PLEDGE OF HONOR: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  ‘Yes,’ Younesi had repeated, deep in thought. ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘Of course,’ the man had continued, ‘it would necessitate two attacks, two teams, preferably ones who would know nothing about the other.’

  ‘Of course,’ Younesi had said automatically, nodding his head. ‘The first just a decoy, a feint, before the real thing.’

  He could already see the beauty of it. Most events that brought together leaders from around the world – UN debates, Olympic Games finals, G8 meetings – were planned months, if not years, in advance, and security was fully embedded. A memorial event for an unexpected terrorist attack would be something that would be arranged quickly, on the fly, and it would be impossible to protect it to the same standards.

  ‘Yes,’ the man had said, ‘but whoever did this would need to ensure that the first attack – although not against the actual target – would be something truly horrific, something to really get the public pissed off, something so sickening that there would be no major Western leader who would be willing to miss the memorial parade which would surely be arranged soon after.’

  ‘The second group would have to be in the selected city already, ready to go.’

  ‘Of course, as there would be no way to know how long it would be until such a parade was arranged. A few days at most, I would suspect.’

  ‘But which city?’ Younesi had wondered. As commander of the Office of Europe, it would have to be something within his sphere of influence. ‘Paris again?’

  The man had shaken his head. ‘Not sure if it would work again in the same place, probably wouldn’t get the same level of response. They’ve been through it before. Someplace new would be better, I think.’

  ‘Yes,’ Younesi had agreed. ‘And if the American president is to attend this time, then perhaps a country with solid ties to the US, even . . . a ‘special relationship’?’

  ‘London?’ the man had said, thinking for several moments before smiling widely again. ‘That sounds perfect.’

  And that was the way it had been, just a suggestion from a colleague that had set Younesi off on months of planning, and not a little soul-searching.

  What action could possibly be so horrific that international outcry would be guaranteed? That would bring leaders to London from all over the world? The first word that had come into his mind was ‘children’, but he had crossed it out automatically.

  But as he had gone through the alternatives, there was nothing to really beat it for psychological impact, and the word kept on coming back to him, sometimes keeping him awake at night.

  Indeed, sometimes he would leave his sleeping wife in her bed and stroll down the hallway of his home to look in on his own children, sleeping so innocently and peacefully. Were children not the same all over the world? Did Western children not deserve the same protection as his own?

  But it was not his job to protect Western children. Innocent of the crimes of adults they might well be, but they would one day grow into those adults, to serve the Great Satan – and he knew all too well that it was a policy of the West to destroy his beloved Islamic Republic, to spread the evil doctrine of all-out capitalism to the four corners of the world. They wouldn’t be happy until Iran was just another consumer of American products, its people slaves to the faithless corporations that ran that corrupt nation, the nation that all other western states followed like puppies.

  Empty and vacant. Idolatrous and greedy.

  Evil.

  Evil, and a threat to his own country – and therefore a threat to his own children.

  And so it was that he had justified his choice and – over the months that followed – come to see it as the only option he had, the only one that made sense. It was, he had decided, completely in accordance with velayat faqih, the specific belief system of the Islamic Republic – and so, plans at last finished, he had approached the director of the Second Directorate.

  The man had been appalled but impressed; and yet he hadn’t been entirely sure. What if Iranian involvement was discovered? Wouldn’t all-out war with Britain and her allies – including the United States – be the likely result?

  But Younesi had told him that discovery was almost an impossibility, that he was experienced in these proxy operations and was an expert in keeping things secure.

  Added to which, he’d added, attacking Iran wasn’t quite as easy as attacking Iraq had been. Her armed forces were far larger and more professional, the land itself far larger and harder to maneuver across; and then there was the question of Iran’s nuclear program. Did she or didn’t she have access to such weapons? Despite all their efforts, western intelligence still didn’t know.

  But the answer was ‘yes’, if only in small amounts – and it would be enough to stay the West’s hand, if this knowledge was finally made public.

  Satisfied, the director went to the Minister of Intelligence and Security, who put the matter before the Supreme Leader for final authorization.

  Younesi remembered how nervous he had felt, the excitement that had followed when he had finally been told to go ahead with the plan.

  And now that plan was finally in action, and the first phase had gone beautifully – horrifically, but beautifully. He had avoided looking at photographic evidence of the carnage, unable to bring himself to see the devastation he had unleashed; but the results spoke for themselves, with a memorial arranged exactly as planned.

  Fifty world leaders were due to attend, and this time the US president was one of them.

  His second team and everything they needed were already in place near Wembley, and now it just a waiting game.

  But what was this man doing in the MOIS basement? Was it possible that his presence here indicated a threat that could derail the whole thing?

  He’d received word about this unknown man through the embassy in Serbia – a relatively friendly nation to Iran, despite her ongoing flirtations with the European Union. He had apparently been arrested after a firefight in a Belgrade concentration camp, and brought to the city’s central police station.

  But then he had asked for someone from the Iranian embassy to visit him, and when that person had arrived, the man had mentioned Younesi by name – and then Radomir Milanović, Benedettu Agostini, Cristofanu Ortoli and Javid Khan.

