Deathrace (3 page)

“So, good hunting. There is a British student I need to see this afternoon. Remember, I’m a tourist with all the proper stamped papers, passport, visas, the works. So far nobody has asked to see my papers, which is a good sign. I must be blending in with the life and times of Iran well enough to get by.”

“I pray to Allah twice a day that I, too, can escape detection. The secret police are everywhere. The fundamentalists …” He stopped and shook his head. “Not even here can I criticize them. I must be going.”

As soon as George saw his new friend get to the street and walk away, he lowered the front window blind on the second-story apartment, and waited. Before he could fully enjoy the anticipation, a knock sounded on the two-room apartment’s front door. He unlocked it and pulled it open.

Yasmeen stood there looking back over her shoulder. As soon as the door opened, she rushed inside and closed it behind her. She was breathing hard and the fire in her eyes made her pretty face glow with excitement.

“I thought they were following me, but it was only two young boys out to trap a girl.” She put her arms around his neck and pulled his face down. She kissed him, long and deep. Her body pressed hard against him and he felt her shiver. He wasn’t sure if it was because she was thrilled to be here, or because of the danger and the mystery of it all.

Yasmeen let him go and smiled up. She was five-one, a slender figure dressed in dark brown with her head covered with a thin shawl that was used to cover her face as well when she was in public.

She kissed him again and led him to the bed in the far room, where they sat.

“You know what they would do if they caught me here?”

He kissed her and rubbed one breast.

“First they would publicly humiliate me, then they would cut off one breast. Then they would take away all my identification
cards so I could not get a job or buy food. I will not be caught here.”

He kissed her again, and lay her on the bed, on her back. He started to say something, but she shook her head. “First make love to me the way you do American women. You are so thoughtful, so tender, so gentle.

“Iranian women have no rights. We can’t vote, we can’t be outside without our faces covered, we can’t drive a car, we can’t own property, we can’t get a good job anywhere. We are little more than baby-making machines. I hate it all.”

She pulled at his belt and tried to get his zipper down.

“Quickly now, before someone comes. One of them might have followed me after all. They are extremely good tailing people.”

A half hour later she lay in the sheets, her heart still beating wildly. He sat beside her, kissed her lips once more, and nodded.

“Now, Yasmeen, tell me your news. Help me strike back at the dictators who run your country.”

She sat up, and her breasts bounced. George noticed and enjoyed the moment, then watched her face. With this woman he knew for sure he could tell if she were lying.

“My father’s trucking company was hired to haul goods from a port far down to the south. I know they went as far as Chah Bahar, which is almost in Pakistan. They picked up the loads at Bushehr well up on the Persian Gulf.”

“Why truck material all the way down the coast when it could have been off-loaded from the ships at Chah Bahar?”

“Oh, everything was supposed to go to Shiraz, the biggest town in the southern half of the country. But then they changed the orders and it all went south.”

“Any idea what these goods were?” he asked.

They began to dress then, and she put on her clothes without embarrassment.

“Oh, yes, Father talked about it. They were huge machine tools, heavy as the gods, as Father said. Then there were
high-precision optical instruments. Tons and tons of cement to make concrete from, and three huge electrical generators and fuel to run them. Hundreds of other things, including construction materials. They all were loaded on Father’s trucks and taken south. Even he didn’t know the exact destination. This was all two years ago.”

“Where could the trucks go once they got to Chah Bahar? It seems to me there is little down that far. A few mountains along the coast, then the desert plateau inland for hundreds of miles.”

She nodded. “Not much in there. Why would somebody want to put up some kind of a plant in the middle of a desert?”

They were dressed then. George checked out the window. She should leave soon. He wondered if anyone would be waiting for her. Out the window, he saw movement. A man with a military-type rifle hurried from one doorway to the next. He scanned the street both ways.

Yes, there were more of them. Civilian clothes, but definitely military-type movements. Where were they going? Then he figured it out. They were closing in from both directions on this building where he lived.

