“I don’t know,” continued Nuri. “Maybe it isn’t for me. It’s my blood. My grandfather worked for the Agency. And my great-grandfather was with the OSS. I grew up listening to stories about it.”
“Your parents were CIA, too?”
“Skipped a generation.”
Nuri’s father had been about as far from a CIA type as possible, at least partly in reaction to his own father, with whom his relationship had always been poor. His mom was even more opposed to the CIA and military. But in a way, both had done quite a bit to prepare him for his career. His father was an executive with an oil company, and they had lived almost exclusively in the Middle East and Northern Africa when Nuri was growing up. His mother had insisted he learn the local languages and customs wherever they lived — critical background for his job.
“I think we just take the best people we can,” said Danny. “Train them the way we want. Cross-train them.”
“Agreed. But for now—”
“We play it by ear,” said Danny. “Just like we’ve been doing. Besides, just because they’re from the CIA doesn’t mean they’re perfect.”
Nuri took that, correctly, as a reference to Hera.
“What are we going to do about her?” he asked.
“Hera gave you problems too, huh?”
“I think she’s jealous. She originally trained for the MY-PID program and didn’t get the first selection. She can’t be top dog, and her nose is out of joint.”
“I’d say whoever rejected her spent some quality time with her,” said Danny. “Did you know her?”
“We met a few times. We never worked together.” Nuri shrugged. “She speaks Farsi. That’ll be pretty useful.”
“I know. We have to keep her for this mission. I’ll talk to her.”
“Good luck.”
Just before she woke, Hera dreamed about McGowan.
He was in the tent with her, standing across from her bed.
“What?” she asked him, sitting up.
He shook his head slowly.
“What?” she asked again. “Are you warning me about something? Did I do something wrong?”
The dream faded into daylight.
Shuddering, she got out of bed quickly. Pulling on her clothes, she went for something to eat.
Danny happened to be in the house. He was surprised when she came in — she wasn’t due back on watch for another six hours — but was glad she was there. No one else was around and he could get their talk over with.
“Hera, good morning,” he said. “There’s coffee.”
“Good.”
“Bagels are good.”
“They’re kinda slimy. I’ll stick to the powdered eggs. Thanks.”
He waited until she’d had a few sips before he started talking to her.
“I want you to be more careful when you’re talking to people,” he told her, deciding to start out diplomatically. She had, after all, been through hell the night before.
“What do you mean?” she snapped.
“You get nasty when things get tight. With me. Yeah. With everyone else.”
Hera thought of the dream. Last night, in the minefield, she’d yelled at McGowan.
“I–I yelled at McGowan. In the minefield. I called him a jerk.”
“You pretty much yell at everybody,” said Danny.
Hera saw McGowan’s face. Her eyes began welling up. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of Danny Freah. She started to turn away.
Danny grabbed her arm. “Hey, I’m still talking to you,” he told her. “Don’t walk away.”
“What? Am I your kid?” she said, struggling to hold back her tears.
Danny let go of her arm. “Look—” He stopped, wanting to soften his tone, understanding that McGowan’s death hit everyone hard.
“Leave me alone,” Hera said, quickly turning and walking out. She barely made it to her tent before exploding in sobs.
The talk hadn’t exactly gone as he planned, and Danny decided he’d give her a little time before trying to have a better discussion. But a few minutes later the Voice reported that Tarid left the house in Khartoum where he’d been staying. Within minutes it was obvious he was going to the city airport.
There was only one flight out for several hours, MY-PID reported: a UAE flight to Morocco.
“The question is where he’s going from there,” said Nuri. “The possibilities are endless.”
They might have been, but MY-PID didn’t have to waste its time counting them. Instead, it interfaced with a CIA database that tracked passenger manifests. Tarid had not used his real identity, but only forty people showed up for the flight. Cross-checking against earlier flights, the computer quickly identified his alias and found that he was en route to Athens.
There the trail ended.
“We just need to get to Athens before that flight,” said Danny. “And we can follow him from there.”
“I follow him. You can’t. He’s seen you already.”
“We may be able to use that.”
“Maybe. But not to follow him.”
Tarid had a very long layover in Morocco, which gave them an opportunity, but getting to Athens wouldn’t be easy; Tarid had picked the quickest route.
“He must be going to Iran,” said Nuri. “Changing flights and IDs along the way. If that slows him down, maybe we can beat him there.”
MY-PID had already searched flights for matches against Tarid’s other aliases and possible aliases. There were only two direct flights from Athens to Tehran after Tarid arrived. The computer ruled out all but three names on those flights as possible aliases.
“How about Bahrain?” said Danny. “They fly to Tehran.”
“Yeah,” said Nuri.
MY-PID considered the possibilities and made a new suggestion: Arash Tarid was flying as Arash Arash, due in at Imam Khomeini Airport late that night from the Arab Emirates.
“We still can’t beat him,” said Nuri. “The best we can do is miss by a half hour.”
“What if we flew to Kuwait,” said Danny. “Or better yet, Azerbaijan?”
“From Khartoum?”
“From anywhere. If we get up to Egypt, we can get a U.S. flight. They can bring us right into Baku.”
“Then what?”
“We take a boat.”
38
Breanna was just securing her gear in her office on the CIA campus when the small communications cube on the corner of her desk sounded a tone.
“Clear,” she told the computer, allowing the communication. The secure nature of the building, as well as her small staff and the late hour, meant that there was no one nearby to hear what she was saying. But Room 4 wouldn’t have been Room 4 without a high-tech guarantee of security protecting even the most casual
