Free Assassin's Code by Jonathan Maberry Page B

feel as if everyone was looking at me, as if everyone knew who and what I was.
    I used every ounce of strength and will I possessed to compose my face and show absolutely nothing. It cost me, though.
    The Israelis operated a news and cigarette shop a block from my hotel and I stopped by there and browsed the papers until the shop was empty. Then I drifted over to the counter. The man who ran the place looked and sounded Iranian but I knew for a fact that he was Mossad.
    “Carton of cigarettes,” I said. “Do you still carry Bistoon?”
    He smiled. “We get no call for it, I’m sorry.”
    It was the proper call sign and response that identified me as an American agent. We both glanced around the shop to verify that we were alone.
    “What do you need?”
    “Cell phone battery.” I showed the phone I had, which was a DMS design built on a local model. Even though my unit had some extra goodies built in, it was designed to work on a standard cell battery that could be found anywhere in Iran.
    “I can have it for you in half an hour. Will you wait or do you want it delivered?”
    “Delivered.” I told him my hotel and room.
    He studied my face and frowned. “I will not ask what is troubling you, my friend, but it appears that you are having a bad day.”
    “You have no idea.”
    Before I left I bought a pack of goat jerky. I had a hungry dog waiting for me in my hotel and if I didn’t come back with food he’d sulk all day.
    I paid for the goat.
    “May your day improve,” said the shopkeeper.
    “Yeah,” I said from the doorway. “Here’s hoping.”
    As cops and soldiers cruised by and peered at every civilian with suspicious eyes, I forced myself to walk normally. I willed myself not to be noticeable. I needed to punch and pound the fear and grief and paranoia down into its little box. Walking a few blocks seemed to take absolutely forever. By the time I reached my hotel my hands were shaking so badly I had to jam them into my pockets.
    I climbed three flights of stairs, dropped my keys twice, and finally opened the lock. As soon as I was inside I closed and relocked the door and fell back against it with an exhale that came all the way up from my shoes.
    My dog, Ghost, was waiting for me, wagging his tail and looking at my hands to see if I’d brought him anything. He’s a big white shepherd, 105 pounds of muscle and appetite. Ghost was cross-trained in a variety of useful skills from combat to rescue; and though he was useful in ordinary bomb detection, he couldn’t disarm a nuke.
    I knelt down and hugged him. I kissed his furry head.
    “This one’s going to be a bitch, fuzzball,” I told him.
    He looked at me with those liquid dog eyes that always seem deep and wise. He whined a little, catching my mood or perhaps smelling my fear. Then his whole body went rigid as he stared past me. Not to the closed door, but to an empty space on the wall. I followed the line of his gaze, willing myself to see what he saw, but a dog is a dog and they see things we can’t. No matter how much we want to.
    I listened to the silence, wondering if I’d just heard a soft voice whisper my name again.
    But, no … there was nothing.
    When I looked at Ghost, he was no longer staring at the wall.
    “What is it, boy?”
    Ghost, being a dog, just looked at me.
    I mean, really … what had I expected him to say? My palms were sweaty and I wiped them on my thighs. Then I fished some dried goat strips out of my jacket pocket and dropped them on the floor. Ghost is peculiar in that he eats his food delicately, one piece at a time, making it last.
    Minutes crawled by as I waited for the Mossad shopkeeper to send over the battery. The thought of those moments being chipped off the block of time remaining until those nukes went active was making my heart hurt. I was sweating and it wasn’t the heat in that stuffy little room.
    I fished for more goat and my fingers scrabbled over the flash drive. That drove everything else out of