Oath of Office

She’d removed the headscarf and now looked like the young woman that he’d once known. The years had aged her, but not in a bad way. If anything, she was more beautiful than before — especially in the eyes. The flippancy of her youth was gone, replaced with a mysterious gravity that made her difficult to read. “Thicker sauce,” his mother would say. Life had a way of cooking you down. Jack thought of how they’d first met — right here in Iran, with her screaming up in that little sports car. He turned his head sideways, still leaning on his hands, his eyes playing sleepily over the tiny scars on her jawline and neck. It was difficult for him to distinguish his guilt from the fatigue that pressed him down.

Ysabel suddenly spoke, breaking the silence, causing both men to start.

“Does no one besides me have an issue with what we’re doing?”

Dovzhenko looked across the front seat at her, then back at the road.

“It’s dangerous,” Jack said, “I’ll admit. But I don’t see a way to find the missiles without crossing the b—”

She cut him off. “I’m not talking about crossing the border. We are about to bargain with the life of a child. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Jack took a deep breath. “It does,” he said. “But we didn’t give him this disease. We’re offering to help him if his father helps us.”

“I don’t like it,” Ysabel said. “We choose to do what we do. This man, Yazdani, has no choice. If he wants to save his son he must commit treason against his country.”

Dovzhenko gave a little shrug. “You could say he was helping his country. Nuclear weapons will only bring retaliation against the people. Yes, we are forcing his hand, but for a greater good. And the boy will get help.”

“I know all this,” Ysabel said. “But I still hate the tactic. We are predators, preying on this man’s misery. If he does not help us, his son dies.”

“Maybe,” Jack said. “But we won’t be the ones to kill him.”

“No,” Ysabel said. “His father’s decision will.”

“Hopefully,” Jack said, “his father will decide correctly. It’s a shitty business, Ysabel. But this is the way it works.”

Ysabel turned suddenly to glare over her shoulder, her face illuminated in the green glow of the Toyota’s dash lights.

“You should sleep,” she said.

“I tried,” Ryan said. “Can’t.”

“Then at least lean back,” she snapped. “You are crowding me.”

Ryan recoiled at the flash of emotion. He’d expected something like this when he first saw her in the airport, but not now, not after what they’d just been through.

“Are you okay?”

She twisted farther in the seat, shaking her head in disgust. “Just so you know, that is not a question women like to be asked. Ever.”

Dovzhenko stared ahead, eyes fixed on the road.

“We’ve all been through a lot,” Ryan said, his voice softer. He hoped it sounded less condescending. “In case you didn’t notice. I honestly thought you might have discovered some new injury now that we’ve had time for the adrenaline to wear off.”

“I am fine,” Ysabel said.

“You?” Ryan asked the Russian.

“No problems here,” Dovzhenko said without looking back.

Ysabel took several breaths, composing herself. “I… I nearly died, Jack… I mean — and you just stopped calling. Dropped off the face of the earth.”

Ryan tried to think of a rebuttal, but there wasn’t one, not a good one, anyway. Finally, he said, “I know.”

The sun pinked the eastern horizon by the time they were just a few miles out of Mashhad. It was a city of almost three million people and traffic began to pick up. Headlights from the vehicles behind them threw Ysabel’s face into shadows.

“I thought we had something,” she said. “You and I.”

“Your father made it pretty clear—”

“You’re a grown man, Jack,” she snapped. “Stop trying to put this off on my father. I know exactly what happened. I think you merely decided it was time to flip the pillow.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Ryan said.

“Flip the pillow,” she said again. “You wanted something cooler, the other side of the pillow, different from anything I had to offer.”

“That’s rich,” Ryan scoffed. “Your father surrounded you with SAS bodyguards and told me in no uncertain terms you were better off without me.”

“I’ve seen you fight,” Ysabel said. “You could handle a couple of SAS bodyguards.”

Ryan fell back in his seat. The Toyota suddenly didn’t feel like nearly enough real estate for him and this angry woman.

Dovzhenko drove on, the thump of traffic and Ysabel’s breathing the only sounds.

Ryan gave a long sigh. “Things are about to get kind of dicey,” he said. “You and I should probably clear the air of… whatever this is…”

“Or we could drive in silence,” Dovzhenko said. “That would be fine as well.”

Mashhad loomed in front of them. Ysabel stared out her window.

Jack was a fixer, like his dad. He felt sure that most any problem could be made better if properly hashed out. But Ysabel wasn’t up for hashing anything this morning. And he was too exhausted to push it — without saying something he knew he would regret. He focused on Dovzhenko instead.

“Mind if I ask you a question?”