He caught up a small bag that he always had ready, with everything incriminating about him inside it. He took out a .45 pistol with an extended 15-round magazine in the handle.

Yasmeen’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“Troops in the street. I have an idea they’re coming here. Quick, we’ll go out the back window and across the roofs. Maybe they haven’t got that covered yet. Now.”

They hurried into the back room, and he opened the window. Before they could leave, they heard the front door smashed down. It sounded like two men in the front room. George stepped to the door and looked around it. Two shots slammed into the doorjamb just over his head.

He leaned out again, firing with the automatic. Both Iranians went down with chest shots.

He surged to the window, helped Yasmeen out, and they rushed down a narrow ledge to the first-floor roof of the building behind them.

Before they got there, two shots snarled from the window they had just left. Chips of plaster rained on them as they dropped to the roof. George fired twice at the open window, driving the men there back.

Then they came to the roof edge. They hung by their hands, and dropped six feet to the alley.

“Run,” he said, and they rushed down the alley hidden from their former room by the houses. Half a block down they slowed. “We need to get away from here. Any ideas?”

Her face was pinched and frightened, but she nodded. She had pulled her head covering up to mask her face now and they hurried along the street.

“We walk, not run. Make it as casual as possible. You stay ten meters behind me. I know a place you can hide. Why are they shooting at you?” She didn’t wait for an answer as they hurried down the first alley.

They walked for what he figured was a half hour, going from one alley to the next, working away from the down-town area. He heard sirens and some trucks grinding along, but saw no soldiers or the civilian-garbed enforcers.

George noticed that they had entered a poorer section of the city of 7.2 million people. The buildings were of stucco, but in poor shape. They left the alley, and went halfway down a long block before Yasmeen turned in at a walkway. They went to the back of a two-story house a little better than some of the others.

“A friend from our small freedom group lives here. Don’t be surprised, he’s a little different.”

She knocked on the door, and when it opened, the largest man George had ever seen stared at them. He wore nothing
but a pair of shorts that barely covered his crotch. George figured the man weighed at least four hundred pounds. His face had been grim, but when he saw Yasmeen, he smiled and screeched in delight.

“Little flower,” he said in Farsi. He picked her up like she was a feather and whirled her around. He planted a kiss on her forehead and set her down.

“Who the fuck is this?” the man asked in Brooklyn-accented English.

About an hour before George’s mad dash from the apartment, Shahpur Shamil had arrived at the coffee shop early, passed eighteen thousand rials, about six dollars U.S., to the shop owner, and hurried into the back room reserved for special customers.

His contact was already there sipping one of the thick native coffees.

“You are early,” the tall, thin man said in Farsi.

“We have much to talk about.”

The owner brought in a coffee for Shamil, and he tasted it, then looked at the other man.

“We don’t need names, as I told you before. I just want to know where you work. How close to what town.”

The man smiled. “We spoke of some compensation.”

“I have five hundred American dollars.”

The man held out his hand.

Shamil had carefully counted out five hundred from the fifteen hundred before he arrived, and now he drew it from his pocket.

The man pulled his hand back and shook his head. “I’m taking a great risk. It must be a thousand.”

“You said …” Shamil shrugged. He would still have five hundred dollars left. He reached in the other pocket and pulled out the second five hundred. The man took it and smiled.

“My new friend, you have just won yourself a place in the hearts of your countrymen.”

As he said it, two doors burst open and four men with machine pistols stormed into the room. Two grabbed Shamil and threw him against the wall and held him there. A third searched him, took out the other five hundred dollars, and put it in his pocket. He backhanded Shamil with a gloved hand.

Then the same man went to the table where the tall engineer still sat, and held out his hand. The engineer gave all but one of the bills to the secret service police. They both nodded. The tall, thin man stood and, without looking at Shamil, left the room by the back door.

The secret policeman turned to face Shamil. “We didn’t even suspect you at first. You were so clumsy. Surely the American CIA wouldn’t rely on one as stupid as you are. The money proves we were wrong.

