Whiplash

43

While the vehicles themselves were mostly a decade or two old, the Iranian bus system would put those in many Western countries to shame. Bus lines crisscrossed the nation, and even in the worst traffic were within five minutes of the schedule nearly ninety-five percent of the time. The drivers were friendly, and helpful, even toward foreigners.

The bus Nuri and Flash took was nearly empty, its passengers mainly Tehran residents who worked in one of the large villas near the seashore. They were men mostly, and sat near the front of the bus; even on long distance routes the seats were segregated by gender, with women sitting at the back.

Nuri had the Voice play Farsi voice tapes over and over, until the sentences merged into a singsong that put him to sleep. The next thing he knew, Flash was shaking his shoulder.

“Hey,” whispered Flash in English. “You said we had to get off around here somewhere for the airport.”

Nuri jerked awake, angry at himself. He pulled up out of the seat and ran to the front, flustered.

He couldn’t remember anything in Farsi.

The driver looked at him as if he were a madman.

The word “airport” finally drifted from his mouth. In English.

“Imam Khomeini International Airport,” Nuri said.

The driver put on the brakes. “You missed,” the driver told Nuri, using English himself. “Oh, I am so very sorry. You need the other bus. You go back. Take bus.”

“How far?”

“One kilometer. You go back. I let you off. You fell asleep? Bad. Very sorry.”

Flash followed him off the bus with his bags.

“I’m sorry,” Nuri told him. “I didn’t realize I was so tired. I didn’t sleep in Sudan.”

“No sweat,” said Flash, who’d nodded off for a while on the bus himself. “It’s like a klick this way?”

“The bus we need is, yes.”

“Hey don’t feel so bad,” said Flash, pushing to keep up. Even though Nuri was short, he walked very fast. “One time I was in Afghanistan, right? We were doing this thing — we were flying into this valley where these guys had gotten themselves stuck between two different groups of Taliban assholes. We’re in this big Chinook, right? Anyway, the point of the story is — my lieutenant, he fell asleep and we had to wake him like sixty seconds from the landing zone.”

It was a slight exaggeration, but Flash figured the changes were worth it if they cheered Nuri up.

“That guy, man, he could sleep through anything. He was very cool,” said Flash. “Didn’t help him in the end, though. He got blasted the next time out.”

“That’s a real heartwarming story, Flash.”

“Hey, just trying to cheer you up.”

They made it to the bus stop a few minutes before the bus. The ride to the airport was only a few minutes, but Nuri took no chances of falling asleep this time, sitting forward in the seat and tapping his feet. He felt the energy starting to rev inside.

Imam Khomeini Airport, named after the Revolution’s great leader, was centered around a large, glass-faced terminal building. It was still relatively new, and an easy airport to navigate. What it wasn’t was a good place to wait inconspicuously for someone. There were only a half-dozen vendors in the large hall, and even at the busiest times there were no real crowds to get lost in.

Their bags presented a problem. No one coming to meet someone would bring luggage. Nuri didn’t want to risk leaving it outside, so he decided to go in through the departure area. From there the Voice could help them slip across to arrivals by looking at a schematic of the airport.

They walked in the front door and made a show of looking around to get their bearings. Security had two lines set up to check everyone entering the terminal, one for women, one for men. A handful of men stood on line, waiting for their turn to prove they had no weapons. Nuri had hoped to avoid the security check — generally the checks were farther on, just before the gates — but he had taken the precaution of printing tickets in Baku just in case.

“What do you think?” Flash asked, sidling up to him.

“I think we have to get through the security line. It won’t be hard. Keep your mouth shut as much as possible. Fracture your English. You’re Italian, don’t forget.”

“Si.”

“You had a great time, for an engineer. You like pipelines.”

“Si, si. Grazie.”

“You have your passport?”

“Si. Fa bene.”

Flash had exhausted his knowledge of Italian, but it was unlikely the Iranians manning the security check would speak even that.

Both Nuri and Flash had EU passports that said they were from Italy, which was enjoying a spate of good relations with Iran due to a series of oil deals. Those deals were part of their cover; both men carried credentials identifying them as employees of a legitimate company that made and leased derrick and pipeline equipment. The company had recently sent over a thousand people into Iran, and the Iranian media had done several stories on them.

Nuri took the Voice’s command unit out of his pocket and double-clicked the center button, putting it into iPod mode just in case the security people became overly curious. Then he pulled the handle on his suitcase all the way up and wheeled it over to the line.

The guards who worked the terminal could be easygoing to the point of being neglectful. Or they could be excruciatingly thorough. Tonight they were being thorough, forcing each man to open his suitcase and rifle through the contents for them. The man in front of Nuri, an Iranian, had two suitcases with him. He objected to opening either, agreeing to do so only when one of the guards started to do it for him. Even so, he continued haranguing the guard as he undid the locks, growing more and more heated as he went.

