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admires you. He called you ‘tenacious.’”
    I leaned toward him. “Hear me on this. If you are working with Vox to bring any harm to the United States or its people, I will make it my life’s work to tear your world apart. I’m not talking about government sanctions, and I’m not even talking about a black ops hit. You’ll go to sleep one night and when you wake up it’ll be you and me someplace where you can scream all you want, because believe me you will want to scream.” He started to smile at the brash phrasing, but I leaned an inch closer. “If you’re here then you know who I am, and what I’ve done. You know that most of the wiring inside my head is already fucked. It wouldn’t take much to push me all the way over the line. Look at me. Look into my eyes, tell me if I’m lying.”
    His mouth tightened into a hard line as he cut a glance at his bodyguard, who was cleaning his fingernails with a toothpick, and back to me.
    He said, “You are correct, Captain Ledger. I do know who—and what —you are. And it is for that reason that I risked so much to meet you.”
    “And Vox?”
    Rasouli’s lip curled as if he suddenly smelled dog shit on his shoe. “He is an insect to be stepped on. If you are asking if he and I are conspiring together, then no. I would sooner let a desert camel have its way with me.”
    “And yet you can call him up for favors any time you want?”
    He thought about that, shrugged, took a pen and notebook from his pocket, wrote a string of numbers, tore off the page, and handed it to me. “All I have ever had for him is a phone number. It’s a cell number that we have never been able to trace.”
    I looked at the number. “What are the chances that Vox will answer this call?”
    “I do not know and do not care,” he said. “Vox is your concern. If you can use that number to find him, then do so with my blessings.”
    “Is this the party line?”
    Rasouli shook his head. “No. Vox has friends among the ayatollahs, but you probably know that.”
    “Is he in Iran?”
    “I have no idea.”
    We sat for a moment with that floating in the air between us. Then I slipped the page into my shirt pocket. “God help you if you’re lying to me.”
    Rasouli frowned, but it wasn’t a fear reaction. It looked as if he was considering another aspect of what I’d said. Perhaps it was the reference to “God.” Whatever it was, he nodded.
    “There are times, Captain, that people who share as many ideological and political differences as do we can share a compatible view of something else. In prisons, for example, even the most hardened murderers cannot abide a molester of children.”
    I said nothing.
    “Before we continue, Captain Ledger, let’s be clear on something,” he said. “I know that it was you who freed the spies last night.”
    “Don’t even try,” I warned. “Those three kids were hikers. They’re as close to being spies as I am to being a prima ballerina, and believe me I don’t look good in a tutu.”
    He arched an eyebrow. “Are you really so naïve that you believe their cover story? I would think someone of your caliber would be in the loop.”
    “I am. They’re not spies.”
    “This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered this kind of thing,” he said. “You always send ‘kids’ to spy on us. You think the veneer of innocence is more convincing than it is. The Peace Corps was created with CIA money. Doctors Without Borders, the World Health Organization … they’re all fronts and everyone knows it. It’s not even an ‘open secret’ anymore.”
    “Horseshit.” I said it loud enough to finally provoke the doofus bodyguard, Feyd, to take notice. I wanted to see how he reacted. He straightened and looked around like an old dog that had just woken from a deep sleep. Rasouli watched me watching and waved Feyd back with an irritable flick of his hand.
    “Of course, you would deny it,” Rasouli snapped. “You deny it because you think I’m