The Dark Wagon The horses carry us long enough that Tehran fades into a dusty shimmer. I sit tall in the saddle, wind pushing hair across my mouth, laughing at Asdar’s teasing shout, the nomads’ voices rough and bright in the cold morning. We stop at the rail siding, where steel lines cut east across…
Tag: politics
The COMC Files Book V chapter 35
Wrong Street, Wrong Men The city is loud in the way only a place under watch can be—traffic snared into queues, market calls strangled to half-volume. I read it the way I read a balance sheet: numbers off, pressure lines exposed. Too many stalls closing early for bad weather. Shutters fall with the quiet finality…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 31
Embers, Rumours, and Rescue Plans The fire pops, laughter fills the air, and Asdar leans in, finally ready to stitch together the threads — Romani hospitality, protection, their centuries-old role as keepers of stories and music, and the deal he cut to trade stigma for safe passage. For once, I’m content to listen — blond…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 30
“ENOUGH!”* My breath stops. That grunt—familiar. The blindfold is torn off in one motion. Light stabs my eyes. I blink, heart hammering, searching the crowd for the shape behind the voice. For a beat, no one moves—Romani faces flickering between suspicion and relief, Azerbaijani bystanders holding back. Somewhere in the tangle, I know the wolf…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 28
Crimson Traces The station air hums with departures. Brakes exhale, announcements crackle overhead, and somewhere behind me a child cries once before being shushed into silence. The high-speed train to Ankara waits with its nose angled east, silver and intent. Inside, the sound changes—padded by upholstery, softened by recycled warmth. Our bags thud into overhead…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 22
Tehran – Hana Boutique Hotel Real destination next. Mikael’s text is succinct: shaman in Maranjab. Not caravanserai—but past salt lake, dunes eating horizon under star-vault. Tarmo: linen shirt, loose trousers, scarred boots. Downstairs, the Land Cruiser idled, Mikael door-side. Lean man: battered leather jacket, scarf, night-chill doubled. “Reza,” Mikael said. “Ja’far’s pick. Knows desert beyond…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 21
The women arrived just before midnight, delivered without introduction: one in a claret silk slip, the other in a cream dress loose enough to puddle at her ankles when it fell. Their beauty was immediate, smiles deliberate—the kind that promised everything and revealed nothing. Mikael hovered briefly at the door, exchanged standard pleasantries in Farsi,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 20
The jet shuddered into a slow taxi, twin engines spooling down as Tehran’s dawn tilted gold over the tarmac. Imam Khomeini International unfurled beyond the glass: vast, oddly tranquil—its mirrored surfaces glinting like distant mosque domes. Tarmo leaned into the cabin window, pulse half-lulled by altitude and adrenaline, aware that every arrival—no matter how choreographed—carried…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 17
The Persian at the Table I cross Istiklal, tram bell shrilling and simit vendor’s shouts echoing off marble façades and old Beaux-Arts apartments. The phone buzzes hot in my hand—you trust the wrong one—but my eyes stay locked on the lace-curtained window. Asdar falls into shadow-flank, no words; all fine-tuned presence, golden eyes watching for…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 13
Tarmo Most women, for me, are beautiful cities: worth savouring, never worth staying. Elena was never a pin on my map. She’s the one place I keep circling, whatever the longitude: Pärnu, Zurich, the nights where, against every adult instinct, I bargained with powers older than strategy. Called on Odin like some northern fool in…
The C.O.M.C. Files 