“But I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. Just do it, OK?”
Safavi opened the briefcase.
“Leave it there and keep walking toward me for another fifty feet.”
Safavi shook his head again but followed Justin’s order.
“Now what?” he asked when he reached the spot.
“Get on your knees facing me, lock your hands behind your head, and do not, I repeat, do not look behind you. Got it?”
“Do we have to do this?”
“You agreed to these terms. Now keep your side of the deal.” Justin gestured with his gun at a point on the side of the road. “Right there.”
Safavi shuffled his feet and followed Justin’s orders to the dot. “Satisfied now?”
“Delighted. Don’t move.”
“This is too much. I’m here because I want to be here, not to kill you.”
Justin ignored his words and advanced carefully, keeping his gun trained on Safavi at all times. Once he reached the man, he circled around him. Safavi’s jacket was open. He was wearing no suicide bomber vest or belt. Justin pulled out a pair of plastic handcuffs and snapped them on Safavi’s wrists. He offered no resistance. Justin searched him and removed Safavi’s cellphone from one of his pants pockets. Once he was convinced the defector was clean, Justin spoke to Nathan, telling him to come out and meet them.
“Get up.” Justin helped Safavi to his feet. “We’re good. That was for your protection as much as for mine. Don’t turn around.”
“Do you not trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
Justin walked over to the briefcase. It contained only a thick folder with documents, pictures, sketches, and diagrams. He flipped through the pages. They were mostly in Farsi, but a few were in English. Justin recognized some formulas and sketches he was trained to look for and the universal chemical symbols Pu and U of Plutonium and Uranium, two elements used in a nuclear bomb. He picked up the folder and returned to Safavi.
Nathan was heading toward the Toyota. He inspected it from a distance, looking for any signs it might be explosive-rigged. Keeping his C8 carbine in a two-handed position ready to fire, he stepped closer to the car. He looked through the windows then opened the doors. He searched the seats and underneath them, and popped the trunk. Once his search was complete, he flashed Justin the OK sign with his arm raised up. “It’s all good here. The car is clean.”
“You can turn around now,” Justin said.
Safavi’s face was covered in sweat. He was panting. He did a double take when he saw a man in desert fatigues with an assault rifle in his hand coming toward them from the direction of his car.
Justin removed Safavi’s handcuffs. “Don’t worry. He’s Mehmet, my partner.”
“OK, and you’re Mohammed, right?”
Civilians.
“Yes, I am.”
Justin showed Safavi his cellphone. “You won’t need this anymore.” He removed the SIM card and the battery. He broke the SIM card in half and threw the pieces on the ground, along with the battery. “You won’t need the Toyota either.”
“How are we getting away?” Safavi’s voice carried a hint of concern.
“We’ve got our own transport.”
“What will happen to the car?”
“One of the locals will snatch it. The authorities will never find it.”
“And my friend?”
“What about him?”
“It was his car.”
“I hope he has insurance.”
Justin had worked out Safavi’s disappearance. He was to borrow a friend’s car for a short vacation in Rasht—an Iranian city on the Caspian Sea—to escape the stress of work. After being seen by many witnesses walking along the seashore, acting illogically, and rambling to himself, he was to get into the water with his clothes on and be seen no more. Then, he was to change into a different outfit and drive to their meeting point.
“You followed our plan to the letter, did you?” Justin asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“And no one followed you?”
“I saw no one.”
Nathan was a few feet away when the Nissan appeared at the side of the road. Ruslan had taken the scenic route.
“That’s our transport. Let’s go,” Justin said.
When they reached the car, Ruslan asked, “Who is this?”
“Our contact,” Justin replied.
“He gave you the information?”
Justin raised the folder. “He did.”
“So he’s not coming with us.”
“Of course he is.”
“Our deal was not to—”
“Listen, I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Justin stood an inch away from Ruslan’s face. “He comes with us. You have a problem with that, talk to Colonel Garryev.”
