The Persian (Extract)

0:03For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. Audible Studios presents The Persian, written by David McCloskey, performed by Phaedra Al-Casey.

0:31Prologue, Tehran, Iran, four years ago. 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. Alia, 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? Alia asked, watching her mother screw the cap onto the polish. Everyone you wanted. The list we made, sweetie. She began to stand, but Alia held her wrist tight.

1:21How many? Six, Roya said. Will there be cake? You and I made the cake, Roya said. We are bringing that. Can I bring my lambie? Of course, Roya said. Your lamb can come. Roya stood and glanced at the clock. Why don't we draw while we wait for Baba to finish working? Go get your paper and crayons. As Alia hustled off, Roya strode over to Abbas's office and raised her fist to knock on the door before she thought better of it. They were going to be late, even if traffic 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.

2:20Back in the living room, Alia slid her mother a few crayons on a sheet of paper, and Roya aimlessly began drawing. Something had been wrong for a few months now. Late nights in the office, overnights, last-minute travel, always to places he would not name, and always with Colonel Gourbany, 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.

3:12Halfway through Roya's second distracted attempt at drawing a fountain, with Alia's ire rising that Maman could not do it right. The door to the office swung open and Abbas walked out while sliding on his jacket and trying his best to smile. Alia 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, Baba, he kissed her head. Roya heard his phone buzz, and when he set Alia down, he was back on it. An hour earlier, while getting ready, Roya had entertained a brief fantasy that the knight would offer some connection with Abbas.

4:03A 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 Alia was asleep, he would return to the office? She hated that, which was where the cigarettes came in. Traffic was a grind as they inched northbound from Yusuf Abad up to the restaurant off Jordan Avenue.

4:54Not a drive any Tehrani wanted to make in rush hour. But this was where the Shabanese went to celebrate birthdays. Not the sort of ritual a newly minted five-year-old girl was likely to let you break. Alia was singing to the stuffed lamb in the back seat. occasionally interjecting, Ugh, why so slow, Papa? Traffic, love, Roya said. Papa is going as fast as he can. As they were passing a sycamore-lined median, Alia began singing again. This time, it wasn't nonsense. It was a nursery rhyme, the one about the little chicken and the pool, a bath-time favorite. For a moment, with all of them together in the car, The singing made Roya feel warm and cozy.

5:43Tonight, 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 traffic, the toddler sing-song, which was growing quite loud. The honks. Roya rifled through her purse and tossed it back at her feet in a huff.

6:38A mistake, she thought, not to bring the cigarettes. Does your uncle know it's her birthday? What? I don't know. The traffic 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 cup holder. Abbas jerked the car forward. They drove in silence for a few moments. Alia 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 your birthday dinner that you might be his nephew, but you're like a son to him.

7:32So 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, You're a scientist. You're supposed to be sitting alone in a lab. She regretted his decision to reject the post-doc opportunity in Paris in favor of Colonel Jafar Gurbani and whatever his group was doing.

8:21I 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? Alia said Yes, sweetheart, she's already there Auntie's waiting for us I can have cake now?

9:07Roya turned and saw Alia eyeing the cake Sitting beside her in the back seat Not now, sweetheart, Roya said We're almost there A bus slowed the car for a speed bump The restaurant just ahead Alia began singing again. Lili li li hozak. 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 spider webbed, and Roya thought someone had thrown a stone into the glass. Abbas let out a strange yelp.

9:59The 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 seatbelt 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. Alia 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 ruddy brown spray jet loose from his body.

10:58She didn't know what it was, but the shooting stopped, and the car was momentarily quiet, except for Alia'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 the handle of the back door. The gun thundered again. A short burst, and then stopped. Roya was splayed across the cake, wrenching Alia free from her car seat, pulling her out. Abbas, she called. Abbas. The only response was another round of gunfire. Baba, baba, baba, the girl was screaming. Roya was turning and twisting, trying to figure which way to run.

11:53She didn't know where the shooter was. When her eyes fell on a blue Zamaid pickup, she felt the explosion in her teeth, in her bones. She was staring at its white-orange center, and it felt like the light was searing her eyes. A hulk of metal lifted from the bed of the truck, shooting skyward like the takeoff of a rocket. With Aliyah slung over her shoulder, Roya turned and ran. In an unmarked limestone building outside Tel Aviv, the Israeli squeezed the shoulder of a woman sitting at a computer terminal and said she'd done well. A small group was clustered in the operations room, and no one was talking.

12:43The only noise had been the sound of gunfire in Tehran, nearly 2 ,000 kilometers away. The woman lifted her hand from the joystick that was tethered by satellite uplink to a Belgian-made FN Mag machine gun. The kill order had been clear, as they always were. No collateral damage. And that included the young scientist's family. The Israeli watched the survivors run In the grainy feed he made out a stuffed pink lamb Flopping against the new widow's back Clutched tight in the little girl's pink-painted grip