Greg Rucka - The last run

"We're there?" Chace murmured.

"Not yet," Caleb told her. "Soon. Just hold on."

The officer was motioning at them, and for a second, Caleb thought he was ordering them out of the car again. Then the others surrounding the car stepped back, and he saw that they were being waved through. MacIntyre shifted the Benz back into gear, the car moving forward, and Caleb looked back as they began driving away, saw the one with the phone still speaking on it, the other officer writing in a notebook in his hands. Then the roadblock and the police and all of it were out of sight, the Benz speeding south, next turning east onto the Karaj Highway, back towards Tehran, until, finally, they were deep in the city traffic, slowing again, stopping and starting at the lights on Jamhuri Avenue.

Caleb thought they were going to make it, he really did.

Right up to the moment the van rammed them in the intersection at Vali-ye Asr.

When the call came, Shirazi almost missed it.

He'd been working out of his office since the Minister's departure, was still coordinating Republican Guards and Basij search teams along the Alborz, when Zahabzeh returned from Chalus with Parviz, Kamal, and Javed in tow. They had nothing by way of good news. Several times already, false alarms had reached them, though this last had seemed more promising at its outset. An officer manning one of the roadblocks out of Chalus, at the mouth of the highway, had seen a salmon-colored Samand peel away from the traffic jam waiting to clear the checkpoint. He hadn't gotten a good look at the license, only a partial; but the partial had matched enough of one of the stolen plates that Zahabzeh had ordered another canvas of Chalus, believing that Chace had again reversed direction, was trying to run back to the north.

But if she had, there had been no sign of her.

"This woman is injured, exhausted, alone," Zahabzeh complained. "She has no friends, no support. How is it we can find no sign of her?"

"She's extremely good," Shirazi said.

"Or maybe she's dead," Javed suggested. "Pulled off somewhere, and her wounds finally caught up to her. She could be dead, and that's why we haven't found her."

None of them liked that suggestion, and the looks Javed received as a result turned him quiet for several minutes, before he offered to go out and bring in some food. Shirazi told him that it was a fine suggestion, and that Kamal and Parviz should go with him.

After they had left, Zahabzeh asked the question he'd been waiting on since returning. "What happened?"

"The Minister was here when I arrived. He informed me that the Supreme Leader knew about his nephew's collusion with the British, and had known for quite some time. He took my initial explanation of the situation as an attempt to protect Hossein's memory, on behalf of the Ayatollah."

Zahabzeh's grin was rife with relief. "Thanks be to God."

"It's not ideal, but it could have gone far worse. The belief now is that Hossein had sold himself again to the British, that we got wind of the plot, and attempted to capture the spy with Hossein. The Minister stated that our intention was admirable, if poorly considered."

"Meaning we should have obtained clearance first."

"Correct."

Zahabzeh thought, scratching at the stubble on his face. Shirazi expected he looked the same; none of them had been given a chance to shave, let alone bathe or change clothes, in over twenty-four hours now. "If so… then the Minister knows exactly what we were trying to do, just not how we tried to do it. Do we have official clearance now? Retroactively?"

"Provisionally, I think, on the successful capture of the spy. They already have plans for what they'll do with her, I think. He wants her brought in alive. He was very clear on that point."

"Of course."

"And he was clear on what would happen to us if we failed."

Zahabzeh grunted. Nothing more on that point needed to be said.

They moved to one of the conference rooms, and Shirazi ordered a radio set brought in, and more phones, as well as maps of the country, thus transforming the space into a makeshift command post. Javed returned with the others, bringing kubide for all of them, and they ate hungrily. The phones rang regularly, and twice within the first hour came calls reporting the missing Samand, and each time Shirazi took the handset from Zahabzeh, only to learn that, on closer inspection, there had been some sort of mistake, an overreaction, an error.

This continued into the night. Shirazi was plotting all of the possible sightings thus far on the master map he'd hung on the wall, working the old-fashioned way with thumbtacks and a ruler, when one of the phones on the conference table began ringing again. He didn't bother to turn to it, letting Parviz answer it. The plots on the map were ridiculously irrational, many around Chalus, which was regional, but at least one as far east as Gorgan, which would have put Chace heading into the Balkans, and another as far south as Rafsanjan, over eight hundred kilometers from Chalus, an impossible distance for her to have covered already.

"Sir?" Parviz said, and then repeated it, the second time unable to keep the excitement from his voice. "Sir! We have her!"

Everyone in the room turned, fell silent, and Shirazi held out his hand for the phone.

"This is Director Shirazi. Whom am I speaking to?"

"Director, sir! Captain Bardsiri, sir, with the-"

"I don't care. You have her?"

Hesitation. Then, "No, no we've had to let them go."

Shirazi wasn't certain he'd heard correctly. "You've what? What did you say?"

"We couldn't arrest her, sir, we-"

"You had her, alive, and you let her go?" Shirazi heard his voice rising, was aware that the attention from his men in the room had become that much more intense. "Is that what you're telling me, Captain Bardsiri?"

"She had-she was traveling under diplomatic protection! We couldn't do anything, we had to let them go! I'm sorry, sir, I just didn't have the authority-"

Shirazi held out the phone to Parviz, hearing the captain continuing to excuse himself, his voice now small and agitated. "Get the location, a complete description of the vehicle, the license plate, everything."

Parviz took the handset, nodding, and Shirazi turned to Zahabzeh. "She's with her own people, they picked her up somewhere in an embassy vehicle."

"Diplomatic immunity does not extend to murderers," Zahabzeh said.

"Something Captain Bardsiri either doesn't know, or decided he didn't want to risk. But still, if she's traveling with embassy staff…"

"If they get her back to the British mission, we will lose her."

"Agreed." Shirazi considered for a moment, all the time he needed. Whatever possible political fallout would come of violating British sovereignty, he truly didn't care. He needed Chace, he absolutely had to have her, and Zahabzeh was correct; once she reached the embassy, she would become untouchable. Removing her from the mission grounds would be impossible.

But taking her from a mission car while it made its way to the embassy, that was another matter entirely.

Parviz was off the phone now, a paper in his hand. "They were heading south towards Karaj."

"They'll take the highway," Zahabzeh said. "Quickest route to the embassy."

"We need to be quicker," Shirazi said. Shirazi got out of the van last, holding back, as he should, as his role required, despite his passionate desire to be first. But when the doors at the back of the van opened, he made sure it was Zahabzeh leading, and Shirazi let Kamal, and then Parviz, follow after him before exiting himself.