The Leveling

The flash came, blinding white, and was followed by a deafening bang.

Mark’s first thought was that the actual blast wave hadn’t been that bad. Then he realized he was facedown in the road, several feet away from where he’d last been standing.

The motorcyclist was already climbing into the Saipa at the front of the traffic jam. Mark caught a fleeting glimpse of the driver. He looked Chinese.

Mark turned back to the Peugeot. The windows were shattered, the trunk lid had been blown off, the rear seats were burning—and half of the ayatollah’s head was missing.

All around Mark, people were screaming, leaving their cars in the street and running for safety. Mark stood, looking for Amir Bayat, then stumbled back toward the car. Amir Bayat lay facedown in the joob. Water and bits of garbage rushed over his head.

Daria ran up and started pulling Amir out of the water. Mark gave her a hand.

The Iranian’s right leg was in shreds. Mark saw bits of bone and cartilage.

“Help me get him to my car,” said Daria.

Bayat left a slug-like trail of blood in his wake, but halfway to Daria’s stolen Paykan, he began to cough. Daria yanked opened the rear door.

Mark heaved Bayat halfway into the car, stuffed his legs in the rest of the way, and jumped in next to him.

Daria threw the car into first and took off as fast as she could.

Mark ripped a manual-window handle off the side of the door, stripped off his shirt, tied it tightly around Bayat’s wounded leg, slipped the window handle under the shirt, and began to tighten the tourniquet.

Bayat moaned something about a hospital. He banged on the window of the car with his fist, but in a weak, dazed, halfhearted way. Mark wasn’t even sure Bayat knew what was going on with his leg.

After eight twists the bleeding slowed to a trickle. Mark used the knife strapped to his ankle to cut a long strip of fabric from the Paykan’s upholstery. He used that strip of fabric, along with another window handle, to fashion an even tighter tourniquet.

“He’ll live,” Mark said, when finished.

Daria had turned off Valiasr and was rocketing down an empty alley. “I’ll get us out of town.”




“I need a hospital.”

Bayat had passed out after noticing that half his leg was gone. Then Mark had taken a blanket that had been covering holes in the Paykan’s upholstery and placed it over Bayat’s legs. Bayat was now awake and more lucid than before.

“Who hit us?” asked Mark.

Bayat’s turban had washed away in the joob. His wet hair was dripping into his eyes.

“VEVAK would never do something like this.” Bayat’s breathing was labored. “Not to my brother. My brother, is he—”

“He’s dead.”

“I need a hospital.”

“If you don’t know who ordered that hit, how do you know you’ll be safe at the hospital?”

“I know a doctor—”

“What about your Chinese friends. Could they have turned on you?”

“No.”

“You’re going to take us to my colleague. Now, as we agreed. After that we can talk about a doctor.”

Bayat stared out the window for a while. “There is a house, in the mountains,” he whispered, laboring to speak. “Drive first to Karaj, then north toward Dizin. After an hour the road will split. Go west. Soon you will see a private road, down this road is the house. I need a doctor.”

“I heard you the first time.”





64


Alborz Mountains, Iran



AFTER HIS BRIEF burst of lucidity, Bayat slipped back into a netherworld. His eyes were closed, his head hung limp on the back of the seat, and his face was contorted by pain. Every so often he’d let out a string of whimpers.

They hurtled through Karaj, and then sped north through a series of dumpy little towns with small houses clinging to steep hillsides, through green valleys filled with tall aspen trees, past little concrete roadside mosques where travelers could pray, and across the flanks of several barren hills. A half hour outside of Karaj, they passed a lifeless reservoir. After an hour, Mark smacked Amir on the cheek.

“Where does the road split?”

Amir moaned. “Keep going.”

“For how long?”

Amir didn’t answer. Mark wondered whether he was dying.

“How long?” Mark repeated.

“Soon.”

The Paykan began to struggle as the road became steeper. The air grew colder. Mark saw a little patch of snow tucked into a shady ravine. A few cars with ski racks—headed for Dizin, an aging resort that had been built during the reign of the Shah—sped by them.

They came upon the split in the road and bore off to the west. Five minutes later Amir said, “Here.”

To their right was a dirt driveway blocked by ugly steel gates.

“There will be a guard,” said Amir, breathless. “I must speak with him.”

Mark took out his knife and slipped it under the blanket covering Bayat’s legs. He pressed it against the tourniquet. Bayat winced.

“This guard, he doesn’t get close to the car,” said Mark. “I see him raise a weapon, I cut the tourniquet.”