The Leveling (28 page)

He met Daria outside the main entrance to the shrine complex. She’d spent the morning posting fliers at religious universities and mosques around greater Mashhad. In her pocket was one of two cell phones they’d bought that morning, along with several prepaid SIM cards; the number for the cell phone in her pocket was the number now printed on all the fliers.

“Three calls already.”

The first had been from a school administrator who was irate about the fliers that had been plastered all over his campus. The second was from someone pointing out that the prayer leader for next Friday was supposed to be Ayatollah Tabrizi, not the man pictured on the flier. The third was from a student who had mistakenly thought the man pictured was the leader of Iran’s parliament.

Another call came in twenty minutes later. Daria answered as if she were the receptionist for the fictional Center for Islamic Studies, cupping the mouthpiece with her hand to muffle the street noise.

After hanging up, she said, “A woman from Ferdowsi University swears our man is a guy named Amir Bayat, owner and editor in chief of the
Enqelab
. She said she grew up in Tehran and her father worked at the paper for years. She wants to know when she’s getting her pass for the sermon.”

The
Enqelab
, Mark knew, was a hard-line conservative newspaper published in Tehran. When he’d been with the CIA, he’d frequently read translated versions of it. He eyed a cop directing traffic and suggested that they find an Internet café and find out everything they could about Amir Bayat.

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Daria. “We can be in Tehran in seven hours. Once we get there, I know someone who will be able to tell us a lot more about Amir Bayat than we’d ever be able to learn online.”

Beijing, China

L
I
Z
EMIN DROVE
up to a set of spiked wrought-iron gates in his black Toyota Camry. A private security guard, wearing a uniform that mimicked those worn by the Chinese army, motioned for him to stop.

Zemin handed over his identification and looked past the gates. With its smattering of red-tiled roofs, stucco buildings, and Spanish street names, the planned community of Santa Barbara was supposed to give the wealthy Beijing residents who lived there the impression that they in fact inhabited the small California coastal town.

Zemin was not a man of strong passions—mild dislike was usually about all he could muster for even the most disagreeable elements of life—but Santa Barbara was an exception.

He loathed the place.

Forty-five years ago, during the Cultural Revolution, having been labeled a capitalist roader by forces loyal to Mao, his father had been executed. A year later, his mother had died of pneumonia in a jail, where she’d been locked up for having supported his father.

Zemin had been raised by his uncle and taught to despise his dead parents because of their alleged ties to capitalism. Santa Barbara made a mockery of that history.

Now everyone was a capitalist, and his uncle, the great general, lived like the very capitalists he’d taught Zemin to despise.

The guard waved him through.

He drove down Cabrillo Boulevard until he came to a cul-de-sac, at the end of which sat a large two-story Tudor-style house, an architectural anomaly among its Spanish-influenced neighbors. Though the grass out front was fertilizer green, the sky above was its usual sickly smog gray. He parked his car in the granite-cobbled driveway and, with a nod of his head, acknowledged the soldier standing near the garage. This one was a real Chinese army officer.

When he rang the front doorbell, he was met by a maid.

“The general is in a meeting. You’ll have to wait.”

Zemin wasn’t surprised. The fat general always kept him waiting.

Tehran, Iran

“S
TAY CLOSE.
” D
ARIA
touched Mark’s forearm. “Shove through if you have to.”

Mark turned his attention to the crush of shoppers trying to plunge into one of the main bottleneck entrances to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar.

A few feet ahead of him, a man was muscling a cart, stacked six feet high with sacks of rice, through a wall of bodies. Daria fell in behind him. Mark fell in behind her.

Unlike the open-air bazaar outside of Ashgabat, this one in south Tehran was a chaotic, twisting maze composed of miles and miles of centuries-old covered alleys.

In one section were electronics, in another fine china, in another racy women’s lingerie…Porters replenished the stores with goods they carried in on backpacks padded with old carpet remnants. Motorbikes occasionally wove their way through the dense crowds. In many alleys, the only light came from neon signs and strings of fluorescent bulbs hanging from low ceilings, which gave the place a cave-like feel. In others, thick shafts of bright sunlight, filled with dust motes, filtered down from open skylights that had been cut into high vaulted ceilings.

