Titus Ray Thriller Recipes with Short Stories Page 3

  The Story Behind Titus Ray’s

  Perfect Pitcher of Lemonade

  I’ve always loved lemons—the smell of them, the look of them, and yes, even the taste of them. To me, the most refreshing drink in the world is a large glass of ice water with the juice of half a lemon squeezed over the ice.

  As I was growing up, I watched my mother make lemonade, but, until one very hot day in Khost, Afghanistan, I had never made lemonade for myself.

  I was in Khost, along with a number of other CIA operatives, to recruit assets willing to provide intel for U.S. military forces fighting the Taliban, who were operating along the eastern border province with Pakistan.

  Most of the recruits came from the local tribes near Khost. However, none of the recruits would cooperate with us unless their tribal leaders sanctioned it. Most of the time, their approval was slow in coming.

  One day, after a pointless meeting with some of the tribal leaders, I left the compound and walked down to a nearby market, where I purchased about a dozen lemons. After making my purchase, I ran into Mahmud, one of the tribal leaders. Mahmud had always appeared to be in agreement with America’s objectives in the area, but, at the same time, he’d refused to work with us.

  “What will you do with those?” he asked, pointing to the lemons.

  When I explained I planned to make lemon water with them, I could tell he didn’t believe me. In Afghanistan, men weren’t involved in food preparation, not even lemon water.

  I invited him back to the compound to see for himself, and he accepted my invitation.

  When we arrived in the kitchen at the main house, I began cutting up the lemons. He was standing off to the side watching me. I was curious to see what kind of response he’d give me, so I asked him if he would mind filling a large glass pitcher with water. Although he looked surprised at my request, he immediately agreed and took the pitcher over to the bottled water dispenser.

  Because I’d noticed most Afghans were born with a sweet tooth—they ate sugar cubes by the handfuls—I added a cup of sugar to my pitcher of lemon water and turned it into lemonade.

  Mahmud smiled after taking a sip, “This is good, very good. Tell me, why did you ask for my help with the water? You could have done it yourself.”

  “You’re right. I could have done it myself, but if I had, this would have been my lemonade. Now, we’re drinking our lemonade, and that’s one of the reasons it probably taste so good to you. When you take responsibility for something, you take ownership of it.”

  Mahmud didn’t appear to be offended by my blatant illustration of why he should work with us to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, because, later that day, he instructed his tribe members to work with us to get the intel we needed.

  Now, I seldom make a pitcher of lemonade without thinking of Mahmud.

  (I told Juliana Lamar this story when we were together in a safe house in Santiago de Cuba. You can read about it in Four Months in Cuba, Book IV in the Titus Ray Thriller Series. Sign up for the Titus Ray Thriller Newsletter here and receive updates about all the books in the series.

  * * * *

  Titus Ray’s Perfect Pitcher of Lemonade

  2 quarts chilled water

  4 large lemons, cut in half

  1 cup sugar

  Fill a large pitcher with water. Add sugar and stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Extract the juice of 4 large lemons and add juice to sugared water. Stir well. Add lemon slices if desired. Serve over ice.

  Makes 4-6 glasses and serves as a good illustration for an Afghan tribal leader.

  WHO IS TITUS RAY?

  Titus Ray is a veteran CIA covert intelligence officer, who’s spent most of his career at the Agency assigned to the Middle East desk. During that time, he’s been involved in some of America’s most clandestine operations, assignments he’s taken in order to keep the nation safe from terrorists or from anyone else out to destroy the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

  As a battle-hardened operative, Titus has experienced almost every type of scenario in the shadowy world of espionage. Yet, he wasn’t prepared for what happened to him one night in Tehran, when he was confronted with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ as told to him by some Iranian Christians.

  Following a failed mission in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Titus was forced to live with Javad Mirza and his family in a safe house run by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. During the three months he lived with them—while recuperating from a broken leg he suffered while being pursued by the Iranian secret police—he observed firsthand this family’s commitment to the teachings of Christ in the midst of intense persecution.

  Their faith awakened in him a desire to know the peace they exhibited, and, on the night they smuggled him out of Tehran to freedom in Turkey, he was given an opportunity to experience that peace for himself.

  In Book I in the Titus Ray Thriller Series, One Night in Tehran, Titus explains what happened to him when Javad sat down beside his bed and asked him a question just hours before he left Tehran.

  “I already knew what he was going to ask me, because, during my confinement, our main topic of conversation had been the importance of his faith in Jesus Christ. Often, Javad would retrieve a worn Bible from a hidden panel in the wall and read aloud to me, stopping often to explain—as if I were a child—about sin, about forgiveness, and about how much God loved me.”

  When Javad asked Titus if he would be willing to make his own commitment to follow the teachings of Jesus, Titus said, “Yes, Javad, I will.”

  Seconds later, Titus prayed a simple prayer asking God to forgive his sins and make him his child.

  When Titus returned to the States and was living in Norman, Oklahoma, he told Nikki Saxon, a local police detective, what he had discovered after making that decision.

