by Barry Eisler
It was interesting. At one point, Uncle Sam had been more inclined to render the Jafaris and Kazemis of the world to friendly governments like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where they could be interrogated with proper rigor. But then the CIA had screwed up the rendition of Abu Omar from Milan, leaving a paper trail so egregious an Italian magistrate had issued arrest warrants for the thirteen CIA operatives behind it, and then “plane spotters” had started to unravel the whole secret rendition network. The Pentagon had decided it was better to act more discreetly, and more directly. No one took the CIA seriously anymore anyway, not since the DCI had been made subordinate to the new director of national intelligence and the agency had been saddled with the problem of those nonexistent Iraqi WMDs. If you wanted actionable intelligence now, and if you wanted the intelligence acted upon, the Pentagon was the only real player in town.
Ben knew all this, but he didn’t really care. He wanted nothing to do with politics, national or organizational. Hell, the politicians didn’t even know men like him existed, and if they suspected, they knew better than to inquire. The military didn’t invent “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” It learned it from Congress.
So basically, things were copacetic. There was a lot of work, and he was good at it. It all involved a simple understanding. If he fucked up, he would be denied, disowned, and hung out to dry. If he continued to achieve results, he would be left alone. It was the kind of deal he could live with. One where you knew the rules, and the consequences, up front. Not like what his family had pulled on him after Katie. Not that any of that mattered at this point anyway. They were all gone now, except for Alex, who might as well be gone, and good riddance, too.
Another BMW pulled up. Ben leaned forward so he could see more clearly through the curtains, and bingo, it was the Iranians, their first time back to the hotel before dark. This was it, he was sure of it, the chance he’d been waiting for. He felt a hot flush of adrenaline—a familiar, pleasant sensation in his neck and gut—and his heart began to thud a little harder.
The Iranians headed into the hotel, one VAVAK guy forward, the other aft. Ten to one they’d be on their way out within an hour, two at the most.
He stood and cracked his neck, then started doing some stretches and light calisthenics. He’d been sitting a long time with nothing but quick bathroom breaks. That was fine while he was waiting. But the time for waiting was done.
4 WAITING ROOM DOORS
Alex’s mobile phone buzzed. He checked the display—Alisa—and opened it.
“You find him?” he asked.
“No. I’m in front of his apartment, though, and there are police cars everywhere. There are a lot of people standing around. They’re saying someone was murdered.”
Alex felt an odd numbness take hold behind his ears. He could hear a faint buzzing, like the sound of a fluorescent light. “Oh, shit. Is it—”
“I don’t know. I tried talking to one of the officers, but he’d only say it’s a crime scene, which anyway I can tell because there’s orange tape all around the building. But they’re not letting anyone inside and I can’t see anything from where I’m standing.”
“Who’s saying someone was murdered?”
“Some of the people standing around watching. Maybe they’re wrong, though. Maybe it’s just a rumor.”
The numbness was spreading now. His breathing seemed very loud.
He wanted to drive down there himself, but knew that was irrational. It wasn’t likely he could see or learn anything Alisa couldn’t. And what if this whole thing were a gigantic coincidence? What if Hilzoy called or showed up right now—Sorry, caught a flat, and can you believe it, right in a dead zone where I had no cell reception! Of all the crappy luck—and Alex wasn’t here? He would have turned a potential no-harm, no-foul situation into a catastrophe, all through his own bad judgment.
No, he couldn’t let that happen.
He took a deep breath and slowly forced it out. Concentrating on his breathing settled him, a little.
“Stay there,” he said. “See if you can learn anything else, and call me right away if you do.”
