THE INCREMENT

by David Ignatius

  Marwan stood in the back of the elevator car, next to Jackie. She took from her purse something that looked like a small rock, of the dusty limestone color that was typical of the region. She held it against her side. In the same moment, Marwan reached out his hand, took it from her, and put it in the pocket of his coat. He got off one floor before she did, and then rode the elevator back down to the lobby. He walked out into the morning sun, carrying in his pocket the transmitter that had been prepared for Dr. Karim Molavi.

  Marwan took a taxi north, up Vali Asr Avenue to Mellat Park, one of the biggest and most beautiful in Tehran. He had several hours to look for the right drop. He strolled toward the little lake at the eastern end but it was too crowded there, so he wandered deeper into the woods and gardens in the center of the park. He sat on a bench for a while, watching the flow of people and making sure that he wasn’t being followed. The right hiding place would be off one of the main pathways, but not so far that someone would look conspicuous going in or out.

  He walked toward the southern edge of the park, along Niyayesh Expressway, where there were fewer strollers. He passed the stadium where the Engelab team played its matches, and continued on until he found a path that led up to a pond named for the martyrs in the Iraq-Iran war. He walked up the path until he saw a small stand of exotic trees, off to the left; he walked toward the trees, counting fifty paces until he reached them. He looked at the terrain, the lack of people nearby, the way the site was obscured from the main path.

  This was the right place. He took the simulated rock from his pocket and laid it behind a Japanese maple. It looked like a normal bit of local stone until you picked it up in your hand. He took a piece of yellow chalk from his pocket and drew a thin diagonal line across the tree trunk. The marking was hard to see unless you were looking for it. He walked back to the pathway, counting the paces again to make sure he had it right. This time it came out to fifty-two paces, but that was close enough. He walked back toward the park entrance on Niyayesh, counting the number of benches on his right side—fourteen.

  Marwan took an index card from his pocket. On it he had already written the words: We are working on vacation plans. We will bring the tickets to you. That was the same message that had been sent in the last communication to Karim Molavi. Below that message, he wrote in neat block letters the directions to the site, and the instructions: Go to Mellat Park tonight. Take the Martyrs’ Pond entrance off Niyayesh Expressway. Walk north, passing fourteen benches on your left. Then turn left and walk fifty paces to a maple tree marked with yellow chalk. Behind the tree is a rock that is unlike any other. Inside the rock is a device. Remove the device and discard the rock. Press 1 and you will reach us.

  He folded the index card in half, so that it would fit easily in a man’s palm.

  They had the target’s work and home address. Both were dangerous, but they had decided that the home address was safer. The office in Jamaran would be under constant surveillance. Anyone loitering there would be suspect, no matter how good their cover. This was the trickiest part of the operation. If they did it right, everything else would be easy. If they did it wrong, they would expose themselves and their agent, too.

  Marwan had lunch in a cheap restaurant off Jahad Square, near where the mighty Esteghlal played its soccer games. He was killing time until his meeting with Hakim at 4:00 p.m. He had a coffee, and then another coffee, and then it was time to go. They had agreed to meet in Farabaksh Square in the Yoosef Abad district, a few blocks south of where they had identified Karim Molavi’s apartment.

  Hakim was there on time. He was dressed like a South Asian laborer, in coveralls and a sweat-stained cap. Migrant laborers were imported by the thousands from Pakistan and Afghanistan to do the jobs Tehranis felt were beneath them—cleaning streets and sewers, performing the donkey work of construction. They were a common sight around Tehran—especially at the end of the day when they waited for their rides back to the cheap guesthouses and labor camps where they lived.

  Marwan stood next to Hakim in a clump of pedestrians, waiting for a break in traffic to cross the square. A policeman in green was on the far corner, writing a traffic ticket. Marwan brushed Hakim, and in the moment of contact, passed the folded index card with the directions to the drop site. The exchange would have been invisible even if you had been observing the two men. Marwan was clean now; all the danger had passed to the young Pakistani.