After they’d walked over a mile, Daria turned down an alley where shop after shop was packed with rolls of brightly colored fabrics stacked on shelves that reached up to the ceiling.

She approached the third shop on the left and spent a few minutes examining the fabrics that were at eye level. Eventually,
a middle-aged man came over and said he would be happy to show her some of his finer rolls.

Daria said no, she was looking for a specific fabric she’d bought at the shop two years ago. It was a brocade of silver and yellow, with an image of a caged bird repeated in the pattern. It was a beautiful pattern, she said. Very rare, but the owner of the shop had been in the day she’d ordered it, and had recommended it to her. She’d used it to reupholster her couch, and now had two chairs she needed done. Did they still carry it?

The merchant inspected his inventory, but couldn’t find the fabric she was looking for.

Daria asked whether he could order it.

He would have to make a call. The owner of the shop would know.

When the merchant came back, he said that Daria was indeed fortunate. The owner of the store remembered the exact fabric in question and had some at one of his stores in north Tehran. Would Daria prefer to pick it up at the other store or have it delivered?

“I’ll pick it up in an hour. If the owner could have it ready, that would be wonderful.”

“I will tell him.”

“
Merci.
” Daria used the French word for
thank you
, as most Iranians did.

They squeezed onto a motorcycle taxi, which, fifteen minutes later, dropped them in front of a parking garage on Taleqani Avenue, just past the high brick walls that encircled the old American embassy.

On the sixth floor, Daria approached a silver Mercedes. Although it was rusting in a few places, it had recently been washed and waxed. The shiny hood stood out next to the concrete
walls, which were stained with engine oil that had dripped down from the floors above. The words
Bethlehem Steel
were stamped on one of the grimy I-beams supporting the ceiling.

Daria opened the gas cap cover and pulled out a set of keys.

“He’s watching us now,” she said.

“From where?”

“I don’t know.”

She opened the trunk and listened for a moment. There were no footsteps, just the sound of the noisy city outside. “Get in.”

Mark did as instructed. Daria quickly put the keys back next to the gas cap, climbed in next to him, and pulled down the lid of the trunk. To both fit, her back had to nestle up against his chest.

“He’s got a thing about me seeing where he lives,” Daria said, whispering in the darkness. “Which is kind of crazy because I know his name and if I wanted to figure out where he lives I could do it easily.” When Mark didn’t respond, she added, “When I was with the Agency, I met with him about once a month for over two years. He’s one of the power brokers at the bazaar. Not the biggest, but he’s got influence.”

Mark forced himself to stop thinking about Daria’s ass, which was pressed invitingly up against his crotch, and instead consider Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. Although it had lost some of its influence lately, the bazaar was still the Wall Street of Iran; deep connections existed between many of the bazaar merchants and the government.

“If he’s so paranoid, why go to his house? Why not just talk here?”

“He doesn’t like to be rushed.”

The front door of the car opened, then slammed shut. A muffled voice from the front seat spoke out in Farsi: “Who is he?”

“My boss,” said Daria. “You have nothing to fear from him.”

“In the past you have always come alone, dear.”

“It’s a special circumstance.”

Silence, then, “Are you in danger?”

“No more so than usual.”

“After so long, I was afraid I would not hear from you again.”

“I’ll explain everything at your home.”

Beijing, China

“T
HE GENERAL WILL
see you now.”

“Is my aunt here?”

“Hong Kong.”

Zemin dismissed the maid and showed himself to his uncle’s weekend office. The general was at his desk, signing his name to government documents.

“I meet with the transport minister at the golf clubhouse in fifteen minutes.” His uncle spoke with his usual abruptness, without bothering to look up. An assistant—a young army lieutenant—stood by the side of the desk with a stack of more papers to be signed.

It was Sunday morning. The general wore a light green army shirt with dark green army slacks. His jacket, with its general’s epaulets, hung on a coatrack near the door. His head was unnaturally large, even in relation to the rest of his chubby body—the result of too many Mongolian hot pots at the golf club. His cheeks sagged.

Zemin said, “I have an important matter I need to discuss with you.”

“Sit.”

Zemin had, in fact, been intending to sit, but now he chose to remain standing. He faced his uncle’s assistant. “Leave us.”

The assistant’s face remained blank until the general said, “Go.”

When he and his uncle were alone, Zemin said, “There are complications. With the project in Iran.”