Greg Rucka - The last run

Javed nodded, his confusion turning to concern. "He said he was operating on your orders, that he was to present our findings to the Minister."

Shirazi moved forward, taking a closer look at the monitor, at Chace, now stirring on the cot. She was clearly still sedated, though beginning to surface. He straightened, looked over the room, then grabbed one of the chairs at the table and set it in the center of the space.

"Bring her out, now," Shirazi ordered, and Parviz and Kamal hastily got to their feet, heading for the cell door. He hadn't wanted to do it this soon, but now Zahabzeh had forced his hand. Now he had no choice.

From where he carried it at the small of his back, Shirazi drew his pistol, and waited for Parviz and Kamal to bring Tara Chace to the execution.

She was alone when she awoke, the room small, pale yellow walls lit by sunlight slanting through the narrow grate of the window high above her head. Her neck was sore and her chest ached, but it seemed to her that it was less acute than before, more diffused, a muscle pain. The taste in her mouth made her think of rotten fruit.

With great care, Chace tried to sit up, pushing away the blanket covering her, hearing the metal-frame cot creaking as she moved. Her feet were cold, bare, became colder as she set them on the concrete floor. Her boots were gone, and her top, but she was still wearing her bra and jeans. There was a mark near the inside of her elbow on her left arm, a fresh bruise spreading, and she looked around for the IV, but didn't see one. There wasn't much to see, truth to tell, aside from the cot and the blanket and herself. Only a plastic pitcher, set on the floor nearby, and a plastic cup beside it.

There was also a surveillance camera, high in the corner.

Chace reached for the pitcher, making new muscles ache. Along her back, where she'd been shot, she felt a momentary stab of pain, stopped her movement cold, checking her breathing. No change. There was something on her back, a new bandage, perhaps; she could feel it pulling on her skin when she moved. She extended a hand again for the pitcher, more carefully, discovered there was water inside. She drank, ignoring the cup, washing the paste out of her mouth. Metal rasped over metal, and she lowered the pitcher to see the door, painted the same yellow as the walls, swinging open, inward.

Three men entered, two of them younger, clean-shaven Persians, following after the first, slightly older, with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. The two split, each taking the corners by the door, and the third closed it behind him, then turned back to stare at her. For a moment, no one said anything, Chace looking at them, they looking at her. The scent of soap reached her, slight, and she noticed their clothes were fresh.

The one with the beard, she remembered him, or thought she did, from when Falcon had died. It seemed a distant memory, hazy, weeks old, but she doubted if it had been more than a day, perhaps two since fleeing Noshahr.

"It will save us time, and you distress, if you confess now," the man with the beard said, speaking English. He spoke it with a slight British accent, as if he'd practiced the language using the BBC World Service.

"Je ne vous comprends pas," Chace told him.

"Vous me comprenez tres bien." His French, like his English, was practiced, the accent almost perfect.

"Je m'appelle Pia Gadient, je suis professeur a l'universite de Fribourg," Chace said earnestly, doing her best to look bewildered. "On est ou? Comment je suis arrivee la?"

"Non. Vous vous appelez Tara Chace," the man answered. "Vous etes une espionne, une espionne britannique. Vous etes un agent des Operations Speciales des Services Secrets, vous etes meme a la tete de cette section. Vous etes responsable des meurtres de trois hommes: deux policiers a Chalus et Hossein Khamenei, le neveu de notre Leader Supreme, a Noshahr."

His expression remained placid, even patient, as he let his words sink in. The two men by the door were staring at her, their expressions betraying nothing.

"Je ne comprends pas!" Chace cried, plaintive. "Je suis Suisse, je suis le professeur Pia Gadient. Je fais de la recherche sur les poissons, j'etudie les esturgeons-"

The man snapped something in Farsi, and the two others immediately moved towards Chace, reaching for her.

"Laissez-moi!" she shouted.

They didn't, each one taking hold of her by the arms, grasping her at the wrist and elbow, and the man gave them another order. Chace was pulled to her feet, found herself being pressed face-first against the concrete wall, her arms stretched out at her sides.

"You have been shot," she heard the man say, switching back to English.

His fingers touched her back, dug into the skin at the top edge of the bandage. She realized what he was about to do, cried out, struggling, and the men holding her arms slammed her back into the wall, harder this time. A nail scraped her skin, and she felt the adhesive pulling away, and again the pain rushed into her chest, crushing her from within, choking her.

"The bullet is still inside of you," the man told her. "The wound is still open. We can save your life, we would like to save your life, but you must give us something first. You must give us your confession. You must admit to the murder of Hossein Khamenei."

Chace shook her head, or tried to, but the pain in her neck made it impossible. She managed a gasp, barely able to draw the air to replace it, her vision already swirling. Panic was rising with the swelling pressure in her chest, and this was different from when she'd had to treat herself, this was worse, infinitely worse, the sadism of it making her feel powerless and weak and ashamed, and she felt that she would tell them anything if they would just make it stop.

Then the agent's voice, the one in the back of her mind, the one that always sounded, to her, like Tom Wallace, asserted itself. They're not going to let you die, it told her. This is only pain. You can endure pain.

She stopped struggling, sucking at the air instead, feeling her nostrils flaring. Her vision was swimming once more, the lights returning at the edges of her vision, white dots that danced and sparkled. The man was speaking again, but she couldn't hear him.

Then the pressure stabilized, stopped increasing, and she saw the ceiling, felt the rough blanket on the cot beneath her back. The man was shouting at her, then turning away. Movement, someone joining them, another face above hers, and she saw the needle, a proper tool, the tip of the catheter, and fingers pressing along her ribs, then the stabbing pain, making her eyes water. Air hissed out of her chest once more, and she wondered how many more times they would do this to her, how many more times before her lungs would collapse altogether.

The needle withdrew, leaving the catheter in place, and the new face moved out of her vision, and the man was looking down at her again. Something pierced her right arm, near the shoulder, spreading warm lead through her body, and she felt herself cooling, becoming heavy, knew she'd been drugged. The man spoke in Farsi, turned away, and she heard footsteps, the room emptying of everything but echoes. The door rang closed, sang to her as it locked.

Chace lay still, blinking the tears out of her eyes, feeling her breathing slow, the pain rolling through her body becoming fainter.

They would do it again, she realized languidly. They would keep doing it until she confessed, until she confessed to everything.

She didn't know how much of this she would be able to take. Drowsy half-images and broken conversations snuck back to her, rambling through her head. Crocker and C and Caleb Lewis, arguing about what to do with her, saying they had to inform the Minister in Tehran that she had been taken. It was what was required, yes, they understood, no, no one was to leave, not yet, but it had to be done. There was no rush. She wasn't going anywhere, no one was coming for her.