Both were dark-haired, maybe thirty or so. Short-cropped hair, clean-shaven. The shorter of the two wore tortoiseshell eyeglasses. Both carried well-worn leather briefcases. Mark stood behind them, as if he too needed to speak to the receptionist.
“There’s a bowling alley and video arcade you can walk to,” Mark overheard the receptionist say, in Russian. “It won’t be open tonight, but tomorrow it should be.”
“We don’t bowl,” replied the taller one in Russian.
The bespectacled man rubbed his forehead. He looked as if he’d been up all night. “Forget entertainment then. Talk to us about dining options. Not for tonight, for now. The restaurant upstairs, we are tired of it.”
“You might try the Goy-Gol on Ataturk. It’s not far, you can walk.”
“Can you make a reservation?”
“Certainly, sir. But you won’t need one for lunch.”
The taller man frowned as he tapped the top of the concierge desk. “OK. Thank you.”
As the men turned to leave, Mark, speaking Russian, said, “I may join you, my friends, at the Goy-Gol, but don’t wait for me to start.” He smiled as he patted the bespectacled man on the shoulder.
The two men gave him a look. Mark, betting that they would just think he was being friendly to a fellow Russian, added, “I won’t keep you, I must check in myself, I just arrived. What a flight! Go, go. Don’t wait for me.”
As they were leaving, Mark heard one of them whisper something under his breath to the other. It was just a fragment of a remark, judging by the tone something equivalent to idiot, Mark guessed, but in a language he couldn’t place. Or maybe they’d been speaking Russian, but Mark just hadn’t been able to hear?
“Sir?” said the receptionist.
“I’d like a room.” Mark continued in Russian. He gestured over his shoulder to the two men who were walking out the entrance. “Next to my friends.”
The receptionist typed for a moment on his computer. “Room 816 is not a suite, but it does have a king bed.”
“I’ll take it.”
Mark handed over his Azeri passport.
Behind the reception counter, a door was cracked open. The receptionist called out “I need the key to 816,” and began to enter Mark’s information into a computer. After a minute, the receptionist called out, louder this time, “Salman! Room 816. Do you hear?” When this entreaty was met with more silence, the receptionist, looking aggrieved, retrieved a sheet of paper from a printer behind the counter and placed it in front of Mark. “Sign here,” he said. “I will get your key.”
The receptionist pushed open the door behind the counter, revealing two men standing in front of an old tube television. “Salman, you don’t have ears?”
“What?”
Mark glanced at the TV screen. On it, he saw aerial images of a bombed-out building surrounded by police cars. The logo on the upper right-hand corner of the screen told him it was the state-run AzTV channel. The program cut to what appeared to be a chaotic press conference hosted by a man Mark recognized as the president of Iran.
The receptionist returned to the counter, and handed a bulky metal key to Mark.
“What’s going on?” Mark asked.
“I am sorry to keep you waiting. As you can see, certain employees here are useless. If the Tabriz had to rely on them, the hotel would close.”
“I mean on the TV. What happened?”
“Oh, there was a bombing, of course.”
“In Iran?”
The receptionist shrugged as he took the sheet of paper Mark had signed and filed it in a cabinet beneath the counter. “Yes! Of course! Someone tried to kill Khorasani. It was his residence that was bombed.”
Ayatollah Khorasani was the supreme leader of Iran.
“How?”
“I don’t know. Some people say a missile, some a car bomb. Right now there are only rumors.”
“When did this happen?”
“This morning, before dawn. But it has only just come on the news. Of course, everyone thinks it is Israel.”
“This could be bad.”
“Yes, of course. But Khorasani was not at his residence, praise to Allah. He is alive, so I do not think there will be war.”
38
It had only been an hour since Titov had ordered the security tapes at Nakhchivan airport to be searched. And already he had his answer.
Displayed on his computer screen was an image of a man who had flown under the name of Adil Orlov, but who Titov knew with certainty was Mark Sava, albeit with hair that was darker and shorter than when he’d been in Tbilisi. First he shows up in Tbilisi, now Nakhchivan. The American was onto them, that much was clear.
“Forward this photo to all our operatives in Nakhchivan,” said Titov to his deputy. “Let them know that this man is working for the CIA. He often goes by the name Mark Sava but is now traveling under the name of Adil Orlov. He’s also been known to use the name Stephen McDougall. Prioritize a watch on the road to the Ordubad airstrip and all surrounding roads. Next target the main hotels. Get a man in every lobby. Then watch the highways going in and out of Nakhchivan City. Nakhchivan isn’t that big a place. Find him. But be careful — he’s dangerous.”
39
As Mark approached the door to his room at the Tabriz he glanced at the doors before and after his own. A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the one numbered 817. He guessed it was there because the men he’d followed didn’t want a maid rifling through their things.
A ceiling-mounted security camera was pointed at him, so as Mark reached into his front pocket for his pick tools, he shifted the travel bag that hung from his shoulder so that it blocked the camera’s view of the doorknob.
The lock was a basic four-pin variety, so he had the door open in under a minute. Inside, the room was clean and uncluttered. A bag of potato chips — a local brand — and an open bottle of Georgian wine sat on a table next to the television. Two queen-size beds took up most of the floor space; both were unmade. Large windows looked out over the red roofs of Nakhchivan City and the Aras Reservoir, the Aras River having been dammed up just south of the city. Because the reservoir marked the border with Iran, it was a restricted no-man’s-land, a place that lay empty and wild.
He turned from the window and began searching the bathroom. Because the two toothbrushes that lay next to the sink weren’t branded, he couldn’t tell where they might have been purchased. Same with the little travel containers of shampoo. There were no medications. The two razors were decent Gillette four-blades — but they could have been purchased here in Nakhchivan or practically anywhere else in the world. The waste bin was empty, save for a couple of used tissues.
Back in the main room, he searched the dresser and TV cabinet, but they too were empty. Next to the phone was a pad of hotel paper which he picked up and examined from an angle, hoping that the old spy trick of reading the indentations from the previous note would prove useful. It wasn’t — the paper was perfectly smooth.
In the closet, on a luggage rack, he found a single, open carry-on-sized Samsonite suitcase filled with black satin boxer shorts, black socks, and white undershirts. The boxer shorts and undershirts were made by Marks & Spencer, a British firm, but one with worldwide distribution; the socks weren’t branded. There were no luggage tags on the suitcase.
Hanging from the clothes bar above the suitcase were two dark blue suits and four white dress shirts encased in dry-cleaner plastic. Mark checked the suit coats; the neck labels had been removed, as had the labels on the rear of the suit trousers, and the neck labels on the shirts.