Andrew Britton - The American

The door handle jiggled, but she didn’t get up to let him in. After a minute or so, she heard a strange clicking sound. Ryan pushed his way into the room and turned on the light.

She sprang up, hurriedly wiping hot tears from her eyes. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled angrily. “If I wanted you to come in I would have opened the fucking door!”

He raised his hands in surrender. She took in his dirty jeans, the black T-shirt tight over his chest and arms, and the most recent addition: a thin, looping scar that ran down the left side of his face. He must have come straight from the police station. She felt something that only heightened her anger and confusion.

“Look,” he said, “I just wanted to check on you. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“No thanks to you,” she sneered. “Nice job shooting me, by the way. No harm done… Maybe they’ll give you another medal.” Sarcasm usually came easy for her, but it didn’t feel right this time, and she felt a small tinge of regret as soon as the words left her mouth.

He stared at her in disbelief. The catlike green eyes were wide in anger, but he could see the glistening tracks down her cheeks and the red irritation at the corner of her eyes. For all of that, he couldn’t help himself. “What do you mean, another medal?” he asked slowly.

From the expression on his face, she knew that she was caught. He moved toward her slowly until he was standing only a few feet away. His face was as blank as it had been when he emerged from the stockroom at the bar.

“Listen to me,” he said in a low voice. Naomi took a step back involuntarily. “I’m sorry for what happened to you today, but stay the hell out of my personal life. You have no right to dig into my past. Keep it up, and I’m done looking out for you.”

Then he was gone, disappearing into the hallway. She didn’t move for a few moments as a number of emotions passed over her face. Finally, she went to shut the door after him.

IRAN, NORFOLK

Southeastern Iran, on the Makran Coast overlooking the Arabian Sea.

Far to the north, the peaks of the Zagros can be seen towering over the arid landscape. Apart from the size, the mountains and the land below are almost indistinguishable.

He stood on the black tarmacadam that was sticky beneath his feet. Now easing into November and almost 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the air thick in his nose and mouth. His frustration was exacerbated by the people standing in the near distance, the air force colonel sent by Mazaheri, and the aides who smirked and stood with jutted chins and arrogant eyes as they basked on the fringe of his power. There were the two young members of the Komiteh as well, the ever-present AK-47s slung across their chests. Hassan Hamza stood with them, speaking in quiet tones to the colonel, his eyes moving with ill-concealed disdain over the young men who surrounded the senior officer. They had been talking for twenty minutes, and there appeared to be little progress.

The impatience was not visible in March’s face or the carriage of his lean frame. He stood quietly and stared out to sea as the argument carried on behind him.

They were in the port city of Bandar Beheshti, less than a 100 miles from the Pakistani border. The men stood in the shade of one of the open warehouses. It was not a large harbor, with only four berths and four jetties, each of which held two mobile cranes. There was an electric evacuator for the discharge of grain from a container ship, and the chain-wheel cranes, of which there were two, rolled well in from the edge of the macadam. A pair of ancient forklifts also occupied the broad expanse of black asphalt.

Besides the four open warehouses, there were two sheltered structures and the harbormaster’s office, which was little more than a shed of corrugated iron. Surrounding the port, nothing but razor-sharp strands of concertina wire and empty space.

He heard voices rising, and he turned toward the group of men. Hamza was stalking angrily in his direction, the colonel shouting at his back. The Egyptian wiped beads of sweat from his brow as he approached, his mouth curled into a snarl beneath the heavy mustache.

“Those bastards!” he hissed. “They understand nothing. In Tehran, everything is a phone call away. It is not that easy here.”

“What’s the problem?” March asked.

“There is no truck. There is no way to move the cargo, but we cannot leave it, not even in the closed warehouses. It is many miles to Arak, it is a mountain pass… We must have a truck.”

“Did you speak to the harbormaster?”

Hamza waved his arms in frustration. “I asked if there was a vehicle in the secure buildings. He would not say…”

Hamza stopped talking. The laughter of the colonel’s aides was shrill in his ears. The gleaming eyes had moved away from his face and were focused on the office that lay across the stinking heat of the asphalt.

Less than five minutes later, Jason March emerged from the dull metal structure. He was wearing a faint smile. A small silver object caught and reflected the sunlight as it dangled from the fingers of his right hand.

“A key. So there is a truck,” Hamza said as he joined March at the locked sliding door of the second warehouse.

“If there was not a truck, then that is what he would have said,” was the flat response.

Hamza stared at the harbormaster’s building and noticed that the colonel and his aides were doing the same. The laughter had stopped, and the aides silently sulked around the Iranian officer like scolded children. The heavy door was lifted to reveal the vehicle, an International 4900 4x2. March hopped into the cab and began to dismantle the plastic housing surrounding the steering column. The engine roared to life a few minutes later.

“Unfortunately, he only had the key to the warehouse,” March explained. “It will be an inconvenience, but only a minor one.”

Hamza did not reply, only turning once more to look at the office that was like a mirage in the heat of the afternoon.

A technician had accompanied the group, a former dockworker who was skilled in the use of a mobile crane. The 20-foot container waited patiently on the second jetty, the ship having departed many hours ago. The truck was reversed onto the jetty, the container was loaded. It would be a long journey, but they were not expected for several days. They had all the time in the world.

Ryan Kealey woke to the ringing of the phone on the nightstand. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with one hand, he picked up and answered with the other. Looking out of the window, he could see dark clouds hanging over the bay and hear the low rumble of thunder in the distance.

“Ryan, it’s Harper. I’ll meet you and Kharmai out front at ten. Be ready for the airport — we got a hit. I think you’re going to like this.”

“Okay, I’ll be downstairs.” He hung up and went into the bathroom. He had fallen asleep almost immediately after entering his room the night before, but after showering and shaving, he was beginning to feel halfway human again. There was a tap at the door just as he finished getting dressed.

Naomi stood in the hallway. Her face was nearly contrite, but not quite. She looked almost as stunning as she had the day before, wearing a thin cashmere sweater and a pair of dress slacks to cover the bandage on her thigh. Her face was drawn, though, and her eyes shadowed as though she had slept poorly. She started to speak and then hesitated. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “Come on, I’ll buy you breakfast.”

He couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be some kind of apology, but he shrugged and followed her down to the ground floor. The restaurant seemed to be pretty decent, and he was surprised to see that it was almost completely empty. They took a seat as far away as possible from the other guests, and soon he was enjoying a full breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. When she ordered only a blueberry muffin, he smiled and she caught it.