Chapter Seventeen

Farrokh Nassiri walked the length of his summer house’s old tile-floored kitchen, turned, and walked it back again. He leaned on his wooden cane and then walked nearer to the young woman at the sink. Low sunlight slanted in through the western window, painting both them and the room the color of amber. The man looked older than his seventy years: his posture stooped, as if by a great weight. His lips moved wordlessly, his brushy eyebrows knitted close together with concern.

“If they discover what you are doing here . . .” he began in Farsi. He stamped his cane as he paused. “I . . . cannot bear to think what the Pasdaran would do to you.”

Zari Nourazar turned a knob on the propane stove, struck a match, and lit it. Then, without looking at Nassiri, she filled a teakettle with cold water and set it on the burner. Lifting off the top of the pot, she lowered in a cheesecloth bundle of anise, orange peel, ginger root, cinnamon bark, and other spices.

“My daughter,” Nassiri said. It was a form of address he had used more and more with Zari over the last month, and he touched her shoulder as he said it. “I cannot allow you to do this thing.”

Zari turned the knob on the stove, bringing the burner to its highest setting. She straightened up, looked Nassiri in the eyes, and held the gaze until he blinked and looked away.

Zari bent down slightly to look him in the face again. “Do you truly think of me as your daughter?”

The scientist nodded mutely.

“Farrokh,” Zari said softly, “throughout history, men have stood by and let madmen do as they would, because they were afraid that, if they acted, their families might suffer. And in the end, almost invariably, those men lost everything, including their families. You must not make that same mistake. You cannot protect me by letting this thing go forward. You must act.”

The teakettle rattled softly as the water within it warmed.

“Think,” Zari urged him. In Farsi, the word was very nearly a hiss. “If you do nothing, no one will know which launch sites are the real targets. Then all the sites become targets: this entire province and then some. When Israel strikes—and sooner or later, unless we act, they will have to strike—then you will die. I will die. My church will die. Everyone I care for will be wiped from the face of the earth. Is this the sort of favor you believe I want from you? And even if the Israelis don’t strike first and this madman we call our president fires his missiles first, the Israelis will retaliate. The entire country will still be destroyed. We must all take risks to save Israel and our own people. It is God’s will, Farrokh. So let us do as God has directed.”

Nassiri blinked.

“Perhaps I am not thinking of you,” he said. “My wife is gone now eight years. You are all I have left, my daughter. Perhaps that is what I am afraid of. Perhaps I fear being alone.”

She looked at him. One side of her mouth lifted slightly in a half smile.

“Other men, perhaps,” she said. “But you? You are the bravest man I know, grandfather.”

He straightened, blinking. It was the first time the young woman had used such an endearment with him.

“You would never be afraid for yourself,” Zari told him. “And you need not be afraid for me.”

A puff of steam rose from the teakettle’s spout. Zari reduced it to a simmer and added black tea to the pot.

Nassiri said nothing as the young woman set out six tea glasses, putting milk, honey, and just a touch of vanilla into each one.

She took a pill bottle out of her apron pocket, counted out a dozen white tablets, and began crushing them into powder with a mortar and pestle.

“Phenobarbital,” she said to the scientist. “These are 500-milligram doses. The usual dose is 200 milligrams or so, but my father’s pain is too severe for that. I figure I will give them 1000 milligrams each.”

Nassiri picked up the bottle and rattled it. There were still tablets inside. “Maybe you should give them more.”

Zari shook her head. “I read the physician’s reference on this. Too much can cause coma, pulmonary edema, acute renal failure. I mean to render them unconscious, not to murder them.”

She measured the powder out into the glasses. Then she put a measured spoonful of sugar into each tea glass.

“The drug is bitter,” she explained to the scientist. “The sweetness will cover the taste.”

Using a potholder, she took the top from the teapot and lifted the cheesecloth, setting it in the sink. Then she strained the tea into the six glasses. With the milk and the honey, the chai was the color of café au lait.

Her dark blue hijab—the traditional woman’s head covering of Muslim society—was on a chair-back at the kitchen table and she picked it up and put it on, careful not to let a single strand of hair show. She looked in the mirror as she did this and saw that Nassiri had turned away while she covered her head, a remnant of modesty from the years he spent in Islam.

When she finished, the face in the mirror seemed like a doll’s face to her. Living in a Iran, she wore the hijab every time she ventured outdoors since her adolescence, and yet she still was not used to it. To her, it was like an animal’s collar around her neck.

Zari arranged the tea glasses on an engraved stainless-steel salver, setting them with the handles facing out. She looked at Nassiri pointedly.

