Tehran, Iran

Yoseff Abbas was running for his life. He’d abandoned his apartment as soon as he heard about the Israeli attack on the Natanz facility and how the whole thing had been a setup. He realized he’d been played for a pawn by the Iranian leadership. That meant that Iran’s ruthless MOIS agents were on to him and would be looking for him at that very moment.

He stuck to the back alleys of Tehran as he walked, trying to figure out where he could go. He had received several calls from his Israeli Mossad contact, but he didn’t pick up. Of course, no messages were left. He never trusted the Israelis completely, and now he couldn’t trust anyone in the Iranian government.

That left him only one option. He needed a safe house. He only knew of one place, even though he knew all the reasons why this place might spell death for him too.

He walked to an entryway off the alley, opened the blue-painted door, and climbed the stairs. At the top, he knocked three times, then twice more.

The door opened. A familiar face from his university days was in the doorway.

“So, Yoseff Abbas,” the other man said, smiling, “you’ve finally decided to join the CDCI?”

Yoseff shrugged as he entered the apartment. On the wall was a poster that read: “The CDCI — Agents of Change.” Underneath that it read: “Committee for Democratic Change in Iran.”

A few miles from that apartment was a nondescript, two-story building that had once been a warehouse. The government of Iran had converted it into a secret prison, a place for the forgotten, the forlorn, and the brutalized enemies of Iran.

That was where Joshua Jordan was being held. In the third cell from the end on the second floor. His innards had been punched in with a metal rod, the bottoms of his feet beaten, and finally he had been strapped in a crude electric chair and shocked repeatedly.

When they tossed him back into his cell, he was out cold for several hours.

When he regained consciousness, he thought he’d been roused by someone talking to him. He was slowly aware of several voices. Some talking. Others yelling. All in Farsi.

Except one.

“Colonel Jordan,” the voice said, cutting through the din, and in the English of an educated Iranian. The voice had a strange nasal quality to it. “There is a bowl of water in your cell. You should take it. Be sure and hydrate. You must avoid dehydration.”

Joshua dragged himself slowly and painfully over to the clay bowl that had some putrid water in it. He tried to use only his hands and wrists to pull himself along because his arms felt as if they may have been dislocated. But he couldn’t pick up the bowl. He lapped the stale water like a dog.

The voice went on. “It seems they want you to drink water like a dog. They’re trying to reduce you to a dog.”

With great effort, Joshua rolled over onto his side to check out his cell. It was concrete, with bars on one wall facing the hallway and a solid metal door with some kind of small window in it. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

“You speak English?”

“A lot of educated Iranians do,” said the voice, which Joshua now realized was coming from a nearby cell.

“Who are you?”

“Dr. Hermoz Abdu.”

“I wish you were in my cell. I need a medical doctor.”

“No,” the man said, “I’m not that kind of doctor; sorry.”

Joshua collected his strength. “How do you know who I am?”

“I hear things.”

“Why are you here?”

“I am what you might call an enemy of the state but a friend of the Iranian people.”

Joshua knew he couldn’t afford to trust anyone. They had tried to break him in a short amount of time, using a rapid torrent of pain. No chance for something like waterboarding. When he was flying for the Air Force they had taught him how to endure that. But he had figured out the reason for the quick, dirty, maximum pain routine they were using. Iran was obviously planning a retaliatory strike against Israel. They needed to know the specifics of the RTS missile-defense system that was in place — and they needed it quick. Joshua figured he just needed to hold on through the torture for a short period of time.

On the other hand, once the attack was launched, what reason would the Iranians have to keep him alive? He thought about that. And he had already made up his mind. I don’t want to die.

He had so much to live for. Now, it seemed, more than ever. And so much left undone. Not just his “official” business with the Roundtable or even his defensive-weapon designs that he sincerely believed could protect innocent life. More than that. His wife, his precious Abby. And his son, Cal, ever seeking to please a father who regrettably was so hard to please. And his headstrong Deb.

Yet he knew there was something even beyond all of those things that he would have to deal with, a force that had been pursuing him, making him choose his course as if he were in the middle of a crossroads in a strange land. He felt he had become a kind of fugitive. But from what? His life seemed to be closing in on him like the walls of his filthy cell.

So he needed to survive this. But Joshua had a tactical worry. What if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had planted this friendly prisoner, this Dr. Abdu, just to gain his confidence?

Time was short. He had to take a chance.

Joshua asked, “Why should I trust you?”

The other man laughed, but it really wasn’t from amusement. More from irony perhaps.

“If you could see me,” Dr. Abdu said, “then you would understand. Besides, Colonel Jordan, I have a secret. And it can save you.”