Minutes limped by and no visitor. People came into the Starbox for coffee, but most of them left again, joining the burgeoning flow of office drones heading to work. They shambled in like zombies, ordered tea or coffee, and shambled out again with barely a word spoken. It was the same here as it was everywhere else in the world. People are people and most of them have enough on their minds with family, jobs, bosses on their ass, bills to pay, kids to raise, and futures to get to that they don’t give much of a shit about the things that go on in my life. Back in the States we tend to think of Iran as an evil place because we don’t like the extremist ruling government. But … we don’t like most ruling governments, and even the ones running the countries that we do like don’t give much of a shit about us. The one percent at the top of the money heap care about each other, or hate each other, but they all play with each other. The rest of us go about our jobs, and raise our kids, and do our best to stay out of it all.

I watched them come and go. Just folks. I never saw one person that looked alien or evil to me. Not one.

Until he arrived.

This was the guy I was here to meet, no doubt about it.

“Uh-oh,” I murmured.

No need to worry about them reading my lips—they’d probably expect me to say exactly that.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Starbox Coffee

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 7:56 a.m.

He was late forties, average height, with dark hair and fair skin. Iranian without a doubt, and the European heritage was there in the aquiline nose, green eyes, and non-Semitic features. Iranians aren’t Arabs. Most people don’t know that, especially the mouthbreathers who lump all Middle Eastern peoples into one group so they can be more easily despised. The name “Iranian” comes from “Aryan,” but the culture draws on ethnic lines from Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Lots of nice diversity in a generally good-looking people.

This guy could be a soap opera star. Women would swoon. If they didn’t know who and what he was. If they did … well, I think even the president of the antigun lobby would pop a cap in him and laugh while he did it. The stakes on this bizarre morning encounter jumped about tenfold.

I did know who he was.

He was accompanied by a second man who might as well have had “thug” tattooed on his forehead; he shooed away the only other customers, a pair of middle-aged men, and positioned himself at the door to prevent anyone else from coming in.