The Assassin Lotus

by David Angsten

  That was the plan at least, as far as I could tell. Sar was not all that forthcoming.

  Steinberg didn’t seem to care much for the swashbuckling Israeli, but he clearly was fond of Oriana. I wanted to ask him more about her, about whether she really did work for Mossad, and why she took orders from Sar, but he didn’t give the impression he was in the mood for a chat, and I thought he may have resented me for all the trouble I had caused. I decided not to disturb him.

  But Steinberg disturbed me. Hunched over the wheel of his aging Volvo, staring out ahead into the dark, he began to speak in a quiet voice, as if he were thinking aloud to himself, mulling over some ominous vision.

  “It’s chaos they want,” he said. “The Ayatollah in Qum. These men obsessed with killing. They’re Hojjatieh. Proofers. They want to light the fires of the final conflagration, the anarchy that brings about the return of the Twelfth Imam. The last successor of the Prophet, the Hidden Imam lived in seclusion in ninth-century Iraq, and the Shi’a Muslims believe this leader never suffered death. For over a thousand years he’s been their hope and their messiah, the promised savior of mankind. They call him the Mahdi, the ‘Guided One,’ or the Hojjat, the ‘Proof.’ Out of chaos he’ll return to lead the righteous against evil, first in the Middle East, and eventually across the world. He’ll end all doubt and shatter all illusion, restoring at last the political power and the true purity of Islam.”

  I listened, enraptured; Steinberg stared ahead. “There’s no more dangerous illusion,” he said, “than the fancies by which people try to avoid illusion.”

  My head was spinning. “This Hidden Imam—the Mahdi. They really believe that’s true?”

  “True?” He glanced at me with his squinty eye. “Take it from a forger. Few men want to know what’s true. Most just want to confirm that what they believe is true.”

  THE CITY HAD GONE TO SLEEP, and the seedy warehouse dock district appeared to be all but abandoned. At the waterfront, Steinberg peered around an unlit corner and steered us into an alley. He maneuvered among potholes—or tried to—until he came to stop at a padlocked gate, beyond which a number of cars were parked in the lot of a old brick fish house.

  The forger beeped his horn.

  We waited. The building was dark, save for a dim light over the entrance. He beeped again. I noticed two large cargo vans parked at the loading dock. Beside them was a car that stood out from the rest: a gleaming-wet, ivory-white Lexus.

  A young boy burst out the warehouse door and ran past the cars to the gate. As he entered the flare of our headlights, I saw he was wearing a Muslim prayer cap and a stylish Levi jacket. He was probably seven years old. Without so much as a glance at us, he undid the lock and swung the gate wide.

  Steinberg drove through and parked near the door. “Pashazadeh doesn’t speak English,” he said. “You’ll have to let me do the talking.”

  The boy led us inside. We followed him down a narrow hall and through another door into a large, well-lighted processing room. The stench of fish and disinfectant mingled in the air. Somewhere a cheap radio blared a now familiar tune, the same one we had heard in the taxi. The boy led us past a long granite table lined with workers outfitted for surgery: white boots, smocks, caps, masks, and dark-stained rubber gloves. They were collecting gobs of black roe from the split-open bellies of sturgeon. Further down, several workers sieved the roe and rinsed the eggs in steel sinks. Their eyes scrutinized us from behind their paper masks.

  Steinberg spoke to me quietly. “These men risk incarceration for less than ten manat a night. Pashazadeh smuggles the caviar to Europe and sells it at 1000 euros a pound.”

  It set my mind to calculating. “Does this go on 24 hours a day?”

  Steinberg shook his head. “All will be cleared out by sunrise. He has a legal fishing business that operates during the day.”

  A worker beside us carried a stainless steel bowl of roe through a doorway, and the boy led us in after him. The room was smaller and colder. Here workers were weighing the roe, kneading it with salt and sealing it in tins.

  At the back, two men conferred at the open door of a large refrigerator. One was dressed in the surgical garb, but the other wore a dark gray suit, with his silver-bearded face uncovered, and a brimless gray wool cap on his head. The boy went straight to him and took hold of his hand. I noticed a chunky Rolex on the boy’s little wrist.

  Pashazadeh looked up, saw Steinberg and smiled. They shook hands, exchanging greetings in Azeri.

