I closed my eyes and prayed to the gods of war to cut us a break. What Church was suggesting was to have teams move against every target at exactly the same time. It was a strategist’s worst-case scenario because if thousands of years of organized warfare have taught us anything it’s that no major campaign ever goes off exactly according to plan. There are always snafus. And that word came into military parlance as a result. SNAFU. Situation normal all fucked up. Tells you all you need to know.

“And if we don’t locate the other two?” I asked.

“Then we may have to try something riskier.”

“Like taking out the five we know about in order to secure suspects who we can interrogate?”

“Glad to see we’re on the same page.”

“It’s not a good page, Boss. There are a lot of ways that can go wrong too.”

“Yes.”

“And only one way it can go right.”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “I’ll be landing in Kuwait in a bit. Hope to see you there by this time tomorrow.”

I heard the faint bing-bong of the doorbell downstairs.

“I think the courier’s here,” I said, and disconnected.

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy

Private Villa Near Jamshidiyeh Park

Tehran, Iran

June 15, 6:52 p.m.

Hugo Vox was bent over the toilet, his stomach heaving and churning with nothing left to expel, when the phone began ringing. His private cell.

He clawed a towel off the bar and wiped his mouth and crawled out of the bathroom to the night table. Walking was an impossibility this soon after the dose kicked in. There was only enough time to drive home and swallow half a dozen aspirin before the first waves hit, and it was worse with each treatment. He joked to Grigor about the fact that the cure was going to kill him before it cured him. Now he wasn’t sure it was a joke.

The thick sausages of his swollen fingers were clumsy on the buttons, but he finally hit the right one.

“What?” he demanded.

“Mr. Verrecchia?”