Callsign: Bishop (Erik Somers) (Chesspocalypse #5)

Bishop stopped at the exit to the airport, watching as dozens of taxis vied for position outside the doors. Amidst the taxis, a large number of shuttles sat idling in the parking lot, waiting to carry passengers to one hotel or another. Private vehicles were prohibited from this area, and with good reason. With all the people milling around the waiting cabs and shuttles, there was barely enough room to breathe. He kept his eyes forward, scanning the vehicles for an empty taxi, but occasionally he glanced into nearby windows and mirrors, checking to see if the two men from the gate were still tailing him.

He’d picked up on their attention the moment he stepped off the plane. They tried to be subtle, but his years of experience, combined with his extensive training and natural paranoia, made them easy to spot. Two men of medium height and build, both dressed as laborers, had followed him to the exit. One of them had already made a call with his cell phone, so Bishop knew they had friends waiting somewhere up ahead. But what did they want with him?

There were several Americans on board the plane, most far less intimidating than Bishop. If these two men and their allies were jihadists, why didn’t they latch onto one of them? Were they after him specifically? If so, did they know who he was? How? He’d chosen a commercial airliner because he wanted to get into Iran undetected and the Crescent was already in use. As far as he knew, only Deep Blue and Keasling knew he would be coming to Iran, so how did these guys find out?

Whoever they were, they would probably wait until after he left the airport before they tried anything. Airport security at Imam Khomeini was pretty tight, and the men would have had a hard time smuggling guns into the building. Additionally, the whole airport could be locked down in seconds if anything remotely resembling a terrorist plot were detected. So as long as he stayed in the airport, he would probably be safe. But then he would never find out who they were, not to mention that he couldn’t investigate the Manifold site from an airport restroom. If he wanted to get on with his job, he would have to get going and trust his training to deal with any obstacles that might come up along the way.

Bishop spotted an empty taxi idling down the lot. The driver must have just arrived, because he was far back in the crowd of cars and shuttles and he didn’t have a fare yet. Bishop tightened his grip on his briefcase and started toward the taxi. Along the way, he glanced into the windshield of a waiting shuttle. There were the two men, milling around near the exit and watching his back. He chuckled. They weren’t very good at this. They might be able to stalk an unwitting tourist, but if they hoped to surprise him, they were going to be sorely disappointed.

Out of habit, Bishop checked the back seat of the taxi to make sure it was empty, then he swung open the door and climbed inside, watching as the two men following him climbed into another taxi about fifty yards away. His driver—a dark-skinned man with short, curly black hair and a black baseball cap—sat in the front seat, separated from the passenger compartment by a solid piece of Plexiglas, most likely bullet proof. Such things were common in Tehran, he recalled. Hell, they were common in New York and Los Angeles, too. Big cities tended to attract crime, no matter where in the world they were located.

“The Evin Hotel,” Bishop said in Persian, referring to a newly renovated hotel about half an hour from the airport. Once there he would change into different clothes and hire transportation out to the Kavir. He thought about how the two men had been waiting for him and realized he couldn’t come back to Imam Khomeini for a while. He’d have to look for charter planes leaving one of Tehran’s other airports.

The driver nodded and put the car into gear. A minute later, they were speeding and bobbing through airport traffic as the driver weaved and honked his way out of the Imam Khomeini complex. Bishop lost sight of the men following him, but he reasoned that they probably lost sight of him, as well. Good.

Of course, if they did know who he was and why he was here, then it wouldn’t matter. Somewhere up ahead, their friends would be waiting for him. He would just have to be ready.

Outside the airport grounds, the traffic didn’t improve. The driver switched lanes at random and cut back and forth between other cars trying to make headway, but it was still slow going. Tehran was home to over 8 million people, and such a large number made travel through the city itself inherently slow going, especially at certain times of the day.

After about an hour, Bishop spotted the street leading to the Evin Hotel. He’d been there before a few years earlier, and he’d been to Tehran enough times to have a good working knowledge of the city’s layout, so he was a bit surprised when the driver passed right by the street.