Crusader One (Tier One Thrillers Book 3)

by Brian Andrews

  “You ready for this?” she asked.

  He blew air through pursed lips. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  “We’re a team, you and me. Everything we do, we do together. It is our bond and our commitment to each other as a couple that validates our legends. Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “Deception has an odor,” she continued, taking his hand in hers. “People can smell it. If we’re stopped and questioned, our history is our shield.” She pulled his hand over and pressed it to her heart. “This is what they will question; this is the only thing that can save us.”

  He felt her heart pounding, strong and certain beneath his palm. He looked into her bold hazel eyes and he saw adoration, and certainty, and yes, even love. He exhaled all his anxiety and tried to muster those same feelings for her. He tried pretending that she was Kate, that his ex-wife was the woman sitting across from him, but it had the opposite effect of what he wanted. Frustrated, he closed his eyes and thought back to the afternoon he and Elinor had spent together in Tel Aviv. Snapshots danced to the front of his mind—their kiss, the angst she felt at the 1994 bombing memorial on Dizengoff Street, then later her courage talking down the girl in a suicide vest during the rocket attack on Jerusalem, her competency under fire engaging the IRGC—and he felt a spark. Instead of substituting Kate’s face on Elinor’s body, he tried the reverse. He Photoshopped Elinor into all the most powerful memories he had from the early years of his marriage, when he and Kate’s partnership had been healthy, and strong, and unbreakable. And as he revised history, he felt gravity shift beneath him. Elinor was a remarkable woman, and he found himself yearning for her.

  He opened his eyes and told her all of this without uttering a single word.

  “Very good,” she said and smiled. “We’re ready.”

  The drive into Sanandaj took almost an hour through the twisting mountain turns and switchbacks of Route 46. Dempsey’s stomach tensed with anxiety every time a set of converging headlights appeared, but they reached the outskirts of the city without incident.

  “Where exactly are we going?” he asked, eying an approaching car warily.

  “A doctor’s house.”

  “You mean a safe house?”

  “No, no, you’re thinking in the wrong paradigm. These people are not Persian. They’re altruistic, liberal Westerners just like Corbin Odell. They’re not spies operating under NOCs. They’re real doctors working for a real NGO.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize,” he said, suddenly thinking that maybe he hadn’t studied up on this part of the mission as well as he should have. “What about our two dead escorts?”

  “They were Persians and working as paid Mossad assets. That’s not important. All you need to remember is that we’re coming from Marivan. We were working there when the Israeli raid happened. Our facility was damaged in the attack, and we’re angry and upset.”

  “Should I behave overtly anti-Semitic?”

  “Absolutely not. These type of people don’t discriminate based on race, religion, or gender, but they are committed humanitarians and strongly antiwar. You and I were critical of Israel and its foreign policy before the attack. Now, we are furious.”

  Dempsey nodded. “All right, fine. I can do that. But I’m concerned about their response when we show up alone. The other assets are supposed to be our escorts.”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said.

  “They’re dead, Elinor. How do we explain that?”

  She glanced at him, not hiding her irritation. “First of all, these people don’t know about the border INFIL. They think we’re coming from Marivan as a group of four. All that matters is that we had to travel from Marivan by ourselves.”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, just tired.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, her face softening. “I’m going to be doing all the talking anyway. You don’t speak Farsi . . . or did you forget that, too?”

  She laughed at her own jab, and he couldn’t help but laugh with her.

  “I’m telling you, Elinor, screw Sanandaj; we should have gone to Sandals,” he said.

  “I know. Skinny-dipping in the surf is so much more fun than dodging mortars and evading murder squads in the desert,” she added with a wistful smile.

  They kept up a lighthearted banter for the rest of the drive, and before he knew it, they had arrived at the outskirts of the city. Sanandaj, it turned out, was bigger than Dempsey had expected, but it was nothing like a Western city. Elinor drove to the city center, looped around the central fountain, and then drove straight to their destination.

