The Leveling

by Dan Mayland

  “Where does the road split?”

  Amir moaned. “Keep going.”

  “For how long?”

  Amir didn’t answer. Mark wondered whether he was dying.

  “How long?” Mark repeated.

  “Soon.”

  The Paykan began to struggle as the road became steeper. The air grew colder. Mark saw a little patch of snow tucked into a shady ravine. A few cars with ski racks—headed for Dizin, an aging resort that had been built during the reign of the Shah—sped by them.

  They came upon the split in the road and bore off to the west. Five minutes later Amir said, “Here.”

  To their right was a dirt driveway blocked by ugly steel gates.

  “There will be a guard,” said Amir, breathless. “I must speak with him.”

  Mark took out his knife and slipped it under the blanket covering Bayat’s legs. He pressed it against the tourniquet. Bayat winced.

  “This guard, he doesn’t get close to the car,” said Mark. “I see him raise a weapon, I cut the tourniquet.”

  Daria pulled up to the gate. And waited. And waited some more.

  “Where’s your man?” asked Mark.

  Amir lifted his head and strained to see through the front windshield. “I don’t know.”

  “Is this gate always manned?”

  “Always.”

  “Is it locked?”

  “Yes.”

  Mark produced his cell phone. “Call your men.”

  “The phone won’t work here.”

  Mark checked, and indeed there was no reception. He considered getting out of the car and trying to scope out the situation on foot. But that would take time. Someone might be watching them now.

  He leaned across Amir Bayat and used the butt of his knife to smash out the window.

  “Sorry,” he said to Bayat. “The window handle was broken. Call out to your man.”

  Bayat sucked in a few quick breaths, then called, “Farid?”

  “Louder.”

  “Farid! Open the gate!”

  Mark waited. The road beyond the gate cut through the base of a ravine that was lined with stunted juniper trees and a few larger white pines. Jagged rock-strewn hills walled in the property on three sides, but it was completely open toward the south, letting in plenty of sun. Landslides of black and dun-colored scree had gathered around the base of the ravine. A flock of gray-bellied crows circled overhead.

  “Fuck it,” Mark said to Daria. “Ram the gate. Get us to the house. We’ll improvise.”

  Daria threw the Paykan into reverse, executed a quick turn, and then slammed into the gate with the rear of the car. The Paykan’s trunk crumpled, but the gate popped open. Once through, she turned the car around again and floored it. The Paykan bounced over the pothole-riddled road, and the rear bumper, half of which had fallen off, clattered loudly as it hit rocks in the road.

  A two-story house built into the hillside at the end of the ravine came into view. Hidden from the road, it was vaguely reminiscent of a Swiss chalet, albeit a utilitarian one. The green metal roof was rusting in places. A long second-floor balcony with steel guardrails stuck out from the front. Brown paint was peeling off in places on the front of the house, where the sun was the most intense. Tucked behind an overgrown privet hedge, and barely visible from the driveway, was the front door.

  “Ram the front door,” said Mark.

  A man appeared on the second-floor balcony. With a gun. Daria sped up and ducked below the steering wheel.

  A few shots hit the roof of the car. Daria kept the Paykan on course. When she was a few feet from the house, she slammed on the brakes. The car skidded into the front door, smashed it open, and came to a stop halfway inside the house.

  Mark jumped out. “Stay in the car, low on the floor, with the engine block between you and the house,” he said to Daria. “But call out for help, in Farsi, as if you’re hurt. It’ll confuse them.”

  “Who’s them?”

  “Who the hell knows.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Me neither. If things get too hot, take off without me.”

  Amir Bayat was still upright, but the force of the collision had thrown him forward, so that his chin now rested on the back of the front passenger seat.

  Mark leaped over the hood of the Paykan and stepped silently into the house. A stairwell with a chunky wood banister led to an upper floor. Because the house had been built into a hillside, half of the first floor was underground, and there were no windows on the back wall. The lime-green carpet was soiled. The place stank of cigarette smoke and mold.

  Now that he was inside, Mark noticed delicate shafts of sunlight streaming in from bullet holes all around him. In the corner lay a dead bearded man. Iranian, Mark guessed. A small trickle of blood, still bright red with oxygen, streamed down his forehead. Whatever fighting had taken place in the house had only ended recently.

  Footsteps pounded across the floor upstairs. Judging from the sound, Mark guessed there were at least two men up there.

  “Farid!” called Daria in Farsi, from the car. “Help me, I can’t move.”

  Mark crouched behind the stairwell. One set of footsteps drew close to the top of the stairs, and then someone fired down the stairwell. If the shooter made it to the base of the stairs, he’d have a clear shot at the Paykan. He’d see Bayat and hear Daria.

  Daria called out for help again.

  Someone bounded down the stairs taking three at a time and firing an AK-47. Mark waited until the barrel of the gun was just past the base of the stairs and then he swung his knife deep into the chest of a slender man who looked Chinese. He yanked the gun out of the man’s hands, aimed, fired two lethal head shots, and bounded up the stairs.

  A voice cried out a question in Chinese from the upper floor. Mark couldn’t understand it, but he tried to repeat the question back, hoping to cause confusion even for just a second.

