The Colonel's Mistake (31 page)

“Get Daria back,” said Mark.

The older man struggled to pull himself up to his knees. With great urgency he said, “My name is Henry Amato. I work for the National Security Council.”

Mark stumbled a bit as he stood up. He recognized the name.

“It’s a rebel Iranian unit that has Daria,” said Amato. “If you want to get her back, you’ll release me.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Your name is Mark Sava,” said Amato, frantic but whispering. “You work for the CIA. I know why you’re here.”

Decker bent down and removed Martinez’s night-vision monocle. He bound Martinez’s ankles with FlexiCuffs and secured his hands, which were already bound behind his back, to his ankles. “I’m going for her,” Decker said to Mark.

“I’ll go with you.”

“Screw that. There’s a downed tree about a hundred yards south of here.” Decker pointed with his finger. “Near the base of it is a hole where the roots got ripped up. I hid up there today. Wait for me there.”

Decker ran off. Mark heard some voices shouting in the distance, but they were speaking French. More firefighters he determined. He took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on the pounding in his head, then yanked Amato to a standing position. The air smelled of smoke.

“Get your hands off me,” said Amato.

“I said keep your voice down.” Mark wasn’t sure if his vision was blurry because of the darkness or because of the pounding he’d taken. He looked at Martinez. The man was still unconscious, or maybe dead. Mark decided to leave him.

“I need my radio,” said Amato. “I can help get Daria back.”

Mark took his pistol, which he’d been pointing at Amato’s back, and jabbed the barrel into the base of Amato’s skull. “Start walking.”

“Did you hear me? I can help secure her release! The Iranians will listen to me.”

“This rebel unit, they the same group of guys who tried to take me and Daria out in Dubai?”

“It’s a complicated situation.”

“I’ll bet.”

“The Iranians were trying to capture you and Daria tonight and then take you both to the house where Minabi’s being held—to be interrogated. So help me God, I was trying to stop them.”

“So help me God I think you’re full of shit.”

“Then you’re a fool. And there isn’t a chance they’ll bring Daria to the house now. We have to find out where they’re taking her before it’s too late.”

“A fool?”

“We’re wasting time!”

“Who all is out there?”

“Four Iranians and the two men I brought.” Amato added, “My guys were here to help you and Daria. Under my orders. Your friend ruined everything. He attacked the good guys.”

Mark wasn’t buying it. The pounding in his head stood as a testament to the fact that Amato’s men hadn’t been there just to mount a rescue. But if Amato had a connection to the Iranians, he’d find out what that connection was.

“Get your radio.”

Amato hunted on the ground until he found it.

Mark raised his gun. “Any talk of our location and you’re dead.”

Amato fiddled with the channels and then depressed the send button. “This is Partner, do you copy?” He waited a moment. When there was no response he tried again, and again there was no response.

He switched to another channel, and then another.

They were in an open, unprotected area of the forest. Eventually Mark took the radio back and turned it off. “Walk,” he said.

Amato went where he was told to go, but he was half tempted to turn around and fight so that he could start searching the woods for Daria on his own. Mark Sava was a slight, unimpressive man and Amato had little doubt that, despite being nearly twenty years older, he could wring Sava’s neck if he had to.

“Let me try the radio again,” he said.

“Keep walking.”

“Do you believe in God, Sava?” Amato could see the church burning through the trees. Part of him wondered whether he’d already descended into hell and just didn’t know it yet.

“Faster.”

“I’ll take that as a no. I know your type.”

Sava was a weasel of a man who was used to lying and sneaking and living off his guile, thought Amato. Which is to say he was typical Agency and not to be trusted with Daria’s life. He had to get Sava out of the way.

“You can take that as an order to walk faster.”

“Well, I believe in God. And I believe that my God will send me to hell if I don’t do everything I can to save Daria. Let me try the radio again.”

“Not yet.”

Nearly shouting, Amato said, “I refuse to—”

Amato felt a pain shoot from the top of his head, down into his neck, and then hit his legs so hard that they crumpled underneath him. Then Sava struck him again, just below his ear, in the sensitive area where his skull connected to his neck. He slumped to the ground.

“This is the last time I’m going to tell you, old man—”

The feel of Sava’s chin stubble scratching his neck, and Sava’s hot breath in his ear, was absolutely revolting.

“—keep your fucking voice down.”

Mark found Decker’s hole up on a little ridge and pushed Amato down into it. The massive root ball of a downed oak tree formed a natural earthen wall in back of the hole and Decker had arranged a screen of downed branches in front. Mark imagined that Decker would have had a view of both the church, which was still visible as it burned, and the farmhouse, which was now swallowed by the night.

His head still throbbed but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He handed the radio to Amato and for the next minute Amato switched from channel to channel, looking increasingly panicked as he tried to get the Iranians to respond.

Eventually Mark said, “You’re wearing a suit.” Amato looked completely out of place in the middle of the woods. And he hadn’t shaved in a long time.