Ruslan spat on the ground and cursed through his teeth. “What are you looking at?” he barked at the driver. “Start the car.”
Justin sat behind the driver, Safavi behind Ruslan. Nathan threw their C8 carbines and knapsacks in the trunk and slid in the third row of seats. The driver started the car, and they continued along the dirt road.
Safavi was perched on the edge of the seat, his hands trembling.
Justin offered him his canteen. “You made it,” he said, resting his hand on Safavi’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to fear now. We’ll be across the border in a few minutes.”
Safavi nodded but did not take the drink.
Justin passed the folder with Safavi’s intelligence to Nathan. He shuffled through the documents. “Is this all?”
“Yes. It’s plenty to convince any scientists that Iran is very, very close to having a nuclear weapon. The rest of the evidence is here, in my mind.” Safavi tapped his left temple. “I will tell everything I know once—”
The explosion of the glass window and the bullet striking his head ended his sentence. Blood and brain matter sprayed Justin’s face. Safavi’s head slammed again his shoulder.
“What the hell was that?” Ruslan shouted.
The driver panicked. He drove the Nissan toward a pile of rocks at the side of the road. Ruslan slapped him on the back of his head and reached to get a hold of the steering wheel. Justin snapped his head to the side to look out the window for the shooter. He took in the entire landscape in a quick sweep. Everything was as peaceful as a moment ago. But the defector was dead, blood spurting from the entry bullet hole in his head.
“See anything?” Justin shouted at Nathan.
“No. Nothing. No shooter.”
“What the hell was that?” Ruslan asked again.
The driver’s side window shattered and Ruslan’s head exploded. His blood spattered the driver and the car’s interior.
“Who’s shooting? Who’s killing us?” shouted the driver. He stared at Ruslan’s blank eyes.
“Sniper at four. Six, seven hundred yards,” Justin shouted, suppressing the anger rising in his voice. He had followed the angle of the shot and had discovered the shooter. He pointed at a tall ridge overlooking the road with a sweaty, shaky hand. They had searched that area earlier but had seen no traces of a sniper’s nest. He swore under his breath.
“I see no movement, but it looks like a perfect place,” Nathan said. He recalibrated his binoculars. “Yes, he’s there. I see him.”
The Nissan veered off and headed for a ditch, the driver still staring at Ruslan. Another round slammed the side of the car, sparks flying inches away from Justin’s face.
“Watch the ditch, the ditch,” Justin yelled.
The driver snapped out of his trance and steered the car back to the road. It fell into a deep pothole that almost broke its shock absorbers. The driver pressed the gas pedal and the Nissan bounced back onto the dirt road.
“Turn, turn, left, then right,” Justin ordered the driver. “Make it harder for the shooter. And get us out of this road.”
Nathan reached for their carbines. He handed Justin his gun then swung his own C8 over his shoulder, rammed the barrel through the window and began hammering away at the sniper’s nest.
Justin did the same. He blasted round after round. A hollow click signaled an empty chamber. He reloaded in a flash. He had little hope their shots were going to hit the sniper. Their enemy’s nest was within their carbines’ maximum fire range, but well beyond their effective range of three hundred yards. They were in a moving vehicle, and its driver was taking sharp turns. Their suppressive fire was intended to keep the sniper down or reduce his efficiency. At least for a few more seconds.
The driver found a flat patch of barren land, clear of any large boulders, and turned the steering wheel in that direction. He misjudged the distance and the Nissan’s front tire hit a large rock. The car titled to its right side as it climbed the obstacle then sank at the edge of a sand bank. The driver hit the gas pedal. The Nissan groaned and jerked forward, but went nowhere. A bullet pierced the back window.
Nathan changed positions. He let off a long barrage, a full thirty-round magazine.
The driver swore and shifted gears. He gave the gas pedal a light touch. The tires spun. He steered to the left, toward the hard ground. The car inched forward with a rattle. He pressed the gas pedal again. The car responded and they slid downhill. They took two more turns, rounded the hill, and were finally out of the line of fire.
