Kazmin sighed. Judging how much to reveal and how much to withhold was going to be a nightmare, he thought gloomily. Grimly, he settled in for what he was suddenly sure would be the longest trip of his life.
Seventeen
Long shadows slanted eastward across the bustling port city, home to half a million people. On taller buildings, upper-story windows blazed orange-red, reflecting back the light of the setting sun. Below, the streets were filling up again after a late afternoon lull. Those with jobs were slowly making their way home, some by car or bus and others on foot. Those without work rarely bothered to look up as their more fortunate fellows passed by. Instead, they continued chatting with their equally unemployed cronies or concentrated on the endless games of cards, chess, and backgammon that helped pass so many idle hours.
Partway down a residential street in one of Bandar Abbas’s westside neighborhoods, Nick Flynn crouched beside his motorbike. He was apparently engaged in making minor, but time-consuming, repairs. A few simple tools and what looked like a miscellaneous assortment of small spare parts were spread out on an oily rag at his feet. Periodically, he’d switch out a screwdriver or a wrench and pretend to laboriously adjust some engine fitting or other mechanical component.
Most people passed by without paying him any real attention. Do-it-yourself motor vehicle repair work was a common sight in these hard economic times. To better conceal his features, he wore a dirty white baseball cap. Earlier, a few curious younger boys had gathered to observe his seemingly unsuccessful efforts to fix the motorbike, but he’d resolutely ignored their presence and they’d long since drifted away in boredom.
Flynn really had his eyes on a small house about halfway down the block. It belonged to Navid Daneshvar. He hadn’t seen any signs of life there during the entire time he’d been keeping watch. An oil-stained patch of concrete near the front door showed where the Iranian naval architect ordinarily parked. There was no car there now.
He discreetly checked his watch. How long would it take Daneshvar to drive here from his job at the shipyards? Half an hour? An hour? He was painfully aware of another unnerving possibility. What if the other man never showed up at all? When he’d talked to Khavari several weeks earlier, trusted senior employees were still allowed to return home after their shifts ended, unlike the lower-level workers who were being housed on-site for the duration of the oil tanker retrofit. What if that policy had changed in the meantime — as an added security measure? If so, this whole high-stakes covert operation into Iran would turn out to be a colossal waste of the Quartet Directorate’s time and limited resources.
Flynn gritted his teeth. Admittedly, he’d been eager to make a name for himself inside Four, but becoming known as the greenhorn agent responsible for a record-breaking foul-up wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind. Stop figuring on the worst and stay focused, he told himself sternly. While patience wasn’t even remotely one of his virtues, there was no reason to anticipate failure. Not yet, anyway. He’d give this stakeout a while longer. But he figured he only had another hour at most until people around here started wondering if he was either the world’s crappiest motorbike mechanic… or up to no good. He’d have to scoot before then.
He settled himself back down to carry on watching.
About twenty minutes before his self-imposed deadline expired, Flynn saw a badly dented old white Peugeot hatchback turn onto the street. It drove slowly past him and parked right out in front of Daneshvar’s house. Stiffly, a middle-aged Iranian man in a wrinkled business suit climbed out of the car and locked it. He was balding, with a short gray beard.
Plainly weary after what had been a very long day, the driver turned away from the street, fumbled a set of keys out of his pocket, unlocked the house’s front door, and went inside. After a moment, lights came on behind the window blinds.
That pretty much settled it, Flynn decided. Although without a photo for comparison he couldn’t be absolutely sure, that was almost certainly Daneshvar himself. And apparently he lived alone, which should make dealing with him much easier.
He started to get to his feet. Time was running here, so a direct approach might be best. But then, warned by some instinct, almost a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, he crouched back down by the motorbike… just as another vehicle came around the corner. This one was a shiny black Lexus luxury SUV with tinted windows. It pulled off to the side of the street several houses away. No one got out and it was impossible to make out anything through those dark windows.
Seems like this little party of mine is getting mighty crowded all of sudden, Flynn thought uncomfortably. Apparently, trusted servant of the regime or not, Daneshvar was being kept under close observation whenever he wasn’t at the shipyards. He could think of a couple of reasons for that offhand, neither of them good. Either the Iranian was currently under suspicion because he’d been a friend of Arif Khavari, or the security precautions surrounding the Gulf Venture tanker refit were just as thorough and as paranoid as Khavari had claimed.
He frowned. Either way, the presence of these watchers was going to make contacting Daneshvar much harder… and far more dangerous. Originally, he’d hoped his cover story as a junior official in Venezuela’s oil ministry would let him talk to the other man for a while before revealing his real reasons for coming to Bandar Abbas. That would have given him the chance to sound the Iranian out first. Clearly, however, that wasn’t going to fly now — not with Daneshvar under tight surveillance. Nor would any of the half dozen other fanciful schemes that flitted through his mind while he faked tightening a nut on the motorbike’s front fork.
He wouldn’t get very far disguising himself as a take-out delivery guy, a salesman, some kind of municipal worker, or even an appliance repairman, Flynn knew. Yeah, he might be able to get in to see Daneshvar, but the goons in that black Lexus or someone just like them would be on his ass the moment he left. And they’d start asking some very pointed questions that he would not be able to answer. Which would be bad, he thought ruefully. Bad as in “prolonged torture and then a bullet to the back of the head” bad.
Methodically, Flynn started picking up his tools and the little assortment of nuts and bolts and other bits he’d used as window dressing. Basically, if he wanted to talk to Daneshvar, he was down to one remaining option. And it was one that required him to take huge risks without adequate information, and without any safe means of retreat if the meeting turned sour. There was a chance, after all, that it was Daneshvar who’d betrayed Khavari in the first place… or that he’d been “turned”—induced to cooperate — later by Iran security officials investigating the original leak to the Quartet Directorate. If so, knocking on his front door wouldn’t be a whole lot safer than riding past the local police headquarters waving an American flag.
Thinking hard, Nick rolled up the oily rag and stuffed it in his back jeans pocket. Risky as that last option was, he’d have to try it. But not today.
Down the street, one of the Lexus SUV’s windows rolled down. A hand pitched a cigarette out onto the road. The window stayed down. Evidently, Daneshvar’s watchers wanted some fresh air.
Flynn swung his leg over the motorbike and hit the ignition. Its single cylinder, four-stroke engine coughed to life, running a little rough for a few seconds until it smoothed out. He pulled out onto the road and puttered slowly past the parked SUV. His peripheral vision caught sight of two hard-faced men sitting in the vehicle. One of them was blond. The other had light brown hair. They were definitely Europeans, not members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Most likely Russians, he judged. Which strongly implied that Pavel Voronin and his Raven Syndicate carried a lot more weight and authority inside this part of Iran than any of them had realized.