Greg Rucka: The last run

"They have expressed reservations. Something about armed soldiers and foreign soil, I believe."

"Ah, yes, I'm told that's called 'an act of war.' " She actually smiled before asking, "And they can make it onto the open water?"

"Working on that part now. But if we're going to use the Hadi as a distraction, we'll have to do it by morning tomorrow in zone. Any later and instead of a distraction, we'll have confusion, and that will hinder as much as help."

"Yes, agreed. Very well, Paul, I'll sell it to the Prime Minister. But I know what he'll say."

"He'll say that if we don't pull this off, it's my job."

"Ah, at long last, Paul," C said. "You're learning."

On the plasma wall, the Hadi floated placid and stable, beginning to steam forward, into the Persian Gulf. On the headset, Crocker listened to the countdown.

"Impact, impact, impact," Moss said. "Good impact."

Nothing visibly changed on the screen.

"Not seeing anything," Seale murmured.

"Confirm impact," Crocker said into the mike. "No visual."

"Above the waterline, you'll not see anything yet," Moss said, and Crocker thought the man was decidedly pleased. "Triple-D device, sir, directed charge low to the hull. She's bleeding now, sir, trust me."

As if in response, Hadi began to turn to port, and on the screen Crocker could now discern motion on the deck of the ship, antlike figures moving aboard the massive oil tanker. Crocker wasn't certain, but on the surface of the water he thought he was seeing the first striations of color, the rainbow refraction of oil on water.

"Congratulations, sir," Moss said in his ears. "It's a bouncing baby environmental disaster."

REQUIRE YOU DISPATCH STATION NUMBER TWO TO ABADAN. SECURITY DIVISION TO PROVIDE BACKUP DURING TRANSIT AND ON GROUND. STATION NUMBER TWO DIRECTED TO SECURE TRANSPORT DOWNRIVER ABADAN BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY. VITAL TO REACH RZ ALPHA WITH MINDER ONE AND PACKAGE: COUGAR AT 2245 LOCAL, NO LATER, THEN PROCEED RZ BRAVO ALL SPEED FOR EXFIL.

_MESSAGE ENDS It wasn't until Barnett had handed him the Beretta compact from the gun safe in the office, along with a box of ammunition, that Caleb realized, whatever happened next, he was finished in Iran.

"Hope to God you don't have to use it, Caleb," Barnett said around his cigarette. "And hope even more that if you do, you kill whatever bastard is aiming at you."

Caleb stared at the pistol in his hand, alien and ugly and entirely unfamiliar to him. He had performed dismally on his pistol drills at the School, had barely qualified, in fact. It seemed to him absurd that he should be trusted with such a thing, especially now, especially with what was at stake. He tucked the weapon into his backpack, along with the box of bullets, setting them beside his sat phone and GPS unit, then took the stack of rials Barnett was now offering him. He split them up amongst the backpack and his pockets.

"Medical supplies, you think?" Barnett asked him.

"MacIntyre's already taking care of it," Caleb said. "He's bringing a full kit, think it's even got a bottle of oxygen in it."

"Wise. No telling the state she'll be in when you get her."

Caleb appreciated that Barnett hadn't said "if you get her."

"VEVAK'll be on you the moment you step outside, you know that," Barnett said. "They'll be on the car to the airport, and they'll have the flight plan before you're in the air, and they'll be waiting for you when you touch down. Even with the confusion on the ground, all this running about because of the Hadi, you're still going to have a hell of a job losing them, and you're damn well going to have to do it if you're to pull this off."

"I was trying not to think about that, actually."

"That's enough of that. You're a better agent than you give yourself credit for being, Caleb. Doubt is good, it keeps us honest. But too much of it is a poison." Barnett put a hand on Caleb's shoulder for a moment, the paternal manner manifest once more. "You were a good Two, lad, and I'll make certain that goes in the permanent file."

"Thank you, sir."

They shook hands.

"You're a hell of a spy, Caleb," Barnett said.

The surveillance was blatant on the way from the embassy to the airport. Two cars, front and back, and only when they rolled out onto the field, to the airplane kept and piloted by the British mission in Iran, did the other vehicles back off, parking within twenty meters. Caleb lent MacIntyre a hand moving their few bags from the car onto the plane, and once everything was aboard, he looked back, saw that men had emerged from the cars. One of them, he was sure, was Zahabzeh, but at this distance it was impossible to read the man's expression, what he was thinking.

Caleb couldn't imagine his thoughts were kind ones, and for a moment he felt an absurd kinship with the man. He didn't know him, in truth didn't want to, but both of them, he recognized, were subordinates, both of them followers, now asked to lead, and he had to wonder if it sat as uncomfortably on Farzan Zahabzeh as it did on himself. MacIntyre, like Caleb, had brought a go-bag. Or so Caleb thought. Until they were in the air and the man opened it, withdrawing a rifle with a folding stock. Caleb turned his attention from the map he had spread open before him, watched as MacIntyre checked the weapon, breaking it down and then reassembling it before stowing the long gun away once more. Then MacIntyre pulled a pistol from the bag, a Browning, and repeated the procedure.

"You're loaded?" MacIntyre asked.

"Not yet."

The man looked over at him with brown sleepy eyes. "Think you'll have a better time to do it, then?"

"I suppose not." Caleb folded the map away, unzipped the flap on his backpack, took out the Beretta and the ammunition. He loaded the clip slowly, struggling to get the last bullet locked into place, aware that MacIntyre was observing him the entire time. When he finished, he dropped the pistol into his pocket and looked at MacIntyre, not certain if, or even what, he should say.

"Don't think of it as killing," MacIntyre told him. "Think of it as saying 'Stop that' in a very clear, very permanent voice."

It was warmer in Abadan than it had been in Tehran, in the low sixties Fahrenheit, clear and without humidity. Caleb went to pick up the car from the rental station within the decrepit terminal. He had the keys in his hand and was headed to the vehicle itself before he caught the first hint of local attention. It wasn't at all surprising, but for an instant he felt near-panic, wondering what he might do or say if he was stopped with the gun in his pocket.

But it wasn't going to happen, and he knew that. To Zahabzeh, Caleb was secondary, a consolation prize at best; and for exactly the same reason that they hadn't been stopped upon leaving the embassy, heading to the airport, they weren't going to be stopped in Abadan. At least not yet. Zahabzeh had to let them run. They were his only possible leads to Chace, to Shirazi. They were his bird dogs.

Knowing that didn't particularly make him feel much better.

The car was a Khodro, an old one, and Caleb brought it around, waited until MacIntyre had loaded the vehicle and hopped in before pulling out onto Route 37, heading south, then east, into the heart of Abadan. The sun was just beginning to set as they drove past the refinery fields. The massive storage containers loomed along both sides of the road for five, six kilometers before giving way to the city itself. On the outskirts, they passed old houses crowned with badgirs, the ingenious natural air conditioners that had been invented centuries earlier, which relied on convection to pull hot air out, to pull even the slightest breeze in and down.