Shock Warning (29 page)

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Authors: Michael Walsh,Michael Walsh

BOOK: Shock Warning
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C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-FOUR
Qom
“Why are you alone, sister?”
These were not words Maryam wished to hear, especially from a member of the morality police. The Iranian vice cops—“vice” in this case applying to the very existence of women—were not as notorious as the
mutaween
of Saudi Arabia, or the Taliban of Afghanistan, but they were plenty dangerous.
She tensed as she answered. “But I am modestly dressed, worshipping at the sacred mosque.”
They moved closer to her, boxing her in, forcing her into an alley. Maryam glanced around and saw there was nobody else in sight. Whatever was going to happen was going to have to happen fast.
“Where is your husband, sister?”
“I have . . . he is away, on state business. But he will be here soon, that I can assure you.”
“Then where is your father?”
“My father, may Allah bless him, is dead.”
“Your brother?”
“Alas, I have no brothers.”
The two police looked at each other. In Iran, with one of the highest proportions of young people in the world, everybody had brothers and sisters. She was obviously lying.
“Sister,” said the first cop, “I am afraid we are compelled by force of holy law to request that you accompany us.”
Maryam kept edging backward, into the alley, away from the crowds. She knew the religious police were lightly armed, with knives for protection and sticks with which to beat helpless women. This is what came of a country that had reduced some of the proudest, most glamorous women in the world into servile, cringing slaves. The men had no fear.
They were about to learn different. They were about to take a very fast trip from the seventh century to the twenty-first. And they weren’t going to like it very much.
“Perhaps,” she said, “we can discuss this in a more private place.”
One of the dirty little secrets of Iran was that whores flourished everywhere. Probably not since Dickensian London had the world’s oldest profession commanded such a large part of a nation’s economy, or its attention, or its fantasy life. She need not say anything, merely hint. They would get the message. They would take the bait.
The men grinned at each other. Fringe benefits were part of the job. A doorway would be good enough.
Maryam took a deep breath and said a silent prayer. This would have to be fast and lethal.
She moved back into a doorway, letting them come to her, feeling their hands on her body. She needed them to do just that, to drop their guard, to reach for her with a repressed passion that would dull their other senses until it was too late.
Closer . . . closer . . .
She raised her veil as one of them moved in to kiss her, and her hand strayed to the privates of the second cop. She could feel the first man’s mouth on hers, his tongue seeking hers, feel the tumescent excitement of the second man. . . .
Now
.
She bit the tongue off and wrenched the other man down, hard. They both screamed, but their screams were immediately cut off as she drew the knife from the scabbard of the first cop and slashed his throat. Gurgling, he fell into the second man, who was still in agony. As he put up his hands to fend off the falling body, she plunged the knife into his heart. As he died, she saw the look of disbelief in his eyes, that a woman had done this to him, and then a look of bliss, as if all his suspicions of the evil sex were, by his death, finally justified.
“Fuck you,” she said in English.
She pulled both the bodies into the doorway as best she could. They’d be found almost immediately, that she knew. She wiped the knife clean of fingerprints and placed it back in its sheath.
She was wet with blood, but the blood would not show against the black of the chador, and in this heat it would dry quickly. She just had to stay away from people for a while. And wait . . . wait for him.
And then, in the greatest miracle of her life, for which she would forever give thanks and praise to Allah, there he was. She knew him immediately, saw right through his disguise, knew by the cock of his head and the way he walked, the way he moved, that it could be no other. That at last he was come, and that she was whole again, and that no matter what now happened she knew the truth.
He moved toward her quickly but without haste. Still nobody around.
“Hello, Frank,” she said quietly.
“My name’s not Frank,” he said.
“I know it isn’t,” she said. “Everything you’ve told me since the day we met was a lie.”
“Would you have had it any other way?”
“How did you find me?
In answer, he reached inside her chador, until he found what he was looking for. The smartphone with which she’d signaled him. “Thank Allah for GPS,” he said.
“You’re late.”
“And they’re dead,” he said, looking at the corpses. “So let’s ankle.”
“Home?”
He gave that look of his that she loved so well. The one that said,
Are you kidding?
“You are home, remember? And he’s here.” She didn’t have to ask who “he” was.
