He sounded surprised: “Oriana wasn’t following you.”
“You mean she just happened to be there when the Iranian tried to kill me?”
“What happened? Are you all right?”
“Yes, thanks to her. But why was she following me?”
“She wasn’t following you,” he repeated. “She was following him.”
“Vanitar?”
“Vanitar Azad used to be an Iranian intelligence agent. He’s the younger brother of Arshan Azad.”
The brother. Somehow it seemed fitting. While I was trying to save my brother, he was trying to avenge his own. I felt relieved the two Iranians were dead. “Another name to cross off your list,” I said.
“Vanitar wasn’t on the list. We believe he may have been in training as an assassin under Arshan.”
In training—with knives. I thought of the pink scar above his mouth. “How did you manage to find him in Rome?”
“We got a tip on his hotel. Oriana spotted him leaving and followed him to the Excelsior.”
I realized she must have been there when I made my getaway. And followed him to the airport, too. How could a woman so attractive have made herself so invisible? I wondered again who she worked for. “Who gave you the tip?” I asked.
Grant seemed put off by my asking. “I work for the U.S. government, Jack. We have a lot of resources.”
“Like housemaids to mop up a murder?”
“That story was yours.”
“And now you know it’s true,” I said. “That Swiss doctor I asked you about? He seemed to think that you would know who cleaned up after the killings.”
“I can tell you DS had nothing to do with it.”
“Who was it then? Who sent that flower peddler to my apartment?”
“I’m not sure I would believe everything Dr. Fiore tells you.”
“He didn’t tell me,” I said.
“Did he offer you money?”
I hesitated to answer.
“I’m not surprised,” the agent said. “Felix Fiore is a very rich man. Before he retired, he ran one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Europe. My guess is he’s after your lotus for himself.”
“This morning you told me you didn’t know anything about the lotus.”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I still don’t. All I know is that a lot of people seem to want to get their hands on it.”
“Do those people include any friends of yours? Those ‘resources’ you were talking about?”
“We have sixteen separate intelligence agencies—”
“Just give me an answer,” I said. The boarding line was dwindling; I was running out of time. “Does Oriana work for the CIA?”
“No,” he said.
“But they did the clean-up, right? They sent the flower peddler. They killed Maya.”
“It’s possible, Jack. Rumor is they’re trying to get a man inside. Our people in Iraq think that’s why the assassins tried to kill our ambassador—as a warning.”
“Wow. And you saved his life. Still they won’t tell you what’s going on?”
“I’m too far down the food chain.”
“I thought you people were all supposed to be working together now. Connecting dots.”
“Believe me, I’m trying. This one’s wrapped up tight.”
I sensed genuine frustration in his voice. But I still wasn’t sure I could trust him. “I’ve got to go,” I said.
“Where is it you’re going?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you following me.” I started to hang up the phone.
Grant stopped me with a question: “Did the doctor have any idea where your brother Dan might be?”
“No,” I said.
I answered too quickly; Grant sensed I was lying. “You should be clear about something, Jack: You have nothing to fear from us.”
“Fiore didn’t seem to think so.”
“I’ve been doing a little research on your doctor friend,” he said. “He’s fluent in seven languages and one of them is Persian. He learned it during the years he worked at the corporate office in Tehran, back in the days of the Shah. Seems he took a great deal of interest in their religion. There were rumors he’d ‘gone native’ and converted to Islam.”
“They’re just that—rumors,” I said. “Fiore is a Buddhist; he told me so himself.” But even as I said this, I couldn’t help recalling his talk of Persian gardens. “He lived in Tehran what—40 years ago?”
“Closer to 50. Still, if your brother has someone to worry about, I’d suggest it isn’t me.”
“Then why are you so intent on tracking him down?”
“It’s simple,” he said. “Your brother is the one the assassins are looking for. If I can find him, I can find them.”
“Then what?”
“Then…I’ll kill them. I swear I’ll kill every last one of them.”
27.
Madness
GRANT’S GRIM TONE as he made that pledge reminded me of the rage of Vanitar Azad. While I doubted it was blood revenge that motivated Harry, his smoldering animosity sounded very much the same. Someone had been murdered, probably someone close. In a way it didn’t matter who or why. Whatever drove him now, whatever fanned the flames—fear, guilt, righteousness, anger—the agent had a debt to pay and a bunch of men to kill. I felt like I had wandered into his own private war.
Our jet rose over Istanbul like a modern magic carpet, soaring above the sunlit domes, the maze of souks and skyscrapers, the gash of water glistening between opposing thumbs of land. We were crossing from Europe into Asia, passing officially from the West into the East. Below I spotted the silver bubble of the Hagia Sophia, for a thousand years the largest Christian cathedral in the world, until the Ottoman Turks captured the city and converted it into a mosque. Today, of course, it’s a tourist museum. Ogling it now from 10,000 feet, I thought of the jet-setting Turkish tycoon with his fashionably modest daughters and his tech-savvy sons, schizoid descendants of that fuddy-duddy empire, who for over five centuries now had called the bisected city their home.
