The Last Run Read Free Page A

these past nights, and he knew that.
    Shirazi moved to his desk, carefully shifted the stack of old surveillance photos Farzan had compiled to the side, then settled himself at the computer. He typed in his password, Farsi flashing quickly onto the screen, then entered a second password before the system permitted him to bring up the foreign operatives database. As Head of Counterintelligence for VEVAK, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the database was part of Shirazi’s bread and butter, a listing of all suspected or known opposition agents around the world, of spies, real and, in many cases, imagined, who had or might one day work against Iran’s interests. The list itself was by no means comprehensive—in intelligence, Shirazi reflected, such things never were—and much of its information was suspect. But there were gems to be found, hard intelligence that had been bought dearly.
    It was one of these gems that Shirazi went to, within the British section, under the SIS subheading. He scanned quickly until he found the name he wanted, then opened the associated file. A photograph bloomed on the monitor, four years out-of-date according to the reference, but Shirazi doubted that the woman had changed very much. The picture had been taken at the border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, from the Afghan side. The woman was wearing sunglasses, but the file claimed her eyes were blue, the same way it claimed that she was blond, and five feet eleven inches tall, both facts evident in the photograph. According to Shirazi’s information, the woman had no less than twelve different documented work-names, but the only one that mattered to him was her real one: Chace, Tara; and her job, that of Head of Section for the Special Operations Division of SIS, under the supervision of SIS Director of Operations Crocker, Paul.
    Shirazi studied the face of Tara Chace impassively, trying to discern the woman who wore it. He didn’t know her, he had never met her, all he had was speculation. He knew something of the job in Uzbekistan, and before that the one in Iraq, and another in Georgia. But no details, only guesswork, what SIS had accomplished. What this woman had accomplished.
    They would have to send her. The prize was too great, the target too high-value to risk sending anyone else, anyone less subordinate. Neither the British government nor the Americans—and there was no doubt the Americans would become involved—would settle for less. The CIA would demand the British send their best, though how Paul Crocker would get his tall, blond, female Special Operations Officer into Iran without everyone from the Quds Force to the Guardian Council knowing about it, Shirazi had no idea. Nonetheless, he had no doubt that Crocker would accomplish the task; as an adversary, Paul Crocker had long ago earned Shirazi’s respect, if not admiration.
    There was a knock at the door, and Shirazi quit the files on the monitor as his deputy entered.
    “He’s in the building,” Farzan Zahabzeh said, shutting the door behind him. “I’m having him processed right now.”
    “How did he take it?”
    “The pickup scared him, the way it always does, no matter who. Now he’s decided to be indignant.” Zahabzeh’s grin flickered with malice. “He already asked me if I know who he is.”
    Shirazi laughed. “And you said nothing?”
    “Only that we had questions for him.”
    “Good, very good.”
    There was a pause, and Shirazi saw the younger man’s attitude change, the pride of power knocked akimbo by a long-ingrained sense of self-preservation. He understood it, and knew what Zahabzeh was thinking, and knew he would have to reassure him; Shirazi could entertain his own doubts, but it was vital that Zahabzeh have none, that he be as committed, in his way, to their course as Shirazi already was.
    “There’s still time.”
    Shirazi shook his head. “No. Once he entered the building, there was no going back.”
    “We could simply