”
He took a small step forward but that was all. Then Jason stood next to Rachel and said, “You beat them, Bry. Remember what we said after they took us? We’re innocent and no matter what they did to us we were going to stick to the truth. You said that, and Rachel and I went along with you. Well, check it out, brah, you saved our asses with that. You held the line for all of us. Now they’re here to take us home.”
Bryan’s empty eyes gradually filled with something. Hard to put a name on it, because there was a lot of wreckage in the way. Maybe he had gone inside his head to hide from what they were doing to him, but here, in this moment, I think he looked through the shadows and saw the faint light from the door he’d left open.
“Tick-tock, Jefe,” said Lydia quietly, and I nodded.
Bryan took a ragged breath and then took a step forward, reaching through his personal darkness. Taking Rachel’s hand, taking Jason’s. Top helped guide him out of the cell, and I could see the broken boy becoming the man who had walked through hell and survived.
As he passed one of the cops who lay trussed on the floor, Bryan suddenly knelt beside him. At first I thought he was going to lash out at him, but he didn’t. Instead he rolled the man onto his side so that the restraints didn’t cut as deeply into his wrists and ankles. Either kindness to local cops who had been relatively kind to the prisoners, or a statement that compassion should be a factor whenever one person has power over another. It was a small thing, a minor kindness in the middle of a dreadful experience; but it might be the defining moment in the entire experience for the young man.
I was proud of him and I saw the looks in the eyes of Top, Khalid, and Bunny. This was why we do what we do. Not to punish the bad guys, but to make sure the good ones have a real chance.
The silence in the cells was cracked apart by the sound of sirens approaching.
The prisoners looked toward the rear door, new fear blossoming in their eyes.
“Okay, everybody out of the pool,” said Bunny, dialing up the wattage on his Southern California smile. Bunny has a great blend of impressive size, movie-star looks, and surfer-boy charm; but at the same time you know you’re safe with him. It takes a lot of guys to outnumber someone like him.
The sirens were coming fast.
“Warbride?” I called.
“We’re drawing a crowd,” she reported tersely. “We need to get into the wind most riki-tik.”
I ran to the door and peered out. People were pouring out of their houses and converging on the police station. Half of them were yelling into cell phones.
“Dark and stormy night,” I said to Smith, and he nodded. He fished out a smoke grenade and threw it. And another and another. Dense black smoke boiled up from each one. Lydia lobbed flash-bangs into the smoke. Between the thick smoke and the sudden explosions, the crowd screamed and began to scatter, running in every wrong direction, colliding, creating very useful panic.
“Go! Go! Go!” I barked.
Top, Khalid, and Bunny, each guiding a freed hostage, flipped down their infrared visors and ran like hell for the cars we had parked on different side streets.
People were still in the streets but when they saw men with automatic weapons, they stumbled backward toward their houses.
Lydia ran behind them, and immediately cut left and vanished into an alley. The plan was for her to circle the block and reenter the scene as a pedestrian. She looked like every other woman in this conservative part of town. She’d blend in with the crowd and help confuse things with a little whisper-down-the-lane distortion of the facts. Were there six men or twelve? Didn’t they drive away in a white van? The men were bearded. Was that Afrikaans they were speaking? Any good crowd of confused and angry people could be worked like a conductor with a baton.
John Smith covered everyone with his rifle and infrared scope. He was good with every kind of firearm, but as a sniper he was the hammer of God. If anyone made a move on our teams they would get the real thing, no beanbags, no Tasers. Now was not the time to play.
My earbud buzzed and I heard Top’s voice. “One away.”
“Two away,” said Khalid.
“Down the road and gone,” said Bunny.
But by then John Smith and I were already in motion. Our visors showed the heat signatures of the fleeing civilians. And it also showed the heat from the engines of at least a dozen police cars coming at us from different directions. They were closer than we anticipated, and that was not good news. Our window of escape had slammed shut. In twenty paces we were going to be out of the smoke and as visible as gnats on a bedsheet.
“Chatterbox,” I growled, “escape three. Go!”
We had four different escape strategies. The first two were now for shit, and number four involved shooting our way out. Three was less lethal but not much more comforting. We split up, went for the first cover we could find to get off the grid as quickly as possible. It meant dumping all of our gear. Everything.
We each popped a final smoke grenade and ran into the cloud. As they burst, we hit quick release buttons on our belts and shed holsters, cross belts, bandoliers, and harnesses packed with expensive and very useful equipment. Even the iSee devices and earbuds. It all clattered to the ground. When I dropped my helmet I lost sight of John Smith. I crouched while running and tugged at the seams of my trousers. With a screech of Velcro, the pants split apart and flapped behind me. I repeated the action with the shirt. The last thing I did was to grab the medallion hanging around my neck and press the sculpted design in the center. It sent a signal to the gear- weapons, equipment, and even clothing-that released hundreds of tiny thermite micro charges. I heard the whoosh as all of it exploded into flame. Then I yanked off the medallion and tossed it away.
When I staggered backward out of the smoke, faking a cough, I was an Iranian in ordinary street clothes. I yelled in Persian and bellowed for the police, pointing toward the smoke and flames.
Just like every other ordinary citizen was doing.
Chapter Five
Starbox Coffee
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 7:41 a.m.
That was how it ended. At least for me. Top, Bunny, and Khalid still had to get the college kids out of the country, but circumstances cut me from that team. I knew it was going to be a nail-biter for the guys, but Top was the best team leader in the business. If there was a way, he’d see it done.
I made it back to my hotel room without further incident. John Smith and Lydia weren’t there, but I hadn’t expected them. Each of us had a different bolt-hole and pickup point for a ride out of town.
I didn’t have much in the way of weapons or equipment left at the hotel. Our local contact, Abdul, whom I hadn’t yet met-had come by and cleared everything out. All that was left was my suitcase filled with locally made and purchased street clothes and my shaving kit.
Abdul wasn’t scheduled to pick me up until noon. Plenty of time, I’d thought. I’ll just go get some coffee and a roll and read the paper.
Jeez.
While I waited I thought about the conversation with the mystery lady. She was clearly working for someone-possibly the person I was now waiting for-but there was something extra hinky about the way she “confirmed” my identity. It felt more like she didn’t know who I was and was fishing for that information. And yet she’d known enough about Church to make a crack about how tough it is to make him laugh. Did that mean she knew Church? Or was that a slice of information she’d been given to use to convince me that she knew more than she does. Apparent omniscience is frightening; it intimidates people into saying things they shouldn’t. Cops use it all the time, mostly faking it, to get suspects and witnesses to open up.
So, what did she know about me? That I was a smart-ass. That’s not exactly the best-kept secret in the world. That I worked for someone named Church who didn’t always appreciate my humor? That was a single fact that suggested intimate knowledge. At the time, out there in the awkward moment of having laser sights on me, it
