Close Quarters: A Spy Thriller Set in Washington DC and Ukraine (Marc Portman Thriller, 2, Band 2) - Hardcover

Magson, Adrian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0727885049 ISBN 13: 9780727885043

Verlag: Severn House, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The return of The Watchman - deep cover specialist Marc Portman

Close protection specialist Marc Portman is used to finding himself in hostile situations. But none can be more unpredictable than troubled Ukraine, teetering on the brink of civil war.

When a US State Department official on a fact-finding mission to Ukraine is placed under house arrest, the CIA hire Portman (codename: Watchman) to get him safely out of the country. In that dangerous and volatile region, Portman will find himself up against local gangsters, Ukrainian Special Forces, professional snipers, pro-Russian separatists and power-crazed cops. What he cannot know however is that his most lethal enemy comes from his own side …

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Adrian Magson is the author of 20 crime and spy thrillers. His series protagonists include Gavin & Palmer, Harry Tate, Marc Portman, Insp Lucas Rocco and Gonzales & Vaslik. He is also the author of 'Write On!' a writer's help book.

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Close Quarters

A Marc Portman Thriller

By Adrian Magson

Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2015 Adrian Magson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7278-8504-3

CHAPTER 1

The man I knew as Arash Bagheri was walking into a trap. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

It's hard watching that kind of thing happen while knowing you've got to get the man out. It's three parts telling yourself you should have seen it coming and one part knowing it's your job to do something and it has to be right. Recriminations can come later.

Bagheri was approaching a street named Kandhar, not far from Tehran's central fruit and vegetable bazaar in the south of the city. A local CIA asset, he was there to conduct an exchange meeting with a man named Farshad Kasimi, an old friend who worked as a laboratory technician for the nearby Iranian Centre for Fuel and Technology Research Laboratories. Or, as the site is more accurately known among those who watch these things, the workshop where they build deadly weapons with which to kill people they don't like.

I had no idea what precisely Bagheri was here to exchange with his friend, only that it had to involve money going in and information or technology coming out. That's usually the way of these operations. My role was to make sure he came away without getting burned.

And right now that was beginning to look unlikely.

I'd scouted the area the previous evening, which was close by the ring road known as the Azadegan Expressway, noting the street layout, the exits and escape routes, and I'd left a vehicle parked in the shadow of a small park down the block just in case. Forward planning is a major element of getting this stuff right and staying out of trouble.

I hadn't seen anything about the surroundings to ring alarm bells, unless you call being stuck in a traffic jam on the expressway alongside a parked fuel tanker while the driver had a smoke and a chat with a friend, as normal. But what I had seen of Farshad Kasimi the technician, who I'd followed for a while, told me he wasn't the full deal. If you're going to put your faith in someone while spying for a foreign country, notably the USA, you should choose a man who isn't loud and gregarious and seems to like spending money freely. For a lowly technician in a state-run industry, that felt all wrong to me.

With these reservations in mind, I'd got here nearly an hour ago and found a position atop a deserted three-storey warehouse. The rooftop gave me a view of the streets near the bazaar and of the expressway running past in an east–west direction, and at least three exits if I needed them.

It was seven a.m. and the morning was heating up rapidly. I already had a coating of motor fumes, smoke and dust tasting gritty on my tongue, which sipping water from a plastic bottle did nothing to shake. And the tarpaulin I'd rigged up in the shadow of an air-conditioning unit wasn't doing much to keep the heat or the flies off me. But I knew I wouldn't have long to wait before we could be on our way out of here; the moment I saw Bagheri appear and do his thing, I'd be ready to pick him up and scoot.

The traffic in the area was a mix of private cars, buses, cabs and pickup trucks of every kind, all being buzzed by motorbikes like flies around rotten fruit. Everybody seemed eager to get their business over and done with as soon as possible before the heat of the day really set in, which meant a lot of pushing and shoving and blowing of horns.

Impatient people, the Iranians.

As I checked Kandhar Street through binoculars, I saw a familiar figure appear on the next block. From the photo I'd been shown I knew it was Bagheri. He was slim and of medium height, with receding hair down the middle and a heavy moustache. He was walking slowly and carrying a bag of fruit, and looked relaxed. He was even chewing on an apple to add a touch of casual colour, as he'd been trained to do.

Not standing out; that was essential for this business, but easier said than done when your life is on the line and you feel – know – that you're being watched because you're in a society where everybody is a suspect, even the innocent.

I ran another check of the streets around Kandhar, but there was no sign of Kasimi. He was either suffering the pains of a hangover or he'd been delayed by traffic, which is easy enough in a frenetic, crowded city like Tehran, where time is a fluid concept and apologies are always effusive and wellmeant.

Then I discovered I was wrong and the day was about to get blown apart.

A black sedan had appeared on the expressway. It was surrounded by other vehicles, yet somehow stood out within its own space, as if in a bubble. I knew instinctively why: it was too big, too new and too unlike anything a private citizen here would want to drive. Black sedans absorb heat but they also give off bad historic vibes. It had to be a car from the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, known as MOIS, the successor to the dreaded SAVAK of the old regime, some said with many of the same senior personnel in place with the same nasty habits.

I thought it might be on its way elsewhere at first, that being here in this section of the city was just a lousy coincidence of timing and circumstance. But when it signalled and slipped on to the nearby exit ramp which led to the area around the bazaar, I felt hope take wings and fly.

I focussed on the car, which was full of men. Not unusual for ministry heavies; they like to travel in packs. But the screw in the coffin, as it disappeared from sight behind a scrum of traffic, was seeing a familiar face staring out of the rear window, which had been dropped to let in some air. It was Farshad Kasimi, his hair and shirt collar moving in the breeze. He was laughing at something that had been said by the man next to him, before taking a luxurious drag of a cigarette and tossing the end out of the window.

I ducked out from under my cover and crossed the flat roof for a better view, dodging the array of television aerials and satellite dishes, and bending low before I got to the parapet. For a second I thought I'd been wrong. No sedan in sight. Then it appeared from behind some buildings and began to weave through the streets, jinking occasionally left then right, but from up on my perch, ultimately heading in one direction.

It was in no hurry – there was still a good fifteen minutes before Bagheri's scheduled meeting – but from up here I could see it was somehow too focussed on a single destination, like watching a shark closing in on its kill.

I dialled Bagheri's number. He had to get out of there now. He'd been blown by his supposed friend and he was now a target. It rang several times. No answer. Damn. Hell of a time to have it stuck at the bottom of his shopping bag. I stood up and ran downstairs, surprising a building superintendent, an old man in a long shift who popped his head out from a room and shouted. It was too late to get the car and intercept Bagheri before the sedan reached him, but I had one chance of getting him out: I knew precisely where the sedan would go once they'd picked him up.

MOIS has a number of facilities in regular use around Tehran, mostly because of the logistics of operating in such a crowded city, where traffic in the narrow streets is a constant hazard. The nearest base to this quarter was less than a mile away, and that was where I headed once I hit the street.

The interior of the car, an old Fiat, was already like a pizza oven. I dropped the windows and switched on the fan, but it moved the air...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Severn House
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0727885049
• ISBN 13: 9780727885043
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 249
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar