The apartment had the feeling of a temporary place. There were no pictures on the walls, no personal items scattered about. No mementos of trips taken or places visited. It reminded her of a motel, right down to the cheap television and nondescript carpet. There were no books, no magazines, nothing to show what Miriam might have liked to study or read.
Stephanie opened a drawer in an end table by the couch. It was empty except for a blank notepad and a pencil. On a whim, she put the pad in her pocket. She pulled cushions away from the couch. She found a quarter, two dimes and a crumpled tissue.
Steph put the cushions back. A short hall led past a bedroom to a kitchen. She went to the kitchen first and turned on the light. Cockroaches scurried away on top of the counter. The counter was bare except for a coffee pot and a half-empty plastic bottle of water. The sink held a few dishes in a rack. A window over the sink looked out at the brick building next door.
The refrigerator was empty except for part of a six pack of bottled water. In the waste basket, Stephanie found more roaches and the remains of takeout from a nearby falafel joint. The kitchen cabinets revealed only generic glasses and plates.
The bathroom was neat and small. A spotted glass sat on the corner of the sink. A flowered shower curtain hung by a small tub. The medicine cabinet held a bottle of Midol, an opened package of tampons, a tube of toothpaste, a razor, a tube of antibiotic ointment and a package of assorted Band-Aids. Bottles of shampoo and conditioner sat on a wire rack hung over the shower arm. A bar of soap rested on a soap dish built into the wall of the shower.
Minimal, Stephanie thought. Everything I've seen so far is minimal, like she was just passing through. But she was working at the museum for months.
The last place to look was in the bedroom. Curtains were pulled over the window. A cheap dresser and mirror sat against the wall opposite a double bed. The bed was made. A blue cotton bedspread was stretched over it. It was the first touch of color that Stephanie had seen.
The closet in the bedroom was larger than Steph had expected. Miriam had been given to plain clothes with little style. There were three pairs of black shoes on a rack, all slightly worn, all similar in style. A few long skirts, several blouses, mostly white, and a dark blue business suit hung neatly on a rod. She found jogging pants and shoes on a shelf.
Steph went through all the pockets. In the jacket of the suit, she found a piece of paper with a phone number written on it. She put the paper in her pocket. When she got back to Virginia, she'd run it through the computers.
She got down on her knees and looked under the bed. There was nothing there but dust. She lifted the mattress, in case Miriam had hidden something there. Again, there was nothing.
The last place to look was the dresser. In the movies, people often taped things behind the mirror. She checked behind it, feeling foolish. There was nothing there. On top of the dresser were a brush and comb set, a makeup kit, and a wooden jewelry box. Steph opened the box. Inside were several pairs of earrings, a few pieces of costume jewelry, and a thin gold chain with a heart-shaped locket. She opened the locket and found a picture inside of a man who looked to be somewhere in his late twenties. He had black hair, intense, dark eyes, and an engaging smile. He looked Middle Eastern, but there was no way to tell who he was or where the picture had been taken. She put the locket in her pocket.
Stephanie lifted off the top tray of the jewelry box. The bottom was empty.
There were three drawers in the dresser. She opened them one by one and took them out. There was nothing of interest in them. Socks, some underwear, a couple of T-shirts. She bent down to slide the bottom drawer back in and saw something white stuck in a cross piece on the back of the dresser.
Must've fallen from one of the other drawers.
She reached in and pulled it out. It was a black and white picture of an older couple.
Probably her parents. Or maybe grandparents. The picture looks old.
The woman was wearing a scarf over her hair. She was unsmiling. The man wasn't smiling either. He had on a dark jacket and a white shirt, open at the collar. He had a short beard shot through with gray. Gray hair curled on his chest. The picture had been taken on a city street. Part of a shop sign could be seen behind the couple, with two lines of writing. Stephanie couldn't read the writing, but she knew what it was.
Farsi. This picture must have been taken in Iran. Damn!
Steph put the picture in her pocket. She went out of the bedroom, turning off the light. She turned off the light in the kitchen and went back to the living room, turned off the light there and listened at the door. Everything was quiet. Stephanie slipped out of the apartment, shut the door behind her and walked down to the street. Half an hour later she was in Penn Station, waiting for the next train back to Washington.
CHAPTER 25
Dalir Rashidi stood at the balcony windows of his office, his hands clasped behind his back, looking out at Jordan's capital city of Amann. Outside the embassy compound, the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran hung limp in the morning heat. A haze of gray smog cast a choking pall over the endless stream of cars crawling by outside.
Rashidi was tall, well-built. He'd dressed as usual in a black suit, with a white shirt and no tie. He was forty-seven years old, a product of the theocratic educational system installed after the revolution to replace the secular institutions that had existed under the Shah. Rashidi was a true believer in the destiny of Iran. Everyone who worked for VAJA had to be.
A large official portrait of an unsmiling Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeni hung on the wall of the office. Rashidi had seen the Supreme Leader several times before his death, but could not recall ever seeing him smile.
The eyes of the portrait seemed to bore into Rashidi's back. Rashidi's official title was cultural attaché, but he was VAJA's principal agent in Jordan, which meant he had to keep a close eye on Israel. At the moment he was considering what to say to the man sitting behind him in a brown leather armchair, sipping from a glass of orange juice.
General Abbas Javadi had flown in from Tehran after Dalir briefed him on events in the Negev.
"Well, Rashidi? I wanted to talk with you face-to-face. What do you have to say?"
Rashidi turned away from the windows to face him. He wasn't about to let this hatchet man push him around. He'd paid his dues in the Revolutionary Guard and had powerful political protection.
"You will recall that the decision to intervene before the gold was found was made against my advice," Rashidi said. "The Americans were more resourceful than we'd thought."
"We can find men to replace those who were killed, but the loss of the woman is more significant. She was part of an important operation in the land of the Great Satan."
"What operation?"
"That is no concern of yours," Javadi said. "What have you done to correct your mistake?"
Rashidi heard the words and wanted to tell this officious bureaucrat what he could do with his questions. What did he know of the difficulties one encountered in the field? He was a political general, not a true soldier. Rashidi chose not to answer Javadi directly.
"The Jews took the Americans to Ein Gedi. They are in a compound outside of the resort."
"And the gold?"
"We have the scroll," Rashidi said. "We know as much as they do. I have a team searching for the next marker as we speak. It has not yet been found. There are many caves in the mountains near Ein Gedi, but most of them have already been explored. Those that are left are high up and reached only with great difficulty."
"You are certain that Ein Gedi is where we should be looking?"