  Hakim trudged up Shahriar Street six blocks until he got to Yazdani Street. His back was stooped slightly, as if from a life of manual labor, and his legs were bowed. He walked with his head down, submissively—a humble Pakistani in the court of the Persians. The few people out on the street didn’t even deign to look at him. He might as well have been a stray dog.

  Hakim turned left on Yazdani Street until he got to No. 29. That was the address of Karim Molavi’s villa, where he shared an apartment with another tenant who had the upper floor. Hakim’s instructions were to sit on the curb and wait. If anyone asked him what he was doing, he should say “mashin, mashin,” the Persian word for car, as if he were waiting to be picked up, and then babble in Urdu. But nobody would speak to him if he looked harmless and submissive enough. That was the nice thing about prejudice: it made assumptions; it thought it knew the answers.

  Hakim sat down on the curb and hunched his body so that his shoulders were almost touching his knees. He had studied a grainy reconnaissance photograph of Molavi just before they left London. The ops plan assumed that Molavi would return home between five and six in the afternoon. Hakim waited. In a paper bag he carried a book, the Shahnameh by Abolqasem Ferdowsi. The book was open to the page the American, Mr. Fellows, had specified, and a few lines were marked with a yellow highlighter:

  He said, “Is it good or ill these signs portend?

  When will my earthly life come to an end?

  Who will come after me? Say who will own

  This royal diadem, and belt, and throne.

  Reveal this mystery, and do not lie—

  Tell me this secret or prepare to die.”

  That was Hakim’s recognition code. A bit of Persian poetry Karim Molavi had sent out of the ether, many weeks ago. If the target didn’t recognize the poetry, then the mission was to be aborted.

  The October sun was low in the sky, almost gone. Soon it would be dark, and it would be dangerous for Hakim to remain on the curb. People would ask questions about a foreign laborer after dark. He looked at his watch. It was nearly six. The ops plan said to wait until six-fifteen and then leave. The minutes ticked by too slowly. Hakim glanced up at every footstep along the sidewalk now, as men and women returned home from work. The few people who looked at him did so with an air of disgust, and one person muttered “Boro gom sho!”—Get lost!—but didn’t do anything about it.

  At six-ten, Hakim saw a well-built man in a black suit approaching the villa. He was still wearing his sunglasses, even in the dim light of dusk, so it was hard to see his face. He was walking quickly, as if he wanted to get home. As he neared Hakim, he turned onto the concrete walkway that led to the villa at No. 29. Hakim stood and walked toward him.

  “Dr. Molavi, I have some poetry I would like you to read,” he whispered in perfect English. “Perhaps you will remember it.”

  Hakim’s demeanor had changed in an instant. He now stood tall, with his back arched; all the submissive gestures of the subcontinent had disappeared. His accent was so precisely English, it might have been Professor Henry Higgins speaking.

  “A bit of poetry, sir,” whispered Hakim, showing the cover of the Ferdowsi book.

  A startled Molavi had taken several steps back toward his home when Hakim spoke his first words. Now he removed his sunglasses and looked the Pakistani in the eye, uncertain what was happening, but wondering, thinking.

  “Come here, boy,” said the Iranian, who by now was close to the safety of his doorstep.

  Hakim stepped forward, into the shadows, and handed Molavi the book, open to the mar
ked page. Molavi read the passage and shook his head. He muttered a phrase in Persian. “Gheyre ghabel e fahm.” It is incomprehensible.

  Hakim moved closer, and in a quick motion, brushed the folded index card against Molavi’s hand. The Iranian, despite his fear, took it.

  The Pakistani immediately returned to his posture of humility. In a broken mix of Farsi, Urdu, and English, he apologized that he had the wrong house and backed away toward the street. The index card was in Molavi’s pocket now, and in another moment, the Iranian was inside his apartment.