He clicked off and checked his watch. Twenty minutes. In his M3, with the right luck on traffic lights and traffic cops, Alex could get to Kleiner’s offices at the top of Sand Hill Road in six minutes. So fourteen minutes before he had to pull the plug. He’d still look stupid, canceling at the last minute, but better than not showing up at all. Would he ever be able to get another meeting with these guys after screwing up the first? Probably not, at least not without using Osborne’s or some other partner’s connections. And Osborne would know what had happened, would know how much Alex needed him. He would charge for the favor accordingly.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
His office felt suddenly confining. He needed to move, to think. He walked out into the corridor, where he could increase the ambit of his pacing. He turned the corner, and—
There was Sarah, heading in his direction. Shit.
He didn’t want to talk to her right then, didn’t want to have to explain. He hadn’t invited her to the meeting. She was too outspoken at times, and while he respected her gumption in private, he didn’t trust her to know her place in front of a roomful of VCs. Hilzoy was his show, and he didn’t want anyone else in the limelight.
Anyway, even if Sarah were as prim and proper as a first-year should be, she was still bound to be a distraction. Everyone would get one look at her lustrous black hair, caramel skin, and ripe lips and wonder why Alex had brought her to the meeting. Were they involved? Was he hoping for something?
Well, yeah, of course he was hoping for something. And it wasn’t just that she was gorgeous. Part of what made him crazy was that she did nothing to flaunt it. She used hardly any makeup, kept her hair tied back, and favored skirts hemmed below the knee. But Alex saw her several evenings a week in the firm’s gym, where she typically wore some kind of yoga outfit, and her body was so lusciously long and curvy that Alex had to look away for fear his own body would betray his thoughts. Sometimes, late at night, in the bedroom of the house he had inherited from his parents and lived in still, he would close his eyes and take himself in hand and imagine himself with her, imagine what he wanted her to do, how she would do it, and even more than her beauty it was the existence of those fantasies, and the way their presence in his mind would linger into the next day, that made him awkward with her, made him err in the direction of feigned disinterest and even disdain lest she suspect his secret.
But she didn’t seem the least bit interested. And even if she were, what would people say if a senior associate, someone who God willing would be up for partner soon, were dating a first-year ten years his junior? And what would happen if he made partner? What would he do then? A partner couldn’t be involved with an associate, at least not publicly. There were trysts at Sullivan, Greenwald, of course, enough to keep the rumor mill spinning full-time, but those people were already partners, they could afford to be known as pigs. Maybe when Alex had made it to the top of the heap he’d hit on hot associates, too, maybe even summer associates, for Christ’s sake, but not now. He didn’t need complications like that. He had to stay focused.
“Alex,” she said, a little surprise in her voice. “Where’s Hilzoy? I thought you would have—”
“He’s not here. I … I don’t think he’s coming.”
“What about the meeting?”
She seemed genuinely concerned, not at all resentful that he’d excluded her. He felt a pang of gratitude, and of guilt. He wanted to say something, something real, but …
“Alex?” she said.
He looked at her and wondered whether he’d been blushing. He was about to excuse himself, but realized that would seem weird. Maybe he should just bring her up to speed on Hilzoy.
“Can you help me kill twelve minutes?” he said.
They went back to his office and closed the door. He told her what had happened, how Alisa was at Hilzoy’s apartment now.
“
Oh my God,” she said. “You think he’s, you think—”
“I don’t know what to think. But I have a bad feeling.”
His words surprised him. He never talked about his feelings—or anything else the least bit private—with anyone in the office, and especially not with Sarah. Well, he was under stress right now. This thing with Hilzoy—Oh no. Oh please God no—it was just bringing up some bad memories, that was all.
They talked more. Something about Sarah, some wellspring of empathy in her brown eyes, made him feel better. There was something so … comforting, when someone could look at you like that, when someone made you feel she understood you completely and was completely on your side. He sensed she would know what it was like to stare for hours at the swinging waiting room doors, desperate for news and at the same time terrified of what the news might be.
He cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. The meeting started in five minutes. Hilzoy could show right now and it would still be too late.