Justin pressed his P30 pistol against the driver’s head. “Stop the car.”
“What? What are you doing? Why?”
“Stop the car. Last time.”
The driver slammed the brakes. The car came to an abrupt halt. He raised his hands up.
“How did they learn about us?” Justin asked. “Whom did you call? Whom did Ruslan call?”
“I don’t… I don’t know. Don’t kill me. I called… called nobody.”
“Did
he
call anyone?”
“No, no, he didn’t.”
Justin shoved his gun deeper into the driver’s back of the head. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. Check my phone and Ruslan’s phone. We had no idea where we were going. Remember, you only told us it was somewhere in Iran. You gave us directions as we drove. Don’t kill me. We didn’t betray you.”
“But who did? Who did this?” He nodded toward the dead bodies.
Nathan got out of the car and searched Ruslan for his cellphone. He reached into the driver’s jacket and got his as well. He scanned quickly through their call logs.
“Get out of the car,” Justin said. He kept his gun pointed at the driver, and they both climbed out of the Nissan.
Nathan frowned. “He’s telling the truth. No phone calls since this morning, before we left.” He handed the driver back his cellphone.
Justin sighed.
“OK, so how the hell did they know? They were waiting for us.”
Nathan glanced at the dead defector then at Justin.
Justin narrowed his eyes. “No, it can’t be him. I gave him general directions and told him the exact coordinates only this morning. And a sniper doesn’t just happen. Not such a good sniper.”
Nathan took Justin to the side, away from the driver. He couldn’t hear their words, but they could still keep an eye on him.
“What if the defector was a double agent? Entices us with his story, then tells the Revolutionary Guards about our position,” Nathan said.
“But they killed him.”
“Perhaps that bullet wasn’t meant for him.”
“It was easier to target us when we were walking toward him. Why wait until we’re in the car?”
Nathan shrugged then looked over Justin’s shoulder at the driver, who was trying to light a cigarette. Justin turned around and saw the driver’s hands shaking so much he succeeded only on his fourth try.
“Maybe he wasn’t in position yet. Too little time to prepare.”
Justin shook his head. “No, it doesn’t make sense. The Guards—or whoever the sniper is—wouldn’t just send a man or two. They would send an army and attempt to take us alive.”
Nathan nodded.
Justin glanced around the area. “Something doesn’t fit quite right. But I can’t tell what it is.”
“That sniper is a great marksman. Maybe he thought a clear shot was too easy. He wanted to make the game interesting, challenging. That’s why he waited until we got into the car.”
Justin wiped some of Safavi’s from his forehead. “Whatever it is, we don’t have to figure it out now. Take the folder and everything else we need out of the car. I’ll call for an exfil.”
“Got it.”
They returned to the car at a fast pace.
“Are we leaving now?” the driver asked.
“Yes. On foot. You’re welcome to join us.”
The driver frowned, looking down at his belly. His body was in no shape to hike the rugged hills. “Why not take the car?”
“Because it has a bull’s-eye painted on the back. The sniper will call in reinforcements. If they dispatch a helicopter, the Nissan will be your coffin. We have a better chance of survival if we ditch the car.”
The driver seemed to mull over Justin’s words. Justin loaded his knapsack on his shoulders then picked up his carbine. He walked over to the defector and gave Safavi a last glance. “I wish I could give you a proper burial,” he muttered, “especially if you had nothing to do with this.”
Nathan was ready, waiting for Justin.
“Are you coming?” Justin asked the driver.
He shook his head.
“Fine. If you make it, I’ll call you. We need to meet and figure out what exactly happened here and why.”
The driver nodded after a brief pause.
Nathan took a step forward. “This way,” he said, pointing toward a steep path winding around the hill. “We’ll be safe soon enough.” He began marching.
Justin raised his satellite phone to his ear and followed him. “Let’s hope the Guards’ choppers don’t find us before our extraction team.”
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