Voices.
Metal lift rack in the center of the garage — but no vehicles, giving a clear field of fire.
Ryan froze as the shoulder of one of the men came into view. He was squatting with his back to Ryan, in the approximate center of the west wall. It was one of the men from the station wagon, which meant his eyes were not yet accustomed to the bright light of the garage. Ryan risked another half step, farther into the fatal funnel of the doorway, bringing Ysabel into view. She was gagged and seated on the dirt floor, leaning against the west wall. She looked up and to her right, at someone who was just out of Ryan’s view.
Ryan eased out of the doorway so as not to create a flash of movement.
Shoulder to shoulder with Dovzhenko, he kept his gun on the doorway. “At least two,” he whispered, then quickly described the layout. Recon grew stale in no time and he wanted to move while the bad guys were in the same relative position as when he’d last seen them. “Not sure about this wall or the southwest corner.” Ryan pointed, in case the Russian wasn’t keyed in on his cardinal directions. “The guys closest to Ysabel have to go first. I’ll take everyone north, working back to the center. You buttonhook and take everyone south — on this side. Our fields of fire will overlap in the middle.”
“What is ‘buttonhook’?”
“I go straight in the door,” Ryan said. “You come in behind me, hooking around the left side of the door, engaging as I draw fire.”
Dovzhenko gave a curt nod. “Understood.”
“On three,” Ryan said.
“On three,” Dovzhenko repeated, bringing Ryan’s anxiety level down just a little. He had done this before.
Ryan moved quickly but surely, making it a good fifteen feet before anyone realized he was there. All eyes — and guns — trained on him as Dovzhenko came in behind him. AKs boomed in the enclosed space, snapping off the concrete-block wall. Ryan turned when he reached the halfway point, putting two rounds into the pelvis of the man on Ysabel’s right as he brought up his rifle.
The angle put Ysabel between Jack and the bad guy to her left. Trusting Dovzhenko to take care of that one, Ryan swung farther left. A third target stood in the southwest corner, holding a video camera in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other. Ryan shot him in the chest, then, using the muzzle rise of his rifle, followed up with shots to the neck and face. The last took off the man’s black turban along with half of his skull.
This one down, Jack scanned to his right in time to see the other man near Ysabel fall under two well-aimed shots from Dovzhenko.
Ryan covered the far door. “Any more?” he shouted over the piercing whine in his ears.
Ysabel shook her head.
“We must go,” Dovzhenko said, already helping Ysabel to her feet.
Ryan backed out, covering their exit, while Dovzhenko faced forward with Ysabel tucked in between them. Ryan grabbed three extra AK mags from one of the men, and a wood-handled knife from a table on the way out. He paused just long enough in the alley to cut Ysabel’s hands free.
The shooting lasted less than six seconds from the time Jack had cleared the door. Just over a minute later, they were in the Toyota Hilux, heading northwest.
53
Hope was not a plan, but Jack and the others had little else.
Ysabel bounced like a nervous cat in the front passenger seat, hyped from being kidnapped twice in a row, and talked nonstop for the next twenty minutes. Dovzhenko drove, and she directed him onto a two-lane dirt path south of the Islam Qala Highway. Ryan took the backseat. They discussed a variety of options as they went — until the adrenaline finally wore off and Ysabel fell asleep.
Rock-strewn smuggling trails crisscrossed the desert, leaving law enforcement and military on both sides of the border guessing. Ysabel had warned of loitering unmanned aerial vehicles, jeep patrols, motion sensors, and cameras, but explained that graft was rampant and staffing was abysmally low. Beyond that, the wind rendered all of it nearly useless.
Crossing the border was the easiest thing any of them had done in the past day. The most difficult thing about it turned out to be putting up with the bumpy ride. The Wind of 120 Days began to blow in the early summer and didn’t let up until the fall. It laid down some during the night, but was still stiff enough to cloud the air with dust that could be felt biting the skin. Every crack and surface inside of the Toyota was clogged and covered in a thin yellow patina. Jack had a chronic cough by the time they’d traveled the forty miles to rejoin the paved highway. Taybad lay just a few miles ahead. It was a small city by Iranian standards — around fifty thousand people — just large enough so strangers could blend in, but small enough that there were few people on the road at two o’clock in the morning. Unlike cities in America, it was almost completely dark.
Ysabel stirred when they hit smooth pavement, jolted by the sudden comfort of the ride. Arms over her head, she gave a long feline stretch, which did not go unnoticed by either man.
Dovzhenko took a chance and drove into a quiet neighborhood on the eastern side of town. Toyota Hilux trucks were common and Dovzhenko dropped Ryan off with a screwdriver from the glovebox so he could steal a local license plate. Islam’s feelings about dogs made them few and far between in Iran, so he didn’t have to contend with any barking while he unscrewed the plate. Dirt all but cemented the license plate to the truck’s frame, but the constant moan of wind helped to cover any errant squeaks and clanks when Ryan pried it loose. With any luck, they’d be in Mashhad before the theft was reported.
The new plate attached to the rear of the Toyota, Dovzhenko left Taybad in the blowing dust. Ryan took a quick moment to send a flash message to Clark on the laptop with the satellite hookup. The signal was active for less than two minutes before he powered off the phone and closed the laptop. Headlights cut the blackness ahead and silence settled inside the vehicle.
Dovzhenko knew the name of the engineer they hoped to turn was Yazdani. He knew the hospital where Yazdani’s son received medical treatments, but he had no idea where the man lived. They moved forward with only the vaguest of plans.
Pitching a foreign national was touchy, even if one had something tangible to offer, like the promise of medication for a sick child. Some people put patriotism above all else. Even those who might eventually come around had to leap over hurdles of conscience. That took time — something Ryan and the others did not have.
The pitch would have to be made at Yazdani’s home, where the rules of Persian hospitality dictated he invite visitors in and offer them refreshment. Ysabel could use her credentials from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime at the children’s hospital and, she hoped, find out where Yazdani lived. Then they would simply knock on the door. If he refused… Ryan didn’t want to think about that.
But first they had to rest.
Dovzhenko knew a place, a woman who he’d worked with in the past, he said. The iffy friend of an unproven Russian spy didn’t exactly fill Ryan with confidence. But his ear was starting to throb and probably needed to be looked at. Judging from the muddy slop he’d had to swim through to get out of the burning van, a double dose of antibiotics was in order. The worst part, at least in the near term, was the bandage around his head. Wounds said there’d been a fight, and fights drew unwanted police attention. It couldn’t be helped, so he put it out of his mind. He had enough to worry about. Fatigue already threatened to lead to stupid mistakes, and in a country like Iran, they weren’t likely to get many do-overs. The physical and mental stress of the past few hours had taken a tremendous toll on all of them.
Ryan leaned forward against the bench seat, resting his chin on the back of his hands. He told himself it was to stretch, but in reality, he just wanted to be as close as possible to Ysabel.