Free The Peregrine Spy by Edmund P. Murray Page B

before you run outta here, some housekeeping, real quick.” He handed each a manila envelope. “Residency permit, pass to Dowshan Tappeh, pass to Supreme Commander’s Headquarters. This says you received them and won’t lose them on pain of death. Sign here,” he said.
    They signed the forms.
    “Good,” said Troy. “That makes you official. Now, turn around and get the fuck outta here. Mr. Novak is waiting.”
    *   *   *
    Frank caught a glimpse of spiraling smoke beyond the soccer field as he cut off Roosevelt. Gus sank lower in the seat next to him. Both had their stocking caps down to their eyebrows. Frank eased the Fiat left into another street barely wider than the car. He braked by a metal gate with a low brick guardhouse behind it. A marine in dress uniform stepped out.
    “Can I help you, gentlemen?”
    Frank pulled off the stocking cap. “Mr. Novak is expecting us.”
    *   *   *
    Though they had clashed in Rome, Frank respected Rocky Novak as a no-nonsense professional. He knew no one told jokes in Novak’s presence about the fact that he wore a hearing aid. Rocky ruled his domain in Tehran from a large basement office with an oversize oak desk, but the bare concrete walls and sparse furnishings contrasted sharply to the elegant suite Novak had occupied under his cover title as chief political officer at the embassy on Via Veneto.
    Here, a worn vinyl couch stretched against one wall; two filing cabinets with security bars and combination locks lined the opposite wall; a safe stood behind the desk, and an IBM Selectric sat on a typing table to Novak’s right. Frank half expected to see a polygraph and other tools of the interrogator’s trade.
    “Come in and sit down,” called Novak from behind his formidable desk. “You, too, Simpson, since you’re here. I’ve got some shit to get through. Then I’ll get to you.” Rocky worked his way through a stack of cables, reading quickly, sorting them into two piles. “Sullivan, what the fuck am I gonna do with you?” He kept his head buried in the cables.
    Frank made no effort to reply. He knew Novak turned his hearing aid off when he concentrated on clearing paperwork. Gus caught his eye. Frank shook his head and raised a finger to his lips. He also knew Novak sometimes tricked the unwary by leaving the hearing aid on.
    Gus fidgeted on the edge of the stiff couch. Frank sat back, watching Novak skim through his cables, thinking again about the agency’s flakiness—sending him out barely briefed and with no reading-in time, traveling with air force ID but in true name, unfamiliar with the country, ignorant of the language, his identity and his Ethiopian background already known to God only knows how many Iranians. Novak initialed the last of his cables. He picked up a stack in each hand and placed them in the safe. He removed the ribbon from his IBM typewriter and put the ribbon in the safe. He slammed the safe, twisted the combination lock, and adjusted his hearing aid. “I can’t preach security to everybody else if I don’t plug up my own asshole, right?”
    Frank and Gus said nothing but nodded agreement in Novak’s direction.
    “So they’ve got you back in again,” said Novak, glaring at Frank. “Are more heads going to roll?”
    He turned a knob clockwise on the battery of his old-fashioned hearing aid. Frank tried to remember if that meant up or down.
    “I’ve got a hunch heads will roll,” said Frank. “But it’s got nothing to do with me.”
    “That’s true. And nothing you’re going to do will stop it. Simpson?”
    “That’s me,” said Gus.
    “Glad to meet you. If I had my way you’d both be outta here on the next plane.”
    “I must admit,” said Gus, “I like Rome better.”
    “Well, we’re here now. God help us. I had that little demonstration out front arranged special to make you feel welcome, and you bastards had the nerve to sneak in the back way.”
    “I’m glad to hear you have students on the