Whiplash

69

The cab driver was a talkative sort, babbling on to Tarid about his horrible in-laws. The father was a swine and the mother ten times worse. The man had loaned the driver money twice during the early days of his marriage, and though the loans had been repaid long ago, he still acted as if his son-in-law was a money-grubbing leech. His mother-in-law never washed, and filled every place she went with an unbearable stench.

Tarid was too concerned with his own worries to pay more than passing attention. Aberhadji wanted him to go to an industrial park several miles south of the city. He couldn’t imagine what sort of package would be there, especially at this hour of night.

Half of him was sure it was some sort of trap. The other half argued that if Aberhadji had wanted to kill him, he’d have done it that afternoon, when it would have been easier. He thought of telling the driver to take him to the airport instead. But instead he leaned forward from the backseat, head against the neck rest.

“I brought a fare here two years ago,” said the driver as they neared the turn off the highway. “He was a very respectable man from Egypt. Ordinarily, I do not like Egyptians. But this man was an exception.”

“Mmmmm,” muttered Tarid.

“He used a very nice soap. A very nice scent.”

Tarid wondered what he himself smelled like. Fear, most likely. And resignation.

The cab driver continued down a long block, flanked on both sides by large apartment complexes. The lights on the poles cast the buildings a dim yellow, and turned the dull gray bricks brown. They came to an intersection and turned right, passing a pair of service stations before the land on both sides of the road cleared entirely. As the light faded behind them, Tarid felt as if they had entered the desert, though in fact they were many miles from it.

“Which building were we going to?” asked the cab driver. It was only luck that he knew of the complex, due to the fare he had told Tarid about. While the names of the roads within it were predictable — there would always be a Victory Drive, an Imam Khomeini Boulevard, and a Triumph Way — the layout was a pretzel. He would have to hunt around for his passenger’s destination.

Past experience told the driver that the best tips came if he pretended to know precisely the place, however, so he tried not to reveal his ignorance.

“The building is number ten,” said Tarid.

“The one on Victory Drive?” asked the driver.

“I don’t know the street. Just that the building is number ten. I assume it is the only number ten in the complex.”

Tarid’s admission made things easier, since the driver could now pretend to have been confused by vague directions. He saw the sign for the complex and turned, feeling triumphant that the place was exactly as he remembered it. Then, too, he had come in the dark, though not this late.

There were no numbers on the first two buildings he saw. A plaque on the sand in front of the third declared it was 209.

“It will be in the back,” said Tarid, guessing.

“Toward the back, yes,” said the driver. “I thought so.”

Nuri and Flash knew exactly where the building was, thanks to the Voice. But Nuri had not been able to get a lead on the taxi driver, and decided he’d have to hang back as the cab drove into the complex. He passed by the entrance as the taxi turned in, then he drove down the block looking for an easy place to turn around. There were none, and so he pulled all the way over to the shoulder, made a U-turn and went back.

Nuri turned into the complex, then took an immediate right — a shortcut suggested by the Voice.

Number ten was at the very end of the street.

“Where is subject?” he asked the Voice.

“Two hundred meters to the west.”

“He’s behind me? South?”

“Affirmative. Subject is heading north.”

The cab driver was lost. Or Tarid knew he was bugged and had slipped him written instructions.

“Let’s see if we can get to that building before he does,” Nuri told Flash. “His driver is wandering around on the other side of the complex.”

“Go for it.”

Nuri continued down the street. The complex was used mostly by small manufacturers, companies that made items from iron and wood. The larger buildings at the front were all warehouses, and most were empty. A row of empty lots separated number ten from the rest of the buildings on the block.

Nuri slowed down, looking at the building carefully as he approached. It was a large two-story structure, with a well-lit lobby. There wouldn’t be much opportunity to interfere if they decided to kill Tarid inside somewhere.

“Somebody in that SUV,” warned Flash, pointing to a black Mercedes M-class at the side of the road ahead.

The door to the SUV opened. Out of the corner of his eye Nuri saw someone stepping from the shadows on his left. He had a rifle in his hand.

“Shit,” muttered Flash.

“Relax,” said Nuri. “Just play cool.”

The man with the rifle stepped in front of the car, waving at him to stop. Flash had his pistol ready, under his jacket.

“We’re just lost,” Nuri whispered to Flash. “Keep quiet. Keep the gun out of sight. Ignore theirs. We’ll just smooth-talk this. They’ll want to get rid of us quick.”

Flash’s inclination was to step on the gas, but he wasn’t in the driver’s seat.

The man who’d gotten out of the SUV shone a flashlight at them as they stopped. Nuri rolled down the window.

“Who are you?” demanded the man with the rifle.

“Please, we are looking for number three-one-two,” said Nuri in Arabic. “Do you know it?”

