The Reykjavik Assignment (Yael Azoulay #3)(101)
They all knew that Yael’s plan was the only option. And that time was rapidly running out.
Yael checked herself in the rearview mirror. Eyes clear. No makeup. Skin still wet from the rain. Pale, but not sickly. She looked at Joe-Don, a half smile playing on her lips, the adrenalin flowing. “Farzad is our only chance. You know it. I know it.”
“So does Massoud,” said Joe-Don. “What if it’s a trap?”
She shrugged. “They’ve got what they want. Four high-value targets. The whole world is watching. I don’t add very much. And he wants to talk. He wants his son back. The sooner I am in, sooner we are done.”
The wind sent a fresh flurry of rain against the car windows. Yael took out both her pistols and her phone and handed them to Joe-Don.
“Ankle holster?” he asked. “Ceramic knife?”
“Nothing. You know how thoroughly they will frisk me. And send the sound file to Ortega’s phone.”
Joe-Don nodded, leaned toward her, suddenly uncertain. Yael hugged him, briefly.
Olaffson grimaced and shook his head. “I will radio to Karin.”
“Thanks,” Yael said, as she opened the car door.
Yael stepped out of the police car and began walking. The sky was dark with dense gray clouds. The wind howled and groaned across the empty grassland, thick with salt and the smell of the sea, buffeting her from side to side so hard she could barely walk. The black stone road was slick with rain, its tiny cobbles glistening. She could see Karin standing by the side of the road wearing a green parka.
Karin watched Yael approach, and quickly hugged her when she arrived. “Fara med Gudi, go with God,” she whispered in Yael’s ear.
Yael continued walking until the first Iranian security guard came into view. He was tall, at least six feet, with a long, curved nose. He wore a black rain cape, the Glock pistol in his hand tracking Yael as she came toward him. Her senses were turbocharged, her skin prickling from the rain, the adrenalin burning away her fear as the shrieks and caws of the seabirds carried on the wind. Bessastadir loomed ahead, first the steeple of the small church and then the pristine white wall and red-tiled roof of the presidential residence, ringed by more men in black rain capes.
The man with the Glock gestured to her that she should follow him. She counted six bodies lying on the ground outside the house, two Icelanders and four Americans. Two more Iranians in capes stood by the front door, but they stepped aside as the tall man escorted Yael forward. She stepped into the residence, and he gestured for her to take her coat off. He frisked her briskly, thoroughly, professionally: armpits, small of the back, ankles, even behind her ears. A few seconds later the door at the end of the corridor opened.
“Hello, Ms. Azoulay,” said Salim Massoud. “Come with me, please.”
35
The Iranian guard made to follow Yael, but Massoud shook his head and waved him off. She walked after Massoud alone, through the house to the lounge in President Gunnarsdottir’s private quarters. He sat down at the head of the long wooden table, Yael at a right angle next to him. They sat in silence for several seconds as the grandfather clock ticked loudly and steadily.
His silver hair, his cheek implants, had gone. Here was the man whose face Yael knew well from photographs. Intelligent, calculating brown eyes; well barbered, with a salt-and-pepper beard; skin the color of cappuccino; generous, almost sensual lips.
She said, “We don’t have much time. I will be brief, and direct, if I may.”
Massoud inclined his head.
Yael started speaking: “Your demands are absurd. A verbal commitment from the president, vice president, and Senate majority leader to the withdrawal of all American forces and military advisers from Iraq. The removal of Hezbollah from the list of terrorist organizations. The cancellation of all military aid to Israel and the ending of all intelligence cooperation. Shall I go on?”
A flicker of a smile crossed Massoud’s lips. “No need. There is no expectation that they will be met. They do not need to be, for now. But they are out there, being discussed on Twitter, talk shows, blogs, and in the newspaper comment sections. And once Iran and the United States go to war, they will become part of America’s conversation. Soon the body bags will start coming home, and the American people will ask why their sons and daughters are dying, and for what? Each pillar of American foreign policy will crack. Then they will collapse. There is nothing to discuss.”
Yael slid her chair back and started to stand up. “You will guarantee me safe passage back to the police line?”
“Wait.”
“For what?” asked Yael. She stood behind the chair but did not move.
Massoud said, “You did not come empty-handed.”
Yael pressed a button on Ortega’s iPhone and then passed it to Massoud. A video window showed a thin young man pacing back and forth in a gray concrete cell. His face was blank but he scratched ceaselessly at his back, his shoulders, his neck, his limbs twitching. Yael glanced at Massoud. The assassin had vanished, replaced by a father. She watched the emotions flow across Massoud’s face: the anguish of a parent who is watching his child suffer; the fury that he, as a parent, cannot prevent it; the pure, animal lust for revenge against whoever had done this.
Massoud’s fingers were locked solid as he gripped the phone. “How long has he been there?”
“Five years. Since the Americans picked him up. He is in reasonable health, considering.”