The Leveling

THE MEETING HAD been dragging on for hours. Hundreds of aim points had been considered. Most were easy to approve—radar installations, Revolutionary Guard bases, anti-aircraft batteries…it only took fifteen seconds a slide on average, but every so often they hit a hard one.

“Aim point one thousand sixty-seven,” said the secretary of defense. An address in Esfahan, Iran, came up on the white-board. “Home of Dr. Farid Kermani. Director of the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center.”

“He lives in a housing complex,” said the national security advisor, “so there is a certainty of civilian casualties, perhaps significant. The complex is located within a quarter mile of the Khaju Bridge, which is around four hundred years old and a big tourist site. If we screw up and hit that bridge, we’ll suffer serious backlash beyond what we’re already in for.”

“How many individuals are on the aim point list?” asked the president.

“Eight, beginning with Dr. Kermani. They represent our best estimate of what constitutes the top nuclear minds in the country. If we can eliminate these people from the equation, the Iranians could be set back several years on top of the time it will take them to rebuild the infrastructure damage we’ll inflict.”

“This is one of the many reasons why we’re not consulting with the Europeans,” added the national security advisor. “We choose the aim points, we take all the blame and all the backlash. We’ll get hammered for it, and it might mean we’ll be ceding the initiative on some foreign policy goals for the next few years, but we’ll just have to live with that. It’s better than the alternative. Aim point accepted.”

Everyone else concurred.

“Aim point confirmed,” said the president.





46


Turkmenistan, Near the Border with Iran



MARK AND NURIYEV drove south in Nuriyev’s old white Volga toward the foothills of the Kopet Dag Mountains, which paralleled the border with Iran. It was desolate country, dotted with only occasional clusters of small houses, and the scorched hills made Mark long for the relative luxury of his apartment in Baku.

After a half hour they turned down a dirt road where chickens roamed free. The little whitewashed houses all had rusting corrugated-metal roofs with satellite dishes nailed haphazardly to their sides. Laundry lines had been strung between stunted palm trees.

Nuriyev pulled up to the last house on the street. A shiny blue BMW 3 Series was parked out front, and two little girls were chasing a big cream-colored Alabai dog and laughing. Nearby a camel poked its head out from a backyard that had been fenced in with old doors.

Nuriyev announced that they’d arrived at his uncle’s house. And that his uncle was a smuggler.

“Of?”

“Mostly alcohol and Western cigarettes. That they bring to Iran.”

Mark wondered what ‘mostly’ meant.

“They have—”

“Who is they?”

“My uncle and his family. They have an arrangement with the border guards.” Nuriyev muscled the steering wheel as he parked. “If Alty crossed into Iran, he may have turned to them for help.”

As they approached the house, a stooped old man appeared in the front door, beneath a cluster of dried chili peppers that had been nailed to the top of the doorframe for good luck. Although it was hot out, he wore a long-sleeved Turkmen robe under a soiled North Face vest. His face was creased with deep wrinkles, his mouth set in an unfriendly frown.

Nuriyev put his right hand over his heart and dipped his head a bit.

The old man didn’t reciprocate. After standing in the doorway for a while, as if to block their entrance, he simply said, “Well, you must come in for tea.” He turned, with little enthusiasm, into the house.




In the main room, floor pillows, shiny with hair grease, ringed a large red Turkmen carpet. Mark detected the smell of both cigarette and opium smoke. In a corner, an intricately carved opium pipe sat next to a paraffin lamp. The sole piece of furniture was a low table, reinforced with several pieces of scrap wood, on top of which sat a decent-sized LCD Sony television. A boy of about ten sat in front of it, watching two American professional wrestlers beat each other over the head with chairs.

Nuriyev’s uncle gestured to the floor. “Sit.” He called loudly for tea, and his wife appeared, wearing a bright yellow-and-blue headscarf. Behind her stood the two girls who’d been chasing the dog on the street.

Mark wondered whether Decker had visited this house. He scanned the room for signs of Deck as Nuriyev and his uncle discussed the price of cottonseed oil and the recent inflation crisis.

“He likes us to smoke,” said Nuriyev in halting English, interrupting Mark’s thoughts.

“I quit cigarettes,” responded Mark, also switching to English.