“He told you the deal I offered?”
The deal was a straight exchange — Decker for the evidence that Decker had collected.
“He did.”
“Your answer?”
“I can tell you this: last week, the dogs that patrol this property at night smelled an intruder. Who would violate this sanctuary, my guards wondered? We have nothing here of value but the work of Allah. Your colleague was discovered on the roof of this house, no doubt engaging in the very spying that led to the information you have in your possession.”
Ayatollah Bayat shook his head as though he were a father disappointed in a child. The gesture reminded Mark of the obnoxiously patronizing priests he’d dealt with as an altar boy three decades ago.
“I regret to tell you,” said the ayatollah, “that he tried to jump down from the roof in an attempt to escape. In doing so, he hit his head. I can assure you that our doctors tried to save him as an act of mercy, but he will now have to look to Allah for mercy.”
Ayatollah Bayat raised his eyes to the ceiling and said, “Oh my servants who have transgressed against your own souls, do not despair of Allah’s mercy, for Allah forgives all sins. It is he who is the forgiving, the merciful.” Looking back at Mark, he said, “Your colleague died of his injuries before he reached the hospital.”
Mark was good at figuring out whether people were lying or not — too much eye contact or not enough, odd pauses, a story that obviously benefitted the teller, forced gesticulations…his intuition in this department had been honed over the course of a long career. And he didn’t believe Ayatollah Bayat for a second. “I would like to see the body.”
“But how could that be possible? There was no evidence your colleague was a Muslim, and we did not know his name, so the body was buried without Islamic funeral rites, in an unmarked grave, in a cemetery for unbelievers. As is natural.”
“Then show me where he jumped, and where his head hit.”
Ayatollah Bayat appeared to consider the request, with unease, for a moment. Finally he stood. “Please follow me.”
Mark was taken to a courtyard behind the mansion. An eight-foot-high brick wall enclosed the small space. Ayatollah Bayat pointed to the top of the wall about fifteen feet from where it met the building, where a brick had fallen away.
“That is where your colleague hit his head.”
Mark eyed the roof, squinting in the bright morning sun. Given that the mansion had three full stories, he estimated that the drop to the wall would have been well over twenty feet. If Decker had been trying to get off the roof the fastest way possible, he probably would have jumped exactly where Ayatollah Bayat said he had.
Assuming that was the case, the distance from the exterior wall of the mansion to the broken brick suggested that Decker hadn’t just lowered himself over the edge of the roof and dropped — to get that far away from the building, he would have had to take a giant running leap off the roof. Which, knowing Decker, Mark thought entirely possible.
He gauged the distance again and imagined Decker in midair. For any normal human being, a leap from that height to a brick wall no more than a foot wide would have resulted in a broken leg at the very least. A fatal head injury was a definite possibility, perhaps even a likelihood.
But Decker was no normal human being. Mark figured Deck could have easily made that jump and hit the ground running.
“Was he wounded prior to jumping?”
“No,” said Ayatollah Bayat. “It was the fall alone that killed him.”
“You’re lying.”
Ayatollah Bayat stared at him for a while. “Of course death is difficult to accept. As an act of compassion, I am willing to arrange for a diyya to be paid to any of his remaining family members. It is not an accepted custom in our country to make such a payment for the death of an intruder, and the rate for a non-Muslim is typically not high, but rational discretion in these matters is often advisable.”
Mark took out his cell phone and pushed a series of buttons.
“What are you doing?” said Amir.
Mark pushed a few more buttons on his cell phone and then snapped it shut. “I just sent an authorization code to my colleagues. Unless I revoke it within two hours, it will be too late to stop the release of the digital files that prove you’ve been conspiring behind Khorasani’s back. One of the places the files will be sent is your own intelligence ministry. The only condition under which I will revoke the authorization I just sent is if I am taken to my colleague.”
It was technically a lie. His agreement with Daria was that, if he didn’t return, she would release the information if and when she saw fit.
Ayatollah Bayat looked as though he’d swallowed something rancid. “What you demand is impossible.”
Mark shrugged. “Not my problem.”
“Your life is your problem, my son.”
The threat was delivered awkwardly, with little conviction — a weak attempt to bully by an old man who was used to others doing his bullying for him. And it was ineffective to boot. Mark had long ago come to accept his own death. He figured his life wasn’t so great anyway, and no one was dependent on him. He could afford to gamble.
“You have a choice to make. Either deliver my colleague, or face the consequences.”
Ayatollah Bayat turned, as though he were going to walk away. But then, with his back to Mark, he said, “If we were to agree to your terms, how would you propose we conduct the transfer?”
“When I have my colleague alive and in my custody, and we are at a safe distance, a messenger will deliver the original tapes to the guards outside your estate.”
“If I bring you to my brother, if we satisfy your demand, how can we be sure that you will honor your commitment to destroy these files? And that you won’t tell the Americans of their content?”
“My priority is retrieving my colleague. And I no longer work for the Americans. But the truth is, you can’t be sure.”
“We have seen your face; my guards have taken your picture. We know you are an American. We are a large group. Even if my brother and I were to be arrested, the group would hunt you down were you to deceive us.”
“I know it.”
“In or outside of Iran. For days or years, however long it takes.”
“Understood.”
“I cannot guarantee the condition of your colleague.”
“If he’s alive and likely to stay that way, you’ll have your tapes.”
63
Most of Valiasr Street — the main thoroughfare that bisected Tehran — had been turned into a one-way street going north, the better to accommodate shock troops who might need to speed through the city at a moment’s notice to crush a popular uprising. But up in the far north, the traffic still flowed both ways. Or trickled, as was the case now.
It was six thirty in the morning. Amir Bayat drove. Mark sat behind him. Ayatollah Bayat had chosen the passenger seat in the rear of the car, next to Mark, as though he were used to being chauffeured around.
Giant sycamore trees, planted over a half century ago, formed a wall between the road and the trendy cafés that lined Valiasr’s sidewalks. Paralleling the sycamores were joobs, deep street gutters that, when they weren’t clogged with garbage, brought water down from the Alborz Mountains. Today the joobs were full and running fast, as the spring heat melted the mountain snows. A stiff wind had blown off much of the smog that usually blanketed the city, rendering the mountains visible to the north, and sometimes to the east as well. The mountains were massive, as high as eighteen thousand feet, their tops shrouded in cloud and snow.