  “While that decision was momentous for me, what has been even more earth-shattering is the realization it was just the first step in a lifelong journey. Sometimes I feel like I’m a child learning to walk. I keep stumbling all over the place. The first time I didn’t lose my temper, I was very proud of myself, but then I turned right around and exploded at someone. I haven’t figured out if my desire to serve the Lord can possibly be compatible with my career as an intelligence officer, but, right now, I know for certain that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  Who is Titus Ray? Although he’s an intelligence officer in the CIA, he’s also an example of how God is always at work in the lives of unbelievers to bring them to faith in Christ. Titus is a career intelligence officer, dedicated to carrying out deceptive, treacherous, and sometimes violent operations against both individuals and governments. He was raised in a dysfunctional family with no spiritual upbringing. Yet, while hiding out from Iran's secret police, he’s confronted with the truth of the gospel, demonstrating that a conversion experience can happen to the most improbable people in the most unlikely of circumstances.

  Titus is forced to confront a reality all believers must face—how to live out the Christian faith in the real world. Every Titus Ray Thriller explores this question, while providing readers with an insightful, pulse-racing look at life in the CIA, along with a glimpse into the mind of one of the nation’s most unusual covert operatives.

  For more about Titus Ray, visit TitusRayThrillers.

  To learn more about how to make your own commitment of faith, visit God’s Plan For You.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Luana Ehrlich is an award-winning author, minister’s wife, and former missionary with a passion for spy thrillers and mystery novels. She began her series of Titus Ray novels when her husband retired from the pastorate. Now, she writes from an undisclosed location, seeking to avoid the torture of mundane housework, grocery shopping, and golf stories. Occasionally, she comes out of hiding to see her two grandsons or to enjoy a Starbucks caramel macchiato. She resides in Norman, Oklahoma. You’re invited to visit the author’s website at LuanaEhrlich.com o
r TitusRayThrillers.com.

  A NOTE TO MY READERS

  Dear Reader,

  If you enjoyed the stories behind Titus Ray’s recipes, you might also enjoy reading more about Titus Ray in the following books:

  The Prequel, One Step Back

  Book I, One Night in Tehran

  Book II, Two Days in Caracas

  Book III, Three Weeks in Washington.

  Book IV, Four Months in Cuba

  Book V, Five Years in Yemen, available November 2018

  All Titus Ray Thrillers are available exclusively on Amazon.

  I’d love for you to do a review of Titus Ray Thriller Recipes with Short Stories on Amazon. Since word-of-mouth testimonies and written reviews are usually the deciding factor in helping readers pick out a book, they are an author’s best friend and much appreciated. Your review doesn’t have to be extensive; a line or two is sufficient.

  Would you also consider signing up for my newsletter? When you do, you’ll receive insider information, plus all my updates about the series. You can sign up at LuanaEhrlich.com.

  Besides my personal website, you can find out more about Titus Ray Thrillers at TitusRayThrillers.com.

  One of my greatest blessings comes from receiving email from my readers. My email address is author@luanaehrlich.com. I’d love to hear from you!

  I’ve included an excerpt from One Step Back, the prequel to Titus Ray Thrillers, on the pages that follow.

  AN EXCERPT FROM ONE STEP BACK

  The Prequel to One Night in Tehran, Book I

  Chapter 1

  Tehran, Iran

  October 6, 2014

  I was ahead of schedule. Even though I was supposed to meet my asset, Farid Kazim, near Zafaranieh Plaza at eleven o’clock, I was at the designated location an hour early.

  Some Agency operatives might consider my early arrival a little excessive. They could be right.

  On the other hand, those operatives hadn’t been living in Tehran for the past two years.

  I’d arrived in Iran two years ago as Hammid Salimi, the son of an Iranian watchmaker and a Swiss businesswoman. According to my legend—the false identity prepared for me by Support Services at the CIA—I was in Tehran to open up a market for my parents’ line of luxury watches and jewelry.

  In reality, I was in Tehran to identify potential assets who might be willing to help fund the opposition and topple the government.

  To that end, I’d spent the last two years rubbing shoulders with some of the upper-class members of Iranian society, making friends with businessmen, as well as bankers, and cultivating ties with wealthy entrepreneurs.

  During that time, I’d recruited six individuals who were now the core of my Iranian network. Three of them were bankers, two of them were businessmen, and one was a rich playboy.

  Farid was the rich playboy.

  His father, Asadi Kazim, owned three hotels in Iran; two in Tehran and one in Mashhad. All three of them had been built during the Shah’s regime, and, when the Shah was ousted from power in 1979, Asadi had been allowed to keep the hotels.

  According to Farid, his father had always been an ardent Islamist and had publicly supported the revolution from the beginning. Allowing him to keep his hotels was the Supreme Leader’s way of rewarding him.

  Now, the Parisian Asadi Hotels were the only hotels in Iran with a five-star rating. However, the rooms were under constant surveillance by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and foreign dignitaries were warned to use caution when staying there.

  Despite that, diplomats, as well as international investors, used the Asadi Hotels almost exclusively, and, in return, the IRGC supplemented Asadi Kazim’s income for catering to them.