I had visited Istanbul several years before, after journeying up from India on my trek around the world. That trip had taken me from east to west, stopping first in the South Pacific and ending a year later in that barren room in Rome. Although I had always imagined I would continue the journey home, now I found myself heading in the opposite direction, crossing back over the Bosporus again, following the gentle arc of the earth into the deepening night, as if I had left something behind in the dark, a forgotten dream or memory, a lesson still unlearned. It reminded me of a remark made by an elderly British gentleman I had come across in India, a self-proclaimed seeker-after-the-truth. “The further you go towards the East,” he said, “the further you go away from the West.” At the time I had thought the tautology was some sort of British joke, an example of their peculiar humor. But watching the hordes of Hindu holy men bathe on the ghats of the Ganges, I realized it was a perfect description of the mystic’s mode of life: the gradual shedding of the assertive Western ego while pursuing the so-called “inner peace” of the transcendental East.
There was only one problem with going in that direction, as the teeming mass of money-hungry Indians will attest. The danger was plainly demonstrated by the Englishman himself. The former Royal Marine, wading naked in the filthy river with a cockamamie grin on his face, appeared to all the world to have gone completely off his gourd.
Like Harry Grant’s obsession and Vanitar’s revenge, the old limey’s quest for “truth” seemed just another form of madness.
I STUDIED DAN’S Buddha sketchbook until I fell asleep. Daydreams strain like hackneyed prose, but night dreams wax poetic. In my dream, Vanitar appeared in the form of Dan’s bulb-eyed Tibetan demon. But I was sleeping lightly, and because some wary portion of my brain remained awake, the vision of this deadly assassin, who only a few hours before had come close to str
angling me to death, now completely failed to frighten. With the hideous chain of grinning skulls slung around his neck, he struck me as more of a curiosity, a Saturday morning cartoon cliché of a Middle Eastern villain. Then, in the unexplainably fluid way that dreams often unfold, I realized the demon had morphed into the yogi—the one locked in sexual union with the consort. I couldn’t see the woman’s face, only her sinuous back, but the awestruck face of the yogi, I realized, looked shockingly like my own.
I woke up. Night had fallen, the cabin was dark, and an Indian movie was playing on the monitors overhead—veiled women, flashing eyes, swirls of shimmering silk. The man beside me had fallen asleep, earphones buzzing like trapped flies. For a while I stared at the movie trying to figure out what it was—comedy? art-house? romance? adventure?—until a woman suddenly appeared in the aisle as if she’d stepped right out of the screen. She was wearing a headscarf and big sunglasses like an old-fashioned Hollywood star, apparently oblivious to the fact that it was dark. I recognized her immediately as one of the Turkish tycoon’s daughters. Hadn’t they gotten off in Istanbul? As she strutted her way up the aisle, many a male head slowly craned up for a view. She had bundled herself in a cashmere wrap, and her elegant black Capri slacks revealed slender calves. Wasn’t exposed flesh verboten? Just before she reached my row, she seemed to lose her footing. Clutching at a seatback, she fumbled her large, gold-spangled handbag, which dropped to the floor with a plop.
Three men, including me, frantically reached to retrieve it. That’s when I noticed the heels she was wearing.
Cherry red leather. Tiny black bows.
I handed her the bag. She took it from me and continued on without so much as a nod, as if she had done me the favor. I turned and watched as she sauntered away, then quickly got up and followed her.
A climactic sword fight on a moonlit dune flashed like a strobe on the monitors, and as I made my way down the flickering aisle, rapt passengers tilted to maintain their line of sight. I reached the woman just as she stepped into the bathroom. When she turned to close the door, I abruptly straight-armed it open.
“It was you,” I whispered.
She stared from behind her impenetrable shades, frowning at me in confusion.
“In the Men’s Room? The airport in Rome?”
A look of disgust distorted her mouth. She shouted some foreign curse at me and thrust me back with the butt of her hand.
The door slammed shut and locked.
I glanced around, embarrassed. Several passengers stared at me. A young stewardess unpacking a drink cart poked her head out from behind it. “Everything all right, sir?”
“Fine,” I said, straightening my collar. I backed away from the door.
Could this possibly be another woman wearing identical high-heeled shoes?
28.
Hazel
IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG to arrive at an answer. I waited for her to unlock the door, and the moment she did, I shoved it open and forced my way into the tiny room, quickly locking the door behind me before she could get out a word.
But the lady did not protest. Backed against the sink, she eyed me impassively from behind the inky shades.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“Brushing my teeth.”
With her face only inches from mine, I could actually detect the minty scent on her breath. “Why are you following me?” I asked.
Oriana lifted the glasses and propped them on her head. Cool as an Italian cucumber. “Shouldn’t I be asking you?”
Hazel. Her eyes. Light brown with a tinge of green. I don’t know why it mattered, but for some reason, at that moment, I could think of nothing else.
Then I did. “You killed that man at the airport.”
She exhaled a weary little chuckle.
“I don’t think it’s funny,” I said.
“No,” she said. “But I thought you would be grateful.” Pouting, she loosened her cashmere wrap, exposing the plunging neck of her blouse and the chain of jade at her throat.
“I am grateful,” I said.
“Strange way to show it.”
