Stephen Coonts: The Disciple

Sultani said little and promised nothing. He kicked a rock or two into the hole, watched the fumes leak out, and finally asked to be taken to the Ministry of Defense.

We dropped him off in front. The central wing of the building was half demolished, but he didn’t even look at that. He got out, glanced at Davar and said something to her, then turned and walked into the building without a backward glance. Only one soldier was stationed at the door, and to his credit, he stiffened to attention and did a Present Arms as the minister, still wrapped in a bedsheet, passed him and went inside.

Then Grafton drove away. Davar was in the front with him. I sat in the bed immediately behind the cab, which had no rear window, and listened to Grafton. Mainly he wanted to know which politicians in the political opposition he should talk to. Davar was full of names, and Mir-Hossein Mousavi led the list.

Finally he turned and spoke to me. “Tommy, I am going to drop you and Davar off at her house. She needs to clean up, change clothes and so on. I will pick you up in about two hours.”

“That might be a real bad scene for Davar,” I said.

She glanced at me with those big brown eyes.

“I will be all right, Tommy,” she said.

There wasn’t a car in the driveway. No staff. The house was apparently empty. Davar lowered her head and walked inside, with me right behind her. Grafton fed gas and drove away. Fortunately the front door was unlocked, so I didn’t have to crawl though a window to unlock it.

She walked into the house and took the stairs for her room. I knew where it was, but I had never entered this way.

I trailed along, just in case.

Four flights of stairs later, she opened the door to her room under the eaves. The place was trashed, with every book, sheet of paper and scrap of clothing lying in the middle of the floor.

A lean young man in his twenties, with a short beard, was prying boards off the back of the bookcase with a crowbar. He looked startled to see us.

“I thought you were in the bunker,” she said.

“I’m looking for a book.”

“A book? Which one?”

“The blasphemous manuscript that Grandfather wrote. I know you and Ghasem had it. The Basij didn’t find it in his apartment, so it must be in this house. Where did you hide it?” He took a step toward her with the crowbar in hand.

“You were the one who betrayed Grandfather to the MOIS,” she said evenly.

He paused, and I could see by the look on his face that she had said the truth.

She turned and grabbed the butt of the pistol in the holster on my belt. She was trying to get it out when I stopped her.

“Who is this guy?” I asked with my hands on top of hers.

“Khurram,” she hissed. “My brother.”

“Who are you ?” he roared at me. “Who are you to come to my house with my sister and enter her bedroom?”

“It isn’t here,” Davar told him. “Ghasem and I sent the book to America to be published.”

That rocked him. He looked from her to me, back to her.

“You slut! Whore!” His voice rose to a shout. “Grandfather was possessed by the devil. He insulted the Prophet, insulted everyone who believes with blasphemy, heresy, apostasy.” He took another step toward her and raised the crowbar threateningly.

“Whoa,” I said. “Why don’t you let Allah worry about all that? You’ve got a full plate right here. And lay off your sister.”

He turned toward me. “Who are you?”

Truthfully, I had had enough. It was time to send Khurram on his way.

“I’m an American spy,” I told him evenly. “I work for the CIA.”

He swung the crowbar at me as if it were a cutlass. It whacked the ceiling but kept coming at my head. I caught it and pulled him in, then used my right elbow on his chin. He went down amid the trash, out cold. I laid down the crowbar and hoisted him over my shoulder.

“You bathe and get dressed,” I said to Davar. “Pack some clothes. I’ll get rid of this.”

I took him down the stairs, all the way to the ground level. Carried him out onto the lawn and tossed him down.

The sun was well up, a nice breeze was delaying the summer heat, and a thunderstorm was building to the north, over the mountains.

I squatted in the shade and waited for Khurram to awaken. Got out my pistol, unloaded it, checked it for dirt, worked the action and blew through the barrel, then reinserted the magazine and chambered a round.

Finally Khurram stirred. He sat up and shook his head and rubbed his eyes and his chin. Then he saw me.

I pointed the pistol at him. “If I kill you,” I said conversationally, “who do you think will care?”

He tried to get up. Got tangled in his feet and sat down hard. Then he tried again and succeeded. He stood swaying, looking at me and the pistol.

“You won’t be anything but dead,” I said.

He massaged his jaw, which didn’t appear to be broken.

“Leave, and don’t come back. Go. If you return here, I will kill you.”

He walked out of the yard onto the street. “Hazra al-Rashid will take care of you,” he shouted and shuffled off in a trot.

I watched him until I lost sight, reholstered the pistol and went back inside.

Davar packed a suitcase. She and I were sitting on the front steps when Jake Grafton rolled up. G. W. Hosein was standing at the machine gun, and Hadad was sitting in back, cradling an AK-47.

There was more traffic on the streets. Some of the families that had evacuated last night were trickling back; it looked as if they hadn’t even unpacked their vehicles. Rolling along a boulevard, Grafton said, “I talked to the chargé at the American Interests Section. She had some names she thought Davar should talk to. We are going to drop you there, Tommy, and the chargé will arrange for you to get on the next Air France flight out. I think you said something about Paris.”

“Yeah,” I said, so overwhelmed with relief that I couldn’t control my face. “Yeah. I’m ready to go.”

So that is what they did. On the sidewalk in front of the Swiss embassy annex, I handed my pistol belt to Jake Grafton, shook his hand again and had a brief moment with Davar.

“You are staying?”

“For a while. Admiral Grafton wants me to introduce him to people I know.”

“You deserve better than this, Davar.”

She passed a hand across her face.

“Remember that guy in Oklahoma, who wanted to spend his life with you.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” she whispered and kissed me on the cheek.

I eventually wound up at the airport, waited twelve long hours, and that night found myself in a window seat heading to Istanbul, then Paris.

I called a woman I knew, Marisa, and she came to the airport to get me.

After I had been in France for three days, I finally picked up a newspaper, which was full of the goings-on in Iran. The Parliament met and elected Mousavi as interim president. He had the full backing of the minister of defense, Habib Sultani, who was using the army to disarm and disband the MOIS and the Basij. The first act of Parliament was to renounce the nuclear weapons program and invite international inspectors to Iran.

Jordan and Iraq had nuclear contamination problems. Most of the plutonium from the destroyed warheads had landed in uninhabited desert, but the areas were sizable. Several nations had agreed to participate in the decontamination efforts.

All that was very far away from summer in France, with lunches in the garden and mornings and evenings in bed with a beautiful woman whom I adored. Perhaps even loved. If there is a heaven, and if I ever get there, I hope it will be like that ten days I spent in Paris.

In odd moments I thought about leaving the agency, moving on to the next chapter in my life, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t imagine what it would be. So I stopped thinking about it and let my time with Marisa just happen.