Zana could say nothing. He sat on the toilet fully clothed. In his haste, he hadn’t thought to advance the restroom ruse by undoing his pants. The laptop was open on his knees, hands poised over the keyboard. Javad stood in the doorway. The makeshift doorstop had skittered across the floor and landed at Zana’s feet. So much for that.
The scientist’s analytical mind instantly flipped to three possible actions: lie, destroy the laptop, or fight.
A heartbeat later, the calculus changed. Javad rushed toward Zana, reaching for the laptop. The little bathroom was so small that the door banged closed behind him. The major seized the computer by the screen, wrenching it free of Zana’s hands. The hinge bent unnaturally as the scientist tugged back, gripping the keyboard tightly in an attempt to maintain control. The hinge snapped and the laptop came apart.
In the tug-of-war, his thoughts sank to darkness. He was a dead man. The software script hadn’t uploaded. Javad would see what he’d been trying to do. Evin Prison wouldn’t be brutal enough for what they would have in store for him. And worse, he had failed to get the deadly file in place. They would all be doomed now.
With a great final yank, he pulled the base of the computer. The USB came loose and flew into the toilet. As they both looked at the broken computer in shock, Zana shot out his heel in a savage kick to his boss’s kneecap.
Javad’s knee buckled. He stumbled back for a moment, then charged forward, freshly enraged. The IRGC major punched Zana once in the jaw with a swift jab. He followed the thrust by grabbing Zana by the collar, pulling him up, half strangling him.
Zana shrank back against the wall, wiggling out of the hold. His foot touched the doorstop at the base of the toilet. Struggling against the two-fisted clasp of his boss, he slumped to the toilet seat and reached toward the floor. In the struggle, the plunger was triggered and the toilet flushed.
So much for the USB. Nothing to lose now.
Zana found the handle of the long screwdriver he’d used to stiffen the rubber of the float.
Javad was yelling, spit flying from his mouth, teeth flashing close to Yasmin’s eyes. “Kha-en, kha-en!” the major seethed. Traitor, traitor!
Ignoring him, Zana maneuvered the screwdriver with his fingers, twisting the long metal shaft out and up. With a solid grip on the dimpled plastic handle, he rammed the tool into the soft underside of Javad’s chin, piercing it. He used the heel of his palm to bury the screwdriver to the hilt, driving it home with a savage grunt.
Blood spurted through Javad’s teeth and nose as he attempted a scream. Without thinking, Zana shot a hand over the major’s mouth, pressing him against the wall. He slid the shaft free, then reared back to shove it into Javad’s throat. It went easily into the soft tissue, penetrating both larynx and esophagus in a single stab.
An embedded reptilian instinct had broken loose, causing Zana to thrust over and over, concentrating on the throat. Blood spurted down Javad’s collar, flowing like warm oil down the scientist’s attacking forearm. He continued tearing at the hole he’d created, destroying Javad’s neck, transforming it to a bloody, fibrous gash.
His boss slumped to the floor, suffocating and bleeding to death, bubbles gurgling from his open wounds, his hands futilely attempting to hold his neck together. The scientist had removed the physical ability for the major to take a breath or make a sound.
Breathing shakily, Zana regained his senses. He released his grasp on the screwdriver and let it clatter to the floor. He looked at the remains of the laptop. It was in multiple pieces, smashed to bits. There was nothing on the hard drive he could use. Nothing particularly incriminating either. He’d kept his subterfuge on the USB. He simply picked up the mess and threw it in a trash can.
He glanced down at his dying boss, who was twitching, writhing. The sight brought a wave of nausea. He considered kneeling over the toilet and throwing up.
No time for that. Straddling the major, he opened the sink taps and splashed water on his arms and cheeks. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and looked away, burying his face in his wet hands. At fifty-two years of age, he’d thought any impulse for violence would have long been expunged. Not expunged, he realized now, just dormant.
He forced himself to take a deep breath. Right or wrong, he’d committed to a new path. He put what was left of the tools in an outer compartment of the bag. He wiped the screwdriver free of blood and dropped it on top.