  26

  TEHRAN

  Karim Molavi sat in an easy chair in his apartment, trying to calm himself. The impossible thing had happened. They had come to him. The tips of his fingers were still tingling from where he had touched the foreigner’s hand. He put the buds of his iPod into his ears and selected some Indian sitar music, hoping that it would calm him, but he couldn’t concentrate.

  He looked again at the index card, and the words at the top. We are working on vacation plans. We will bring the tickets to you. They had promised that they would come, and now they were here. He read the instructions about where to find the “device,” and saw that they hadn’t specified a precise hour to collect it. “Tonight,” the message said. Molavi decided that he would go right away, before the ministry had time to think or wonder, before any of the neighbors could tell the basij about the dirty foreigner on the street after dark, before his own panic began to set in.

  He found a leftover lamb kebab in the refrigerator. He put it in the microwave and wrapped it in a piece of bread, but he was too nervous to eat. Reflexively, he took one of the photo albums down from the shelf and looked at a picture of his father as a young man. His father’s eyes were fierce and fearless. Never let them see that you are afraid, his father had told him. Fear is your ally. Embrace it. Do not be afraid of fear, or they will see it.

  Molavi found his street atlas of Tehran. He studied the page for Mellat Park until he thought he knew where the location was. He pondered the safest way to get there, and blocked out the route in his mind. The index card was sitting on the table, next to his chair. It was glowing, radioactive, neon white. He took the card into the bathroom and burned it in the sink, and then flushed the ashes down the toilet.

  The young man looked at his face in the mirror. The swirl of black hair. The almost-pious beard. The eyes wide with fear and yearning. What was he afraid of? This was his moment. He had dropped his little stone in the water months ago, and the waves had rippled back to carry him away to his “vacation.” His hands were shaking. He extended the palms outward and held them steady. He went to the closet and put on a jacket against the night chill. He buttoned his coat and headed for the door and then, in an afterthought, returned to the pantry and found a small flashlight, which he put in his pocket.

  Molavi walked out of his villa. It was a clear night, with only a small crescent moon. Even amid the smog and the lights of Tehran, you could see a few stars. The quickest route north to the park was the Kordestan Expressway, but he decided against that. He walked to the Moffateh subway station, nearly a mile away, and took the train north to the last stop at Mirdamad. He didn’t bother to look for surveillance. They were either following him or they weren’t. He walked a few blocks and then took a taxi to Piroozi Square, just west of Mellat Park. Then he walked, slowly and deliberately, along the southern edge of the park until he reached the pathway that led up to the Martyrs’ Pond. Something like calm had settled over him. He was a young nuclear physicist, lost in thought as he took his evening stroll in the woods. Who could say that it was anything else?

  Molavi turned into the pathway. A young couple was coming out, giggling. The girl was tugging at her manteau, pulling it down so that it covered her bottom. This was where young Iranians went when they couldn’t afford a place to be together. The police patrolled the park for that reason. But surely they wouldn’t pay attention to a solitary man out for a stroll. He walked north, counting the number of benches on his left as he headed up the path. Another swooning couple was cresting the hill. They eyed him warily. Perhaps they thought he was an undercover policeman.

  He had a moment of panic when he got to bench number 14 and didn’t see any stand of trees off to the left. Had he miscounted? He walked one more bench, and just over the rise of the hill he saw what might be the grove. It was hard to tell in the nearly moonless night. He turned toward the trees and walked the prescribed fifty paces, trying to make them American steps.

  When he reached the trees, he searched for the maple with the chalk mark. In the dark, it was hard to see. He reached for his flashlight but then thought better of it. He examined the trees one by one, his nose almost up against the bark. He heard sounds from the pathway and froze until the footsteps had died away. His heart was beating too fast now; his fear was taking control. He had examined all the trees without finding the mark.

  He bit down hard against his lip, to check the fear. He started looking again, and as he examined a tree toward the back of the grove, he at last saw a yellow line, lower on the trunk than where he had first been looking. He grasped the tree as if it were a lifeline and moved to the other side. Crouching now, he felt for a rock that was not a rock. He picked up one, and then a second, and then he touched one that wasn’t stone but plastic. He put it quickly in his pocket. As he stood up, he felt a kind of vertigo. Now he was truly a spy, an enemy of the state. What he had in his pocket was a death sentence.

