Ultimatum, page 20
A heavily built man in a faded green jacket of the sort worn by American GIs in the Vietnam war was seated directly opposite him. He had a scar running down his left cheek and looked familiar. Yes, he was sure now: this was the same man who’d loomed over him in the bazaar at Isfahan. He shuddered as he remembered that moment. It must have been only hours ago, yet it felt like a lifetime. The man’s large face was framed by his beard and his eyes seemed almost disproportionately small compared to the rest of him. He held a pistol casually in his lap and regarded the British minister with an impassive gaze, as if inspecting a commodity in a shop. Good God, thought Chaplin. Is that what I am to these people? A commodity? Well, let’s hope this is resolved quickly because I’m not sure I’m up to it. He looked round the interior of the van, not that he could make out very much in the semi-darkness. Another figure was seated behind him, probably the one who had untied his blindfold, and there were more people in the front – they seemed to be getting out.
‘Foods,’ said the man behind him. ‘Lunch.’
What? Lunch? It was dark outside – that much he could see. God knew what the time was, but it must be late in the evening, maybe even past midnight. Chaplin moved his head a fraction so he could look out through the driver’s window. He half expected a reprimand, but nobody seemed bothered. These people obviously felt completely in control, which, again, was probably not a good sign. He could see garish coloured lights beyond the window and saw they had parked beside an all-night fast-food stall. After a while two men climbed back into the van and passed cardboard cartons of biryani rice, plastic forks and some paper napkins. Chaplin’s hands were still tied behind his back, a needless precaution in his view, taken after they had put him into the change of clothes. Nobody moved to untie him: instead they fed him like an invalid, or a very small child, prodding him every few seconds to open his mouth until the carton was empty. His abductors tossed the empty containers out of the window and started the engine.
Grimacing as the vehicle lurched back onto the road once more, Britain’s Foreign Secretary tried hard not to think of his family. By now, surely, they must have heard what had happened. And they would be worrying terribly. Alone, cold and afraid, being driven at speed across Iran through the night, he felt a solitary tear roll down his ruddy, spider-veined cheek.
Chapter 52
Café Rameez, Tehran
MOVING CAREFULLY SO he did not attract attention, avoiding all eye contact with the other customers, Luke followed Tannaz out of the café. It could take only one unlucky glance, he reckoned, for a sharp-eyed observer to connect the tall, rangy Westerner with ‘the English spy’ now being sought on national radio. Luke had put on his beige baseball cap, which he’d packed at the last minute, and also a grey woollen scarf that Elise had insisted he take. Not exactly a foolproof disguise but at least it wouldn’t look out of place on a cold winter evening in Tehran. Behind him, he could hear a fiery speech blaring from the TV set mounted on the wall. It sounded like a rabble-rousing sermon and he was grateful for it. Everyone’s eyes were focused on the screen and nobody noticed them as they slipped out of Café Rameez into the night.
The first thing Luke saw was a line of black-clad security men, some on motorbikes, gathered round a junction some way down the road to their right. Tannaz saw them, too, and turned left, walking quickly away from the café, leading him through the throng of pedestrians. ‘We have to get you off the street,’ she whispered, the moment they stopped to cross the road. ‘Follow me.’ Her petite figure wove, with practised ease, between the people they passed, and twice he nearly lost sight of her. When she turned left into a side-street the crowd had thinned. He followed her down the alleyway, past some dustbins, where cats scattered at her approach. Without warning, Tannaz stopped abruptly, turned on her heels to face him and grabbed him roughly by the collar, pulling his face close to hers.
‘Just what the fuck are you doing in my country?’ she demanded. ‘I mean, what is going on here? Hmm? First you show me those pictures of my dad with what you say are tortured prisoners – and I don’t even know if they’re real or fake – then I hear you being named on national radio as a spy!’ Even in the dark he could see her beautiful eyes blazing with anger. ‘I don’t need this shit, Brendan,’ she continued. ‘I thought you were just a nice English art dealer when I met you in Abu Dhabi. But you’re not, are you? You’re something else. So how about you tell me the truth before I walk back onto that street and call a policeman?’
