Miriam didn’t know what woke her, but she came up from the bed with her fist curled around the Chinese Type 54 pistol she’d gotten from her Mossad contact in Tehran. She’d gotten it from the man when she’d been out shopping with Lourds.
The pistol was modeled on the Russian Tokarev T-33. Chambered in the 7.62x25mm round, the weapon was the equivalent of a 9mm pistol. It came with an eight-round magazine, but the Mossad agent had provided two fourteen-round magazines as well. They were his ‘special gift’ for her, and he wished her well when he left.
In other words, if she had to use the pistol, things would be particularly nasty, and she’d need the extra firepower.
The room was still and silent except for the air-conditioning.
‘You’re imagining things.’ With a sigh, she flipped the safety back on the pistol and tucked it under her pillow once more. She lay there for a moment more, thinking of how the faces of the two men continued to haunt her sleep.
The night wasn’t as bad as others had been. But she still had a lot of it to go. According to the clock on the bedside table, it was only a few minutes after one. She lay there a moment longer, then got up for a drink of water.
While in the bathroom, wood shrieked as screws were pulled loose as the door burst open. Miriam dashed from the bathroom and streaked back to the bed, reaching for the pistol.
A man threw himself at her and wrapped an arm around her ankles. Unable to take another step, she tripped and fell. Catching herself on her hands, she flipped over, freed a leg, and drove it into the face of her captor. The man’s head snapped back, and she slithered free.
In that instant, she recognized him as one of the two men who had followed Lourds and her around much of the day. She got to her feet and leaped toward the bed, then the second man — standing in the broken doorway — lifted a pistol and shot her twice.
Pain pierced her abdomen. Looking down, she saw two hypodermic darts jutting out of her stomach. Before she had a chance to fully realize she’d been drugged, not mortally injured, the drugs whispered through her system and shut her down.
After telling Alice good night, and to get to Jerusalem where he’d be meeting her in the next couple of days if everything went well, Lourds pulled on his khakis and the Oxford shirt he’d worn earlier that day, stepped into his boots, and pulled on his hat. He shoved the book back into its hiding place in the air duct, then headed for Miriam’s room.
He was too excited to sleep, and he wanted her thoughts on how they could steal the al-Buraq statue from Namati’s office. There was no way Lourds intended to give Namati a clue about what he potentially held.
Lourds knew that he — and Lev — could still be wrong about the statue. But he only needed it in his hands for a few minutes to know for certain.
When he stepped out into the hallway, Lourds saw two maintenance men working on the door to Miriam’s room. From the looks of things, the door had been ripped from its hinges.
‘What happened?’
One of the maintenance men looked at Lourds. ‘No English.’
Lourds shifted to Farsi and repeated the question.
‘The door is broken. We are repairing it. You go now.’
Concern for Miriam drove Lourds through the door. The workers tried to stop him, but he was stronger than they were and got through despite their efforts.
Miriam’s room was empty, like she’d never been there.
Lourds wheeled on the men, grabbing the nearest one by the shoulders. ‘Where is the girl?’
‘There was no girl. This room was empty. It had a broken door. We are repairing the door.’
Knowing the man would only keep lying to him, Lourds returned to his room and called the desk.
‘Good evening.’
‘This is Professor Thomas Lourds. I want to know where my companion is.’
‘What companion is that, Professor Lourds?’
‘The young woman I checked in with yesterday morning. Miriam Abata.’
‘Let me check.’ The clerk was silent for a moment before returning. ‘According to our records, Professor Lourds, you checked in alone.’
‘I didn’t check in alone.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you any further.’
The phone clicked dead in Lourds’s ear. Panicked now, he started to get the book from the air duct, then realized that if he was picked up, he didn’t want it found on him.
He left the book where it was, but he grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulders. Then he went out, knowing enemy eyes were probably watching his every move.
43
Miriam woke cold and alone in a dark concrete room. Shackles bruised her wrists and she hung on a chain from a thick metal ring mounted on the ceiling. She could barely touch the concrete floor with her toes, but if she didn’t, her weight made it feel like her arms were slowly being torn from her shoulders. She muffled a cry of agony, not wanting to give her captors the satisfaction of hearing her in pain.
A shadow moved against the wall. She barely made out a man’s form as he knocked on a metal door.
A metal plate slid across an opening, allowing a square foot of hard white light to filter into the room.
‘What?’
‘Tell Colonel Davari the woman is awake.’ Light glinted off the machine pistol slung at the shadow man’s shoulder. Both men spoke Farsi.
Miriam knew she’d been taken by members of the Revolutionary Guard — the language and her surroundings removed any doubt.
She was cut off from Katsas Shavit and the Mossad. All alone in enemy hands. The worst enemy hands, because even more damaging than being a spy, she was a woman.
For long minutes, Miriam hung there with the chains biting into her numbed wrists, her calves and toes ached and cramped from standing on her toes, no relief in sight.
Finally, dead bolts clanked on the door, and it slid out of the way. The sudden blaze of light was so powerful it felt scalding on her eyes. Heart pumping wildly, adrenaline spiking her system and temporarily lessening some of the pain, she watched as the grim-faced man in a Revolutionary Guard uniform strode into the room and stop in front of her. His insignia identified him as a colonel.
‘Miriam Abata, you are in Iran as a spy.’
‘No.’ Miriam wanted to be more articulate, but the frightened animal lurking in the back of her mind exploded out of the darkness and took control. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to be tortured. ‘I am a student. I am here to study. I am not a spy.’
The colonel put his hands behind his back and gazed down at her. ‘You are lying, spy.’
‘I am a visiting scholar. Check my passport.’
With insane speed, the colonel backhanded her across the face.
Pain spiked through Miriam’s brain as her head snapped back. She sagged at the ends of the chains and felt the raw fire of the links biting into her wrists. She tried to get her feet under her again as the salty taste of blood filled her mouth.
‘Your passport is as full of lies as you are.’
‘No. I am an Israeli citizen. You must let me go.’
‘We execute spies in Iran. I’m sure your minders told you that before you accepted this mission.’
‘I am a visiting scholar.’ Miriam swallowed blood and felt two of her teeth loosened by the impact. Her face was already swelling, her right eye closing a little. The man hit very hard.