McCloskey The Persian

The SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER from former CIA analyst and The Rest is Classified Podcast Co-Host David McCloskey
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-80075-403-4
Verlag: Swift Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

Reihe: David McCloskey spy thriller

From the Sunday Times-Bestselling author of The Seventh Floor 'A superb and compelling espionage drama inside the Iran Israel shadow war by the top spy thrillerist of these wild turbulent times' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A great spy writer' Tim Shipman What happens when a spy is forced to reckon with the consequences of his deception? Kamran Esfahani, a Persian Jewish dentist from Stockholm, dreams of starting afresh in California. To finance his new life, he agrees to spy for Mossad in Iran, working with a clandestine unit tasked with sowing chaos and sabotage inside the country. When he's captured by Iranian security forces, Kamran is compelled to confess his experiences as a spy, in a testimonial dealing not only with the security of nations, but also with revenge, deceit, and the power of love and forgiveness in a world of lies. Mixing suspense with strikingly cinematic action, David McCloskey takes readers deep into the shadow war between Iran and Israel, delivering propulsive storytelling and riveting tradecraft. THE FOURTH NOVEL FROM FORMER CIA OFFICER, THE REST IS CLASSIFIED PODCAST CO-HOST AND THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ***THE TIMES THRILLER OF THE YEAR***DAMASCUS STATION ('One of the best spy thrillers in years' THE TIMES) AND ***SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR*** MOSCOW X

David McCloskey is a former CIA analyst who worked in field stations across the Middle East and briefed senior White House officials and Arab royalty. His first novel, Damascus Station, was called 'one of the best spy thrillers in years' by The Times; his second, Moscow X, was a Sunday Times Thriller of the Year. His third, The Seventh Floor, was a Sunday Times bestseller. He lives in Texas.

Autoren/Hrsg.

McCloskey, David

Leseproben

PROLOGUE

IT DID NOT ESCAPE the Israeli watching through the hijacked phone camera that this very scene had unrolled that morning at his own breakfast table in Tel Aviv. His daughter was about the same age—even the nail polish had been pink.

—

ROYA SHABANI BLEW ACROSS her daughter’s freshly painted fingernails. Alya, ever a mimic, took a deep breath and huffed as hard as she could across the bright pink polish.

“Who’s coming to my party?” Alya asked, watching her mother screw the cap onto the polish.

“Everyone you wanted. The list we made, sweetie.”

She began to stand, but Alya held her wrist tight. “How many?”

“Six,” Roya said.

“Will there be cake?”

“You and I made the cake,” Roya said. “We are bringing that.”

“Can I bring my lamby?”

“Of course,” Roya said. “Your lamb can come.”

Roya stood and glanced at the clock. “Why don’t we draw while we wait for Papa to finish working? Go get your paper and crayons.” As Alya hustled off, Roya strode over to Abbas’s o?ce and raised her fist to knock on the door before she thought better of it. They were going to be late, even if tra?c was light, which in central Tehran it never was. But why bother Abbas, and add his agitation to the mix? So she turned around, and headed for the bathroom to check the rings of kohl around her eyes and reapply the bright red lipstick that Abbas had once complimented.

Back in the living room, Alya slid her mother a few crayons and a sheet of paper, and Roya aimlessly began drawing. Something had been wrong for a few months now—late nights in the o?ce, overnights, last-minute travel, always to places he would not name, and always with Colonel Ghorbani, his uncle. When he was home, he was joyless and distracted. At dinner he would stare off into the distance, as he’d done in the thick of his dissertation, which meant he was trying to work out a problem. Then, it had been amusing, endearing. Now it was worrisome. Abbas was not the cheating type, but Roya could not help but wonder if he was having an affair, or had taken a temporary wife.

Halfway through Roya’s second distracted attempt at drawing a fountain, with Alya’s ire rising that Maman could not do it right, the door to the o?ce swung open and Abbas walked out while sliding on his jacket and trying his best to smile.

Alya darted to him, hands outstretched, and said, “Papa! See my nails?”

“Absolutely beautiful,” he said, making a show of admiring them while gathering her into his arms. “Are you ten today?”

“I’m five, Papa!” He kissed her head. Roya heard his phone buzz, and when he set Alya down he was back on it. An hour earlier, while getting ready, Roya had entertained a brief fantasy that the night would offer some connection with Abbas, a chance to talk at dinner, to admire their daughter, and, if lovemaking wasn’t in the cards, at least to go to bed at the same time. But she could see his mind was elsewhere, and that made hers itch for cigarettes, which Abbas hated. He wasn’t a prayer-and-fasting type—though both Shabanis occasionally had to put on a show for his job. No, his objection was rather the smell, which he said made him queasy. Though maybe after dinner, and once Alya was asleep, he would return to the o?ce? She hated that, which was where the cigarettes came in . . .