“He’s looking for her,” she replied. He didn’t have to ask who “she” was.
“Then I guess we both have jobs to do.”
“I’m not going to leave her.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“There’s more to it, right?”
“Would I be here if there wasn’t?” That was the answer she expected, but didn’t want. “We haven’t got much time and we have a lot to do, including not getting ourselves killed and saving the world, not necessarily in that order, so let’s get a move on.”
“Where?”
He brought his face close to hers. “As long as we’re together,” he said, “Qom is as good a place as any.”
 
 
“You double-crossed me, you infidel bastard,” said Col. Zarin.
“I am an infidel in many faiths,” replied Skorzeny coolly, “so please do not think that your cheap superstitious imprecations can frighten me.”
They were in the heart of the nuclear complex on the outskirts of Qom, deep inside a mountain, where the uranium-enrichment process had been taking place right under the noses of the U.N. inspectors, who preferred to look in the direction of the known facility at Natanz, rather than anywhere else, just in case they might find something. Emanuel Skorzeny had no illusions that he was allowed admittance because he was a welcome guest of the Islamic Republic. He was here because they were business partners, and the minute they ceased being business partners, his privileges would be revoked with extreme prejudice.
And he had a business deal with Col. Zarin.
“I have another proposition for you,” he said.
“I am not interested in another proposition,” replied the colonel. “You have used me, and jeopardized my future and the future of my family. They have my voice on tape, threatening this Detective Saleh, may Allah curse him and his seed. I should kill you for what you have done.”
“Not for what
I
have done, Col. Zarin. For what
he
has done. And I am about to deliver him—and her—to you.”
“Why should I believe you?” Col. Zarin looked at the clock on the wall. That, thought Skorzeny, was a measure of just how backward this country was—not only that one would look at a clock on the wall to see what time it was, but that there even were clocks on the wall.
Skorzeny ignored the question. “I propose a trade. One that will enrich us both.”
Col. Zarin’s glance fell upon Mlle. Derrida. “Why do you bring your whore to a meeting of men?” he snarled.
“Because she’s not my whore,” Skorzeny answered levelly. “And I’ll thank you not to talk about her in such a disrespectful manner. You savages are simply going to have to learn that not all the world subscribes to your Dark Ages notion of male and female. Your entire civilization is not worth a Mass, although Paris was.”
“Then why are you giving us Paris?” laughed Col. Zarin.
“Because Paris is no longer worth a Mass, either. But do not think you have triumphed. It is I, Emanuel Skorzeny, who has triumphed, and you are a mere instrument of my will. I am greater than any God, greater than your Allah, and I shall have my revenge.”
Col. Zarin’s hand stole toward his sidearm. “This is blasphemy. I should kill you for it.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” replied Skorzeny coolly. “Because my death makes you a dead man. It makes your wife a widow and your children orphans. It brings down the full wrath of the West upon your pitiful head. For there will come a time, and soon, when your breast-beating and braggadocio will be as nothing. I am all that is standing in the way of the West’s vengeance upon you. So listen.”
He opened his briefcase, and took out the computer. “This is the very latest example of NSA/CSS technology. It was designed by their top operative, a man with whom I have come into contact, both personally and professionally, on several occasions, each of them unpleasant in the extreme. I am prepared to make you a present of it, in exchange for Miss Harrington, who can be of absolutely no use to you at this point.”
“Do you love her that much?”
“Yes,” said Skorzeny. It was the simplest answer he had ever given to any question in his life.
“And what does love mean?”
For the first time in his life, he felt old, tired, nearing the end. No, it could not be possible. All his life had been devoted to one thing, to one purpose—himself—and suddenly came this realization. That there was something beyond him. Not the ritualistic rote of some alien liturgy, but something more elemental, something more primitive than even religious superstition.
Her.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
Mlle. Derrida could sit silent no longer. She had no use for these Iranians and their imported desert faith. She was a Frenchwoman, the heiress of Voltaire and Descartes, Rousseau, and Rimbaud and Sartre and her namesake, Derrida. She believed in rational thought.
Cogito ergo sum.
That was her faith, and that was why she had faith in him. “Of course you do,” she said.
