Betrayal by Tim Tigner Page A

name.”
    Odi nodded. “Are you here with the Red Crescent or Doctors Without Borders?”
    “Close. I came here with the Peace Corps. They pulled out a few years back but I didn’t want to leave. Too much work to do. Too many children left to save. So now I’m working on my own.”
    “Who’s footing the bills?”
    Ayden blushed.
    “I’m sorry,” Odi continued. “That just slipped out. It’s none of my business. Must be the drugs.”
    “No. That’s okay. Actually I get by on an inheritance.”
    The kettle whistled. Ayden poured tea. Then he pulled a sleeve of Fig Newtons from the white chipboard cupboard hanging over the sink and set it down. “I don’t eat many meals here. I hope this will do.”
    Odi said, “Thanks,” before tucking in. After swallowing three he asked his host, “How did I end up in a hospital in … ”
    “Orumiyeh,” Ayden repeated. “Last weekend I happened to be doing aid work in Tafriz when a couple I had helped a few times before awakened me in the middle of the night. Their boy had just gotten his foot blown off by a landmine. I stabilized the wound and directed his parents to the local clinic you know so well. About twenty minutes after they left I remembered that Bahir, the boy, was allergic to penicillin. I went chasing after. The rest you can guess.”
    “What was the boy doing that he got his foot blown off in the middle of the night?”
    “A lot of kids work in the fields at night to help support their families. It’s cooler and that way they don’t miss school. Bahir was taking a shortcut home through the woods.”
    Odi nodded. One more life his team was responsible for losing. “So you found me near the clinic while returning for the boy?”
    “That’s right. I took you back to the hut I was working from to patch you up. Your wound was not life threatening in itself, but you had lost a lot of blood. I had some to spare.”
    Odi tilted his head inquisitively.
    Ayden nodded. “I’m O negative, a universal donor.”
    Odi’s head began to reel from all the implications surrounding his predicament. If any of the locals learned that he was a member of the team that blew up their clinic and killed … how many Iranians? He was afraid to ask. He had other questions that he wanted Ayden to answer as well, lots of them, but he feared that time might be short.
    Since the US did not maintain an embassy in Iran, he figured that he had two options. Either he could approach a friendly embassy as Ayden had suggested earlier, presumably the British or the Canadians. Perhaps the Aussies. Unfortunately, Tehran was over five hundred miles away. He could call and try to get someone to send a car. Or perhaps there was a major Western corporation that had an office near his current location. Any embassy would know. But how would he manage that without compromising the mission? He was not naïve enough to believe that any phone communication to a Western establishment would be secure. And now that the mission had gone to shit, maintaining deniability would be the prime American objective. Potchak would have a fit if he placed an unsecure call.
    The alternative was to wait until nightfall and head for Turkey on foot. Since Orumiyeh was twenty kilometers from Tafriz, and Tafriz was twenty kilometers from the border, he had to be within forty kilometers of the Turkish border. Just a marathon.
    “I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” Odi said. “Forgive me if I’m being rude, but I would hate to let someone interrupt us and spoil your work.” He glanced over at his bandaged arm. “What was it that you wanted to show me?”
    “Yes, of course.” Ayden disappeared into a room off the entryway and returned a moment later with a burlap sack labeled “Brown Rice.” He cleared the mugs and empty cellophane wrapper from the table. Then he upturned the bag. The remnant parts of eight military headsets clattered onto the Formica table. Obviously they had come from his team. This was the