Zac found himself standing in a small stream. He was in desperate need of water. Still, he expected the current running around his feet to once again be undrinkable. He bent down and rinsed his hands. The fast-moving water was cold, numbingly cold, but he cupped his hands together and brought it up to his face. He tested it with his tongue and it tasted clean enough. He knelt down and drank until his stomach cramped, but this time the pain was only from drinking too quickly. He smiled.
Small victories.
Zac stayed by the stream until he was rehydrated. It took longer than he’d expected, but the water was like a tonic, and with it came renewed strength and clarity of mind. He stripped naked and washed his filthy body and clothes in the cold water.
He looked to the east. The light of dawn was already glowing over the mountain peaks. Even with his limited survival and evasion training, he knew that he should travel under the cover of darkness, but he also knew that he needed to put more distance between himself and the shot-up Toyota that would soon become the starting point for the Iranian manhunt.
The sun rose above the distant mountains, warming him as he dressed. He reached down into the stream bed and smeared the thick clay over his face and hands. It would camouflage his exposed skin and serve as a primitive sunscreen.
He headed south, along the side of the mountain to avoid being silhouetted against the sky. It took almost two hours of steady hiking to reach the trees he’d seen the night before. The tallest ones, twenty-five to thirty-five feet high, turned out to be pistachio trees. He shook them like an angry bear and nuts fell everywhere. He filled his stomach and then the pockets of his parka. It was the first food he’d had in over four days. Zac emptied most of his canteen to wash down his food and set off with renewed vigor and confidence.
The topography changed during the next several hours of hiking. The land became less arid and the sagebrush shared the ground with low grasses and more frequent stands of trees. Down in the valley, the colors were more vibrant. There was less gray and more green.
Only the relentless pounding of the sun remained constant. By the afternoon Zac was again stumbling across the ground. He’d slept little more than an hour in the past day. Each unsteady step risked a dangerous fall in the unforgiving wilderness. It was time to rest.
He found a patch of shade under a saxaul tree and lowered himself to the ground. His body was shutting down in stages, demanding more water, more sleep, and more food. He set the rifle against a rock and stripped off his boots and the parka. Exhaustion overwhelmed him as he closed his eyes.
A light breeze blew in from the west, providing a moment of relief for his overheated body. The tiny leaves on the saxaul tree rustled softly. It was the first peaceful moment he’d had since landing in Iran.
He was sure he was dreaming when he heard a voice.
“Salam!”
It called out again. “Khosh, amadid.”
Zac turned to see a wiry man clad in dusty clothes walking toward him. He was a few inches taller than Zac, and probably fifteen or twenty years older. His tone was neutral, but the language was completely foreign.
“Shoma ahleh koja hastid?”
The man’s ruddy face and scruffy beard were framed by a white chafiye wrapped around his head to protect against the sun and sand. He swung a walking stick in one hand as he approached.
“Mitoonam ke komaketoon konam?”
The man stopped twenty feet away. He’d been smiling at first, but his expression changed to one of concern. Concern for whom, Zac could not be sure. The stranger was staring at Zac’s torn and bloodied shirt.
“Zakhmee shodee?”
The man was perplexed by Zac’s silence, as if a foreigner in such a remote and hostile place was inconceivable.
Zac made the “OK” sign with his thumb and index finger, slowly stood up, and walked toward the man, his palms up to show he meant no harm. The man stiffened and moved back. Zac halted, anxious to avoid a confrontation.
“Man bayad beravam. Mo’afagh bashed.”
The man turned and began to walk away. He looked over his shoulder and the two men locked eyes. Zac tried to appear conciliatory, but he was bloodied, battered, and the rifle lay near him on the ground. The man burst into a run and Zac instinctively gave chase.
EIGHTEEN
CHRISTINE KIRBY WALKED into the gym at CIA’s London station and spotted Ted Graves across the floor, dripping sweat and doing sit-ups with a ten-kilogram plate held to his chest. She stood at his feet until Graves finished and slid the weight to the floor.
