by Andy Maslen
“Vareshabad is swarming with Revolutionary Guards. What if he has one with him as a bodyguard in the car?” Gabriel asked.
Eli smiled and shrugged. Ran a finger behind her ear to replace a strand of hair.
“Plan B. We do him at his house. Get rid of the bodyguard first. He won’t be expecting trouble. Probably sees it as a boring babysitting job for the egghead. I had to do it myself once. You try to kid yourself it’s vital, but it’s dull compared to frontline work or covert stuff.”
Gabriel smiled as he mimed opening a book – Publisher talk , he conveyed with his hands. Nothing to worry about .
“Fine. Let’s say he does have a bodyguard. So we get to Darbandi’s house before they do and ambush them there. We wait till they arrive. They park. The muscle gets out of the car first, checks the coast is clear, then goes round to open the door for the egghead.”
“And while his back is turned we come out of the shadows. I put the bodyguard down and pull the body clear. Darbandi’s a scientist. An evil scientist, but not a soldier. He’s trained for lab work, not street fighting. His brain will just freeze,” Eli said, also putting on a little dumb show of her own with her hands.
“Then I freeze him permanently.”
“Exactly. Once he’s dead, how do you want to handle things?”
“We set the scene so it looks like a violent robbery. Then we basically get in the car and drive straight to the airport. If for some reason we can’t go to the airport, we head for the British Embassy. While I drive, you text Furnish to say we’re en route. When we get to Jomhouri Avenue, send a second text saying we’re there and he’ll get the gates opened. We drive in. Gates clang shut behind us. They drive us to the airport in an embassy car and we’re out of the country and sipping G&Ts in Business Class.”
“Business? I didn’t realise Don was so generous with the expense account.”
Gabriel grinned.
“He isn’t. I upgraded us at Heathrow.”
Eli returned the smile.
“What it is to have money!”
A man’s shout interrupted their banter.
Gabriel looked up to see a uniformed policeman glaring at him and Eli, and resting his right hand on the butt of his pistol.
Just Another Day at the Office
Gabriel looked straight at the cop. Then down at his feet. He wanted to smile, but felt it would be counterproductive.
“Take two steps back,” he murmured to Eli.
She complied, as the cop strode towards them, gesticulating with his left hand while keeping his right resting on his pistol.
“What is it?” she said in a low voice.
“Relax. We were jaywalking.”
As the angry cop reached them from the middle of the road, Gabriel plastered a huge social smile on his face and placed his right hand over his heart. He waited until the cop reached the end of what was no doubt a frequently delivered speech, then apologised, first in halting Farsi.
“Metasef, metasef!” Sorry, sorry!
Then again, loudly, in English:
“I am humbly sorry, Excellency. My friend and I did not intend to break your law. We will wait for the signal to cross. Please forgive us.”
Mollified, and no doubt confused by this foreigner’s use of Farsi and over-the-top apology, he removed his hand from his gun butt and stroked his moustache.
“It is fine,” he said in slow but perfect English. “Be careful. Tehran drivers too fast.”
Gabriel nodded in agreement, offering an anxious frown to show he had learnt his lesson. The cop about-turned and marched back into the centre of the road junction, where he resumed his officious handwaving at the cars, trucks and motorbikes that swarmed around him like locusts.
“Fuck me, Wolfe, you’re a cool customer,” Eli said.
“Cops, waiters and secretaries. It always pays to treat them with courtesy.”
Back at the hotel, having stopped to buy a set of screwdrivers, Gabriel and Eli took the stairs to Gabriel’s room. Once inside, with the door locked and the security chain on, Gabriel dropped the laptop bag onto the bed. He unzipped the main compartment and took out the ageing black computer within. It was thick, and heavy. He turned it over and placed it on the turquoise and gold silk counterpane. As Eli watched, he began removing the ten stubby black screws holding the casing together.
Something about the repetitive sequence of movements triggered a memory. He was sitting in an air-conditioned house on the edge of a compound built deep in the Brazilian rainforest. Before him on a table, a dismantled professional video camera, into which he was wedging blocks of C-4 before pressing silvery ball bearings into its yielding surface. The bomb he was making was designed to end the lives of a couple of politicians, as well as their entourage and a dozen or more journalists. The mission had ended in carnage. More dead bodies in one place than Gabriel had ever seen, outside of Bosnia in the midnineties. He shuddered, willing himself to unsee the spreadeagled corpses.
Eli touched him lightly on the arm.
“You all right? You just zoned out for a minute.”
He looked round at her and smiled.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just concentrating on the job in hand.”
Eli frowned.
“Don’t bullshit me, Wolfe. I can tell when you’re lying. What’s going on?”
Gabriel continued working the tiny screws out from the black plastic casing, but he answered Eli’s question.
“I was thinking about another time, another place. Brazil. I was brainwashed by the leader of a suicide cult. His name was Christophe Jardin, though he had all his disciples call him Père Christophe. He had me make him a bomb. I was supposed to blow up a press conference and myself with it.”
Eli’s lips curled upwards a little.
“Clearly, he failed. So is that it? You were just taking a long walk down Memory Lane?”