“Love is what is left when thought has fled—not religion, not faith, but love. Love is what drives us. If there is a God, and like you I do not believe that for a moment . . . but if there is, then love is what brings us closer to him. Not hate. Not vengeance. Neither orders, nor rituals. Nothing from above, or below. Just us, humanity—what we French fought and lost our Revolution for. We sacrificed our ideals on the altar of the guillotine, and we learned never to do that again. And now here we are.”
She turned to Skorzeny. “Get her back, sir,” she said, “and then let’s go home. I want to go home. Take me home.”
Skorzeny indicated the laptop. “Very simple,” he said. “The computer for the girl. You get—if you can reverse-engineer it, and get past its built-in defenses—a glide path into the heart of the Great Satan. With this, you can destroy them. No need for bombs, nukes, Shahab missiles. No need for the permanent war against the West. You can end it all now, right here, right now. Break their Black Widow, corrupt her, seduce her, turn her into the whore you’ve always known she was. I don’t care. In fact, I endorse it.”
He pushed the laptop across the table at Col. Zarin. “But give my own Black Widow back to me. Give me Miss Harrington.”
Col. Zarin looked at the laptop. He looked at Skorzeny. He looked at Mlle. Derrida.
Skorzeny looked at him. Neither of them blinked.
On the wall, the clock kept ticking. At last—
“I will take you to her,” Col. Zarin said.
C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-FIVE
Qom
Devlin and Maryam moved through the crowd, deliberately but quickly.
“He’s here,” said Devlin in Farsi.
“How do you know?”
“Because he can’t resist.”
They were past the mosque now, heading for the home of Mohammed Radan, Devlin’s taxi driver’s brother-in-law. They needed a place to get out of sight, even if only for a few hours. The house of Mohammed Radan would have to do.
“Emanuel Skorzeny,” said Devlin softly, “always must have the last word. Always must see the other fellow submit. He will not be able to abide her betrayal, nor will he be able to credit it. For him to have misjudged her so badly reflects poorly on him. And hearing her say it will set his world right again.”
“We have to rescue her,” said Maryam. “She saved my life.”
“She may have saved more than that.”
The address they were seeking was close now. “He’s got your computer, you know.”
“I was counting on it. Why do you think I gave it to you?”
He felt her stiffen. “You wanted him to get it?”
“Ideally, no. I wanted you to find him. But he found you first. He didn’t get to where he is today by being unaware of danger. But he has a weakness, just as we all do. And his weakness is his vanity.”
“What’s your weakness?” she asked.
“You,” he said simply.
Mr. Radan was delighted to meet the traveler of whom his esteemed brother-in-law had spoken so highly, and rejoiced in the mercy of Allah that his honored guest was now joyously reunited with his wife. Mrs. Radan was immediately dispatched to the kitchen to prepare a repast for their guests, and the fair Radan daughters were paraded in front of the new arrivals, each to offer a greeting in turn. Then Mr. Radan showed them to a back bedroom in his modest but comfortable house and immediately ordered the eldest daughter to bring them black tea and sweet drinks. Then he left them alone.
“You can take that off now,” said Devlin. “I think we are
batin
.” In Persian society, there were two modes—the public,
zahir
, in which all the sharia-based social norms were punctiliously observed, and the private, or
batin
, in which the chadors came off, and the hair went down.
Maryam took off the chador. She opened the bag Amanda had given her, took out a change of clothes, and went to wash up.
Devlin found the secure uplink NSA had provided and downloaded what he needed. There was a relay from Hope via Danny—the clock was ticking on the bomb in New York, and the trigger was the laser. They had calculated the rate of descent, which was holding steady. There wasn’t much time.
Devlin let his mind travel back. The dead cattle along Highway 5. That had been a warm-up, the miracles a distraction. They were testing, and soon they would be ready to strike.
Involuntarily, he found himself admiring the length of time it had taken to plan all this, and how careful they had been.
Schritt vor schritt
, as the Germans liked to say: step by step, one thing after another, letting it unfold gradually but inevitably. He could see and admire the hand of the master, whose entire life had been dedicated to the proposition that there was nothing you could not accomplish if only you set your mind to it and went about it to the exclusion of nearly everything else.
