“If you should get a little thirsty.” I gave him a nod. Not too subtle.
The doctor’s gaze warmed. I guess he was easily impressed. He cleared his throat and whispered, “Splendid. Just the thing to cut the dust.”
Suddenly I was Dr. Carlyle’s best friend, and we chatted Iranian history until our bus pulled into a roundabout out front of a modest, three-story hotel situated near the edge of town and just off the main road.
We checked in and were issued old-fashioned brass keys to a string of rooms on the second floor. Just before dinner, there was a rough knock on my door. It was Dr. Carlyle, all decked out in a tweed suit that fit his ruddy complex to a tee. He had a glass bottle in his hand that had once contained premade green tea and the brilliant idea of using the bottle to transport Knob Creek whiskey to dinner. I acted like a man who would never have conceived such a clever idea, and together we congregated with the rest of our group in the hotel’s cramped, but tasteful restaurant.
“The only decent place for dinner in all Natanz,” our minder told us, as if the town was a disgrace to Iranian cuisine.
There were eight or ten other tables in the restaurant, all occupied, and all by foreigners from places far and wide: Russia, Germany, Japan, Sweden, France. As it turned out, Dr. Carlyle was not the only one who had arrived at dinner with a glass tea bottle in hand, and he was not the only one freshening drinks with the bottles’ mysterious potions. After an hour, I understood why. The food was terrible. Some Knob Creek made it almost edible.
Dessert was being served when I saw him. He was passing through the lobby, a tall, rounded man with a trimmed beard and thick eyebrows. Atash Morshed, the online banker from Amsterdam. I nearly dropped my drink. Impossible. I took in details as fast as my mind would record them. Expensive suit and fancy shirt, but no tie, an omission that gave him an unkempt look. His eyes moved too quickly for a tourist. He looked too exhausted for a successful businessman.
He carried a large briefcase. The briefcase was identical to the one in the photo from the airport in Beijing. The briefcase was chained to his wrist. He stopped at the front desk and made a telephone call. His gaze skimmed the room and reached into the restaurant, hopscotching from person to person in suspicion. He exuded nervous tension like a rank smell, at least for someone with my experience. And my experience was giving very good odds that the Chinese circuit boards were in the briefcase.
Morshed said a few words into the phone, listened, and hung up. He checked his watch in a gesture that was equal parts impatience, discomfort, and distress.
I flexed my leg and felt the hilt of the F-S knife press against the inside of my calf.
The banker had two new items for his busy schedule.
One, he was going to lose that briefcase.
And two, he was going to die.
CHAPTER 20
The Iranian government had made Atash Morshed a wealthy man. They sold drugs in massive amounts, and he laundered their money using banking techniques that most bankers didn’t know existed. He used the Internet. He covered his tracks by creating an online bank with thousands of legitimate customers. He funneled the money from Amsterdam back into Iran via the government’s unmonitored Office of Business Development, and the OBD bankrolled nuclear energy development in places like Natanz and Qom.
It was hard to tell whether Morshed was on his way out of the hotel or waiting for someone’s arrival. He wasn’t very good at disguising his unease in any case, pacing the lobby floor with uneven strides and wandering eyes. I couldn’t blame him: this was uncharted territory for a man more accustomed to penthouse suites in places like Geneva and Paris, a man more accustomed to gracing the business pages of the Amsterdam Schuttevae than to running errands for mullahs and demagogues.
When he turned suddenly toward the entrance, I rose from my chair. I was halfway up when Morshed pivoted at the door, did a complete about-face, and lurched down the hall to the elevators.
“Going someplace?” Dr. Carlyle asked me.
“I think I need some fresh air,” I said. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Dr. Carlyle greeted this news with a hangdog expression that had far more to do with the bottle of bourbon up in my room than the sudden loss of a complete stranger’s company. One part of me wanted to toss him my room key and say, You need it a lot more than I do. Drink up. A more prudent part of me wanted to keep the man at bay, so I said, “I won’t be long. Maybe we can get a nightcap.”
“Excellent,” he said, as I lifted my hat from the back of the chair and moved away from the table, nodding with diminishing charm to the people at our table. I lengthened my stride when I reached the lobby, but by the time I got to the elevators, Morshed was already going up.
I hustled to a stairwell at the end of the hall. The black-glass ball of a security camera hung from the wall by the stairs, and I automatically pulled the brim of my cap down over my eyes. It didn’t really matter. If someone wanted to know who the man bounding up the hotel stairs was in the middle of the dinner hour, there were twenty-three very high-strung Canadians who could probably have given them a fair description.
I took the steps two at a time to the second floor and peeked out the door in the direction of the elevators. No Morshed.
I lost a second huffing up to the third floor and a number on the door that looked like a hawk in flight. I put a crack in the door and scoped the hall. I heard a bell that signaled the arrival of the elevator. I heard the doors slide open. A man stepped into the hall. It was Atash Morshed. He turned to his left and walked away from the elevators with a quick, uncertain step. I watched his back for three seconds before stepping onto the floor.
Morshed veered to the left and down a second hallway. I knew the layout: it was identical to the second floor. I peeked around the corner and watched him. He was searching his pockets for a room key using his right hand while his left hand held firm to the briefcase. He stopped in front of a door halfway down the hall. Dropped his key. I heard an agitated growl as he bent down and retrieved it. It took him two tries to get the door unlocked, and he stormed inside.
I was moving down the hall when I heard the dead bolt click. A door chain rattled into place.
I yanked on a pair of thin leather gloves. I stopped at his door and listened. He must have gone straight for the telephone, because his muffled, agitated voice filtered through the door. Not a happy man, our Mr. Morshed. Well, what in the hell did he expect? Five seconds later, the telephone rattled in its cradle. Footsteps, like a man pacing. Water splashing in a basin. Silence.
I knocked softly. My Farsi sucked, but I managed, “Sir? Sir.”
“What is it?” he replied, angry and nervous. His Farsi was worse than mine.
I thought about switching to English, but how obvious would that have been. English, in a town like Natanz, in a country that despised Americans? I wanted to say something enticing like, Your car’s downstairs, but couldn’t find the words. All I managed was, “Car. Outside.”
Morshed cursed, no doubt concluding that the hotel had sent an illiterate bumpkin to deliver a message better suited to an eight-year-old. He stomped toward the door. I put a hand over the peephole and repeated, “Car. Outside.”
He switched to Dutch and swore. I didn’t bother trying to translate it, but suffice to say he sounded pissed. He snapped the dead bolt. Good. It was no fun dealing with a dead bolt.
I took a step back, palmed my Walther, and cocked my leg.
The door opened three inches. Morshed had stripped to a white undershirt and striped boxers. His bearded face appeared over the brass chain stretched between the door and the frame.