But Hilzoy wasn’t going to show. Not today, not ever. Alex could feel it, a sad, sickening weight in the pit of his stomach. He knew the feeling. He remembered it.
“I better call the VCs,” he said.
5 OOPS
Ben sheltered from the rain under one of the elegant porticos of the Blue Mosque, surrounded by scores of chattering tourists and keeping an oblique eye on the mosque’s exit, fifty feet away. The Iranians had gone in ten minutes earlier, having walked from the hotel exactly as Ben had hoped. He knew from his earlier reconnaissance of the area that there was only one exit, so he hadn’t followed them in.
The people around him conferred over their guidebooks in a dozen languages and snapped nonstop photos of the soaring minarets and massive semidomes and rows of ablution spigots. Ben kept his hat pulled low and the jacket zippered over his chin, his breath fogging before him. This wasn’t an ideal place to do the job—it was too open, there were too many potential witnesses, it was too close to where he had been staying—but if an opportunity presented itself, he would take it, and he didn’t want to be recognizable afterward in some idiot tourist’s photos.
During their stroll from the hotel to the mosque, the scientists had showed no sign of security awareness. The VAVAK guys, though, were reasonably sharp. They had stayed one ahead and one behind the scientists, never letting the gap between their positions close to below twenty-five feet. Dropping one at point-blank range would mean having to engage the other from a distance, and possibly allowing the scientists to escape in the meantime. Going after the scientists first would mean giving the VAVAK guys an extra second to get their shit together and then an opportunity to engage from two different directions. The ideal was to drop all four almost instantly and walk away clean, and the VAVAK guys were naturally trying to make something like that as difficult as possible.
In addition to their tactical positioning, the VAVAK guys were also obviously surveillance conscious, but here they were operating at a disadvantage. Ben was pretty sure he knew their likely destinations—the major attractions of Sultanahmet and Seraglio Point—and their likely routes, so he could afford to lose visual contact from time to time. Also, the area was crowded with tourists, many of whom would be walking from one spot to the next in the same sequence the Iranians were following. Under the circumstances, multiple sightings of the same person wouldn’t mean much. Toughest of all, about half the hundreds of people in the area were hunkering under black umbrellas and keeping their heads down against the chill and the rain, as Ben was, which made it hell to pick out individuals.
But Ben was operating under one significant disadvantage: he was alone, while the people he was using for concealment were mostly in pairs and groups. So from time to time he made sure to consult his own guidebook with studied fascination, to jot down some notes about the mosque’s six minarets and turreted corner domes and special entrance for the sultan, to shoot a few photos, and to otherwise blend as much as he could with the tourists around him.
When the Iranians emerged, one of the scientists and one of the VAVAK guys headed down the steps and turned left while the other two remained under the portico. Ben instantly understood why they were splitting up: the scientist had to hit the head. He knew the restroom they were going to use, too, and it would have been ideal: small, secluded, at the bottom of a flight of stairs at the corner of the mosque grounds. But if something went wrong, he might come out of this with only half the job done, maybe less. No, better to wait for the right moment when he could catch them all closer together.
The scientist and the VAVAK guy returned after a few minutes, and Ben followed them to Hagia Sophia, waiting near the exit again while they were inside. Their next stop was Topkapi Palace, and this time one of the VAVAK guys waited outside. This confirmed for Ben what he already strongly suspected: the VAVAK guys were armed. Topkapi was home to a priceless collection of jewel-encrusted Ottoman swords and crowns and thrones, and there was a metal detector at the entrance to prevent anyone from bringing in hardware for a robbery. Ben figured the guy who was waiting was holding both their guns while the other accompanied the scientists inside. He was half tempted to hide the Glock somewhere and follow them in, but dropping all three barehanded would have presented something of a challenge. Not to mention all the cameras, the single point of egress, and the guards with submachine guns. No, there would be a better opportunity. He waited outside the massive palace gates, haggling with merchants, shooting a few photos, occasionally sneaking a peek through the entrance to make sure the VAVAK guy was still there. He watched the people coming and going carefully in case there was a countersurveillance unit involved. The intel hadn’t mentioned it, but intel was never perfect and you had to be careful. He didn’t see anything that rubbed him the wrong way.