“Thirty-seven reps, not bad for an old guy,” she said.
“I guess you missed the first sixty-three,” said Graves. “How did you find this place? I didn’t know you knew where it was.”
“I’m free anytime you’d like to test your stamina.”
Graves looked at Kirby and smirked. Though he was in peak condition, she was ten years younger and had been a nationally ranked distance swimmer at West Point. Now she won half-Ironman races in her spare time, which was almost nonexistent. They both knew she’d kick his ass in anything that didn’t involve pure strength.
“I’m guessing you didn’t come down here to support your boss’s physical fitness. What’s up?” He extended his arm for a hand up off the floor.
She threw a gym towel in his face and motioned to an empty bench along the wall. They sat down and Graves took a long drink of water.
“It’s about SNAPSHOT,” she said.
“Have you found Miller?”
“No, and we’re not the only ones looking for him. There was a murder in Paris and INTERPOL has matched the prints at the scene with Miller’s.”
“Wonderful . . . Who’s the victim?”
“Female, late twenties, maybe early thirties. No ID so far. Multiple stab wounds and evidence of sexual activity, but the French police haven’t determined if it was consensual or not. It wasn’t pretty.”
“How the hell did they match Miller’s prints?”
“He’s in the FBI’s IAFIS database. He has a pistol permit back in the States.”
“What a disaster. This is the kind of thing that Clements doesn’t understand. You can’t just send someone out into the field without a full psychological workup. Giving an analyst a polygraph and vetting someone for clandestine ops are totally different exercises.”
They sat in silence until Graves took out his secure cell phone and Kirby stood to leave.
“Stay here,” Graves said as he dialed. Peter Clements answered after a few rings.
“Hey, Peter. Do you remember when we called Miller in Paris just before he left? What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know exactly. He mentioned something about staying at a friend’s apartment. What’s up?”
“Nothing really, just building a timeline. You don’t have a name by any chance, do you?”
“No. He was only planning to be gone for a day or two until we got the take from Sirjan.”
“OK, thanks.”
Graves hung up the phone. “Where did the murder happen?”
“Upscale apartment building. Don’t know if it was the victim’s place or not.”
“Clements said Miller may have been staying at a friend’s apartment while he was there. Maybe that’s where he killed her.”
“Ted, I don’t know Miller well, but I just don’t see him as a ‘crime of passion’ type of guy.”
“Neither do I. And if cold-blooded murder is cover for whatever is really going on, we may have a much bigger problem on our hands. Find out everything about Miller’s trip to Paris, ASAP.”
NINETEEN
ZAC DOUBTED HIS decision almost immediately, but he kept up the pursuit. The older man was surprisingly quick over the rocky ground, using his walking stick for balance. But youth was on Zac’s side. Ignoring the pain in his bare feet, he sprinted over the g
round and tackled the stranger. The man tried to get up, but Zac grabbed one of his legs and threw him to the ground. The man lay back on his elbows, looking hateful and defiant. Zac stared back, and realized he had no idea what to do next.
A dozen goats dotted the rocks below, foraging for vegetation. The man was probably a herder, maybe even a nomad, who had stumbled upon a sleeping stranger. Zac realized that he would either have to let the herder go on his way, or kill him. With no common language there could be no middle ground, no negotiating, no apology for a simple misunderstanding.
Zac decided to leave. He was not going to murder an innocent man. He turned and began to walk back uphill. He made it two steps when his right leg erupted in pain. He cried out and fell to the ground.
The herder had swung the heavy end of his walking stick into Zac’s knee. Writhing on his back, Zac looked up and saw the stick coming again, its thick end cutting a wide arc through the air. He rolled to his side and the hard wood thudded against his back. A third blow struck the side of his head and his world turned blurry. He saw the silhouette of the herder above him.
