veil was down. His beard was not as carefully trimmed as it normally was. His eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion. He was very tall. And thick.
She looked down at the bottom of his black gown. It barely reached his calves. He was wearing combat boots. His feet were big.
The young woman screamed. It reminded Luke of a scream from an old Hollywood horror movie.
People were the same wherever you went. She saw a monster, so she screamed.
Her two companions turned instantly and went running back up the hallway, screaming as they ran. The young woman walked to the red button.
“Don’t do that,” Luke said.
She pressed it, pushing it all the way in.
Suddenly, a clanging erupted, very loud, in this room, and everywhere. It seemed to echo throughout the building, and maybe even in the streets outside.
“Run!” Zadeh shouted at the woman. “Save yourself!”
She did as instructed, darting out of the room as Ed and Ari watched her go.
“You operating some kind of harem here,” Luke said. “Teacher?”
Zadeh shrugged. The ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. “Life is short. May as well enjoy it.”
He indicated another doorway, smaller than the one they had come in. “You better go that way. Follow it out to the alley. It will be your only chance. But hurry, or they will beat you there.”
There was shouting in the hall that came from the mosque. It was narrow, and the men had to push past the young women. Now heavy footsteps pounded on the stone floor.
“Here they come,” Ed said. He pulled a gun from under his gown, but Zadeh darted to him and put a hand on his arm.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. “Don’t shoot my people.”
Ed slammed the door and slid the bolt across the door. A second later, pounding came from the other side. Ed and Ari stepped back.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Bullet holes began to appear as the wood splintered.
“We better go,” Luke said.
* * *
They ran through a narrow tunnel, up a short flight of stairs, and they burst out into the cold morning light of the city. It was a curving alley between the mosque and nearby buildings.
A crowd of men ran at them from the left side.
The first man in line, the fastest, young, bearded, brandished a knife. He lunged at Ed, perhaps hoping to bring down the biggest one.
Ed sidestepped and punched the man in the jaw as he flew past. The young man crashed to the pavement. Luke waded in—he ducked a punch, chopped a right hand across a man’s throat, followed with a hard left to another man’s face. The man staggered backward and fell down. The next two stumbled and fell over him.
Ed threw a man against the mosque wall like a bag of laundry. The man’s head bounced off the white wall and he slowly slid to the ground.
“Hey!” someone shouted. “Hey!”
Luke and Ed turned. Ari stood behind them.
“This way. You can’t fight them all.”
Luke looked. Dozens of men were racing down the alley. A man came running up the stairs to the door Luke and his team had just come out of. Ed planted his boot in the middle of the man’s chest, and pushed him and everyone behind him right back down the stairs. It was a domino effect—a logjam of people.
“Let’s go,” Luke said.
They ran, abayas flowing, the alarm bells pealing, a crowd of raging men just seconds behind them. Assassins! Luke heard. Assassins tried to kill the teacher!
The alley emptied onto a larger thoroughfare. Light car traffic passed in either direction. Across the street, five young men had gathered on Vespa scooters, parked in a semicircle, chatting and smoking. They wore heavy jackets and gloves. Smoke and white plumes of breath rose from their mouths.
Ari darted across the street. Ed and Luke followed, the mosque congregation on their heels.
Ari punched the closest Vespa rider, knocked him to the ground, and hopped on his scooter. He turned the key in the ignition and took off down the street. Luke and Ed, one second behind, did the same. A young man tried to fight Luke for the Vespa. He kicked him away. Ed knocked his Vespa owner unconscious.
Already the crowd of mosque-goers was here, swarming across the street. Why didn’t they give up?
A man stopped in the middle of the street and pulled a gun from under a dark robe. He trained it on Ed’s massive bulk.
Luke pulled his own gun and fired from the hip. The gun bucked in his hand.
In the street, the gun flew out of the bearded man’s hand. He looked down at the hand, shaking off the sting.
“Go!” Luke screamed at Ed. “Go!”
They roared off, pulling away from the congregation. They barreled down the thoroughfare, but now they had a new problem. The two remaining Vespa riders were right behind them.
Up ahead, traffic had stopped for a light.
Ari slowed, then cut right, over a sidewalk and down a na
rrow alley. Ed did the same. Luke followed. So did the two Vespa riders.
