Pandora's Grave (25 page)

“Don’t worry—it’s deductible,” was the Parthian shot as Hamid pushed the door open, exiting into the drizzle.

“Yes, Hannah, you’ve got it?” Harry asked, realizing his phone had come alive again. He listened patiently for a moment. “Thank you, that’s what I figured.”

“What did she tell you?” Tex looked back as Harry closed the phone.

“The car is owned by a Richmond rental agency. It’s currently leased out to one of the Beltway Bandits,” he replied, referring to the high-priced consulting firms that had sprung up around D.C over the decades. “She says it would take two or three hours to find out the specifics of who is driving.”

“There it goes.” Davood observed, looking out his window. Sure enough, the Ford Taurus rolled right on past on the highway, its speed unchanged. Harry watched it go, his eyes narrowing as it disappeared into the mist.

“Keep an eye out,” he said finally. “I’m gonna get out and pump.”

“They just turned into a gas station off the Airport Road. I drove on past.”

“Do you think they detected you?” the man asked, speaking directly into his headset as he glanced out past his wiper blades at the rain.

“Impossible to say. This rain made the following distance close.”

The man nodded, thinking through his options. He was running short on time, no matter what he chose. In the end, he opted for confirmation. “Lead to Car Four, take up following position. Car Five, head to the I-495 ramp and wait there for go-orders. I’m headed into the station for VISDENT.”

Harry shifted the nozzle to his left hand, his eyes roving the terrain around the gas pumps. The possibility of a sniper could never be ruled out, but visibility was poor enough to make that unlikely. A sedan pulled into the gas station and Harry shoved his right hand deep into the pocket of his overcoat, his fingers closing around the grip of his Colt.

The car swung around the CIA vehicle and stopped at the pump ahead of them. Harry watched carefully as the driver exited the vehicle, a dark-skinned man perhaps a few years younger than himself.

The shadow looked over to see his quarry staring back at him from five feet away. He recognized the face from the photos he had been shown. Harold Nichols. Field leader of the NCS Alpha Team for the last four years.

Reading his dossier had been one thing. Coming face to face was another.

The CIA man’s right hand was buried in the pocket of his overcoat and the slight bulge told him there was a gun there.

He smiled across at Nichols, the type of world-weary smile strangers might exchange. “Crummy day, ain’t it?”

His quarry responded with a nod and a grin so casual that it almost deceived him. Then he noticed the eyes. They hadn’t changed. He turned back and swiped his credit card to pay for fuel. He might well need it.

Harry replaced the nozzle and screwed the gas tank cap back on, locking it securely in place.

“What’s your take?” he asked, sliding into the back seat of the Agency car.

“Military or law enforcement training,” Tex observed tersely, his eyes still on the sedan in front of them. “Packing a gun in a holster there in the small of his back beneath that Virginia Tech jacket. Of Mediterranean descent by the face.”

Harry nodded. He had picked up on the training, but missed the gun–then again, the men in the car had enjoyed a better line of sight.

“There’s a lot of law enforcement personnel this close to Washington,” Davood interjected, caution in his tones. “Good deal of ex-military in consulting, too.”

Hamid glanced back at the younger man through the rear-view mirror. “Most of them don’t carry–and the cops carry openly.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it here,” Harry said after a moment. “Keep an eye on our six and let’s move it out.”

When they left the gas station, the sedan did not follow. And the black Mercury Sable that eased up alongside as they merged into traffic turned off well before reaching the interstate…

7:09 P.M. Tehran Time

The Alborz Mountains

Iran

Something had passed between them, Thomas realized, glancing over at Estere as they marched along the mountain trail. Something, he knew not what, had changed. He had seen it before—the friendship formed in the crucible of battle. They were comrades, now. And perhaps more.

Sirvan walked a few paces ahead, at the side of a drowsy-looking donkey laden down with munitions. But for the nature of their weapons, Thomas might have thought himself transported back in time. No, the weapons were familiar. He hefted the Kalishnikov in his hand, his fingers gliding across the scarred wood in an almost sensuous caress. He knew this gun. It had saved his life. One among many.