Zac watched in slow motion as the herder flipped the walking stick in his hands and grasped it by the thick end. He raised it above his head and thrust it down like a spear toward Zac’s chest. He rolled out of the way and the stick plowed several inches into the hard ground. When his attacker bent to retrieve it, Zac grasped the narrow end and swept the man’s legs. The herder fell and the stick broke free from the hard earth.
The two men fought on the ground, each trying to wrest the weapon from the other. The herder kicked Zac in the face, and Zac jammed the stick into the herder’s gut, but neither man yielded. The herder landed a second kick to Zac’s face, then a third. Zac couldn’t get out of the way. He began to feel faint. The herder connected with another kick to the head and Zac realized that he was in a fight for his life, and he was losing. He rolled onto his side and twisted the stick, forcing the herder to roll with it or lose the weapon. When the herder turned onto his stomach, Zac let go of the stick and rose to his feet. He jumped onto the herder’s back and drove his knee into the man’s spine, pinning him to the ground. The herder screamed.
Zac punched him in the back of the head, trying to knock him unconscious, but the herder thrashed about, trying to free himself. The man was strong. Twice he rolled onto his side and nearly broke loose. Zac was desperate. He hooked his arm under the man’s neck and pulled. The herder gasped for air. Zac pulled and twisted, wrestling with his stubborn enemy. The exertion was too much for Zac’s weary body. Stars formed before his eyes. His balance began to slip away. In a last, desperate move, he reached down with his free hand and wrenched the man’s neck until it snapped.
Zac rolled off the dead man’s back and lay on the ground, staring up at the sky and struggling to catch his breath. He looked at the herder’s body, just inches away. His head lay unnaturally to one side, his eyes open. Zac was overcome with despair. The man didn’t deserve to die. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Zac exhaled deeply and stared into the distance. This was not how he’d imagined his life unfolding. He’d joined CIA to protect people, not kill them.
After a while he dusted himself off and got back into survival mode. He switched clothes with the dead man, donning his faded green pants and blue windbreaker. He tied the chafiye clumsily around his own head and neck. There were cigarettes and a lighter in the man’s jacket, but nothing else. Zac kept the lighter and dragged the body a few yards before setting it down at the edge of the rocky slope. He left and returned with his boots and rifle.
He crept to the top of the rockslide and lowered himself to the ground. He leveled the AK-47, exhaled, and dropped the nearest goat with a clean shot just behind the shoulder. The rest of the herd scattered as the report of the rifle echoed through the valley. Zac scrambled down the rocks and slit the wounded animal’s throat with his knife. When the goat had bled out, he butchered one of its meaty legs and tossed the carcass off a nearby cliff.
He looked at the dead herder. The sound and feel of his spine as it snapped would haunt Zac for the rest of his life, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He lifted the dead man onto his shoulder and heaved him onto the rocks below. The lifeless figure tumbled down the steep slope, scattering the goats that had just begun to return. Anyone finding the corpse would be hard pressed to tell that it wasn’t the fall that had killed him.
Zac walked until sunset. He found a secluded spot on the side of a hill and made a fire ring out of nearby stones. He built the sides high, to hide the flames and concentrate the heat. Soon the smell of roasting goat meat permeated the night air.
He climbed to a nearby peak while the meat cooked. It was a clear night, and he could see for miles in every direction. He lay down with his head on a rock and stared up at the heavens. The stars shone brilliantly, like diamonds scattered across black velvet. Out in the wilderness, with no cities or highways, Zac savored the solitude and the silence. The aroma of the cooking meat and the natural beauty around him helped him relax. He took several slow, deep breaths and went to check on dinner.
He devoured the goat leg and decided to put some miles behind him in case anyone had spotted the smoke from his fire. He hiked for two hours before exhaustion forced him to stop.
* * *
• • •
IT WAS MID-MORNING when he awoke, splayed out upon a hot and uneven slab of rock. His nostrils burned as he inhaled the dry desert air. The chafiye shielded his face from the sun, but the heat broiled his body where it lay. His training told him to find some shade and wait until night to move again, but he set out in search of water.
