The Protectors (20 page)

CHAPTER 36

M
y eyes didn’t blink open until noon, and they were
not
happy about it. The indignity of waking up in a puddle of drool didn’t help, either. The real complaining, though, came from my sternum, ribs, and left arm—all of which screamed their displeasure when I rolled over and sat up.

I couldn’t move for a while after that. While my brain rebooted and tried to load the last twenty-four hours’ worth of insanity into the memory banks, I finally got the guts to swing my legs off the mattress and stand up. I creaked and popped more than the bed.

The room was small—modestly appointed with my drool-soaked twin bed, an end table, and a dresser with a jewelry box on top. The only window in the room was closed and the shades drawn. I was glad for the privacy, considering someone had removed the gauntlet and every single bit of my clothing, save my briefs.

A full-length mirror on the back of the door to the room showed the physical toll of my adventures: left arm swollen and red, scratches all over my torso, and the beginnings of a nasty purple bruise spreading over half my sternum. I made a tentative attempt to massage my chest, then thought better of it. Still, the bruise wasn’t bad considering I’d taken a 9 mm round at point-blank range.

My clothes weren’t in sight, so rather than stride into the hallway of a stranger’s home wearing nothing but underwear, I cracked the door and called out.

“Lyla? Hello?”

No response.

When I closed the door and turned around, I noticed a piece of scrap paper, lying to the side of my pillow.

S—I’ll be back. Clothes and food in kitchen. House empty.

L

PS I took a niqab

How thoughtful. NOW she’s careful.

I crumpled the paper and tossed it away. The irritation at being discovered last night came flooding back, but not many memories beyond that. I tried to remember where I was, but the details after we’d escaped the hotel were sketchy. Plus, the harder I tried to concentrate, the foggier my concentration became.

Wait . . . tranquilized. Barbiturates.

The confusion and brain cloud were side effects from the dart. There was an easy way to get rid of the fog, but certain parts of my body were really going to hate it. I took a brutally cold shower followed by a perfectly hot one. When the water finally ran lukewarm, I emerged to realize that the pounding water had been shutting me off from the world a little
too
well.

Noise from beyond the bedroom filtered through the windows and even the bathroom door. A
lot
of noise. Wasn’t an automatic cause for alarm—we were still near the Grand Bazaar, and that place at midday put a livestock auction house to shame—but then I heard the gunshot.

At first I thought,
Engine backfire.
They happened a lot in Tehran, where the model year of nine out of every ten cars started with a “1.” But gunshots, unlike backfires, tend to spawn more gunshots. After I heard four additional loud pops, I knew the source wasn’t automotive. I scrambled into my jeans and yanked a shirt over my head as I went for the door leading to the master bedroom’s balcony. Stepping outside was like walking through a door into another world.

Three- and four-story buildings lined this portion of the bazaar, so I
couldn’t see beyond the half mile of narrow, winding street below. But man, what a half mile it was. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people mobbed the closed-in boulevard. Most were jumping up and down, screaming. Initially I assumed a riot, but this was different. I didn’t see scowls or hear angry shouts; people were hugging, many with tears running down their faces. The gunshots were apparently of the “shoot-in-the-air-like-a-bandito” variety. Some of the revelers had makeshift posters of the president, and, tellingly, none of them were on fire.

Something big had happened, something wonderful as far as the celebrating throng was concerned. I went back inside, closed the balcony door, and went for the nearest TV. The one in the master bedroom got fewer than twenty stations, and virtually all were broadcasting in either Farsi or Arabic. Al Jazeera English was the only channel I could understand. After five minutes of footage, I wished I couldn’t. The scenes were all similar to what was going on outside my window, but the voice-over wasn’t nearly as excited.

Repeating our breaking news . . . the Republic of Iran in chaos at this hour. In a stunning shift of national policy, President Nikahd announced two hours ago he is stepping down—admitting to large-scale voter fraud in last year’s elections.

The video cut to the tearful president during his press conference. His manner was humble and apologetic, not two words normally associated with the man. Right then, Lyla’s absence made the jump from harmless to incriminating.

