The Zarrabian Incident

by C. A. James

  “Well,” he replied with a smile, “it’s not hard to do things right. You just have to care and everything else follows.”

  “So you’re her uncle?”

  “Oh, just an honorary uncle, I suppose, but I’m honored that all the kids who grew up here on the mountain call me that.”

  McCaig looked at Christine. “You grew up here? On Mount Hamilton?”

  “Yeah, guess so.”

  “People live up here?”

  “Oh yes,” said Carl. “Fewer now, but we used to be a tiny little town with our own post office.”

  “I was raised by an odd cocktail of hillbillies and scientists,” said Christine. “My brother and I went to a two-room schoolhouse with just ten other kids, hardly ever went to town, but got to hear Dad, Uncle Carl and all the other scientists talking about quasars, black holes, and arguing about whether Pluto is a planet, planetoid, or asteroid.”

  “Wow, I never would have guessed,” said McCaig. “I just thought there were telescopes up here.”

  Carl laughed. “We do have telescopes. So what brings you back to the mountain, Chrissy?”

  “I’ve got an astronomy question, and you’re the best.”

  “Oh, you can’t fool me, Chrissy. You’re a reporter now; I’ve kept an eye on you, and love your news reports. A resourceful woman doesn’t need to drive to the top of the mountain to ask an old man a question.”

  “It’s . . . it’s something we want to keep confidential. For now.”

  Carl raised a gray eyebrow. “All right then. Intrigue! I love it. But first, let’s take your friend here for a tour. I’ll get someone else to man the visitor desk.”

  An hour later, Carl led them into his office. It was small and crowded, but neat.

  “You’ll have to pardon the tight quarters. I’m just a volunteer now, and they were kind enough to give me this little office. Please, sit!” He gestured at two old steel folding chairs and then sat down behind a battered wooden desk.

  “So, what brings you back to the mountain?”

  “The lunar eclipse.”

  “Ah! The lunar eclipse! Gorgeous, wasn’t it? You saw it? The experience of a lifetime! It rose over the mountains almost fully eclipsed, blood red with just a sliver of white. We had a perfect view from up here on the mountain. Gosh, there hasn’t been a beauty like that in California since, what was it, 1990? I’ll remember that eclipse until the day I die!”

  McCaig stole a surreptitious glance at Christine and raised an eyebrow.

  Carl continued, “You saw it, right? What did you think?”

  McCaig started to reply, “Well, um . . .”

  Christine interrupted. “Of course! Gosh, I’d never miss something like that. It was truly amazing!”

  Carl smiled. “Indeed! Indeed! So, what’s so intriguing about a lunar eclipse?”

  “We need to know who could see it? What part of the world?” asked Christine.

  Carl chuckled. “Sure. That would be . . .” He walked over to a huge whiteboard on the wall that featured a map of the world. “Let’s see, I’d say most of the people in the world.”

  “The whole world? How can that be? Isn’t the eclipse only visible from the night side?”

  “I said most of the people. This eclipse was almost perfectly timed. From California all the way across to about the middle of Russia, everyone could see it. That’s all of the Americas, all of Europe and Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and about half of Russia. The only ones who missed it were Siberia, India, China, and rest of the Far East. Oh, and the Pacific Islanders, Aussies, and New Zealanders—they missed it too. So maybe four billion people could see it.”

  “What would it look like to someone in, say, Iran?” asked McCaig.

  “Everybody sees the same moon. There’s only one, you know.”

  “Right, of course,” said McCaig.

  Carl continued, “It would have been blood red at totality, very dark and very pretty.”

  McCaig’s brow furrowed. “I thought this was a total lunar eclipse. I’m not much of a scientist, but doesn’t ‘total’ mean the moon was in the Earth’s shadow? As in, completely black?”

  “A common misconception,” answered the old astronomer. “Yes, it was in the Earth’s shadow. But imagine you were on the moon looking back at the Earth with the sun behind it. What would you see?”

  “Uh,” said McCaig, “I guess the light of the sun would kind of glow around the edges of the Earth.”