Zac’s head pounded as he stumbled through dry stream beds and thickets of scrub. He looked under rocks and in the shade, but there was no water. He searched for hours until he tripped over an exposed root and fell. Sprawled on the ground, unable to move, his cheek lay flat against the dusty desert floor. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the hazy blue sky. Wisps of white cirrus clouds blew gently through the upper atmosphere. His body was shutting down.
It’s time to stop fighting, time to quit running. I give up.
TWENTY
“THERE ARE THOSE in my government who see a resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood as a desirable outcome, Mr. Graves. They think that by supporting the organization, regardless of how destabilizing it might be, they can gain control over it,” said the representative from Egypt.
“We learned with bin Laden in Afghanistan that that strategy doesn’t always work.” Appearing as a mid-level program officer with USAID, Ted Graves was attending a cocktail party at the Polish embassy as part of his official cover.
“I have used the bin Laden example many times,” said the Egyptian. “And the Saudis have learned the same painful lesson with the Wahhabis. Yet our leadership believes that once the Brotherhood is on the payroll they will be able to turn the insurgency on and off like a switch. However, I fear the Brotherhood will not be so easily controlled.”
“And no one in your government will listen?” Graves’s carefully constructed facade was a critical part of his job. More than half of CIA’s foreign assets were “walk-ins,” individuals who approached American officials at events such as this one. Graves thought the Egyptian might be taking the first step, but it was a dangerous dance, and no one wanted to have their toes stepped on.
The envoy was about to respond when Graves’s secure cell phone rang. He excused himself and walked to the middle of the room. Any listening devices in the embassy would be useless among the dozens of conversations.
“Ted, it’s Christine. I need you. We have some developments on SNAPSHOT. Miller was exchanging suspicious text messages with someone in Paris just before he left London. He was setting up a rendezvous.”
Graves subtly changed the grip on his phone to obscure his mouth.
“Was it the victim?”
“
I don’t think so. The French police believe the vic was a streetwalker, and the phone bill is tied to a fancy address in the sixth arrondissement.”
“Who owns the phone?”
“It’s registered to a G. Marchand.”
“What do we know about Marchand?”
“Nothing. I didn’t want to beat the bushes in case he was somehow connected to the Agency, but it sounds as if you’ve never heard of him. Do you want me to call a contact over there and do a little digging?”
“Definitely not. Marchand might be involved in the murder or Miller’s disappearance in Iran. The Iranians and the French have a long history of intelligence sharing and commercial ties, and if they don’t know that Miller is CIA, then I don’t want to alert them. I don’t trust them any more than they trust us.” A few partygoers drifted within earshot and Graves moved casually across the room. “What did Miller’s text messages say?”
“Aside from setting up the rendezvous, not much. They took place over a couple of weeks and they’re cryptic. Stuff like, ‘Is this finally going to happen?’ ‘That’s up to you.’ ‘I’m not sure I’ll recognize you.’ ‘I’ll reserve a table under my name.’ Stuff like that. No useful details.”
“I want surveillance on Marchand and get NSA into his e-mail and phone to see if he’s made contact with Miller since he left Paris. Dig up everything you can on this guy, but keep it in-house. I don’t want to draw any more attention to Miller.”
Kirby hesitated for a moment. “Ted, there is one more thing . . .”
“Go ahead.”
“Miller killed someone in Singapore too.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE THREE OFF-ROAD trucks were painted in the tan desert camouflage of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. A dozen soldiers sat on the ground, resting in the shade of the parked vehicles while their officer conferred with two of his sergeants at a nearby map table. The temporary command post had been up and running for less than four hours when the men heard the distinctive sound of an approaching two-bladed helicopter. They turned to watch the Iranian Huey fly swiftly through the valley, the pilot skillfully banking and turning as he negotiated the rocky hills and mountains. A massive cloud of dust enveloped the brown-and-tan helicopter as it landed.
Warning Light Page 8