“You mean when are you going to do it, don’t you?” came the analyst’s retort. “The DCIA needs to sign off, but we plan on having you run him tomorrow.”
“Really?” Harry grinned. “If you don’t mind, I’ll process that bit of intel tomorrow as well.”
“Good night.”
“Night.”
A car was waiting in the parking lot of a convenience store off the CIA access road. The man inside paused only long enough to run a check of the license plate on the back of Harry’s Chevy, then punched speed-dial. “He’s on the road, Vic. Heading home.”
“Someone might see the smoke.” Thomas looked up from the small fire he was tending into Estere’s eyes. Even as her lips uttered the protest, she shuddered uncontrollably and leaned closer to the flame, hugging her knees close to her body and drawing the blanket tightly around her.
“Don’t worry about that,” he replied, studying her closely, watching for signs of hypothermia. Their clothes lay in front of the fire, drying out — and absorbing the smoke. The blanket she was wearing, which he had stuffed in a water-tight pack along with the vials of blood, was the only thing dry that was left to them. He reached out and felt the material of his pants. Still too wet to wear, he realized distastefully. The awkwardness between them could be cut with a knife.
All the same, in the face of death, modesty didn’t rank too high on his list of priorities. His or hers.
Thomas dipped his finger into the metal cup of water he had been warming over the embers. “Drink this,” he instructed, raising the cup to her lips.
She drank deeply, a faint smile crossing her lips as she let him take the empty cup away. She was still weak. So terribly weak.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For saving my life. I should have died in those waters.”
He grinned. “Not while I’m around.” He looked into the cup and stood. “I’ll fill this in the stream.”
“Don’t leave me, Thomas.”
“I won’t,” he replied, bending down to kiss her cheek. Her skin was flushed with a dangerous, almost feverish warmth.
“Promise?”
He knelt beside her for a moment, seeing in that moment a side of her, a vulnerability he had never before witnessed. “I’m never gonna leave you,” he whispered, running his fingers through her damp, matted hair. “Never.”
He stood and walked from the small cave, self-conscious in the early dawn as he made his way to the stream. It was then that he heard it, the hair on the back of his neck rising at the sound. A helicopter. Headed their way.
It could only mean one thing. The Iranians were coming.
He turned and sprinted for shelter, bare feet scraping against the rock as he dove for cover, clambering into the cave just as a Mi-24 “Hind” attack helicopter came over the ridge to the north.
“Douse the fire!” he hissed, tearing the blanket from Estere’s back and throwing it over the struggling embers.
The blanket smoldered and then a faint tendril of smoke curled upward from the fabric as the flames died, robbed of oxygen. She reached for the blanket to cover herself and he gave it to her, rolling to the side of the cave where his rifle lay. It was the only weapon they had left after their immersion in the deluge.
A single thirty-round magazine. Little enough. He could only hope the helicopter had been going too fast to notice the clump of bushes where Bahoz was tied.
Hope. And wait…
It was his fifth cup of coffee for the night. Or his sixth. It was like the old joke about getting drunk, never sure which glass had done it.
“Give me the rundown on Nichols’ morning routine again,” Vic ordered, draining the cup. The pleasant buzz of caffeine flooded through his system and he put down the empty cup regretfully. He was right there, on the knife’s edge. Any more coffee and he would crash and burn.
The second man lowered his binoculars, turning his attention away from the house across the road. “Bill says his schedule is clear tomorrow morning. Typically, he goes running at 0500 for an hour, then comes back to the house for a shower before heading into work. That’s just a rough approximation, he’s pretty careful to vary his exact time and route. This is what we know for sure — security personnel are coming to watch the house at 0700, so we need to get you inside within that window.”
Vic nodded. A cold breeze swept across the Virginia Piedmont and he zipped up his jacket, feeling the comforting bulge of the Colt Delta Elite 10mm in the holster at his hip. Four hours to go…
“They were supposed to be on horseback, were they not?” the corporal asked.
Harun nodded, standing there on the bank of the stream. The mangled grey carcass stretched on the rocks below them was recognizable as a horse, but only if one used their imagination. “The river may have already done our job for us,” he observed, a trace of regret palpable in his tones.
He and the corporal descended the rocks until they stood beside the body. It had been a magnificent animal, he could tell that much.
Whatever the truth, they were at the endpoint of the journey. No human was in sight. At some point along the way, rider and horse had parted company. Finding that point was going to be the key.
Harun turned, waving to the eight men that had accompanied him on his search. “Back in the helicopter. We’ll take to the air once more.”
His pants were dry at least. It amazed him how confidence-restoring that alone was. Thomas laid down the rifle and moved back to Estere’s side, placing a hand against her forehead. She was still feverishly warm, slipping in and out of lucidity as the morning had progressed.
He reached inside his pouch for the TACSAT, once again thanking whomever had possessed the forethought to make it waterproof.
The call was picked up on the second ring, a burst of static as the encryption sequence finished.
“Where are you?”came Hamid’s voice. “We were expecting you to be at the rendevous by now.”
“Listen, we nearly drowned crossing the river and now we’ve got an Iranian attack helicopter breathing down our necks. Is that reason enough for you?”
“Take it easy, Thomas,” Hamid replied, his voice low and urgent. “I’m not the enemy. Just calm down and tell me where you are.”
“Near as I can tell, we’re about ten, eleven klicks from the border, holed up in a cave.”
“Are you mobile?”
“Yes. We’ve still got one horse, but my guide is suffering from hypothermia. I’m not sure she should be moved in this fever.”
“Leave her, Thomas.”
He heard Estere moan and looked over to where she lay, turning helplessly on the blanket. He had needed to dress her, like one would a baby. “I can’t.”
“Excuse me? Thomas, you know how important those vials are. They’re more important than any one of us. Now I’m going to press my men as close to that blasted border as my orders will let me. Meet us there. Follow protocol.”
Protocol. The cold, hard rules of tradecraft. They hadn’t been designed for situations like this, Thomas thought, ending the call. Protocol be hanged. He wasn’t going to leave her. He had promised…
“Where’s Parker?” Davood asked, coming up as Hamid shoved the TACSAT back in his pocket.
Hamid told him as the two men walked back to the Humvee. “Sergeant Obregon!”