Pandora's Grave (18 page)

Words, spoken in Farsi. He couldn’t understand what was said, but heard the familiar squawk of radio static. They were reporting in.

He glanced anxiously toward the heavens. The day was wearing on, and he had little to show for it. Was his team even still in the country? He had no idea. Back-up communications gear was cached at LZ RUMRUNNER–if he could reach it.

For the moment, that was a question. More footsteps, soldiers rounding the bend of the canyon wall, picking their way over the tortuous landscape.

Two of them. Both looked tired and dusty, young men in their twenties. The point man had his rifle in the crook of his arm, his bearing languid.

Another moment passed as Thomas waited, his body tensed. Waiting for the right moment. The right time.

The point man passed his position. The second soldier started to, then stopped short, spotting scuffed dirt where Thomas had run. His lips opened, starting to say something in Farsi. An inquiry, a cry of warning, an alarm, whatever it had been, he never had a chance to finish it.

Thomas moved from the shadows, the suppressed Beretta in his outstretched hands…

4:59 A.M. Eastern Time

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

“A busy morning, sir,” the guard said cheerfully, handing Lay’s identification back through the car window.

“How so?”

“The DD(I) arrived here almost an hour and a half ago.”

Lay’s brow furrowed in astonishment. “Shapiro?”

The guard grinned, his expression one of,
He was DD(I) last time I checked
. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, we all must keep unusual hours from time to time,” Lay replied, forcing a smile in return. “Drive on, Pete.”
But the Banker?

Two bodyguards met the car as it arrived at the DCIA’s space in the parking garage. It was the only routine thing of Lay’s day. A different time every morning, a different time home every night, several different routes home. A decoy car. The experts said it was as fool-proof as it could get, that his route would be impossible to figure out, that he was safe from any would-be assassin.

Lay hadn’t lived to be as old as he was by trusting the experts. His bodyguard held the door for him as he exited the SUV. The man, a former Navy SEAL, lived with Lay, sleeping one door down the hallway from the DCIA’s bedroom.

Ron Carter met him at the elevator, a thick folder clutched beneath the analyst’s right arm.

“I hear the Banker’s already to work,” Lay stated as the elevator doors closed on the two men, his tones clipped. Shapiro had earned the derisive nickname for his habit of keeping minimal hours. He was a political appointment, like Lay, but from the Hancock administration, and they had crossed swords more than once.

Carter glanced at him across the top of his glasses. “Does it mean something?”

“Does it?”

“Perhaps,” the analyst shrugged, handing Lay the folder. “Here’s the update on Operation TALON.”

“Break it down for me.”

“Status quo. No comm with Parker, regular burst contact with Nichols and the team. General Benet’s got a Pave Low saddled up and ready to fly at twenty hundred hours.”

“Has Nichols been informed?”

“Yes. He’s holding tight, but the Iranians have launched a massive air and ground search. According to his last report, they’ve had a Hind fly over more than once. He believes it’s only a matter of time.”

“Will they break off the search at nightfall?”

“Impossible to say, sir,” Carter said, pressing a button to keep the elevator doors closed a moment longer. “China’s been funneling the Iranians increasing supplies of high-quality NVGs for years. It appears that the detachment at the base camp was not supplied with them last night. I’m sure that’s changed.”

Lay nodded, his mind elsewhere. “Keep me posted, Ron,” he stated, walking out of the elevator. He turned to face the analyst just before the doors closed again. “And keep your eyes open.”

2:25 P.M. Tehran Time

The base camp

“Anything?” Hossein asked, coming back into the operations center. The young colonel shot him a dark look and shook his head in the negative.

“Patrol Five reports hearing something that sounded like a burst of gunfire coming from the west about thirty-five minutes ago.”

The major didn’t need to look at the map to know what Larijani was implying. Patrol Two had been west of Patrol Five. “They were taken out. Just after their transmission. I warned you to reduce report-back times!”

“We don’t know that,” the young man replied defensively, ignoring Hossein’s bitter indictment. “I’m converging patrols on that area as we speak. If the Americans are there, we will find them.”