  Steinberg introduced me as “the American” again. Pashazadeh said something to him that sounded derogatory, then reached out, grinning, to me. His handshake was regal and effeminate, but I caught a steely glint in his eye. The hard look took in the clothes I was wearing—Sar’s snakeskin boots, muddy jeans, duffel bag, long, frayed canvas duster, battered hat in hand. Still grinning tightly, he asked Steinberg a question.

  I waited for Steinberg’s translation. “He’s wondering if you parked your horse in the lot.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Yeah. Tell him, when we left, it was relieving itself on a Lexus.”

  It turned out Steinberg didn’t have to translate: I could see he understood from the look on his face. But as quickly as the scowl appeared, Pashazadeh laughed. “Please, come, is waiting,” he said as he walked off chuckling hand-in-hand with the boy.

  Steinberg gave me a look. “Do let me handle it from here,” he whispered.

  We followed them back toward the doorway to the docks.

  “You tell me three passengers,” Pashazadeh said.

  Steinberg hesitated. “Couldn’t afford your rates, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah. The ferry then.” Pashazadeh seemed displeased. Though he remained polite and soft-spoken, he again conversed with Steinberg in Azeri.

  Steinberg grew argumentative. By the time we reached the trawler, he broke off in disgust. “He says two Iranian ‘officials’ have been murdered. One was found near the airport, the other in a taxi cab. He claims the Iranian Navy’s been put on alert. They’re looking for an American. If you’re caught, his boat will be confiscated. To cover the risk, he wants 1000 euros.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said. “I told you—”

  “I know. He’s insisting. I’m sorry.”

  I looked at Pashazadeh. His son was playfully tugging his hand. “I can’t pay you that much,” I said. “I can only afford 200 euros.”

  Pashazadeh responded in Azeri to Steinberg. Steinberg said, “He’s advising you to wait.”

  “How long?”

  “A few days, maybe a week. When the patrols get back to normal, he can offer a better price.”

  I thought of the Iranians hunting me, along with the city police. “I can’t wait that long,” I said. “It might not be safe on the water, but for me it’s a lot more dangerous here.” I pulled the rest of the cash from my pocket. “Here’s five hundred and…twelve euros. That’s everything I’ve got.”

  Pashazadeh held up his hands and shrugged. “Impossible,” he said.

  “Take a credit card.” I pulled it from my wallet. “American Express?”

  He grinned tightly. “This isn’t Bloomingdales.” The boy hugged his father’s leg.

  “Please.” I was pleading now. “Those men were not ‘officials.’ They were assassins trying to track down my brother. If I don’t get to him first, I’m afraid they’re going to kill him. I have to leave here tonight or—”

  “Excuse me.”

  I turned. A man approached from behind me. He was one of three crewmen who had been waiting on the trawler. “We’ll take you,” he said to me calmly.

  Pashazadeh objected.

  The man responded. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he seemed to be arguing my case. The fellow wore a knit cap over close-cropped hair, had large brown fearless eyes set in a solemn face, and unlike the others, was beardless. Although I doubted he was younger than me, he was dressed in jeans and Adidas like an American college student.

  As th
ey talked, Steinberg caught my eye and nodded: apparently they were working out a deal. When Pashazadeh finally acquiesced, the sailor offered him a cigarette. Pashazadeh waved it off. The man lit one for himself, picked up my duffel bag and headed for the trawler. “Give him your money,” he said.

  Fearing Pashazadeh might change his mind, I thrust the wad of cash into his hand. “You’ll get your boat back,” I said.

  He eyed me with disdain and passed the cash off to his son, who set about immediately counting it. “Insha’Allah,” he mumbled, and together with the boy headed back into the plant.

  I asked Steinberg what he said.

  “Insha’Allah. ‘If God wills it.’”

  “Well that goes without saying.”

  “Not to a Muslim it doesn’t.”

  We walked toward the trawler. On its deck, the sailor and his crew were preparing to depart. “Who is he?” I asked.

  “I’m told he works for Pashazadeh, running contraband. He’s Iranian, goes by the name Faraj.”

  36.

  The Source of Happiness

  WITH THE DARK EYES AND FACE and the five-o’clock shadow, I had thought the man might be Iranian. “Can we trust him?” I asked.

