“What else?”
“Nothing! Do you think I wouldn’t tell you? Please get me out of here!”
Satisfied, Blaine put the jeep into drive and eased it forward slowly enough to allow the lions to extract themselves from the cab. The females scratched at the fender, charging along with him as he slid away, and the male jumped from the roof with a thud. They followed for a time but had given up the chase by the time the jeep reached the double-gated exit route three hundred yards beyond.
“You really have a way with animals, Traymir,” Blaine said to the shrivelled hunk cowering in the backseat.
Chapter 9
The bus heading for South Tehran had been packed all the way from the airport. Evira had boarded early enough to gain a cherished window seat two-thirds of the way back. The old man who had grabbed the seat next to her had drifted quickly off to sleep and been snoring for most of the journey.
Naziabad had once been a factory district that had now evolved into a slum for Tehran’s poor and forgotten. The outcasts in a city that had become outcast itself, first during the war with Iraq, and now even more so as Iran paid the price for a war that had drained the economy dry. Buildings crumbled and were looted. Few windows remained whole and few families remained in their own homes. Men lived alone or in small groups, sleeping in doorways. The air smelled of crumbling brick and dust, but even this was welcome after the stifling bus ride from just outside Mehrabad Airport where Evira had landed only two hours before.
For her, travel within the Arab countries was not a problem. Over the years she had built up a string of identities and passports which listed her as a citizen of each, thus permitting effortless passage between them. After parting with McCracken, she had made her way to Cairo and boarded an Iran Air jet bound for Tehran early Friday morning.
Evira was breathing hard when the bus came to its last stop in Naziabad. She did not fancy herself a killer but nonetheless was fully committed to assassinating General Amir Hassani. Joined together at last against Israel, the militants he had rallied around him represented a force that could destabilize the entire region beyond repair.
Hassani himself was an enigma. A Revolutionary Guardsman who rose to general in the last months of the war, he vanished during the cease-fire and was not heard from through much of the peace talks. He reappeared only after Khomeini’s death when the Revolutionary Guard summoned him from exile following the failed attempts by several of the Ayahtolla’s successors to re-unify the country. His stated commitment to rebuild Iran started not surprisingly with the military at the sacrifice of the lower classes. Beyond the military, he wooed the rich and powerful and attempted to solidify his own power by appealing to the mullahs as well.
But Hassani’s ambitions stretched far beyond Iran. His goal was the unification of Arab radicals all over the Mideast for the ultimate destruction of Israel. And in spite of this he was still only the second most dangerous man in the world. McCracken would stop the first while Evira put an end to Hassani’s reign. She hated herself for what she had done to force McCracken to help her, yet even now could see no other alternative.
Her thoughts rekindled memories of her own family. Since setting forth on the life she saw as her destiny, she had not once seen her brothers. The one in his twenties had become a guerrilla fighter in Lebanon. Of the two still in their teens, one had been killed by Israeli soldiers during the uprisings in the occupied zone. Of the other, she knew nothing. Often she had been tempted to venture into the West Bank and seek out the remnants of her family, but with so heavy a presence of soldiers, the risks were too great. If the Israelis had managed to pin down her background, all her family members would be under constant watch on the chance she would someday show her face in the area. So she stayed on the move and took up residence under their very noses, mixing with their people, wishing that they would see that they were more alike than different, as she did.
Help for her in Tehran would come from the growing Iranian underground, made up of the thousands who had become fed up with Khomeini even before the close of the war. But Hassani presented them with an even clearer symbol to rally against. His policies had forced thousands upon thousands into a life in the streets, made beggars by the priorities the general had set for the country. Unorganized, the disenchanted lingered in the murkiness of fear and discontent beneath the shadow of Hassani’s murderous and power-crazed Revolutionary Guardsmen.
Evira had been able to place an agent within one of the burgeoning underground cells and contact had been initiated on several occasions. They had agreed to help her get close to Hassani and offered to aid her in any way they could. Evira relayed the message that a weapon would be required. As for an escape route, well, she was not unrealistic in appraising the likelihood of this for herself.
Though it was midday, the streets of Tehran’s Naziabad district were virtually deserted. Where shops, restaurants, and stores had once been there were boarded-up windows and chained doors. Sidewalk vendors had disappeared. In the streets there were not even any Revolutionary Guardsmen to be seen, only urchins and beggars foraging among the trash cans and fighting one another for scraps of food. All the same, Evira kept her head down to avoid being noticed. She had changed into the garb of a poor Iranian woman at the airport, but close inspection of her features or even the meager belongings she toted in a small satchel could reveal the ruse.
The building she was heading for was a plastics factory that had only in the past six months been closed down by Hassani. Its size and location made it the perfect place for this particular cell to hold meetings. She ducked down a bordering side street and climbed a steep set of steps to a hidden entrance. As promised, the lock on the door was not fastened all the way and needed only to be yanked on to give way. Evira threw back the hasp and shoved her shoulder against the heavy door. It creaked open and she entered, expecting to be met almost immediately by a member of the cell.
But there was no one. She pushed on warily. In months past this floor had contained offices; the factory itself was contained in the basement. The corridor had already turned dusty and decrepit. Tattered bedrolls lay here and there as testament to the homeless who had never returned to claim them.
Up ahead, a slightly open door grabbed her eye. Still, she heard and saw no one. Something was wrong. If the cell members were present, surely they would have already announced themselves.
Just outside the door, a flood of cold fear coursed through her. The door squeaked slowly open before her and Evira entered a room dominated by a long wood conference table surrounded by high-backed leather chairs. The next thing she saw was that the chairs were all occupied … by corpses, sitting there with the last bit of life frozen on their faces, many covered with blood.
Evira knew this was the cell that had been waiting to help her. But they hadn’t only been killed, their bodies had been arranged for effect.
For her.
Evira sensed what was coming next even before she heard the rumble of boots. What saved her was desperation and the good fortune to see an old Mauser pistol still holstered around the waist of one of the seated corpses. She lunged and grasped it in the same motion. It was in her hand even as she dove down and to the side. Her eyes caught a pair of doors bursting open at opposite sides of the room to allow a quartet of Hassani’s Revolutionary Guards to charge in with automatic rifles already blasting.
Fortunately, their fire was aimed high toward a figure they had every reason to believe would be standing. The bullets sizzled through the air, ricocheting off wood and walls and striking the already dead figures around the conference table.