—

TRAFFIC WAS A GRIND as they inched northbound from Yusef Abad up to the restaurant off Jordan Avenue; not a drive any Tehrani wanted to make in rush hour, but this was where the Shabanis went to celebrate birthdays. Not the sort of ritual a newly minted five-year-old girl was likely to let you break. Alya was singing to the stuffed lamb in the backseat, occasionally interjecting, “Ugggh, why so slow, Papa?”

“Tra?c, love,” Roya said. “Papa is going as fast as he can.” As they were passing a sycamore-lined median, Alya began singing again. This time it wasn’t nonsense, it was a nursery rhyme, the one about the little chicken and the pool, a bathtime favorite. For a moment, with all of them together in the car, the singing made Roya feel warm and cozy. Tonight they might actually have fun.

Abbas’s phone began to light up and buzz with incoming messages.

“I’m picking up the shoes tomorrow,” Roya said, while Abbas typed out a message on his phone.

No response, except a few angry honks from the car behind them.

“Abbas?”

“Oh, what?” Face still fastened to the phone.

“I said I’m picking up your shoes tomorrow. The ones I had made for your birthday.”

“That’s great. That’s great.”

No sooner had he put his phone down than it would blink and buzz again. The tra?c, the toddler singsong—which was growing quite loud—the honks . . . Roya rifled through her purse and tossed it back at her feet in a huff. A mistake, she thought, not to bring the cigarettes.

“Does your uncle know it’s her birthday?”

“What? I don’t know.”

The tra?c was loosening; the car in front puttered ahead. Roya looked at Abbas, who was looking at his phone.

“Abbas, go.”

“Oh.” The phone clattered into the cupholder, Abbas jerked the car forward. They drove in silence for a few moments. Alya had stopped singing. All Roya could hear was the beep and buzz of his phone.

“Colonel Ghorbani,” Roya said, emphasizing his uncle’s rank, which Abbas hated, “told me at birthday dinner that you might be his nephew, but you’re like a son to him. So how does he not know it’s her birthday?”

“I told you, Roya, I don’t know what he knows.”

“Maybe you could tell him, then? When the car stops again and you pick up the phone? So we can enjoy dinner.”

“Only some of it is my uncle,” Abbas said. He looked down at his phone and then seemed to catch Roya glaring at him. He drifted his eyes back to the road, chastened.

There had been plenty of times in the past month when Roya had wanted to take her husband by the shoulders and shout: She regretted his decision to reject the postdoc opportunity in Paris in favor of Colonel Jaffar Ghorbani and whatever his group was doing. “I design materials that radars can’t see,” Abbas had said once. That was all she knew. That was all she was going to get.

When they exited the highway they made a right and then, after a few blocks, turned down a road that would send them right back the way they’d come, but this time on the same side of the street as the restaurant. Roya looked out the window at a van up on the curb. One front tire was missing and it was up on a jack. Abandoned. Another Tehrani driver throwing in the towel.

“Auntie will be there?” Alya said.

“Yes, sweetheart, she’s already there. Auntie’s waiting for us.”

“I can have cake now?” Roya turned and saw Alya eyeing the cake, sitting beside her in the backseat.

“Not now, sweetheart,” Roya said. “We’re almost there.”

Abbas slowed the car for a speed bump, the restaurant just ahead. Alya began singing again. “”

Roya spotted a little market she knew carried packs of cigarettes smuggled in from Dubai. Maybe she could send her sister, Afsaneh, to snag one for her, assuming Roya couldn’t slip away while pretending to use the bathroom.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud crack as the windshield spiderwebbed, and Roya thought someone had thrown a stone into the glass. Abbas let out a strange yelp. The car had been rolling so slowly that it bounced to a stop against the speed bump. There were pieces of glass on her lap. Air was rushing in.

“Abbas!” she screamed.

“I can’t see,” he yelled, “I can’t see.” Abbas yanked off his seat belt and smacked wildly at the door handle. Then Roya saw it, a shard of glass protruding from his eye, glimmering under the streetlights. Blood was trickling down his face.

“Abbas!”

When he got the door open Abbas fell out into the street. Alya was screaming in terror. Roya was, too, but their screams were drowned out by the roar of more gunfire. Abbas was flailing and jerking around, and then she saw a ruddy brown spray jet loose from his body, she didn’t know what it was, but the shooting stopped and the car was momentarily quiet except for Alya’s screaming. “Abbas!” she yelled, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak, and then she’d opened her own door and was crawling, reaching up to grasp around for the handle of the back door. The gun thundered again, a short burst, and then stopped. Roya was splayed across the cake, wrenching Alya free from her car seat, pulling her out. “Abbas!” she called. “Abbas!” The only response was another round of gunfire.

Papa, Papa, Papa, the girl was screaming. Roya was turning and twisting, trying to figure which way to run—she didn’t know where the shooter was—when her eyes fell on a blue Zamyad pickup. She felt the explosion in her...