Free The Poseidon Initiative by Rick Chesler Page B

speeding down the street toward the other side of town, headed who knows where.
    Liam gave a sharp sigh and transmitted to Tanner that for now, at least, Amir had slipped away.

FIFTEEN
    United States Embassy, The Hague
    Stephen Shah read the nameplate on the woman’s desk. Lena Gandara. Didn’t ring any bells, not that he expected it to. She was a receptionist, not someone he would have worked with.
    “I haven’t heard anything about this. Your name again, Sir?”
    Now she wanted to know, Shah thought.
    “Jacob Rahimi.” He’d chosen the name carefully, to mirror his own in that he had an Americanized first name but a Persian last name matching his ethnicity. He knew they would be used to many employees and contractors with similarly structured names.
    Lena pressed a button on her phone and waited with the handset to her ear. “I’m sorry, Mr. Peterson,” Shah heard her say. “But there’s a man here by the name of Jacob Rahimi who says he has orders from President Carmichael to close the embassy. He asked to see you by name.”
    Shah nodded his approval when she looked his way. As with everything under his control for this sortie, he’d chosen Peterson carefully. He was high enough in the government’s organizational structure to get the embassy closed if he believed the presidential orders were genuine, but at the same time he hadn’t been at this embassy long enough to have met Shah previously, so he had no reason to recognize him on sight as might be the case with one or two other employees.
    A door at the rear of the office space opened and a tall man wearing a rumpled shirt and tie with no jacket emerged, his gaze fixed intently on Shah. He seemed to hold eye contact with him as he strode across the room. When he reached the reception area he glanced briefly at the document in Shah’s hand, and then at his plastic ID badge clipped to his jacket pocket.
    “Join me in my office, please.”
    Shah followed him across the space, where a few heads were already peeking over cubicle walls to watch him walk back. He could feel the grapevine growing in his wake as the employees speculated on the meaning of his visit. He and Peterson reached the office and Peterson stood to one side with an outstretched hand inviting him in.
    “Please take a seat, Mr. Rahimi.” Shah sat on a simple leather chair in front of Peterson’s desk, a nice wood affair but nothing that would trigger excessive government spending complaints. Peterson walked around to his chair on the other side of the desk and sat.
    “You have a document for me?”
    Shah nodded and handed him the false order. Peterson quickly flipped it over to see if there was anything written on the back (there wasn’t), before placing it flat on the desk in front of him. He pulled a pair of reading glasses from a drawer and put them on.
    Shah studied Peterson’s face while he examined the paperwork. One hand rubbed the side of his face as if massaging a cramp, while his eyes alternately squinted and relaxed as he read.
    “…in keeping with this directive, all embassy facilities are to be properly discontinued and the premises safely evacuated until further notice,” he finished aloud, looking up at Shah, who nodded authoritatively.
    “So they’re caving in to terrorist demands now?” Peterson shook his head in disgust.
    “Trying to save lives. Don’t want another event like Monday Night Football, right?”
    The embassy man threw up his hands. “But if we start giving in to demands, what happens when they want something else a couple years down the line? What kind of example does this set for other terrorists watching and waiting in the wings?”
    “Hey, I don’t make the rules, either. You know how it is. They say ‘take that hill’, and we take that hill, right?”
    Shah hoped a little civil service camaraderie might make the man feel more at ease. Instead he stood and pointed out the room’s single window, at a busy street down below.
    “What’s