Even the Voice had trouble deciphering all of the tirade, translating obscure curse after obscure curse. He was going to be late for his plane. The men had the brains of retarded goats. Holes drilled in their putrid skulls would improve their IQs one hundred percent. And on and on and on.

The guards were not deterred. If anything, the protest made them move more slowly. Each item of clothing was examined. The man’s Koran was opened — by him — and inspected. Even his toothpaste was squirted to make sure it was real.

We’re going to be here all night, thought Flash.

The guard began looking through the man’s second suitcase. He found a bag of mint candies and opened it to try one. This was too much for the passenger, who began stomping his feet up and down.

The guard flipped the candy back into the suitcase and closed it up. Then he grabbed the man’s arm, his companion grabbed the other arm, and together they dragged him, screaming and shouting, toward the security office on the other side of the hall.

Nuri looked at Flash, then behind him at the other passengers. He waited a few moments, then wheeled on past the now empty checkpoint. Flash followed. The rest of the passengers stared at them. Then, one by one, they went through the checkpoint as well.

“You think this is a good idea?” asked Flash.

“Tarid’s plane is landing in two minutes,” said Nuri.

Nuri walked past the check-in counters, again acting as if he were a slightly harried traveler trying to make sure he was in the right place. Then he walked through the corridor behind the counters, sidestepped a rope, and entered a corridor formed by a temporary wall. The path was a shortcut used by employees that would take him to the baggage claim area.

“Where we going?” said Flash, following.

“Just walk like you belong here,” said Nuri.

It was a good, time-tested strategy, but it wasn’t foolproof. Not ten feet from the baggage area a soldier suddenly stepped into the space. He looked quizzically at Nuri and Flash. He wavered for a moment, unsure whether he should say something. Nuri smiled, but before he could get past, the soldier put out his hand.

“W.C.,” said Nuri in English. “Restroom? We need.”

The soldier demanded, in Farsi, to know what he was doing in the corridor.

“W.C., W.C.,” said Nuri. “Restroom.”

The soldier didn’t understand. Nuri pointed downward, gesturing that he was desperate for some relief.

“W.C.?”

The soldier shrugged. Nuri switched to Italian.

“The man said it was there but I can’t find it. I must go. Is it back there?” Nuri turned and pointed in the direction he had come. “Or this way?”

The soldier finally understood.

“You want the restroom?” he asked in Farsi.

“W.C., W.C.,” repeated Nuri, deciding to stick with the ignorant tourist routine.

“Passport,” demanded the soldier, using the only English word he knew.

Nuri reached into his pocket and took it out. The soldier held his hand out to Flash, who gave him his as well.

Nuri did everything but cross his legs, trying to convey a sense of urgency and even desperation. The soldier looked at the passports closely. He had seen only a few from the European Union, as his job ordinarily did not involve inspecting documents. The ink on the Iranian visas was a bit blurry, making it difficult to see which dates they were for — they might have been stamped for entry today, or three days before, a strategic error Nuri had arranged to cover any contingency. The soldier tried to decipher the date, then gave up.

“W.C.?” asked Nuri as the passport was handed back.

The soldier pointed across the hall.

“Grazie, grazie,” said Nuri.

Nuri walked so quickly across the hall that Flash had trouble keeping up.

“What was he all bugged up about?” Flash asked in the restroom.

Nuri pointed upward and shook his head. A year before, a CIA agent had discovered that one of the restrooms at Mehrabad Airport was bugged; he didn’t want to take any chances here.

Flash waited while Nuri used the commode — all that acting had actually encouraged his bladder.

“I’m thirsty,” he said when Nuri emerged.

“Don’t drink this water,” said Nuri. “Buy some outside.”

He took a medicine bottle from his pocket — it was the vial for the biomarker, disguised as eyedrops — and applied a healthy bit to his left hand. Outside, he slipped Flash a pair of video bugs.

“Put them on the wall opposite the ramp up to the customs station, in case we have to move,” he told him. He pulled out a stick of gum. “Put a little gum on as adhesive.”

“These are tiny.”

“If they were big, they’d be easy to spot,” said Nuri. “Is your sat phone on?”

“Yeah.”

“In case we get split up, I’ll call you. We can always meet outside, near the bus stop.”

Nuri took the bag and walked toward the conveyor belt. Half a dozen passengers from the plane had come off and were looking for their bags. They eyed Nuri’s jealously, wondering how he had managed to secure his when the belt wasn’t even working.

The door from the gate opened and another group of passengers came out, walking quickly toward customs. Tarid was with them, looking straight ahead.

He had a carry-on, no other luggage.

Nuri swung into action immediately, turning abruptly and walking toward the ramp. He kept his pace slow, wanting the others to scoot around him. As Tarid passed, he would reach out and touch him.

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.