Shah parked in the employee lot and carried his briefcase to the building entrance, also guarded. He flashed his credentials to the guard here as well, this time also submitting his briefcase to a search, which turned up nothing suspicious. Again he was nodded through.
Shah took the elevator to the fourth floor where he knew the highest levels of government decision-makers to be housed. While in the elevator he made certain the contents of his briefcase were still in the proper order after being rifled through by the guard. Satisfied, he relaxed and took a deep breath just before the chime rang announcing floor 4.
Shah proceeded down the hall past closed doors on either side until he reached the room number he sought. He paused there, steadying his nerves. Satisfied he was as calm as he could make himself, he knocked on the door. A female voice told him to come in and he opened it.
Inside was a bustling open space divided into cubicles. A receptionist sat at a low desk off to the left. She asked him how she may direct his visit. Shah gave her a name and she asked if he had an appointment.
“No, I’m afraid this is a matter of urgency which arose too quickly to make pre-arrangements. I have orders from the President of the United States of America to close this embassy.”
Shah lifted a piece of paper from his briefcase bearing the presidential seal and dangled it in front of her face.
FOURTEEN
Liam snapped his head over his shoulder before making a lane change. Amir’s cab was in the fast lane and properly making use of that designation. He coaxed his little Vespa scooter with epithets muttered under his breath, but the little machine was close to giving all it had to give. As it was, were he to be sighted by a police officer he’d likely be pulled over for having the scooter on the highway.
He stabilized the bike in the lane next to the fast lane and held the pedal to the floor. The speedometer crept up to eighty kilometers per hour, but meanwhile, Amir’s cab one lane over in the fast lane was easily doing one hundred. In a few more seconds the cab would be out of sight.
Then he caught a break when a WIDE LOAD procession of trucks carrying mobile homes took up the two right lanes, squeezing traffic to the two left-most lanes. Traffic slowed, but Liam was able to ride between the lanes. When he was ten cars back he switched into the fast lane, deciding it was risky to pass the cab and be seen by Amir.
His headset warbled in his ear, Tanner’s voice asking for a sitrep, a situation report.
“Target in sight on 26. Not sure how long I’ll be able to stay with him but I got him for now.” He gave the exit he just passed.
“Copy that, stay with him.”
Liam braked as he came up on the rear of the cab. Up ahead the wide load convoy was exiting, traffic already beginning to flow normally once again. Liam decided he needed all the momentum he could get. He moved over one lane to the right and sped between that and the slow lane, passing the cab so that he would have a lead once traffic began to flow again. By the time he was two exits ahead of the taxi, the traffic flow was full speed again. Motorists honked at him to get out of the way with his slow vehicle. He was drawing attention so he moved right one lane into the slow lane.
That’s when he caught the splotch of yellow in his rear view, moving left to right. The cab had changed lanes, all the way over. Liam cursed as he reflexively slowed his scooter.
The taxi exited one offramp behind him. He banged a fist on the handlebar as he shook his head. He transmitted to Tanner.
“Just lost him!”
Tanner’s reply was instant. “Scooter too slow?”
“Mobile home convoy slowed traffic and I was able to I pull ahead of him so I’d have a lead on him when the flow resumed, but then he exited while I was two exits up.” He named the exit.
“Take the next exit, I’ll give you directions; maybe you can circle back and find him on surface streets.”
“Copy that, getting off.”
Liam raced off the highway, turning right onto a main boulevard where he was able to make good progress toward the street on which Amir’s cab exited.
The closer he came to that exit, however, the more discouraged he became. The area was commercial and busy with many buildings on both sides, lots of places to duck into. He experienced a powerful jolt of adrenaline upon sighting a yellow cab, but when he got close he could see that the number painted on the door was different from that of the one Amir took. He looked into the back anyway, in case Amir may have switched cabs, but the rear was empty.
He sped on, soon reaching the avenue that Amir’s cab had exited onto. Liam stopped at a light, looked both ways, and had to admit defeat. The cab was nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, he forced himself to patrol the area, circling block by block, looking down driveways, stopping to examine places where cabs congregated. Even if he had sighted Amir’s cab empty, it would have given him a clue that he had been let off in this area. But as it was he could still be speeding down the street toward the other side of town, headed who knows where.
Liam gave a sharp sigh and transmitted to Tanner that for now, at least, Amir had slipped away.
FIFTEEN
Stephen Shah read the nameplate on the woman’s desk. Lena Gandara. Didn’t ring any bells, not that he expected it to. She was a receptionist, not someone he would have worked with.
“I haven’t heard anything about this. Your name again, Sir?”
Now she wanted to know, Shah thought.
“Jacob Rahimi.” He’d chosen the name carefully, to mirror his own in that he had an Americanized first name but a Persian last name matching his ethnicity. He knew they would be used to many employees and contractors with similarly structured names.
Lena pressed a button on her phone and waited with the handset to her ear. “I’m sorry, Mr. Peterson,” Shah heard her say. “But there’s a man here by the name of Jacob Rahimi who says he has orders from President Carmichael to close the embassy. He asked to see you by name.”
Shah nodded his approval when she looked his way. As with everything under his control for this sortie, he’d chosen Peterson carefully. He was high enough in the government’s organizational structure to get the embassy closed if he believed the presidential orders were genuine, but at the same time he hadn’t been at this embassy long enough to have met Shah previously, so he had no reason to recognize him on sight as might be the case with one or two other employees.
A door at the rear of the office space opened and a tall man wearing a rumpled shirt and tie with no jacket emerged, his gaze fixed intently on Shah. He seemed to hold eye contact with him as he strode across the room. When he reached the reception area he glanced briefly at the document in Shah’s hand, and then at his plastic ID badge clipped to his jacket pocket.
“Join me in my office, please.”
Shah followed him across the space, where a few heads were already peeking over cubicle walls to watch him walk back. He could feel the grapevine growing in his wake as the employees speculated on the meaning of his visit. He and Peterson reached the office and Peterson stood to one side with an outstretched hand inviting him in.
“Please take a seat, Mr. Rahimi.” Shah sat on a simple leather chair in front of Peterson’s desk, a nice wood affair but nothing that would trigger excessive government spending complaints. Peterson walked around to his chair on the other side of the desk and sat.
“You have a document for me?”