He stepped over Javad, now nearly stilled, his throat gurgling. Doing his best to ignore the grisly sight, he pressed his ear against the grease-stained door, smoothing his shirt, composing himself. He looked down at his shirt, which was smeared with blood. He took it off and reversed it, putting it on inside out. He heard nothing strange on the other side of the door, just the typical sounds of aircraft maintenance: drills, clangs, the humming of the fuel truck’s pump, the occasional voice.
With the continued delay, he’d thought one of the Guards might be right there. But he guessed that Javad would have sent them both back to monitor the plane.
He opened the door a crack. As he’d imagined, the Guards were both standing near the aircraft, looking for shade. A long, thick fuel hose with a bright metal clasp was hooked to the wing over their heads, snaking back to the fuel truck, glinting in the sun.
Zana wet a paper towel and wiped the soles of his feet free of blood. His mind had become distant, oddly objective. Javad was dead now. There was a surreal quality to his thoughts. He now considered himself finished, on borrowed time, about to join Javad in whatever place he was in. There was nothing left to lose. Nothing.
The maintenance men were still digging into their aircraft cowling in the hangar, paying no mind to the IRGC visitors who had dropped into their dusty auxiliary field.
Zana walked the length of the tool bench toward them. He picked up one of the yellow survival packets and continued on, his laptop bag over his opposite shoulder. The movements of his body felt remote, like he was someone else.
On a hook over the tool bench, he saw a key ring with a long gray Toyota insignia and some other shorter keys. He quietly lifted and slid them into his pocket. Fifty feet beyond, the Guardsman who had accompanied Zana to the bathroom looked in his direction and waved. The scientist stopped and waved back, then stepped behind the door to stay out of sight. He looked carefully through the survival bag. He found what he’d been hoping for.
The Guardsmen were shuffling on their feet, talking and gesturing in the unconcerned way of young men, glancing up toward the hangar now and then. They hadn’t bothered to look for Javad, which wasn’t surprising. Zana could imagine they’d consider every minute free of the major as a reprieve.
Having surveyed the contents of the survival packet, he knelt briefly to put it on the ground halfway between the hangar and the fuel truck.
The hose wound twenty feet between the tanker and the aircraft wing. Zana walked toward the truck along the far side, shielded from the view of the Guardsmen and the aircrew.
Walking sideways to remain out of view, he reached into his shoulder bag and retrieved the screwdriver. He pressed his back against the humming truck, smelling the fuel that pumped from its swollen tank. He inspected the hose. It was old, sunbaked, frayed. With his bare fingers, Zana probed over the coils, looking for softness. He glanced back toward the aircraft and saw that he was still out of sight of the Guardsmen.
At a spot he deemed suitable, he jammed the flat screwdriver tip into the hose. It took several attempts, but he eventually broke through the old rubber. A jet of aviation fuel spurted free, arcing to the ground like blue urine.
Despite having created the breach, Zana stepped back, astonished with himself. He watched the fuel puddling in a dark stain on the tarmac; then he backed toward the hangar, replacing the screwdriver in his laptop bag. He’d now be in view of the Guardsmen, but it didn’t seem to matter since they still seemed indifferent to Zana’s absence. He bent down and picked up the survival packet he’d dropped to the tarmac a minute earlier.
He backed up several feet, almost to the threshold of the large hangar door, careful to remain out of sight. He rooted through the emergency gear. His hand passed over a rolled life vest, a flashlight, a can of water, and a whistle. Toward the bottom of the nylon container, he found the bulbous gun and its sealed pack of flares.
He’d never fired one before, but it seemed easy enough. Dropping the rest of the gear to the ground, he opened the blister pack, cocked the plastic gun open, and loaded a thick flare. With a wavering arm, he pointed the gun at the growing puddle of fuel beneath the truck. He breathed deeply to still himself. He pulled the trigger.
In his surreal state of mind, he could hardly process what happened next. He saw a glowing orange flash streak like a comet toward the truck. It hit the puddle and burst into an ethereal blue flame, running straight up the leaking hose.
Less than a second later, the truck exploded, leaping off its axles in a violent paroxysm of belching yellow fire. The tank separated from the chassis, which cartwheeled toward the runway, cloaked in black smoke. The large white tank collapsed to the ground and burst, spewing shards of metal, which slammed into the hangar doors behind him, high over his head.