No official word yet, but our analysts are unanimous in agreeing this decision was made WITHOUT consulting the Iranian parliament, his own political party, or Iran’s Supreme Leader—the Ayatollah. The reasons for these assumptions should be clear from the last recorded portion of his impromptu press conference. State-controlled media cut the video feed before the president could finish his remarks, for obvious reasons.

The announcer shut up, and only Nikahd’s voice came from the television. English translation scrolled beneath the video.

. . . and it is because of this fraud, this crime against the great people of Iran, that I must step down and call for real, true elections. Of course such a thing will not happen so long as the veil of tyranny hangs over every
Iranian’s head. Your Supreme Leader and the government he enables are no longer the voice of the people . . .

His voice rose.

They are a product of the revolution, which freed us all, yes. But now, like so many tyrants from history, the liberators become the oppressors. They shield themselves behind Islam, use the Holy Word to enslave people they should hold dear—the worst kind of blasphemy. The time has come for an Iran ruled by the PEOPLE, where
fear and secrecy are rooted out by justice and liberty. Join with me, brothers and sisters! Let the beacon of truth light the way toward FREEDOM—

A commotion stirred off-camera and several of the president’s retinue moved toward the disturbance. There were shouts and sounds of a scuffle before the video cut out. The announcer’s face replaced the black screen and he looked almost as disturbed as I felt.

Widespread celebrations are under way as I speak. Tehran is, of course, ground zero for these events. No official word yet from the office of the Ayatollah or the military which he controls; however, army units have been dispatched from bases surrounding the capital and are en route to key facilities in Tehran proper. Demonstrations are at a fever pitch and many citizens are armed. Considerable doubt exists that the arrival of military forces will deter or disperse them without open bloodshed. Ladies and gentlemen, we may be only hours away from witnessing the onset of full-scale civil war.

I jabbed the power button on the TV. One question pounded against the interior of my skull. It wasn’t
if
Lyla did it; obviously she had. It wasn’t
why,
either. Hell, my question wasn’t even
how,
because the truth hit in a rush. She’d contacted General Ahmadi—the man in charge of VIP protection for the whole
country,
not just the nuke program. Gotten Nikahd’s location and security details, then used my convenient involuntary nap to sneak out and do what she does best.

No, the only unanswered question was: who was the bigger idiot?

Her, for throwing an entire nation in a blender; or me, for thinking she’d be satisfied with only sabotaging the nuke program? My hands balled into fists. It almost stopped the shaking.

An awful lightness swirled in my throat and I grabbed the gauntlet
from the bathroom. I’d powered it down last night after my debrief with Tucker. When I reenabled the comm functions, a list of entries scrolled up the screen, all identical:
“MISSED CALL: TUCKER-OPS.”

We are in deep shit.

A surge of noise outside distracted me before I could panic; the balcony door barely muffled the raucous crowd outside. When I swung it open, my jaw did the same. The crush and intensity of the mob had doubled in the few minutes I’d been inside. I couldn’t see a single inch of pavement—just a pulsating mass of bodies, jubilant to the point of mania. They danced and jumped up and down, some beneath undulating flags of red, green, and white stripes. A few intrepid souls climbed construction scaffolding on a nearby building façade to get better views of the crowd. And the omnipresent cell phones, thousands thrust aloft to record the birth of a new age in Iran.

Unfortunately, their new dawn was only going to last until a column of tanks rolled down the boulevard and broke up the party. Hard. This moment, though, celebration revolved around
right now
with zero regard for the armored retaliation rumbling toward the capital. The 10 percent of my brain
not
furious with Lyla wondered where she was, out in the morass of humanity the streets of Tehran had become. Hopefully somewhere safe, because the pissed-off 90 percent wanted Aphrodite alive and well when I kicked her ass. I half turned back to the room to call her when something odd caught my eye.

Normally, your vision locks on to unexpected movement. In a maelstrom of activity, however, the peculiarity you notice is stillness. Two hundred yards away, a piece of the mob wasn’t moving. A circular section of people almost thirty feet across stood out from the rest. All around them, the texture of the crowd was in constant flux; chaotic motion in all directions. But not this group, at least fifty people strong. They were a flat disk of tranquility surrounded by roiling sea.

