Oath of Office

* * *

Dovzhenko parked and jumped out of the Tiba, sprinting up three flights of stairs.

A young IRGC thug stopped him at the apartment door. “What are you doing here?” It was the same one he’d given the binoculars to, a foolish gesture that only made him look odd — and in the intelligence world, odd was very much akin to guilty.

“I received a tip,” Dovzhenko said, forcing his breath to slow. “I could ask the same question.”

“We have also received a tip.” Sassani strode around the corner, sleeves of his collarless gray shirt rolled up, a tight pair of black leather gloves stretched over his hands.

Dovzhenko shouldered his way past the door guard, biting his tongue when he saw Maryam’s arm trailing off the bed. A rivulet of blood ran from the crook of her elbow to drip from the tips of her fingers. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from giving himself away.

“I am confused, comrade,” Sassani said, head cocked to the side. “Why did you not call us?”

“It was merely a tip,” Dovzhenko said. “I am as surprised to see you as you are me.” He moved around the room, touching as much as he could without looking too obvious. His fingerprints were everywhere. The sunken divot from where he’d sat on the couch to smoke was still in the cushion. He glanced at the ashtray — and thought of the cigarette butt in his pocket. He and Maryam had made love twice — and she’d never gotten out of bed. He was all over this place.

Sassani looked him up and down for a long moment, like a dog looks at a piece of meat it cannot quite reach.

“She resisted?” Dovzhenko heard himself ask, the words hollow, distant though from his own mouth. It was only then that he noticed one of Sassani’s men holding a bandage to his arm.

“The bitch shot me,” the man said.

Bravo, Dovzhenko thought. He’d not known Maryam even had a gun. He moved into the bedroom as if he owned the place — a skill at which Russians were particularly adept. Intelligence training had taught him to swallow his emotions, to lie with his eyes in order to make his words believable. Seeing Maryam’s bullet-riddled body was impossibly difficult, but he dug deep and somehow mustered the wherewithal to appear appropriately shocked at the scene, without breaking down completely.

“What a waste,” he said, forcing himself to approach the bed so he could look for his lost lighter. If it was on the floor, he could find a way past this. If it was tangled in the sheets, he was doomed.

A cursory search revealed nothing, and he leaned over the bed, swallowing the fury that threatened to overpower him.

Most of Maryam’s wounds were to her chest, but there were two to her neck. Blood soaked the sheets and mattress underneath. But when he squinted and blocked out the worst of it, he could almost imagine she was just asleep.

Sassani’s eyes burned holes in the back of his neck. He closed his eyes, controlling his breathing before turning to face the IRGC thug.

“The whore was with someone,” Sassani said. “Just before we arrived.”

Dovzhenko stared at the man, playing out the scene in his mind. The Makarov pistol held eight rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. The little 9x18 was stout enough to do the job, but few pistol calibers were optimum as offensive weapons. They often took time to neutralize a threat. Sassani and three of his men were in the bedroom. Two shots for each of them gave him one to spare. He would shoot Sassani first, once in the face, following up with two shots apiece to the other three. Then Dovzhenko would put a second into Sassani’s groin even if he didn’t need it, because he’d called Maryam a whore. Rather than reload, he’d grab one of the SIG Sauer .45s and shoot the other three IRGC thugs as they came in to investigate. He might even make it as far as the Russian embassy — where his own people would take him into custody.

“Sir,” one of Sassani’s men said from the side of the bed, “look at this.” He held up the gold lighter.

“Thank you,” Dovzhenko said, snatching it away. Only bluster and bravado would do now. If he acted guilty, they would smell it. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when I looked at the body.”

Sassani regarded him with a narrow eye. He said nothing but gave the other officer a small nod, as if to say “Carry on. We will talk later.”

“An autopsy will be performed, as a matter of policy,” Sassani said, lips pulled back in a tight smile. “As I said, she was with someone. DNA tests will tell us the ethnicity of her lover.”

“A wise course of action,” Dovzhenko said.

He looked at Maryam’s lifeless body. It was a mercy that she’d been spared the torment Sassani and his men would have meted out. Rape, bastinado, burning — nothing was too base for these men.

“You know,” Sassani said. “She is not even the name on the lease for this apartment.” He turned to the man that stood nearest the bedroom door. “What is her name?”

“Maryam Farhad, sir.”

“Ah, yes, Maryam,” Sassani said. “A pious name for a whore.”