She pulled at his belt and tried to get his zipper down.
"Quickly now, before someone comes. One of them might have followed me after all. They are extremely good tailing people."
A half hour later she lay in the sheets, her heart still beating wildly. He sat beside her, kissed her lips once more, and nodded.
"Now, Yasmeen, tell me your news. Help me strike back at the dictators who run your country."
She sat up, and her breasts bounced. George noticed and enjoyed the moment, then watched her face, With this woman he knew for sure he could tell if she were lying.
"My father's trucking company was hired to haul goods from a port far down to the south. I know they went as far as Chah Bahar, which is almost in Pakistan. They picked up the loads at Bushehr well up on the Persian Gulf."
"Why truck material all the way down the coast when it could have been off-loaded from the ships at Chah Bahar?"
"Oh, everything was supposed to go to Shiraz, the biggest town in the southern half of the country. But then they changed the orders and it all went south."
"Any idea what these goods were?" he asked.
They began to dress then, and she put on her clothes without embarrassment.
"Oh, yes, Father talked about it. They were huge machine tools, heavy as the gods, as Father said. Then there were high-precision optical instruments. Tons and tons of cement to make concrete from, and three huge electrical generators and fuel to run them. Hundreds of other things, including construction materials. They all were loaded on Father's trucks and taken south. Even he didn't know the exact destination. This was all two years ago."
"Where could the trucks go once they got to Chah Bahar? It seems to me there is little down that far. A few mountains along the coast, then the desert plateau inland for hundreds of miles."
She nodded, "Not much in there. Why would somebody want to put up some kind of a plant in the middle of a desert?"
They were dressed then. George checked out the window. She should leave soon. He wondered if anyone would be waiting for her. Out the window, he saw movement. A man with a military-type rifle hurried from one doorway to the next. He scanned the street both ways.
Yes, there were more of them. Civilian clothes, but definitely military-type movements. Where were they going? Then he figured it out. They were closing in from both directions on this building where he lived.
He caught up a small bag that he always had ready, with everything incriminating about him inside it. He took out a .45 pistol with an extended 15-round magazine in the handle.
Yasmeen's eyes went wide. "What?"
"Troops in the street. I have an idea they're coming here. Quick, we'll go out the back window and across the roofs. Maybe they haven't got that covered yet. Now."
They hurried into the back room, and he opened the window. Before they could leave, they heard the front door smashed down. It sounded like two men in the front room. George stepped to the door and looked around it. Two shots slammed into the doorjamb just over his head.
He leaned out again, firing with the automatic. Both Iranians went down with chest shots.
He surged to the window, helped Yasmeen out, and they rushed down a narrow ledge to the first-floor roof of the building behind them.
Before they got there, two shots snarled from the window they had just left. Chips of plaster rained on them as they dropped to the roof. George fired twice at the open window, driving the men there back.
Then they came to the roof edge. They hung by their hands, and dropped six feet to the alley.
"Run," he said, and they rushed down the alley hidden from their former room by the houses. Half a block down they slowed. "We need to get away from here. Any ideas?"
Her face was pinched and frightened, but she nodded. She had pulled her head covering up to mask her face now and they hurried along the street.
"We walk, not run. Make it as casual as possible. You stay ten meters behind me. I know a place you can hide. Why are they shooting at you?" She didn't wait for an answer as they hurried down the first alley.
They walked for what he figured was a half hour, going from one alley to the next, working away from the downtown area. He heard sirens and some trucks grinding along, but saw no soldiers or the civilian-garbed enforcers.
George noticed that they had entered a poorer section of the city of 7.2 million people. The buildings were of stucco, but in poor shape. They left the alley, and went halfway down a long block before Yasmeen turned in at a walkway. They went to the back of a two-story house a little better than some of the others.
"A friend from our small freedom group lives here. Don't be surprised, he's a little different."
She knocked on the door, and when it opened, the largest man George had ever seen stared at them. He wore nothing but a pair of shorts that barely covered his crotch. George figured the man weighed at least four hundred pounds. His face had been grim, but when he saw Yasmeen, he smiled and screeched in delight.
"Little flower," he said in Farsi. He picked her up like she was a feather and whirled her around. He planted a kiss on her forehead and set her down.
"Who the fuck is this?" the man asked in Brooklyn-accented English.
About an hour before George's mad dash from the apartment, Shahpur Shamil had arrived at the coffee shop early, passed eighteen thousand rials, about six dollars U.S., to the shop owner, and hurried into the back room reserved for special customers.
His contact was already there sipping one of the thick native coffees.
"You are early," the tall, thin man said in Farsi.
"We have much to talk about."
The owner brought in a coffee for Shamil, and he tasted it, then looked at the other man.
"We don't need names, as I told you before, I just want to know where you work. How close to what town."
The man smiled. "We spoke of some compensation."
"I have five hundred American dollars."
The man held out his hand.
Shamil had carefully counted out five hundred from the fifteen hundred before he arrived, and now he drew it from his pocket.
The man pulled his hand back and shook his head. "I'm taking a great risk. It must be a thousand."
"You said…" Shamil shrugged. He would still have five hundred dollars left. He reached in the other pocket and pulled out the second five hundred. The man took it and smiled.
"My new friend, you have just won yourself a place in the hearts of your countrymen."
As he said it, two doors burst open and four men with machine pistols stormed into the room. Two grabbed Shamil and threw him against the wall and held him there. A third searched him, took out the other five hundred dollars, and put it in his pocket. He backhanded Shamil with a gloved hand.
Then the same man went to the table where the tall engineer still sat, and held out his hand. The engineer gave all but one of the bills to the secret service police. They both nodded. The tall, thin man stood and, without looking at Shamil, left the room by the back door.
The secret policeman turned to face Shamil. "We didn't even suspect you at first. You were so clumsy. Surely the American CIA wouldn't rely on one as stupid as you are. The money proves we were wrong.
"Where is your American CIA agent? No one in Iran has this kind of American money without getting it from an American agent."
Shamil turned his head and looked at the wall. He remained silent. He didn't even see the policeman draw his gun. He fired the pistol once. The small round blasted through Shamil's right knee and jolted him to the floor.
"Now, Shahpur Shamil, you have two minutes to live unless you tell us exactly where we can find the bastard American CIA agent."
Shamil shook his head. They would kill him anyway. His knee hurt so bad he couldn't think straight.