“My middle name these days,” I answered. I backtracked, starting with a quick account of the attempted poisoning. I rehashed the unexpected police reception at the airport and my introduction to Trevor McCormick, and ended with the motorcycle rider tracking us from the airport. “Your guy was Johnny-on-the-spot at the airport, and he handled the bad guy on the bike about as well as a man could. Maybe too good. You sure about him?”
“Shit, man, if you can’t trust him,” Mr. Elliot replied, “then we’re fucked. I trust him like I trust you.”
Good enough, then. I said, “Alright. Then I need him for the ride out tonight. Can you arrange that?”
“Already done,” he said. Over the course of our thirty-plus years together as case officer and operative, I’d heard him say “already done” maybe a couple of hundred times. It didn’t mean exactly that; it meant, You can count on me. Don’t give it a second thought. And I learned never to give it a second thought, because he always came through. Always.
“Good.” I filled my lungs. He waited. “I was a split second away from drinking that drink.”
He read my mind. “Five years is a long layoff.”
“No excuse.”
“No excuse at all,” he said matter-of-factly. “But it begs the question, do we move to another option?”
He didn’t mention what that other option was, but I knew what he was getting at. That I pull up stakes and return home with my tail between my legs. Meaning, the HUMINT part of the op inside Iran failed. Because of me. Wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m still in,” I said calmly.
“You sure? There’s no pressure from this end.”
Total bullshit. I fold and I’d never be able to look Mr. Elliot in the eye again, not to mention my relationship with General Tom Rutledge. But pressure had nothing to do with it; neither did my self-esteem. I’d been charged with developing indisputable intel supporting military strikes and covert assassinations inside the most dangerous country on the planet. Imagine coming home and telling my kids I couldn’t hack it. A superpatriot no more. No chance.
“It’s a go,” I said. “I’ll wrestle a gorilla if I have to.”
Mr. Elliot chuckled. “I’ll put your driver on full alert. Give him thirty minutes’ notice.”
“Roger that.” We hung up. I powered up the videoconference app and dialed General Rutledge’s number. The call went through a series of clicks — security cues — and Tom answered. He was wearing a black warm-up jacket. “Caught me on the way to a tennis game,” he confessed, as if me being here in full-op mode and him being in D.C. playing tennis just didn’t feel right. “News?”
I didn’t bother with a full report: too much melodrama. “I’m a day away,” I said, knowing he would understand that I would have boots on the ground in the badlands tomorrow. “I need an ID infusion.” Meaning new passports with completely revised travel packets. I wanted to go in without any of the baggage I’d accumulated in Amsterdam and Turkey. Tom didn’t need an explanation.
“They’ll be in your deployment kit.”
“And my transportation?” Meaning the C-17 Globemaster III.
“Ready for a pickup, 0100 tomorrow morning, your time. Rendezvous point is seven hours away,” he said, referring to Field 27. “You better hustle.”
“And you’d better put in some time on that serve of yours. My daughter’s got more juice on her serve than that weak-kneed thing you were sending over the net last time we faced off,” I told him.
“Is this the same daughter who’s been kicking your ass since she was fifteen?”
I grinned. “Touché, my friend. Touché.”
Tom’s grin didn’t last. We were separated by thousands of miles and our images were nothing but tiny dots on an electronic screen, but I could still feel his concern.
“Godspeed, my friend.”
Honestly, that was the problem with working hand-in-hand with a friend: the emotional baggage couldn’t possibly do either of us any good. I said, “Thanks,” and the screen went blank.
Time to go. I fished Trevor McCormick’s card from my jacket and dialed his cell phone. It rang once. I could hear by the tone of his voice and a quick intake of breath that Mr. Elliot had put him on the alert. I asked how soon he could get to me. He said twenty-five minutes.
“Good. I’ll be across the square from the Column of Constantine. In the gift shop.”
“What? Why there? What’s up?” he wanted to know. So, Mr. Elliot hadn’t told him about the screwup at the Hotel Marmara.
“I’ll explain when I see you,” I said. “And if you can track down some coffee, I’d appreciate it.”
I spent ten minutes washing up at a communal sink at the end of the hall. I’d used a lot worse. There was a bar of soap attached by a piece of rope to the faucet. The water was lukewarm and only slightly rusty. There was an empty paper-towel dispenser and a cloth towel that looked as if it had been used by a construction worker or a gardener. I walked with wet hands and face back to my room and used a corner of the bedsheet to dry off.
I spent the five minutes rechecking my Walther. I spent another minute composing a text to the DDO, asking him to set up a safe house in Tehran, as close to Jomhuri as possible. Jomhuri was located in the city center, and I only knew about it because that’s where everyone went to buy their computers and cell phones, and the bazaar there was apparently overrun by the younger generation. The request would keep Wiseman busy, even though I had no intention of using one of the Agency’s safe houses, except perhaps as a diversion.
I checked myself in the mirror hanging over the dresser. I needed a shave. But other than that, the news wasn’t all bad. At least there were no dark circles looming under my eyes. I shared an ironic grin with my reflection and headed for the door.
The woman behind the reception desk was still working the keys of her adding machine; apparently running a motel the size of the Burnt Column was more complex than I’d imagined. She smiled at me and her round face came to life, eyes bright, as if running a motel the size of the Burnt Column was a blessing.
Her smile compelled me to say, “Thank you,” but when I was outside the motel I still turned in the opposite direction, away from the square surrounding the Column of Constantine. I walked down the cobbled alley, turned left, and circled the block. I ducked into the gift shop I had mentioned to McCormick, thumbed through a local newspaper, and watched my tracks. I bought a copy of the English version of HaberSkop. I turned away from the counter, stopped to put the change back into my pocket, and saw two policemen patrolling the walk.
Ten-to-one they had nothing to do with me, but I got out my iPhone and called McCormick anyway. “Change in plans. Come down Isil Street. Slow down when you see the Yildiz Market. It’ll be on your right. But don’t stop.”
“I’m sixty seconds away.”
I stepped through the gift-shop door. I rolled the magazine in my palm and fell in behind an Asian couple with a map of the old town opened in front of them. The police were looking in the direction of the square and the ever-present crowd taking in the sights. I turned down Isil Street and heard a car rolling up beside me. I dropped the magazine into a curbside trash can. I walked into the street just as the Mercedes rolled past and slowed. I heard the door locks click. I jerked the door open and slipped into the front seat.
“Everything okay?” McCormick asked.
“Just a couple of cops in the square. Better part of valor, if you get my meaning.”
“If you mean you’re not overly enamored with the Turkish police, yeah, I get your meaning,” he replied. He took the first turn away from the square. “So why the change in location? The Hotel Marmara not to your liking?”