The Shield of Darius Page 21

  “Absolutely, Mr. President.”

  “The Israelis did this on their own? We weren’t notified? What can you tell me about it?”

  “Nothing, Sir. I don’t have any idea how it was done or by whom. I’m not even sure it was the Israelis. We have maximum deniability. I just know we’re out of the woods.”

  The President’s voice was slow and edged with uneasiness. “If we had any role at all, I’ve told you before that I don’t like the idea that there are some operations you don’t have direct control over. In fact, these Unit 1 things scare the hell out of me. Who really knows what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know that this was Unit 1. But even if it was, only the operative and his control know completely. In fact, I’m not certain the control always knows how things are accomplished. He knows the objective and what needs to happen. From there on, it may be up to the operative to get it done. But I don’t know that anyone sees the whole thing operationally. That’s why the network exists – and frankly, Mr. President, that’s why it works.”

  “I still lose sleep over it,” the President said. “It runs against my grain – none of us here knowing what’s happening.”

  “I understand completely, Sir. But we’re in a business where the rules don’t matter to anyone else. If we don’t have our own team that plays outside of the rules, we’ll always end up on the losing end – both figuratively and literally. If we could somehow get a candid expression of public opinion about this, I think we’d find that most Americans would like us to have something like Unit 1, and would prefer not to know we do. Plus, I really don’t think we had anything to do with this.”

  The President sniffed irritably. “As long as we can continue to talk each other into it. I’ll call Defense and State and tell them things are clear. What reaction can we anticipate from Iran?”

  “Israel is vehemently denying the attack, as you’ve read. But our sources tell us that whatever happened as a result of the raid will make Iran much less likely to retaliate.”

  “Hmmm,” the President mused. “Helluva deal.”

  The Director hung up and gazed out over the tree-covered valley of the Potomac that stretched below his window. These operations ran against his grain, too. But he didn’t lose sleep over them. He couldn’t, and still do his job.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Caspian Sea is not a true sea, but a huge inland lake 300 kilometers wide and 1200 kilometers in length that lies fifty meters below sea level along the northern Iranian border. It earned its name sometime in antiquity when it was thought to be part of a great sea that circled the world, and its remoteness and exotic coastal cultures still surround it with a sense of mystery. While most of the Caspian lies sandwiched between four former Soviet Republics, the southern tip dips like a shallow, uneven bowl into Iran and is bordered by the Persian provinces of Gilan on the west and Mazandaran on the east.

  Unlike the vast arid plateau of central Iran, the Caspian coast is lush with heavy rain forests and quilted with the greens, browns and yellows of fertile rice paddies and tea plantations. The sea once teamed with beluga, giant long-nosed sturgeon of prehistoric look and origin, whose finest specimens reach over twenty feet in length and weigh more than a ton. Though fishing is now tightly controlled, each spring trawlers from the surrounding nations still ply the beluga spawning grounds to net thousand pound females whose bellies swell with steel gray roe. Strained and washed, the delicately flavored eggs are lightly salted and vacuum sealed into ornately decorated jars and tins under the Romanoff label, bearing such names as Beluga Molossol, meaning ‘little salt.’ In the finest markets of Europe and the United States, this King of Caviars will bring as much as $200 an ounce.

  Strapped securely to a tree trunk within sight of the Caspian’s gray water, the furthest thing from Ben Sager’s mind was caviar. He was worried that he was too close to the stream. Too close to the rice paddies and the road with the sirens. Untying the chador, he lowered himself gingerly to the ground, cringing against the ripping pain in his side as he stretched the final few feet to the forest floor. The path he had taken from the stream continued as no more than a low, covered animal run and he crawled further along it, tearing at thick, broad leaves and tentacled vines that grabbed and clung until he collapsed from exhaustion.