I nodded toward the headscarf and glasses. “What’s with the getup? Why were you hiding with that Turkish family?”
“Hiding? I just happen to sit beside them.” She spoke calmly, very matter-of-fact, like a wife who was lying to her husband, and who knew that he knew she was lying.
“Before, outside, why did you shout, push me away?”
She glanced around the little room. “Isn’t it obvious?”
The calmness of her voice irritated me. We were standing so close I could feel her chest heaving, sense her every breath on my cheek. Wisps of her hair had escaped from her scarf. Her cashmere gave off the scent of lilac.
“Look, Oriana: You killed a man. You probably saved my life. But if you don’t tell me who you are, who it is you’re working for, I swear I’ll turn you in to the police.”
Someone rattled the door. We stared at it in silence, then looked back at each other.
“I could turn you in,” Oriana said, “for forcing your way in here.”
“You let me in. Why?”
She shrugged, demurely, again looking away.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
She turned her eyes to mine and this time didn’t look away. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”
My mouth fell open. Holy Christ.
Now there was a tap-tap-tap at the door. The movie had apparently ended, and a line was forming outside.
“Just a minute!” I shouted.
Oriana continued watching me, waiting for the uptight, dimwit Yank to finally make his move.
It wasn’t much of a move to make. A slow lean forward, a slight tilting of the head. Oriana rose up off the sink and slid her arms over my shoulders. Her chest lifted and pressed against me. I peered into those green-tinged hazelnut eyes, imagining the fresh-mint flavor of her mouth. But just as her lips barely brushed against mine, she paused there, hypnotically, holding off the kiss.
“Forgive me, amore.”
I felt something cold at the base of my neck. In the mirror behind her, I saw that she held an electric toothbrush in her hand.
“No—”
The electric bzzzzzp sound vibrated in my ears, and suddenly my entire body reverberated with it, humming like a smacked crazy bone. I stiffened, utterly benumbed with pain. The shock seemed to freeze me corpse-like in time, and as I glimpsed my aghast reflection in the mirror, I realized I looked like the yogi in my dream, now embraced by the wily Oriana.
The vibration stopped. My muscles gave out. I collapsed into Oriana’s arms. She carefully lowered my body to the floor. I was conscious, but utterly disabled.
“As you’ve noticed,” she said, “the shock didn’t kill you. Unfortunately, the same is true of Vanitar Azad.” She stuffed the toothbrush Taser into her purse. “He must have contacted his superiors—which is why they had another agent waiting for you in Istanbul.”
Another agent?
“He’s sitting in coach, three rows behind you. Though by now I suspect he’s joined the line outside this door.”
Knuckles rapped the door again. This time the young stewardess: “Are you all right in there?”
Oriana turned to the sink and ran the tap. “He won’t be the only one,” she said. “There’ll be more at the airport in Baku.”
“Open, please.” Another stewardess, older, more authoritative. She knocked firmly on the door. “You must return to your seat. We are preparing for descent.”
I wanted to see what Oriana was doing at the sink, but could barely lift my eyelids.
“With the stress of the shock,” she said, “your blood sugar’s turned into lactic acid. Your muscles have nothing to power them. Not to worry: I hit you with a shorter cycle. In about ten minutes you’ll begin to recover.” She crouched down and checked my pulse, pressing two fingers to my throat. “But if you want to get out of this alive, you’d better not
recover too quickly.” Lifting my lids, she examined my eyes. “I need you to play along—understand?”
No, I did not understand. Oriana had removed her headscarf, disheveled her hair, and splashed her eyes with water. Smeared makeup ran like tears down her cheeks. She looked crazier than Vincenzo’s mother.
I peered groggily back at her, unable to respond. She rose up and opened the door.
Two stewardesses stood before a line of scowling passengers.
“Help—please!” Oriana cried. “My husband is having heart attack!”
29.
The Help of Allah
WHY? I WONDERED.
If nothing happens to us except what the Giver of Life has decreed, then why had I again been thwarted, again humiliated?
Was I being tested? Had I misunderstood? Or had I not entirely submitted to His will?
Allah created human beings in strife and struggle. We all suffer for our ignorance, and are given to see things only in part. The Almighty does not speak to us except by inspiration, or from behind a veil. But for those who believe with certainty, the signs are always clear.
This thwarting then must be a sign. This defeat must have some meaning.
I rinsed the stink from my face and peered at my reflection.
“Look,” Arshan had urged me.“Look more carefully. See.”
The face might be Faraj’s, I thought. We’d always looked like brothers. And now I saw in my eyes the same shame I’d seen in his, bleeding on that prison floor in the stench of his own vomit.
This was no coincidence. The parallel was clear. We had both lost face.
Allah was granting me a peek into His grand design. But what exactly did it mean? What was His grand design?
Look more carefully. See.
See the path of Allah, and where Faraj had gone astray.
What was it that had lured my friend so far away from God? The opium? His uncle? The drivel of the Sufis? Perhaps too much exposure to the toxins of the West. The movies that he dragged me to. The music that he loved. The dream of fake democracy unfettered by Islam.
The Assassin Lotus Page 11