Gabriel so wanted to lie to her. Desired nothing more than to offer her a bland, suburban smile and say, “Of course, darling. Just reminiscing about that camping trip to the Dordogne we took that glorious summer in, when would it have been, ’03?” But although lying came easily enough in service of the Crown, something ingrained in his character made it much harder when he was facing someone he cared about. Loved? he thought. He sighed deeply, and it must have sounded so heartfelt that Eli’s brow crinkled with concern.
“You’re right. I did zone out. It keeps happening. And seeing Fariyah didn’t make it stop like I’d hoped. I’m worried. What if I screw up this hit because I go flying off into Neverland just when I need to be focused?”
Eli took the keyring and knife from his unresisting hand. She placed them on the bed then turned back to face him. Cupping his cheeks in her soft hands she looked directly into his eyes.
“You won’t screw up. Whatever’s going on in your head, we can work it out together. Fariyah can help. I said I’d come with you to Hong Kong after this, and I meant it. We’ll do some digging and we’ll find out what happened. So stop worrying about letting me down. I trust you, Wolfe. With my life.”
Then she pulled him towards her and kissed him, hard, on the mouth. When she finally released him, he sat up straight and nodded a couple of times. The speech had worked. He felt clearheaded again.
“OK. Come on, then. Let’s get this bloody thing open.”
A few more moments’ work with the tiny screwdriver, and Gabriel was prising the back of the laptop, to find nothing more than an array of silicon chips, circuit boards, plain, black plastic squares and a rectangular battery. His heart jumped in his chest.
“What the fuck?” he said. “There’s nothing here.”
He picked up the laptop and inverted it, giving it a shake. He turned it back.
“Let me look,” Eli said. She picked it up and brought the uncovered innards of the computer up to her eye. She frowned. “Give me the knife.”
Gabriel handed her the keyring, and she pulled out a blade using her thumbnail. She inserted the point into t
he edge of the largest circuit board and pressed down. With a snap, the edge lifted. She put the tip of her index finger into the gap and pulled upwards. What Gabriel had taken for a collection of separate components came away in her hand in a single piece. Beneath the cleverly constructed cover were two Fairbairn-Sykes knives and two very ordinary-looking grey metal pens, complete with pocket clips.
“Ta-daa!” Eli said. “Sam’s a very clever woman. I bet this thing even boots up.”
Gabriel looked closer. The rectangle of components Eli had placed beside the laptop was connected to the case by a ribbon of rainbow-coloured wires. She was probably right.
They took out the knives and the striker pens, then put the laptop back together, closed the lid and left it on one side. Eli held her pen up to the light. Turned it this way and that. Then went to the desk and scribbled a note on the hotel’s branded notepaper. She held it up for Gabriel to see. In a flowing script, she’d written:
Melina Arifakis
Then she flipped her grip so that she was holding the pen like a dagger, with her thumb over the non-writing end. She came over to the bed, raised her hand high above her head and slammed it down onto one of the pillows.
Gabriel found he could imagine, vividly, what such a blow would do to a human skull.
“I hope nobody asks for your autograph,” he said.
The next job was to hide the knives. The laptop bag also contained two slim, black leather document cases, preloaded with authentic-looking papers. They emptied them out and used the Fairbairn-Sykeses to slit the lining where it met the zip. In went the stilettos. Using a tube of Super Glue, they carefully stuck the lining back in place. The assorted publicity flyers and contracts camouflaged the cases’ true purpose admirably.
At eight thirty. the following morning, Gabriel and Eli exited the revolving door of the Tehran Grand Hotel and walked to the book fair. Each carried a brand-new pen in an inside pocket and a slim document case, in the bottom of which, beneath the lining, lay a knife no publisher in their right mind would want to have on them. They registered using the terminals in the vast lobby, watched by a couple of bored-looking security guards in maroon uniforms. Gabriel and Eli exchanged a look. No guns .
As they waited for the printer next to the terminal to spit out their name badges, Gabriel turned to Eli. He knew how much she hated wearing formal clothes, and today she was dressed to kill in a cream trouser suit over a sea-green silk blouse. Her feet were encased in three-inch-heeled shoes a few shades darker than her suit. Like him, she carried, slung across her chest, a black leather briefcase.
“You look very smart,” he said.
She shot him a look. A look he knew. It translated, roughly, as, “One more word and you’ll be eating through a straw for a month.”
“Very … professional,” he added.
She leaned closer, bestowed upon him a smile of the purest saccharine sweetness, and spoke.
“It’s a good job I like you so much. Otherwise, what I did to that jerk on Salisbury Plain would look like foreplay.”
“I love you, too,” he said, grinning.
With a grating buzz, the badge printer finally condescended to speak to the terminal, and out crept two name badges. At a kiosk just before the four sets of plate-glass, double-doors that gave way into the main exhibition space, they collected two badge holders on purple lanyards and completed their cover. Robert Denning and Melina Arifakis, here to sell a few books in Tehran, capital city of the Islamic Republic of Iran, sponsor of terrorism all over the world, deadly enemy of Israel and home to Abbas Darbandi. Just another day in the life of an academic publisher.