Luke was taken aback by the ferocity of her reaction. He had always known there would be risks in recruiting her. He’d said as much when the decision to go ahead was taken in that room back at Vauxhall Cross. But he hadn’t expected it to turn out like this. How the hell had Iranian intelligence put their finger on him so quickly? Had he been careless somewhere down the line? Had the MI6 security team missed something on his social-media footprint? Had someone betrayed him? All these thoughts flashed through his mind in that darkened alleyway, but this was no time for contemplation. Tannaz was waiting for his response and he had better come up with something pretty damned convincing. Tell her too little and she wouldn’t believe him, tell her too much and it would all be over in a wail of sirens.
‘Okay, okay.’ He sighed, lowering his head and closing his eyes for a moment. Looking up, he held her gaze. ‘You’re right, Tannaz. I owe you an apology. I do. And an explanation.’ She had backed off slightly and her arms were tightly folded across her chest, her head tilted to one side, as if challenging him to convince her.
‘So, yes,’ he began, looking her straight in the eye. ‘I’m a little more than an art dealer and, yes, I’m sorry for lying to you about that.’
‘So. You are a spy,’ she said flatly. ‘I knew it.’ Tannaz turned her head towards the empty street, then faced him again. He sensed she was trying to decide what to do with this information.
‘That bit isn’t true,’ he replied. ‘But I do some work on the side for that human-rights organization, Citizens Concern, I mentioned. They approached me,’ he continued seamlessly, one lie merging into another, ‘when they heard I was coming to Iran.’
‘To do what?’ she interrupted, tilting up her chin, her arms still folded. ‘To make friends with me so you could spy on my dad?’
Whoa, she’d seen right through him and it hadn’t taken her long.
‘God, no. Quite the opposite, Tannaz. They wanted me to warn you about him. About what he really does to people here, in your country. Look, do you have any idea what he does when he goes to work every day?’
Tannaz opened her mouth to speak but at that exact moment Luke’s mobile buzzed in his pocket. The office. It had to be. He put up his hand, as if to keep her in place. ‘Don’t go away, Tannaz. I have to take this call.’ He half turned his body away from her as he pressed the green light on his phone.
It was Angela, at Vauxhall, and she sounded more stressed than ever. ‘We might have a lead on Chaplin,’ she said, without preamble, ‘and we need you to follow it up immediately.’
‘Hang on, Angela, there’s been a development here I need to tell you about.’
‘In a moment. Listen, we’ve had a comms intercept and there’s enough to suggest Zamani’s involved in the abduction. Seventy per cent certainty. You need to get yourself to where he’s going.’
Luke threw a quick glance at Tannaz and forced a smile. She had one hand resting on her hip now. Not a good sign. He took the phone momentarily away from his ear to whisper loudly to her, ‘It’s Citizens Concern, in London.’ He resumed the call. ‘So where is he heading?’
‘Bandar Abbas. It’s a port. On the Gulf coast. How fast can you get there?’
‘Angela, listen. I’ve been blown here. There was a bloody announcement about me on national radio just half an hour ago and my picture’s all over the television. I’m going to need to extract.’
‘Oh, Jesus, that’s not good.’ A pause. ‘Where are you now? Are you safe?’
‘Hardly. I’m in a back-street in Tehran with Elixir. The moment I go back on the main street I risk being picked up. I’m telling you, this place is on maximum alert since the abduction and they’re looking for scapegoats.’ It was a last resort but he had to ask: ‘Can the embassy help?’
Angela paused. He could hear her speaking to someone in the room behind her but couldn’t make out the words. When she came back, her tone was apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, Luke, that’s not going to be possible, not this time. Everyone there’s being followed and the intelligence people would pick you up in a heartbeat. They’re shadowing every vehicle in and out. And you don’t have diplomatic cover, remember? Look, try to use Elixir if you can. Get yourself to Bandar Abbas and report in once you’re on your way.’ Another pause, and he heard the emotion in her voice. ‘I’m sorry it has to be like this, Luke, but if anyone can do this job it’s you. Good luck.’ The call ended, he put away the phone. He took a deep breath and turned back towards Tannaz.
