The Assassin Lotus

by David Angsten

  Still I couldn’t shake the sense the killer’s eyes were on me. Grant had suggested the Iranian might be a member of the notorious Quds Force—special forces, highly trained, the elite of the Revolutionary Guard—hardly the sort you could hope to evade by sneaking out the back door and scurrying up the street. The night before, the man had tracked me to Vincenzo’s place, hunted me down, and pounced on the Alfa like Spiderman. I could only imagine what he’d be capable of given the clear light of day.

  I hurried on, glancing back, searching faces around me. The killer would blend in better than I. I, a Nordic Midwesterner—tall, blue-eyed, blond, a backpack over my shoulder, an American’s loping gait. And I was still wearing my white safari jacket. Peering over the dark stream of stylish Roman businessmen, I felt like an albino alien.

  Train station? Airport? The ferry to Sardinia? I’d been debating my escape route from the moment Grant had left—how best to clear out of the city, fast. But now I suddenly realized it wasn’t the train station or the airport or the ferry I was heading toward. I was climbing into a taxi and telling the whiskered Albanian driver to take me halfway across the city to the Excelsior Hotel, probably the last place I should have been going if I wanted to avoid the Iranian. But Maya had taken a lot of trouble to provide me with her key, and considering she was halfway to dead at the time, it was probably for something important. Maybe something that could help me find out what the hell my brother was up to.

  I looked out the back window as the taxi pulled away. No one appeared to be following me, either on foot or by car, and although I did spot a black Mercedes, it was driving in the opposite direction.

  For the moment, it seemed I was safe.

  I opened up my backpack and pulled out my dog-eared copy of The Satyricon. Something about it had bothered me.

  Maya had inserted the card toward the back—not where I’d left off reading, but between pages 206-207 of the “Index and Glossary of Names.” Though it may have been arbitrary, it appeared she had searched for this specific spot: several pages preceding it were smudged with bloody prints.

  Why had she inserted the key card here?

  It wasn’t until later, inside the hotel, that I realized what she had done. I was trying to find out what room Maya had been staying in without revealing to the receptionist that I held the key card to it.

  The man searched his computer for at least a full minute. “We have no record of a Maya Rakshasi. Are you sure you have the right hotel, sir?”

  I asked him to check again, and again he came up blank.

  “Maybe you saw her,” I said. “Indian woman, early thirties, tall, black hair, nice looking?”

  He shook his head. “Another clerk may have checked her in.”

  There were several now working behind the long granite counter, busily processing morning departures. A Japanese tour group had crowded into the lobby, assembling for the airport shuttle. Behind me, a long line had formed.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”

  “No, grazie.” I withdrew. Maya had obviously used another name—which I now realized must have been why she left her card in the Index and Glossary of Names.

  RISING FROM MY MORNING PRAYER, I caught my reflection in the hotel room mirror.

  The Old Man had said he could trust me. Me, and me alone, of all of them.

  “You’re the youngest, our newest recruit, and the purest of faith,” he said. “Untouched by temptation, unblemished by corruption. The son of a shahid, now the brother of one, too. Intent to give your own life for Allah.”

  “You speak too highly of a lowly servant,” I said. “But the last you said is true: I am not afraid to die.”

  Except for Ali Mahbood, whom I’d worked under at Kahrizak prison, the other men were unknown to me. All were fighters secretly recruited from el-Quds. The Old Man issued each his mission, communicating only through his commanders in the field—my brother and Mahbood. Yet now some devil among them had turned traitor to our cause. Even Mahbood himself was under suspicion.

  “The other men have families,” he said, “and some of them have relatives who live outside Iran. This leaves them more vulnerable to bribery or coercion, or the deceptions of the Israelis and the Americans.”

  “Not so for you,” he said. “Your mother died in childbirth. Your father died in war. Arshan will join both of them in heaven.”

  “Insha’ Allah,” I said. “Arshan used to say I was the Revolution’s orphan.”

