Page 140 of Grave Danger
“No. He destroyed them so they wouldn’t fall into the hands of the regime.”
“Farid was protecting Ava. Is that what you’re saying?”
“If he hadn’t, we would never have been able to buy her out of Evin Prison. Ava would have been tortured to give up the names of hundreds of women with whom she communicated, and hundreds more would have been arrested. We bought her out of jail before the Iranians learned any of that. Before they could torture her—and then probably execute her.”
“So when you say that the Iranians didn’t know what they had in Ava Bazzi, that means they still don’t know—”
“What they have in Agent Guthrie,” said Isaac, finishing her thought.
Andie fleshed it out completely. “If Nouri speaks, and the Iranians find out now, Agent Guthrie might also be slated for execution.”
Isaac’s silence said it all.
“What would you do if you were me, Isaac?”
“I’d keep my finger right on the pulse. I’d go to the mobile command center.”
“Where is it?”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” he said, and then he told her.
Andie thanked him and hung up. She was about to call her ASAC to let him know she was on her way, but she thought better of it. Tidwell might order her to stay away. She shot a quick text instead and gave Grace the directions.
It was a two-minute drive straight up South Beach Road to the FBI’s staging area outside the town hall. There were no streetlights along the road, and the lights in the parking lot at the town hall were out—at the FBI’s direction, no doubt. The mobile command center and SWAT van were parked in a forest of oak trees behind the building, under the cover of darkness. Tidwell stepped out of the command center as the car pulled up. The SWAT van was empty, and the team was nowhere to be seen, which made Andie’s heart race.
“Has SWAT breached the cottage already?” she asked.
“Not yet,” said Tidwell. “But they’re in position. Unless you’ve changed your mind about calling Jack and creating a diversion for the breach, you shouldn’t be here.”
Andie rolled with it. “I’m considering it.”
Tidwell took her inside the command center. A tech agent and two hostage negotiators were in the electronics room. A video feed from the SWAT unit was on the screen. It was Andie’s first look at the cottage. Her throat tightened at the thought of Jack inside, surrounded by SWAT.
“We just received the latest audio,” said Tidwell.
It was no surprise to Andie that SWAT had planted eavesdropping devices to pick up conversations inside the cottage. The tech agent played a recording of Jack’s exchange with Nouri—Jack’s repeated requests that Nouri put the gun away, Nouri’s refusal, and his chilling words:Now I’m onmyside.
Tidwell hitstop,and the recording ended.
“What does that mean—‘Now I’m onmyside’?”
“It’s not clear,” said Tidwell. “We expect Nouri to make a new demand. Something for himself. When he calls, SWAT breaches.”
“This isn’t protocol,” said Andie. “Nouri hasn’t made an explicit threat to hurt Jack, Yasmin, or Zahra. You shouldn’t give up on negotiation until he does. That’s hostage negotiation one-oh-one.”
“Headquarters sees things differently,” said Tidwell.
“On what basis?”
“Based on Nouri’s threat to reveal what he knows about Ava Bazzi.”
“That’s not a threat to any of the hostages.”
“Maybe notthesehostages,” said Tidwell. “But it’s a threat on the life of a CIA agent who’s being held hostage in an Iranian prison. If Nouri makes good on his threat to go public with what he knows about Ava Bazzi, Agent Guthrie is at risk of torture or worse at the hands of the Iranians.”
All of a sudden the pressure Andie had been getting from the CIA and the State Department made sense. It sent her head spinning. It wasn’t simply a matter of jeopardizing the US government’s negotiations for the release of an American hostage. It was the danger of letting the Iranians discover the true value of the hostage they were holding—and the dire consequences he might suffer.
“So, dealing with Nouri is no different than dealing with a hostage taker who has threatened to kill a hostage in the same room with him,” said Andie, putting two and two together.