Prologue

      Darice Pahlavi wondered if this would be the last day of her life. She’d spoken of it with the others, when she’d offered to complete the task that no one else within their circle could perform. The rest were all sincere enough, but none of them had access to the data that was needed.

      Only she was inside.

      She recognized the irony. A generation earlier, no woman of her nationality or faith would have been educated adequately, much less trusted to participate in such events.

      But things had changed. In that respect, at least.

      Some things, she feared, would never change. The lust for power that consumed some individuals was as powerful as ever. The egomania that warped their view of life and everything around them, made them believe that only they were fit to make the life-or-death decisions that affected thousands, even millions.

      Perhaps Pahlavi herself had shared a measure of that guilt, she thought. But she had woken up in time to save herself. To save her soul.

      The question burning in her mind was whether she could save her nation, and perhaps the world at large, from a horrendous nightmare in the making.

      It could mean death if she failed, but she felt compelled to try.

      Concealing the material had not been difficult. The two computer CD-ROMs were slim enough to hide beneath her clothing. She had taped them to her inner thighs, which were slim enough that she did not produce a plastic scraping sound with every step she took. The tape was uncomfortable, but it would hold its grip.

      She’d delayed the taping until she was nearly finished for the day. It would’ve been a dicey proposition, working all day in the lab, with two disks plastered to her thighs, but she could easily endure an hour of discomfort, walking to the bus outside and riding to her home. Once she was there, and safe from prying eyes…

      She caught herself relaxing prematurely and cut short her reverie. She wasn’t home yet, wasn’t even close. A hundred things could still go wrong.

      Anxiety overwhelmed her, made her wish that she could run back to the washroom, but she couldn’t go again so soon. It might provoke an inquiry. Was something wrong? Was she unwell? Did she require examination by the lab’s standby physician? Had she been contaminated in some way?

      Once Dr. Mehran started asking questions, Pahlavi knew she’d be finished. It would mean a physical examination, which would instantly reveal the contraband beneath her skirt. The mere suggestion of an illness in the lab provoked decisive and immediate responses that were carved in stone, a law unto themselves.

      If she appeared in any way unusual, Pahlavi would be doomed, as surely as if she had been fatally exposed to the materials they handled every day.

      She pinched herself, a cruel twist of her flesh beneath the long sleeve of her lab coat. She had to remain focused. Any small distraction, any deviation from routine, might raise a red flag with security as she was leaving.

      There was no innocent excuse for smuggling confidential data from the lab. Taking a box of paper clips was considered serious. Stealing the data at the very heart of their most secret program would be tantamount to suicide.

      Pahlavi knew it wouldn’t be a quick death, either. They would want to ask her questions, find out how and why she dared to take such risks. Who was she working for? Had she accomplices? Being a woman, she would not impress interrogators as a ringleader, much less an operative who conceived and executed such activities alone. If nothing else, theft of the disks signaled that she planned to pass them on, reveal their secrets to some third party, whether for ideology or profit.

      She wasn’t sure how long she could protect her brother and the rest, once the professionals began to work on her with chemicals or pure brute force. Her pain threshold had never been extraordinary, and fear had weakened her already, as if her own body was conspiring with her enemies.

      Biting the inside of her cheek to make her brain focus on simple tasks, Pahlavi went through the same cleanup routine she had followed every day since starting at the lab. There was a place for everything, and everything had to wind up in its proper place before she could depart. Slovenly negligence invited criticism and a closer look from Dr. Mehran, which she definitely didn’t want.

      Her fellow lab workers were chatting as they cleared their stations, making small talk that she couldn’t force her mind to follow. What did she care if a certain film was playing at the theater, or if a coworker’s insipid cousin had been jilted by his third fiancée in as many years? She was on a mission vitally important to them all.

      After hanging up her lab coat, she retrieved her bag and trailed the others from the lab, toward the security checkpoint where guards routinely opened briefcases and purses, pawing through their contents, but were otherwise content to let the workers pass. Darice couldn’t recall the last time a lab employee had been frisked or asked to empty pockets.

      It was with a sense of panic, then, that she beheld the guards in front of her this day. Two extra had been added to the team, a man and woman, both equipped with flat wands she recognized as handheld metal detectors.

      Pahlavi was certain she would faint, but she recovered by sheer force of will. She couldn’t pass inspection