  “Exactly! More specifically, you’d be seeing the sunset. And not just one sunset, but every sunset in the world, all at the same time. You know how the red light of sunset makes distant mountains glow even after the sun is below the horizon? It’s the same thing. That red sunset light passes through the Earth’s atmosphere and out again. Even though the moon is in the Earth’s shadow, that red sunset light still hits it, so the moon looks deep red.”

  “Makes sense,” said McCaig.

  Christine asked, “If someone in the Middle East, say Iran, said it was rising over a sand dune, would that make sense?”

  Carl looked at the map. “Not from Iran. You said rising, not setting, right? Someone who saw it rising would be in . . .”

  He turned to one of his computers, sat down, and started typing. “Let’s see, seventy-eight minutes in totality, started at twenty-seven degrees seventeen minutes west by twenty-one forty-five south at twenty-three forty GMT. Now, of course, you’ve got to take into account the change in azimuth for local geography, you know, mountains and such, and the observer’s stance in relation . . .”

  “Uh, Carl?” McCaig interrupted. “I’m just a retired G-man.”

  Carl looked up from his computer and glanced back and forth between them for a moment, then gave a chuckle. “Of course. I get carried away. Alright, then, let’s look at it a different way.” He walked over to the world-map whiteboard on the wall. “During a lunar eclipse, the sun and moon are exactly opposite one another, right?”

  Christine answered, “Right!”

  McCaig nodded his head.

  “So that means that if you’re seeing the moonrise, you are also seeing the sunset. One goes down as the other comes up. And if your terrorist saw the moonrise—”

  McCaig interrupted. “Who said anything about a terrorist?”

  Carl looked nonplussed. “Oh, uh, sorry. If this, uh, fellow, uh, saw the moon rising in full eclipse, then he was somewhere here.” Carl used a marker to slash several lines from Edmonton and Calgary down through Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and then across Mexico into the Sea of Cortez.

  “You mean he was in the United States?” asked McCaig. “Right here in America?”

  “Or Canada or Mexico,” said Carl. “But yes, probably here in America.”

  “That’s a pretty long line.”

  “Right, well, astronomers are used to big distances. But you also said sand dunes, right?”

  “Right. Rising over a sand dune.”

  Carl turned back to the map.

  “OK . . . . it could have been Bruneau dunes.” He drew a big circle around Bruneau Dunes in Idaho. “Or here.” He drew a squiggly line around southern Arizona.

  McCaig cocked his head at the map. “Why not Nevada or Utah? Or Montana? Or Alberta? Even Mexico? Don’t they have dunes?”

  “I know that one,” said Christine. “Mountains. He said it was before they boarded the planes, so he thought he was in Iran. The mountains in Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico don’t look anything like Iran, and those dune fields are tiny compared to Iran’s. It wouldn’t fool an Iranian for a minute.”

  McCaig glared at Christine. “If, as I noted a moment ago, our hypothetical someone happened to be Iranian. And who said anything about fooling him?”

  “Right.”

  Carl looked intrigued. “Fool him? This gets more and more interesting. In that case, there’s no doubt. Arizona.”

  “Why Arizona?”

  “Because that’s the only place on this line,” he said, waving at the
map, “that has weather warm enough to fool someone from Iran, looks roughly like the ‘Dunes of the Jinn’ in Iran’s Great Salt Desert, and wouldn’t have snow-capped mountains in the distance. The eclipse was in January, after all.”

  “January?” McCaig asked. “In America?”

  “Without a doubt,” said Carl.

  “Six months ago?”

  “January twenty-third,” said Carl.

  McCaig and Christine looked at each other for a long moment. She turned to Carl.

  “Thank you very much, Uncle Carl. We have to go. It was really great to see you.”

  “I don’t fucking care!” Patterson yelled into his phone. “Your excuses stink! So quit making them, OK?”

  Erica Blackwell was fascinated by the physiological changes she saw in Patterson as his anger consumed him—a pulsing vein in his temple, a flush of red creeping up his face, tendons as tight as ropes standing out in his neck. She wondered idly whether his fury would blow out a vein in his brain one day and he’d fall dead of a hemorrhage.