  “He’s the reason you’re leaving tonight. He offered to give up his half of the 1000 euro charge.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “According to Pashazadeh, Faraj escaped an Iranian prison. It seems he dislikes the rulers in Tehran even more than we do.”

  We reached the gangway to the trawler. Steinberg pulled out his own wad of cash and peeled off a bunch of bills. “You won’t get far if you’re broke,” he said.

  “Are you sure—?”

  “Not to worry. That’s only 80 manat—less than 100 dollars. I’ll add it to my expense account.”

  “Who pays that? The Knesset?”

  His squinty left eye twinkled. “Proctor and Gamble,” he said.

  AS WE PULLED AWAY FROM THE DOCK into the inky harbor, I couldn’t help feeling I was leaving something behind. Twice, my hand went to check for my wallet. It was there in my back pocket, stuffed with Steinberg’s cash. My passport with the fake visa was in my duffel bag, along with Maya’s directions to the archaeological site. I checked and found the Rig Veda text and Dan’s Buddha sketchbook, and the antique bronze object I had found in Maya’s suitcase.

  Everything appeared to be in its place, yet still something seemed to be missing.

  The two grizzled crewmen coiled ropes and busied themselves on deck, while Faraj manned the wheel in the pilothouse and kept watch for the harbor police. I made my way to the stern to take in the widening view of the city. Beneath the slender blade of the moon, Baku gleamed like a shard of obsidian. Aside from Mr. Steinberg and his catacomb of books, all I would remember of the sunless city is what I had seen of it this night: the shadowy streets, the sturgeon surgeons, the assassin in the taxi with a hole blown through his head. Black-cloaked Death stalked through Baku with a dagger. As wary as I was of what was to come, I was relieved to be leaving this nightmare behind.

  We exited the harbor. The boat’s onboard lights switched off. From here on out, we’d be traveling in the dark.

  I needed to get some sleep—it was nearly 3:00 in the morning. Reclining on the deck, I laid my head back on the “pillow” of Sar’s duffel bag. The toes of his cowboy boots poked out from my duster. The duster reeked of cigarette smoke.

  Perhaps the thing I kept missing was my famous safari jacket. Sar had promised to give it back when we met up again at the dig. If we met up again. Maybe that’s what nagged at me: my guilt at leaving them behind to fight my battles for me, while I skulked away with that worm inside my gut.

  Feeling suddenly weary, I pulled Sar’s hat down over my eyes and soon drifted off into sleep.

  I was out for a couple of hours. But just before I awoke, I was having a flying dream. I soared over the maze-like Garden of Simples, the botanical garden in Rome. Wading through the round green pond at the center was the pharmaceutical Santa Claus, Dr. Felix Fiore. The setting sun surrendered with a gorgeous, golden light, and as the white-haired doctor meandered through the duckweed, he left a golden trail of water in his wake. The trail seemed to spell out a word on the water, and when I awoke, the thing I’d been struggling so hard to remember now stood out clearly in my mind: a word scrawled in cursive like a scraggy vein of gold—the name of a long-lost paradise.

  Shambhala.

  IT WAS THE TITLE OF THE BOOK I had stumbled upon in the darkness of Steinberg’s shop. When Sar appeared so suddenly, I completely forgot about it. Now I wished I’d taken another look.

  My brother Dan had made a study of Tibetan Buddhism, and before I went to India often talked to me about it. He said Shambhala, a Sanskrit word that meant “the Source of Happiness,” was the name of a legendary kingdom of Tibet, a sanctuary of mystics and sages. Lamas called it a “Pure Land,” the only one on earth, a heavenly place meant only for those devoted to reaching nirvana. Dan said Shambhala was the basis for the novel and the Hollywood movie, Lost Horizon, which gave the utopian kingdom its more popular Western name: Shangri-la. But while the fictional Shangri-la was set in the mountains of Tibet, the Tibetans themselves believed the real Shambhala lay beyond the high Himalayas, somewhere out in the great land mass of Central Asia. Ancient guidebooks to the kingdom described a long and arduous journey over mountains, rivers, and deserts. But it was impossible to decipher where in fact Shambhala was; the accounts were too archaic and contradictory. Populated with obstructing demons and mysterious, magical deities, the texts seemed designed to thwart those seekers who might be deemed less than worthy.