After Topkapi, the Iranians headed west through the gathering dusk. Ben thought he knew where they were going: either the Grand Bazaar or the Spice Bazaar. If he was right, his opportunity was coming.
They wandered down narrow cobblestone streets through alternating pools of darkness and light, the sound of their footsteps echoing on the stone walls to either side and mingling with the conversation and laughter of shoppers and passersby What sky was visible was a dull, dying gray. The rain had stopped, but it was still humid and cold, and a sheen of perspiration gleamed on the peeling façades of souvenir shops and carpet stores and food stalls, all crammed side by side under sagging awnings and rusted escarpments. Ben kept well back, pausing when the Iranians paused, moving when they moved, staying cool, staying patient, knowing something would open up.
The sounds around them were suddenly drowned out by the evening muezzin chanting out the adhan, the call to prayer. Ben’s Arabic wasn’t as strong as his Farsi, but he understood the words:
God is greatest.
I bear witness that there is no lord except God.
I bear witness that Mohammed is the messenger of God.
Make haste toward prayer.
Make haste toward welfare.
God is greatest.
There is no lord except God.
The Iranians stopped at a small, undistinguished corner building recognizable as a mosque only from the minaret near its entrance. The scientists took off their shoes and went inside, accompanied by one of the VAVAK guys. The other waited outside. Ben smiled. Maybe they were willing to put their faith in God, but not their security. He hung back and waited.
Fifteen minutes later, they emerged and continued northwest. Come on, Ben thought. The Spice Bazaar. You know you want to.
They moved along Marpuccular Cad, the road that provided the southwest boundary of the bazaar, then onto Tahtakale Cad, still moving northwest. They paused from time to time to examine the wares of the various shops, but didn’t go inside. The VAVAK guys maintained their tactical positions. Come on, Ben thought. Come on. Despite the cold he could feel himself perspiring.
He followed them right onto Uzunçarşi Cad, his breath starting to quicken slightly. It was full dark no
w. He’d been afraid they were going directly to the Galata Bridge, but now it looked good, it looked like it was the Spice Bazaar after all. He tightened the cords on the backpack and squeezed his left arm against the satisfying bulk of the holstered Glock.
He stayed with them until they turned right onto Hasircilar Cad, the main street of the Spice Bazaar. All right. This was what he’d been waiting for.
He turned and dashed down the middle of Tahtakale Cad, paralleling the route the Iranians were now on, dodging cars and trucks, staying off the sidewalks to avoid the thick clots of pedestrians. The backpack was secure. The weight of the Glock felt right.
He cut left on Yeni Cami Cad, then left again on Çiçek Pazari Sok, now on a collision course with the Iranians. The jostling crowds were thick and he had to slow. He passed stalls filled with enormous mounds of spices, their yellows and oranges and reds and greens impossibly bright under the incandescent bulbs strung up above them. Tables were piled high with candies and honey-soaked pastries and fruit. The air was thick with the mingled aromas of spices and coffee and tobacco smoke. Peddlers cried out warnings above the din as they maneuvered pushcarts around clusters of shifting shoppers.
At the corner of Tahmis Cad and Hasircilar Cad he could see them coming toward him, about forty feet away. His heart was beating hard now. He checked his perimeter and sensed nothing amiss.
He moved left, pausing in front of one of the corner windows of Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi, one of the city’s oldest coffee shops. Ben had been here a half dozen times during reconnaissance, and there were always at least ten people lined up at its two corner windows waiting to buy quantities of the house-roasted beans. It was a logical stop for the Iranians. Even if they didn’t stop here, though, they were going to pass right by. He would be able to see them through the store’s windows.