The helicopter was just a couple hundred feet away now, hovering over the empty tea field just past the forest, circling and searching. Decker turned on the Land Cruiser and jammed a spare AK-47 between the gas pedal and the front seat.
“Good luck,” said Mark, just before Decker threw the Land Cruiser from park into drive and aimed it through a break in the trees.
Mark grabbed two pistols and full clips from the equipment bag and started to run. Daria kept close on his heels. After he’d gone a hundred yards or so, he turned and, through the trees, caught a glimpse of the Land Cruiser careening out into the middle of the tea field. Shots were fired from the helicopter, followed by shots from Decker, still hidden in the woods.
Daria looked up at the sun. “If we keep going south we should hit a road I know in a few minutes. From there I can take us to a trail through the mountains and get us over the border without running into guards.”
“How long are we talking?”
“Border crossing’s not more than a mile away. That’s why we had the safe house up here.”
“I’ll follow you,” said Mark, and then they both turned and ran.
PART III
The two-story steel warehouse was one of thousands of freight stations clustered on the eastern edge of the port. It was remarkable only in that on the inside, instead of being crammed full with goods for import or export, it lay empty save for a thirty-foot-long powerboat and a group of soldiers.
Three of the soldiers wielded spray guns and were painting the boat, which had been propped up on jack stands and blocks.
A fourth, the leader of the group, stood in the background observing his men and occasionally glancing at a photo of an actual United Arab Emirates Coast Guard boat that he held in his hand. Tomorrow, when the gray paint had dried, two red stripes would be affixed to either side of the hull, and the marine radar dome and other antennas would be installed. The details would have to be perfect, he thought, because anything approaching the USS Reagan that was perceived to be a threat would be blown out of the water.
Under normal circumstances, not even the Emirates Coast Guard would be allowed to get too close. But if the coast guard was in direct pursuit of a hostile craft…well, the soldier couldn’t see the Americans firing on the coast guard until it was too late.
44
A man in his midtwenties, wearing khakis and a wrinkled Oxford shirt, sauntered up to the office of Vision Financial Consulting and Cash Advances on Georgia Avenue. In one hand he held a set of keys, in the other a giant Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup. He took a sip and nodded to Henry Amato, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the locked entrance to the building.
Morning rush-hour traffic was noisy and a car alarm was going off nearby.
“You were supposed to open at eight,” said Amato.
“It is eight.”
“It’s five after.”
The guy shrugged. He was tall, with floppy brown hair and an untrimmed soul patch under his lip. Amato noted the enormous metal-ringed hole in the guy’s earlobe and scowled. Why people chose to deface their bodies like savages was beyond him.
“Sorry. We’re open now.” He unlocked the door. “Come on in.”
It was a small store. The gray carpet was black with street grime in front of the main counter, over which hung a sign that read Paychecks Cashed Here. An old air conditioner stuck out from the wall. In the back lurked an office separated from the main area by glass partition walls and a flimsy wood door.
“Here to cash a paycheck?”
“I’m a retired colonel in the US Armed Forces,” said Amato, standing tall. “And I need a cash advance on my pension.”
“Colonel, huh? Don’t see many of those down here.”
It disgusted Amato that this kid who, if he had even gone to college, had probably spent the time drinking himself silly and smoking marijuana, and who had certainly never seen military service — probably even looked down on those who served — it disgusted him that this kid would, for even this brief moment in time, hold the key to something Amato desperately wanted. It was a prime example of the degeneration of values across the nation, Amato thought. A degeneration he’d tried but had so clearly failed to prevent. This punk, he thought, was what America had become.
“I’m in a bit of a rush.”
“You bring a copy of your most recent pension statement?”
“I did.”
“You working now?”
“For the government. I brought pay stubs.”
“How’s your credit?”
“It’s fine,” said Amato sharply.
He was ushered into the back office, told to take a seat in front of the desk, and handed an application. Amato filled it out in five minutes.
The guy leafed through it. When he got to the last page, he whistled. “That’s quite a figure.”
“Can you do it?”
Since Daria and Sava clearly didn’t plan to take refuge at the embassy, Amato figured his only hope was to pay private contractors to intercept Aryanpur’s men. But private contractors were extraordinarily expensive.
When it came to money, Amato had never been a saver. With social security and his government pension due to kick in soon, he’d always figured he didn’t need to worry about socking money away.
And anyway, too much money was an affront to God.
“I’ll need to confirm your pension of course, and run a credit report and all that. But if everything checks out, you should be OK.”
“What kind of timing are we talking about?”
“Two weeks or so.”
“Your website says immediate cash advances.”
“Yeah, on paychecks. The pension buyouts are another animal.”
“If I can’t get it today, it won’t do me any good! How long does it take to run a credit check and confirm my pension? You should be able to do that in ten minutes.”
“You can pay for us to expedite it, but honestly sir, I wouldn’t recommend it. You’ll take a huge hit in fees, see. You’d do better to wait.”
“Expedite the application, son. I’ll pay what I need to.”
“I don’t know if we can even do this figure this quick. I’ll have to call my boss.”
“I’ll wait.”
45
Mark recalled that there had once been a border fence separating Iran from Azerbaijan, a mini-Berlin Wall that had stood for decades during the Soviet era. But there were more Azeris in northern Iran than there were in Azerbaijan itself, so as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Azeris on both sides of the fence had just ripped the thing down.
Ever since, illegally crossing into Iran from Azerbaijan had involved little more than racing along a well-trodden path from one side of the border to the other. Which is exactly how he and Daria did it.
Not far from where they crossed stood a cluster of well-kept farmhouses. Inside a mud-walled garage attached to one of them, Mark hotwired an old Paykan — a cheap Iranian car — and left $2,000 in its place on the dirt floor.
They raced south toward the city of Esfahan, passing perfectly symmetrical green rice paddies, tea fields planted on steep mountain terraces, roadside kebab restaurants that smelled of grilled lamb, and roadside stores that displayed open barrels of dried fruit amidst unruly stacks of blue oil drums.