My team and I were staying in a seedy hotel near the center of town-one that allowed dogs-and my dog was currently waiting there for us. When we got word about the transfer, we began tracking the move through a series of high-security-coded e-mails. I had half of Echo Team with me for this: my number two, First Sergeant Bradley “Top” Sims; the big California kid, Harvey “Bunny” Rabbit; the professorial Khalid Shaheed; the laconic former LAPD sniper John Smith; and the newbie, Lydia Ruiz, who was in the navy’s first covert group of women SEALs.
Khalid was, among other things, a makeup artist who could have gotten work on Broadway. When we arrived at the hotel room, among the equipment delivered for us was a professional stage makeup kit. Khalid used it to transform us all into Iranians. Luckily a lot of people in Iran look like their European forebears. Khalid had to tone down his own darker Egyptian complexion. Bunny and I both got our fair hair dyed black. Lydia was Latina but had the olive skin of her Madrid ancestors; with the right eye makeup and a modest chador with a headscarf, she would blend right in. John Smith was already dark-haired, so Khalid gave his pale face a little more color.
Top was never going to look like either an Iranian or an Arab, but that was okay. There were plenty of African Muslims in Iran, and Top could speak Somali and Persian with an African lilt. Except for Top, we all dressed in military police uniforms.