  “That’s it,” she said, driving past the two-story row house, which despite the early hour was lit inside. Dempsey scanned the street and neighboring residences.

  “You see any problems?” she asked, circling the block.

  “No.”

  “Good, me neither.”

  On the second time around the block, she parked their Toyota on the street in front of the house. Carrying only their backpacks, they walked to the door and knocked. A thirtysomething Caucasian woman answered. Her tousled platinum-blonde hair was uncovered and accented by a long blue streak running down one side; she was dressed in cutoff shorts and wore a Dartmouth hoodie unzipped low enough to show a little cleavage. There was nothing in her presentation that remotely met the Sharia rules of female conduct, modified or otherwise. She surprised him, however, when she greeted them in Farsi, a broad smile on her face. Elinor answered in Farsi, and the woman ushered them inside.

  “Do you speak English?” Elinor asked as the door shut behind her. “My husband is not fluent.”

  “Oh God, yes. As you can tell, I’m not Persian,” the woman said in an Australian accent. She laughed. “My name is Barbara. I’m the doctor on the Sanandaj team—well, we used to be a team. Like you guys, they’re pulling us out. Everyone has to evacuate except for people with surgical and trauma backgrounds.”

  “I know; it’s so upsetting.”

  “Where are the others?” Barbara asked expectantly. “I thought there were four of you.”

  “They never showed up. We don’t know what happened, but Corbin thinks they decided to stay behind,” Elinor said. “They are both from Marivan. Maybe it was hard for them to leave.”

  Smooth, Dempsey thought. Very smooth—always defaulting to the core human emotions.

  “Well, hopefully they’re okay,” Barbara said. “We’re glad you’re here safe.”

  “Thank you. I’m Ameneh by the way—a critical-care nurse—and this is my husband, Corbin. He’s a paramedic,” Elinor said.

  “Great to meet you, Barbara. And wonderful to meet another English-speaking transplant like myself. I’m from Ireland, and we Irish struggle with foreign languages, including English,” Dempsey said with a self-deprecating smile, shaking the Aussie doctor’s hand.

  “I love Ireland. I spent a summer there during my university days,” Barbara said, leading them into a living room where three others, a woman and two men, all Caucasian, sat conversing.

  “I miss it, yeah, especially now with this war brewing,” Dempsey said, smiling cordially at the others, who were dressed similarly to Barbara in sweatshirts and athletic shorts. Then, he saw another figure, a Persian male, leaning against the door frame to what looked like a kitchen beyond. Dempsey nodded, and the man nodded back, but the Persian’s dark eyes seemed to drill into him.

  “Where are you two headed next?” Barbara asked.

  “We were thinking a Sandals Resort,” Elinor added wistfully. “You?”

  This garnered an ice-breaking chuckle from the group, and Dempsey felt the tension melt away.

  “Actually, we’re traveling north, to Gorgon,” Elinor said.

  “There’s an opportunity to backfill the mission there,” Dempsey added. “It seems the beach vacation will have to wait.”

  “That’s very brave,” said a long-haired young man with a thick German accent. “Especially now
, with the Americans preparing for war.”

  “I think it’s foolish,” the other seated male said in an accent Dempsey pegged as Croatian. “You’ll have to drive through Tehran.”

  “My love is nothing if not committed,” Dempsey said, taking Elinor’s hand and patting it. “We’re not Israeli; we’re not American. I think we will be okay.”

  The Croatian responded with a good luck with your death wish shrug.

  Dempsey glanced at the Persian in the doorway. His spidey sense was tingling. Something was off about this guy, and he didn’t like the vibe.

  “Come; have some coffee,” the other, heavier-set woman said with a distinctly London accent. “Unless you prefer to nap? We have a bed made up.”

  “Coffee sounds great,” Elinor said and followed their hosts into the small kitchen where unwashed dishes lay piled in the sink and half-full coffee mugs lingered on the table.

  “This is Farvad,” Barbara said as they reached the doorway.

