Satan's Spy (The Steve Church saga Book 2) André Gallo (top 100 books of all time checklist TXT) 📖

action she had learned from being married to a policeman. In time, she was able to learn the names of those assigned to the Swiss Embassy. When she saw the diplomatic list that Jafar kept at home, the solution was there in front of her eyes: the Swiss ambassador’s wife, Francine Klosters.

The presence of the driver complicated the implementation of her simple plan. Suri was still following Francine, and the driver and was beginning to think that she would never have the opportunity. However, when the couple approached the row where several stores had bolts of cloth stacked up as high as a grown man, the driver was hailed by one of the merchants. They spoke animatedly for a few minutes, and the driver, with a sign to his employer that he would be only a minute, disappeared in a back room behind a red curtain.

Suri moved quickly. With her paper in her hand, she closed the gap to Francine Klosters in a few seconds, keeping an anxious eye on the red curtain. She reached her and called her in a low but urgent tone as she had rehearsed in her mind many times over, as best as she could in English.

“Mrs. Klosters, Mrs. Klosters. For Ambassador Crossley. Crossley. Only Crossley.”

She looked into the European’s green eyes to force understanding. She squeezed the woman’s fingers around the sheet of paper, all the while staring into each eye in turn but only seeing confusion and fear. She then left quickly before the driver returned and didn’t look back.

 

35. Tehran: Farah’s Apartment

Steve checked out of the hotel, his senses alert for any unusual attention being given to him. The clerk was professional but not friendly. If anything, he seemed a bit tight, and inquisitive. Steve wondered if he was imagining things.

“Are you going back to Canada, Mr. Breton?” he asked.

“No, not yet. I thought that I would see a bit more of your country before I go home.”

“Where will you go?”

“Tabriz has been highly recommended.” Pointing to his suitcase, he said, “I want to travel light, and I won’t need all of my things. So I wonder if I could leave this suitcase here in safekeeping.”

“Of course. When will you be coming back?”

“In about ten days. Give or take a day or two. Can you hold a room for me?” Steve hoped that the suitcase and the reservation should allay any initial suspicions that he was going “black,” no longer depending on the fig leaf of his cover.

“Yes, Mr. Breton. Have a good trip.”

Steve gave him two hundred thousand rials, or a bit more than twenty dollars.

The clerk had warmed up a bit, or at least seemed less anxious after Steve said he was coming back. If the police had shown interest in him, the clerk was covered since Steve said he was coming back. The backshish had helped, too. It was with a certain amount of relief that he took a taxi to the Tehran Hotel and parked himself on one of the easy chairs in the lobby. Steve had expected that his departure might run into some sort of problem, and he had concocted his story that would help everyone relax. He looked at his watch wanting to telegraph a purpose to anyone interested. He read a paper and observed the comings and goings.

He then took a second taxi to the Ferdosi Grand Hotel, where he did the same thing; one repeat from his previous stop, a man about twenty-five years old dressed in jeans and Nikes. He now wore a Caterpillar baseball cap, but he was almost certain that he had seen him in the lobby of the Tehran Hotel wearing a Yankee cap. He hadn’t changed his Nikes, or the unusual brown laces.

Steve knew it was normally best to ignore surveillance to convince your tail that you are not aware of their presence, therefore not a trained intelligence officer and therefore not a threat. All done to persuade surveillance to give you a long leash or stop surveilling you. However, in this case, he could not lead the surveillance to Farah’s apartment, or to Farah herself by allowing “Brown Laces” to see her license plate. He was going “black”; he was going underground. He had twenty-five minutes before Farah and Kella picked him up near a shopping center. He thought that if “Brown Laces” was alone, he could shake him. If he was part of a larger team, he had a problem.

He got into another cab and saw that “Brown Laces” was now trying to find his own transportation. He apparently was alone and without vehicular support. Steve told the driver to head north. They crossed Talegani and, about ten blocks further, made a left on Karim Khan-e-Zand and another left by the St. Sarkis Church. Fifteen minutes later, they reached a shopping center on Hafez. Steve got out and knew that he had about three minutes on his shadow. He headed into the complex and entered the only large store. He knew that it had an entrance on the street where Kella would be waiting for him and hoped she was on time, not stuck in traffic five miles away.

He was well into the bowels of the store before he judged that “Brown Laces” must now be coming through the revolving doors he had used. Steve found the entrance he was looking for and went straight for it.

Once outside, no one was waiting for him; no Kella. He looked up the street but didn’t see Farah’s blue Saman that Kella had described. The Saman was the replacement for the old Paykhan, the Iranian version of East Germany’s Trabant. Suddenly he felt someone touch his shoulder from behind. It was Kella who said, “Come on, she’s around the corner. We had to go around. The street was blocked coming this way.”

Steve was not interested in the