The sun crested the eastern hills, and an already bright sky became an incandescent blue. A helicopter thumped in the distance: a Huey with Iranian military markings. How ironic to see an American-made helicopter on the hunt for an American CIA operative. Well, hell, what would war be without the dispassionate contributions of arms dealers and defense contractors?
The copter made a pass up the valley, zooming to within five hundred meters of my position before circling back to orbit the diversion point. I flipped on the radio scan. There was a fresh volley of heated radio chatter, and I could tell that the ringmaster of this circus was definitely pissed off. Good. Glad I could accommodate.
The helicopter made another pass up the valley and raced south, back toward the city. New traffic barked over the radio, orders for the men to rally. Sorry for the disappointment, chumps.
The 4 × 4s with the machine guns emerged from the trees. The foot soldiers followed. The two troop trucks returned from wherever the hell they had gone. They gathered the troops, formed a column behind the 4 × 4s, and headed south along the Fasham — Tehran Road.
I kept still for another fifteen minutes. When I was sure the bad guys hadn’t circled back, I opened a channel on my iPhone. I sent a new message to General Rutledge, which read: Bear waiting. Went home hungry. I attached the audio link from the Revolutionary Guards’ radio transmissions.
I e-mailed a second message to Mr. Elliot. This one read: Leak confirmed. Too many suspects to count. I attached the audio link again and hit the Send button.
I was repacking my backpack when Mr. Elliot replied: I’m on the hunt. I was glad to hear that, of course, but there was almost no chance he would ferret out the leak in time to aid my mission. Then a second message appeared. It read: Russian delivery in transit. Coordinates and codes to follow. I stared at the words and shook my head. If it came to that, I was a dead man. But at least the mission wouldn’t be a complete loss.
I shut down my phone. Now for my ride, whoever that was. I slithered out from under the juniper and hiked back to my original LZ, the rendezvous point for Mr. Elliot’s contact. I tucked myself under the brush and waited.
At ten o’clock, a battered stake truck rumbled up the draw and came to a halt. A Chevy. A total waste of metal, if the exterior was any measure, but there was a healthy purr to the engine. The driver got out. He circled to the rear of the truck. He dropped the tailgate. A half-dozen goats hopped out and scampered into the grass. Very believable.
I watched for thirty seconds, waiting to see if the man had any company. He was alone. I resorted to the Zeiss telescope again and zoomed in on the man. He looked to be about six feet, tall for a Persian. He wore a rumpled khaki coat over cotton drawstring pants that might have been white in a past lifetime. He carried a wooden staff. Was that supposed to convince the world that he was a goatherder? Who knew?
I made him to be in his late thirties. He bore the leathery skin of a man who spent most of his time outside. He sported the scraggly, unkempt beard so common to Iranian men and wore a red-and-black kaffiyeh on his head.
I spent another thirty seconds scanning the area in case he had been followed. I switched to the thermal viewer to pierce the foliage. Nothing on both counts.
The man walked up the trail. He fished a small device from his coat pocket and I switched back to the Zeiss. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like a GPS. He walked to the exact center of my LZ and stopped. He pocketed the GPS and loitered there, stabbing the ground with the staff. He played the part well, giving all his attention to his goats, but his demeanor shouted: I’m your guy. Do you want a ride to Tehran or not?
I stored the iPhone and the Zeiss and slung the backpack over one shoulder. I palmed the Walther in my left hand. I pulled a pair of sunglasses from my jacket pocket, put them on, and emerged from the shadows of the junipers. I started down the slope.
The man must have caught the sound of my footsteps. He turned almost casually. It was clearly not a defensive move, not a surprised one. Good. He tipped his head in my direction as I marched toward him. He tried to act disinterested, but the charade wasn’t necessary. Two guys meeting in the middle of basically nowhere? Oh, yeah. Happens every day.
I stopped ten feet away, asked, “Got any Marlboros?” My Farsi sucked.
“No, sorry.” He shrugged. “All I have are Montecristo coronas.”
Right response, right demeanor. All good. But if he thought I was going to drop my guard, he was sadly mistake. I did offer my hand, however. “Those will have to do.” I gave him the name from my French passport: “Richard Moreau.”
He shook my hand. His was as dry and cracked as an old tree trunk. “Amin Panahi.” He smiled. Then he glanced skyward and quipped in English, “Nice of you to drop in. Looked like fun.”
He’d obviously seen my parachute. “A barrel of laughs,” I said with perhaps a touch too much sarcasm. I nodded in the direction of his truck. “Thanks for the lift. We’d better get going.”
He whistled. The goats perked up their ears and trotted toward us. Panahi herded them with his staff in the direction of the truck; he’d clearly done this before. One by one, the goats leaped into the back, their pointed hooves drumming the cargo bed. He closed the gate and secured it with a bent coat hanger. The weathered and rusted Chevy looked older than me. A real high-class ride. I’d have to give my compliments to Mr. Elliot. The guy really knew how to treat his operatives.
We climbed into the cab. A small plastic bucket of sunflower seeds rested between us on the tattered bench seat. The engine started with a wheeze and a grumble, then purred like a kitten. We made an about-face and headed down the rocky draw. The dirt path bisected a pair of low-lying hills and fell in with the Fasham — Tehran Road. We headed south, mimicking the path traveled by the 4 × 4s and the troop trucks of Revolutionary Guards. The road paralleled a fast-moving stream. Sporadic traffic became a steady flow the farther south we drove. The skyline of metropolitan Tehran loomed on the horizon and grew in stature with each passing mile.
Panahi offered the sunflower seeds. I shook my head and hoped I wasn’t insulting him. He shrugged, dipped a hand into the bucket, and tossed a handful into his mouth.
“I will drop you near the grand bazaar,” he said, grinding the seeds between yellowed teeth. His hands gripped the wheel like a man wrestling an alligator. “The room you’ve been assigned is a three- or four-block walk. That’s all I know. The exact address has been sent to you.”
“Good. Thanks.” I dug my iPhone from my pocket and powered it up. I opened my secured e-mail account, found messages from both Tom and Mr. Elliot, and started with the general’s. District 12, Harandi, 125, Tic-Tac-Toe. District 12 was the municipal location of the Grand Bazaar. I remembered that. The address of the safe house was 521 Harandi. Tic-tac-toe meant my GPS would signal the right room when I arrived.
Mr. Elliot’s e-mail was typically Mr. Elliot. One word: improvise. Oh, don’t worry. I had every intention of improvising.
I closed down the phone. “We good?” Panahi asked.
“Good as gold,” I said.
Panahi looked at me a bit strangely. He was probably dying for an interpretation of “Good as gold,” but then the allure of gold was the same in pretty much any language. After about two seconds, I think he got it. He huffed what I took to be a less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of my affinity for clichés and gripped the wheel even tighter.