  “Corbin,” Dempsey said, holding out his hand and studying the man’s dark eyes. “Pleasure to meet you, mate.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Farvad said, gripping Dempsey’s hand with strong, calloused fingers. “I’m the interpreter assigned to the medical mission from the UN. Not everyone speaks Farsi like Barbara.”

  “Omigosh,” said the heavyset woman. “Farvad is much more than an interpreter. He does it all. We couldn’t get from A to B or even figure out how to get food and water, much less replenish supplies, without him. On top of all of that, he interfaces with the Iranian government to keep us out of trouble.”

  “I do what I can, when I can,” Farvad said, releasing Dempsey’s hand but holding his gaze.

  “Glad you’re on our side,” Dempsey said, searching the other man’s dark eyes for duplicity.

  “I most definitely am,” Farvad replied with a confident smile. “On your side.”

  Dempsey took a seat at the small kitchen table, positioning himself between the rear door of the house and Farvad, who went back to his post at the doorway, only this time facing into the kitchen. As Barbara poured them coffees, Dempsey eyed the Persian. Either Farvad was a VEVAK agent sent to murder them in their sleep, or he was a Mossad asset assigned to facilitate the next leg of their journey into Tehran. Odd that Elinor had not mentioned him in any of their conversations. He watched her talking and laughing with Barbara, completely unperturbed by Farvad’s presence. She was so relaxed—too relaxed, in fact—and he didn’t like it.

  He didn’t like it at all.

  CHAPTER 30

  Mossad TOC

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  Jarvis balled the fingers of his right hand into a fist and squeezed. The weakness was back, and it was not doing anything to help his already sour mood. Munn and Chunk were trying to make it back across the border at this very moment, and he was blind . . .

  Blind because of bureaucracy.

  “You need to get this shit deconflicted now, Smith, and I mean right now,” Jarvis said, leaning over Smith’s shoulder and staring at the blank terminal where their live satellite feed had been before going black on them without warning.

  His Operations Officer held up a finger and then spoke into the microphone boom attached to his earbud: “I understand . . . No, believe me, Ian, I know exactly what you’re dealing with . . . Yeah, we’re standing by.” Smith swiveled in his chair, looked up at Jarvis, and then cupping his right hand around the microphone said, “Don’t worry. Baldwin’s got this, boss.”

  Jarvis folded his arms across his chest and tapped his foot with agitation.

  After two excruciating minutes, the monitor flickered and then refreshed with satellite imagery—first showing the mountains of western Iran from altitude, then repositioning and rapidly zooming to focus on a single DPV. The tactical dune buggy was moving fast and dragging dust behind it as Chunk and Munn—the last of the INFIL team—screamed west to safety in Iraq.

  Smith shook his fists with victory as the vehicles crossed the magenta line overlay depicting the Iraq-Iran border. “Yes! They made it. Great work, Ian . . . Roger that, let’s keep eyes on them all the way back to the rally point.”

  Jarvis tapped Smith on the shoulder. “I want to know how the hell we lost our eyes in the middle of the op.”

  “There was a stop-task order from the Office of the DNI floating out there, and NSA didn’t know what to do, so they retasked our satellite. You know how it is over there. They’re afraid of their own shadow if they think political fallout is involved, but Baldwin took care of it.”

  “I want to know how. How did he take care of it? You might think we’re deconflicted now, but what about going forward? What happens when it’s time for Dempsey and Elinor to EXFIL? We’re in the middle of coordinating Ember’s charter mission, the most dangerous operation of Dempsey’s career, and we have some jackass at Fort Meade playing rice-bowl games. If that satellite gets retasked again—”

  “It won’t,” Smith interjected. “Baldwin is well connected, sir, especially at Meade. It’s been deconflicted on the inside at the deputy level.”

  Jarvis gritted his teeth and was about to lay into his Operations Officer for not getting “by name” confirmation when he saw Smith’s gaze shift at the same time he heard footsteps behind him. Jarvis turned to see Harel smiling at them.

