“I grabbed a quick bite in the Operations Center cafeteria.”
“Good. This will take a while.”
“What’s going on?”
Lay handed him a thin folder. “Recognize this man?”
Harry flipped the folder open and briefly studied the 8x10 photo inside. “Moshe Tal,” he announced calmly, his voice betraying none of his inner confusion. “Israel’s foremost archaeologist.”
“You know him?”
“By reputation only. A modern-day Indiana Jones, so they say.”
“Whoever ‘they’ are, they’re right. He’s a cowboy.”
“So I’ve heard. Not too much regard for the conventions of the business. Where’s he fit into this picture?”
The CIA director snorted. “He is the picture. Six months ago he obtained permission from the Iranian government to conduct an archaeological dig in the Alborz Mountains, apparently in the ruins of a medieval Persian city.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Harry interrupted. “They allowed an Israeli archaeologist inside their borders?”
“It’s already sounding rather strange, isn’t it?”
“You’d better believe it. How large of a team does Dr. Tal have with him?”
“The team was very small. That’s another one of his trademarks. Fifteen in all including Dr. Tal, thirteen Americans and an Australian woman named Rachel Eliot.”
“No other Israelis?”
A grim smile creased the director’s face. “They obeyed their government’s injunction to stay out of Iran.”
“Our citizens didn’t? Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Because they usually don’t.”
“Wait a minute, director,” Harry said, suddenly holding up his hand. “You said the team was very small. What’s happened?”
Director Lay opened his desk drawer and took out another folder, handing it across. “That’s why you’re here. They’ve disappeared.”
Harry’s only reaction was raised eyebrows. “Indeed.”
“They disappeared five days ago,” the director nodded. “The whole team. Every last one of them. It’s all in the folder there. Every blessed thing we know about it.”
Harry opened the folder, taking out a couple of glossy photographs, clearly enhanced from a satellite.
“The first one is from the 13th. Because of the number of Americans in the team, we were doing a daily satellite overpass of the camp. Just to make sure nothing happened to them.”
“But something did.”
Lay nodded. “Correct. The first photograph, digitally enhanced from the KH-13 overpass, shows a bustling camp,” he noted, referencing the Key Hole spy satellite. “Almost everyone is present in the photo. One of the Americans, Joel Mullins, is missing, but on thermal scan, we picked up a heat signature from inside one of the tents.”
“So, he was probably inside.”
“Likely. Now take a look at the second photo, taken on the 14th. What do you see?”
“Nothing,” Harry said slowly. “No people, no tents, nothing. It’s all gone.” He looked up. “It’s been five days now. Anything?”
“Yes.” The DCIA pulled a third photograph from his desk and handed it over. “Take a look at this.”
Harry did as he was told. His eyes opened wide. “What on earth are they doing there?”
“That’s what I need you to find out.”
“Cut that out!” Thomas Parker spluttered, waking up abruptly from his nap as water splashed over him.
The thirty-six-year-old New York native looked up at the young woman standing over him, at the now empty bucket in her hands, water dripping suspiciously from its rim. Mischief glinted in her dark eyes. She made a quick motion as though to toss it at him, giggling uncontrollably as he rolled off the blanket into the sand.
“I said, cut it out, Julie!” he protested, the sand sticking to his wet chest.
“Are you going to make me?” she laughed, dancing away from him as he grabbed for her ankle.
He leaned back, slicking his wet brown hair back from his forehead, gazing up at his girlfriend. “No, probably not. But sooner or later—” he shook his finger at her. “You’ll see.”
“I’ll see what?”
At that moment, his cellphone rang and whatever his reply might have been was forever lost as he reached for it. Words were blinking on-screen: SECURE CONNECTION. It had to be Kranemeyer. And that didn’t bode well for his plans for the evening. He stood and glanced over at Julie.
“This is private,” he warned her, rapidly tapping in the code sequence for the encrypted line.
“What is it, another girlfriend?” she demanded, watching his face closely.
He shook his head, grinning back at her.
“No, it’s my boss.” He stepped another few feet away from the sun umbrella he had been lying under. “Thomas speaking.”
“Where the devil are you, Parker? I tried your home phone, but I couldn’t reach you there.”
“I’m on vacation, sir. Why would I be at home? I’m in Atlantic City, taking in the surf and sand.”
“Well, your vacation’s over. I need you back at Langley right away. Something’s come up.”
“Right away?” Thomas with palpable reluctance, glancing back at Julie. He was going to have fun explaining this one.
“Listen, Parker, I want you back on base as fast as possible. We’re deploying. Do you have any further questions?”
“No.” The tone in Director Bernard Kranemeyer’s voice made it clear that none were desired. And Thomas hadn’t survived nine years in the National Clandestine Service by pushing his boss to the edge. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.”
“Good,” was the curt reply as Kranemeyer hung up. Thomas stared at the phone for a couple seconds before putting it away.
“What was that all about?” he heard Julie ask.
He picked her jeans up from the back of a beach chair and tossed them at her. “Get dressed,” he instructed tersely. “We’re leaving.”
“Why?” she asked, still holding the pants in her arms.
“I’ve got to go back to work,” he shot back. “Now let’s get moving!”
“Parker is on his way back from Atlantic City. Zakiri was out in Seattle visiting his family, got back in this morning on United. Richards is coming up from the Farm.” Bernard Kranemeyer reported, referring to the CIA’s training center in Quantico, Virginia. “I think that about has it, right?”
“ Wrong,” Harry stated, folding his arms across his chest. Light flashed from his eyes. “I’d like to know why you’re sending my team in to do what a diplomatic envoy should be able to accomplish? Not to mention how you ever got an anti-war president to authorize this incursion.”
“Two reasons,” Lay replied evenly. “In the first place, the election is less than two months away, and the last thing the President wants is a hostage crisis overshadowing his bid for reelection.Now that his administration is threatened — well, this is D.C., Harry—
you know the shelf life of morals and values in this town. Bottom line, he wants action, not dialogue. As for the second reason — do you want to tell him, Barney, or shall I?”
Kranemeyer shook his head, reaching for the button on Lay’s desk. “May I, sir?”
The DCIA nodded.
Harry looked from one man to another. There was something going on here that he was unaware of. Another factor. As there typically was when his boss was involved. A former operator himself, Kranemeyer wasn’t called the “Dark Lord” for nothing.