The Leveling

“When I have my colleague alive and in my custody, and we are at a safe distance, a messenger will deliver the original tapes to the guards outside your estate.”


“If I bring you to my brother, if we satisfy your demand, how can we be sure that you will honor your commitment to destroy these files? And that you won’t tell the Americans of their content?”

“My priority is retrieving my colleague. And I no longer work for the Americans. But the truth is, you can’t be sure.”

“We have seen your face; my guards have taken your picture. We know you are an American. We are a large group. Even if my brother and I were to be arrested, the group would hunt you down were you to deceive us.”

“I know it.”

“In or outside of Iran. For days or years, however long it takes.”

“Understood.”

“I cannot guarantee the condition of your colleague.”

“If he’s alive and likely to stay that way, you’ll have your tapes.”





63


Tehran, Iran



MOST OF VALIASR Street—the main thoroughfare that bisected Tehran—had been turned into a one-way street going north, the better to accommodate shock troops who might need to speed through the city at a moment’s notice to crush a popular uprising. But up in the far north, the traffic still flowed both ways. Or trickled, as was the case now.

It was six thirty in the morning. Amir Bayat drove. Mark sat behind him. Ayatollah Bayat had chosen the passenger seat in the rear of the car, next to Mark, as though he were used to being chauffeured around.

Giant sycamore trees, planted over a half century ago, formed a wall between the road and the trendy cafés that lined Valiasr’s sidewalks. Paralleling the sycamores were joobs, deep street gutters that, when they weren’t clogged with garbage, brought water down from the Alborz Mountains. Today the joobs were full and running fast, as the spring heat melted the mountain snows. A stiff wind had blown off much of the smog that usually blanketed the city, rendering the mountains visible to the north, and sometimes to the east as well. The mountains were massive, as high as eighteen thousand feet, their tops shrouded in cloud and snow.

Daria called Mark after a few minutes. “You’re being followed again. One lead car, I can’t see it now, but it’s a gray Saipa. He was behind you when you pulled into the estate and he pulled in front of you on Valiasr just after you left.”

“I have him,” said Mark.

“There’s also a guy on a motorcycle, about fifty feet behind you. He showed up just after the Saipa.”

Mark glanced in the rearview mirror. “Got him too.”

“I’m two cars behind the motorcycle.”

Mark told the Bayat brothers the news. “If they’re your men, call them off.”

Amir and the ayatollah denied that either of them had ordered a tail.

From the worried look on both their faces, Mark was inclined to believe them. “Could they be VEVAK?” Mark asked, referring to the Iranian secret police. “Looking into what you’re plotting behind Khorasani’s back?”

Amir admitted the possibility.

“Then we’ll have to lose them.” To Daria, he said, “We’ll be able to ditch the lead car, at least momentarily. But we’ll need you to help us ditch the tail. I’m looking for a place—a mall, a park, whatever—where we can park out front and meet you on the back side before—”

“Hold up,” said Daria.

All traffic had come to a stop. “I’m held up,” said Mark.

“The motorcycle is approaching.”

Mark wasn’t sure whether it was the same sixth sense that had kept him alive all these years, or whether he’d just read too many reports of Iranian nuclear scientists being assassinated by bomb-wielding killers on motorcycles, but the news that the motorcycle was closing in was like a punch in the gut.

At the same time, he realized that the only reason traffic wasn’t moving was that the gray Saipa five cars in front of him had stopped in the middle of the road. People were starting to honk.

He looked behind him. The motorcyclist, wearing a yellow helmet with a black-tinted visor, was moving up fast between the concrete barrier in the middle of the road and the line of stalled cars. One hand was on the handlebars, the other inside his leather jacket.

“We’ve got a bomb.”

Mark spoke the warning a second before he actually saw the metal disk in the rider’s hand.

He popped open the door to the Peugeot, ran three steps, threw his shoulder into the approaching motorcyclist, and knocked him off his bike.

The metal disk left the rider’s hand and sailed high through the air. It landed on the trunk lid of the Peugeot. There was no bounce, just the loud thunk of a magnet attaching itself to metal.

Amir Bayat yanked open his door. In the backseat the ayatollah was trying to unlock the rear passenger door, but it was a manual lock and he couldn’t get his old fingers around the knob. The motorcyclist sprinted toward the gray Saipa that was blocking traffic. Mark ran after him.