Once they saw the Iranian Red Crescent markings on the ambulance, the guards gave them only a cursory look and asked about the earthquake. Naurouz filled them in quickly, saying they were on a medical emergency and had to hurry. They were waved on each time.
“All these people are leaving the city to go stay with relatives,” Naurouz said. “There is never any traffic on this road in the middle of the night. They’re afraid. There are often secondary quakes, some that are just as strong as the first. Out where my parents are, there are no tall buildings to fall down on your head. In town, pieces of the buildings that have been shaken loose by the first quake fall down in the street during the secondary quake, even when the tremors are weaker.”
“I’m glad we’re leaving town,” Steve said. “Where are we meeting Leila?”
“At a caravanserai. We’re almost there.”
Kella leaned forward and said, “You mean we would have had to walk all this distance in a tunnel?”
“Until we were past the road blocks.”
She suddenly felt guilty for being thankful for the earthquake.
The ambulance swung off the road on a sandy track. The headlights revealed a plateau punctuated by small bushes hanging tightly to the dry ground. Ten minutes later, the dark outline of a structure with a thick round tower on each end appeared. As they got closer, a large gate was visible. Naurouz said, “This is the only circular caravanserai in the country. It took three years to renovate it back to what it was five hundred years ago.”
“No bathrooms?” asked Kella.
“Communal bathrooms,” Naurouz grinned.
They parked and could see another tower at the end of the side wall.
Pointing at the five other cars, including Leila’s, Naurouz said, “There are usually only tourists here. The earthquake is forcing people to get out of Yazd.”
Walking through the gate, Kella could well imagine camels and their heavy loads having come through the same portal during the Silk Road days. Had Marco Polo traveled here in the thirteenth century, bringing back spices and stories of the Kublai Khan court that excited Europe to learn more?
Inside they could hear raised voices coming from beyond the small lobby. “That’s Leila’s voice,” Naurouz said moving quickly in that direction,
Steve and Kella followed him into an octagonal common room with colorful rugs on the floor and pillowed banquettes lining the white brick walls. Green jars sat on the recessed shelves created by two bricked-in and arched alcoves, one on each side of a large fireplace. A long, narrow red rug separated two rows of foot-high wooden platforms closed off by patterned copper-colored curtains.
The only people in the room were Leila, sitting behind a low round chiseled copper tray table supporting a tea pot and her cup, and two men in their twenties, black-haired and bearded, with bad teeth, standing on each side of her.
They looked at the newcomers and Leila exclaimed, “Naurouz!” She stood and brushed by one of the two men to give her brother a quick hug.
In a few words, she told him that the two men were insisting that she go to their room with them. In self-defense, one of the men said, “We know what kind of women travel alone.”
Naurouz stepped toward them and, grumbling, they backed off to a table the other side of the room.
Leila returned to sit behind her tea tray as Steve, Kella, and Naurouz settled themselves around her. In low voices, they discussed their plans in English. Naurouz was telling Leila that she should go home and that he would go on with the ambulance when Steve nudged him and glanced toward the two men on the other side of the room.
They were clearly agitated, speaking quickly in whispers and glancing surreptitiously at Steve. He had been waiting for this moment, anticipating and fearing discovery and the incentive of the reward offered for his capture.
“Naurouz, we better move,” he said.
The two men rose and walked out toward the lobby.
“They’re going to call the police,” Steve said, and quickly followed them, with Naurouz close behind.
The two men were not in the lobby, and Steve went outside looking toward the parked cars. Running in that direction, he saw them in an old, dented white Fiat. He could see that the one in the driver’s seat held something in his hand. Now sprinting to the car, he wrenched open the door.
For a split second, Steve and the driver stared at each other. Obviously, the driver had not seen Steve racing toward them. The cell phone Steve had assumed was in the driver’s hand was now exposed as a gun.
At that moment, Naurouz opened the passenger door, pulled the second man out of the car and held him face down on the sand of the parking lot. He picked up a cell phone that the man had dropped.
On his side, Steve grasped the semiautomatic gun with both hands. One hand gripped the trigger guard, the handle, and the owner’s hand while the other held the slide pushed back to keep the gun from firing. He twisted and pulled down violently, which gave him ownership of the gun.
Stepping back and pointing it at the driver, Steve said, “Naurouz, let’s tie them up. Use his belt.” Steve gestured for the driver to get out, took the keys out of the ignition, and forced his prisoner to lie face down where he tied his hands.
When the passenger started shouting, Naurouz bent down, picked up a handful of sand and filled the passenger’s mouth with it, effectively silencing him. “We can’t leave them here.” Steve said, “We’ll have to take them with us and leave them where they can’t alert the police.” They brought the two men to the ambulance where, with the help of surgical tape, Steve and Naurouz improved on their initial efforts to keep their prisoners from creating problems.
Steve was looking at the cell phone Naurouz had picked up from the sandy parking lot. Before they started moving, he asked, “Can you tell if he called anyone?”
Naurouz took the phone and after a moment, said, “No Network.”
“Great! Let’s move. What did they say?”
