Flynn hid his surprise. Iran’s seemingly perpetual quest for nuclear weapons was the hot topic in Western intelligence circles, not its ship-construction plans. “Go on,” he prompted.
Quickly, Khavari explained. According to his friend, Navid Daneshvar, major modifications had been ordered to a large oil tanker named Gulf Venture now under repair at the Shahid Darvishi shipyards — modifications which made no sense for any vessel genuinely intended to carry petroleum products to ports around the world. No commercial oil tanker needed concealed compartments, hydraulic cranes, special ship stabilizers, and additional high-speed pumps.
Equally troubling were strict new security measures that seemed intended to shroud this project in absolute secrecy. Among other things, Tehran had ordained the construction of a huge temporary roof over the yard’s largest dry dock in order to block any satellite imagery of the work in progress. And all shipyard personnel assigned to the project were being kept under close watch in special housing, forbidden to communicate with their families or anyone on the outside, except under very limited circumstances. The only exceptions to this policy were a handful of senior staff believed to be absolutely loyal to the regime, like his friend Daneshvar. Finally, large numbers of special commandos from the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force had been deployed as guards around the Darvishi complex — backed up by foreign “mercenaries,” probably Russians.
“Russians?” Flynn said, unable to hide his surprise at the thought of Iran’s notoriously xenophobic rulers allowing armed foreigners of any stripe to operate inside their jealously guarded territory.
Khavari nodded darkly. “So Daneshvar says. Either Russians or maybe Eastern Europeans. Slavs of some kind, for sure.”
Flynn thought for a moment and then asked, “Can you get your hands on blueprints that show the specific alterations being made to this ship? That’d give our analysts a much better shot at figuring out what your government is planning.”
Sorrowfully, Khavari shook his head. “It’s proved impossible to smuggle out any documentation from the shipyard complex. Everyone is thoroughly searched on entry and departure. And it’s strictly forbidden to take anything, whether on paper or a USB drive, beyond the gates. Or to bring any data storage devices inside. Even the main computer systems are ‘air-gapped’—cut off from any physical or wireless connection to the internet. So far, Daneshvar has been forced to relay every scrap of information to me solely by word of mouth. And even that is incredibly dangerous.”
“Yeah,” Flynn frowned. If only half of the security measures the Iranian described were actually in place, Tehran was taking no chances. Besides a defense against espionage, blocking both physical and internet access to the shipyard’s computers would also prevent cyberattacks like those periodically used by the Israelis and other hostile countries to sabotage Iran’s nuclear and missile development facilities. Thinking hard, he dug one of his ski poles a little deeper into the snow. “Look, what’s the time frame on this project? When are the modifications to this tanker supposed to be complete?”
“Not long,” Khavari told him gravely. “Perhaps only a matter of weeks. Two months at the outside. The yard is working around the clock to finish its work on the Gulf Venture. No delays are tolerated.”
Flynn’s jaw tightened. “A couple of months? That’s not much time to—” He stopped abruptly, aware that his subconscious had just sent up a warning flare. Something was off, somewhere. He stared over the Iranian’s shoulder, peering at the slope higher up the trail. Was that movement in the trees over on the other side? Maybe around a couple of hundred yards off?
Suddenly, Khavari’s chest exploded high up, right over his heart — spraying bright red blood and bits of pulverized bone across the white surface of the snow. He’d been shot in the back.
Shit, shit, shit, Flynn thought furiously. He threw himself prone, just as another bullet ripped past his own head and smacked into a tree farther downslope. A third round slammed into the Iranian, who was already dead. His corpse toppled sideways and fell in a heap just uphill.
Flynn reacted without hesitation. Khavari’s body wasn’t good cover. Not for long, anyway. It wouldn’t take whoever’d just bushwhacked them more than a few seconds to find a new vantage point, one with a clear angle on him. So it was move and move fast. Or die right here.
He punched the tip of one of his poles into the binding release levers on his skis — popping them free. Then he curled around, grabbed both skis, and tossed them sideways into the woods lining this side of the run. Frantically, he rolled after them across the slope. Ice crystals spurted up near his face from another near miss.
Swearing under his breath, Flynn reached the wood line and scrambled behind the trunk of a pine tree, whose heavy, snow-covered lower branches almost brushed the ground. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered through clenched teeth. Being shot at sure got old fast. Especially since he wasn’t armed himself right now. Austrian gun laws were more relaxed than those of many other European countries, but he’d still figured the local authorities would pretty seriously frown on a foreign “business consultant” carrying a concealed pistol if he was caught. Well, mark that decision down as a triumph of excessive caution over common sense, he thought bitterly.
Then again, he realized, the assassin who’d just killed Khavari and tried to blow his own brains out had to be using a scoped rifle. And one with a hellaciously effective suppressor at that. Even through the crystal-clear Alpine air, the sound of the shots had been remarkably muffled, more like the mechanical snap of a bolt cycling than the sharp-edged crack usually made by a high-powered round exploding outward from a rifle barrel. So even if he had a sidearm right now, charging back up the mountain through the snow to go mano a mano with a trained sniper would be a terminally stupid plan. The enemy would nail him the instant he broke cover and came out into the open.
No, Flynn decided. There were situations where attacking into an ambush was the least bad option. But this was most definitely not one of those situations. Instead, much as he hated it, the smart play now was to bail out and get clear.
Swiftly, he scooted downhill to where his skis had slid, careful to keep the trees between him and that unseen, distant gunman. It took only moments to brush away the caked snow from his boots and bindings and snap back into his skis. He paused for another few seconds to get his bearings. He’d ducked into the woods on the northwestern edge of the trail. And according to the trail maps he’d studied before meeting Khavari, there was another run just on the other side of this thin strip of forest, one that would get him off the mountain.
Flynn’s mouth twisted in a self-conscious grin. So much for his earlier plan of taking the easier way down the Kitzbüheler Horn. His chosen alternate route was marked as a more advanced slope, a lot steeper and more rugged than he ordinarily found comfortable. Still, he was okay with taking the risk of sprawling flat on his ass in front of more experienced skiers if it meant staying out of the rifle sights of an assassin. Moving carefully through the softer, deeper snow under the trees, he glided away at an angle, heading for the neighboring run.
He stopped again just before coming back out into the open. Both native caution and his training dictated that he make a few rapid changes to his appearance. For one thing, the bright blue outer shell of his ski jacket was spattered with Khavari’s blood. That was bound to draw unwanted attention, whether from the ski area’s security personnel, the general public, or, just conceivably, other members of the hit team who might already be looking for him near the lower lifts.