The Leveling (32 page)

Khorasani suspects something.

Why do you say this?

The intelligence ministry is investigating Hashemi.

For what?

He purchased a new car. A Peugeot 405, and he paid in cash.

The fool.

He was told to wait to use the payments.

This is the problem with involving men like Hashemi.

But I had no choice. He was my only link to the Damascus
katsa.

Can the payments be traced to you?

I never communicated with him directly.

Shirazi can stall the investigation until the Americans act.

I received word that matériel was moved from Natanz and Fordo yesterday. And I confirmed that Khorasani’s daughter will remain hidden until she completes her religious studies. It will not matter how many spies the Americans and the Israelis send to Kish. They will learn nothing.

Khorasani will be in your debt.

Yes, but he must never—

Ayatollah Bayat’s wife returned, and the conversation between the brothers ended.

Mark hadn’t understood much of what was said. He didn’t know who Hashemi was, nor Shirazi. He knew the mention of Natanz and Fordo were likely references to the nuclear facilities associated with those towns, but he didn’t know what it meant that matériel had been moved. He knew that a
katsa
probably referred to an Israeli intelligence officer, but had no idea what kind of link the Bayat brothers were talking about.

As a station chief, though, he’d rarely been able to see the whole picture—there were usually too many people, too many moving pieces, too many motives—and he’d grown used to operating with fragments of information. Men and governments were always plotting and scheming. Trying to understand it all was pointless.

To get anything done, he’d had to set aside all that he didn’t understand and focus on the tiny sliver that he did.

And what he now knew was that Ayatollah Bayat and his brother Amir were taking money from the Guoanbu in Turkmenistan and giving money to some Iranian named Hashemi, and that these actions were part of some larger scheme that was going on behind the back of their supreme leader—Ayatollah Khorasani.

In Iran, scheming behind the back of a man like Khorasani could lead to being shot by a firing squad and having your body dumped in an unmarked grave.

Or it could leave you vulnerable to blackmail.

“Turn around,” said Mark.

“Where are we going?”

They were going to find out once and for all whether Decker was alive, thought Mark. He doubted it—Decker wouldn’t have abandoned all his equipment if he hadn’t been in a hell of a pinch—but they’d come this far. Mark would see it through to the end.

“Ayatollah Bayat’s estate is going to be in lockdown mode,” he said. “So let’s go see if his brother Amir is home.”

Mark easily scaled the wall surrounding the modest two-story house and dropped silently into a back garden that was maybe fifteen feet wide by twenty feet long. He walked down a short gravel path, past a cracked birdbath and a dwarf orange tree.

In the back of the house was a sliding glass door. As he crow-barred it open, the wood frame snapped with a single loud crack. No alarm sounded.

“Going in.” He spoke to Daria over the cell phone connection they’d established; he wore an earpiece and had his phone in his pocket.

Stepping into the living room, he used a penlight to illuminate children’s toys scattered around a Persian carpet. There was a fuzzy rocking horse, a sit-and-spin baby minder, a foam soccer ball, little dolls of Muslim women wearing black headscarves, a plastic scimitar…

To his left was a modern kitchen, with stainless steel appliances arranged neatly on a white tile countertop. A tile mosaic depicting the martyrdom of Hussein—the prophet Muhammad’s grandson—hung on a far wall.

He placed Decker’s gear bag on the countertop and pulled out the digital recorder. Then he turned up the volume as high as it would go and pushed Play.

The voices of the Bayat brothers boomed out.

Khorasani suspects something.

Why do you say this?

The intelligence ministry is investigating Hashemi.

For what?

He purchased a new car. A Peugeot 405, and he paid in cash.

The fool.

He was told to wait to use the payments.

This is the problem with involving men like Hashemi.

But I had no choice. He was my only link to the Damascus—

Mark heard noises upstairs—a young boy calling out for his mother, and then Amir Bayat, whose voice Mark recognized because it was also playing on the digital recorder.

Shirazi can stall the investigation until the Americans act.

I received word that matériel was moved from Natanz and Fordo yesterday. And I confirmed that Khorasani’s daughter—

“Who is this! Who dares to violate my home!”

The words were spoken in Farsi, but loud enough for Daria to hear them over the cell phone connection. She translated them for Mark.

A flurry of footsteps sounded, as though the whole family were gathering at the top of the steps.

A woman, sounding confused, called down with a question that Mark couldn’t understand and Daria couldn’t hear.

Mark’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness by then, and he recognized Amir Bayat the second he saw the Iranian bounding down the stairs. He was of average height but considerable girth. In all of Decker’s photos, Amir had had been wearing his black turban. Now his stringy hair flopped down over his forehead in a tangled mess. His ears were swollen and bulbous, marking him as a former wrestler.