  “Find them! . . . I don’t care! Just fucking find them!” Patterson slammed his phone down and leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming on the desk.

  “I take it that was bad news,” said Blackwell.

  “I call up for a status report and they tell me they tracked that bitch Garrett’s phone down to her boat this morning and out for a sail, and she turned her phone off once she was on the water. OK, no big deal, lots of people turn off their phones. So what about McCaig? Oh yeah, they say, he turned his phone off around 5 AM this morning. Christ, are these people morons?”

  “You think they’re in cahoots on something?”

  “Of course they are! Isn’t it obvious? She somehow gets him a message to turn off his phone and meet her at the harbor. They slip away together. By the time we figured it out, they could have sailed anywhere in the whole fucking Frisco Bay!”

  “Nobody calls it ‘Frisco,’ Jack.”

  “I call it whatever the fuck I want!” he replied.

  “So we lost track of them. They’ll turn up. What’s the big deal?”

  “We didn’t lose them, they lost us. Deliberately. Think. Why would they do that? What, they both turned off their phones the same morning by coincidence? No fucking way. They got a message back from Zarrabian; I’m sure of it. He must have a TV; he saw their news conference and figured out what they meant.”

  “Didn’t you put your spies on every phone and computer they had?”

  “I don’t know how Zarrabian got a message past us, but he did. The three of them could be bobbing around the bay right now. One big happy family. She could be getting the interview of her life!”

  “This isn’t good,” she said. “Have you talked to the senator about this?”

  “Platte? He didn’t call me back.”

  “We’ve got to get in front of this,” said Blackwell.

  “What if Garrett interviews Zarrabian and figures out his story doesn’t add up?”

  “As far as Zarrabian’s concerned, everything adds up.”

  “But that FBI agent, what’s his name?”

  “McCunt,” he replied.

  “McCaig. Can’t you say two words without swearing?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Right. TJ McCaig. He’s the wild card. We never counted on a terrorist who happened to somehow know an FBI agent, the same one who just happens to be lead investigator. What are the chances? And what does he know about Zarrabian that we don’t know? We’re blind when it comes to McCaig.”

  “I fucking can’t believe this,” said Patterson. “All we had to do was capture one of these so-called terrorists. Just fucking one. The evidence would have led straight to Iran, straight to the Ayatollah assahola himself. We’d have the voters demanding that we invade. Even the candy-ass liberal anti-war hippies would have to think twice.”

  “Yeah, well, we didn’t. And Zarrabian even managed to escape.”

  “He’s dead meat. We just have to find Garrett and McCaig, and we’ll get him.”

  Platte burst in. “What’s so goddamned urgent that you interrupted my meeting with the president?”

  “Fuck, do I have to go over it all again?” asked Patterson.

  “You watch yourself, Jack. I’m sick of your attitude,” said Platte.

  “I’ll fill you in later, Senator,” said Blackwell. “For now, the quick version is that the FBI agent and the reporter seem to have gotten together and slipped through our net. They’re off the radar. No phones. They sailed off on Garrett’s boat, and we can’t find them.”

  “In other words,” said Platte, “they’re probably going to meet with Zarrabian. Could be with him right now, while we’re sitting here doing nothing. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Patterson. “Zarrabian must have heard their TV ‘payback’ announcement and somehow gotten a message to them that we didn’t intercept.”

  “They were going to lead us straight to Zarrabian, and you lost them. Do I have that right?” said Platte.

  “Yes, sir,” said Patterson.

  “So now we have nothing. Worse than nothing,” said Platte. “That girl-wonder reporter is going to interview him, and his buddy the ex-Marine is going to help him out of some sort of twisted loyalty.”

  “That’s right, sir,” said Patterson.

  “And what are you doing about it?”

  “How about this,” said Blackwell. “Put out ‘Wanted, Dead or Alive’ posters, or whatever we do these days. Exaggerate, use some deniable innuendo. We’ll get the public to help us. Garrett manipulated the news; we can too.”

  Patterson looked at her with surprise. “That is a damned good idea.”