“I left in a hurry.”

“From the States?”

“Direct from Washington.”

“So you could be here when we were captured?”

“Or soon after.”

“Why?”

“That’s also complicated. For the love of God,” said Amato, trying the radio again. There was still no response.

“Want to tell me what the National Security Council is doing running black ops in France, in partnership with a bunch of Iranian thugs?”

Instead of answering, Amato asked, “Will your man find Daria?”

“I have no idea.”

Mark peered above the fallen tree. Fire trucks were dousing the church with jets of water that arced high into the sky. A malevolent black plume of smoke twisted up from the bell tower. He listened but he couldn’t hear any gunshots. He couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.

Pointing his gun at Amato, he said, “Listen, I’ve had it with this shit. Either you tell me what’s going on or I’m gonna decide you’re useless to me and shoot you right here. I’ve dealt with too many lies over the past few days. I’m done with it.”

“After we find Daria.”

“Now.”

Amato stared at Mark for a moment, as though trying to gauge whether he was bluffing. “The National Security Council’s trying to take down the regime in Iran.”

“How?”

“By supporting a coup by the Revolutionary Guard.”

“And how the hell did the NSC and Revolutionary Guard wind up in bed together? No, don’t tell me. The Doha Group.”

“We offered the generals some big money deals. Pretty soon the top guy wanted in.”

“Aryanpur?”

“Yeah.”

Mark was genuinely surprised. And a little impressed. General Ali Aryanpur was the head of the Revolutionary Guard, the number-two man in Iran.

“He know he was dealing with the NSC?”

“Not until his hands were already plenty dirty. Understand, this is happening at the same time we’re collecting some disturbing intel from the MEK.”

“Minabi told you about the pipeline to China.”

“And the defense agreement with China,” added Amato.

“And the enriched uranium.”

“She said she’d stolen some of it and did we want to buy it.”

“Which you did. For forty million bucks, the price Holgan paid for the Jetstar plane that flew into Dubai.”

“The deal was we’d give the uranium to the IAEA when we got done analyzing its provenance, but the problem was we still had to figure out how to deal with China. We couldn’t let all the deals they’d cut with Iran stand, but with Khorasani in power…”

“I don’t know that I want to hear this,” said Mark. There were way too many moving pieces here. Far too many to control. It was crazy for Amato or anyone else to have tried.

“Everyone had been hoping the Green movement would topple the regime from within, but it’s clear they’re done. They have no leader, no real power. The only realistic alternative to Khorasani is Aryanpur. He was in a power struggle with Khorasani before we even approached him, he was with Khomeini in the revolution, and he’s had some religious training, enough to be accepted as Supreme Leader at least…”

Amato paused again. Mark looked at his watch. Three minutes had passed. He could still hear the distant shouts of firemen.

“We made a deal with Aryanpur. If he seized power, we agreed to drop all trade restrictions and invest heavily in an oil pipeline, to be built by the Revolutionary Guard, from the Caspian Sea,
across Iran, to the Persian Gulf. It’s the shortest way, it’s the way that always made sense.

“In return Aryanpur agreed to get rid of Iran’s nuclear program and drop the China pipeline and defense agreement. Stopping the pipeline was a no-brainer. That was why he’d agreed to meet with us in the first place, because Khorasani had sold the construction rights to the Chinese, cutting him out.

“Anyway, the deal was the easy part. The hard part was figuring out how to get rid of Khorasani. And that’s where the enriched uranium came in.”

Mark just shook his head as Amato revealed that an American Intelligence Support Activities team was about to stage a bungled nuclear attack on a US aircraft carrier and that an elite Qods Force unit, controlled by Khorasani, was being set up to take the blame.

“Three days ago, Aryanpur leaked that Khorasani had this rogue nuclear unit on his hands. The army has been going ballistic ever since because they’re terrified of a retaliatory attack.”

“This bomb,” said Mark. “Don’t tell me you actually built it?”

“It’s just a big tube, gun-style detonator. We jury-rigged it with Iranian penetrator bombs, stuff that’s easy to trace. It won’t work, but when it becomes clear that the Iranians tried to nuke one of our aircraft carriers, there’ll be a cry for war.

“That’s when Aryanpur will act. The Revolutionary Guard was set up to guard the Islamic Revolution itself. Aryanpur will declare that Khorasani’s reckless command of Qods Force has threatened the revolution. He thinks the Assembly of Experts will accept his leadership.

“Once Aryanpur’s been installed as Supreme Leader, he’ll probably be as faithful to the Islamic Revolution as the Chinese
are to communism. It’ll be a new Iran. Not perfect, but a country we can do business with.”

Mark was all for seeing Ayatollah Khorasani tossed out on his ass, but it occurred to him that the one constant in Iranian–American relations was that whenever Washington came up with a plan to gain the upper hand—whether it was installing the Shah, or backing Saddam Hussein in the Iran–Iraq war, or selling the mullahs arms in 1986—it somehow always wound up making things worse.