“It is your home,” she said. “I cannot speak to them. It is haram.”

The compressor on the refrigerator thrummed to life, as if growling in response to the Arabic word for “forbidden.”

“Farrokh,” Zari whispered. “You must do your part.”

The scientist nodded his head—the gesture was almost a bow—and left the kitchen.

THERE WAS A STONE patio off the dining room of the country house and five of the six soldiers were gathered there at the outdoor table. Two of the men had field-stripped and cleaned their sidearms and were putting them back together. The other two were in conversation with their captain, who looked up as Nassiri stepped out into the gathering dusk.

“You have eaten?” Nassiri asked in Farsi.

“Thank you,” the officer replied. “We have. We have brought rations enough for a week, and when the rest of the company arrives, they will run meals out to us three times a day.”

“It seems like so much trouble. The other two men simply ate in my kitchen. And I was accustomed to them. They were no bother.”

The officer looked up. Unlike his men, whose faces were covered with what was nearly a five o’clock shadow, his beard was full but neatly trimmed and his eyes, full and brown, should have seemed expressive but looked suspicious instead, as if he was examining anyone he spoke with, looking for the lie. Now, he gazed with that expression at Nassiri.

“The other men were regular infantry,” he said. “Members of the Artesh, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army.”

He said it as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“My men,” he said, “are specialists—Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution.”

He said it that way, the formal name, rather than Pasdaran—“the Guard.”

“We are trained in security.” The captain spoke as if he was educating an underling. “And we will billet, sir, on your grounds, and not in your home. I think it best my men not grow too . . . too familiar with your household.”

Nassiri nodded. “As you wish.”

“Another thing,” the officer added. “When you go out from now on, please tell me first. I will detail two men to go along with you.”

“Even to the village?” Nassiri laughed. “I am in no danger there.”

“You are an asset of the republic, sir. You have knowledge that must be protected. If this intrudes on your privacy, I am sorry for the inconvenience.” His voice didn’t sound as if he was sorry at all. “But I am afraid that it must be so.”

Nassiri nodded. “As you think best. But now, if I cannot give you a meal, at least let me give you tea.”

He opened the door behind him. “Zari, bring it.”

“Colonel, that will not be . . .” the officer began. Then he saw Zari’s face and fell silent for a moment.

“Tea . . .” He looked directly at Zari as he said it, met her eyes with his. “Tea would be very pleasant.”

Zari looked at Nassiri. The officer was practically leering. And she was not a member of his household. In a deeply Muslim culture, it was a discourtesy bordering on insult. Nassiri nodded and she began to give the men their tea.

“Hospitality is not the same as alms-giving, as zakat,” Nassiri said, as if he had not seen the slight. “It is not one of the five pillars. But still, it is the custom. It is the manner of my house.”

“And a fine custom,” the officer said. He sipped his tea. “It is quite sweet.”

“I take it sweet in the morning and at night,” Nassiri said. “I think it makes a good beginning and a fine end to the day. And it is Zari’s specialty.”

Picking up on the cue, Zari smiled back at the scientist.

“Well then,” the captain said, lifting his tea glass. “It is a custom we must adopt. Drink up, men.”

The patio was surrounded by a gated wall and the gate opened, revealing a man a full head taller than the rest, with shoulders so broad they very nearly spanned the opening.

“Sergeant,” the captain said, “you are just in time. Join us for tea.”

“Thank you, sir, no. I am here to detail two men for the first guard, sir.”

“There will be time for that in a moment.” The captain’s tone made it clear he was not accustomed to giving instructions twice. “Our host is offering us his hospitality. Join us and drink your tea.”

“Sir.” The big man accepted a glass. In his hands, it looked very nearly like a thimble, and he drained the warm glass in three sips.

“Sit, sergeant,” the captain said. “You will have your detail after we have finished here.”

He took another drink of his tea and looked over at Zari again, letting his gaze linger for nearly a minute. Then he turned to Nassiri. “You are right about the sweet chai,” the captain told him. “It is quite calming.”

BLAKE AND PARDIVARI SET their rucksacks in the back of the Pushpak. As they did, there was a distant rumbling and lights came on in the building behind them.

Olga Warshowsky came out with a small bundle wrapped in muslin.

“Bread for your journey,” she said. She looked back at the house. “Finally we have lights again. We had to bring man out from the village to mend generator. I am sorry you had to get ready in dark.”

“You have been very kind to us,” Blake told her. “And we appreciate it. Thank you for opening your home to us.”