  Outwardly, Farid appeared to be an Islamist like his father, but a few months after I’d recruited him, Farid had confessed to being an atheist.

  I had my doubts about that.

  While I believed Farid despised his father and blamed him for his mother’s death, it was hard for me to believe a man who had been praying, fasting, and memorizing the Quran all his life didn’t believe in a god of some sort.

  Granted, I had no real belief system of my own, so I might not be the best person to judge someone else’s faith.

  Farid had chosen a passive aggressive method for exacting revenge on his father. His means of retribution included spending his father’s fortune on expensive toys, associating with members of the Iranian opposition, and becoming a CIA asset.

  As recruits go, Farid had been an easy target.

  A member of one of the Iranian opposition groups, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, had given me Farid’s name, and I’d taken it from there.

  After introducing myself to Farid at the wedding of a high-ranking IRGC official, I’d handed him my business card, and, in the midst of a discussion about the groom’s father, I’d told Farid a less than flattering story about my father’s treatment of my mother.

  My anecdote was part of Hammid Salimi’s fictional background and totally fabricated, but I could tell it resonated with him.

  He’d called me a few days later.

  Although he said he was calling because he wanted to purchase a watch for his girlfriend, when he showed up at my apartment, he seemed more interested in hearing about the hatred I had for my father than in buying my baubles and beads.

  The two of us met often after that, and it wasn’t long before I realized I’d become a kind of surrogate father to him. Since I was only in my late forties, I had a hard time identifying with this role, but it appeared to be working, so I went with it.

  Within six months of meeting Farid, I’d recruited him as my asset. Now, not only was he feeding me intel from his contacts inside the IRGC, he was also supplying me with information about some of the guests at the Asadi hotels.

  Douglas Carlton, the head of the Middle East desk at the CIA and my operations officer, had congratulated me on my recruitment of Farid during one of my rare video conferences with the Ops Center. I’d even seen him smile when I’d delivered Farid’s first product—a recording of a conversation between a Russian general and a member of the Iranian President’s security council.

  Discerning how Carlton felt—even when I knew I’d exceeded his expectations—was never an easy task. On the other hand, he was sure to let me know exactly how he felt if I messed up—which I occasionally did.

  With my own assets, I took the opposite approach. If the intel they delivered was an outstanding product, yielding measurable results, I showered them with praise—along with gifts or a bundle of cash. However, I seldom said anything about the superfluous stuff they dropped on me.

  Today, I planned to commend Farid for the information he’d given me on the Syrian President’s recent visit to Tehran. As a token of how useful Farid’s information had been to the rebels trying to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, I was planning to slip him an envelope full of American dollars.

  When I glanced down at my watch, I realized I still had ten minutes left until Farid’s scheduled arrival, and I decided there was enough time for me to do a third recon of the plaza.

  Was I yielding to my compulsive tendencies by doing the extra recon?

  Probably.

  However, two years ago, when Carlton had briefed me on Operation Torchlight, he’d warned me about becoming complacent during my long-term assignment.

  Although I didn’t always listen to my boss, this time I did.

  * * * *

  Zafaranieh Plaza took up a full city block. It was bounded on one side by Ramkooh Boulevard and on the other side by Taheri Street. In the center of the block was a four-story shopping complex, and, along the outer perimeter, were a variety of restaurants and outdoor cafes.

  The shopping center catered to the Versace and Pierre Cardin crowd, and an elaborate fountain at the entrance to the building was a testament to that. Reminiscent of the Latona Fountain in Versailles—minus the nude stat
ues—it served as the focal point of Zafaranieh Plaza.

  Surrounding the fountain were several stone benches, and I took a seat on one of them in order to keep an eye on the two men seated a few feet away.

  Like most men in Tehran, they were dressed in long trousers, a collared shirt, and a sports jacket.

  I wasn’t particularly interested in their wearing apparel.

  What caught my eye was their footwear.

  It was the type of footwear worn by agents of VEVAK, the Iranian secret police; black leather half-boots with rubber soles and reinforced toes.

  Both men were wearing a pair of the boots, and they were scuffed, well-worn, and in need of some black boot polish.

  These men were obviously not new recruits.

  As soon as I sat down, I spotted Farid making his way across the plaza. He was headed toward an outdoor café where he’d suggested we meet. Although he was staring down at his phone, I saw him look up occasionally and smile at a pretty girl.

  One of the VEVAK agents, whose droopy black moustache reminded me of Joseph Stalin, glanced over at Farid.

  After studying him for a few seconds, he looked away.

  The younger agent, who was sitting next to him, gazed in my direction, sweeping his eyes over the crowd of people who were sitting around the fountain. Most of them were talking on their cell phones or gossiping with their friends.

  Since I had no friends at Zafaranieh Plaza, I held my cell phone up to my ear and tried to ignore the VEVAK agent scrutinizing me.

  I knew I didn’t look that much different from the other males hanging around the plaza, despite the fact I was born in Flint, Michigan of Caucasian parents. Although my mother was of Polish descent, I’d inherited my father’s coal black hair, brown eyes, and dark complexion.