The alley was barely wider than the bikes, the doors to people’s homes lining either side. Snow from the night before had accumulated in the alley, and the bikes skidded and slid. An old woman in black stooped over to feed a cat, saw them coming, then dove back inside. The cat leapt in the air. The plate of food went flying, crunchy kibbles landing in the shallow snow.
Luke could see a pursuing Vespa from the corner of his eye. The front tire was right there next to him. He waved a hand at the man.
“Get away!” he shouted in Farsi. “Get away!”
Ari hung a sharp left at the end of the alley, his wheels sliding across the wet ground. Ed did the same. Luke followed. So did the men behind him. Five Vespas barreled along the next street. To their right was a long building. Along the side of it, people were unloading boxes from carts and small trucks, shouting or shaking fists as the bikes zoomed by.
Somewhere nearby, sirens began to wail.
A police car was coming up the street from the opposite direction, lights flashing. It straddled the middle line.
Ari turned right and passed through a narrow green iron gate. Men with dollies piled high with boxes jumped out of the way, boxes spilling to the ground. To their left was a green wrought iron fence, ornate spikes at the top. To their left was a series of fountains, closed for the winter.
They passed through a tall minaret-shaped doorway, and instantly Luke knew where they were—the Grand Bazaar, the bazaaris getting their wares ready for the coming day. Six days a week for centuries, the Bazaar had been open for business on this same spot, and it wasn’t about to stop now. Political unrest, police crackdowns, the threat of nuclear war—that wasn’t about to keep the underwear, carpet, and hundreds of other kinds of merchants at home.
Luke was impressed.
They zoomed down a high, narrow stone passageway, festooned with silk tapestries on either side.
The man behind him had crept up next to him again. Was he insane? Luke glanced at him. The man had his helmet on, and his gloved hand was reaching for Luke. The two, very close, sped through a stone archway and entered a wide, vast room filled with colorful rugs laid out on slabs.
Luke pulled his gun again. He brought it across his body and shot the man’s front tire. The fat tired exploded and the bike stopped suddenly, the man going head over handlebars. Luke roared ahead.
He glanced back and the man had landed on a pile of rugs.
But the last Vespa was still back there, trailing at a distance.
Ari and Ed were still up ahead. They crossed the rug showroom, entered another narrow passageway, and blasted along, people scattering.
They came out into a tall circular atrium, where several passageways entered at once. The walls were mosaic tiles. Men carried heavy boxes on their shoulders, bent under the weight. Men pushed yellow metal dollies loaded with boxes.
A woman and her little boy stood in the middle of the crowded circle; she was pointing at the ceiling showing something to the child.
Ari came screaming into the atrium, swung sharply to miss the woman and her child, and crashed into a table of books in front of a store. The metal gate of the store was still down. The books went flying. Ari flew through the air and hit the metal gate. He fell to the ground, staggered to his feet, and shook his head to clear it.
Luke and Ed stopped in the middle of the atrium.
Whistles shrieked. Uniformed police came running down the passageways.
“Ari?” Luke said.
Ari seemed confused. He glanced at Luke and suddenly his eyes came alive, as if he had just remembered where he was.
“Go!” he shouted.
Luke looked back. The last Vespa was here. The young man on it stared at Luke and Ed like a dog that had finally caught the car he’d been chasing. Now what? Behind him, two police motorcycles were coming across the rug showroom, sirens blaring.
Luke’s head was on a swivel. Cops in this passageway. Cops in that passageway. Where to go? What to do?
Ari hopped on his bike. He rode over to them.
“That way,” he said, pointing off to his right. “That way is clear.”
Luke looked. To the right was a ramp that went straight up to a catwalk of some kind. The set up brought Luke a wisp of memory from his childhood—the ramps that the daredevil Evel Knievel used to ride on to approach his stunts.
There seemed to be a second level up there, at the far end of the catwalk, possibly with stores or food stalls. Above the narrow concrete catwalk was a giant crystal chandelier, the largest thing of its kind that Luke had ever seen.
What the…
“Come on, let’s go!” Ari said.
Luke and Ed didn’t have to be asked twice. Any second, this foyer would be swarming with cops.
Ed took off, Luke half a second behind him. They raced up the ramp and across the catwalk, beneath the shadow of the sparkling chandelier. The sheer size of it was like a great whale above their heads.