The woman’s face softened. “Zari and my Nadia would meet here to study when they were girls. Her father, Mr. Nourazar, would arrange for some of the tutors. My Boris arranged for others. And sometimes Anatoly would study with them as well . . .”

Her voice trailed off for a moment. She cleared her throat.

“After Khomeni,” she continued. “There was less and less education for girls here. Islam frowns on it, and besides, in the years after shah, many girls had to work, and others married young—some as young as twelve. And for a girl in the teenage to study with a boy, as they did in our home? Under sharia, it would be considered . . . what is word? Sacrilege. It would be sacrilege. But we wanted our children to have opportunity, and they did. Zari learned English and French. Not English like mine, not English like bad movie, but real English. It was even our hope we would find way to send her to Europe, to study with Nadia. The two were Christian and Jew, yet they were like sisters. How I wish they could have . . . have grown up together.”

“What happened?”

Olga’s eyes welled with tears. “It was year my Nadia turned nineteen. She was in Tehran. She told us she was going there to get student visa for the following year, but now we know she was going to take part in a protest against . . . how do you say it? The violence: domestic violence against women—great problem in this country. The protest attracted attention. Too much attention. A crowd gathered, angry men. Rocks were thrown. My Nadia was struck. She was in coma for a week. Then she died. She never woke up, never regained the consciousness.”

The moment that followed was so silent Blake could hear a moth buzzing against the light near the door.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“As am I.” Olga put a hand on his shoulder. She almost whispered what came next, “I should have been there. I should have been there with her.”

She took a breath. “Enjoy the bread. And whatever it is you do this evening, if it helps someone resist the crazy man who runs this government, this country, then my hopes and my prayers go with you, young man. Take with you the blessing of this house.”

AT THE FRONT OF the house, in the courtyard outside the barn, a diesel mechanic was stowing his tools into the back of a twenty-year-old Mercedes van. It was late; he’d missed prayer and—far worse in his mind—he had also missed his dinner. The woman in the villa offered him dinner, but that was unthinkable. He would never accept a meal from a Jew.

Of course, he did not say that. These people paid their bills promptly, and the generator was not the only diesel engine on their property. They had two trucks, and the man, whom the mechanic did not see on this trip, owned a new Mercedes that, in truth, was too sophisticated for the mechanic’s self-taught skills. But he knew enough to do the preventive maintenance on it, and while the Jews drove their vehicles into town for tire rotations and tune-ups, the bill for repairing the generator more than justified the half-hour drive out to the villa to work on it.

He thought of his older brother, a sergeant in the army. That the mechanic should have enlisted as well was a constant source of argument between them. The brother said that if he enlisted, the mechanic would no longer have to worry about where his next paycheck was coming from; he would have a steady job and perhaps some man would consider him dependable enough to give him a daughter in marriage. The mechanic always countered that at least he chose his own hours, and besides, the older brother had been hoping for a promotion to an officer’s rank for two years and it had not happened yet.

And paydays like today’s made the mechanic think his was the right decision.

The mechanic slid his long toolbox into the back of the van. It caught on something before it was all the way in and he could not see what; the light in the back of the van burned out the week before, and he hadn’t bothered to replace it.

Cursing under his breath, he climbed into the back of the van, felt around, and found the trouble-lamp cord the toolbox was catching on. He pulled it loose, yanked the box the rest of the way in, pinched his thumb, and jerked upright, muttering in pain.

Just then, a little SUV came growling out of the barn. Had the mechanic not mended the generator, it would have passed by in darkness, but because he made the trip out and did his job, the light in the courtyard was burning and the driver’s face was illuminated briefly as he drove by.

In the shadows within the unlighted van, the mechanic forgot all about his thumb and sat, stunned.

Immediately he began to doubt what he saw. It was only a moment, the light was tricky, and besides, everyone knew the man he thought he just saw was dead.

Wasn’t he?

He thought about it as he closed the doors on the back of the van, walked up to the driver’s door, got in, and started the old van’s engine. The valves tapped for a few seconds until the oil got flowing to them; what was that saying about the shoemaker’s children having no shoes? Then the engine quieted down and he put the van in gear and drove out of the courtyard and past the night-shadowed poplars.

Before he turned out of the drive and onto the road, he stopped, closed his eyes, and pictured again the face he glimpsed behind the wheel of the little SUV. It sure looked familiar. It looked exactly like someone he’d seen years before. But everyone knew the man he was thinking about was dead: killed in that explosion two years before.

