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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 ofthe 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

    T HE 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.”
    “I think you have the wrong number.”
    “You said you were Mark Sava. John gave me this number. He said he sometimes stayed here, that you were his friend.”
    A lightbulb clicked on in Mark’s head.
    “Are you talking about John Decker?”
    Eight months ago, when the CIA was under siege in Baku, Mark had worked with Decker. They’d gotten along well enough professionally, and Decker had proved his worth many times over. Then three months ago, Decker had shown up uninvitedat Mark’s apartment and asked whether he could crash there for a week or so, seeing as he was between contractor jobs. Mark hadn’t been thrilled with the arrangement, but he’d said OK.
    “I’m trying to reach him.”
    “He’s not here,” said Mark. “Honestly, this isn’t a good time.”
    “I haven’t heard from him in two weeks, no phone calls, no e-mails, nothing. I’ve left a million messages for him, he just doesn’t answer.”
    Mark heard a couple of dogs barking. Speaking in a thick New England