When I focused on their portion of the street, I noticed they
were
moving, just not bobbing up and down. The disk slowly forced its way through the masses in the direction of my balcony. As they drifted closer, I could see the edges of the circle, where the ocean surf of the surrounding mob crashed against the border and rolled away. The outer
boundary of men held the revelers at bay, pushing back to maintain the circle’s edge. At least five progressively smaller rings of men supported them from within. The entire group protected the center—an open circle of pavement ten feet in diameter framing a solitary figure, walking untouched. From a hundred yards, I saw the group as a silent moving eye: a cornea of embraced minions, an iris of concrete, and Lyla as the pupil.

CHAPTER 37

A
re you fucking insane?” I shouted at her after she’d released her small army of escorts and come inside.

“Good morning to you, too,” Lyla muttered while sliding past me. I noticed her niqab from last night, now loosely draped around her neck like a scarf. She walked to the kitchen, uncoiled the fabric, and dropped it in the trash basket.

I shadowed her up the steps to the third floor, cursing the entire way. She responded to none of it, simply walked into the master bedroom and swung the balcony doors wide. When she turned around with a satisfied smile plastered to her face, it was more than I could swallow.

“Dammit, Lyla! Do you have
any
idea what you’ve done?”

“I have a very good idea, yes.” She stood her ground in front of the balcony, hands on her hips. “The Iranian people will finally get to determine their own destiny.”

“Is their destiny to be blown to pieces by artillery shells? Because that’s what’s coming. TV says army units are moving on the capital right now.”

The smile cracked. She sat on the edge of the bed and closed her eyes, listening to exultations from the crowd outside. Absorbing them.

“Nothing? Seriously?” I roared. “People are going to die. Thousands . . .
millions
. You’ve started a goddamn civil war.”

Her eyes opened. “No. I have not.”

I barely heard her. “Christ. This is my fault. I should have known you couldn’t handle this. The nuke program was never gonna be
enough—”

“We did
not
start this,” Lyla said.

I shook my head. “How the
hell
can you say that?”

She launched off the bed and grabbed me by the wrist. Lyla pulled me to the balcony, stepped over the threshold, and swept her arms across the scene. “Look at this!” she cried. “Look at
all
of it. The tears, the dancing, the joy. There are millions of them, Scott . . . not just here, the whole country.”

“I get it. But this—”

“No, you don’t! You don’t understand.” Her volume matched my own. “I didn’t do
this.
I’m not controlling these people. I embraced one man. And do you know what I told him to do? Three words.
Tell the truth.
That’s all.”

She grabbed me by both shoulders.

“Nikahd only voiced what these people already knew: the government controls eighty million people with violence and fear. And those eighty million now have the courage to say something about it. Like before, in 2009 when the student rebellion almost took Tehran. You think I started this?”

She pointed beyond the balcony.

“
They
started it, Scott. Years ago. All I did today was give them the opportunity to finish.”

I stumbled backward into the room, pulling at the sides of my face. I found the corner of the bed and plopped down, mind furiously spinning, trying to understand. Lyla slowly closed the balcony doors. She stood there, letting me adjust.

“Well, that’s just great,” I said, staring at the floor. “The Iranian people get to fight for their freedom. I’m happy for them.”

My head sank into my hands. “But what about us? What do you think the Agency’s gonna do? You’ve disobeyed orders and gone on a personal crusade—exactly what I promised them you wouldn’t do. The CIA is gonna put the word out to every intelligence agency on the planet.”

I couldn’t suppress a grim laugh.

“Congratulations, Lyla. You’ve achieved world unity. Unfortunately,
the one thing they’ll be unified on is killing us.”

She came to the bed and sat beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “I’m not so sure. The Agency might need us now more than ever. In fact, I’m praying they do.”

“What do you mean?”

“This doesn’t
have
to descend into civil war. The United States doesn’t want an Iranian bloodbath any more than I do. Think about it. The most powerful military in the Middle East and more than ten percent of the world’s oil supply? The CIA can’t allow Iran to go the way of Egypt or Syria—it’s too strategic. If anyone can understand that, it’s you.”

