“It’s okay,” Mina said. “You don’t have to say any more.”
“She meant no harm,” David added. “Neither of us did.”
“I know.”
“Living in Europe, well, it’s…”
“Different,” Mina offered.
“A lot different.”
Mina nodded but looked away again. They were quiet for a moment. David could see she was lowering her defenses ever so slightly. But just then the elevator bell rang, and several associates stepped off chatting and laughing. They were out of time. It was improper for them to be found together. David’s mind raced. Then he reached for another piece of glass and purposely cut his finger.
“Oh, my goodness,” Mina said, noticing him wince, “you’re bleeding.”
“It’s okay,” he said, stepping back into the reception area. “I’ll get something for it at the hotel.”
“No, no,” Mina said, rushing to her desk and pulling out a first aid kit. “You could get an infection. Here, use this.”
She handed him a tube of antibiotic ointment, and as she did, she actually looked him in the eye, if only for a moment. He smiled and thanked her. To his amazement, she smiled back. The poor woman looked like she never got out of the office. She was small and pale and somewhat frail, but she was sweet and he felt bad for her, trapped in a job she had to hate, verbally abused by a boss who was impossible to respect.
“Again, I’m so sorry for the trouble we caused you today,” he said, finishing with the tube of ointment and giving it back to her.
“The error was mine,” she said softly. “I should have called ahead and gotten all of the details. It’s just that the meeting came up so fast, and, well… anyway, it was my fault.”
She looked at him again, and when she did, David shook his head and whispered, “It wasn’t your fault, Mina. It was all mine. And I’m probably going to get fired for it.”
“No,” she whispered back, sounding pained at the prospect. “Would they really fire you?” She handed him an adhesive bandage.
“If I blow this contract, they will,” he said. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you could help me.”
Mina looked away, terrified of being caught doing something else wrong. David suspected she would be severely punished for her transgressions today, and his heart went out to her.
The elevator bell rang again. More staff stepped off and headed to their cubicles. Mina greeted several of them, backing away from David as she did. He slowly put on the bandage, trying to buy as much time as he could, but it didn’t seem to matter. They had passed the point of no return. He really had to go.
He nodded good-bye, then stepped to the elevator, pushed the button, and silently begged Allah for mercy. The wait seemed like an eternity. He tried to imagine the coming conversation with Zalinsky, trying to explain how he and Eva had blown a mission that offered the last shred of hope of averting an apocalyptic war between Israel, Iran, and the rest of the region. But it was too painful.
The bell rang. The door opened. Still more of Esfahani’s staff poured out, and David stepped in. He hit the button for the ground floor and smiled at Mina one last time. The elevator doors began to close, but just before they did, a woman’s hand came through and held the doors ajar for a moment. It was Mina’s hand, holding a business card. Startled, David took the card, and Mina withdrew her hand. The doors closed. The elevator began to descend to the ground floor.
David looked carefully at the card. It was Esfahani’s, showing two different mobile numbers, plus his direct office line, general office line, fax number, and telex number. On the back was a handwritten note.
Imam Khomeini Mosque, it read, Naser Khosrow Avenue.
David couldn’t believe it. He had one more shot.
45
Outside the Iran Telecom building, David tried to hail a taxi.
But in Tehran’s cacophonous morning rush hour traffic-bumper to bumper for blocks on end-that was nearly impossible. He suddenly understood why one of the city’s recent mayors had been elected after boasting of having a doctorate in traffic management.
Once again he found himself begging Allah for mercy. He was desperate and reasoned that this wasn’t a selfish prayer. This was a battle of good versus evil. He was trying to stop a catastrophic war and the deaths of millions, and he needed all the help he could get, divine or otherwise.
David had no idea how far away Naser Khosrow Avenue was, but he was determined to get to the mosque before Esfahani left. His heart raced. But he knew he had to look calm, for he was not alone. And the delay in finding an available cab, he concluded, was good in the grand scheme of things. It gave the Iranian surveillance detail assigned to trail him-half of whom had already been forced to follow Eva back to the Simorgh Hotel-enough time to prepare for his next move.
On this topic, Zalinsky had been crystal clear back at Langley: for the first few weeks in Iran, he and Eva-like all foreigners-would be suspected by the Iranian intelligence services as spies for the Mossad or the CIA or the BND, Germany’s federal intelligence service. They would be followed everywhere. Everywhere they went would be monitored and logged in a file by the secret police. Everyone they met with would be noted, and some would be interviewed or interrogated. Their hotel phones would be tapped. Their rooms would be bugged. Their cell phones would be monitored. They would be photographed surreptitiously and constantly. Their mission, therefore, was to act normal. To relax. Blend in. Play the part of an MDS consultant and nothing else. This was not the time to play James Bond or Jason Bourne. This was not the time to evade their tails and get their handlers curious, much less worried. They were already pushing the margins with Eva leaving early and David taking a cab rather than their hired car (whose driver surely worked for the secret police). They couldn’t afford any more irregularities.
By the time David was finally able to flag down a cab, he was certain that the driver worked for the secret police. He was too young and looked far too nervous to be a simple taxi driver.
“Hey, buddy, listen. I need your help,” David said in Farsi, tinged with a little more of a German accent than usual. “What’s your name?”
“Behrouz,” the young man said hesitantly.
“Behrouz?” David said. “That means lucky, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good; so listen, Behrouz-today is your lucky day.”
“Why’s that?”
“If I don’t get to the Imam Khomeini Mosque and find my client before he finishes praying, my company’s fifty-million-euro contract is going to be flushed down the toilet, you know what I’m saying?” David pulled out his wallet and tossed a crisp one-hundred-euro bill on the front seat.
The young man’s eyes went wide when he saw the money. He glanced in the rearview mirror, and David pleaded with him to help. Behrouz then glanced at his mobile phone sitting next to the euro note. David assumed the kid was supposed to call something like this in. But it wasn’t like his suspect was going to get away, right? He and Behrouz were going to be together for the entire ride.
“No problem,” the kid said, finally mustering up his courage. “But you might want to put on your seat belt.”
David did, and they were off. Behrouz gunned the engine and hopped the curb, terrifying pigeons and pedestrians alike and unleashing an avalanche of curses from several clerics trying to cross the street. Not seeming to care in the slightest, the kid ran a stoplight, barely missing an oncoming bus, and took a hard right at the next intersection. This kid was good, David thought, half-wondering if he should hire him as his driver full-time.
On a straightaway, David caught his breath, pulled out his phone, and did his homework. He dialed up a quick Internet search for the Imam Khomeini Mosque and immediately found a map, a satellite photo of the enormous compound, and a brief description of the site, courtesy of Google. The Imam Khomeini Grand Mosala Mosque was the largest mosque in the world. The two minarets stood at 136 meters, and the mosque compound covered 450,000 square meters.