“Okay, how about the nineteen-minute call he received?” David pressed. “Please tell me it was from the Mahdi.”
“No, sorry,” said Eva. “It was actually from Darazi.”
“President Darazi?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Why? What did they say?”
“Hold your horses; I’m getting to that,” Eva said. “The call occurred just after nine o’clock this morning, local time. Darazi says the Mahdi asked him to check in on Javad to see if the doctors have cleared him to come back to work. Javad says he needs a couple more days, at a minimum. And get this. Darazi says, ‘No, that won’t do. The Mahdi says this will be over in a couple more days. We need you now.’”
“He said ‘a couple more days’?” David asked.
“That’s verbatim,” Eva confirmed.
“What else?”
“Javad says he would like nothing more, but his doctors are being pretty firm. Darazi says the Mahdi doesn’t care what the doctors say; he wants him at his side for this ‘final operation,’ quote, unquote. He says they’re going to transfer him sometime this afternoon and bring his doctors with him.”
“Did Darazi say when exactly the transport would happen?”
“No.”
“Did he say where they’re going to move Javad to?”
“Not exactly, but Javad indicates he doesn’t think the road to the airport is secure. He’s hearing reports that the bombing of the airport has been relentless. Darazi confirms this but says they’re not bringing him to the airport bunker. Javad then asks if it’s the Qaleh, up in the mountains, because he still thinks that’s not secure either. Darazi says no. That was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike. He says they’ve set up a new war room. It’s very impressive, state-of-the-art, and unlikely to be noticed by the Israelis since it’s, as he put it, ‘hiding in plain sight.’ Javad asked for details. Darazi said he’d know soon enough. And that’s pretty much the gist of it.”
“That took nineteen minutes?”
“Well, no, Javad gave him an update on his medical situation. He’s got a pretty nasty wound in his right shoulder where the bullet passed through. They’ve got him on a bunch of antibiotics, and they’re hoping he won’t develop an infection.”
“Anything else?”
“You want me to e-mail you the transcript?”
“No, we’re almost there.”
“That’s pretty much everything,” Eva said. “Oh, well, this was interesting.”
“What?”
“As they finish the call, Javad asks Darazi how he thinks the war is going. Darazi says they’ve been hit harder than he’d expected, but that he has, quote, ‘full faith in Imam al-Mahdi and in those two aces up his sleeve.’”
“Two aces? You’re sure?” David pressed.
“That’s what he said,” Eva confirmed. “Two aces.”
“So he knows about the warheads.”
“Apparently so. Looks like your instincts were right. Who knew?”
“Very funny,” David replied, about to fire back with a wisecrack when another call started coming in. “Look, I gotta go. But good work, Eva. Let me know when you work your way through more of those intercepts.”
“Will do. Take care of yourself.”
“You too — bye.” And David disconnected.
Torres turned off Azadi Road onto North Kargar Boulevard. Traffic was nonexistent. The streets of Tehran were practically abandoned, and they were making great time.
“Heads up,” said Torres. “We’re two minutes out.”
David nodded and checked his watch — it was now 3:28 p.m. The rest of the team loaded magazines into their MP5 machine guns and screwed silencers onto their automatic pistols. David did the same, careful not to let anything he was doing be seen from outside the van. Then he took the incoming call. It was Zalinsky.
“Put me on speaker,” Zalinsky ordered.
David complied.
“Can you all hear me?” Zalinsky asked.
“We can,” David said.
“Good. Listen, I’m in the Global Ops Center. I’ve got Tom at my side. Roger is on his way.”
“Hey, Zephyr.” It was Murray’s voice. “Good luck today.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.”
“You guys are the main event right now,” Zalinsky said. “Even the president has been alerted to this operation. We’ve retasked a satellite, and we’re currently tracking your van driving north on Kargar. We’ve been watching the hospital from a Predator. Tom is e-mailing a layout of the campus to each of your phones along with schematics of building two. We’ve also hacked into the hospital’s mainframe. They’ve actually got Javad registered under his own name. He’s in building two on the fifth floor, room 503.”
“Great,” Torres said. “What’s the security setup there?”
“Nothing special out front,” Zalinsky said. “There’s a security post when you first enter the parking lot. Just one guy. No big deal. Rent-a-cop. Unlikely to be armed. There are two security guards at the front door of building two. We zoomed in on them. They’re heavily armed. Machine guns, sidearms, radios. Thermal imaging shows four more just like them in the lobby.”
“Is that normal?” David asked.
“I doubt it,” Zalinsky said. “We’re guessing security has been beefed up because of their special guest.”
“He’s getting more ‘special’ and intriguing every minute.”
“True,” Zalinsky said. “Obviously we want you to steer clear of the lobby. There’s an exit door on the south side. We’re not sure if it’s locked from the outside. But that leads into a maintenance area. From there, you should split up. There’s a stairwell on the left, just inside the doors. To the right, you have to go about halfway around the building, but there’s another stairwell there.”
“Any of that guarded?” Torres asked.
“Not on the ground floor,” Zalinsky explained. “But once you guys get to the fifth floor, you’ll definitely have company.”
“How many?”
“Thermal imaging shows armed guards at each of the stairwell doors. Two more by the elevators. Two more outside Javad’s room.”
“Security cameras?”
“We don’t know, but you’ll have to assume so.”
“Dogs?”
“Not that we’ve seen.”
“Plainclothes officers?”
“Can’t say for certain.”
“Any free safeties or roving teams?”
“Not that we can tell,” Zalinsky said. “But I wouldn’t rule it out. And look, it’s crowded up there. There are a lot of war wounded coming into the hospital. Plus they’re doing a blood drive this afternoon, and they’re actually getting a decent turnout, despite the fact that so few people are out on the roads. Not sure how people are hearing about it, but they’re there. So be alert. Every floor is jammed. They’ve got stretchers in the hallways, too. All leaves have been canceled. Doctors and nurses are being ordered in from everywhere. They’ve got a lot of staff on duty. It’s going to be a mess. This would be a lot better at night.”
“I agree, but I don’t see how we can wait,” David said.
“No, neither do I,” said Zalinsky. “You guys all set?”
“I guess,” David said, “though I just talked to Eva.”
“She told you Darazi is sending people to get Javad this afternoon?”
“Right. Should we be worried?”
“Let’s hope not. It’s still fairly early over there, right?”
“Just after three thirty.”
“Well, let’s just hope for the best,” Zalinsky said. “But we’ll definitely keep an eye out for unwelcome guests.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, but what else could they do? They needed more men and more firepower to do this right. But they simply didn’t have the luxury of either.