Kingdom of Darkness (37 page)

‘We’re on open water, so we won’t run into anything – I hope!’ The Israeli watched the trawler until it was well clear of the two bobbing stealth boats. A command, and the pilot started the engine, a muffled rumble coming from the rear of the vessel. Another growl from astern told them that the second boat had followed suit.

The pilot slowly opened the throttle to bring the vessel around towards the coast, a flashing green diamond marking a waypoint on the GPS, then increased power. Both boats surged across the water, their shallow keels and ducted propellers barely raising a wake.

Nina was very glad of her motion-sickness remedy. Even though the huge inland sea was quite calm, the same low profile that made the vessel nearly invisible to radar also meant that it was very sensitive to even small waves, each new crest thumping up through the hull into her spine. But she could tell from the speed at which spray was whipping past that the boats were fast.

Zane occasionally raised his head to look for more Iranian patrols, but the sea held only darkness. ‘How much longer?’ Eddie shouted to him over the smack of the waves.

‘Fifteen minutes! You’re sure your contact will be there?’

‘He was sneaking me and my mates into Iran while you were still playing with fucking Lego,’ Eddie replied with faint impatience. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Just checking.’ In the screen’s glow, Nina saw Zane’s mouth curl into a smirk. ‘So, you operated in Iran when you were young? What was it like there when the Shah was still in power?’

Eddie kicked Zane’s seat. ‘Fuck off, you cheeky little bastard.’ Nina laughed.

The two boats continued onwards. After another ten jolting minutes, the pilot reduced power. The GPS display showed they were approaching the shore. Nina saw with disquiet that there were lights along a good swathe of the coastline. ‘Jeez, are you sure we’ll be able to land without being seen? And how are we going to hide the boats?’

Zane produced night-vision goggles and surveyed what lay ahead. ‘That’s a forest,’ he said, pointing out a gap over a mile long in the line of lights. ‘The Sisangan National Park. We’ve used it as an entry point before. And I doubt anyone will be on the beach this early in the morning.’

‘I dunno,’ said Eddie. ‘You’d be surprised how many people in New York are out jogging at the crack of sparrowfart.’

‘Iran isn’t exactly the world’s jogging capital,’ the Israeli replied. He surveyed the shoreline again, then issued an order. The boats angled for the forest’s eastern end, reducing power to glide up to the empty beach.

To Nina’s alarm, headlights were intermittently visible through the trees behind the shore. ‘I thought nobody would be around?’

‘It’s a highway,’ Zane replied, unconcerned. ‘No one driving along it will be able to see us.’ The pilot brought them in until breaking waves began to rock them, at which point Zane and another Mossad operative jumped out, dragging the craft ashore. The second boat came in alongside. The other occupants disembarked, and the agents picked up the empty vessels and carried them across the sand into the trees. Grubby tarpaulins were draped over them, the coverings weighed down with rocks.

‘
That’s
how you’re hiding them?’ Nina asked. ‘What if someone looks under the tarps and finds two super-high-tech stealth boats?’

‘Trust me, nobody will look,’ said Zane, scooping up a handful of dirt and tossing it over one of the tarpaulins. The other got the same treatment. ‘Tourists who come here either walk on the beach or go into the forest on the far side of the highway. Even if they see these, they just look like ordinary boats when they’re covered – nothing worth paying attention to. I told you, we’ve done this before.’

‘Yeah, hiding something in plain sight by making it look really boring does actually work,’ Eddie told his wife. ‘Did it a few times in the SAS: we’d park up in a rusty old van to bag someone and nobody’d give us a second look. Well, except that time some little scrote opened the back door to see if there was anything he could nick. Blew the op, but it was worth it for the look on his face when he saw us all pointing guns at him. I think he genuinely shat himself.’

‘Lovely,’ she said, still unconvinced. But the Israelis were satisfied by the boats’ new low-tech camouflage and set off through the woods.

It did not take long for the group to reach a dirt track cutting through the strip of forest between the beach and the highway. A van lurked in the darkness. Two of the Mossad agents drew their weapons and moved into the trees to cover it.

‘Is that Hafez’s?’ Nina whispered.

Zane regarded it through the goggles. ‘I can’t tell if there’s anyone inside.’

‘I can,’ said Eddie. Before anyone could object, he advanced on the van, whistling loudly and tunelessly.

The Israeli made an aggrieved noise. ‘He’s being subtle again. That worked out so well last time!’