  On the road the sirens retreated, returned, and retreated again. The air was wet and thick, held close by the press of the jungle. As the trail widened slightly, Ben rolled heavily onto his back and squinted through a heavy screen of semi-consciousness and motionless leaves into the dappled sunlight. Above and to his left, a flock of long-tailed black birds with white markings screeched and whirled in the air and he smelled the acrid bite of fermentation. The smell triggered a rush of saliva and quickened his rebellious muscles. He forced himself back to his hands and knees and plunged into the tangle beside the faint trail, following the noise and smell like a stalking hound until he knelt below three trees that had attracted the flock. The ground beneath them was littered with spoiled fruit, black and rotting to pungent mush. Above, the limbs hung heavy with green and purple figs.

  In the thickness of the forest, the elephant ear leaves of the fig trees had shuttered the sun, leaving the ground beneath clear of smaller vegetation. Ben stood unsteadily and stretched for the lower limbs, doubling at the waist and knees as the pull at his abdomen slipped him backward into the black mush. He lay among the spoiled figs and looked up into the green blur above, closing his eyes to let it fade into pale blue and yellow inside his lids. Then she was there, her black hair against the yellow and her mouth smiling and speaking without words.

  “Kate. I can’t do it,” he whispered. But she wouldn’t leave until he opened his eyes and staggered back to his feet.

  Tying a short, thick stick to a corner of his chador, he lofted it over the lowest limb of the large, central tree which branched only inches above his head. He wrapped the cloth around his wrists and attacked the trunk with his feet and legs, gritting and crying aloud against the fiery spasms in his chest and stomach until he was able to throw a leg over the limb and struggle onto its top. For a long moment he stretched breathlessly against the smooth bark, then pushed slowly into a sitting position. The birds had not yet penetrated the heart of the tree and he reached two plump purple figs without moving. Though his stomach spasmed and ached up into his rib cage, he felt little appetite and ate slowly, finding the sweet juice and grainy meat hard to swallow. As he ate, the gnawing in his belly subsided and he stretched slowly, looking above for more fruit.

  The tree was tall and evenly limbed, gripping the steep incline of the mountain so that its upper branches opened out over the slope high above the rice paddies. Ben turned slowly and hugged the trunk, easing to his feet on the thick branch. Like a mountaineer in the rarefied air of Everest, he labored upward through the branches, conquering a limb, pausing to gulp air, climbing to the next. As he found full, untouched fruit he ate them, stopping at a point where the fig tree overlooked the fields below. He strapped himself to the trunk and nibbled at the flat slab of bread.

  Through the leaves he could see to his right the stream running across open fields to the road and beach. Farther still, the couple’s house stood at the end of the row of cottages, their automobile still parked beside it.

  To his left, the coast stretched uninterrupted as far as he could see. Rough stone beaches and gray flat water. He loosened the chador and slid out onto his limb perch as far as the branch would support his weight, peering along the slope of the hill. Fifty yards to his left another trail parted the forest, large enough that its track could clearly be seen from above as it dropped away from him toward the rice paddies. He would watch the road until dark. If all seemed still, this trail would take him again to the fields. The border must be sixty, maybe eighty kilometers north. Four days. Five, depending on how fast he could move at night and how often he had to return to the mountains for food.

  As the morning lengthened, the sun climbed steamy hot abo
ve the trees, lifting stale vapor from the forest floor and sticking his clothes to his chest and back like soggy tissue paper. He gulped it in, separated the oxygen, and sweat the water back out onto the slippery branch. His stomach churned violently and he retched up the figs, shooting cramping waves from his groin up through his shoulders and neck. He stretched again on the limb, trying to relieve the spasms, but found instead that the ripples moved to his legs and back.

  On the road below he heard the distant hum of heavy traffic and parted the branches to open a hole in the foliage. Two police cars – and coming from the south, a procession of camouflaged military vehicles. Six jeeps and two small canopied trucks. Either the couple had reported him, or the police weren’t treating the bus as a common theft.