“You were right. One of them recognized you. He was trying to call the Yazd police.”
Kella, sitting between them, looked at their two prisoners through the connecting window behind her. “So far so good; they’ve stopped trying to get loose. They’re just relaxing on those stretchers. “We can’t take them with us, and we can’t let them loose. What are we going to do?”
“How about stashing them somewhere for awhile until somebody finds them?” Steve said. “We need a head start before the helicopters, cop cars, and anybody hungry for reward money come swooping down on us.”
At the outset, Steve’s operational paranoia might have included Naurouz among those who might be tempted to turn them in. That initial sarcastic comment about Yazdi, “Whatever my cousin wants is good, no?” had tickled his antennae. Naurouz had proven himself repeatedly as a trustworthy partner.
Naurouz had just reached the main road. Glancing at his rear view mirror, he saw Leila in her car, getting ready to veer off to the left, to go back toward Yazd. He braked suddenly and jumped out of the ambulance waiving to Leila as he ran toward her car. He bent down and said something to her and then loped back to the ambulance.
“I told her to follow us. I know just the place to hide them. Since they’ve seen the ambulance, we’ll have to leave it also. They haven’t seen her car so we can use it instead.”
Within half an hour, the headlights caught a dome surrounded by four badgirs on the right of the road. Naurouz turned in, drove to the back of the structure with Leila behind him, and stopped.
They all got out, and as Naurouz took keys out of his pocket he said, “This is the Zain Abad reservoir. It’s fed by another qanat. I have to come here with my muqannies at least once a month.”
Naurouz pointed away toward the darkness and said, “Be careful, there is a hole in the ground over there, an old dry well.” His tone changed to indifference as he added, “It should be covered.”
They unloaded the two men from the vehicle and laid them on the sand. Naurouz unlocked
a door that led down to the reservoir, and they carried the two men inside.
“How long before they’re discovered?” Steve asked.
“Workers will be here tomorrow or the day after. Don’t worry. They won’t die from hunger or thirst.”
They got in Leila’s car and were about a hundred feet from the dome when Naurouz said, “Just a second. I’ll be right back.”
* **
Naurouz jogged back to the dome with his keys in his hand. He had been thinking about his role in this expedition since Farah’s death forced him to consider the possibility of dying. Helping these foreigners was one thing. He was doing it as an order from his community. However, getting caught and executed for their sake was not.
Further, and the best reason of all, he thought, was that getting caught also implicated his community; he would not be the only one to suffer. His parents, his entire extended family, might be executed. The elders of the community would certainly suffer consequences as well. Perhaps his faith in Iran, the global foundation of his religion, would be snuffed out. Unless, that is, he took all possible measures to conceal his involvement, and that of the Community. He needed to make sure that those two men never revealed his role.
He would act according to ashoi, or righteousness, a powerful weapon against all evil forces. Without the help of ashoi, one could not carry out the noble doctrines of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.
Acting quickly, he opened the door, went down the steps, and his powerful arms hoisted one man over his shoulder. He carried him up and away from the building.
Should he kill him first? He hesitated but a fraction of a second before dropping the man into the old well, which he knew to be fifty feet deep. He heard him land at the bottom; then ran back to the building. When he had dropped the second man into the well, he murmured in a low voice, “In your service, Ahura Mazda.”
Quickly locking the door, he rushed to the car. They all looked at him questioningly.
“Sorry. Call of nature,” he said.
Back in the car, Naurouz felt Steve’s steady gaze and knew that, while Steve didn’t know what he had done, his antennae were up, and his suspicions aroused. Naurouz would never discuss what he had done on this night.
55. Shiraz, Iran
Naurouz had left them at the next stop on the underground railroad, a home in Shiraz. Hoping that their signal would not be detected, Kella had sent a coded message during the night to provide their location and to ask for instructions. They were getting closer to the coast and expected that the agency would make personal contact soon.
Kurosh, their host, tall and thin wearing the usual Zoroastrian square white hat, knocked on their door early the next morning. “There is a stranger at the door, a cleric. I have to let him in,” he said with equanimity. “You better get out of sight.” He led them to a small attic, which they reached with the help of a step ladder that Kurosh had brought with him from downstairs.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, Steve pushed the trap door open and Kella followed him through it. They waited, sweating in the dark, closed, and airless space.
“What do you think?” Kella whispered. “Is this still better than boring routine? I don’t know why I came with you.”
She kept looking at her watch feeling that it must have stopped. She could feel Steve next to her but couldn’t see him.
“Don’t worry, probably a false alarm,” he whispered back. “Shh. Tell me when we’re done saving the world.”
She was sure she was losing body fluids at a life-threatening rate.
“This has to be worse than water-boarding,” she said. “I’m never going to pay extra again to use the hotel sauna. Isn’t there a Geneva Convention banning this torture? Could an Iranian prison be worse?”
“Yes. Quiet.”
They were sitting close together, alert for any sound. Small animals were scurrying around on the roof immediately overhead, but no voices could be heard. The loudest sound was their breathing. Was the visitor gone? Did his presence have anything to do with them?
