The Leveling (26 page)

Mark pulled up through the gates without stalling and stopped where he was told. The Turkmen soldiers descended, pulling up the front hood and loosening the canvas sides of the trailer. World War II–style canteens dangled from the soldiers’ belts, and their pants were tucked into black army boots.

It was almost seven thirty. The sun had just dipped below the mountains, but the overhead lights hadn’t been switched on yet, for which Mark was grateful—shadows would help.

He stepped out of the cab. He handed the Russian driver’s passport and the inventory papers to a Turkmen official with a sergeant’s chevron on his shoulder. The Chinese embassy guard and his Guoanbu minder were so focused on the search of the trailer that they hardly even glanced at Mark.

“Where do you go?”

Mark took a step to his left, so that he was in the shadow of the truck. “Mashhad.”

He pulled the pack of Java cigarettes out of his front shirt pocket and silently offered one to the army officer, who shook his head no.

“And what do you carry?”

“Textiles.” He spoke Russian. A hundred feet in front of him, a row of Turkmen flags hung limply by a wrought-iron gate. Past the gate stood a row of Iranian flags and a few Iranian soldiers. A sign posted in front of a beige-colored building read, in Farsi and English,
Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Iran
.

They discovered Daria in the trailer. She was dressed head to toe in a black chador and had fashioned a veil for her face.

“And who is she?”

“My brother is friends with her brother. She goes to Mashhad.” Mark lit his cigarette, and the smoke swirled around his head. The clothes he was wearing stunk of vodka sweat.

“Does she pay you?”

Mark made a face, as if offended. “No. Her father has died. She goes to Mashhad to mourn.”

“Does she have papers?”

“Yes, yes, of course. She is Iranian.”

Mark glanced at Daria. After some commotion, a female border guard appeared. Daria was taken away to be questioned in private, without her veil. The older Chinese guard inspected the underside of the truck.

Ten minutes later, it was over. Mark’s papers were signed. Daria reappeared, and the solicitous border soldiers formed a makeshift staircase out of packing crates so that it was easier for her to climb into the back of the truck’s trailer. As he drove off toward the Iranian border, Mark saw the Chinese guard staring intently at the Niva, as though it might contain the people they were looking for. Instead, they’d find a Russian who would be turned away at the border because he’d left his identification papers back in Ashgabat.

The truck was searched again on the Iranian side. After having their passports stamped in the customs hall, under a large photo of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khorasani, they were told they could leave.

Mark drove toward a gate topped by a sign that read
Islamic Republic of Iran Border Terminal
. Beyond the gate, a couple of kids were kicking a soccer ball in the road, taking advantage of the bright border-terminal lights that had just come on. On the shoulder of the road, truckers stood next to their parked rigs, smoking as they waited for what could be days to cross into Turkmenistan. Even in normal times, the Turkmen were paranoid about how many trucks they let in.

An alarm began to sound.

At first Mark didn’t realize it was directed at him, nor did the final Iranian border soldiers, who seemed inclined to let him pass. Then someone called out in Farsi from across the wide stretch of pavement, and one of the soldiers manning the last exit blew a whistle.

Mark laid on the horn, pushed his foot down on the accelerator, and shifted through the gears as quickly as he could. The final border checkpoint flew by him as cars veered to the side of the road.

A minute later, he was through the tiny town, thundering past little concrete-walled shops fronted by metal security gates. He began to gather speed more quickly now that he was hurtling downhill. The mountains on this side of the border loomed up as dark brown shadows, drier even than the Turkmen side, without a hint of green.

The landscape reminded Mark of the spaghetti western movies he used to watch as a kid, in which someone always wound up dying of thirst.

He floored the accelerator. From behind him, he heard a tapping at the narrow slider window in the back of the cab. Daria
was perched in the space between the cab and the trailer. When they got to a relatively straight section of road, he muscled the window all the way open. Daria was just slender enough to squeeze through it.

“Welcome to Iran,” she said.

“The asshole in the truck behind us must have said something. He was the only one who saw us make the switch.”

An army jeep a couple of hundred feet behind them was gaining. Mark kept the accelerator floored. The whole cab rattled madly, and the steering wheel had way too much play in it.

A sets of headlights appeared in front of them.

Mark peered through the gloom. Between the approaching headlights and his current position, the road narrowed as it squeezed between the side of the mountain and the drop-off below.

“Buckle your seat belt,” he said.

“There are no seat belts.”

He felt for his own and grabbed air.

“Then hold on. I’m gonna—”

He gripped the wheel tighter as the truck bounced dangerously over a bump in the road.

“—try to block the road,” said Daria, finishing his thought for him.

“Yeah.”

“I’m with you.”