“Where is your American CIA agent? No one in Iran has this kind of American money without getting it from an American agent.”

Shamil turned his head and looked at the wall. He remained silent. He didn’t even see the policeman draw his gun. He fired the pistol once. The small round blasted through Shamil’s right knee and jolted him to the floor.

“Now, Shahpur Shamil, you have two minutes to live unless you tell us exactly where we can find the bastard American CIA agent.”

Shamil shook his head. They would kill him anyway. His knee hurt so bad he couldn’t think straight.

Then a second shot hit him in the shoulder, shattering two bones there and bringing a great wail of pain. He almost blacked out, but fought to stay conscious.

When he recovered enough to have a coherent thought, he told the secret service officer the address.

The officer wrote it down, then nodded to the traitor.

“Thank you for your fine service to Iran and the greater Islamic Republic.” He scowled, then shot Shamil twice in the head, and hurried out the back door on his way to find the American spy.

3

Murdock sat in the booth and stared at the pretty woman across from him. She was slim, looked fit, had short brown hair, maybe five-eight, tanned and with penetrating brown eyes that watched him with barely concealed amusement.

“Stroh, you aren’t kidding, are you? I’m surprised.”

“Blown out of the water seems a better Navy phrase, Lieutenant Murdock,” Kat said. “I’ve had that reaction before at other good old boy’s clubs.”

“Can you swim, Miss Garnet?”

“Yes, and I’m a SCUBA instructor.” Her mouth formed half a smile.

“Good. What about parachuting?”

“I’ve had twenty jumps so far, concentrating on free fall.” The half smile grew.

Stroh gave a short laugh. “Let’s forget the twenty questions, Lieutenant. Here’s her short biography: Kat is twenty-eight, has a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from M.I.T. Has been working on dismantling our overstock on nuke warheads.
She’s a C-12 on the civil service scale. Is she in good shape? She won the second Hawaiian triathlon ever held for women. Now she keeps in shape running marathons. I’m wondering if your SEALs will be able to keep up with her.”

Murdock closed his eyes and lifted his brows. He took a deep breath. Then he nodded and looked up at Kat.

“Well, it looks like I have my orders, Miss Garnet. Welcome to the Third Platoon of SEAL Team Seven.”

She smiled, and it erased the harsh lines of a frown.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Murdock. Please call me Kat. I’m looking forward to working with you.”

“Kat, our first job is to survive. Our next job is to get to the target. Then we, or in this case, you, do the dismantling and destruction. Then we have our biggest task—trying to exfiltrate out of some hellhole without getting ourselves killed.”

She unclenched her hands where they had been gripped in her lap, and smiled. “First things first, Lieutenant Murdock. I especially like that part about surviving. I did hesitate before I took on this job. Then the President called me. One advantage you have over me: Nobody has ever shot at me trying to put big holes in my body.”

“Our job is to protect you, Kat, and call me Murdock. No sense our getting to the target if you’re riding along dead in a body bag.”

“I don’t like body bags.” She looked up and a small frown creased her pretty face. “Oh, one more thing. I’ve never fired a gun in my life. I figure I need to learn how.”

“No problem. We’ve got sixteen experts who will be falling all over themselves to teach you.” Murdock looked over at Stroh, who couldn’t stop grinning.

“This shoots your timing schedule all to hell, Stroh. No nonsense about a week for our DOD. I can rely on the current sharpness of my men, but I’ll need at least a month to get Kat integrated and up to speed. How big a pack can she carry? What weapon for her? Check her out underwater
with the rebreather. Can she jump with forty pounds of gear? Has she ever parachuted into water? Hell, we’ve got a year’s worth of training for her to jam into a month.”

“I’ll talk to my people and they will talk to the President. State is all out of joint on this one. They say if any one Arab state gets a workable bomb, they can blackmail half the rest of the Arab states and form the biggest Muslim nation in the world. That will upset the balance of power over there, and jeopardize the whole Middle Eastern oil flow. The oil, of course, is the biggest worry.”