Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

“Hell, no. I’m going to be in my office watching the war on CNN.”

Jake then called Callie on her cell phone. “Hey, beloved wife. I have to go to the Middle East for a few days.”

“Oh,” she said. “Are you going home to pack?”

“No. I’ll take my warbag along.” He routinely kept a packed suitcase at the office for emergencies such as these. “The underwear is clean, and I have some toothpaste left in there.”

Callie was silent for a moment, then she said, “This isn’t a routine trip, is it?”

“No,” Jake admitted.

“I want you to come back to me.”

“God bless you, Callie. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Don’t forget that.”

He said good-bye, cradled the phone and shouted for Robin.

By Sunday afternoon, the tunnel where we were hiding felt like a jail. It was cool enough, as the megalopolis and its inhabitants baked in the summer heat, but oppressive. It felt as if we were in a stone prison, cut off from mankind and the outside world. No sun, wind or rain, no birds or grass, just stone.

I thought about the Iranians’ executive bunker, which would soon contain four hundred people, more or less, thought about it for ten or fifteen seconds, then went on to something else.

Larijani was a silent, forbidding man. Still, regardless of what happened in the next few days, the years of playing a role were over for him.

“When you get home, what is next for you?” I asked.

He looked at me deadpan, the ugly asshole I had seen from time to time during my stay in Iran, then he smiled. His face was transformed. “I don’t know,” he said. He shrugged. “Having to save you was a godsend. The mission is finished.”

“Someday you can buy me a drink.”

“Someday I will,” he said and smiled again.

Davar’s bruises were fading, and her face was returning to normal. She still had a big yellow place on her jaw, and her left eye was puffy, but in a few more days, the swelling and color would be gone.

“When this is over,” I said, “you can get on a chopper going to Iraq, and from there, airplanes fly all over the world. I promise, I can get you a temporary travel permit that will take you to America. By God, Jake Grafton owes me.”

We were sitting on her cot, which had blankets hanging from ropes around it to give her some privacy. She reached for my hand, held it in both of hers while she examined it.

“Do you have a wife?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why are you here, Tommy Carmellini, on the far side of the earth, risking your life?”

I looked her square in both those big brown eyes. “Damned if I know,” I said. “A character defect is the most likely explanation.”

She was silent for a bit, then changed the subject. “After Jihad Day, what will happen in Iran?”

“I don’t know.” I pulled my hand loose from hers. “Let’s hope there are some Iranians left to have a future. What it will be will be up to them.”

“It will be as Allah wills it.”

I was in no mood to discuss religion, which was the horse the Iranians had ridden into the middle of this mess, but I couldn’t resist saying, “Perhaps. On the other hand, maybe the future will belong to those humans who fight like hell to make it happen.”

That Sunday evening, I went up on top of the old German’s hotel and took my last look at pre-Jihad Tehran. The evening was bloodred, which seemed appropriate, because the air was full of dirt. The wind was singing around the eaves of the building, and visibility was limited. Apparently a lot of dirt had been kicked high into the atmosphere by a windstorm in central Iran. I wondered how all that airborne dirt would affect laser designators.

I hoped Tehran would look more or less like this tomorrow evening, but that wasn’t up to me. Although I didn’t say it to Davar, I seriously doubted if Allah gave a good goddamn. I couldn’t imagine why He, or She, should.

All over Tehran this evening, the Iranian political and religious elite were packing for the midnight ride to the bunker. No doubt they were looking at their homes, their keepsakes and knickknacks, at their neighbors’ homes and the children playing in the streets…

It’s amazing how life works, when you think about it. Somewhere babies were being conceived, babies were being born, young people were marrying, people were dying of disease, old age, murder, accident, the whole gamut… and somewhere people were strolling through parks, looking in shop windows, eating and laughing and loving and living. All of it went on all the time. Somewhere.

I wished I were in that somewhere where the sun was shining, couples were holding hands and birds were singing.

When the sun was gone and the black night was illuminated only by some city lights and a thunderstorm tossing lightning on the mountains to the north, I went back down to the tunnel and inventoried the stuff in the duffle bags Grafton had sent to me, checked everything. Finally I lay down on my cot and tried to grab twenty winks. Unless I got killed early, it was going to be a long night.

At 11:00 P.M., G. W. Hosein shook me awake. I had managed to doze off just a few minutes prior. “They’re going into the bunker,” he whispered, hoping not to awaken Davar, who was asleep inside her curtains ten feet away. “Ahmad has been keeping an eye on them. Limos arriving carrying whole families, it looks like.”

I rolled out and got dressed.

I was about ready to go when Davar came out of the curtains wearing trousers, a shirt and boots.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I said.

“This is my country,” she shot back and set off along the tunnel to where G. W. and the others were making coffee and heating MREs.

I followed her-and thought, What the heck. Who am I to tell her how to run her life? Maybe she’ll run into a couple of prison guards she recognizes.

Joe Mottaki was there with his two guys, decked out as Iranian soldiers, complete with AKs and sidearms. With their beards, they looked as Iranian as Ahmadinejad. I scratched my own stubble, four days’ growth, as I surveyed them. Joe was drinking coffee and looking sour.

“You going to try for a tank?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“We only need it in case things go bad. All we have to do is lay low until the bunker bombers do their thing.”

Mottaki gave me a look I couldn’t classify.

“Are you thinking about those people in the bunker?” I asked.

His lips curled into a sneer. “You ass! I’ve got a wife and kid in Israel, cousins, my parents, uncles and aunts, none of whom ever lifted a finger against Iran. All they want is to be left in peace. I’m thinking about them ! These raghead jihad bastards would kill them all if they could and dance on their graves.” He leaned into my face and hissed, “I don’t give a bloody fuck about the people in that hole.”

Using binoculars, G. W., Davar, Larijani and I watched from beside a cluster of abandoned apartments as limo after limo arrived carrying whole families, who lugged suitcases and boxes and bundles into the mosque at the prayer grounds. Then the limos drove away. Some people arrived in their own cars, which they parked willy-nilly in the lot next door, after they had off-loaded their stuff. Kids wandered around; a few young mothers were carrying babies.

“I count two dozen soldiers down there,” G. W. said. “One big truck, which probably hauled them in.”

“See any armor anywhere?” I asked as I scanned the area.

“Nope.”

I wondered how the locals would feel if they knew their fearless leaders were taking cover. I glanced over at Davar, who was leaning against a wall to steady herself as she peered at the mosque with binoculars. Although no one had told her in so many words, I think she knew why G. W. and I were so interested in that bunker. I got out my satellite telephone and spent five minutes setting it up. Then I called the folks at Central Command and gave them the word. The guy I talked to merely grunted. No doubt he was getting information from a variety of different sources.