  He made himself take a step, and then another, until he was back on the main pathway. More young lovers were coming down from the lake, and a policeman was following them. Molavi tried to control his fear, and make each twitch and shiver a jolt of strength. The policeman was approaching him. He was a beady-eyed young man with a thick beard, the kind who liked surprising young lovers in the woods. Molavi stopped. His palms were moistening. The policeman was speaking to him. What was he saying? “Movazeb bashin!” Be careful! The park would be closing soon. Only one more hour, please.

  Molavi looked at the policeman dumbly; then he nodded. “Hajj agha, nochakeram.” I understand, officer. Thank you. He turned and walked back the other way, toward the exit. If this policeman was scolding him that it was late, that must mean nobody else was watching him.

  Molavi thought about where to make the call. His apartment was a bad idea; they might have planted a bug there months ago. His office was out of the question. A restaurant or café was impossible. The best place might be right here, in the outdoors. He walked past the Engelab stadium; a few people were milling about, but on the other side, in the formal gardens of the park, it was nearly empty. He found a bench that was secluded, hidden away in the shadows. He sat down and took the plastic rock from his pocket. He twisted it one way, then another, looking for a seam, and then it came open. Inside was a phone. He saw the keyboard and pressed the number “1.” He put the phone to his ear and waited for someone to answer.

  Jackie was sitting in the garden restaurant on the rooftop of her hotel when her special phone rang. She was eating alone tonight. The waiters were off helping another table. She put the phone to her ear and spoke the words carefully, in German, a language she knew Karim Molavi would understand.

  “We have come to take you on your vacation,” she said. “Listen to me carefully, and do exactly what I say.”

  “Yes,” said Molavi. His hand was shaking as he held the phone.

  “Leave work early tomorrow afternoon. Tell them that you are feeling sick. Then go to the Eastern Terminal Bus Station. Go carefully, you understand? Take the bus to Sari, on the Caspian coast. The trip will take about five hours. Don’t tell anyone at work where you’re going.”

  “Yes, all right,” said Molavi. He was surprised that it was a woman’s voice giving the order, and speaking in German. But that was the mystery of these Americans. They could assume any form.

  “When you get to Sari, book a room in the Asram Hotel in Golha Square. The next morning, go to breakfast in the re
staurant. An Arab man will approach you and ask if you are Dr. Ali. He knows what you look like. Ask him for his name, and he will say that he is Mr. Saleh. When he leaves the restaurant, follow him. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Molavi.

  “Repeat it, so that I knew you have it right.”

  “Bus to Sari. Asram Hotel. Mr. Saleh.”

  “You will be safe soon, my friend.”

  Karim Molavi was going to ask where they would go after that, but the phone had gone dead. He quickly put it back in his pocket. He dropped the plastic rock in a pond by the edge of the park. It floated for a moment and then sank, mercifully. As he walked toward the lights of Vali Asr Avenue, he felt as if something were fizzing in his stomach.

  The next day, Molavi went to the nameless white building in Jamaran where he worked. He carried his black leather briefcase in his hand, as always, but today he had filled it with two extra pairs of undershorts, a toothbrush, and a stick of deodorant. As he entered the door and passed beneath the first of several surveillance cameras, he nodded to the receptionist and the security man. This might be the last time he ever saw them.

  He walked slowly, almost shuffling, in the manner of someone who was coming down with a bad cold. As he passed through the lobby, he coughed loudly—a percussive sound almost like a sneeze. “Afiyat bashe,” said the receptionist. Bless you! She asked if he was okay. “Zaif,” he answered. “Larz daram.” Weak and shivery.

  The receptionist looked at him sweetly, as if she wanted to mother him. Poor boy, she said. He was still a boy here to the older workers—the bright young physicist with the sweep of dark black hair, who kept to himself.