  “If you have a moment, Director?” Harel asked and gestured to the metal staircase that led up to the glass cage he used for an office. Jarvis unclenched his right hand, and the sensation of pins and needles dissipated. He followed Harel into the office and closed the heavy metal door behind him.

  “What are you doing?” Harel said, turning to face him.

  “I’m trying to deconflict the clusterfuck known as satellite retasking,” he growled.

  “No, you weren’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Smith was doing that; you were micromanaging.”

  Jarvis sighed, loudly. “I’m not in the mood for mentoring today. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to where I’m needed.”

  “That is exactly my point. What are you doing here?”

  “My job, of course.”

  “No, you’re trying to do Smith’s job. You’re functioning here,” Harel said, putting his hand at chest level, “when you should be functioning here,” he continued, lifting his hand to his forehead. “You want to help your team? Let them deconflict at their level, and you deconflict at yours. You should be in Washington greasing skids, solidifying alliances, and trading favors. Don’t get me wrong; you needed to come to Tel Aviv to negotiate this operation with me, but once we had the green light, you should have been on the first plane back to DC.”

  Jarvis took a deep breath and exhaled through pursed lips.

  “You have a fine Operations Officer,” Harel continued. “So let him run the operation.”

  “You’re right,” Jarvis said at last. “I let myself get lost in the weeds.”

  Harel reached inside his sport coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

  “What is it?” Jarvis asked, accepting the document.

  “It’s a plane ticket home. The flight leaves in two hours. I have a driver standing by to take you to the airport.”

  “That’s very generous of you, but I can take the Boeing.”

  “Leave your jet here. From what you have told me, your acting DNI is doing everything she can to put obstacles in your way. Take a commercial flight under a NOC. Don’t give Catherine Morgan an opportunity to impound your asset in a power grab. And speaking of Morgan, you have to determine her motives, Kelso. Once you understand her endgame, the two of you either need to kiss and make up, or you need to bury her.”

  Jarvis nodded.

  “It’s time, my old friend,” Harel said, putting a hand on Jarvis’s shoulder. “Time to make good on that alliance we promised to forge on the beach two decades ago.”

  CHAPTER 31

  VEVAK Firing Range

  Tehran, Iran

&nbs
p; June 1

  1435 Local Time

  Cyrus leveled his pistol at the paper target, fixing the iron sights on the head of the silhouette. He exhaled and then squeezed the trigger. The first round found its mark, and after a brief pause, he put a second round a centimeter above it. He fired double-taps after that in a tight cluster, hollowing out the target until the final two rounds passed through the hole, not even moving the paper. He was a born marksman, Arkady had said, one of the best young shooters the Russian had ever seen. The key, Arkady had instructed him, was to find a weapon and become intimate with it. He’d chosen the Arsenal Strizh 9 mm pistol, the new favorite of the Russian Spetsnaz. Its short recoil and in-line barrel operation meant improved accuracy over weapons employing Browning tilting barrels. The grip fit his hand, the weapon was well balanced, and at seven hundred grams, it felt substantial without the heft of a Sig Sauer. On top of all the technical reasons, he just liked the look of the thing. It was a formidable piece of hardware, and when he carried the Strizh, he felt like a killer.

  He was about to recall the target when he felt a presence behind him. He set his weapon down on the counter in front of him and turned to find his uncle standing there.

  “A nice cluster, Cyrus,” Amir said. “I’m impressed.”

  “That was warm-up. Next target I move back to ten meters. Then fifteen. We’ll see what you think then.”

  Amir cocked his head to look around Cyrus at the pistol. “Can I see it?”

  “Sure, I guess,” Cyrus said with a shrug and handed the weapon with its spent magazine to his uncle.

  “The Strike One,” Modiri said, using the English name for the pistol. “I hear it was conceived by an Italian and a Russian. An intriguing partnership—no one knows how to design beautiful things better than the Italians, and no one knows how to kill things better than the Russians. Can you imagine a joint venture between Ferrari and RAC MiG to produce a fighter aircraft? It would win every engagement because the enemy would find it just too beautiful to shoot down.”