Eventually, their host pushed the trap door open, and his head appeared. “You can come out. He’s gone, for now.”
On the way back downstairs, Kurosh said, “He claims to represent an important political figure, actually religious figure, but there is no difference, is there?”
Behind Kurosh, Steve looked at Kella and shrugged, “Yes? So what does that have to do with me?”
“This person, whose name he didn’t want to divulge to me, wants to talk to you.”
They reached a library with loaded book shelves reaching a twenty foot ceiling. Kurosh closed the curtains on the two windows.
“Sorry, I still don’t get it. I’m trying to get out of this country alive. What could this VIP want from me?” Steve asked. “Is it really me they want? How do they, whoever they are, know where to find me?”
“I guess their intelligence is better than the government’s, or you would have been arrested by now,” Kurosh offered as self-evident.
“I didn’t admit that you were here, but he knew and said he would be back in an hour.”
“Then we know that they’ve got the house under surveillance,” Kella said.
“Why?” Steve asked. “What does he want to talk about?” He frowned in puzzlement.
“He didn’t say. I’m not the one he wants to talk to,” Kurosh said, appearing bored.
Pointing at her own and Steve’s hospital garb, Kella asked their host, “Do you have any clothes we could change into?”
When the mysterious visitor returned, he was accompanied by two silent but hefty bearded men who were caricatures of body guards.
The visitor wore a white turban, thick glasses, and a trimmed grey beard. Kurosh brought chairs for everyone, but the two body guards remained standing by the door.
“You can call me Hafizadeh,” the mullah said before dismissing the host, and trying to dismiss Kella, as well. His Oxfordian English, direct gaze, and sincere delivery were a charismatic combination.
“My colleague will stay and hear what you have to say,” Steve said feeling somewhat like a tame cobra snake in front of a snake charmer.
“Praise to Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” Hafizadeh began. “We know who you are. I have seen a copy of your Canadian passport and, of course, we have all seen your photo in the paper. We know that you are not a Canadian. If you are, it’s irrelevant because you’re with the CIA.
“Congratulations, by the way, on evading capture,” the man added, causing Steve to examine him more closely. Were there more than two teams on the field?
“Thanks be to God. We held off contacting you because we assumed that you would be caught. We think that the odds are in your favor now and that the risk is manageable.” The happiness with which he delivered this conclusion lit up his face.
That was the best news Steve had heard in a while. He looked at Kella and said, “Aren’t you glad that our friend here thinks the risk is manageable?”
“So, whom do you think you’re addressing?” Steve asked trying to match the visitor’s English. “I think you’re making a mistake.”
“Your name is of no matter. We have a message for your government. Not exactly for your government, to the CIA, for Mr. Deuel. We would like you and…” he glanced at Kella, “your colleague, to deliver our message.”
“And when you say we, who are you talking about?” Steve asked.
“I’m the representative of a senior person. He does not believe that Ahmadinejad is good for our country. You saw what he did in the elections. He caused the death of many people. Others were injured. Many are in prison. I hope that it reminds you of Poland in the late 1980s, at the end of your Cold War, because this is history repeating itself. The person for whom I am speaking is the Iranian Lech Walesa. Our group is the Solidarity of Iran. You should help us like you helped Solidarity, for your own self-interests.”
Kella was fidgeting, as if struggling to maintain her silence.
He looked at her, but when he didn’t speak she said, “First, I am not going to confirm your assumption that I am a CIA officer or that I’m associated in any way with the CIA. Whatever your message is, I don’t have to be a CIA officer to deliver the message to the right people in Washington. I can tell you, however, that your message is empty of significance unless the American government knows who is sending it. Whom do you represent?
“For now, I can only tell you that he is an important figure with a large following. His name is known well both here and abroad. He represents … no, he leads … the political and religious groups who oppose Ahmadinejad.
“You probably don’t read the Iranian newspapers, but you should know that the Association of Teachers and Researchers of the Qom seminary school issued a statement against the election and against Supreme Leader Khamenei. The statement is significant. It represents the position of the country’s top clergy of our religious establishment, including the person who sent me.”
“We’ll need the name of your principal,” Steve said. “But, let’s put that aside for the moment. What kind of help do you want?”
Hafizadeh stroked his beard and said, “Perhaps ‘help’ is not the right word. We don’t want the type of help that you imply. No money, no secret operation to overthrow the government, no repeat of 1953. Thanks be to God.
“In fact, we want your assurance that you would leave us alone. We want you to know that we exist, that we have our own plans, that powerful forces are at work, and that one day we will take over the government, one way or another. Once we are the government, we only request you to recognize us as the legal government of Iran. When we have your overt backing, other countries will recognize us as well.”
“If I hear you correctly, you want the United States to give you carte blanche merely on the basis that you are not Ahmadinejad,” Steve replied. “What would be different in your policies?”
“The people who voted against Ahmadinejad would be free to speak out. Those who have been arrested would be released from jail. Reforms would be instituted, the same reforms that have been suppressed over the last thirty years.”
Satan's Spy (The Steve Church saga Book 2) Page 26