A row of tables stood between them and the exhibition hall. Behind each table, a pair of uniformed staff stood, searching bags. Gabriel and Eli exchanged another look. When it was their turn, they removed the black leather document cases they both carried, unzipped them and then, smiling and mumbling “Hello” in English, held them out for the bored-looking security staff to inspect.
Gabriel affected nonchalance as the contents of his bag were scrutinised. The woman’s bronze-varnished fingernails walked across the edges of a set of papers – draft foreign rights contracts, publicity flyers for ‘Persia: Jewels in the Desert, part of the Civilisations of Antiquity series by Copernicus Press, England’ and lists of stands to be visited. Finding nothing to excite her interest, she offered Gabriel a brief smile and waved him through. He noticed Eli receiving the same treatment. Thanks, Sam , he thought.
The hall could have accommodated a fleet of jets, and everywhere earnest groups of suited men and women in conservatively cut outfits – some in suits, others in long dresses or niqabs – were wandering along the aisles, or standing chatting to publishers, printers, data firms, designers, booksellers or each other at the brightly designed stands. Despite – or perhaps because of – Iran’s strict codes on behaviour in the street, the prevailing sound was excitable chatter and laughter.
“It’s like being in the world’s biggest library where they forgot the ‘Silence!’ signs,” Eli said as they walked.
The British Council stand occupied a house-sized space on a corner between two of the hall’s main thoroughfares. Union flags were in evidence, though placed discreetly on the corners of the display panels. In deference to the host country’s suspicions of Western influence on its people, Gabriel supposed. A dozen or more booths, replete with tables covered in white cloths and groaning under the weight of books, dotted the space. The staff were easy to spot. They resembled the British Airways staff he was used to encountering in the airline’s executive lounges at airports. Charcoal-grey or navy suits, white shirts, red-white-and-blue ties or neck scarves. Each wore an enamelled union flag pin on his or her left lapel above a name badge.
Gabriel and Eli crossed from the purple-and-gold flooring of the aisle onto the soothing deep-blue of the British Council’s own carpet. Almost at once, a smiling young woman in her late twenties approached them. Her long, blonde hair was gathered into a bun at the nape of her neck.
“Good morning!” she said brightly. “Can I help you?”
“Hi,” Gabriel said, extending his hand. “Robert Denning, Copernicus Press.”
Eli mirrored his movements.
“Melina Arifakis. How do you do?”
The woman’s smile didn’t falter by a millimetre.
“Hello. I’m Sophie. Publisher liaison. Your stand is over this way. Please.”
She extended her right arm, and Gabriel and Eli allowed themselves to be ushered towards a table near the back of the stand. A pile of books stood beside translucent document holders full of multicoloured flyers and a glass goldfish bowl half-full of business cards. Beside the bowl, an iPad Mini had been propped up against its pristine white box.
“Well,” she said, the smile apparently glued onto her cheeks, which were matte with foundation, “I’ll leave you to settle in.”
Then she spun on her heel and went to help a pair of visitors clutching bright-yellow tote bags bulging with brochures and sample books. Gabriel and Eli hung their document cases by their straps over the backs of two blue-upholstered side chairs.
Three hours later, Gabriel and Eli stepped back from the table. She glared at him.
“Give me a knife.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to cut my throat. This is literally hell.”
Gabriel laughed.
“Just because that librarian from the university wanted to ask you about academic discounts?”
Eli’s mouth dropped open.
“I was in her clutches for, what, half an hour? I thought I was going to die on my feet from boredom. Come on, we’ve done our duty here. Let’s go.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Not together. Sorry, but you should wait another thirty minutes before leaving. It’ll be less conspicuous.”
She groaned.
“Fine. I’ll meet you back at the hotel. Get the hire car sorted out, then come and pick me up. I want to
kiss you good luck but as we’re both happily married to other people, that would be inappropriate.”
“How about a publisher’s air-kiss? That should be OK.”
Eli placed her hands on his shoulders and they touched cheeks briefly on each side.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
“Always. See you shortly.”
Gabriel left the stand and made his way to an Avis branch, a fifteen-minute walk from the event hall. The queue of people waiting for cars stretched out the door. All were looking at their watches and rolling their eyes at each other. He made a quick calculation. Judging by the speed with which the single sales guy was processing customers, it would take him thirty minutes to get to Gabriel. Still plenty of time to drive out to Vareshabad before the day’s end.
He called Eli.
“There’s a queue. It’ll be at least half an hour before I get a car. Then allow, what, twenty minutes to get to you. I’d order some food if you haven’t already.”
“Fine. Want me to get you something, too?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having. And a coffee.”
The Jaws of Life
LONDON
Callie called the forensics officer Stella had requested be transferred to join the new unit.
“Hi, Lucian. Callie here. You busy?”
He laughed.
“Me? Nope. Why would I be busy? I was just sitting here playing solitaire.”
Callie smiled.
“Excellent. In that case, go on down to the garage and get yourself some overalls. There’s a Mercedes SUV there that’s suspiciously clean. Take it apart and don’t stop until you find something.”
She ended the call.
“I’m going to find something, Don, and when I do, it’ll be lunch on you. Again. With twenty-year-old malt.”