‘Not me,’ Bwana said feelingly as he dug into his lunch, alone in a car that they had hired using a fake address.
The day after their surveillance runs. Digging into their food, every one of them scattered around Tajrish where they had spent the night.
Zeb had finished briefing them when Bwana made the comment.
‘I can’t impersonate Golzar,’ the operative declared. ‘I am too big. I am too—’
‘Bwana,’ Beth sighed. ‘None of us are thinking of you.’
‘You aren’t as good looking as him,’ Roger said. ‘I on the other hand, have the opposite problem. I’m better—’
‘Zeb,’ Meghan interrupted. ‘You must have thought of this.’
‘Yeah. But why don’t you tell us what you found at IICC?’
He listened when the sisters went through their findings and navigated through the video and photographs, they had sent over.
It can be done. All we need is the right gear.
‘You’re going to tell us what your plan is?’ Bear asked.
Zeb broke off, thanked the server and outlined his idea to his team.
‘What?’ he asked when Beth sniggered.
‘Meg guessed it, yesterday.’
‘You’re out of your mind,’ Broker snapped. ‘There’s no way that will work.’
‘Why not?’ Zeb challenged him.
‘A chopper, for one. We don’t have one.’
‘Dan Caton has. Several of them. One of them is in the country. Piloted by a former Marine Corps aviator.’
The billionaire philanthropist ran several charities in the Middle East, one of which helped rehabilitated refugee children from Syria.
Zeb and his team had rescued his employees from terrorists in that country, several years ago. One of those freed had been his daughter.
‘Anything you need, anytime,’ Caton had said in gratitude. ‘Give me a call.’
‘He has an office tower in Modiriat, whose height is just right,’ Meghan said smugly. ‘We checked.’
‘You were planning this all along,’ Broker accused his friend. ‘You didn’t give us even a hint.’
‘It came to me when Chloe and Bear checked out the conference venue,’ Zeb admitted. ‘But I had to wait for Meg and Beth to complete their run.’
‘A chopper alone won’t be enough.’
‘You remember Parvez?’ he grinned in the restaurant at their silence as his friends racked their brains.
‘The fruit vendor in that market?’ Roger snapped his fingers. ‘From whom we got the missiles. He’s got the rest of the gear?’
‘Yeah. CIA didn’t have what we need.’
‘You still haven’t told us who’ll impersonate Golzar.’
‘We need Zarhagi’s help with that. I’ll call—’
‘Hold up,’ Meghan interrupted. ‘He’s calling me! I’ll patch him on our comms.’
The survivor’s voice came on presently.
‘Nargess?’ he asked cautiously, asking for the elder sister by her fake name.
‘Yes, I’m here.’
A text message appeared on Zeb’s phone. From Beth.
It’s him. Werner’s confirmed voice analysis. No stress pattern. Which meant Zarhagi wasn’t calling under any duress.
‘We need to meet, khanom. Immediately.’
‘You have something for us?’
‘I’ll tell you when we meet. Same place as last time. Naeem’s.’
‘It might not be safe there.’
The old man sounded weary. ‘Khanom. I know every police officer and soldier is looking for all of you. But please trust me. Your coming here is important.’
‘We’ll be there.’
Zeb double tracked several times, changed cabs as he made his way to Kamali Street. His friends were following similar counter-surveillance measures as they made it to the rendezvous.
He was the last to arrive and was escorted by the portly owner who still didn’t say a word or look him in the eye.
He opened the conference door and stood still.
Reza Zarhagi, the lines on his face even more prominent. He’s looking old. Tired. Two others with him. His team seated, all of them looking at him.
‘Come,’ the former soldier beckoned. ‘They are with me,’ he said, gesturing at the strangers. ‘We have been surviving in this city for years, under the noses of Quds. This place is safe.’
Zeb took a seat next to Beth and looked questioningly at the survivor.
‘Yasaman and Syed,’ he introduced his companions.
The woman nodded and opened a tablet computer. She turned its screen towards them and played a video.
Zeb leaned forward as he recognized the hallway in MUT.
‘We sent a student,’ Zarhagi explained. ‘He recorded this. He’s walking back and forth. You’ll see a lot of the same corridor.’
Yasaman fast-forwarded the video at his nod and played it in real time at a particular point.
The camera faced the guard. The door behind it. A shadow seemed to move behind it.