  “You will be an orphan no longer,” the Old Man said. “What about friends? Are you close to anyone?”

  “I had a close friend,” I said, thinking of Faraj.“But not anymore.”

  “What about students from your time at university?”

  I remembered all the wealthy, dissolute young men, Westernized Tehranis, drinking, smoking shir’e, dancing with their whores. “They hid their sinfulness behind their Persian garden walls. I disliked their company. I left to study in Qum.”

  “Yes. The seminary. I’m told your brother boasted you’d come out an Ayatollah! What made you return to Tehran?”

  “Allah knows all things,” I said, “and Allah guides the way. He spoke to me one day through the words of the Rahbar, the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei. He said ‘the expected justice, the justice of the Mahdi for the whole world, is not attained through admonition and preaching. Messengers of God preach to the people, but they also equip themselves with weapons.’”

  “I remember the speech,” the Old Man said.“Noble, but insufficient. Weapons alone are not enough. We need the courage to use them. Is this why you came back to work for Mahbood?”

  “Yes. In Intelligence. Arshan arranged the position for me—Mahbood had been his friend from the old days on the streets.”

  “What sort of work did you do for him?”

  “I went undercover,” I said. “Infiltrating groups of suspected dissidents. Many were fellow students from my university days. I pretended to be one of them.”

  “God’s lowly actor, strutting the devil’s stage?”

  “I performed whatever role He required of me,” I said.

  “Sordid work, I’m sure. But don’t indulge regret: The taqiyya doctrine gave you dispensation to deceive.”

  “I did what I had to do,” I said. “What the Bringer of Death commanded. When the election protests broke out in the phony ‘Green Revolution,’ I went to work in the Ministry’s interrogation section.”

  “Kahrizak,” the Old Man said.

  “The crucible of truth,” I said. I remembered all the suffering we inflicted in that prison. Beatings. Rape. The singe of lash and blade. Even my bullheaded friend Faraj could not withstand the torment; we beat the truth right out of him.

  “Dividing truth from falsehood—a talent all too rare. This is one more reason that God calls upon you now. Our jihad requires only soldiers we can trust. We must work together now to purify our ranks.”

  “May the eyes of the cowards never sleep,” I said.

  “Help me cleanse my army, Vanitar. Help me do that, and I will take you as my own son.”

  The proposal stunned me into a momentary silence. “For such an honor,” I said, “I will fight until my last drop of blood!”

  “Then make ready your strength,” the Old Man said. “Together we’ll strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of God.”

  He gave me a number to call when I found out more information. “Destroy your phones,” he ordered. “And unless I tell you different, do not call or meet Mahbood. I’ll let them all continue on as if I’ve no suspicions. No one else will know that it is only you I trust, and you must trust in no one else but me.”

  When the call ended, I flushed my cell phones down the toilet. To discover who betrayed us, I would first need to find out who we’d been betrayed to. The flower-selling roach, the bare-shouldered Hindi—who did these devils work for?

  I pulled out the Hindi’s passport and examined her picture. Shameless worshipper of obscene gods. Hin
dus, worst of the infidels. And this one in particular. Indecent. Wanton. Lustful.

  May The Watchful close my ears to the whisperings of evil.

  I didn’t know what gutter the roach had crawled out from, but I did have one lead with the Hindi. After we’d followed Duran to the ruins and watched her brazenly flirt with him, Arshan had tailed the woman back to her hotel.

  The Excelsior.

  14.

  The Excelsior

  IN A WELL-UPHOLSTERED LOUNGE off the lobby, I found a vacant chair and once again opened The Satryicon. I scanned the two pages where the card was inserted in the Index and Glossary of Names. Barclay, Bargates, Battus, Bellona—all the way through to the ‘G’s: Gain, Ganymede, Gavilla, Giton. The two pages probably held at least a hundred names. But there was no indication as to which of them was hers. How could I ask the harried clerk to look up every one of them? I’d drive the poor man crazy.