  The convoy stopped in front of the block houses and unloaded a dozen men; small brown figures with black rifles, a half mile away. Maybe more. The vehicles started off again, some carrying soldiers north along the narrow highway and others back toward Rasht, leaving three jeeps and six men clustered about the dwellings.

  In mid-morning, a large square olive drab van joined the collection, and Ben heard the sharp bark of dogs. He again parted the limbs and strained to see the animals, fearing they might move directly to the hillside and somehow pick up his scent. Instead their handlers marched them up the road to a point directly across the paddies from his blind, then back again to the van. They were German shepherds, strong buff colored dogs that pulled against their leashes as they worked methodically back and forth across the black tarmac, pausing occasionally to sniff at an object the soldiers held in front of their trained noses. A black rag. A piece of old chador from the wreckage.

  As the sun reached its zenith one of the trucks returned, picking up loose soldiers and a jeep which followed it north toward the border with Azerbaijan and Ben’s escape. As soon as the vehicles disappeared beyond a turn in the road, one of the remaining jeeps began a slow systematic patrol of the highway, driving briefly out of sight to Ben’s left, then back and out of sight to the south. On the third pass it stopped where the road crossed the shallow stream and two men climbed stiffly out, clambering down the far side of the culvert with rifles slung loosely over their shoulders. They reappeared moments later, conferred briefly, gesturing first toward the open sea and then to the jungle. Dividing their ranks, one struck off across the fields toward the trees and the other leaned against the green fender. The searching soldier followed the low dike that defined the edge of the rice paddies, picking his way carefully across the marshy ground. As he approached the edge of the jungle, he disappeared below the thick screen of trees and Ben pressed flat against the limb, freezing his breath and listening for the man’s thrashing penetration into the tangle along the stream bed. Instead, the soldier reappeared, shaking his head and calling loudly to his comrade, waving his arms in a dividing motion to show the thickness of the undergrowth.

  Both jeeps stayed until dark, alternating posts as patrol and sentry. As the day lengthened, low swollen clouds piled against the mountains, darkening the evening and pressing the humidity into misty drizzle. When he could no longer see the outline of the patrolling jeep, Ben dropped painfully from the tree, folded the chador into a wide belt around his waist, and forced his way parallel to the slope until he reached the open trail. This one was trampled bare with frequent use and he slid down the clay slope to the edge of the paddies.

  As he reached the low embankment separating the outer field from the jungle, a bright spotlight pierced the darkness to his left. The light turned a long cylinder of darkness into glowing haze, pulling everything toward it in veiled relief. Ben dove forward into the thick sludge of the paddy, flattening behind a curtain of knee high plants as the beam drifted over him. When it was gone, he rose dripping with fetid water, and tried to jog forward along the dike in a low crouch. The jarring wrenched at his gut and he stumbled again to the edge of the trees, dropped his soggy pajama pants and emptied what little remained in his bowel. He tried to relax and let his body work, fearing that strain might tear at the inflamed lining of his intestines and send blood after the watery waste.

  Again the beam pierced through the rain, reaching its limit just ten feet to his left. Ben was hunched beneath the first tree he had come to at the edge of the forest, facing the road, and dropping his head between his knees, froze in place as the spot moved across him and stopped with him crouching in its hazy center. He thought of bolting into the Jungle but realized he was hobbled by the pants around his ankles and would fall as soon as he moved. Muffled voices filtered through the heavy mist, short and questioning. After what seemed an eternity, the light passed on, but he remained motionless, arms wrapped tightly about his naked knees, head forward, sensing where the light was as it played slowly along the tree line. It moved fifty feet to his right then, as he had anticipated, darted back to his spot, circling him in its misty halo. The voices spoke again, holding him in the veiled glow until he feared he would faint and pitch forward. Then the light was gone. Apparently satisfied that the distant, shrouded object was inanimate – a stump or clump of dark brush – the soldiers started the jeep and drove north.