  The embassy staff had contacted Younesi directly, and he had known each and every name that the man had reeled off.

  It had made him scared, scared enough to call the Serbian authorities and request immediate transfer of the prisoner into Iranian custody before he revealed what he knew to anyone else.

  He had basically identified the chain that linked Iran to the attacks, and which might also lead to the secondary force still waiting for action in London.

  Javid Khan, he had already heard about, and the incident had disturbed him greatly. The man’s orders had been to escape as soon as the first phase was over, to leave the city and never come back. So why had he been in London, and why had he gone to visit the scene of the crime? Had he simply been crazy?

  Younesi was concerned because – even though the man had mercifully been killed before he could be questioned – British investigators could still look into his past now that they had a name to work with, and who knew what they would discover?

  The man in the MOIS basement had obviously discovered something, Younesi knew – the names all the way from Khan to Younesi. And if he knew, then who else knew?

  It was a question he needed answering, which was why he’d had the man flown here to Tehran.

  It wasn’t work he enjoyed, but he would get those answers one way or another.

  Finishing his milkshake, visions of his innocent childhood gone for now, he rose from his chair and left the café.

  It was time to visit the dungeon.

  3

  Cole had arrived at his final destination blindfolded and hooded, as he had been since leaving the Iranian embassy back in Belgrade.

  He’d been beaten and bundled into the back of what seemed to
be a van, and driven for about an half an hour before being unloaded, beaten some more, and then loaded again, this time onto an airplane.

  The flight had been a little over three hours in Cole’s estimation – which could very well have put him in Tehran, though he had no real way of knowing.

  He was transferred again, to a new set of people who – after the seemingly obligatory beating – threw him into the back of another van. They drove for another hour or so, mainly on a fast highway before slowing for what seemed from the sounds outside the van to be a city.

  Finally he was hauled out once more, slapped around again, and dragged into a building, along a corridor, through a doorway and down a long flight of stairs.

  He was getting tired of basements, he’d thought unhappily.

  With the blindfold and the hood, he had no real way of knowing where he was, but sounds of the corridors back upstairs had given him some information. The people around him had been talking in Farsi, a language Cole was familiar with. It was Persian, almost identical to the Dari spoken in Afghanistan; but he recognized this as the version spoken in Iran.

  Combined with the travel time from Serbia, the influence of Younesi, the speaking of Farsi, and the fact that he was in the middle of what seemed to be a huge city, Cole therefore guessed that he had been taken to MOIS headquarters in Tehran.

  Despite the beatings, he was happy – his plan was working.

  But with the happiness came trepidation, if not outright fear quite yet – for the basement dungeons of MOIS were hardly the nicest of places to be.

  But it had really been the only option available to him.

  Sitting in the Serbian jail trying to think of a way to break out, he’d finally decided not to bother. Even if he managed to escape, how was he going to get into Iran? It wasn’t the friendliest of nations to western tourists, and there wasn’t enough time to wait for Vinson or Michiko to send him some new ID, or to create a convincing cover story.

  And if he actually managed to enter Iran, how would he move about freely, without suspicion? And how would he find Mohammed Younesi?

  There were just too many variables, and so Cole decided to let Younesi himself do all the work.

  And so he had got word to Younesi that he was a dangerous man, that he knew all about the links between Younesi – and therefore the Iranian government – and Javid Khan.

  Just as Cole suspected, Younesi had been unable to resist the urge to bring him over to Iran, presumably so that he could be interrogated properly. Younesi would want very much to find out who Cole was, who he worked for, and who else knew what he knew.

  Now all that remained was to wait to meet the man himself.

  Cole had no idea how long had passed since reaching the subterranean rooms, but he guessed it must have stretched into several hours.

  During that time he’d not been fed, and nor had he received any water; the hood and blindfold had also stayed on since Serbia, and – even though he knew mentally that everything was designed to provide sensory deprivation so that he would be easier to interrogate – it was still hard to deal with on an emotional level.

  Experts used such tactics for a reason – they had been proven to work, time after time.

  But Cole had some tactics of his own, and was thus able to combat many of the debilitating effects of such treatment.

  He counted in his head to try and keep track of time; he kept his ears open for the sound of shoes on the hard floor to try and guess how many people there were around him at any given time; he tried to individualize his captors from the way they smelled – garlic here, nicotine there; he tried to get a sense of his surroundings as he moved by listening for echoes, trying to form an image in his mind like a bat, even imagined himself as a bat to try and keep his mind alive and working.

  And that, he knew, was really the key – it wasn’t so much what he concentrated on, but rather the fact that he was concentrating, that would save him from the worst effects of the sensory deprivation.

  Although hungry, he could cope without food for quite a while longer; he couldn’t, however, remember the last time he’d had anything to drink, and was worried about dehydration. It wouldn’t kill him for some considerable time yet, but it would lower his physical capacities, blunt his reflexes.

  Even more reason, he knew, to keep his mind sharp.