Luke crossed the catwalk, skidded to a halt, and looked back.
Ari wasn’t with them. He had climbed off his bike again. He had his Uzi out now. What the hell as he doing?
He looked at Luke. “What are you doing?” he shouted. “Go!”
Now Ed was back again. “What’s going on?”
Suddenly, Ari opened fire at the chandelier. He ripped into it, hosing it with bullets near its base. Crystal bulbs shattered, shards of glass flew. Then the entire massive fixture fell from the ceiling, dropped twenty feet, and crashed into the catwalk. An instant later, the concrete of the catwalk cracked, fell apart, and the entire bridge went tumbling down, crashing to the floor of the empty level below it.
Luke and Ed found themselves across a chasm from Ari and the police, who were now closing in. There was no way to get over there. Ari might as well have been on the other side of the Grand Canyon from them.
Ari dropped the gun.
The first policeman arrived. Ari punched him to the ground. Another came. And another. He fought them. More came. He waded in.
He fell back, his arms nearly pinned by police. He pulled his arms free. Ari’s bike crashed to the ground, three cops tumbling on top it. Ari swung. More cops came.
He disappeared beneath them.
Luke and Ed exchanged a disbelieving look.
Ari had just sacrificed himself for them.
And there was no way to go back and save him.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
5:30 a.m. Israel Time (6:30 a.m. Tehran Time, 10:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 14)
Tel Aviv, Israel
The phone was ringing.
Swann opened his eyes. The heavy blinds were drawn, and it was still dark in the hotel room. He was curled into a ball on the couch. If he tried to stretch out, his feet and his head extended past the arms. It was a small couch. He rolled over and sat upright with his feet on the floor.
The satellite phone rang through his computer speakers—pleasant tones, rising and falling almost like chimes. He looked around the hotel room. The place was a mess. Clothes strewn about, computer equipment all over a fold-out table, wires snaking everywhere, empty food boxes and trays, dirty plastic utensils, cans of soda and beer.
“Swann!” Trudy said. “Are you going to answer that?”
He looked at her through a pair of half open French doors. She was on his big, king-sized bed, also curled into a ball. Why was a tiny little person like Trudy curled into a ball on his huge bed? It would make a lot more sense for Trudy to be curled up on the couch, where she would easily fit, and Swann to be sprawled out as much as he wanted, limbs extended like a giant bird, on the bed.
Certainly he would have slept better under that arrangement.
“Why are you even in here?” Swann said. “Don’t you have a room?”
“Swann! It’s probably Luke.”
Luke. Shit.
A rush of adrenaline kicked in. Swann checked his watch and sna
pped out of it. 5:30. He had stayed awake all night waiting for his call. He remembered being up and seeing 4:52 on the clock. He must have fallen asleep shortly thereafter.
Swann stumbled across the carpeted floor to the computer. He slid into his chair, put his headphones on, and answered the phone.
“Helu,” he said.
“Swann. Two things. I need to make a report, and then I need you to help me.”
His voice was frantic, as always.
“Is everything all right?” Swann asked, sensing the worst.
“No. We lost Ari.”
Swann’s heart dropped.
“Is he…”
“He was captured. We need to get him back. That’s what I need your help with. In the meantime, pass on this information.”
Luke started talking. He had confirmed another nuke site, debunked one the Israelis thought was a nuke site, and uncovered one they hadn’t known about. He had also heard of a rumored site, where there might be leftover Cold War–era nukes.
What he had achieved was mind-boggling. As Swann typed it all down, Swann dimly realized that the information he was about to convey could change the course of human history.
Swann got it all. He glanced at his watch. Getting on toward 11 p.m. in Washington, DC. He’d better relay this before they broke for the night.
“What’s the story with Ari?” he said.
“There was a chase and he sacrificed himself to save us. And we’re not going to leave him behind.”
Swann shook his head. He knew this was going to be bad.
“What can I do?” Swann said.
“Find him. We’re in Tehran. He’s a foreigner, and they’re going to assume he’s a spy. They must have somewhere in town that they take prisoners like that. They must have to transfer them from place to place. Look, if they find out he’s an Israeli, they’re just going to torture and kill him. We need to break him out before that happens.”