"So, you're set, Lieutenant. Uniform of the day tomorrow will be cammies like I have on, and boots. Report to the quarterdeck promptly at oh-eight-hundred and you'll be brought to our area."
DeWitt hesitated. "Oh, Kat. Out here in Navy world, your temp rank will carry weight. Inside SEAL country rank doesn't mean squat. Some of the guys might get on you. Take it in good spirit. These men depend on each other for their very lives when we're out there on a mission. Somebody fucks up, somebody dies. We don't want that to happen. That's why we've got four weeks to make you into the best SEAL there ever was."
Kat bit her lip and squinted her brown eyes. "Lieutenant DeWitt, I like to think I'm a fast learner. I'll do my damnedest to learn what I must, to do what I have to, and to make sure that I don't cause any glitches in the traditional SEAL procedures. Thanks for the escort, and I'll see you bright and early at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow."
4
George Imhoff didn't believe his eyes or his ears. The four-hundred-pound man had demanded to know who he was. This Brooklyn blubber ball was an American.
Yasmeen moved into the void quickly. "Please let us in, and I'll explain everything. Come on, Tauksaun, it's an emergency."
The huge man waddled back from the door and made a narrow passage for them to enter. It was a single room, with a small kitchen on one side, a bed on the other, and two chairs in between. The bed was a mattress on the floor. George figured no bedsprings or frame could support all that weight.
The man she had called Tauksaun settled down on the bed and stared at George.
"He's a fucking American government man, FBI or the damned CIA or something. I don't want him in my place."
"Tauksaun, he just shot two, and maybe more, Secret Police. They have a dragnet out to find him. I figure he must be on our side."
"So he is CIA. I can spot you guys a mile away. What the fuck you looking for?"
"Where are you from, Tauksaun?" George asked. "Where in Brooklyn?"
"What do you mean, Brooklyn. I'm from Hempstead out on the Island."
"Sure you are. My guess would be Flatbush Avenue, down toward the Marine Park. Maybe Nostrand Avenue."
"Hey, man, you're way off. No fucking Flatbush Avenue. We had more class than that. Hey, you are CIA, right?"
"Why else would I be in this hellhole? What are you doing here?"
"Hiding from the damn IRS. Claim I owe them over a hundred thousand, with all of their penalties and interest. CIA, damn. What the hell you looking for?"
"Important shit. I don't know if Yasmeen thought you could help me, or just hide me for a couple of days."
"Hey, anything I can do to put a hot poker up the ass of the Secret Police, I'll do in a second."
Yasmeen looked at George. "Tauksaun knows a great many people in Tehran. He's lived here for five years. Most of the protest groups seek his advice."
"Is there a protest group against nuclear weapons?" George asked.
Tauksaun laughed and slapped his bare thigh. "Now we're getting down to where the rubber meets the road. Nuclear weapons, of course. What else would the CIA be interested in? I have contacts, but they are not easy to locate. I'm not good at running through the rat warren this town has become. They should starve half the people here, and start over."
"You know about the work the Iranian government is doing to make nuclear weapons?"
"Yes, we hear talk. We go to meetings. We have some sources of information, but sometimes they turn out to be spies for the Secret Police. Then that whole cell is wiped out. As in gravestones."
"We need a little information," George said. "Yasmeen said her father had done some heavy hauling deep into the southern section of Iran. We think it was building materials and supplies, and tools for work on a nuclear bomb."
"You want to pinpoint the location of the facility," Tauksaun said. "Yes, we, too have been working toward that end. We have little. Somewhere in the mountains of lower Iran. We also know that it is carefully camouflaged and can't be detected from the air by plane or satellite."
"That makes it tougher," George said. "It must have a road that leads into it."
"We've heard of a road, but it ends abruptly at the side of a mountain. There's a sheepherder's cabin there. The problem is there are thousands of sheepherders' cabins in those southern mountains and the high plateau. Finding the right one would be a wonder."
A door opened a few inches at the back of the room. Yasmeen watched it, then lifted from her chair and, without a word to the two men, went through the door and closed it.
"Tiny," Tauksaun said. "My woman and Yasmeen are good friends. Haven't seen each other in a month or two. We've been busy."
"Do the Iranian authorities know you're here?" George asked.
"Hell no. If they did they'd deport my ass in a minisecond."
"How do you survive?"
"Tiny works at a store. Slave wages, but it's enough for us. I'm not what you'd call easily employable."
"I've had a deadline kicked in my face," George said. "I have six more days to find the exact location of that nuke facility. I've been working on it two months, and thought we had it knocked. Then my rep here goes to meet this engineer we know works at the plant. Next thing I know I'm up to my asshole in Secret Police shooting at me."
"Your rep?"
"Either in jail or in the morgue."
"They don't have morgues here. If they killed him, he's probably on a trash heap somewhere. If the family finds him, they can bury him. Did he have any U.S. dollars with him?"
"Fifteen hundred."
"He's dead."
"I figured." They sat there for five minutes without a word. Then George broke the silence. "Tauksaun, can you help me?"
"You have a radio in that kit?"
"Yes."
"You have plenty of U.S. dollars?"
"YeS."
"Either one of those could get all of us in the place killed in a heartbeat. First we hide the radio, and all but twenty bucks of the cash. They won't burn us for a twenty. The fucking Secret Police keep all the dollars they find. Always have, always will."
"Hide them?"
"Yes. I'll know where they are. So will Tiny. A way to keep you alive. You have papers?"
George nodded and handed over his tourist visa and other papers, including a U.S. passport and a letter ascertaining that he was a professor of Middle Eastern history at New York University on leave to study some ancient manuscripts.
"Ever had to show them to anyone?"
"Just some hick cop to the north."
"Parachute in?"
"No, came across the border from Russia."
They were silent again.
The door opened, and Yasmeen came in followed by an extremely small woman. She was only a little over four feet tall, delicately proportioned, with long black hair to her waist, and flashing black eyes. Her skin was the color of toasted almonds.
Yasmeen took her to George, who hurriedly stood. Tiny stepped back. Yasmeen told her in Farsi that in America a man standing when a woman entered a room was a mark of politeness and respect. Tiny frowned but nodded.
"George, I want you to meet Tiny. She takes care of Tauksaun. Tiny, this is George." Tiny bowed briefly, her eyes downcast. At last she glanced up at him, smiled, and hurried back through the door they came in.
Tauksaun smiled. "Usually Tiny doesn't meet my friends. She's shy."
Yasmeen went back to her seat.