Oath of Loyalty (Mitch Rapp #21)(82)

Claudia was visible over his shoulder. She was leaning against the workbench twirling a screwdriver deftly in her left hand. Her expression was even more enigmatic and unexpected. Dead, but with a gleam in her eye that suggested… lust. For what? Her? Blood? Both? It was then that she realized something else. Claudia Gould was right-handed.

Cyrah returned her gaze to the ceiling, now blazing with LED light. The man hovering over her seemed to read her mind and answered the question consuming it.

“She’s in Uganda with Anna.”

He leaned back and crossed his legs, bringing a black cowboy boot into Cyrah’s field of vision. “Now, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

She’d been taught to remain silent during questioning. Anything she said would be used against her by the people on the other side. The ones still capable of coherent thought. The ones who weren’t suffering.

“I don’t like interrogations,” he said when she didn’t answer. “Don’t make me turn this into one.”

The woman at the back suddenly raised a hand as though she were a schoolgirl trying to get her teacher’s attention. “I’ll work on her.”

The accent was British, not French.

Burhan twisted around and glared at her. She lowered her hand and went back to twirling the tool. When he faced forward again, his irritation had deepened and Cyrah’s calm had started to crack. If they were playing good cop/bad cop, they were doing an excellent job of it. After hearing only a few words, she was entirely focused on not being left alone with that woman.

“My name is Cyrah Jafari.”

There was no reason not to speak, she reminded herself. This wasn’t for God or country. It wasn’t even for her sisters, who were in no danger from anything she could say. Her silence was nothing but a vestige of her training. And pride.

“Iranian?”

“Yes. I was part of a special unit that trained women to infiltrate Israel.”

“But you decided to bug out and go private.”

“The program was shut down by the new administration. My commander, after teaching me one last lesson, decided my place was in the typing pool.”

“I’ll bet the typing pool sounds pretty good right now.”

“No,” she said after a few seconds’ thought. “It still doesn’t.”

He folded his arms and stared down at her for probably thirty seconds. “I have to hand it to you. If there was a magazine called Leafy Greens Monthly, that head of lettuce would be a centerfold.”

“Thank you. I trimmed it by hand. The secret, though, is in the wax. That’s what gives it the satiny appearance under the lights. My compliments on making your servant’s compulsions seem so real.”

“No, she’s really like that. You have no idea how many ways a silverware drawer can be arranged.”

Cyrah smiled sadly and he reached over, tapping the thing on her stomach.

“What’s in here?”

She lifted her head and saw the syringe that had been destined for Claudia. “E. coli bacteria along with a heavy dose of the toxin they produce.”

“Isn’t that what was on the lettuce?”

“No. Too unpredictable. That was a non-lethal synthetic poison I mixed with the wax so it couldn’t be washed off. Undetectable by normal methods and it tends to act within a very narrow time frame. We did put bacteria on various other heads of lettuce from that supplier, though. You’ll start to see people in the area fall ill over the next few days, but not fatally. It would have covered Claudia’s death.”

“Very thorough.”

“Thank you. May I ask how you knew?”

“We don’t eat anything Bebe buys from the store. Our food came in on one of the early construction supply trucks.” He pointed and she managed to crane her neck far enough to see a set of mouse cages.

“We’ve been testing everything she brings in. None of the mice would touch that lettuce. The food poisoning angle seemed obvious at that point.”

“Yes,” Cyrah responded quietly. “I suppose so. Obvious.”

“But you didn’t do all this yourself.”

“No.”

“How many more?”

“Two.”

“Names?”

“Nasrin Pour and Yasmin Housseini.”

“Where are they?”

“I have no idea.”

He took the syringe from her abdomen and turned it thoughtfully in his hands. “That’s the wrong answer.”

“But you know it’s the truth. Our operation is built entirely on secrecy. I never know where they are. And now that I haven’t checked in, they’ve run.”

“But you have a way of reconnecting with them.”

“Of course. But again, they’d never reveal their locations to me. In any event, they’re no threat to you. Even if they were to decide that they want revenge—which they have no reason to—they aren’t operators. They’re analysts. If you have contacts in Iranian intelligence, you can confirm this.”

He started playing with the syringe again and she knew what he was thinking. That she would have a way to warn them if he forced her to initiate contact. And, of course, he was right.

Finally, he twisted around and looked at the woman by the workbench again. “Brunch?”