“If we have the ambassador send someone to the border with passports,” said Reid, “we can get them over on diplomatic cover.”

“I already suggested that. They claimed the border shutdown applies to everyone, even diplomats.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“I’ve been pointing that out for hours now, Jonathon. Why don’t you give it a try?”

“I will,” said Reid. “But maybe the easiest thing would be to have them sneak across the border.”

“And leave McGowan’s body behind?”

“If they must.”

Breanna wasn’t willing to do that. “I’ll work something out,” she told him. “Even if I have to get them myself.”

“Now listen—”

The screen flashed, indicating she had another call, this one from the Air Force Airlift Command.

“Let me call you back,” she told Reid. “I’m getting a call from the people who are supposed to meet them in Ethiopia. I’m guessing there’s a problem there, too.”

Her intuition was correct. The major on the line was calling to tell her that the plane originally scheduled to fly to Ethiopia had suffered a mechanical breakdown in Germany. The next flight from Europe wouldn’t be available until the following afternoon.

“We do have a possible solution,” added the major, “but it would take some string pulling.”

“No one likes pulling strings more than I do,” lied Breanna.

“There’s an MC-17 Stretch due in at Andrews Air Force Base in about two hours. It’s en route to Turkey, but could be diverted if the right person were to make the request, if you catch my drift.”

“Your drift is just perfect,” said Breanna. “Who would the right person make the request to?”

The aircraft happened to be en route from, of all places, Dreamland, where it had picked up a pair of MV-22-G Osprey gunships. The Ospreys were to be delivered to a Ranger unit temporarily based at Incirlik. A detour to Ethiopia would put the delivery off schedule by about half a day; the Whiplash people could catch another flight home from there.

The general who was expecting the Ospreys took Breanna’s call. He’d served with her father, and it took only a few seconds of explanation before he agreed that the Ospreys could arrive a day late. But Breanna met a more serious roadblock when she called the wing commander responsible for the aircraft. The pilot had gotten sick on the flight east and was due to be relieved as soon as he landed.

“It’s not a big deal, really, but I can’t get a full crew until tomorrow,” said the colonel.

“You don’t have anyone tonight?”

“You know how tight these staffing cuts have us. We’re low priority on head count. This is a reserve unit and—”

“I know where you can find a pilot,” she interrupted. “And she works cheap, too.”

47

Tehran

AS SOON AS THEY HEARD THE SIREN, THE MEN WHO HAD attacked Flash rallied from their injuries. Despite six broken bones between them, they managed to get into their vehicle and flee before the first police car arrived.

Two people had seen the youths and offered a good description of the vehicle. One of the policemen dutifully wrote down the details, though he knew nothing would come of it. The car described was well-known to him and the other officers who had responded; it belonged to a member of the Iranian parliament, though it was customarily driven by his youngest son. The son and his companions were the subject of several reports, mostly from tourists, who reported being beaten and robbed during late night strolls under circumstances remarkably similar to those Flash had found himself in. The only difference in this case was the outcome. The witnesses’ descriptions made it clear that the attackers had gotten the worse end of the deal, something that cheered the policeman, though of course he didn’t let on.

Tarid and the hotel owner stayed back with the rest of the crowd, watching more out of curiosity than purpose. The city had its share of thugs operating under the guise of religious police; a number were known to assault people for offenses, real and imagined, for a price. To Tarid, this looked like just such a case.

“I think I’ll go back to the hotel,” he said when it became obvious there would be no resolution that night.

“Yes,” said his host.

Together they walked back around the corner. Tarid could not stop himself from thinking about the man’s daughter. He considered asking if she had many suitors, or if a marriage was being arranged. But he didn’t want to make his lust too obvious.

She was the sort of beauty that would make even a man like him change his thinking about the entanglements of a family. Logically, he remained steadfast; he had no desire to give up the freedom and luxuries he currently enjoyed, which would be greatly diminished if he were to marry. And he knew his own temperament would stifle any sort of commitment or relationship. He could not be happy staying in one place, yet he could not imagine there was a woman on earth who would be glad to move around as he did. Women were creatures of the hearth, he believed, destined to tend to domestic needs. If he were to wed the hotel owner’s daughter, he would see her only two or three times a year, and even then inevitably grow bored.

Not that his desire implied marriage. But it couldn’t be talked about with the girl’s father, even obliquely, without implying that it did.

“A cup of tea?” asked the hotel owner as they reached the building’s threshold.

“No thank you,” said Tarid, calculating that it was unlikely the girl would be woken to prepare it. “I will see you in the morning.”

“Good night, then.”

Tarid’s satellite phone rang as he walked to the elevator. Taking it from his pocket, he saw that it was Bani Aberhadji, his boss and patron. With no one nearby, he clicked the button to let the call through.

“This is Tarid.”

“Why have you not checked in? You arrived in Tehran several hours ago,” said Aberhadji.

“I did not believe I was to call until I was ready for the meeting,” he said. “And, given the hour of my arrival—”

“I will meet you at one P.M. tomorrow, at the building in Karaj,” said Aberhadji.

“Yes, sir.”

The line went dead.

While the curtness was characteristic, Bani Aberhadji was normally a very even-tempered man, not one to casually display annoyance. The emotion in his voice filled Tarid not just with apprehension but dread, as if he had done something wrong and was about to be brought to justice for it.

He had, as a matter of fact, occasionally skimmed a few million rials off the payments forwarded to the groups he watched over in Africa. There were also some inflated fees for weapons, along with an occasional unreported kickback. Bani Aberhadji would not have approved, but compared to the men he usually dealt with, Tarid knew he was hardly avaricious. And, he thought, it would certainly be difficult for Aberhadji to prove that this had taken place without some direct complaint against him.

Most likely, he thought, Aberhadji’s displeasure had nothing to do with him. But it made him nervous anyway, and he knew, even as he stepped into the elevator, that he would get little sleep the rest of the night.

IN A WESTERN HOTEL NEARLY A MILE AWAY, NURI TOLD THE Voice to replay a snippet of video and audio he and the Whiplash team had just seen. It showed Tarid looking longingly at the room where the hotel owner had just disappeared, then walking slowly toward the elevator. Three steps from it his satellite phone rang. He took it out, looked at the caller ID, then turned around and made sure no one was nearby before answering.

The conversation was extremely brief. All they had was Tarid’s side, but his responses were so close together that Nuri knew whoever he was speaking with couldn’t have said more than a sentence or two himself.