‘Is that opening?’ Zeb exclaimed in surprise. He didn’t know he had spoken aloud until the Iranians nodded.
The doors opened fully. Behind it a smaller hallway. Another pair of doors visible, guarded by an armed sentry.
That set opened too.
A man in a white coat, on a phone.
Beth’s nails dug into Zeb’s arm as she clutched him tightly, but he paid no attention to the pain. His entire attention was centered on that scientist-looking person who was staring right into the camera.
Yasaman paused the video.
‘Recognize him?’ Zarhagi asked gently.
‘Professor Sohrab Nazer,’ Meghan replied. ‘The head of their biological and chemical weapons program. The man whom Mossad killed.’
Except that they hadn’t.
Zeb blinked. Nothing changed. Nazer stood there, clearly identifiable on the screen.
‘When was this taken?’ he freed Beth’s fingers absently and rubbed his arm.
‘About the same time of the explosion on Marzdaran and the rain of currency.’ The slightest smile creased Zarhagi’s lips. ‘Mehdi Hosseini, one of our students. He volunteered for this operation. He took it.’
‘Please thank him for us.’ Zeb said feelingly.
That proves all our suspicions right.
Zarhagi, normally polite, made no response. He kept staring at the screen and at a gesture, Yasaman continued playing it.
The Agency operatives watched as the camera took in Nazer and then the video shook and jerked.
‘STOP!’ someone shouted and then the camera fell. Indistinct voices could be heard before the video ended.
‘He was captured?’
Yasaman looked at the activists’ leader who nodded.
‘Yes,’ she answered Chloe’s shocked question. ‘Syed, he’s our tech expert. He rigged Hosseini’s phone to upload the recording to a cloud account. We were monitoring him. We remote-erased his device as soon as the guards caught him. There’s nothing to link him to us.’
‘Where is he now?’
Zarhagi took his time in answering. ‘It looks like you didn’t spot it.’ He gestured at Yasaman who brought up a newspaper’s website on her screen and scrolled to a small article. ‘It isn’t a mainstream newspaper.’
Zeb didn’t hear him anymore. His attention was on the photograph on Yasaman’s tablet. A body on the ground. Head smashed beyond recognition. Fingers crushed. Blood on his shirt.
‘No one knows how his body got there.’ Syed seemed to be unaware of the tears streaming down his face. ‘It was found in District 12, in a dirty alley. Someone discovered the body, called the police who identified him from the university card in his pocket. They say they will investigate, but we know what that means. Quds will clamp down on them.’
‘There is nothing you can say,’ Zarhagi waved a hand when Zeb made to speak. ‘Nothing you should say. This isn’t on you.’
‘I feel responsible.’
‘No. I am.’
‘Will you both stop!’ Yasaman yelled at them. ‘Mehdi knew the risks he was taking. He has been an activist for a long time. None of us are kids.’
‘Knowing the risk and going through that,’ Zeb pointed at the screen, ‘are different things.’
‘I don’t know who you are, agha.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘But you haven’t lived our lives. You haven’t been through what we have. You can’t take responsibility for Mehdi’s death because he wouldn’t give it to you.’
‘You should stop,’ Zeb whispered knowing it was in vain. ‘Get back to your studies. Focus on them.’
‘We are prisoners, agha. Don’t you get it? We long for the freedom you seem to have.’
‘More of you will die because this kind of struggle goes on for years, decades.’
‘We know it.’
Zeb shrank in his seat, defeated. He could face down dictators and take the kill shot on terrorists. He was helpless in the face of Yasaman’s determination and when he looked at Syed’s face, saw it reflected there.
‘I told them the same,’ Zarhagi had a sad smile. ‘They gave me the same response.’
‘We will never stop,’ the female student said fiercely. ‘We will shed blood and give lives, but we will never give up.’
‘I can promise you this.’ The beast howled inside Zeb. ‘Whatever we are doing may not make much of a difference to you. But the man who was responsible for Hosseini’s death. He will pay.’
‘Mostofi,’ the elder Iranian whispered. ‘That’s his work. Those guards at the lab are Quds.’
‘How can we help?’ Yasaman asked. Her face said she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Zeb showed them Golzar’s photograph on his phone. ‘We need someone who looks like him. Someone whom you trust.’
‘And,’ Meghan chimed in, ‘we need to get into the university.’