The diesel mechanic turned on the radio and music, scratchy and streaked with static, came out of the one working speaker. It was that singer Arash and the mechanic listened for a moment and then turned it off. Arash lived in Sweden, and Ebi, before him, lived in Canada and then Spain. What was it with all these Iranian pop singers? They all talked about how they loved the Persian culture and then they all lived elsewhere. And in cold climates, no less. How did that make sense? It didn’t seem very patriotic to the mechanic.

Then again, the mechanic was never all that patriotic. He’d avoided going into the army by getting village elders to claim his skills as a mechanic were needed at home. But he thought of himself as someone who would fight if it came to that. If the Israelis came, if the Americans came, certainly he would fight them.

He thought about that as he drove. And he debated about the face he saw. Certainly, he could have been mistaken; it was not as if he saw the fellow every day, not as if he was familiar with him. He had only known him in passing.

But the driver of that SUV sure looked like the man he was thinking of.

Digging into his pocket, he pulled out his cell phone, thumbed in a speed-dial number, and listened as it rang once, twice, three times.

After four rings, it went to voice mail. That was fine; if the mechanic was wrong, it would be easier if he just passed the information along to a machine, rather than having a conversation with his brother.

He listened to the recorded greeting, then the beep, and he laughed and said, “What? Are you out chasing women? This is your brother, and listen, this may be nothing, but then again it might be what finally gets you that third-lieutenant star you’ve been looking for. Do you remember that American missionary the Pasdaran were chasing a couple of years ago? The one the newspapers said was blown up in that abandoned house? Well, maybe it is because my eyes are tired, or perhaps it is my hunger, because I worked past dinner tonight, but I swear I just saw him leaving that rich Jew’s house. It was not twenty minutes ago, as I was finishing my work there. He was driving a little SUV, not a Toyota. One of those Indian SUVs. The Hindustan ones. And I swear it was that missionary . . . what was his name? Pardivari: that’s it . . . Pardivari.”

THE CELL PHONE IN Hormoz Pardivari’s pocket rang and he answered it, listened for a moment, said, “Good” in Farsi, and hung up.

“That was Zari,” he told Blake. “Our friends are taking their nap. We’ll make one quick stop, pick up the other truck, and then go.”

Blake nodded. They were coming into the outskirts of the village and he was glad for the beard he started when he was first told about this mission. In the darkness, the Pushpak looked like any other old vehicle in the province, and its occupants—two bearded men—looked like any other men who might be out in the early evening.

Pardivari took an alley and stopped behind a squat, square building. Next to it was a twelve-year-old Toyota Land Cruiser, the model that looked vaguely like an older Jeep Wagoneer.

“I take it,” Pardivari said, “a good old boy like you can drive a stick?”

Blake smiled. “Since before I can remember.”

“The keys will be in it, then. Follow me, and I’ll take us up to the old man’s house.”

Blake hopped out, got into the Toyota, and noted that no light came on when he got in. He reached up and found the open ceiling lamp, its bulb pulled.

Appreciating that small touch of stealth, he pushed in the clutch, turned the key to the first notch, waited until the glow-plug light winked off, and then turned the key the rest of the way. The engine rumbled to life immediately, pulsing testimony to the mechanical skill of Pardivari’s church member. He pulled the lights on and followed the little Pushpak down the stone-strewn alley and out onto the dirt road.

Blake shifted from first to second and then from second to third, and stayed there, the condition of the road never allowing them to go fast enough to shift into fourth.

They turned off that road onto one that was graded better, but twisted and turned often to get to the top of a small plateau. When they reached the edge, he saw the lights of a house below and the road began to descend, once again twisting down a series of switchbacks. Three minutes later, they were pulling up to the house. It was much smaller than the Warshowsky’s villa, but larger than a typical Iranian home, particularly out here in the provinces. Date palms were growing in front, and while folded white muslin was staged at the foot of each tree, none had been covered against the cool of the evening. A woman in a headscarf was waiting among them with a flashlight in her hand. The headlamps picked her out; it was Zari.

“Farrokh is inside,” she said, coming closer to the trucks. “Gathering his things.”

“We can’t take much,” Blake said as he stepped out. He had his jacket off, the Springfield pistol ready in his hand, a penlight clipped into his shirt pocket, and the Iridium phone in his pocket. “We have to travel light.”

“He knows this.”

Blake turned to Pardivari. “Stay here with the vehicles and watch the road. I’ll fetch Nassiri and then we’ll get on the move.”

“I’ll come with you,” Zari said. “To show you the way.”

They followed a path to the back of the house and passed through a door-size gate into a patio. There was a fountain playing there; the lights were on, and it looked nearly festive except for the men in camouflage fatigues. All were slumped, gape-mouthed. Blake stopped next to one with four stars on his shoulder.