That was Emanuel Skorzeny’s life, and he had only ever let one thing intrude. And now,
inshallah
, it was about to cost him that life.
For Skorzeny was here, in Qom. He could feel his malevolent presence, just as he was sure Skorzeny could feel his. They would find each other. And then settle this thing.
He didn’t want to stay online very long—no matter how secure and how shielded, a capable counter-intelligence system eventually would eventually detect him. But he’d gotten when he needed, from Seelye, from Danny. Just one more thing.
Time to bait the last trap.
The laptop, which operated at the highest level of NSA security, had a feature he hadn’t told Maryam about. Even if it was shut down, it could be activated remotely—and by activated, he meant activated. It would automatically switch on in order to receive any critical communication from the Building in Fort Meade.
He could access the Building from his Android.
He accessed the Building.
He activated the signal.
The signal went out.
He switched off the Android and lay back on the bed for a moment, imagining Skorzeny’s reaction. Would be it be shock or delight? Terror or triumph? Who else was with him? It didn’t matter. The machine was now doing the job for which he had designed it.
Upon receiving the activation signal, the laptop would display the origin of the incoming. That would be the moment of maximum danger, since it would blow their location, but that was exactly what he needed to do. They had to seem exposed and vulnerable, otherwise an army would show up and there was no way that the two of them could fight their way through an army. He had to let Skorzeny think he alone had gotten the drop on him.
One more chess move. One more, and then it would all be over, one way or the other.
 
 
She was there, in the desert, waiting for them. Dressed beautifully in the Western style, looking as lovely as the day he’d first seen her in the City, the director of Islay Partnership Ltd., ordering some financial transaction or another, a figure of poise, beauty, and authority. She was surrounded by admirers, who stood looking up at her like some impossible vision of loveliness that they would never again see in their lifetimes. Her head was bowed as she received their adulation with the utmost humility.
They had tied a rope around her waist, which held her tight against the Shahab-3 rocket. Skorzeny could see at a glance that it was carrying a heavier payload than normal. This, too, was part of the plan. For this was one of the rockets that were about to destroy the Little Satan, the Zionist entity. These were the rockets that would set off the final cataclysm in a world already at war with itself.
These were the rockets that would trigger massive retaliation by Israel, all across the
ummah
. The Israelis would not stop to ask their provenance. They would exercise the Samson Option, and like the blind strongman, eyeless in Gaza, they would lash out at their tormentors.
Amanda Harrington would be the first to be sacrificed.
“We have a deal, Navid,” said Skorzeny coldly. “Release the woman.”
They were in a jeep, the three of them plus the driver. “She looks lovely, does she not?” said Zarin.
“I said, release her,” repeated Skorzeny. “The computer . . .”
“. . . is a trap,” said Zarin. “Do you think I am stupid? Do you think I do not know that you make me this offer only to insult me?”
“The computer is perfectly safe,” said Skorzeny levelly. “It was entrusted to the woman called Maryam—the woman who slipped away from you at Bandar Anzali, through your own carelessness—by one of the top operatives of the Central Security Service. The thing is worth a fortune. The woman is worth nothing to you. So honor your word.”
“First, show me I have nothing to fear.” He took the laptop out of his briefcase and handed it to Skorzeny. “Aside from the miracles of Allah, I do not believe in—”
And the laptop burst to life.
It was running an NSA-hardened version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which came as no surprise to Skorzeny. Many of the U.S. government’s most sensitive computers used that as a baseline operating system, having abandoned most versions of Windows in favor of it and the Mac Snow Leopard.
But there did not seem to be anything unusual about it. It did not blow up in his face. No doubt there would be security protocols, but the Iranian computer scientists were a smart lot and they could handle it.
As Skorzeny watched, the machine made a connection back to Fort Meade and automatically began downloading reams of material.
“What is going on?” asked Col. Zarin.
“It’s obviously been set up to communicate at regular intervals with Fort Meade and the Black Widow,” he said. “If your men get right on this, you’ll be able to tunnel right into NSA headquarters before they even know it. This is a golden opportunity, Col. Zarin, a miracle from Allah. It might have taken you weeks to activate the machine, and even then it might have destroyed itself. Here it is—take it.”
Zarin reached for the machine.
