“Listen—”
“Where is she now?”
“Sounds like her bedroom.”
“Zen.”
“Relax, Bree. She’ll get over it. I apologize. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. It won’t happen again.”
“Good,” she said angrily, before clicking off.
53
Tehran
FLASH PICKED UP THE OTHERS IN THE VAN HE’D RENTED AT the Tehran equivalent of Hertz. The man at the desk had never rented to a foreigner before, but he was in Rome a few years back and happily engaged in small talk as he handled the arrangements on the computer. Flash had only been to Italy as a passenger on military flights stopping to refuel. He’d memorized a great deal of information about pipelines and related tools, but knew very little about the country he was supposedly from. He didn’t let that stop him, however—he told the man several stories of the incredible things going on in the country, including a plan to extend Venice’s canals to Rome.
“Roma? Really?” asked the man.
“Si, si,” said Flash. The conversation was in English—fortunately for him—but Nuri had advised him to throw in an Italian phrase every so often. Si, si—yes, yes—and dove il bano were about all he knew.
“Canals up the mountains?”
“Under,” said Flash. “Tunnels. Si?”
“Ah, yes.”
Flash’s congeniality got a hundred thousand rials knocked off the rental price as a special perk. But while he thought the van would be perfect because of its size, it turned to be less handy that he’d hoped. It barely fit down some of the streets in the old part of the city, and kept threatening to stall when he stepped too hard on the gas.
By the time he got over to the hotel, Tarid had already gotten into a taxi. Nuri and Hera flagged down their own, leaving Danny to wait for Flash.
The Voice steered them away from the knotted traffic in the center of the city, following as Tarid had the taxi take him southeast. They were still about five miles away from him when he stopped in Kahrizak, a small village in an agricultural area south of the city. They continued until they got to within a half mile, and then the Voice started picking up Tarid’s conversation. Flash pulled off to the side of the road while Danny listened.
Everything was a confused jumble for the first minute or so. Gradually, Danny realized this wasn’t the meeting they’d hoped to be led to. Tarid was looking up an old friend who apparently had died a year before. The woman who owned the house now had no idea where the family had moved.
Nuri called in from the taxi, which had been stuck in traffic and was still several miles away.
“Sounds like he’s looking up an old friend,” said Nuri. “What do you think?”
“Has to be.”
“We’re going up to Qemez Tappeh,” Nuri told Danny. “We’ll see what happens from there.”
Qemez Tappeh was a slightly larger village a little north of Kahrizak.
Within minutes, Tarid had gone back to his cab and was heading for the highway.
“They’re on their way to Tehran,” Danny told Flash. “We’ll have to turn around.”
“Just a wild goose chase?”
“So far.”
TARID DECIDED HE COULDN’T FACE THE TEMPTATION OF THE hotel keeper’s daughter for even a few minutes. He had the driver take him to a café he was once a regular at in Punak, on the northwest side of the city. It would be as good as anywhere to kill time.
Once a hangout for young men and university types, it now catered to a much older, quieter crowd. In truth, many of the people Tarid remembered still came here; they had simply grown older. But his mind couldn’t quite adjust, and while some of the faces seemed familiar, he couldn’t attach a name to any.
He took a seat by himself in the corner, then brooded over a tea, trying to convince himself that Aberhadji wasn’t going to have him arrested, or simply executed.
Finally it was time to leave. He paid his bill and went outside, walking down the block to a gas station that he knew rented cars. He didn’t see anyone in the office as he walked up, and for a moment a fresh dose of panic upturned the melancholy stoicism that had settled over him: Aberhadji would not like him to take a cab to the meeting, though he had cut things so close now he might not have an alternative. But the man who ran the station had merely gone to the restroom; he yelled from the back as soon as Tarid rang the bell at the front desk.
The rental was quickly arranged, and within a half hour Tarid was wending his way through the mountains north of the city.
The bright sun glinted off the metal roofs of the large warehouse buildings north of Darreh Bagh as he hunted for the turn he had to take off the main road. The terraced hills above still showed traces of snow, and he worried about the shape of the roads. He’d come here once during the dead of winter—one of the worst ever on record in Iran—and nearly got stuck before reaching the farm.
Aberhadji called it a farm, though the buildings hadn’t been used for agriculture in more than two decades. They’d been falling down when Aberhadji found them, neglected and forgotten in a dead-end valley in the hills. Their obscurity was exactly what Aberhadji wanted. It was doubtful that anyone except those who’d had business here even knew that they existed.
The narrow road was muddy but passable. Tarid drove carefully, avoiding the largest of the ruts as he negotiated the hairpin turn that marked the midway point from the main road to the actual driveway. Within a few hundred feet of the turn, he came under surveillance from a sentry. He didn’t know exactly where this point was, nor did it matter to him—he had felt he was being watched from the very moment he left Tehran, and acted accordingly. If he was not resigned to his fate, he was at least under the impression that he was trapped, with no way out. Running would only prolong his agony and deprive him of any slim chance he had of talking Aberhadji into sparing his life.
Tarid’s fears had doubled each hour over the past twenty-four, pushing not just logic but every other thought from his mind. He drove up to the large yard in front of the ruined main house a condemned man, as if arms and legs were bound in chains to his waist. There were no guards near the car parked there before him, and he saw no one at the front of the large building slightly downhill on the left, which was used as the compound’s headquarters.
Had Tarid been thinking clearly, he would have interpreted this as a positive sign. But he was no longer thinking, clearly or otherwise. He closed the car door and walked slowly down the path, each step measured, each length the same.
He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Once more there was no answer. He pulled open the door.
Aberhadji was standing over a table at the far end of the room, distracted, studying a schematic.
“You are ten minutes late,” he said.
“I—”
“It’s all right.” Aberhadji waved his hand. “I was delayed myself.”
Tarid stayed near the door, frozen by his fear.
“I’d call for tea, but there’s no one to make it,” said Aberhadji. “The crew has been dismissed until June.”
“Is the operation—are we shutting down?”
Aberhadji looked up, startled by the question. “No, no. Just the normal lull in gathering materials. So—your report?”
“My report.” Tarid’s throat narrowed to the size of a straw. He could barely breathe.
“What happened in Sudan?” asked Aberhadji.
“Sudan…”
“What is wrong with you, Tarid?” Aberhadji came out from around the table for a better look at his lieutenant. Even in the dim light near the door, Tarid seemed paler than normal. “Have you been drinking?”
“No. Drinking? Of course not.”
“Don’t pretend to be what you are not,” said Aberhadji sharply. “What does this arms dealer want? What does he know about us?”