Soon they hit the cool air of the craggy Alborz Mountains, followed hours later by the intense heat of the westernmost tip of the vast Kavir Desert. They chose roads that kept them far from the crush of people and stink of cars in the cities. On the wide open stretches, where Mark could be sure there were no cops for miles around him, he kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor.
As he stared out across a dry desert salt marsh, Mark was reminded of the desert south of Baku, which in turn led him to start thinking about Nika and her son. He remembered the last dinner they’d all eaten together. It had been at an unpretentious little Georgian restaurant south of Baku, not far from the beach where they’d spent the day. After dinner, Nika had put her son to sleep at her parents’ house. And then she and Mark had gone back to his place to drink wine and have sex on the balcony. That must have been just about the time everyone in the Trudeau House was being slaughtered, he realized, struck by the absurdity of his own obliviousness. He hoped Nika was safe.
He turned to Daria. “Tell me more about this physicist who helped you steal the uranium.”
She was sitting in the passenger seat, still wearing a black chador robe that covered her hair and upper body.
“His girlfriend was an Iranian-Kurd reporter who was murdered by the regime.”
“What’s his name?”
“He’s a source.”
“Who’s already bolted.”
“His disappearance was made to look like he was abducted by the Mossad or the CIA. I’m not going to put his extended family in danger. If you were ever captured—”
“Who are we meeting in Esfahan?”
“An MEK courier. Whose name you also don’t need to know. I should go to meet him alone.”
“Give me a break.”
“I protected my sources even when I was with the CIA. You know that. I’m not treating you any different now than when you were my boss.”
“We’ll go together — I’ll back you up like I did when you met your agents in Baku. You want some advice?”
“No.”
“Tell me everything you know about this mess and then walk away, or better yet, run before you do any more damage.”
“I already did tell you everything I know. We made a deal, remember?”
“Create a new identity and start a new life somewhere. The world’s a big place, you’re resourceful.”
“Try taking your own advice, dude.”
“You’ve had your revenge on the CIA. You’ve settled the score. Leave it at that.”
A long time ago, her CIA father had betrayed her Iranian mother and to return the favor, she’d betrayed the CIA. So the Agency had suffered a little bit of blowback. And in truth, Mark thought the CIA deserved a certain amount of blowback when it came to Iran — overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected government in the fifties, for example, hadn’t exactly been a stroke of genius. Supporting the Shah and his secret police probably hadn’t been such a hot idea either. But the operations officers who’d died at the Trudeau House hadn’t been involved in any of that. They’d died for other people’s old mistakes, other people’s old grievances.
Daria said, “By the time I was working for you, it wasn’t about settling scores anymore. I’d moved on from that.”
“Enlighten me, Daria. What did you move on to?”
“Do you always have to be so sarcastic?”
“Only when it’s called for.”
“Toppling the mullahs could help a lot of people in Iran. A lot of good people.”
“You don’t think maybe people get the government they deserve?” When Daria didn’t respond, Mark said, “I do. Let the Iranians deal with Iran.”
“I’m half-Iranian. I’m dealing with it.”
“You’re American.”
“Whatever.”
Mark sensed that she wanted him to sympathize with her. To say he understood what she was going through, that she wasn’t a traitorous backstabber after all because her ultimate cause was just.
Screw that, he thought. Too many people had died, likely as a result of her actions, for him to have any sympathy left.
So they sat without speaking for a while, as the Paykan rattled violently and the oven-like wind coming off the Kavir Desert buffeted the little car. Finally, Mark said, “Did you ever actually learn anything about other operations officers, or anything about the Agency’s policies, that I wouldn’t have told you under ordinary circumstances?”
“No. I tried. You were too careful with your files. And if I had, I wouldn’t have compromised any individual agents or operations officers. I wasn’t out to hurt people. I’m not a monster.”
After a long time, Mark said, “I didn’t say you were.”
46
At over half a kilometer in length, Imam Square in downtown Esfahan was a vast space. The Grand Imam Mosque, with its enormous four-hundred-year-old dome and millions of hand-painted blue tiles, anchored the southern end. To the west stood an ancient palace; to the east, the Sheik Lotfollah Mosque, a delicate masterpiece built for a king’s harem. In between, hundreds of little shops were nested into an arcade that ringed most of the square.
When Daria and Mark arrived, it was near dusk. Several middle-aged men were rolling up red carpets in front of the Grand Imam Mosque — loading them into the back of a pickup truck while old women scurried around mouselike beneath their black chador robes, helping to clean up after the massive Friday prayer gathering. Farther away, clusters of young men and women in jeans sat talking by a fountain.
Daria passed by the fountain dressed in a colorful but ragged chador, her face fully covered by a red mask that looked as though it had been salvaged from a Mardi Gras parade. Mark observed that she drew a few amused stares and raised eyebrows along the way. Although some maybe mistook her for a gypsy, he figured that most recognized her as an Arab bandari, a woman from the southern coast of Iran — the daughter, no doubt, of smugglers and thieves.
She turned down a crowded alley that snaked off from a corner of the square near the Grand Imam Mosque. It smelled of rosewater and sweat, and was lined with shops that sold enameled brassware and hand-knotted carpets. Mark followed behind her from a distance, assessing the stares she attracted for signs that she’d been recognized. He saw none.
After turning down several more alleys, Daria slipped into a shop whose front window was obscured by ceiling-high stacks of folded tablecloths. A minute later, Mark ducked inside the cramped shop too. Near the rear of the store, a stooped old woman with crooked, wrinkled hands was securing a bundle of tablecloths with twine. Her back was to Daria.
“Fatima, I know you can hear me,” Mark heard Daria say. “I come in peace. I mean you no harm. Salaam Aleykum.” Peace be upon you. Daria pulled her red niqab mask away from her face. “We met six weeks ago. Do you recall?”
The woman wore a black chador pulled tight around her head. She lowered her gaze and kept tying her bundles, but now she handled the twine in a rough way that suggested she was sick to hell of dealing with people like Daria.
It wasn’t lost on Mark that Friday was a weekend day in Iran. And that it was nearly eight in the evening. And that this old woman had likely been fasting all day for Ramadan. Yet she was still working.
In the front of the store, another woman sat at a table, using a wooden paisley stamp and various brushes to apply paint patterns to a tablecloth in the making. Like the older woman, she too wore a black chador with a veil. But her paint-stained fingers were slender and smooth, pink and purple Nike sneakers poked out from beneath her robe, and the black fabric beneath her neck was secured with a metal binder clip, a trend Mark knew to be common among young Iranian women.