When the road narrowed, Mark braked as hard as he could without skidding out. He yanked the steering wheel to the right, so that the cab of the truck smashed into the wall of the mountain and the trailer fishtailed out into the center of the road. For a moment the whole rig teetered, then the trailer slowly tipped over, pulling the cab down with it.

The front windshield shattered. Mark smelled diesel fuel. His shoulder had slammed into the asphalt. Daria had fallen on top of him.

“Go, go!” he yelled. “Out the top!”

She pushed off his shoulder and squeezed through the passenger-side window. Mark was right behind her.

The jeep that had followed them from the border was nearly upon them. A few shots rang out as they jumped to the ground, putting the truck between themselves and the bullets. The car that had been approaching came to a stop about a hundred feet down the road.

Mark sprinted over to it, reaching it in seconds.

The bearded, middle-aged man behind the wheel was frantically trying to execute a K-turn in the middle of the road, but he was constricted by the steep mountain face above him and the precipitous drop-off. No one else was in the car.

“Get out!” yelled Mark in English. He yanked the door open and pulled the man to the pavement. More gunshots rang out.

Daria reached the car and climbed into the passenger seat.

“Stand in the center of the road with your hands up,” said Mark.

When the man didn’t move, Daria repeated the command in Farsi.

“Tell him to stand with his hands up and not to run, or he’ll get shot,” said Mark.

Daria did, and the man raised his hands above his head, shaking as he did so. Mark got behind the wheel, deftly turned the car around, and slammed his foot on the accelerator.

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

L
I
Z
EMIN UNBUTTONED
his pants and loosened his belt just enough to allow himself freedom of movement. He loosened his tie and unfastened the top two buttons on his dress shirt.

The blinds were closed inside his spacious corner office at the Chinese embassy in Ashgabat, and the light was dim.

By the time he got to the twenty-fourth tai chi chuan posture—White Crane Spreads Its Wings—he was just beginning to perspire. So he was irritated when his routine was disturbed by a call from one of his field operatives.

“There was an incident.”

“An incident?” repeated Zemin.

“We believe Sava has crossed into Iran.”

Zemin listened carefully as he was told about the debacle at the border. Before hanging up, he noted, “This will affect your standing within the directorate.”

Zemin sat down in his chair, legs spread apart, and ran a hand through his hair.

The situation had not been contained. He had to assume the worst. Which meant he would need to speak to his uncle, the fat general. In person, in Beijing.

There was no other way.

Quchan, Iran

O
NE MOMENT THEY
were speeding across the empty desert and the next they were careening into a roundabout on the edge of the city of Quchan. Mark pulled off onto a side street lined with factory buildings and crumbling walls painted with advertisements for kitchen appliances.

The factories soon gave way to a mix of well-maintained apartment buildings and shops. It was nine o’clock, and the streets were crowded with people out walking and doing their shopping. Some of the women wore chadors, but many just wore jeans and headscarves that barely covered their hair. They passed a pizza shop, a hardware store, clothing boutiques, and an electronics store packed with televisions and digital cameras and cell phones. After the bizarre white-marble sterility of downtown Ashgabat, Mark was struck by how normal it all looked.

He kept both hands on the steering wheel, still on full alert.

“Assess our current situation,” he said to Daria. He’d never been to eastern Iran before. But Daria had, many times.

Her chador had slipped from her head, and the black headscarf underneath had come loose. She tightened it with a few quick, practiced motions, tucking her hair underneath the fabric, then slipped the chador robe back over her head so that only her face was exposed. Mark glanced at her as she worked, examining for the first time how she really looked in a chador. It transformed her, accentuating her high cheekbones and large eyes. Beautiful, he thought.

“Watch the road,” she said.

“What’s the best way to get to Mashhad?”

“It’s only an hour or so away but there are always police checkpoints outside cities. Usually they’re just manned by regular cops who inspect your insurance and make sure you’ve got proper license plates, but if word gets out in time, there’ll be military looking for us.”

“Can we skirt the checkpoints?”

“Depends on where and how many there are. It’d be a crapshoot.”

Mark imagined the calls that were being placed right now, alerting police and army troops all over the region. It would take time for everyone to react, though. Some guys would be at home, putting their kids to sleep or drinking contraband liquor in front of the TV. Mobilizations took time.

He wondered whether they’d been photographed by security cameras at the border. Probably. Which meant that eventually the police at the checkpoints would have photos.

“What do we need to get through the checkpoints legally?”

“Valid driver’s licenses, and a car with its papers in order.” Daria opened the dash compartment and inspected the documents inside. “These papers are up to date, but—”

“—at a minimum we should change cars. The police will be looking for the one we’re driving.”