Glancing over, he caught Estere staring at him. She met his gaze unabashed, her lips parting into a teasing smile. He smiled back, chuckling to himself as the fighters continued their march into the mountains. Yes, indeed, perhaps more.

Estere was not the only one who had changed, Thomas thought to himself that night, sitting by the campfire between Sirvan and Azad Badir. The attitude of the entire group had changed toward him. He was one of them now, one of the
peshmerga
. The loaded AK at his side was his badge of membership. They trusted him now, insofar as they trusted any man.

A chill autumn breeze fanned the fire, sending sparks dancing into the night sky high above their heads. Thomas’s gaze shifted across the burning embers, to where Estere knelt, cleaning her weapon by the firelight. Her fingers moved nimbly as she reassembled the sniper rifle with a speed no sergeant could have faulted.

His mind flickered back, remembering the look in her eyes when she had executed that wounded Iranian earlier in the day. A glance devoid of pity, empty of emotion. She had been a fighter in that instant, focused on one thing and one thing only. The extermination of her people’s enemy.

She glanced up from her work to find him looking at her and a small, secret smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

He grinned. A fighter, yes, but no less a woman…

10:58 A.M. Eastern Time

NCS Operations Center

Langley, Virginia

“One of the boys over at Intel just pulled this off the Iranian subnet,” Bernard Kranemeyer announced, aiming his remote at a screen on the far side of the room.

The screen came alive as a video began to play—raw, low-definition footage, but the meaning was abundantly clear. They were watching a firing squad.

Harry leaned forward in his chair, puzzled by the direction their debrief had taken. The video only ran for forty-five seconds. The last forty-five seconds of a man’s life.

He watched dispassionately as the DCS hit PLAY again, slow-motion this time as the rifle volley crashed out, leaving the man crumpled like a broken doll against the stone of a courtyard.

“Who was he?” he asked as Kranemeyer turned back toward them, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

“Farshid Hossein, according to the accompanying files,” was the reply. “A major in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”

“Do we know him?”

“He was a commander in the Quds Force commandos in Iraq. Personally responsible for the torture and beheading of Sergeant Major Juan Delgado back in ‘06.”

The words struck Harry like a blow. The memories began to flow unbidden through his mind. Delgado. Basra. Operation TURTLEDOVE.

Delgado had been Harry’s #2 on the operation, a Ranger with almost twenty years in the Army. He had run point for the military wing of TURTLEDOVE, an operation designed to drive a wedge between the Quds Force and their Shia base of support in Basra. A big, easy-going man, he and Harry had hit it off well from the beginning.

And then Delgado had been captured. The counter-insurgency operation quickly turned into a search-and-rescue, but it had been fruitless. The NCO had been beheaded within twenty-four hours of his abduction.

“Why don’t I know this name?” Harry asked

“He was known as
Abu al-Mawt
in Iraq,” came the answer. Harry looked away, his eyes closing, as the scenes came flashing back through the mists of the past.
The Father of Death
. The masked figure standing behind Delgado as the sword came down.

Well, he had gone to his reward…

9:35 P.M. Tehran Time

The Presidential Palace

Tehran

To be this close. It was almost heady, to be able to smell victory. President Mahmoud F’Azel Shirazi sighed, leaning back into his chair. At the age of 58, Shirazi was a small man, standing about 5' 6", with no discernible paunch. His face was classically Persian, partly hidden behind the greying scruff of a carefully-trimmed beard. He walked with a slight limp, the result of a leg wound suffered during the Iran-Iraq War of the ‘80s.

He had been a young man then, but he was young no longer. The years had taken a toll upon his body.

It would be enough. As it had been revealed unto him in a dream, he would live to see the destruction of the Satan. What more could a man desire?

“Harun,” he said at long last, lifting his gaze to the man standing before him. “It is good to see you.”

Colonel Harun Larijani bowed from the waist, his eyes still fixed on the floor. “Thank you, sir.”

Shirazi smiled, rising from his chair and circling around the desk. “Let us dispense with these formalities, nephew,” he remonstrated, embracing the younger man and gently kissing him on both cheeks in the traditional Middle Eastern greeting. “Your father is well?”

