But the man behind him slowed down, and the crowd clogged behind Nuri. Realizing Tarid would never catch up now, Nuri angled toward the side wall.
I’ll tie my shoe, he thought, and wait for him to come.
Just as he stepped over, the soldier who had accosted him earlier walked up the wide gangway toward him. Nuri decided his shoe could wait and picked up his pace, nodding as he passed him.
Once again the soldier stopped him, holding out his hand.
“Sir?” asked Nuri.
“W.C.,” said the soldier.
“Yes, I found it.”
“Why are you coming to Iran?” asked the soldier in Farsi.
“Io, no capisco.” Nuri knew he couldn’t just start speaking Farsi, when he’d been pretending earlier not to understand a word. “I don’t understand. Where is customs? Passport area?”
“Go down that way,” said the soldier, quite a bit of disdain in his voice. He couldn’t understand why visitors didn’t take the trouble to learn the language.
“Grazie,” said Nuri. He could see Tarid passing at the other side of the wide ramp.
“Stop!” said the soldier.
Nuri turned around.
“Where is your friend?”
Nuri gestured that he didn’t understand. The soldier held up two fingers.
“He’s coming, he’s coming,” said Nuri in Italian, pointing. “He needs his bag.”
“You should be together. It’s easier for the official.”
It was all Nuri could do to stop himself from throttling him. He made a sign that he didn’t understand, and turned around. But it was too late—a flood of other passengers had come up, and now Tarid was far ahead. Nuri scrambled, but before he could close the gap, Tarid had gone off to the lane with Iranian passport holders.
There were two lines for foreigners. Both were moving quickly, which gave Nuri some hope. He got on the one at the left, then turned around to look for Flash. He saw him—with the soldier who had just accosted him.
Flash didn’t have to pretend he didn’t understand what the Iranian was saying; he didn’t speak any Farsi, nor could he figure out what the soldier was complaining about. He simply shrugged and pointed toward the exit. The soldier told him that his friend was a jerk, and that he should find better people to travel with.
Flash nodded, because it seemed like the right thing to do.
“Go,” said the soldier. “Go.”
Flash saw Nuri near the front of the line on the left. He steered to the right, figuring that if there was a jam-up for some reason, at least one of them would get through quickly. Nuri spotted him and nodded.
The customs officers were in their sixties, men who had first gone to work for the government when the Shah was still in power. They were honest, not especially officious, and above all deliberate. Each had a list of people who were not to be allowed in the country on his desk. The list was 375 pages long, with the names from each country listed separately. When they received a visitor’s passport, they dutifully checked it against the list. They did this because it was their job, and also because the government had recently established a bonus system for customs officials who identified anyone on the list. Especially prized were men—all but two of the names were male—who had received judgments in suits against Iran over the years. In those cases, the men were allowed into the country—then detained and, essentially, blackmailed into paying some or all of the money before being put back on a plane and sent home.
These names were identified by small daggers. While most of the names were American, there were quite a few Italians as well.
“Why are you coming to Iran?” asked the customs officer in English as Nuri stepped up.
“I have business,” said Nuri, answering in Farsi because he hoped it would get him through the line quicker. “I am involved in the pipeline construction for the government’s new wells in the south.”
The customs officer was impressed. He took Nuri’s passport and cracked it open.
“So you are working here? This is a business trip?”
“There are some matters that have to be attended to,” said Nuri.
“You are fixing the pipeline?”
“Actually, the derricks,” said Nuri. “The pipelines are another department.”
“Hmmm.”
The Customs official looked at the visa. “You know that this visa is only good for seven days,” he said.
“Oh?”
“They should not have given you this one. In your case, because it is an important government assignment, you should have been given a six-month pass.”
“It should only take a day or two.”
“But that is the way it should be done.” The customs official reached under his desk and took out a pad. “Take this to the window over there,” he said, starting to write a note. “She will give you the proper documentation.”
“This matter came up in Dubai,” said Nuri. He spoke slowly, struggling with the words. “There was a debate. My boss went to the top official. They asked the ambassador himself. He said, this he said—give him the short visa only.”
“Well, if the ambassador said that. I could not overrule an ambassador.”
“Of course not.”
“He is wrong, though.”
“It wouldn’t be my place to say.”
The customs inspector shook his head, then crumpled the note up and put it in his pocket. He started to wave Nuri through, then realized he hadn’t checked his name against the list.
Slowly, he began leafing through the pages.
Nuri caught sight of Tarid walking out the main entrance.
“I’m sorry. We have procedures,” said the inspector as he found the Italian section.
“Take your time,” said Nuri, turning his eyes toward the ceiling.
44
Tehran
TEHRAN HAD ALWAYS FELT LIKE A FOREIGN PLACE TO ARASH Tarid. He’d been born in the southeastern corner of the country, about as far away from the capital as one could get and still stay in Iran. His first trip to the city had been when he was a teenager on some family errand, now long lost to memory. But he vividly remembered the city, all lit up. Cars whizzed everywhere—there was much less traffic, but just as much pollution. His eyes had stung the whole time he was there, and for three days afterward.
Tonight the traffic was worse, and the pollution just as bad. The taxi driver had asked 80,000 rials for the thirty-five-kilometer ride to the city; the fee hadn’t changed since the airport had opened.
“Returning home from business?” asked the driver, slowing with the traffic as they approached the city.
“Yes.”
“It must be exciting to go abroad.”
“It can be.”
Tarid shifted in the seat. While his leg injury hadn’t been serious, his body still ached from the firefight and the escape from the Sudan holding pen. He decided he would make a detour to Istanbul when his meeting with Bani Aberhadji was done. He would spend several days there, soaking in a bath in the old part of the city. A friend of his swore by the waters and the old man who ran the place, claiming they had curative powers.
And the apartments above were a good place to have drinks, if you knew the owner. He would not drink alcohol in Iran—the possibility of Aberhadji finding out was too great—but in Istanbul a man could relax, and even pose as a westerner if the mood struck him. No one would care.
“So, you were in Dubai?” asked the driver.
The question caught Tarid by surprise. He gripped the back of the driver’s seat and pulled himself close to the man.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Why are you asking me these questions?”
“I—uh—I just, I thought you were on the plane from Dubai. It was the one that just landed.”