‘Hello, Auntie.’ Miriam sounded worn, but she also sounded like she was handling herself.
‘Hello. I haven’t heard from you lately.’
‘It’s been busy here. I think you saw the troubles in the news.’
Meaning the prison attack? ‘There has been some mention of local discontent.’
‘I was in the middle of it.’
Sarah’s stomach filled with cold lead. She’d heard the stories that came out of Evin Prison. The place was a pit of blackest evil. ‘Are you all right?’
‘My professor saw me through.’
‘Really?’ Sarah couldn’t believe Lourds would have had the wherewithal to manage something like the assault on the prison.
‘He’s met some really good friends here. They’re going to take us to our next destination.’
‘The northwest section?’ Meaning the Kurds.
‘Yes. We thought we’d visit Turkey before we returned home.’
‘I will let your uncle know to expect you.’
‘Good. The professor’s friends will be helpful, but I’d like to know that family is looking out for us as well.’
‘They will be there.’ Sarah made a quick notation of the Mossad teams she would put into the area. ‘I want to send you a care package.’
‘I would love something from home.’
Sarah wrote a quick e-mail to get one of the local Mossad spies to deliver an encrypted phone to Miriam. ‘It will be there soon. The same place?’
‘That would be fantastic.’
‘What about your professor? Did he get the chance to finish his work?’
‘He did, although he still needs to explore the matter further.’
‘He’s returning as well?’
‘Yes. We hope to see you soon.’
Despite the relative safety of his hiding place, Lourds’s stomach still tightened when the trapdoor opened. He was relieved and confused when he saw Miriam descending the ladder with a bag in one hand. She’d been gone almost two hours, and he’d begun worrying about her.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Shopping.’ Miriam dropped the burqa to the floor and stood there in a new blouse and business slacks. The shoes were new, too. ‘I seem to lose more clothes in this country.’ Without another word, she divested herself of the blouse and slacks as well, hanging those carefully over the back of a nearby chair.
She stood there in lime green bra and panties.
‘I can see how you’d have a problem losing clothes.’
‘Get over here, and you can help me lose these.’
Lourds got up and went to her. He kissed her deeply as he slid his arms around her. Her small, hard body pressed into his, and he felt her hunger. They kissed passionately for a time, then she started stripping him as he stood there. As she unbuttoned and unzipped his clothing, he stroked her breasts and hips, making her breath quicken in anticipation.
Then, when he was nude, she pulled him toward the bed.
‘I do hope you locked the trapdoor.’
She grinned at him as she backed onto the bed. ‘I told them to leave us alone unless the Revolutionary Guard comes calling.’
‘I certainly hope they don’t.’ Lourds kissed her deeply again. ‘For several reasons.’ He removed her bra with a deft twist of his fingers that made her giggle in delight. Then he slid her panties off.
When he went to her, she was warm, wet, and ready. He sheathed himself and rode her tenderly, bringing her to a surprisingly quick climax that ended in tears.
‘I’m sorry.’ Lourds tried to back away.
She caught him and held him, smiling. ‘Don’t you go anywhere. I’m not done with you.’ She looked up at him. ‘Three days ago, I thought I was going to die. Now I want to celebrate the fact that I didn’t. This … this is a big part of the celebration.’ She grinned at him impishly. ‘Bigger than I’d anticipated, actually.’
Lourds leaned down and started kissing her again, then started moving, finding her more and more accepting, till the mutual rush of pleasure swept them away.
Davari stood on a craggy rock shelf and looked down at the treacherous mountain terrain. Even though the trail was used often enough to be clear, it would be hard to follow at night. But the people he sought were desperate. The American professor and the woman had been largely undetectable until a few hours ago, when one of his Kurd spies had called the Revolutionary Guards from a short-wave radio.
There had been a chance that Lourds and the traitors that helped him would get through, but Davari had spread the word — and the Ayatollah’s wealth — to arrange a spotting network. The Kurds were their own people, as hard and as unforgiving as the mountains they lived in. They knew no masters and very few friends, but they appreciated the weapons Davari had offered in exchange for information.
The expedition had set out on horseback nearly eight hours ago and obviously intended to keep riding till they crossed over into Turkey a few kilometers farther north.
‘Is that them?’
Davari looked back over his shoulder.
Klaus Von Volker stood in the cold, looking decidedly unhappy. He’d been a reluctant guest in the Ayatollah’s palace since he still hadn’t dealt with the investigation awaiting him in Austria for the attempted murder of Thomas Lourds.
‘Yes.’ Davari identified Lourds’s hat. The American’s conceit was going to be the death of him one day. The colonel waved to his men, and they took up their positions along the mountain ridge. He lifted the assault rifle and peered down at the line of horses, curling his finger around the trigger and waiting for the right moment to spring his ambush.
Hunkered down in the mountains only a few hundred meters away, Mufarrij removed the blanket he’d had covering the Dragunov SVDK sniper rifle. The weapon was a favorite of his, an upgrade from the SVD. The SVDK chambered a 9.63x64mm round capable of punching through vehicles and heavy body armor up to ten millimeters thick.
It had taken his men and him an hour to creep this close to Davari, then Mufarrij had waited till the Revolutionary Guardsmen had deployed from their vehicles and taken up positions. Mufarrij didn’t want to leave any of them alive behind him to organize any kind of pursuit.
He knew he wasn’t at his best. The day after the attack on Evin Prison, he didn’t think he was going to survive. During the last three days, he’d been living on pain pills and antibiotics to combat the fever from his wounds. The injuries on his skull and the side of his face still looked horrible and would leave him disfigured. If it weren’t for his keffiyeh, which he used to cover his face, he couldn’t have walked around without drawing intense scrutiny.
The riders kept coming closer, unaware of the death waiting above them.
Mufarrij was frustrated that he couldn’t get a clear shot at Davari. The Revolutionary Guards colonel was concealed in the rocks too well to make a good target. Mufarrij faulted himself for not taking the shot sooner, but he also wanted the chance to intercept Lourds. If he fired too soon, there’d be no chance of capturing the American at all.
But the time to act was now, before Davari and his dogs could attack.
Mufarrij put the sniper reticule over one of the Revolutionary Guardsmen and squeezed the trigger. The massive rifle recoiled against his shoulder, and the thunder of the shot echoed off the nearby mountains.