‘So,’ he began, ‘I have a massive favour to ask.’
Chapter 53
Vauxhall Cross
THE MOMENT ANGELA Scott ended her call to Luke she left her office, walked quickly to the central lift bank and went up two floors to see Graham Leach. The Head of Iran and Caucasus was on the phone but he waved her to a chair. She remained standing, waiting for him to finish his call.
‘That was Damian over at the Joint Intelligence Org,’ he explained, when he put the phone down. ‘They keep asking for answers we haven’t got yet. Anyway,’ he said amicably, ‘what can I do for you?’
‘It’s Luke,’ she said. ‘His cover’s been blown. The Iranians have made him. He’s up Shit Creek.’
‘Oh, God. Seriously? Wait, don’t tell me they have him?’ Leach was half out of his chair. Angela was close enough now to see the deep worry lines on his forehead.
‘Not yet, no, but he’ll have to go into hiding. I’ve told him to get himself to Bandar Abbas. I think it’ll be a miracle if he gets that far. Graham, can’t we do something for him? Can’t we get him out?’
Leach sat down again and put his hands up to his face. For a moment she thought he was about to cry. Instead he rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers, then put his hands back on his desk and addressed her question. ‘In a word, no. We simply don’t have the means. That whole country’s in lockdown. We lost a large part of our optics when they killed Black Run in Armenia. I’m afraid he’s on his own, Angela.’
‘Well, how the hell did this happen?’ she demanded, her voice rising. ‘I thought Security had worked up a watertight cover story for him. Weren’t they supposed to have every angle covered?’
Leach made a calming motion with his hands. ‘Steady on, Angela, let’s not get carried away here. Yes, there’ll be an internal inquiry to find out what went wrong but the fact is these IRGC intelligence people in Iran are bloody good at what they do. They are a serious challenge for us, and you know that. In the meantime …’ he spread his hands and gave a slight shrug ‘… Luke is still our only active asset in-country. If he can get himself into deep cover this could still work for us. He’s a resourceful chap, your man Luke. He’s impressed a lot of people here already.’
Angela shook her head slowly in disbelief. Professionally, personally, emotionally, she felt sick. She had been instrumental in helping to send Luke to Iran. When HR had asked her if he was fully ready for the mission, she had put her signature to the internal memo. And now he was being left to swing in the wind. ‘My God, Graham, you don’t get it, do you? You’re telling me about Luke Carlton impressing the directors when the reality is there’s every chance we’ve just sent him on a one-way mission to his death.’
Chapter 54
Tehran
IT WAS AN agonizing wait, standing alone in the back-street. Standing in the shadow of the great Elburz Mountains, and at over a thousand metres above sea level, Tehran winters could be harsh and now it was growing colder by the minute. Luke stamped his feet and blew on his hands in an effort to keep warm, while he weighed up the odds of whether he was about to be betrayed and whether he should now make a run for it. Once again, he felt himself trapped, like a cornered rat. A wanted man on borrowed time, he had decided he had no other choice but to ask Tannaz for help. It had not been an easy conversation. Her earlier hostility had subsided but she had remained guarded, suspicious, her tone almost businesslike.
‘So tell me why,’ she had put it to him bluntly, ‘they are calling you a foreign spy if all you do is art and human rights? Please, answer me that.’
‘I have no idea, Tannaz, but just look around you. This whole country is on red alert. The kidnapping thing has sent the authorities into a tail-spin and—’
‘A what?’
‘A tail-spin. A panic. Look, this is a major crisis for them. Think about it, they invite a British minister here and what happens? He gets abducted from right under their noses in Isfahan. It’s hugely embarrassing so they’re looking for someone to blame. And that would be me. As I say, I have no idea why but I’m clearly being made the scapegoat here. So, in short, Tannaz, I need your help … Please, I’m asking you.’
