The Leveling

He wasn’t an idiot; he’d be OK.

Mark rifled through the jumble of papers and pens and scholarly books that were still on his desk. Where was the damn thumb drive? It was neon yellow, and he’d left it to the right of the computer, next to the coffee mug he’d been using as a penholder.

But it wasn’t there now.

“You motherfuckers,” he muttered.

It’s probably somewhere on the floor, he told himself. Besides, he had a third backup, one that he’d made on a CD a couple of months ago. He’d lose a lot of work, but losing two months was better than losing two years. He’d stored the CD in his bedroom closet, in an old shoebox.

The shoebox was upended on the floor of his closet. Scattered around it were old computer cords, spare rolls of Scotch tape, extra pens, envelopes, and Post-it notes—but no CD.

Beginning to panic now, Mark dropped to the floor and searched through everything in the room. The security guards eventually took pity on him, asked what he was looking for, and joined in the hunt. Together they scoured every inch of the apartment.

Eventually Mark’s minders said it was time to leave for the airport. Then the phone rang.





11


Washington, DC



THE CONFERENCE ROOM on the ground floor of the West Wing had an unnatural smell to it, the result of the ozone from constantly running air filters.

“This meeting is called to order,” said the president. “We’re here to discuss how to respond to recent intelligence reports coming out of Iran. I’ll cede the floor to Jim.”

A bald former four-star admiral, currently the director of national intelligence, produced a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and began to pass them out. “The president’s daily brief. The president has already reviewed it and approved its distribution to the Security Council. It provides a summary of all that we know to date.”

The room fell silent, except for the sound of papers rustling, as the vice president, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and the national security advisor all read the two-page document.

After a minute, the secretary of state smacked her palm on the table. “Good God. Do we have any independent confirmation that this really happened to Khorasani’s daughter?”

“The CIA station in Dubai runs a couple agents on Kish Island,” said the DNI. “They’re telling us local police responded to an incident around the time that we believe the attack occurred. No charges were filed and the police incident log makes reference to a robbery, but evidently that wouldn’t be unusual for a case like this, especially given that she is, in fact, the youngest daughter of the supreme leader of Iran. CIA and DIA think she was targeted by Sunni extremists hoping to inflame the whole situation in the Middle East and goad Khorasani into doing something crazy. Hence the Star of David marks carved on her body.”

“Jesus,” said the secretary of defense. He shook his head, evidently dumbfounded by the report. “When is this transfer supposed to take place?”

“Three days.”

“Has anyone tried to reach out to Khorasani directly?”

“Our back channel through the Turks got shut down two months ago.”

“Is the Mossad report all we have to go on? The Israelis aren’t exactly objective observers here.”

“Persia House,” said the DNI, referring to the CIA group that had split from the Near East Division to focus exclusively on Iran, “reports that two hours ago the Iranian resistance group the MEK confirmed with their CIA liaison key elements of what you just read. The question now is, what do we do about it?”

“Or rather, what are the Israelis going to do about it?” said the president, tapping an arthritic finger on the table. “Because I can tell you all with certainty that the Israelis are going to act soon to stop Khorasani, regardless of what we do. I know they’ve thrown out threats to Iran before and haven’t acted on them. But this is the real deal. There’s no way in hell they’re going to let the Iranians throw a punch like that.”

“How soon is soon?” asked the secretary of state.

“Forty-eight hours tops. The only question is whether we get ahead of the shit storm by joining them, or whether we sit on our asses and take our lumps as they come.”





12


Baku, Azerbaijan



THE CALLER ID that popped up on Mark’s landline phone just said International. Probably Langley, he thought, wanting to make sure he was clearing out. He was tempted to just let it ring.

He picked up.

“Sava here.”

“Is this Mark Sava?” It was a man, and he sounded slightly out of breath.

“Ah, yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Did you get my messages?”

Mark glanced down to the rapidly blinking light on his answering machine. “No.”

“I tried calling yesterday, and earlier today.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

Mark’s minders looked at him impatiently.

“John. I’m John Junior’s dad.”