The Leveling

Mahmoud used his hand to suggest a dead parrot.

“When the merchant returned home, he explained to his caged parrot what had happened. Moments later, his own parrot died! Grieving, the man took his parrot out of his cage and laid it beneath a tree, intending to bury it. But the moment he placed it on the ground, the parrot flew away, high into the trees. The merchant cried, “What have you done?’ And the parrot said, ‘I thought that by telling the Indian parrots of how you kept me caged, you would realize that what you were doing is wrong. But the free parrots knew at once that you would never change. So one of them showed me the way to my freedom.’”

Mahmoud turned back to Mark and Daria. “The photo you showed me is of a palace you will find in north Tehran. The brother of Amir Bayat lives there. He is a high-ranking ayatollah and the leader of the Guardian Council.”

“I know of him,” said Daria.

“I will shed no tears if harms comes to him during the hunt for your friend. But be careful, my dear. Ayatollah Bayat is a dangerous man. He is like the merchant, a man you can’t reason with. He will never change.”

Daria examined the photo. “I thought public officials were supposed to live humbly.”

“The palace was one that the Shah kept for his family and guests. It is an architectural monstrosity that mocks Iran. Ayatollah Bayat gets away with living there because it is owned by the government and he occasionally uses it for official Guardian Council functions. He says he doesn’t have a home, that he sleeps at his office. It is a fiction, of course. It is his home. I will make a map for you to show you where it is.”

They left a few minutes later. After Mahmoud had dropped them back off in the parking garage, Mark asked, “What happened to his son?”

“He was hanged, in public.”

When Daria didn’t elaborate, Mark pressed her. “Because?”

“Because he was gay.” After they’d walked in silence for a while, Daria added, “A year later, Mahmoud’s wife killed herself. I found out about it from people at the bazaar—that’s why I tried to recruit him, I thought he might still harbor a grudge.”

“I take it he does.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”





57


Tehran, Iran



IN THE FRONT of Ayatollah Bayat’s mansion, wide white-marble steps led up to a spacious portico ringed by Greek columns. Deep-set balconies were lit by chandeliers on the upper levels of the house.

The mansion stood behind a tall fence and was the only structure in the vicinity surrounded by any expanse of land, consisting of nearly two acres’ worth—Mark guessed—of poorly tended lawn and limbed-up plane trees. Overgrown bushes grew on the perimeter of the property, and weeds had crept up out of the cracks in the main driveway. A stagnant reflecting pool lay in front of the main entrance. Two guards stood at attention at the front gate.

Mark and Daria drove up to a point well above the mansion and parked on the street. Mark took out a pair of binoculars he’d bought downtown and studied the grounds.

“They have dogs there.”

“Unlikely,” said Daria. “Religious Iranians think dogs are unclean.”

He handed her the binoculars. “Check out the little white flags. They’re in the middle of the lawn and under the trees on the left. It’s an invisible fence.”

“What do they need an invisible fence for? They’ve got a real fence.”

“To keep the dogs away from the house. Because religious Iranians think dogs are unclean. The way they have it set up, the dogs are limited to the outside perimeter of the property, between the invisible fence and the real fence.”

Daria focused the binoculars. “I heard the army started using them in some cases.”

“A guy I know in Baku has a big spread.” Mark was thinking of Orkhan Gambar. “He does the same thing. You get the security of the dogs without having to interact with them.”

Daria looked through the binoculars a little more. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

Mark noticed the white chimneys on top of the house. “Give me your phone.”

Daria handed it over and Mark brought up the last of the three photos that Decker had e-mailed them, the one in which Decker’s raised hand appeared against a white background. He showed it to Daria.

“That white part look anything like a chimney to you?”

Daria studied the photo. “Maybe.” She looked at it some more, then down at the house itself. “Yeah, it does. What the hell was John thinking?”

“That he was trapped up on the roof and about to get caught. So he did his best under pressure to give us a trail to follow.”

Mark figured that Decker had been using the roof as a surveillance post from which to spy on Ayatollah Bayat. And that he likely would have had surveillance equipment on him. Decker wouldn’t have wanted that equipment to fall into the wrong hands.

“Shit,” said Mark.

“Are you thinking—”