“Yes, my uncle. He is well.”

“He will be proud of you,” Shirazi stated, disengaging from the embrace and returning to his chair. “Sit.”

“Thank you.”

“I assume you’ve seen this?” the Iranian president asked, turning the screen of his laptop around so that his nephew could view it.

“The execution of Major Farshid Hossein? Yes.”

“Your thoughts?”

“I am puzzled by the motivation of Isfahani in this action,” came the ever so cautious reply.

Shirazi nodded. “The Ayatollah is still a very powerful man, and bears watching. He was one of my advisors when we moved Hossein’s Guard detachment in on the Jew and it does not necessarily surprise me that he would seek to take independent action in the wake of this setback. Something like this—very damaging to a man’s pride. Your opinion of Hossein?”

The young man hesitated. “I served with Hossein only briefly, but that was sufficient to impress upon me a man who, although brave, was consumed with his own arrogance. Had he been possessed of enough humility to heed my advice, I feel assured that the Americans would not have escaped.”

It entered Shirazi’s mind that the description of Hossein might apply more accurately to his beloved nephew, but he kept those thoughts to himself. Larijani was a useful tool, competent to obey orders, if not to give them. “Then it will delight you to know,” he said, clearing his throat, “that they did not all escape.”

The look of surprise on his nephew’s face was enjoyable. “Yes, indeed,” Shirazi continued, “one of them is still in our country. Hiding out in the mountains with our old friend Azad Badir.”

“Where?”

The Iranian president stood and walked over to the large map that was spread across one wall of his office. “Somewhere in this circle, by last report.”

“Badir is a fox,” Larijani observed wryly.

“And how do you bring a fox to terms?”

“You lure him from his coverts, into the open where his wiles are of no avail.”

“Exactly!” Shirazi exclaimed, pleased by the response. He reached over and pressed a button on his desk. “Send Dr. Ansari in, please.”

1:03 P.M. Eastern Time

National Navy Medical Center

Bethesda, Maryland

“I’ve got the video feed up, Maria.”

Dr. Maria Schuyler turned to smile at the technician that had just entered the room. “Thanks, Ted. I should be able to take it from there.”

“Sure thing.”

In her mid-fifties, Schuyler had worked as a biochemist at A.I. Dupont for fifteen years before enlisting in the Army following the death of her first husband in the Pentagon on 9/11. Since then, she had become the U.S. military’s leading expert on biological warfare—a job that was typically quite academic. Not today.

With a sigh she turned to her computer and depressed a single key, bringing up the feed. “Good afternoon, director.”

“It isn’t, but I thank you anyway, doctor,” the voice of David Lay replied over the uplink. His face was clearly visible in the webcam, and he looked worried. Very much so.

“I understand.”

“I’m here with the president, Dr. Schuyler. Can you encapsulate your report for him?”

Lay’s face was replaced by that of President Hancock and Schuyler cleared her throat, looking down at her notes. “You must understand, Mr. President, that I have little to go on. All we’re working from is a medium-resolution photograph provided by the CIA, which is hardly enough to make a positive diagnosis.”

“Yes,” Hancock interrupted, “I understand. Your conclusions, doctor.”

“My diagnosis, based solely on photographic evidence, is that the victim was suffering from a particularly virulent case of the pneumonic plague.”

“The Black Death?”

“Essentially, yes, Mr. President, although pneumonic plague is the less common variant, called the
Red
Death in medieval times. Both it and its more famous cousin bubonic plague are caused by exposure to the bacteria
yersinia pestis
–the primary difference between plagues being in mode of transmission. Pneumonic plague is caused by breathing in the plague bacteria.”

Hancock cast a glance off-camera, presumably at David Lay. “So, it could be spread in an aerosol?”

His question smote her to the heart. There was something here they weren’t telling her. “Yes, sir. That is one of the scenarios we lined out in wargames last year–the possibility of a bio-terror attack on New York city. We did not use the
yersinia pestis
bacterium as the base of the scenario, but it would have the same effect.”