Obvious vanity play on her part, but still, it made me curious. “Then what will the Agency do?”

“I think they’ll want our help. Want us to stabilize things.”

That was enough to launch me off the bed and into orbit. I gestured to Lyla’s seventy-five thousand friends outside. “Stabilize
that
?! Are you shitting me?”

An unfamiliar electronic tone cut off my rant. We both turned to see the gauntlet buzzing on the end table.

“Damn. I didn’t turn the comm link off after I checked it. That’ll be Tucker,” I said.

“Answer it.”

“Why, so he can look me in the face to tell me about the terminate-on-sight order? No thanks. Feel free to pick it up yourself.”

Lyla uttered a disgusted “Fine.” After she grabbed the device, Tucker’s voice burst into the room via speaker.

“Ms. Ravzi. What a surprise. I was expecting the illustrious Mr. McAlister. Hopefully nothing unfortunate has occurred?”

I yelled, “I’m in the room, dick!”

“Charming as always. It’s an honor to make your acquaintance, Ms. Ravzi. My name is Tucker.”

Lyla sat cross-legged on the bed and watched his image on the gauntlet from her lap. “So I’ve been told. What can I do for you, Mr. Tucker?”

“Well, as you can imagine, it’s been an exciting night here in
Washington. I’d hazard a guess we’ve been almost as busy as you have.”

All business, Lyla said, “Almost.”

Unflappable as ever, Tucker said, “The next time you want to alter the face of the Middle East, let me know in advance. I could have invested in a few oil futures and retired early.”

“Not very patriotic of you,” Lyla said.

“Be that as it may, Director Shepherd and his good friend the president are facing the prospect of eight-dollar-per-gallon gas prices come morning. That’s a conservative estimate, by the way.”

“Are you saying you’d like us to intervene?”

I heard Tucker sigh. Wouldn’t surprise me if I heard him from halfway around the world without the comm link. “Director Shepherd has no choice but to give you a new mandate. Is General Ahmadi still an available resource?”

She bent closer to the screen. “Yes.”

“Then you are to use Ahmadi to gain access to the Ayatollah. Your mission is to embrace him, his aides, and anyone else necessary in his leadership group—defuse the situation as quickly as possible. The Ayatollah can bring the military in line and end this before it goes too far.”

Lyla clasped hands in front of her face and closed her eyes. “Understood,” she said, voice unsteady. “Thank you, Mr. Tucker. I swear to you, we
will
accomplish this mission. Thank you.” She turned the gauntlet’s screen to face the bedroom wall for a moment to compose herself. Tucker never saw her wipe her eyes.

Prayers answered.

“Pay attention, Ms. Ravzi,” the gauntlet announced to the wall before Lyla twisted it back. “Comm traffic indicates the Ayatollah has not been moved out of Tehran, so you should be able to get to him quickly. And it needs to be quickly. In less than twelve hours, the military will have secured vital supply and arms depots around the country. After that, they’ll engage the citizenry wherever deemed necessary.”

I stood next to Lyla’s bed so I could see Tucker’s face. “So were you in favor of this plan?”

His sharky smile rivaled Lyla’s. “Goodness, no. I suggested we terminate your services immediately. Sadly, cooler heads prevailed.”

Scary part? I didn’t think he was joking. Lyla was apparently too focused on the new mission to care. “When we find the Ayatollah’s location, what can you do to assist?” she said.

“Report his position and we’ll task a thermal-imaging satellite over the target area. We’ve got a couple in the region now. You can use the gauntlet to observe the feed in real time and gain additional reconnaissance if you need it.”

“Excellent. Anything else?”

“No . . . embrace the Ayatollah, stop a civil war. That should be about it. And Mr. McAlister?”

I grabbed the gauntlet from Lyla.

“Yeah?”

“Just so we’re clear: if you can’t accomplish the objective, I suggest you and Ms. Ravzi find a nice, quiet corner of Antarctica and settle down. It’ll be the only safe place on the planet for either of you.”