“Who are you looking for?” said the man, still using Farsi.

“Three-one-two.”

The man with the flashlight came around to Nuri’s side. The two Iranians debated whether they should help him or not.

“Do you know where three-one-two is?” repeated Nuri. “I have an appointment. We were late coming from Mehrabad Airport but I hoped—”

“Three twelve is back the other way,” said the man with the flashlight. His Arabic had an Egyptian accent, similar to Nuri’s. “Turn your car around, take a right, then a left at the far end and circle back down. You will find it.”

“Thank you, thank you,” said Nuri.

Tarid’s cab drove toward him as he finished the three-point turn.

Nuri cursed.

The men had stepped back into the shadows but were still nearby; there was no way to warn him.

“You think they’re going to shoot him?” asked Flash as they passed.

“Fifty-fifty,” said Nuri, watching from the rearview mirror.

Tarid felt his throat constrict as the man with the rifle stepped out from the side of the street. He’d focused all of his attention on the passing car and was caught completely off-guard.

The taxi driver jammed the brakes. As the man raised the rifle, the drive turned and started to throw the car into reverse. But a man with a flashlight ran out from behind an SUV on the other side and shone it in the back. The driver froze, unsure what to do.

“We’re not going to harm you!” yelled the man with the rifle. “Stop the car. Tarid?”

“Tarid!” yelled the man with the flashlight. “You’re here for a package.”

Tarid leaned toward the door and rolled down the window.

“I am Arash Tarid. Aberhadji sent me.”

“Come with us,” said the man with the flashlight. He shone the light toward the driver. “You stay here. He’ll be right back. Don’t worry. He’ll pay you.”

Tarid’s fingers slipped on the handle. Still, he thought it was a good sign that the man with the flashlight had said he’d be back.

But what else would he have said?

Tarid’s legs became less steady as he walked. He tried remembering a prayer — any prayer — but couldn’t. He couldn’t think at all.

The man with the flashlight stopped near the bushes. He reached down and pulled up a large duffel bag.

“You’re to give this to the man with the red jacket at Imam Khomeini Airport,” he told Tarid. “Go to Hangar Five. The man will ask you what time it is. You reply that it is a nice day. Do you understand? You don’t give him the time. You say it is a nice day.”

“OK.”

“Go,” said the man with the gun, pushing him toward the taxi.

Tarid felt a surge of shame. He’d been in life and death situations before. Never had he acted like this — never had he felt such fear. Even just the other day, when the camp was under assault in the Sudan, when he was hurt, he had acted calmly.

Here in Iran he’d been reduced to a coward. Why?

Because of Aberhadji. He was deathly afraid of him. He’d always been afraid of him.

You couldn’t give one man that much power over your life. To be afraid of a single man like that — however righteous or powerful — if you lived like that, you were nothing but a dog, a cur begging in the street.

Tarid grabbed the handle of the taxi and angrily pulled it open.

“We need to go to the international airport,” he told the driver. “Take me to Hangar Five. And no more complaints about your in-laws. I have more important things to worry about.”

“Identify and locate hangar five,” Nuri told the Voice as he pulled onto the highway.

The Voice identified the hangar as a civilian facility at the center of the airport’s service area. It was used by foreign airlines, primarily Turkish Airlines.

“What’s he doing?” Flash asked.

“Delivering a package to somebody at the airport,” said Nuri. “It’s not too big.”

“Bomb?”

“Probably papers,” said Nuri. He guessed it had to do with the network, documents or plans of some type. “It’s way too small for a nuke.”

“Could it be bomb material, though?”

“It could be.” Nuri thought about a bomb. The actual amount of pure uranium or plutonium needed was relatively small, though very heavy. The package might contain enough for a third or even half a bomb, depending on how sophisticated the design was.

Actually, he realized, it could contain the entire bomb — but only if the design was very advanced.

“You know, we don’t really have to rescue Tarid,” said Flash. “We can just make it look like we did.”

“There’s only two of us, Flash. We can’t set up a whole operation like that. Especially at an airport.”

“Why not?”

“How do we get away?”

“We’ll be at an airport, right?”

“We have to take Tarid with us.”

“We knock him out.”

It wasn’t a horrible idea, just totally impractical. Nuri let Flash talk about it as he drove. He thought about what else the box might contain.

Traffic was light, but not so light that they could count on not being seen if they ran the taxi off the road. Still, that might work: push him off the road, rob him, grab the bag.

The Iranians would realize they knew. But they were already shutting down the operation, so what did it matter?

“How would we grab the bag?” Nuri asked Flash finally. “How can we take it?”

“The bag? Not him?”

“What if we just got the bag?”

“We just point our guns at him and grab it. Shoot him if he won’t hand it over. Straight robbery, dude.”

Somehow, Nuri didn’t think it would be that easy.