A searing wave of heat knocked him off his feet, sending him backward into the hangar. He skidded across the smooth concrete as burning chunks of metal fell to the ground.
But he was unharmed. He heard the maintenance men shouting to one side. He saw to his amazement that the Y-12 was now also burning at the wing. The crewmen and the Guardsmen were running for their lives down the taxiway, blocked from the hangar by the flaming wreckage of the truck.
Zana scrambled to his feet, then ran into the hangar, past the maintenance men and smoking chunks of debris. His lungs burned. A sensation like rubbing alcohol singed his sinuses. Improbably, the laptop bag was still slung over his shoulder.
He found a set of double doors that went to a small office. Windows showed daylight. Across a few scattered desks, he saw another door secured by a dead bolt and guessed it would lead outside.
On the other side he found a parking lot and four vehicles baking in the sun. One of them was a white Toyota pickup, the favored truck of the IRGC. He heard another explosion somewhere behind him on the opposite side of the building. Turning briefly, he saw a black bubble of smoke floating skyward. Unreal.
He punched the unlock button on the Toyota key and saw a truck’s headlights blink. He opened the Toyota’s door, threw his laptop bag on the bench seat, and fired the engine. He settled behind the wheel and dropped the truck into gear. He drove through the open gate of the chain-link fence, skidding onto the dirt road, still in disbelief that he’d managed to do any of this: he, Zana, a mild-mannered fifty-two-year-old nuclear physics professor.
Dreamily, he sucked a deep draw of smoky air through his rasping throat and pressed the accelerator to the floor. He could see black smoke rising high in his rearview mirror. Incredible.
At another airfield three hundred miles to the northeast, Kasem bent under the spinning blades of an MI-8 helicopter. The late-afternoon sun stretched his shadow beneath the slowing rotors as he walked toward the waiting vehicle.
He closed the top button of his dark suit coat. He’d trimmed his beard and shined his shoes. There was nothing more imposing to a garrisoned military man, he knew, than a sharply turned-out civilian who seemed to have the sanction of high government office. For this reason, he’d cast aside his IRGC uniform in favor of the suit.
It was a short drive to Tabriz University. Kasem rode in the back of a Honda Accord with a young Guardsman driving up front. Passing through the gates, he surveyed the academic environs: manicured lawns and midcentury modern buildings stretched over a dozen acres. Clusters of male students walked between buildings, carrying books.
A half mile on, the driver made two turns toward an entrance. A striped wooden bar blocked the road. Kasem’s driver said a few words to a Guardsman with a flashlight. The barrier rose.
They’d now entered a part of campus off-limits to students and operated by the Ministry of Defense. Officially an IRGC Army barracks charged with the local defense of Tabriz, this cordoned-off area was manned by olive-uniformed guards in black berets. High fencing and shrubbery kept it concealed from the rest of the school.
The garrison commander was in his mid-sixties. His long black beard had aged to frosty wisps. Kasem knew something about the old colonel, who’d been around long enough to have participated in the revolution forty-odd years earlier. He’d paid his dues intensely enough to have been awarded this sleepy post before he retired.
Putatively, he was in charge of the local defense of Tabriz. In truth, there were operational IRGC commanders spread around the city in charge of air defense and infantry. The colonel was effectively a high-ranking figurehead whose single duty was to make sure no one went down the elevator shafts that led to the underground enrichment labs. For that, he maintained a detail of forty Guardsmen and a staff of ten officers. Every now and then, some administrative trouble might emerge from the labs, but the Zaqqum scientists who worked below were judged a quiet, cooperative lot.
Kasem presented his credentials to the colonel, which included a letter from Colonel Maloof. The base commander looked the documents over, sitting imperiously at his desk, knowing he was probably powerless to comment. To save face for a meeting with the counterintelligence man from Tehran, he’d brought a young bearded captain with him, his aide-de-camp. The colonel left most of the talking to his subordinate.
“As you requested, sir,” said the young captain to Kasem. He tapped a stack of folders on the desk. “These are the files of the ten men you asked to interview.”
“Thank you,” Kasem answered. “I have those files myself, back in Tehran. Are they assembled? I’d like to speak to them right away, one at a time.”
“Yes, sir,” said the captain. “All except two are waiting on the second floor.” He pointed up, toward the ceiling.