  As I now lay awake on the deck of the boat, staring up at the myriad of stars, I began to wonder whether Dan’s Buddha sketchbook, with its depictions of gruesome demons and enlightened bodhisattvas, was itself some sort of guidebook—if not to Shambhala, then perhaps to the place where Dan had absconded with the seeds.

  Across the deck, one of the crewmen sat cross-legged in the dark, laying down cards in a game of solitaire. I sat up and pulled out the sketchbook from my bag.

  The answer has got to be in here, I thought.

  37.

  the Truth

  FOR NEARLY AN HOUR I ruminated over the drawings in Daniel’s Buddha book, wondering if they might possibly hold the secret to his whereabouts. But nothing in particular struck me as a clue, and the continuous contemplation of all the mystifying images put me in a mild state of reverie. I watched the moon slowly slip into the sea, and with the ink-and-wash drawings now lit only by the stars, the depicted gods and demons seemed to dwindle into ghosts, and the mountains and rivers grew misty.

  I found Maya’s stationery note stuffed inside the sketchbook, and examined the Indian emblem again: Truth alone triumphs. Fiore had said it was from an ancient pillar erected by Ashoka the Great, marking the place where the Buddha first proclaimed his truth to the four corners of the earth. The wheel beneath the lions was the Wheel of Dharma—the oldest symbol of Buddhism, according to the doctor. Dharma, I recalled, referred to the Buddha’s teachings and the duty of righteous action. It was the means of advancing down the path to enlightenment, the wheel on that royal road that led one to “the Truth.”

  Truth with that presumptuous capital “T.” It was something I had never understood. How could anyone make the claim that they possess the ultimate truth? And what exactly is that exalted term referring to? The meaning of life? The sum of all knowledge? The ultimate reality? God?

  I shuffled through the pages of his sketchbook until I found the picture of the lotus-holding Buddha. As I’d noticed before, it looked different from the rest. In the backgrounds of most of the drawings, curved lines arced across the sky like segments of a colorless rainbow. Landscape features filled out the frames. Only the image of the massive Buddha stood alone in empty space. As if he were separate and apart from everything...or that everything was contained within him.

  Was that the Buddha�
��s inscrutable Truth?

  I lay back and gazed up at the night sky again. My intention was to contemplate the meaning of the image, but suddenly the spectacle of the heavens sucked my breath away. With the boat lights out and the moon gone down, the brilliance of the night nearly blinded me. In a flash my mind went blank. I felt myself transfixed. My eyes became entranced by what I had not seen before—beyond the bottomless black of space, beyond the vault of stars. What revealed itself was deeper, more mysterious and profound. It entered not just through my eyes, but seemed to strike my body—a blast of clear cognition, a stunning psychic blow. Everything at once and all together.

  Terror. Awe.

  It gripped me until I couldn’t breathe.

  The moment lasted only seconds. Then, as quickly as it arose, the wave of panic broke. In its wake came a froth of confusion and a swirling vertigo.

  Words bubbled into my brain. Planets. Stars. Galaxies. Space.

  I breathed. The vertigo settled. The stream of thought returned.

  I sat up and looked around. The crewman was still plopping down his playing cards in the dark, while the other sailor scanned the sea with a giant pair of binocs. He lowered them and crossed the deck toward the ghostly pilothouse, where Faraj presumably still manned the wheel, steering our course through the night.

  I peered up again at the sky.

  What had I glimpsed in that fleeting moment? What had slipped into my mind? Everything seemed to have melded together. My mind had not broken it apart. Now all I saw were individual stars and the map-like constellations. The Big Dipper. The North Star. The three-studded Belt of Orion.

  The terror was gone. All looked familiar. I was back in the world I knew, the world of language and labels, the world of thoughts and things. I could pick them all out—this part and that—and fit myself into the picture. I was on a boat on the Caspian Sea, on a search for my brother and Phoebe.

  So what the hell had just happened? Perhaps nothing at all. Just some errant trick of the mind, some sort of synaptic misfire. The result of an hour of intense contemplation, puzzling over odd thoughts and images. The event already seemed strangely unreal, as if it had only been imagined.