CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
4:45 p.m. Tehran Time (8:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
South Tehran, Iran
“He is being watched, so we must be careful.”
They moved down an alleyway in the darkness, three big shadows. Luke and Ed followed Ari. The days were short this time of year. The sun had dropped behind the mountains to the west nearly an hour before, so it was already like night.
They had spent the day inside the truck, parked among dozens of similar trucks, near a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of the city. Luke’s straw bed had been plenty comfortable—with the cool early winter air blowing through the slats of the trailer, and the body heat given off by the sheep, it had been the best rest he had gotten in a while.
Now they were in a residential district in an older part of the city, a cro