“Which two?” asked Kasem.
The captain looked nervous. “As we informed Colonel Maloof, Dr. Zana Rahimi and Major Javad Mirzadeh were on the Bushehr delegation. They’re still on their way back to Tabriz.”
“Yes, I’m aware. But they should be here by now. I asked that their travel be expedited. We sent a plane. . . .”
The captain looked at his commander before continuing. The colonel stayed mute. “Yes, sir, we know. But they still haven’t arrived. The plane is late.”
Kasem looked at his watch. It was almost six. Maloof had pulled strings to have a plane sent down to Bushehr from Dezful in the early morning. The two scientists should have landed in Tabriz hours ago. He’d have to call back to Tehran and get connected to the IRGC Air Force officer who had somehow managed to botch this simple task. The plainclothes Quds lieutenant colonel rubbed his bearded chin. He crossed his legs and smoothed the gabardine of his trousers at the knee.
“Well, I’ll find out why the plane is delayed. In the meantime, I can interview the others.” He removed a notepad from the breast pocket of his suit. “While I’m here, I may as well ask you about our two delayed men.”
The captain looked at his commander for guidance. A short nod gave him the signal to proceed. “Certainly, sir. What questions can we answer?”
“Let’s start with Javad Mirzadeh.”
“Ah, Javad,” the colonel said, smiling. It was the first time he’d really spoken. His voice was raspy, that of a lifetime smoker. “A true pasdar.”
“Indeed,” answered Kasem, nodding, writing. “Can you tell me about his work here? His access?”
The colonel folded his hands over his belly, smiling slightly. “Major Mirzadeh is a senior scientist, but also an active officer in the Guards. Given his position, we’ve given him administrative and security duties over the scientists that work for him. He has . . . how many men?” He glanced toward his aide.
“Fourteen scientists, sir, including the two guest Russians here in Tabriz. They’re the team that runs the lab protocols. He has a few more over in Natanz.”
“He maintains the equipment?” asked Kasem. He circled Javad’s name, thinking that his special leadership access would give him free rein for espionage.
“The major’s group does it, sir,” said the aide.
“And they work with the supplier company primarily. . . . Baramar? Out of Dubai?”
The colonel maintained his modest smile and nodded. “Perhaps not directly. I believe you’re aware of the arrangement,” he said.
Kasem nodded. It was understood that Baramar, while a legitimate reseller of technical equipment, worked through several front companies controlled by the Guards. “So not necessarily Baramar per se,” Kasem corrected. “But rather through one of the front companies.”
The colonel nodded.
“Still,” Kasem continued, “given the technical nature of the work, they must occasionally have to interface with Baramar directly . . . or the manufacturers. They must have some kind of access for technical resources. No?”
“We give them access to technical servers, support, things of that nature,” the captain said. “You are correct that that’s necessary.”
“And do you keep a log of the access?” asked Kasem.
“The IT group keeps a log of all access that leaves our network, yes. But we would have to go get it. We don’t have it prepared.”
“But do you know who would at least have the access? Who would need it?”
The colonel and his aide conferred in a brief sidebar. The younger man looked back toward Kasem and said, “At a minimum, it would probably be Dr. Rahimi. He maintains the equipment. He specifies the design. We’d expect Major Mirzadeh would have access as Dr. Rahimi’s manager.”
“So Dr. Rahimi primarily,” Kasem said. He took another note. “A civilian educated in Canada.”
“One of the most brilliant minds in all of Zaqqum,” the colonel said. “A good man.”
Kasem nodded. “Yes, based on his credentials, it would appear so. I’ve also noticed that he travels frequently to Tehran. You allow such trips?”
“Yes, many of our people travel home for family visits. In the case of Dr. Rahimi, he has a . . .”
The colonel looked at his aide before continuing. The captain started to say something but the colonel waved him off. The older man pursed his lips and sat back thoughtfully, hands clasped again across his midsection.
“Are you aware, Lieutenant Colonel Kahlidi, of the tragedy that befell Dr. Rahimi earlier this year?”
“Tragedy? No. What do you mean?”
“His daughter was on the Ukrainian airliner that was lost some months back. The one that . . .” He replaced the rest of the sentence with a wincing shrug.
