Pandora's grave

“The Iranians, they call it the place of the jinn. The city of spirits…”

11:49 P.M. Tehran Time

The campsite

Back and forth, the guard paced across the camp, his sweaty hands firmly grasping his Kalishnikov assault rifle, his eyes peering nervously into the darkness.

A cool night breeze came sweeping over the plateau, startling him. There was something evil about this place. He knew it. He could feel it in the very air.

It was too silent. Nothing, not even the night sounds of animals to break the stillness. Not even the birds came to this place, or so it seemed.

He glanced back at the trailers behind him. What they were used for, he had no idea. And he didn’t really want to know. For there was evil there too. Evil in the hearts of men, as dark as the night surrounding him.

He turned and began his patrol back, his AK-47 still held at the ready, its barrel probing the night ahead of him. It was the only power he still held over this place.

He felt a cough coming and he brought his hand up to cover his mouth.

The cough seemed to tear at his throat and when he pulled his hand away, it was covered with blood.

He dropped the assault rifle in panic and began to run, running toward the light of the camp, running toward the trailers. Running and knowing he might be too late. Knowing that the evil had already overtaken him…

2:51 P.M. Eastern Time

NCS Operations Center

Langley, Virginia

“Spirits?”

Davood nodded, a flush growing across his face. “It sounds stupid, I know. But my ancestors believed it.”

“That’s not to the point, Davood,” Director Lay interjected. “Do you believe that it’s true?”

There was a moment of dead silence. “Well?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It is probably nothing more than myth, but when a myth persists…”

Harry crossed the room to the map, gazing up at it. “When did this legend originate, Davood? According to what Ron says, this was a prosperous city at one time.”

“Allah knows. Certainly no one on this earth.”

“I see.” Harry turned back to the directors. “I think we’ll have enough to concern ourselves handling the guards around the site. As for the supernatural,” he smiled, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Right,” Director Lay nodded with a grim smile of his own. “You leave on the 22nd.”

7:14 P.M.

Grove Manor

Cypress, Virginia

Harry parked his car in the small garage he had built on one edge of the property, locking it securely behind him.

His Colt was in his right hand as he strode quickly toward the house, glancing around him in the gathering darkness. The huge oak trees that had given the house its name cast long shadows over him, as did the house itself.

Moving along the cobble-stoned walkway, between waist-high boxwood hedges, he looked up at the tall Civil War-era mansion he had inherited from his mother’s side of the family. It could be seen for miles, a landmark in the small community of Cypress, Virginia. Which was exactly why he was being cautious.

There was no evidence that any of the many enemies he had made over the years even knew who he really was, let alone where to find him. But the absence of evidence wasn’t proof to the contrary. He had lived long enough to know that much, and was only still alive because he knew it.

At the door he slid his hand into the fingerprint scanner, waiting a moment before hearing a faint metallic click that told him the door was open.

If he died on a mission, they were going to have a devil of a time getting inside his house. But if that happened, he would be past worrying about it. And if he lived-well, things could go on as they always had.

He entered the house and slipped through the entrance hall, listening before flicking on the light. Everything was still.

Pausing at the base of the spiral mahogany staircase that led to the mansion’s second floor, he bent low to examine the hair-thin string stretched across the step. It was still intact. No one had been upstairs in his absence.

Harry slipped the Colt back into its holster and took off his jacket, laying it across the back of one of the kitchen chairs. The Iranian mission was bothering him. There were just too many unknowns. The fact that the new member of the strike team was an unknown quantity himself only made Harry feel worse.

He took a coffee grinder from one of his upper cabinets and poured a handful of beans into it, beginning to make his coffee.

Davood’s comment about the place being cursed, he couldn’t shake that, despite how easily he had seemed to dismiss it at the meeting. He had worked in the Middle East long enough to know that much of their mythology had some root in fact. Long enough to know that they should not be rejected out of hand.

He had no idea what they were headed into. He only knew he didn’t like it…

6:45 A.M. Tehran Time, September 20th

The Iranian base camp

“You sent for me?”