Now the hotel’s once-magnificent grand columns and towering archways that reminded Brent more of ancient Rome than Persia lay in piles of rubble through which they threaded, finding what had once been an ornate marble stairway framed by rubble and leading down into the shadows.
Two of the security men fired up torches, which made Lakota glance strangely at Brent. He assumed they’d at least have flashlights powered by solar cells or other conventional batteries, but they clearly had limited resources.
In the eerie and flickering torchlight, Brent noted that the walls, once adorned by ornate murals of gardens and waterfalls, had been scorched black by terrible fires, and as they descended farther, Brent experienced the enormity of what had happened in this region. They had been far from ground zero, but there had been an unrelenting shower of conventional bombing prior to the nuclear exchange. Kish, though not a primary military target, had been flattened as an economic blow, because it had been one of the most popular tourist destinations and helped bolster the Iranian economy.
They continued on, winding their way through a labyrinth of bombed-out hallways intersected by fallen walls and doors blasted off their hinges. Once they had descended two more flights of stairs that had been sloppily repaired with bricks and thick mortar, they finally reached an open area that might have been a small ball-room or conference room, Brent wasn’t sure. Giant chandeliers hung like twinkling mother ships from the ceiling but remained dark. The room was in fact lit by dozens of candles.
Two unmasked men stood at the entrance, both clutching AK-47s. They allowed the group to pass. Several large writing tables laden with maps, charts, and all kinds of papers lay directly ahead, along with books, thousands of books rising in piles like the Manhattan skyline against a horizon of more massive bookshelves lining the back wall.
Seated behind the broadest desk, a hand-carved piece of furniture as gaudy as Brent had ever seen, was a large man who had to be Juma. He had his boots kicked up, his face half-hidden behind a thick, graying beard as his stubby finger ran down the margin of a report in his hand. A pair of bifocals had slipped down to the tip of his leathery nose. Brent found it a bit ironic that the warlord still managed his forces via hardcopy documents; that was about as old-school as it got. Ghost Recon had been paperless for as long as Brent could remember.
Juma glanced up from his report. “Ah, finally!”
He immediately rose and shuffled around the desk to greet them. He was a large man, at least three hundred pounds, dressed in nondescript military fatigues and a traditional Arab headdress that might’ve been called a turban or something else, Brent guessed, because he’d never spent much time this far south. Surprisingly enough, Juma proffered his hand and said, “You must be Captain Brent of the JSF.”
He spoke perfect English with a British accent and had either spent time in the U.K. or, perhaps, been educated there. Brent didn’t have to wait long for the answers. Abruptly, a data box opened in his HUD, and information on the man scrolled downward as Grey had promised. Juma’s face had been analyzed by the teams back home, who updated Brent with more than he’d ever need to know. Juma was a cousin of the Al Maktoum family, not directly in line to lead but a highly educated businessman once intimately involved with the country’s oil exports. That he had become the leader of a militia was not too surprising, given his graduate degree education and skills.
“I see they’re feeding you the gossip on me,” said Juma, indicating the little flashes of light he detected in Brent’s faceplate. “You can take off your helmets here.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry, but how would you like to be addressed?”
The man grinned. “Juma would be fine.”
Brent removed his helmet, which clicked and hissed as he raised it over his head. “All right. I’m Alex.”
“Alexander the Great,” said Juma with a grin.
“No, just a soldier here to help. And most people just call me Brent.” He turned. “This is my second in command, Sergeant Lakota.”
Lakota removed her helmet and shook out her hair. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
He issued a polite if not perfunctory grin at Lakota but refocused his attention on Brent. “First we eat, drink, then talk.”
“Excellent,” said Brent.
Lakota looked at him, a bit weary. They didn’t have time for this, but refusing the invitation would be an insult.
As they followed Juma toward a door near the back, Brent nodded at Lakota, who was donning her Cross-Com headset and earpiece so they remained in contact with the team and the network. As they walked, she spoke softly: “I’m having a hard time connecting to Grey now. WAN uplink temporarily unavailable.”
“That’s weird. Keep trying,” said Brent.
“I don’t like this, sir.”
Brent gave her a sobering look. “I’ll check back at the towers, see if LAN’s operational.” He did so, and the team reported back in sans any comm problems.
“Brent, I’ve finished my reconnaissance of the entranceway to the vault, and I’ve picked out some ambush points, if you want to take a look,” said Voeckler.
“Busy now, but I will. Run them by the others. Meantime, stand by. I’ll be in touch.”
TWENTY-ONE
The Snow Maiden yawned as the headlights reached out into the darkness, toward the squalid desert town rising in the distance. They were heading south on Highway 55, pushing through vast stretches of nothingness. She thought she saw an oil refinery off to their right, but the shadows and dust had collected into curtains of gloom.
Patti had procured four Renault medium-sized cargo trucks with a telecom service’s yellow logo splashed across the sides. These trucks were not uncommon and wouldn’t draw much attention to themselves.
The other three trucks were driven by members of her team, only one of whom, a Captain Chen Yi, actually spoke a little Russian. Her Chinese was poor, and they’d tested their English on each other with only marginal success. Patti had sworn that every man had been handpicked by herself and Fedorovich and that all could be trusted. The Snow Maiden had grinned to herself over that joke.
Her cell phone rang: It was Patti. She answered curtly.
The woman replied, “I have someone who wants to talk to you. Hold on.”
After a moment, a man’s voice, somewhat filtered by static, came through. “Viktoria, is that you?”
She almost drove off the road. “Pavel?”
“Viktoria, it’s me.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“They’re taking me to meet you, so you don’t have to say anything right now. I know what you did. I know why you did it. And nothing matters anymore. I just want to see you.”
A hollow aching woke in her chest. She was actually speaking to him, to Colonel Pavel Doletskaya, formerly of the GRU, a man she had hurt more than any other in this world, she thought. “I’m so sorry. About everything.”
About more than she could ever tell him — about leading him on, staging her death with Izotov’s help, dropping off the grid, and turning their relationship into a lie. He was the only one who had touched her after her husband’s death. Pavel wasn’t an expendable tool. He meant something, and the Ganjin knew that. He was supposed to be a bonus payment for her.
Or a source of blackmail. She would have to be ready for that, prepared to watch him die.
“Don’t worry, Viktoria. I have always been here. It’s not too late for us. If you will have me…”
She began to choke up.