  As I stared at the milling crowd in the lobby and puzzled over Maya’s intention, it gradually occurred to me that I didn’t need her name; all I really needed was her room number. Suddenly the answer seemed obvious. Her room number could simply be the number of the page. She must have been in 206 or 207!

  Excited, I quickly rose and crossed the lobby, winding through the throng of Japanese. Several Italian businessmen stood chatting at the elevator. The doors parted, and just as we started inside, I happened to glance back into the lobby.

  A jolt of fear ripped through me.

  I pushed in through the Italians and punched the second floor. The men, jabbering among themselves, crowded in behind me. My heart was racing madly as the doors began to close. Then, at the last second, one of the Italians saw someone coming and stuck his hand between the doors.

  The doors stopped and glided open. Blood throbbed in my ears. I turned away, trying to hide.

  We waited for what seemed an eternity. Finally, with a clatter of heels, a small, round woman in a suit rushed in, carrying a clutch of canolli.

  “Grazie,” she smiled.

  “Prego,” the man replied. I watched in silent agony until the doors finally shut.

  The Iranian must not have seen me. I had glimpsed the bearded man enter the lobby through the revolving door.

  My pulse pounded as the elevator rose. He must have known Maya was staying here, I thought. Like me, he’d come to search her room!

  I struggled to suppress the panic overtaking me, to calm down and try to think clearly. If he’d been going directly to her room, I thought, he would have easily made it into the elevator. He must have been going to the front desk first. Which means he also probably didn’t have her room number. He’d have the same problem as I.

  I wondered if I had enough time.

  The doors opened to the second floor. The short, bulging lady in the suit stepped out and started down the hallway. I hurried past her, searching for the numbers Maya had bookmarked.

  I found room 206 around the corner. No sound emanated from behind the closed door. I knocked. No answer. I slid the card in the slot.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried the card again. Just then the canolli lady came around the corner. When she saw me trying the key in the door, she gave me an indignant look. I backed off. She inserted her own key card in the door, and with a wary sideward glance at me, slipped inside the room.

  I continued next door to 207. Again I heard no sound from within. But just as I raised my knuckles to knock, I noticed a sign on the doorknob: “Non Disturbare.”

  I hesitated. Maya had been gone since the previous evening. Why would there be a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door? Perhaps my page-number theory was nonsense. Then again, I thought, maybe she had wanted to discourage the staff from nosing around in her room. I faced the door and knocked.

  Silence.

  I glanced up the corridor. The Iranian could be coming around the corner any second. I wondered if there was a way to escape at the other end of the hall.

  Again I knocked, louder. No response. I slipped the card in the lock.

  The door clicked! I opened it.

  The curtains were shut, blocking all daylight. A bedside lamp revealed disheveled sheets, and a dim nightlight glowed in the bathroom.

  “Hello?”

  No answer. I glanced up the corridor one last time, then entered into the room. The door shut behind me. I bolted the lock and flipped on a light switch.

  It was a formal room, befitting the Excelsior, with a soaring ceiling, elaborate drapes, an antique Empire desk and chairs, and a richly ornate bed. On the velvet stool at the foot of the bed sat a woman’s pink-paisley suitcase.

  I hurried over and opened it. The bag was a small, two-wheeled roller, the sort you could cram into an overhead bin. Most of her clothes had not been unpacked and were rolled up rather than folded. In a separate side pocket, a clear Ziploc bag held two fried samosas—the small, triangular, stuffed patty snacks I had practically lived on in India. Other than that, I found nothing else of interest in the bag. I started to close it, but stopped when I noticed how heavy the lid was. Something was stored inside it. On the outside I found a slim, button-strap pouch.

  I opened it, peered inside and pulled out a wad of papers. Most of it appeared to be travel receipts—restaurants, hotels, taxis, rental cars—but among the stash I came across a color photograph.

  A 4X5 snapshot of Phoebe, Dan and me.

  For a moment, I stared at it, startled. The three of us stood side-by-side, posing against the low stone wall on the windy heights of the Acropolis, with the vast chalk-colored city of Athens stretching to the horizon below us.

