The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,120

like an order. “What will you do?”

She was always smiling with confidence, but for just an instant she had an odd look on her face.

“We’ll disappear. When dinner is over, we’ll meet and get on our way.”

The young Iranian nodded. This was not his world. He was playing this role because Harry the American had asked him to, and had invoked the sacred memory of his father. The pebble he had dropped into the pond had created a wave that was now far larger than he was. He took off his coveralls and handed them to Hakim. His black suit was a bit rumpled, but clean. He combed his hair carefully in a mirror Jackie held up for him. He wished that he was wearing his father’s gold cuff links, for luck.

Karim Molavi was an Iranian again, just like anyone else in these crowded streets. He called his cousin to say that he was in town, but there was no answer at the house so he left a message. Then he called Reza to say he was on his way. The young scientist sounded happy. He proposed that they have dinner together later, and talk about the old days. Reza said he had a girlfriend, at last. Maybe they could meet her after dinner. Karim was pleased. Perhaps this would all be easier than he thought. In and out, and away to a new life.

MASHAD, IRAN

The Green Express train from Tehran to Mashad took twelve hours. A solitary traveler had reserved one of the four-bunk compartments in first class. He lay on his bed, fully clothed, as the train sped overnight across the mountains that gird northeastern Iran. Open beside him was an Arabic translation of The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman, with notations in the margin. The man slept fitfully, awaking from time to time to relight his opium pipe and then drift back into a hazy region of consciousness that was not quite sleep. Outside his door, a guard kept watch through the night. The conductors on the train were frightened of the guard, and even more of the man inside the compartment.

Al-Majnoun, the Crazy One, had a rendezvous in Mashad. He had made the mistake of allowing danger to accumulate—of permitting a threat to continue, unimpeded, until it became so dangerous that it could destroy the enterprise itself. That was the difficulty of moving subtly and alone, as was his practice. Sometimes events moved so quickly that you could not keep up with them. You became so swaddled in secrets that you could not move a muscle. That could not happen in this case. If he failed here, even his own fearsome powers of violence would not protect him.

The train arrived in Mashad in early morning. The Crazy One descended from the carriage, carrying a Tumi briefcase that contained two lightweight automatic pistols, of different makes and vintages. He was dressed in a black suit, over a black merino wool sweater. He wore a cloth cap and sunglasses that partially hid his face, but in the glint of the morning, the scars were red and visible. It was a face that seemed to have been constructed with a putty knife; with little bits of flesh not quite adhering to the template of bone. It needed more skin or less. There had been another recent surgery, and so little tissue left to work with.

The bodyguard made to follow, closely at first, but Al-Majnoun waved him away. He walked with a stoop, and a stutter of the legs that was not quite a limp. He was agile, for all that. The legs moved in quick little steps, the body pitching forward at a slight angle, the briefcase tight against his side. He left the station and headed out onto Azadi Street, where he found a taxi. He placed a call to a contact in Tehran, and then another call, and then he wrote down an address in a tiny notebook little bigger than a deck of cards, which he kept in the pocket of his coat.

He told the driver to take him to the Iran Hotel on Andarzgu Street, close by the Shrine of Imam Reza. A colleague he had dispatched urgently from Tehran the day before was waiting for him there. The bodyguard followed in a second taxi.

Mehdi Esfahani sat at his table in the hotel restaurant, stroking the prickly hairs of his goatee. He wondered if the time had come to shave it off, to go