The Increment: A Novel - By David Ignatius Page 0,97

fall sunshine. Holiday apartment buildings and villas were crowded along both sides of the road, filling every inch of space near the water.

They drove east through Farahabad and Gohar Baran. There were no police and, judging by the cars racing past, no speed limits. The seaside construction became a little less dense as they moved toward the Turkmenistan border to the east. Mr. Saleh was peering intently at the landscape now, looking for something.

“Turn left,” he said to Molavi, pointing toward a small paved road. There was a little flag at the intersection, decorated with the colors of the Esteghlal soccer club.

Molavi drove slowly down the road. He saw a house on the right—a dilapidated old beach villa that looked as if it hadn’t been renovated since the shah’s time. It appeared to be deserted.

“Stop,” said Mr. Saleh. He got out of the car and walked slowly to the house. On the way he grasped something from inside his coat and took it in his hand, pointing it straight ahead. It was a gun. He walked to the windows of the house and peered inside, one window after the other, until he was sure the house was empty. He returned to the front of the house and opened a garage door.

“Park the car,” he said to Molavi. “Then come inside.”

Two hours later, a Mercedes sedan carrying three passengers moved down the same coastal road. It proceeded past the little banner for Esteghlal, but stopped at the next turn. Two figures emerged from the car, a South Asian man and a European woman. The woman was dressed in a black chador. Underneath she was dressed in black as well—black spandex that covered her arms and legs like a second skin. Her blond hair was tied in a tight bun beneath her veil. The man was dressed in simple peasant garb. The only modern touch was the big bag slung over his shoulders.

The Iranian gentleman continued east in the Mercedes. His two passengers made their way on foot through the low brush along the seaside. In twenty minutes, they had reached the empty beach house where Molavi and his guide had taken refuge.

The woman in the chador made a sound that was like a warbling birdcall. She waited ten seconds, then made the same sound again, louder. From inside the house came back a similar warble, quickly, three times, answered by a long, low whistle from the woman. The door of the house opened, and Jackie and Hakim swept inside. He laid down his heavy bag and unzipped it. Inside were three automatic weapons.

Molavi watched this pantomime wide-eyed. When the woman entered the room, she removed her chador and approached him in her tight black suit.

“Dr. Ali, I presume,” she said. “You don’t mind shaking hands with a woman, I hope.”

“Not at all,” said Molavi. His face was alight. “I could give you a kiss, madam.”

Jackie smiled. “Not yet, I think. Let’s get you out of here first.”

Molavi looked at the others, waiting for someone to say something, but nobody did, so he spoke up himself.

“And where are we going, please?”

“My dear Doctor, we are going to take a little boat ride. A fishing boat, I should think. The kind that does its fishing after dark. So for now, I suggest that we all get some rest and a little food, if our hosts have been able to arrange that.”

She walked to the kitchen and found cans of tuna fish, a jar of mayonnaise, some crackers packed tightly in cellophane. On the floor was a case of mineral water. In a cabinet was an unopened jar of Nescafé. It was impossible to know whether these supplies had been left thirty years ago, or within the past week. But that was the magic.

LONDON

October is the month when Washington tricks itself into thinking that summer’s promise isn’t quite spent. The trees are shedding their leaves in the biological certainty that winter is coming. But humans are not so sure, on a bright day when the sky turns royal blue and the air blows in from another season. This Indian summer is a time to embrace Washington, but for Harry Pappas, it was urgently the moment to leave. He had been getting updates from London, and now the news was coming in a rush as the members of the Increment team deployed in Iran. Adrian had promised to tell Harry when it was time to go, and now the summons had come, not in an