  I liked your picture, Maya had said.

  I had forgotten all about this photograph. Now I remembered: It had been taken by a passing tourist at Phoebe’s request, using her Nikon 300. I had never seen it. Following the Furies blowup, we had all sworn to each other to keep our Greek jpegs off the Net.

  How on earth had Maya got a hold of it?

  15.

  Knock-knock

  I RUFFLED THROUGH THE REMAINING PAPERS and made another curious find: a tattered sheet of stationery with driving directions and a roughly drawn map. The starting point appeared to be a place called Ashkhabad.

  Imprinted at the top of the stationery was a symbol of three lions on a pedestal, the front of which was adorned with a round sun or wheel symbol. A phrase written in an Eastern script was neatly imprinted beneath it.

  I quickly folded the paper and slipped it into my pocket, along with the photograph. The suitcase lid still felt heavy, and I discovered another zippered pocket hidden on its underside. The zipper was fastened with a tiny brass lock.

  I tried to tear it open, but the plasticized canvas was tough as shoe leather. Glancing around the room for something to cut it, I spotted on the desk blotter a ballpoint pen and a fancy letter opener. I grabbed the letter opener, then noticed beside it a hotel notepad on which had been scribbled a message:

  Dr. Fiore 9:30 A.M. Orto Botanico, Largo Cristina di Svezia, 24.

  The doctor’s name rang a bell. After puzzling over it for a moment, I remembered a message on my answering machine I’d received the previous day. It had been left by a man whose first name was Felix and who pronounced his surname fee-or’-ay. He said he wanted to discuss a tour with me. I had cynically assumed from his elderly voice that he wanted to negotiate a senior discount. Strangely, he hadn’t left a phone number, saying he would try me later. But at that point Maya Rakshasi called and I hadn’t thought about the man since.

  The address was on a cul-de-sac I knew very well, only blocks from my apartment in Trastevere. At the end of it lay L’ Orto Botanico di Roma, a park-like botanical garden connected with the Sapienza University of Rome. I had often passed through it on my morning jogs, having found a hidden entry where I didn’t have to pay. The views from its walkways were among the finest in the city. In my mind’s eye, I now quickly jogged through its gardens and greenhouses, trying to recall if I’d ever seen a lotus plant on the
grounds. I knew there were at least three ponds—

  With bone-jarring intensity, the desktop telephone rang.

  I stared at the ebony phone as if it had just fallen out of the sky. It rang loudly again. For the first time I noticed the message light was on. Someone had been trying to reach Maya.

  Ring!

  I looked at my watch. It was 10:14 A.M.

  Dr. Fiore 9:30 A.M.

  I moved closer. The message light continued blinking.

  Ring!

  I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  There was a hesitant pause. Then a man’s voice speaking in accented English. “Uh, yes. I am calling for Mayanda Ramanujan, please.”

  Ramanujan. Maya’s real name. “She’s not here right now,” I said in Italian. “Is this Dr. Fiore?”

  He ignored my Italian and continued in English. “This is Georgio, at the front desk. We have a gentleman here who has found Miss Ramanujan’s passport. He would like to return it to her. Do you know where we can reach her?”

  The passport. Arshan had taken it from Maya’s purse. The other guy—

  “Sir?”

  “No. I mean...” My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely think. “I don’t know where she is. She hasn’t come back. Leave it at the desk, she can pick it up later.”

  “Sir. Of course. May I ask your name, please?”

  I hesitated. “Tell you what. Ask the man to wait. I’ll be right down.” I hung up the phone.

  Now I had to get the hell out of there fast. I hurried back to the suitcase and slashed the zippered pocket. The dull blade of the letter opener glanced off the hardened canvas. I stabbed it like a maniac. Still it wouldn’t tear.

  The phone rang. Loud.

  Georgio from downstairs again? Or was it Dr. Fiore?

  Ring!

  I jammed the point into the lock and tried to break it open. The letter opener broke instead.