She had regarded him for a long time, saying nothing, while Luke could only guess at what must be going through her mind. Then she had done something he wasn’t expecting. She had reached up and touched his cheek, gently, with her manicured hand. ‘Okay, I will help you, but understand we can never meet again after this. Is that clear?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Good. Now we need to get you out of sight. I have a friend with an empty house in Kajan. It’s not far from Tehran so maybe—’
Luke had cut her off mid-sentence. ‘Bandar Abbas. I need to get to Bandar Abbas on the coast. If I can get there, I can get a boat out of the country.’
Tannaz had let out a short, sarcastic laugh.
‘Bandar Abbas! Are you kidding, mister? Do you have any idea how far that is? It’s the other end of the country! You can’t fly, you can’t take the train or the bus – you’d never get past the checkpoints. You’d need to drive and that would take you twenty-four hours, at least. No, forget Bandar Abbas.’
But Luke wasn’t giving up without a fight. ‘Come on, Tannaz, there must be someone you know with a car, someone who wants to get the hell out of Tehran and all this tension.’
‘What – and drive a wanted “foreign spy” halfway across the country? I don’t think so.’
‘Tell you what,’ he had suggested, grasping at straws now, ‘do you know anyone with a relative in jail? A political prisoner, not a common criminal.’
‘Yes, of course. Why?’
‘Well, here’s my suggestion …’ Luke had paused then, as he caught sight of a figure turning off the main boulevard and starting to walk towards them. Then the man had appeared to change his mind and wandered off, back into the stream of pedestrians. ‘If you can arrange a lift for me to Bandar Abbas,’ he’d continued, ‘I can get Citizens Concern to profile their imprisoned relative as a high-priority case. They can feature him – or her – as their Prisoner of the Month. It’ll get them the international attention they need.’
‘You can do this?’
‘I can.’
‘Prove it.’
‘All right,’ Luke had responded. ‘Ahmet Yildirim. Turkish journalist and social commentator. Sentenced to ten years in prison. We got him out early last year.’ Even now, after all those intensive, last-minute coaching sessions, it still amazed Luke how easily the lies came into his head, then tripped off his tongue. ‘Evelina Karilova. Arrested in Azerbaijan on suspicion of insulting the President. Again, we got her out after a campaign. Then there’s Soltana Makirova—’
‘Yes, all right, you’ve made your point,’ Tannaz had interrupted him. ‘So maybe, yes, there is someone I know. His name is Farzad – we call him Farz. His brother is an artist, a good one. He was picked up six months ago here in Tehran.’ In the dim light from the streetlamp behind them he could see the sadness in her face. ‘They accused him of “undermining national security”. This is rubbish – he’s done nothing wrong and we’ve had no news for weeks.’
‘I’m sorry, that sounds grim,’ Luke had said, thinking: He sounds ideal. ‘Does he have a car?’
‘I will try to ask him now,’ she’d said. ‘I’m not promising.’ Tannaz hadn’t seemed so certain. She had taken out her phone, dialled a number and immediately got into an animated conversation in Farsi. Unable to follow a word, Luke had watched as she argued and gesticulated with her free hand. And then, just like that, the call was over.
‘It’s fixed. Stay right here and don’t move from this spot. Farz will come and collect you in less than one hour.’ Then she had looked around at the empty side-street, cupped his face in both hands, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. ‘I hope it works out for you, Brendan, I really do. And please stay safe.’ Then she was gone, leaving him alone and uncertain in the alleyway.
And that had been just over two hours ago. There had been no sign of either Farz or Tannaz. It was now seriously cold. His breath plumed as he endeavoured to keep warm in his hiding place behind a communal dustbin. He thought abut his room back at the Shahrestan but that was a non-starter. Iranian security would be all over that place by now, carting off his belongings in plastic evidence bags, taking in the receptionist for intensive questioning. They would find nothing to incriminate him in there. Luke was confident about that. Yet absurdly, given the danger he was in, it annoyed him that he had left his phone charger in the room. A 46 per cent charge was not going to last him all the way to Bandar Abbas.