“Have the patrols double-up outside the contact zone,” Hossein instructed, drawing a circle on the map with a dull, stubby pencil. “That way they will be less vulnerable. Two men are too easily taken out.”

Just then, the radio crackled with static. Harun bent down, his brow furrowing as he listened intently to the transmission. He straightened up.

“They’ve located the bodies. Both men were shot dead.”

3:07 P.M.

LZ Rumrunner

Thomas laid the assault rifle on the ground beside him, digging away at the rock with his bare hands. The cache was here, he knew it. It was the only place surrounding LZ RUMRUNNER that matched the tells he had memorized before leaving Q-West.

The team was nowhere to be seen, no trace that they had ever been there. Again, Thomas cursed the loss of his team radio, the severing of that link with Harry and the rest. Perhaps plans had changed.

The rock came away suddenly, nearly rolling back on him. A satchel lay behind it, a small desert camouflage rucksack. US Army issue, appropriated by the Company through one of the myriad back-channel procurements used to equip the NCS.

Inside was a silenced Beretta, three magazines of 9mm ammo, a small pair of night-vision binoculars, a GPS unit, and last but not least, a TACSAT.

Thomas resisted the temptation to place the call from where he was. He was too exposed, and the Iranians were still in full search mode.

He put the rock back where it was, smoothing the dirt around it once again and darted up the hill to find better cover.

A large rock seemed to offer it and he hunkered down, the AK-47 at his side, his service Beretta on his hip. The new automatic he left in the bag, for emergencies.

He opened the TACSAT and tapped in the encryption sequence. “Phone home,” he murmured, hitting speed-dial…

6:07 A.M. Eastern Time

NCS Operations Center

Langley, Virginia

“Boss, I think you’d better have a look at this.”

Barney Kranemeyer’s eyebrows went up, a facial expression thought characteristic by those who knew him well. He tended to affect an air of being completely surprised, when that was seldom the case. As Director of the National Clandestine Service, it was his job to make
sure
that it was seldom the case.

“What is it, Michelle?”

“A call just hit our servers. It’s coming in on an Agency TACSAT, from GMT +4.”

“Take it here,” Kranemeyer ordered crisply, his voice brooking no argument.

He reached down, past the half-eaten bagel on her workstation, taking the second headset and adjusting the microphone to his lips.

“Hello.”

“This is Parker,” a voice announced on the other end of the line.

“We’ve been waiting. Where in the devil are you?”

“RUMRUNNER. Has the rest of the team been extracted?”

“Negative, Parker. How are things going?”

“They’ve been better, boss,” came the reply, avoiding the duress code. Kranemeyer nodded. They were clear. If Parker had used the word
good
in any context, they would have known that he had been compromised.

“The team is waiting at OSCAR. They’ll be picked up at twenty-one hundred hours, your time.”

There was a muffled curse from the other end of the line. “Apologies, sir,” Thomas said finally.

“Can you make it to OSCAR by twenty-one hundred hours?” the DCS asked. There was a pause, and for a moment he thought the line had gone dead. “Parker, do you copy? I repeat, can you rendevous at OSCAR by twenty-one hundred?”

“Negative. The Iranians are conducting an extensive land-air search, it took me all day just to get here.”

“I see. Do you foresee difficulties extracting the rest of the team?”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, director,” Thomas continued conversationally, “the whole day has been one big difficulty. Why should extraction be any better?”

“What is your status?”

“A little gouge in my thigh from a ricochet, bandaged it up with the med kit here at RUMRUNNER. It’s just a scratch, I’m still fully mobile.”

Kranemeyer turned, covering the receiver with one hand. “Anya, I need a run-down of our available assets in the area. ASAP.”

“Right on it,” the woman replied, tapping a command into her terminal.

“Hold one, Parker,” Kranemeyer ordered, returning to the phone. “We’re investigating our options.”

“Gee, thanks, boss,” Thomas replied, sarcasm in his tones. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sending to your terminal, sir.” Kranemeyer looked down at his computer to see the list. “Listening, Parker?”

