The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,115
always ended it before it got sticky.”
“Precisely, again. Okay, Harry. One more question. Do you think I’m stupider than you? I mean, do you think that I would get so involved in shagging a middle-aged man, a man who pops a pill to get a hard-on, that I would let it get in the way of my mission? Do you think I would let it affect my ability to protect my brothers Hakim and Marwan? Or my determination to bring that Iranian boy back safe?”
Harry was silent.
“Do you? Because if you do, you should fire my pretty pink ass right now. Otherwise, let me do my job.”
Harry studied her. She was a predator, crouching across from him, ready to spring, her cheeks red with the blood of indignation and force of will, her every muscle taut and ready. In truth, he could not imagine a person more prepared to go into a danger zone and come out alive.
He rose from the couch. He wanted to give her a hug but resisted the temptation and instead shook her hand.
“I trust you,” he said. “Do your job. Bring them home. Get it done.”
ASHGABAT, TURKMENISTAN
The sun came up bright over the Kopet Mountains the next morning, its rays glinting off every trace of water on the barren range. Adrian Winkler rose before dawn to coordinate the operational planning. He was sitting at the computer in his villa studying maps and overnight cables. He seemed to have recovered from his fall into paganism and was once again doing the job of an intelligence officer.
After an hour of discussion with Harry and Atwan, the insertion team agreed on the basics of a plan. They would travel east by helicopter to a point near the border post at Saraghs. Atwan’s men had already been dispatched there to make the necessary contacts and payments. A gentleman from the Turkmen Ministry of Interior who had long been on Atwan’s payroll was installed in the villa, working with a technician to forge Iranian visas and the permission card from the International Visitors Office. Molavi wouldn’t need a passport. He would be hidden in the vehicle carrying the others.
It was Adrian who proposed the travel legend. Mashad was a holy city, and so the team would enter the city as pilgrims. Marwan and Hakim were both Muslims who spoke Arabic and a bit of Farsi. They would be believable flotsam in the stream that flowed into the sacred city. Jackie would have to go as one of their wives, wrapped in chador and veil and as silent and untouchable as a good Muslim would wish his wife to be. Jackie dyed her hair and eyebrows jet black. When she returned in costume, a black form shapeless and invisible, Adrian appraised her.
“Damned effective cover,” he said with a trace of a smile.
They hadn’t known where in Mashad to find the Ardebil Research Establishment. But information came in overnight from Vauxhall Cross that identified the location. It had been hiding in plain sight all these years. The facility was a few kilometers north of the city, on the road to a little town called Tus. Soon there was a small avalanche of digital information. Satellite photographs, maps of the adjoining area, GPS coordinates for finding the place, even a list of nearby hotels.
Now they needed an appropriate vehicle. Atwan’s headman in Saraghs found an old Mitsubishi minivan that plied the border regularly, taking in pilgrims and bringing out smuggled carpets and precious metals. The driver had a secret compartment under the rear seat of the van, well used for smuggling people and contraband in previous trips. Karim Molavi would go in the secret compartment.
Atwan’s man emailed a photograph of the van—dirty, dusty, its dashboard filled with Islamic bric-a-brac and its hood and hubcaps decorated with spangly gold ornaments that made it look like a one-vehicle circus parade. The driver, a reliably corrupt man who had done business with Atwan’s local operatives for years, would take the three “pilgrims” and the stowaway across the border into Iran and along the main road for the short three-hour journey to Mashad. He would wait there, and then, when the work was done, bring them out again. Getting in was the easy part. They all understood that. The heart of the operation would be Karim Molavi’s contact with his friend Reza.
The young Iranian scientist rose after the others; his eyes were bright and his face had lost the stress lines of the day before. It was