by Greg Rucka
There were multiple bandages in the first-aid kit, various sizes, squares of gauze, rolls of tape, even fabric for fashioning a sling, but not what she needed, no occlusion bandage. Putting gauze over the wound—even if she could somehow reach around to it, which she couldn’t—would do nothing; the dressing would be too permeable. She needed something solid, something with which to make an airtight seal.
She abandoned the kit for the moment, tried to keep herself from moving too quickly as she climbed back into the car, searching the interior. The thought struck her that the bullet was still inside her, and a new surge of panic tried to take hold, clawing, this time more desperately. If the bullet was rattling around in her chest cavity it could be cutting up organs, arteries, her heart. She could be hemorrhaging internally, not a tension pneumothorax but a hemothorax, bleeding slowly, filling her like a bottle until she drowned in her own blood.
“One thing at a time.”
It took her a moment to realize the whisper was her own.
She snapped open the glove box, pulling the contents free. Crammed in the corner, crumbs of some substance lining the bottom, she found a small, clear plastic bag, and she grabbed it, extracted herself slowly from the car. She was sipping for air now, hearing herself wheezing with each tiny breath. Her throat ached.
Using the roll of tape from the pharmacy, she laid four lengths around the plastic bag, working as quickly and carefully as she dared, making certain each segment overlapped. The seal would have to be perfect, nothing could come between the plastic and the wound, and with difficulty she reached back and unfastened her bra, letting it drop. She took one of the scavenged syringes, stuck it in her pocket, and then, taking the makeshift dressing carefully in one hand, moved to the boot of the car, where she set the bandage flat, adhesive side up.
Chace hiked herself into a sitting position on the boot, her back to where she had placed the plastic, and slowly leaned herself backwards, trying to position herself and the wound atop it. The posture took even more of her air, balance awkward, the shock of the colder metal against her already cold, bare skin. She saw blue sky, points of white light swimming in her vision. Then she was lying with her back against the car, cold stealing into her skin, legs over the side. She tried a breath, and its success was limited, and she didn’t know if that was because the bandage was in place now, or simply because the boot itself was sealing the wound. In either case, the wound was, for the moment, closed.
But there was still too much air in the pleural space, still too much pressure for her lungs to work properly.
Without sitting up, Chace took the syringe from her pocket, carefully stripping its wrapping away. She pulled the cap, the plunger, brought the needle to the point she had punctured herself before, and, like before, with both hands, drove it into her chest. The release of pressure was instant, this time the hiss of air lost behind her involuntary scream. She sobbed fresh oxygen into her lungs, her hands falling to her sides, pounding on the car in furious pain. It had hurt before, but this time it was worse, this time it was almost unbearable.
But she was breathing again, she realized, breathing the way she should, and with careful hands she withdrew the needle from her chest, heard it roll against the boot, fall to the snow. With effort, she sat upright, and the pain that moved with her was manageable, and still she was breathing. When she turned her head, she could see a smear of her blood on the car, but the bandage was gone, where it needed to be, fixed to her back.
Chace slid back to her feet, moved to the front of the car. Her bra lay in the snow, and she picked it up, shaking it clean, then slipped herself back into it, closing it gingerly at her back. She heard the plastic crinkle, pressed further against her skin by the shoulder strap. Its aid to the bandage was questionable, she supposed, but anything would help, anything to keep the wound sealed.
The sun found her through the trees as she cleared the hood of the car. Using her knife, she cut a hole in the center of the blanket, large enough for her head, then drew it over her, wearing it like a poncho. She examined the manteau, bloodstained and torn, and again with the knife cut as large a clean strip as she could, then used that to cover her hair. She shivered beneath the blanket, exhausted, took another look around her, seeing the trees and the mountains and the snow shining.
It was going to be a beautiful day, she realized.
