Mark and Decker sailed out in the late afternoon from an Iranian fishing town not far from the Azeri border. The boat was only a few meters long, with a single sail. A strong south wind was blowing.
Plenty of other boats were out on the water, eager to catch what fish they could before the predicted rain really started coming down. Most of them were motorized, though, especially the ones that ventured far out into the sea. At ten miles out, Mark’s sail was an anomaly. But everyone would just think he was a crazy caviar poacher, he knew, driven by greed to take risks. And nobody bothered the poachers.
The wind had only started up in earnest a few hours earlier, not long enough to really whip the waves up into a frenzy, and they made good progress gliding over the relatively calm waters. Mark was at the stern, with the tiller in one hand and the mainsheet in the other. Decker sat on a damp cushion a few feet in front of him, wearing a baseball cap and a white dress shirt. He’d rolled the sleeves up on the shirt because it was several sizes too small for him.
When the land behind them disappeared from view, Mark changed his tack so that now they were sailing almost on a full run, doing six or seven knots, he estimated. With the wind at their back, everything became quiet except for the creak of the wooden mast as the boat yawed back and forth. The gray sail, stained over the years by spatters of grease and fish guts, appeared as one with the dark sky.
“Stop for dinner in Lenkoran?” said Decker.
Mark was still amazed at Decker’s powers of recuperation. He was like one of those gag birthday candles whose flame kept relighting itself, no matter how many times you blew it out. The morning after Daria left, Mark had woken up to find Decker wrapping his ankle with long strips of ripped bedsheets. All the food in the cabin had been eaten. Decker had taken more antibiotics and painkillers on his own and had changed the dressing on his gunshot leg. After sleeping for another day, he’d been ready to move.
Mark knew that, to some extent, Decker had to be faking it — no one could bounce back that fast from that kind of abuse. But the fact that he was able to fake it at all was impressive.
“So is that a yes?” asked Decker. “Because I could use some food.”
“No.” Mark had called Orkhan just before setting sail and then throwing away his cell phone. In exchange for immediate safe passage from the coast to the US embassy in Baku, he’d agreed to give the Azeris a copy of Decker’s surveillance files. And to continue Heydar’s SAT tutoring via videoconference. For free. Mark had also tried to get his persona non grata status lifted as part of the exchange, but Orkhan had refused. After one day at the embassy, he’d need to leave again. “The Azeris are going to pick us up at sea before we get there.” Mark pointed to a boat on the horizon that looked a little bigger than the rest. “I’m hoping that’s our ride there.”
“No kidding?” said Decker.
“No kidding.”
“You’re full of secrets, huh?” Decker let one of his swollen hands drag in the cool water and pretended not to wince as he adjusted his wounded leg. He was looking out toward the bow of the boat. After a couple of minutes, he said, “So you probably heard I had a thing for Daria.”
“Oh?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
Mark didn’t feel like talking about it, so he lied. “No.”
“We went to dinner a couple times in Ashgabat.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Thing is, every time, we’d wind up talking about you. About your surveillance techniques, your recruitment techniques, your damn book, your tomato plants, I mean, I’m not kidding — we’d go to dinner and they’d serve something with tomatoes in it and before long we’re talking about your damn tomatoes—”
“The tomatoes are gone. Everything in Baku is gone.”
Decker continued as though he hadn’t heard Mark, “You know how my mom and dad met?” Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Through AA. They’d both already been through the twelve-step program, the whole works. So before they even started dating, they understood each other in a way other people couldn’t.”
Mark could guess where Decker was going with that. “Come on, Deck. Give it a rest.”
“I’m just saying. You and Daria are the only two people I know who could spend so much time together and never really talk. You guys are wired to protect secrets. About yourselves, about other people, about everything. It comes naturally to you. Anyone outside the CIA would think you’re freaks, but you two, if you ever did talk, might really understand each other. Just something to think about. So what happened to your tomato plants?”
Mark hadn’t told Decker about the extent of the destruction. Mainly because he hadn’t wanted Decker to feel bad about having initiated it.
“The e-mail you sent me was intercepted. So your Chinese Guoanbu buddies in Ashgabat arranged for someone to kill me. My place got completely trashed and I got tossed out of Azerbaijan. It was a disaster. I lost my job, my book, and my home all in the span of a few hours.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Me too.”
“Hey, I tried to ditch Alty’s iPhone after I sent the e-mail, but I fucked up. It was kind of a tight situation.”
Mark thought about Alty’s brother Nuriyev and all the pain that would result from Alty’s death. “I’ll bet.”
“No hard feelings?” asked Deck.
“We’re good.”
A break in the clouds allowed a few slivers of sunlight to penetrate the dark sky. The light sparkled as it hit the blue water, and then a burst of wind stretched the sail taut, so that the water rushing off the bow bubbled like a fountain.
Mark began to think of all that had happened since leaving Baku, and how little he still knew about what had really been going on. The situation was too fluid, too layered, too complex. There were limits to what one washed-up spy — or for that matter, an old ayatollah or a Chinese Guoanbu chief, or even a supreme leader — could understand. Why kill yourself trying?
He exhaled deeply, and instead began to think again of Daria, and of what Decker had just said about her.
That was another situation that he’d thought was insurmountably complicated. But for a moment he allowed himself to consider the possibility that things had changed.
When he’d first met Daria, she’d been a young, naive idealist. And he’d been a cynical, burned-out spy. But since then, a leveling of sorts had taken place between them. The hunt for Decker had made that clear. So maybe now it was as simple as two people liking each other.
He began to wonder where she had gone, and what she was doing with all that money she’d undoubtedly made, and whether he’d even be able to find her if he tried.
The latter question was the only one he was able to answer with certainty.
Of course he’d be able to find her. It had taken him — what? — three days to find Decker? Finding Daria would be a piece of cake.
Epilogue
The old woman shook her head and clucked with disapproval as she drew the long muslin curtains closed. They had been washed the previous month but had already grown dirty again from little hands tugging on them. She’d have to wash them again tomorrow.
Even with the curtains shut tight, the afternoon light filtered into the room, making strange patterns on the worn red carpet. Although the children were supposed to be sleeping, one little boy’s eyes were open, staring at the patterns. The old woman gave him a look, and he quickly turned his head.
The children were all in identical pine toddler beds. One had a harelip, another the short neck and small ears of a Down syndrome child. The rest appeared normal. Because of a lice infestation the week before, the boys and girls alike all had their hair cut tight to their scalps.