  Ben waited until he could no longer hear the hum of the engine before pulling the loose pants back around his waist and feeling his way forward along the levee. He passed the patrol range of the first jeep, only to find another with its own spearing shaft of light that sent him head first into the murky waters of the fields, rising again black with mud and smelling of human waste.

  Near midnight he passed along the mountain side of a village, fed by another stream that tumbled noisily down through the jungle above him. He waded in, feeling the cool water wash the slimy coating from his feet and legs, and turned up its course. Once into the jungle, he crawled beneath overhanging vines with the water lapping against his chest, scrambling upward as the bed became bare rock where the stream had stripped away the topsoil. Two hundred yards into the forest the trees opened around a waist-deep pool, formed as the stream cascaded over a low rocky ledge. The rain had stopped and in the open circle above the pool the clouds were parting, leaking glimmers of moonlight into the opening in the forest. For two or three yards on either side of the pool the ground was flat and bare, trampled by the feet of animals and villagers who came to drink and draw water.

  Unwrapping the chador, Ben stripped away the rest of his clothing and bandage. He sloshed them in the water until they were free of mud, then stretched them over bushes along the bank to dry. Slowly he settled into the pool until he sat shoulder-deep, his head resting back against the water-sprayed rock. The low fall tumbled soothingly over the taut muscles of his face and rinsed his hair and beard. He raised his chin and let the water fill his mouth, drinking until his belly felt bloated. Sleep tugged at his chest and eyelids and resisting the urge to slip forever into the peaceful embrace of the pool, Ben dragged himself onto the muddy bank, thought fleetingly of snakes, marauding wild boars, and the last of the Caspian tigers, and drifted willingly into unconsciousness.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Falen’s unlisted number was known to only six people. He hadn’t heard from three in months, and guessed that the call was from Kate, Fisher, or David Ishmael.

  “Chris, David here. We closed yesterday on the property you recommended.”

  “I heard. Sounds like things worked out well for you.”

  “Just as we’d hoped. In fact, we took both places, thinking of possible expansion needs.”

  “I’ll have to visit with you about it sometime. You impressed me with the way you handled the transaction. Must have one hell of an agent!”

  “I thought you’d be impressed. Next time I see you I’ll fill you in on some of the details.”

  “Are things pretty well finalized then? Any loose ends?”

  “Not as far as I know. I think we got our bid in before others moved on it and the whole deal’s closed. Got to go now. Hope we meet again soon.”

  Falen hung up the phone shaking his head. Tha
t whole Mossad organization seemed to work like he did. Total freedom and independence. When they said they’d take care of something, it was as good as done.

  Stories about the hijacking and the raid on Tehran had hit the front page of yesterday’s evening editions side-by-side, with no apparent connection by the editors. “Hijackers Killed in Tel Aviv” and “Jets Strike Iranian Capital.” In typical Iranian government fashion, official revolutionary radio broadcasts had identified the targets as a hospital and primary school. The Iranian news agency had issued pictures of children’s bodies strewn amid the rubble of a fallen building, photos that had gone viral on the internet and already were generating a strong global outcry.

  According to the report, three Israeli aircraft had evaded radar and attacked the civilian targets without warning, but air defenses around the capital had downed one of the fighters. A second picture on page eight showed the hapless pilot bound between two smiling captors. While being interrogated, the pilot had made full confession of American involvement in the attacks.

  The hijack story was probably much more accurate, which made it all the more puzzling to Falen. Though Hamas had denied any involvement, both hijackers were identified by Israeli officials as members of the fundamentalist Sunni group governing Gaza.

  Somehow, Falen thought, that hijacking had to be tied to the raid. It was just too coincidental. And no Palestinian in his right mind would take a hijacked aircraft into Tel Aviv and sit for twelve hours. The whole thing fit together. Falen just wasn’t sure how.

  He called Fisher from a lot behind the Exxon station at New Hampshire and 21st.

  “You said when I called yesterday that you’d have a new assignment for me. Looks like I’m clear to begin.”

  “I read the report in the Times. You continue to amaze me with your ingenuity.”