The driver’s door opened, a cloud of smoke wafting out. The lurking Israelis’ guns snapped on to the bearded man who emerged. ‘Oi, Hafez!’ Eddie called. ‘You really ought to stop smoking – it gives away that you’re in there when it leaks out of the windows.’

Hafez Marradejan took a long, mocking drag on his cigarette. ‘You used to smoke too, Eddie!’ he rasped.

‘Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I’ve sorted myself out since then.’ He embraced the older man. ‘Glad to see you again.’

‘And you. Six years, I think it has been?’

‘About that, yeah. Did you have any trouble getting here?’

‘Only from my wife! She was not pleased when I told her I was going to drive across half the country to see an old friend.’ A cackle, which turned into a cough, then Hafez peered past the Englishman. ‘So, where are the others?’

‘In the woods.’ Eddie turned and waved. ‘It’s okay, come on out.’

Nina was first to leave the trees, Zane and most of the other Mossad operatives following more cautiously. The two men keeping watch remained in the shadows, wary of deception or ambush.

But there was neither. ‘Hafez!’ said Nina. ‘Hi, remember me?’

‘Yes, of course!’ he replied, clasping her hand and shaking it. ‘You have become famous since then, no?’

‘Or infamous. And married, too.’ She took hold of Eddie’s arm.

The Iranian grinned. ‘Ah, so he did not sort
himself
out. I thought so!’

‘Are you okay? The last time I saw you, you’d been shot in the leg.’

‘An old wound now,’ he said dismissively, before giving the other men a quizzical look. ‘And these are . . .?’

‘Jared Zane,’ said Eddie, introducing the Israeli, ‘and his . . . associates. Probably best that you don’t ask where they’re from.’

Hafez finished his cigarette and ground it under his foot. ‘Pfft. I know Israeli special forces when I see them. Or Mossad, but the two are almost one these days.’ Ignoring Zane’s surprise, he went on: ‘You have vouched for them, Eddie, so that is good enough for me. And from what you told me, their business here is not with the people of Iran.’

‘No,’ Zane said. ‘At least not today.’

Eddie sighed as Hafez narrowed his eyes. ‘He doesn’t like the Iranian government any more than you do,’ he told the younger man, ‘so don’t even
start
waving your cock around.’

Hafez opened the rear doors. ‘It is big enough for all of you. Including the two men in the trees.’ Again Zane was caught by surprise; the Iranian gave him a yellow-toothed grin.

‘I keep telling this kid how useful experience is, but he won’t bloody listen,’ said Eddie, smirking. Zane shook his head, then signalled for the pair to join the others.

‘So, I am taking you into the Alborz mountains?’ asked Hafez as the Israelis clambered into the van.

‘Yeah,’ replied Nina. ‘The only problem is, I don’t know exactly where. I’ve narrowed it down to a fairly small area near one of the passes, but we’ll still have to search when we get there.’

‘I will get you as close as I can.’ With all the Mossad agents now squeezed inside, he closed the doors. ‘Oh, even though I will take the back roads, you will still need to wear a headscarf,’ he told Nina apologetically. ‘Red hair, it stands out – and with a truck full of spies, I do not want to attract attention!’

‘That’s okay,’ she said, touching her bedraggled ponytail. ‘The state my hair’s in, I’m happy to keep it under wraps.’

Hafez smiled. ‘There is one in the front. Okay, now we can go.’ He opened the passenger door for her and Eddie, then returned to the driver’s seat. There was a packet of Winston cigarettes on the dashboard; he flicked out one of the white cylinders with an almost automatic movement and put it in his mouth, then hesitated. ‘You think I smoke too much?’ Eddie nodded. ‘If you can give up, then bah, so can I.’ He returned the unlit cigarette to its home. ‘For one day, at least.’

Nina fastened a black scarf around her head as the Iranian started the engine. ‘You don’t appreciate your health until you lose it,’ she told him, with a sad look at her husband.

The target area was only some sixty miles from the landing site as the crow flew, but the journey was considerably more circuitous. Hafez was being extra cautious, avoiding major settlements and not wanting to draw the slightest interest from anyone they passed, be they civilian, police or military. By the time they left the coastal plain and began to ascend into the long east–west range of the Alborz, it was after eleven o’clock.