“Copy.”

“There’s a PJAK controlled camp approximately twenty-five kilometers northwest of your present position…”

3:37 P.M. Tehran Time

The camp

Northwestern Iran

It had been a dry fall, the old shepherd thought as he kicked absently at a clump of grass. Dust flew up, blowing in the wind. Very dry.

Clucking in Kurdish to his sheep, he turned away toward the camp that was, for this day, his home.

It was at that moment that a sharp buzzing stabbed at his ribs, startling him from his reverie.

Sweeping aside his robes with one hand, he reached for his belt with the other, disclosing a semiautomatic Glock and a small pouch containing a satellite phone.

The screen was bright with the caller’s number and he tapped in the encryption sequence. “Azad,” he answered briefly, his lips suddenly dry.

The voice on the other end was familiar to him, though he had only heard it once before in his life.

He listened in silence for a few moments before responding, “What you are asking is difficult. My young men encountered a Guard patrol not ten kilometers west of here within the last fortnight.”

6:39 A.M. Eastern Time

CIA Headquarters

Langley, Virginia

“I’m not asking you to shelter him, only to ensure his safe passage to the Iran-Iraq border,” Kranemeyer retorted, flipping the shepherd’s dossier open on his desk. The black-and-white photo was a few years old, but revealed the face of a man old before his time. Intelligence reports indicated that Azad Badir had only just passed his sixtieth year, but he looked far older.

“I understand your request,” the shepherd replied in perfect, educated English. No wonder, thought the DCS, scanning down the first page of the dossier. Educated at Princeton, Badir had returned to his people only months before the 1979 Revolution. He had never completed college, but it had clearly left its imprint upon him.

The shepherd was still speaking. “…young men are in short supply, and we continue to lose them, Mr. Crane. A few every month, and yet still we fight. I can hardly spare those needed to escort your man to the border.”

“Your efforts are appreciated,” Kranemeyer answered cautiously. The official stance of the US State Department and the administration was that PJAK was a terrorist organization, but the outlook of the Clandestine Service rarely matched that of Foggy Bottom. “A deal, Mr. Badir. Get my man safely to the border and we’ll see that you get the weapons you need.”

“The weapons we need? Almost everything we need, we can ‘acquire’ from the Revolutionary Guards.” There was a trace of amusement in Badir’s voice.

“Then what?”

“My words, Mr. Crane.”

“Excuse me?”

“My word was ‘almost’. We cannot get everything we need. For some things we must rely on the munificence of the outside world. Such as Stinger missiles.”

The DCS took a deep breath, massaging his forehead with his fingers. Stinger missiles. Azad Badir could scarcely have asked for something more difficult, and the old fox knew it, Kranemeyer realized with a wry smile. The US still remembered how some of the old man-portable surface-to-air missiles it had supplied to Afghanistan back in ‘89 had fallen into the wrong hands, and subsequent administrations had clamped down upon their export.

“I will do my best, Mr. Badir. In the mean time, is my man welcome in your camp?”

“Mr. Crane, strangers are always welcome in my camp,” the shepherd replied, his voice rich with irony. “Send him to these coordinates…”

7:02 P.M. Tehran Time

LZ OSCAR

The world seemed to have gone silent, Harry mused. The desolate plateau showed no signs of life.

The young Australian was asleep, her knees drawn up to her chin as she leaned back against the earthen bank of the hide. It was just as well.

He didn’t want to talk. He had a man out there, somewhere in the gathering twilight. A man he was being forced to leave behind. Two hours.

Two hours before the spec-ops Pave Low would come in to pick them up. Two more hours in which Thomas might show up.

When his radio crackled with a burst of static, it startled him. “FULLBACK to EAGLE SIX, I have movement. A man coming in from the south—southwest.”

“Ident?”

“Unknown.”

“Hold your fire. It may be a friendly.”
Let it be Thomas
, Harry prayed briefly, his eyes never leaving the slit of the hide.

The figure moved into his line of vision and his posture shifted, tracking its movement with the barrel of his AK.