  Reunion

  “Slow down,” said McCaig. “The GPS says we’re close.”

  Christine slowed car and squinted through the shimmering heat of the Central Valley. As they’d descended from the mountain, they’d had to put the convertible’s top up to keep out the blazing sun, and were running the air conditioner full blast.

  “Seriously?” she said. “It’s just trees. More trees, just like the last ten miles. I’ve never seen so many freaking trees in my life.”

  “Walnut trees, not that you care.”

  “Care? I’ve seen enough walnuts to sink the Titanic.”

  “Walnuts are delicious and nutritious. They press them for oil too, you know. Cosmetics and such.”

  “You’re just full of fun farm facts.”

  “When you grow up on a farm, there ain’t much else to do but learn about farms. And dream of getting away. Hey, right here. Stop here.”

  She stopped the car and looked around. “Here? Zarrabian is camping in the middle of a big walnut orchard, hoping nobody will notice?”

  “These old farms used to be a couple hundred acres—what one family could manage. Now they’ve all been bought up by huge agribusiness corporations. The little guys can’t compete any more and they’re all moving away. But they haven’t torn down all of the old farm houses yet. I’ll bet there’s a house back there. Cruise along this orchard. We may find the driveway.”

  A hundred feet farther, McCaig pointed between the trees. “There it is! Turn here, between this row of trees.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, you can still see the gravel and some old tire tracks. And there’s a broken-off post there that was probably the mailbox. This is it.”

  The car crunched down the old, weedy gravel driveway under a canopy of walnut branches. The light from the late afternoon sun barely penetrated, giving the impression of driving down a long tunnel.

  A hundred yards along, a house emerged from the trees. Christine had been anticipating something like Dorothy’s home in The Wizard of Oz: an old single-story clapboard house with peeling yellow paint, ragged asphalt shingles on the roof, a drooping clothesline, and maybe a dead car or two in an overgrown yard. Instead, she found herself admiring a beautiful old Victorian-style home. A decorative sidewalk curved acr
oss a long-dead lawn to a huge oaken front door with a stained-glass window. On the right side of the house, a neglected rose garden had become a tangle of wild roses and weeds. To the left, two huge old orange trees, heavy with neglected fruit, shaded the house.

  Christine stopped the car and shut off the engine. “Wow,” she said. “If this house were in San Francisco, it would be worth millions. Your buddy has good taste. Even neglected, this place is elegant. ”

  “Yeah, but out here, it’s just scrap wood.”

  They stepped out. “Holy crap!” she said. “It’s like a blast furnace out here!”

  “Probably a hundred and five degrees,” said McCaig. “Makes the food grow. Sunshine and water.”

  “What now? Just walk up and knock?”

  “If he’s here, he knows we’ve arrived. Let’s just wait a minute.”

  They leaned against the car and waited. Two minutes later, Christine grew impatient.

  “Maybe we should honk the horn.”

  “Bad idea. If there are farm workers in earshot, they’ll come to investigate.”

  “Screw it. Let’s just knock.”

  McCaig scanned the grounds, looked back down the overgrown driveway, and then back at the house.

  “OK.”

  When they’d walked a half dozen steps, a gunshot rang out and a chunk of cement exploded just a foot from McCaig’s shoes. He dived toward Christine, pushing her down onto the dead grass and shielding her with his body.

  Zarrabian’s voice came from a window. “Stay where you are, Captain. Throw your weapon toward the house.”

  McCaig raised his head and looked toward the house. “Goddamn it, Zarrabian. Didn’t you steal my gun once already?”

  Christine struggled from McCaig’s grasp and sat up, brushing dead grass and leaves from her hair and jacket. “Just give him your gun!”

  “Ms. Garrett’s advice is wise,” said Zarrabian.

  “I’m retired!” said McCaig. “I don’t have one! I turned it in!”

  Another shot rang out, this time blowing up a chunk of dead lawn a foot in front of McCaig’s face.

  “Please, Captain.”

  “Damn it!” yelled Christine. “Why don’t you two just whip out your dicks and we’ll see whose is the biggest?”