“Pasdaran captain,” he said. He looked at Zari. “You’re right; they were definitely tightening the screws.”

She nodded and led him into the house. He smelled vanilla, spice, and the scent of wood polish. The place was furnished well, although not ostentatiously; there wasn’t even a television in the living room.

They found Nassiri in the study, watching a line grow across a small gray box on his computer monitor. The box changed to a confirmation message, then he pulled a card reader out of a USB port on the side of the computer, popped the SD card out of it, put it into the flap in the back of a small Moleskine notebook, and buttoned the notebook into his right-hand shirt pocket. The man looked gaunt and even older than his picture.

“Are you ready?” Blake asked him in English.

Nassiri nodded. “May I also bring this?”

He held up a black book. Even with his limited Farsi, Blake could see it was a Bible.

“Certainly, Colonel.”

The older man smiled. “My friends are welcome to call me Farrokh.”

“Thank you, Farrokh. We’d better go.”

Blake led the way out onto the patio, then through the gate and onto the path that led to the vehicles. They were putting Nassiri into the Pushpak when Zari bent close to him.

“Grandfather? Did you bring your medicine?”

The scientist smiled, patted his pocket, and then rolled his eyes.

“We can get him medicine when we get down to the ship,” Blake told her.

“He is on blood thinners. For his heart. He needs them every day.” She looked at the house. “It will only take me a minute to fetch them. We can go back, though the kitchen.”

Blake nodded once. “I’ll go with you.”

The Iranians were still slumped at their seats in the patio, the splashing of the fountain the only sound. Blake followed Zari into the kitchen, where she picked up a pillbox with the days of the week marked on it in Arabic, put it in a canvas bag, and then opened a cabinet and added a couple of pill bottles to it. She got a water bottle out of the refrigerator and put it in the bag as well.

“All right.” She put the bag on her shoulder. “We can go.”

They left the kitchen, went down the hall, and out onto the patio. The six Iranians were sprawled, still in exactly the same positions they’d been in earlier.

Blake followed Zari, stepping around the unconscious Pasdarans’ legs. They were just passing the fountain when he glimpsed it: movement in the far edge of his peripheral vision.

He turned and saw the largest of the Iranians, the big master sergeant, bringing up a KL, the banana-clipped Iranian-made copy of the Russian AKM.

“Down!”

He shouted it in English and shoved Zari between the shoulder-blades, toppling her forward. At the same time, he hit the deck himself, only it wasn’t the deck; he hadn’t made the turn yet, so he went over the knee-high wall and into the fountain, falling face-first into three feet of water. In a flurry of bubbles, it enveloped him.

Even underwater, he could hear the metallic clatter of the KL firing on full automatic. He held onto the piping on the bottom of the fountain and listened: loud percussive noises, like hammerheads striking bricks, sounded from all around him. It was the 7.62-millimeter rounds striking the walls and central armature of the fountain.

He waited until the firing paused and then came out of the water, gun-hand first, grip-safety squeezed flush, pulling the trigger as the Springfield pistol pointed center-mass at the big Iranian. The XD barked three times in rapid succession, and the big sergeant, who had stopped to change magazines, dropped as if to take a knee and then plunged forward, hitting his head on the marble table-edge as he fell.

Water streaming from his hair, his shirt, and his trousers, Blake stepped out of the fountain and put a hand under Zari’s arm. She was trembling, obviously shocked by what just happened.

“It’s over,” he told her as he pulled her to her feet. “Are you hit?”

She began to answer in Farsi, then switched to English. “I . . . don’t think so. Do you see . . . ?”

Blake turned her around and looked her over. It felt oddly intimate to be doing that, and he blinked the thought away. “You’re good. Let’s go.”

“I gave him so much,” she said as they ran around the side of the house. “How did he wake?”

“He was a big guy,” Blake told her as they turned the corner. Then he raised his voice, “Hormoz, it’s us. We’re clear.”

The missionary was halfway from the truck, a big folding knife flicked open in his hand. He stopped and stared at Blake’s dripping clothing. “What happened?”

“One of ’em woke up. This place is remote, but not that remote. Those shots are going to draw attention. And I’d hoped we’d have a few hours before the colonel, there, was discovered missing. We’re going to have to lay up.”

He looked at Zari. “What do you think? Can we go back to the same place?”

Zari was still a bit dazed. She hesitated for an instant and then dug into the canvas bag and pulled out a cell phone. “I will call Olga.”