“Really,” Kasem said, sparing the older man from having to finish the description. He was genuinely surprised. Kasem’s team had missed this connection back in Tehran. “How did he handle that?”
“Like a fedayee.” A devoted patriot.
“He didn’t ask for a leave?”
“We granted him a leave to Tehran for mourning. It was brief. Too brief, perhaps, for such a thing.”
“But he was escorted, I assume, per the security policies of Zaqqum?”
The colonel sighed. “He was, yes. Two Guardsmen stayed outside his home, day and night. There was nothing to report but the tragic grief of a family. He did ask me if he could take a trip to India with his wife. But with the importance of the lab, we denied it. He took it graciously. A fedayee, he cares about our mission here. He has been hard at work with the Russians since they’ve arrived, preparing for Bushehr. I’m told there was some kind of breakthrough recently.”
Kasem wrote a note about the request for India. It was not uncommon for Iranians to take trips to the Shia mosques there. He was somewhat surprised it had been denied after the IRGC had killed his daughter.
“So he just came back here? He left his wife to deal with the grief? Other children?”
The colonel looked sympathetic. “As I said, we denied his travel. I did approve it for his wife, though, who seems to have some health problems. There are no other children. The thought of her being home alone to deal with this . . . It seemed the right thing to do.” He shrugged. “I gave her the stamp. She’s there now.”
“I see,” said Kasem. He closed his notebook, sliding it into his pocket. “As you can see by my line of questioning, I’m curious about anyone that had access to Baramar. Unfortunately, that sounds like the two men that are delayed. Can you at least get me the IT records now so I can look them over?”
The two IRGC officers huddled for a moment, discussing how they might do this. As they talked, Kasem felt the phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it free and looked at the screen. Maloof.
“Pardon me. It’s Colonel Maloof calling,” he said to the two officers.
He stepped into a hallway to take the call. He could see through the windows that the sun had gone down. The sky was purple. A few distant lights winked on a hillside.
“Something significant has happened,” Maloof said immediately.
“What?”
“The plane with Rahimi and Mirzadeh landed at a remote field to refuel. Some small out-of-the-way training base called Saqqez. There was an accident.”
Kasem took a few steps away from the office to ensure privacy. “What do you mean, accident? The plane crashed?”
“Worse. Sabotaged on the ground. There was an explosion.”
“Have we . . .”
“I’ve sent a Guards’ platoon to investigate. They’ve interviewed witnesses. We found Major Mirzadeh stabbed to death in a bathroom. Another Guardsman was killed in the explosion of the plane.”
Shocked, Kasem leaned against the wall for support. “And Dr. Rahimi?”
“Missing.”
Kasem leaned against the wall, his free hand cupping his forehead. “You’re saying . . .”
“It looks that way.”
“Okay.” Kasem stood up straight. “I’m going to fly there right now and take tactical command of the search.”
“Yes, you’d better, Kasem jon.”
As Kasem wrapped up his meeting with the garrison commander and spat out orders for the flight crew to get ready for a trip to Saqqez, his phone rang again. One of his lieutenants. Annoyed, he answered curtly. He had things to do.
“I thought you should know right away,” began the young officer.
“About Rahimi? I already know. Colonel Maloof just told me. I’m going to Saqqez now. I’m going to need you to—”
“Sir—no, not that. It’s about the man you told me to track: Reza Shariati. I put a bulletin out through Interpol, like you said.”
“And?”
“And . . . as it turns out, there’s already a Red Notice out for that name.”
“Really? By who?”
“Issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry,” said the lieutenant.
“When?”
“About six weeks ago.”
The leak. Kasem suddenly put it together. Kuznetsov had known about it. But he hadn’t had the goods yet, so he kept things shadowy.
Reza Shariati, the fake contact at Baramar, was the CIA handler for Rahimi. It all fit. But Kasem wasn’t sure what to do with any of the information yet.
“That’s all you have?” he asked the lieutenant. “That’s why you called?”
“Sir, there’s more. The facial recognition system detected this man. Ninety-five percent probability.”
“Here? You’re saying he’s here? In Iran?”
“No, sir. Turkey.”
Then that’s it, he thought. The man he knew as Reza, the man who’d mysteriously saved his life by the Tigris River, was coming to get his spy.