One thing was clear right away. Daneshvar was a widower. And, judging by the mourning band still draped across the photo of a pleasant-faced woman with graying hair, his wife had died relatively recently, certainly no more than a few years ago. There were also framed portraits of three adult children, two boys and a girl. One of the young men wore the uniform of an officer in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. That, at least, strongly suggested that the older man had been able to keep his opposition to Tehran’s radical regime a closely guarded secret, even from his own family. If so, there was some reason to hope that he’d also been discreet and clever enough to escape detection in the internal security frenzy that would have followed his friend Khavari’s exposure as a traitor and subsequent murder.
The entire house was also neatly kept and extremely tidy, which added to the image of a careful, precise man who paid close attention to every detail. Nor were there any listening devices or hidden cameras that Flynn could find. And that, in turn, greatly reduced the odds that Daneshvar was still free only because he was being dangled as bait for Western intelligence agents probing the mysteries of the Bandar Abbas shipyards.
Satisfied that he’d learned all there was to learn for now, Flynn moved back to the front room. After a moment’s thought, he sat down to wait in one of the armchairs. As a vantage point, it was almost perfect, positioned just far enough off to the side of the little room to be out of the line of sight of anyone coming through the door. Calmly, he fitted a suppressor to the threaded muzzle of his Glock 19 and then forced himself to relax. Judging by the events of yesterday evening, it would be some hours yet before he could reasonably expect Daneshvar to return home.
Near sundown, the sound of a car pulling up outside brought Flynn to full alertness. He leaned forward slightly in the chair, with his pistol at the ready. A key turned in the front door and it opened, sending a shaft of orange-red sunlight slanting across the darkened room. Still cloaked in shadow off to the side, he sat motionless, waiting.
Navid Daneshvar came inside and shut the door behind him. With a heavy, tired-sounding sigh, he reached toward the light switch.
Flynn cleared his throat quietly. “Please, don’t do that,” he said in carefully pronounced Persian.
Startled, the Iranian swung toward him and froze. His face paled at the sight of a stranger sitting comfortably in one of his own chairs… and aiming a pistol straight at him.
Flynn twitched the muzzle of the Glock slightly, indicating the sofa. “I’d appreciate it if you’d take a seat over there, sir,” he said politely. “But slowly. Very slowly, if you don’t mind.”
Swallowing hard, Daneshvar obeyed. He kept his hands open and in full view as he edged over to the sofa and sat down. “Who are you?” he asked nervously. “Do you plan to kill me?”
Flynn shook his head with a wry smile. “On the contrary, Mr. Daneshvar, I’ve come a long way just to talk to you.” He nodded at the pistol in his hand. “This weapon is just a precaution against unwelcome intruders.”
“What sort of… intruders?” the older man said, with a note of caution plain in his voice.
“Oh, thugs from your Revolutionary Guards. Or maybe some of those Russian hired guns, like the pair in that black SUV keeping an eye on you from down the street,” Flynn said with a grin, deliberately dropping into English. “Folks who, I think, neither of us would be especially happy to see crash through that door.”
Daneshvar kept a tight rein on his expression. “And you claim that you are not one of them?” he asked in the same language.
“I do,” Flynn agreed.
“Then who are you exactly, Mr. — ?” the Iranian prodded.
Flynn shrugged. “You can call me Duarte. As to who I work for, which is far more important, I’m a member of the organization your friend Arif Khavari contacted some weeks ago.”
Daneshvar frowned. “And if I said I have no idea of what you’re talking about, Mr. Duarte?”
“You’d be wasting valuable time,” Flynn said flatly. He shrugged his shoulders. “The proof of who I am comes in two parts. First, if I’m not who I say I am, what do I have to gain by coming here like this? If I’m only lying, and I really work for your government or its Russian allies, why wouldn’t I just have you arrested? It would sure as shit be a whole lot faster and easier to haul you off for questioning elsewhere — in far less pleasant surroundings.”
The older man nodded slightly. His eyes were still wary. “And the second part of your proof?”
“It’s this,” Flynn said quietly. He carefully removed the magazine from his Glock and dropped it off to the side of the chair. Then he locked the pistol’s slide to the rear, ejecting the remaining live 9mm round from its chamber. Finally, he leaned forward and put the empty weapon down on the rug at his feet. He sat back and looked straight across at Daneshvar. “Now, if you still don’t trust me, all you have to do is bolt straight out that door over there. I can’t stop you. Not before you can call for help from those Russians parked outside your house, anyway.”
The Iranian smiled dryly. “You’re taking a rather significant risk, Mr. Duarte,” he pointed out. “Since turning you in would certainly prove my loyalty to the regime.”
“Maybe so,” Flynn acknowledged. “But based on what Arif Khavari told us before he was killed, I don’t have time to play it safe.”
Daneshvar nodded slowly. He sat back against the sofa. His face sagged in grief. “Poor Arif,” he said softly. “The information I sent led him to his death. I am at fault.”
Impatiently, Flynn shook his head. “You’ve got that wrong,” he said.
“How so?” the older man asked.
“The regime in Tehran and its foreign allies are the ones who murdered your friend, not you,” Flynn said bluntly. “And why did they kill him? Simply because he was a man of honor who wanted to warn the world that something very dangerous was happening here.”
Daneshvar sat without speaking for a few moments. Finally, he sighed. “What you say is true.” He lifted his chin. “Which, I suppose, now leaves that same task to me.” He met the American’s gaze. “What more do you need to know about the Gulf Venture?”
“Pretty much everything,” Flynn confessed frankly. “Khavari was shot before he could give us more than a brief outline of the work being done on this tanker. He wasn’t able to pass on enough information for us to figure out what your government and the Russians really plan to do with the ship once her retrofit is complete.”
“It is complete now,” Daneshvar told him quietly. “Our yards finished the remaining modifications three days ago.”
“Hell and damnation,” Flynn muttered under his breath. Whatever it turned out to be, Operation MIDNIGHT was even closer to kicking off than he’d thought.
The Iranian nodded. “An apt choice of words, Mr. Duarte.” His expression darkened. “Unfortunately, I cannot tell you precisely what the evil men in Tehran and Moscow intend. But I now believe it may well be far worse than anything I could have imagined.”
Flynn felt his jaw tighten. “Worse how?”
“Today I learned that the secret cargo intended for Gulf Venture is on its way,” Daneshvar said. “Trucks carrying its key components are expected to arrive at our shipyards late tomorrow evening. Once those components are fully assembled by specialist crews coming with this same truck convoy, our own workers will stow it aboard the tanker.” He looked worried. “When that is done and Gulf Venture fills its remaining tanks with crude oil, it could sail at a moment’s notice.”
“So what is this cargo?” Flynn demanded.
The Iranian sighed. “I don’t know for sure,” he confessed. “But judging by the fact that it is being trucked in from Shahrud, I am very afraid.” His mouth tightened. “My government has long been in the grip of madmen. Now I fear that their madness may be reaching its peak… and that it could easily consume us all.”