The Alborz were both an aid and a hindrance. Certainly, the terrain made the chance of running into anyone, let alone a checkpoint or a roadblock, that much more unlikely, but conversely, anyone she was liable to meet would be justifiably more suspicious of a strange foreigner in their midst. She had no map, either, only the GPS, and her desire to head south, back to Tehran, notwithstanding, she had to follow the road where it led.
That wasn’t the worst, however. The higher the road went, the more the air pressure outside changed, the more the pressure in her chest would be exacerbated. She had two needles left, and no desire at all to have to use either of them.
Shortly after ten in the morning, Chace judged she had put enough distance between her last stop and her present position that she pulled to the side of the road. By some miracle, she’d managed to keep hold of both the small GPS unit and her sat phone, and now, for the first time, she felt it was safe to try using both. Her breathing, while still wildly uncomfortable, was steady and effective.
Exiting the car, Chace took one of the two pistols, tucking it into her jeans at her waist. She used the GPS first, taking a reading, and saw that she was further west than she had hoped, though without a map to aid her, she was unsure of her precise position. She noted the altitude, as well, almost seventeen hundred meters, and that was cause for worry. She would need to descend, and soon, or else risk further complications to her injury.
She left the GPS on, setting it atop the roof of the car, then opened her sat phone and switched it on. To her chagrin, the battery indicator was reading less than a quarter charge. The phone beeped, the screen clearing, ready and waiting.
Chace dialed from memory, waited, and when she recognized Lex’s voice on the other end, said, “Minder One, black, repeat black, am on open line.”
“Minder One, confirmed,” Lex said. And Chace could swear the woman, for the first time in their acquaintance, had relief in her voice. “Status?”
“Coldwitch is bust, opposition was waiting at exfil. Falcon is dead. I am blown and wounded, repeat, blown and wounded, confirm.”
“I confirm. Are you mobile?”
“Am mobile. Location, stand by.” Chace reached for the GPS with her free hand, checking the coordinates once more. “Am at thirty-six point forty-three sixty-one seventeen by fifty-one point naught-six twenty-three eighty-seven, confirm.”
“I confirm. Coms check?”
“Low battery. Fifteen minutes, probably less. Note, cannot exfil by air, repeat, will require medical treatment prior to airlift.”
“I confirm, negative air. Next communication, seven minutes from mark.”
Chace checked her watch, saw that blood had dried on its face. She scraped at it with a nail. “Mark.”
“Out.”
The line went dead, and Chace switched the satellite phone off, then the GPS, climbed back into the Samand. In six minutes she’d switch the phone on again, and thirty seconds or so after that it would trill, and Alexis Ferguson or, better, Paul Crocker would be on the other end. D-Ops’ voice, sharp and sure, telling her what to do, where to go, how to proceed. Telling her how he was going to bring her home.
Chace shivered again, drew the wool poncho closer around her body, heard the plastic bag on her back crunch as she moved. Sunlight lanced through the windscreen, suddenly and deliciously warm on her face, turning her drowsy. She closed her eyes, mind wandering free, instantly finding Tamsin, so far away. The fever, had it broken yet? Was she all right? Then she was seeing Tom Wallace, perfect in memory, a flight of fancy as Tara held their daughter in her arms, showing her to him. Look what we made, look at this beautif
ul creature we created.
Her eyes snapped open, Chace starting in the seat, quickly checking her watch. For a second, she couldn’t remember the mark, then saw it had been six minutes, six minutes already, and she hurriedly climbed out of the car, turning the sat phone on, and no sooner had it beeped, confirming its signal, than it was ringing.
“Minder One,” Chace said. “Go.”
“Here’s what you’re going to do, Tara,” Paul Crocker said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IRAN—TEHRAN, MINISTRY OF INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY (MOIS)
11 DECEMBER 0927 HOURS (GMT +3.30)
The Minister was waiting for Shirazi in his office, seated at his desk. He was a slender man, in his fifties, his left shoulder sitting at an angle higher than his right, the remnants of a wound taken during the War of Iraqi Aggression. He had come alone, but Shirazi took no comfort in that. As a member of the National Security Council, all it would take was a word, and the whole of Shirazi’s department would turn against him. That was real power, and both men knew who held it.