  The beatings, also, were meant to break him mentally more than physically. It wasn’t that the blows were particularly hard, when they came; it was just that with the hood on, he had no idea when or where they would come from.

  Some people, he knew, would therefore keep their entire bodies in a permanent state of tension as a result, just in case. But this would only exhaust him even more quickly, and so Cole – despite the temptation to do otherwise – kept himself loose and relaxed.

  It was painful but, he reminded himself, it would have been painful anyway; and at least by staying relaxed he would have more energy if he needed to act.

  At first, he had been chained to the wall of a cold stone room, not unlike the concentration camp basement back in Belgrade; then he had been moved to what seemed to be an ordinary cell, putrid with the stench of human feces that was doubtless from a well-used hole in the cell floor; then he had been hauled out once more and left tied to a radiator in a tiled corridor.

  He knew it was the same tactics, to keep him guessing, to mess with his mind; but he used it to his advantage, counting his paces as he moved, working out a mental picture of his environment. It might have been accurate, it might have been completely off, but it kept his mind focused and that was all that mattered.

  And then, finally, he was brought into a room – brightly lit, he could see even through the blindfold and hood – and was sat down on a high-back wooden chair, secured by chains.

  For a time there was silence, and then – without warning, so that he had no time to close to his eyes to protect the retinas – his hood was ripped off, the blindfold too, and the strong light blinded him after so long in the dark.

  Again, he knew it was for the disorientation effect, but that didn’t stop it being terribly painful.

  He closed his eyes as quickly as he could, but the damage was done, and he saw stars dancing across the inside of his eyelids, stars in a sea of fire.

  But eventually, gradually, his eyes began to adjust to the light filtering through his closed lids, and he risked opening them slowly, millimeter by precious millimeter.

  Still nobody had spoken, which added to the dread feeling of the unknown that – despite himself – he couldn’t help but suffer from.

  His eyes finally opened fully, and they took in a blurred image ahead of him, across what looked like a table.

  Was it a person?

  His eyes continued to focus more clearly, and he was finally able to make out a face – thick and hard, with eyes that Cole knew were used to ordering death and pain. And yet the mouth beneath the man’s bushy moustache was formed into something of a smile.

  Was this Mohammed Younesi?

  The man spoke in Farsi, and Cole noted that two men – who must have been stood behind him, to either side – immediately came to attention and left the room.

  This was surely a good sign, Cole thought; this introductory interview wasn’t going to get physical. Not at first anyway; the guards could always be summoned back inside though.

  It was also comforting that they were not in one of the cells, but instead – Cole could see now that his eyes had adjusted to the light – a rather neutral and unthreatening interview room, not too far removed from what one would find in any American police department.

  Cole thought he knew why, too – Younesi had no idea what his prisoner knew, and wanted to be alone in case he said something incriminating. That in itself was interesting, Cole thought; what did Younesi have to hide?

  He also figured that Younesi would be confused by Cole’s actions back in Belgrade. Why had he surrendered himself to the Iranian authorities? The question of what he wante
d must have been a troubling one for the Iranian spymaster, and Younesi must have wanted some privacy until he could work out the answer.

  After the guards had left them alone, Younesi’s dark eyes met Cole’s.

  ‘Hello,’ the man said clearly, in English.

  Not good morning, good afternoon or good evening, Cole noted, and he was impressed by the professionalism of these little details – the man obviously still wanted to keep him as disoriented as possible.

  Cole didn’t respond, but that didn’t seem to faze the man in the slightest. ‘I am Mohammed Younesi,’ he continued, confirming Cole’s suspicions, ‘and I believe you know something about me, am I right?’

  Still Cole didn’t answer; for now, he thought, he’d let Younesi do all the talking.

  Younesi chuckled. ‘Yes, you know something about me, and yet I know nothing about you. Now, I am a reasonable man, but that doesn’t seem very fair, does it? And so I would like to find out about you, my friend. Everything about you.’

  The man’s tones were friendly, but Cole wasn’t fooled for an instant. Mohammed Younesi was, after all, the man who had orchestrated an attack on an elementary school that left over seventy children dead.

  And so despite the smiles, Cole knew that this interview was going to be far from easy.

  4

  ‘So,’ Younesi began in his friendly tones, ‘do you want to tell me who you are, and who you work for? It will save you a lot of pain and unpleasantness if you just tell me now, you must believe me.’

  Cole paused. He’d already decided he was going to go with the Mark White identity, it could be checked back to the UK by Younesi’s staff and would explain his involvement with Javid Khan. But he didn’t want to reveal too much, too soon; if he just gave up his identity immediately, Younesi would sense that something was amiss.

  ‘Can we start with Javid Khan?’ Cole asked, opening up the dialogue. He wanted this interrogation to be a two-way affair, and in order to get Younesi to tell him anything, he was going to have to be open from the start. Just as Younesi undoubtedly was, Cole was an expert in interrogation and tactical questioning. It would be harder from this side of the table, and Cole would have to rely on psychological tricks rather than physical coercion, but it was still possible.