Nina’s prior visit to Iran had taken her to its dry and dusty western region, so the landscape came as a surprise. The mountains trapped clouds rolling in from the Caspian, resulting in a thick verdant carpet of forest covering the entire northern flank of the peaks. ‘Beautiful, yes?’ said Hafez as the van cruised up a tree-lined road winding deeper into the wilderness.

‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘But finding what we’re looking for in these woods might be harder than I thought.’

‘Hopefully Kroll and his lot’ll have the same problem,’ said Eddie.

‘Guess we’ll find out soon.’ There was a satnav on the dash; it showed that they were only a few kilometres from their destination – or at least the start of their search.

Minutes passed, the Iranian swinging the van around a series of hairpin bends as the potholed road ascended the pass. The clouds thickened the higher they climbed, casting a gloomy pall over both the scenery and Nina’s mood. She had barely escaped with her life from the Nazis . . . but now she was likely to face them again.

She
had
to do it, though. Kroll and the others had been trying to escape the world’s notice. But if they found the spring and shared it with their wealthy backers, they would regain influence around the globe.

She couldn’t let that happen. If she did, Macy and many others would have died for nothing . . .

‘This is it,’ said Hafez, bringing her back to immediate concerns. A muddy track to one side headed into the thick forest.

Eddie was immediately on alert. ‘Someone’s been up there recently,’ he said, spotting tyre marks in the wet earth. ‘Hafez, pull over.’

The back doors were flung open even before the van fully halted. Zane and the other Israelis jumped out and dispersed rapidly into the trees, guns readied. Eddie drew his own weapon, a nine-millimetre BUL Cherokee pistol provided by the Mossad agent. He examined the tracks. ‘A jeep, plus . . . three trucks,’ he reported. ‘Pretty heavily loaded an’ all. They’ve gone into the woods – but they haven’t come out.’

‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that they were full of lumberjacks?’ said Nina.

Zane joined the Englishman. ‘Four-by-fours, big ones,’ he said. ‘Most likely Neynava troop trucks. Three of them would be enough to carry Kroll’s forces. The jeep was probably a Safir – the Revolutionary Guard commander’s ride.’ He saw Eddie’s impressed expression. ‘I might not be as experienced as you, but my intel’s right up to date.’

‘So now what?’ Nina asked.

‘We can’t risk taking the van any further,’ Eddie replied. ‘They might hear it.’

‘I do not want to leave you behind,’ Hafez protested from his vehicle.

‘I’m not saying you should go back home. But you’ll need to get out of sight. There was another track about a mile down the hill; use that.’ He surveyed the cloud-shrouded peaks to the south. ‘Nina, how far are we from the spring?’

Nina checked a map. ‘Six kilometres, at least.’ She had marked the search area; it was higher up the slopes. ‘That way,’ she said, pointing. ‘The tallest mountain could be the one from Andreas’ text.’

‘They won’t get trucks up there,’ Zane noted. ‘They’ll have to go on foot.’

Eddie went to the van. ‘Hafez, we’ll go on from here. Wait for us where I said.’

The Iranian reluctantly agreed. ‘For how long?’

‘Fucked if I know, mate. Jared, you got any walkie-talkies?’ Zane nodded. ‘Okay, give one to Hafez.’ He turned back to the older man. ‘We’ll give you a squawk when we come back.
If
we come back.’

‘You do not sound confident.’

‘There’s ten of us, and about thirty of them. And they’ve got one of our friends hostage. I’ve had
worse
odds, but . . .’

Hafez got out and embraced him. ‘Allah be with you, my friend. And you too, Nina,’ he added over Eddie’s shoulder. ‘I will wait for you. Well, until I run out of cigarettes!’

‘Go on, bugger off,’ Eddie told him with a grin. The Iranian detached himself, accepting a radio from Zane and climbing into the van. A quick U-turn, and the vehicle headed back downhill.

Nina took off her headscarf. ‘I just hope we won’t need to get out of here in a hurry . . .’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Eddie gazed back at the mountains. The tallest peak was well over a kilometre high, the uppermost section of its southern face a near-vertical wall dropping down to the steep forest below. ‘Okay, we’d better get started. We should stay clear of this track, though. Just in case someone comes back along it.’

‘Definitely,’ Zane agreed. ‘Which way?’

Eddie checked Nina’s map before indicating a rise about a mile distant. ‘Over there. We can go along that ridge. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier than climbing straight up its side.’

The Israeli nodded, then told his men to move into the trees. ‘You ready for this?’ Eddie asked his wife.