“I am meeting you here, Youness,” the Minister said, “as a courtesy to you and your service, because you have never failed us in the past. And because we wish to hear your explanation for the madness that took place early this morning in Noshahr.”
“I appreciate your consideration, sir.”
The Minister settled his hands on Shirazi’s desk, folding one atop the other, gazing at him evenly. “I am pleased to hear that, because your position at this moment is an exceedingly delicate one. The Supreme Leader has already been informed of the death of his nephew. He is anxious for an explanation. Extremely anxious. Extremely concerned, Youness.”
“I am ready to explain.”
“Do so, then.”
Shirazi measured his words. “I regret to say that Hossein Khamenei was murdered this morning in Noshahr by a foreign agent, possibly British, during an aborted attempt to kidnap him. When we moved to apprehend this agent, she executed the Supreme Leader’s nephew, as well as murdered one of my men, before escaping.”
The Minister blinked at him. “A woman?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This woman is still at large?”
“We are searching for her even now.”
“To no result, it would seem.” The Minister blinked again. “You say British. Why would the British attempt to abduct Hossein Khamenei?”
“The most obvious reason, sir, is that he was a target of opportunity, someone they wished to bring to the West, perhaps to be used as pressure against the Supreme Leader himself. Of all his family, Hossein was possibly the easiest for them to identify and locate.”
“The British?”
“That is our suspicion.”
“You are lying to me, Youness,” the Minister said.
Shirazi said nothing.
The chair behind the desk creaked, the Minister turning in it, and from one of the drawers he withdrew the thick file on Hossein, bulging with photographs and documentation, that Zahabzeh and Shirazi had prepared. He set it tenderly on the desk, flipped it open casually, and perused its contents.
Without looking up, the Minister said, “You think we didn’t know?”
Shirazi hesitated, then shook his head. In truth, he had believed Hossein’s involvement with the British had been long forgotten, that, perhaps, the Supreme Leader himself had ordered it covered up. But now, watching the Minister as he lifted one photograph, then another, holding them up to better see in the light from the window, the look of mild disgust on his face, Shirazi realized he had been foolish.
“I know you brought him here, to this office, at the end of November. Had he reached out to the British already?”
“We feared what the reaction would be if we informed the Council,” Shirazi answered. “That the Supreme Leader would … overlook his nephew’s actions.”
The Minister lowered the photograph he was holding, one of the photographs of Hossein as a young man, indulging himself with another young man. “He had gone to the British, then.”
“Yes,” Shirazi lied. “He made his approach shortly after the replacements began arriving. When we realized who he was, we were obligated to investigate.”
“But not obligated to take it further.”
“We couldn’t ignore it, sir.” Shirazi allowed a hint of enthusiasm into his voice, trying to follow the story the Minister had clearly already constructed. “And the opportunity was too great, the chance to feed the British false information, or even to uncover their network, especially now, especially with the pressure the West has put us under.”
The Minister dropped the photograph, clearly offended by its contents. “I think you should tell me all of it, Youness.”
Shirazi did so, mixing truth with enough fiction to maintain the portrayal of Hossein as the villain of the piece, an enemy of the State who had, upon being confronted and turned by VEVAK, reached out again to the British. Once they realized that, Shirazi said, they saw a new opportunity: certainly the British would come for him, and when they did, VEVAK would move, capturing both the traitor and the spy. But it had gone wrong at the last moment—Shirazi was careful to avoid assigning blame to any one individual—and Hossein had been shot, the spy had escaped.
“Not how it was intended to go,” the Minister said coldly. “At all.”
“No, sir, never.”
“This kind of operation cannot be permitted without oversight, Youness. You never should have undertaken it without clearance from the Council.”
“I recognize that, sir.”