“But first, give me the woman.”
Zarin watched the data dance on the screen. Allah alone knew how long this communications session would last. The control facility was just a short drive away.
He stood up in the Jeep and signaled for the Guard to cut Amanda loose, then told the driver to get going. Skorzeny’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the wrist. “Not until she is in this car,” he said.
They cut her loose. Amanda said nothing as she squeezed into the backseat. The Jeep roared off.
So it had come to this, thought Amanda as they raced across the desert floor. No matter how she tried to escape him, he always found her. She would never be rid of him. How she wished Milverton had taken him out when they had the chance. But they thought they had a plenty of time. Everybody thinks she has plenty of time until time runs out.
“How are you, my dear?”
She had nothing to say. Her storehouse of comebacks, quips, observations, and pious sentimentalities was exhausted. There was almost nothing left of the old Amanda Harrington, queen of the City. He, who had given her so much, had taken it all away; she had made herself mistress to him, but at a price she could not pay. Here, in the desert, is where it would finally end.
When they arrived at the control facility Col. Zarin rushed the computer inside. Technicians and intelligence analysts immediately fell upon it, and began to chatter excitedly. Skorzeny could not follow what they were saying, but it was clear that this was a very great gift. Col. Zarin seemed extraordinarily pleased.
“I am sorry to have doubted you, my friend.” He consulted his Patek Philippe. Watches were still a status symbol in Iran. “Only a few hours now. And so we wait.”
Col. Zarin led Skorzeny, Mlle. Derrida, and Amanda into a private room. For a military base, this room was rather luxurious, handsomely carpeted and well appointed. “What can I get you to drink?”
“Please, no more of that awful fruit juice,” said Mlle. Derrida. Her romance with the third world, which she had cultivated so assiduously as a student at the Sorbonne and at the London School of Economics, was fast coming to an end. She could see the upside of Western civilization more clearly now, especially its personal freedom; living in Iran must be like living in a cage, on more or less full-time display, with only rare moments of privacy in the dark of night.
“It is against the tenets of our holy faith to take stimulants,” said the colonel. “But you are guests as well as Unbelievers, and so we are able to extend to you the courtesy you require. What may I get you?”
“Vodka,” said Mlle. Derrida. Skorzeny ordered a shaken gin martini for Amanda and a small scotch, neat, for himself. He needed to keep a clear head, but one drink to steady his nerves could not hurt.
The phone rang and Col. Zarin answered it, then lay down the receiver with a big smile. “I must hand it to you, Mr. Skorzeny,” he said. “What you have brought us is turning out to be invaluable. The codes alone . . .”
“I am very glad to be of service to the Islamic Republic in pursuit of our mutual goals,” he replied. “Now, if you would be so kind, we would appreciate an escort back to Tehran so that I might take Miss Harrington home and see that she gets the kind of medical attention she deserves.”
Col. Zarin laughed. “I could not hear of such a thing,” he protested. “You are my guests, and you know how important the cause of hospitality is to one of my faith. After all we have done together, Mr. Skorzeny, I cannot believe that you would wish to absent yourself from the Coming, from the great manifestation of the holiest of holy mysteries. For you to leave now would be . . . unthinkable.”
So there it was. They were prisoners.
“Tell me,” said Col. Zarin, sitting down next to Mlle. Derrida. She was a damn fine good-looking woman, as the women around Skorzeny always were. It would be a shame not to get to know her a little better. “Who was that policeman in New York you had me call? For an Arab he seemed to speak very good Farsi.”
“A weak link,” replied Skorzeny. His mind was racing to figure out how to get out of here before the immanence. Now that he was reunited with Miss. Harrington, he did not wish to keep her in jeopardy a moment longer. Although his sources in Washington were not what they once were, not after the unfortunate suicide of Tyler’s best friend, Senator Robert Hartley, they were still plenty good. Many members of Congress were on his payroll, one way or the other, and all it took was a little kindness, or a little indiscretion, from a junior staffer on the Senate intelligence committee and the personnel list had come into his hands. Frankly, he had forgotten all about the fellow—he had just needed to keep the Counter-Terrorism Unit puzzled and alarmed and he had needed a little bit of insurance to use against Col. Zarin should the need arise.

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