The voices on the tape ended. Mark pushed Play again.

Amir shouted something in Farsi. Daria, translating, said, “If the Ministry of Intelligence has something they wish to speak to me about, have the courage to do it in the light of day.”

Mark shined his penlight at Amir Bayat. Speaking slowly in Farsi, he repeated the words Daria had taught him to say. “Do you speak Azeri? Or English?”

“Who are you?” The words, spoken in passable Azeri, came out as a snarl.

Replying in Azeri, Mark said, “I’m not here from the Ministry of Intelligence.”

Amir squinted at the light. “I will not stand for this violation. Turn this noise off, this false recording you have concocted, this—”

A woman—Amir’s wife, Mark presumed—appeared at the top of the steps in a gown. Her hair was uncovered. She said something in Farsi. The only word Mark understood was
police
.

Amir’s response sounded something like
no
.

“What you are hearing are copies of the originals,” said Mark. “If something happens to me, these digital recordings will be e-mailed to the Ministry of Intelligence.”

One of Bayat’s children began to cry. Amir’s wife said something about the police again.

To Mark, Amir said, “Who are you?”

“The man you tried to have killed in Baku.”

“Sava.”

“Yes.”

“Khorasani would approve of what we are doing if he knew.”

“But he doesn’t know, and he hasn’t approved it.”

Amir Bayat had no answer to that.

Mark said, “I have a demand.”

“You have violated my home. You have looked upon my wife. You have brought my children to tears. You will pay for this.”

Indeed, all of Amir’s children now seemed to be crying. It occurred to Mark that he was a monster to them.

“If you meet my demand, I will instruct my colleagues to destroy the evidence I have against you.”

Bayat yelled something to his wife. Moments later, it sounded to Mark as though the kids were being herded into a room upstairs.

Mark pulled out Decker’s camera and began to show Bayat the photos on the LCD screen. When he got to the ones that showed Bayat receiving a briefcase from a Chinese man on the streets of Mashhad, he zoomed in on the faces. “You were followed from the moment you took the money. Your hotel rooms and phones were bugged. Everything you said was recorded.”

Amir’s face was creased with worry.

“The good news for you,” said Mark, “is that my only demand is that you release the American you captured three days ago. He’s my colleague.”

“I know not of whom you speak.”

“I think you do. He’s almost two meters tall. Short hair, originally blond, dyed brown. Muscular.”

“I do not.”

“Then I will need to speak with your brother.”

“I have several brothers.”

Mark clicked through the photos on the digital camera until he came to the one that Decker had taken of Ayatollah Bayat entering the mansion in north Tehran. “This brother. The brother
you are speaking to on the tape. The brother who wound up with the money from the Chinese. The brother who lives in the house where you found my colleague. The brother who is scheming behind the back of your supreme leader. That fucking brother.”

A long silence passed.

“I can’t guarantee he will see you,” said Amir.

“Oh, I think he will.”

Over his cell phone earpiece, Mark heard Daria say, “The house is being watched. Get out.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. A car parked opposite the house just started up and drove away. Someone must have been inside it for the whole time I’ve been here. Thirty seconds later another car pulled into the open spot. No one’s gotten out of that car yet.”

“Have they seen you?”

“I don’t think so. I’m behind them by about a hundred yards.”

“Did they see me hop the wall?”

“Maybe.”

“They look like they’re planning a takedown?”

“No, but—”

“I got you. We’re outta here.”

Tehran, Iran

M
ARK AND
A
MIR
Bayat sped through the gates of Ayatollah Bayat’s estate in north Tehran, waved through with barely a glance from the guards out front. Amir parked his green Peugeot at the base of the wide marble steps that led to the entrance. By now it was almost dawn.

They’d been followed on the way over. Daria had picked out the car right away and stayed behind it. Mark guessed it was the Iranian intelligence ministry closing in.

There were more guards on duty at the ayatollah’s mansion than there had been the night before. Yellow police tape was strung up on the section of fence that Daria had rammed into.

Amir let himself into the front foyer, removed his worn leather loafers, and slipped into a pair of cheap plastic house sandals. Mark didn’t like the thought of leaving himself vulnerable, and he didn’t care if he insulted anyone, so he left his shoes on.

He was led to a room not far from the front door. It was a shabby place, with cracked plaster walls. Sticks of incense were kept burning in one corner next to photos of a few young soldiers, boys really, who—according the words at the base of the photos—had died in the Iran-Iraq War. After a while, a tiny woman who took baby steps under her black chador set down a bowl of apples and oranges on a nearby coffee table.

Mark sat cross-legged on the floor, across from Amir Bayat.

“He will come.”

“When?” said Mark.

“Soon.”