“It is salvageable, however.” The Minister glanced to his left, to the portrait of the Ayatollah on the wall, clearly considering the situation. “In fact, it may serve us very well, indeed. But only if you can capture this spy. If you can do that, Youness, your failure will become a success, one that will bring you much forgiveness.”
“We’re doing everything we can.”
“I would expect nothing less. But now I want more. You will have the State media release news of Hossein’s murder, but leave the identification of the perpetrator vague at this time. Unknown foreign enemies will suffice. Once we have this spy in hand, once we can put her on television, then we will implicate the British, and they will have to respond publically.”
“Will you release her to them? Make an exchange?”
The Minister’s smile was anemic, and as close to amused as Shirazi had ever seen. “It will depend how badly they want her back. But any exchange will only occur after a trial, after she has been sentenced. For that reason, we must have her alive, Youness. We must have her alive and healthy for the cameras.”
“Yes, sir.”
With his knuckles, the Minister rapped the folder of photographs. “Destroy these. All evidence that Hossein was ever in collusion with the British, destroy it all. Who else knows the details, the extent of his corruption, his betrayal?”
“Only Zahabzeh,” Shirazi said. “And Farzan will never betray our secrets.”
“No, he would not.” The Minister pushed himself back from the desk, rising. “You are not safe yet, Youness, do not mistake me. You know what you must do.”
“Perfectly.”
“Then do it,” the Minister said. “Someone must pay for this failure. And if not this British spy, then you yourself, Youness, will do nicely.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LONDON—WHITEHALL, OFFICE OF SIR WALTER SECCOMBE, PERMANENT UNDERSECRETARY AND HEAD OF THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE (FCO)
11 DECEMBER 0804 HOURS (GMT)
“I heard it from the Foreign Secretary, who heard it from the Prime Minister, who heard it from C.” Sir Walter Seccombe motioned Crocker to the large, leather-upholstered couch in his office. “And now I want to hear it from you, Paul. How likely is it that we’ll be seeing Minder One’s face on Al-Jazeera?”
Crocker rubbed at his temples, then sat down, heavier than he had intended to, on the couch. Seccombe’s office was always dangerous ground, with its centuri
es of history, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves laden with leather-bound tomes, thick rugs that had been brought from the Orient during a time when “the Orient” still meant something very specific. It was a room that had housed men who had overseen the erection of the Empire, and its subsequent dissolution. It was a room that remembered.
“There’s a chance, yes,” Crocker said, taking the offered cup of coffee, certain it wasn’t decaffeinated and sipping at it anyway. “But it’s not as bad as it looked when C went to brief the PM.”
“And that’s why your PA called, insisting that I see you at the earliest possible moment?” Seccombe moved to one of the high-backed reading chairs, settled himself into place, running a palm over his silver hair. The PUS was well into his seventies now, Crocker knew, with over half a century in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office behind him, but, like the room itself, he might as well have been timeless. The PUS wielded enormous power; more power, in many ways, than C herself. While Crocker didn’t work for Seccombe directly, SIS was a part of the FCO, and thus the PUS could bring remarkable pressure to bear on the Firm if and when it suited him. That if and when most normally followed after the desires of the Foreign Secretary, who in turn was beholden to the Prime Minister.
A conversation with Seccombe, therefore, was effectively whispering straight into HMG’s ear, and Crocker’s ability to do so was entirely at Seccombe’s discretion, and never the other way around. They weren’t friends, though there had been times when Crocker had suspected Seccombe held some sort of fondness for him, perhaps as his mentor, perhaps seeing him simply as an amusement. More than once, Seccombe had urged him to take a more active hand in the politics of SIS, to consider the job, the operation, yes, but also the effect of his actions within the Government, as well as without. It was a lesson that Crocker had refused, and he knew it had cost him dearly. Twice that he could think of, the PUS had saved his career, and those were only the times Crocker knew of; he was reasonably certain there had been many others, and, in fact, suspected that the only reason his job was still waiting for him when he had returned after his heart attack was due to Seccombe’s direct intervention.