The Shield of Darius by Allen Kent

Author:Allen Kent [Kent, Allen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2012-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

When he needed to think – seriously think—Christopher Falen always went to the island. He kept an apartment at Chincoteague across Chesapeake Bay, down the coast into Virginia. Here he found that the neat framed cottages with their tidy fenced gardens had a certain other-worldliness about them that took him away from the frenzied seriousness of the Capitol. From his condominium, he rode a bicycle the few miles out to Assateague National Seashore where the brine air of the gray Atlantic cleared his head, and the rhythmic sloshing of rippled waves against the rocky beach opened his mind and let his thoughts move freely.

The thing with Javad had shaken him. He had been careless and he knew it. The Sunday following his visit to the farmhouse, he walked slowly south toward Chincoteague Inlet in shorts and an open shirt, gazing absently over the gently rolling water of the Atlantic. As he walked he rubbed his chain-bruised neck and systematically turned the puzzle that Javad had completed for him in his head. It was a pretty slick operation. Steal thirty Americans from every part of the country whose kidnappings, once made public, would provoke widespread outcry and consternation – and then just hold them. Warehouse them. When things got hot, drop them in the U.S. Government’s lap like a whole new Tehran Embassy crisis – but in six undisclosed locations.

Javad had been right about tapping the national weakness. Americans would do just about anything to save a civilian life, even if it got a bunch of people killed. And when the country was run by the drive to get re-elected, to hell with public good and right decisions. Politicians did what needed to be done to get back in office. Every citizen, informed or not, had a right to vote, and if locked away where he couldn’t, was connected to a million other voters by blood or sympathy. And a million voters who wanted to make a fuss about something could override just about any elected official’s good judgment. Iran had learned from the 1980 hostage crisis that in the United States, national interest is a slave to special interest. Iran had Uncle Sam by the balls, and if the man in the striped pants and top hat raised his fist over the Persian Gulf, he was going to feel the lasting pain of a sharp, twisting jerk.

Fisher’s people had picked up the Majorca kidnapping team after Broom’s transfer. Like Javad, the captive Persians had all silently disappeared. Falen had no idea what had happened to them. He didn’t really care. His problem now was figuring out what to do about the thirty Americans being held in the Rubaiyat Hotel and he didn’t have much time. When whoever was running this operation in Tehran learned that Javad, Baktiar, and the Majorca team were missing, the hostages would be moved around the country. He’d called Fisher, hoping the faceless voice would have answers. He was relieved when Fisher answered himself.

“I have some information for you.

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