  Below, Daria cried out for help again, but this time, she spoke Chinese.

  Mark reached the top of the steps and crept down a short hall to a kitchen, stepping over two dead Iranians on the way.

  In the kitchen, pots were drying in a rack next to the sink. A bag of rice had been left out on a stained Formica counter. One of the oak cabinets had been left open, revealing an assortment of mismatched glasses inside. He grabbed a glass and hurled it through a set of double doors.

  It shattered on the far living room wall, beneath a large framed photo of a glowering Ayatollah Khorasani that hung over a fraying fake-leather couch.

  Someone in the living room started shooting at the glass. Mark ducked behind the stove, checked how many bullets he had left—ten or so—then fired eight shots through a thin wall, aiming for where he guessed the shooter was.

  Shots pinged the metal stove as the gunman returned fire.

  Mark pulled the magazine out of his AK-47 and dry fired the rifle three times, as if it were out of bullets.

  The shooter charged. As he did, Mark rolled out from behind the stove, jammed the magazine back into the gun, and fired two quick shots though the double doors that led to the living room. Neither hit the Chinese, even though it was an easy shot. Mark figured a dirty barrel had caused the bullets to keyhole.

  The shooter flinched and dove to the ground. Mark charged, kicking over a coffee table that was in his way, scattering an assortment of hammers and wrenches and soiled straps.

  The Chinese gripped a compact Heckler & Koch assault rifle and tried to aim as he scurried away on his rear end. He fired a single shot, followed by the click of an empty magazine.

  It turned into an ugly, inhuman business as Mark began wielding his knife and the Chinese started using his rifle like a club. After a while, Mark wound up on the floor, writhing as the Chinese kicked him hard in the gut. Mark heard a rib break.

  The fight only turned in Mark’s favor when he managed to stab the Chinese man’s shin so hard that the knife quivered in his hand, as if he’d connected with a solid o
ak butcher block.

  When it was over, the Chinese was on the floor with two pools of blood creeping outward from either side of his chest, growing in size on the parquet floor until they looked like wings.

  65

  MARK RAN BACK down to the car.

  “What happened?” asked Daria.

  He paused to catch his breath and push the pain from his broken rib out of his mind. “Two Chinese were in the house.”

  “Guoanbu?”

  “Probably.” Mark handed her a Heckler & Koch with a new magazine in it, taken from the Chinese in the living room. The AK-47 he’d been using was slung across his back. That had a new magazine in it too, lifted off one of the dead Iranians in the hall.

  “Where are they now?”

  “Dead.”

  “Are there more?”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe.” He turned to Amir Bayat, who was glassy-eyed in the backseat, staring out the broken window.

  “Where’s my colleague?” He slapped Bayat’s face. “I’m talking to you, Amir! This is why we’re here.”

  Amir turned to face him. His eyes focused.

  “You want your doctor?” said Mark. “Now’s the time to keep your end of the deal.”

  “The basement,” whispered Amir.

  Mark turned.

  “Wait,” said Amir. “Below the basement…a safe. You must lift the carpet.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “When my brother…” Bayat’s face convulsed as if a jolt of pain had just hit him. “…bought the house, after the revolution, it was too heavy, too heavy to move.” He paused, clearly exhausted.

  “What was too heavy to move? The safe?”

  Bayat’s breath was shallow and fast. “I said I could not guarantee his condition. After he tried to escape, the Chinese interrogators—”

  “He’s in the safe?”

  “It was where one of the Shah’s generals…stored money…that he stole from the people.”

  “How do I open it?”

  “The year of our revolution. My brother had it reset.”

  “You’re saying that’s the combination?”

  Bayat gave a slight, pained nod.

  Mark turned to Daria. “Stay here.” He gestured to Bayat. “Guard this asshole. I’ll be right back.”

  The steps leading to the basement had fresh mud on them, and the stairwell walls were grimy. Halfway down, an Iranian lay dead, still clutching a pistol. Mark flipped a light switch. A bare bulb near the base of the steps flickered on.

  The basement floor was made of rough concrete. Half of it was covered with a stained and threadbare Persian carpet. Chains hung from the exposed ceiling beams. A pile of rope, a pair of handcuffs, a wooden ladder, electrical wire, and a metal bed frame had been shoved into a corner. Cans of paint had been piled on a workbench that stood in another corner.

  Mark pulled back the carpet, revealing a hinged trapdoor that had been topped with concrete to match the floor. The underside of the carpet stank of mold.

  He crouched down and found the recessed handle of the heavy trapdoor. When he pulled up, the trapdoor opened with the sound of metal grinding on metal. A sudden and overwhelming smell of shit made him gag.

  Mark stepped back a few feet so that he could let some light in and better see down the hole. At the far range of his vision, he saw what looked like the corner of an enormous block of metal. He grabbed the ladder from the corner of the basement, lowered it into the hole, and climbed down.

  Groundwater from the spring snowmelt had seeped into the hole, turning the dirt floor into a bog. Mark placed the AK-47 on the top of the safe and allowed his eyes to adjust for a moment. The safe was at least five feet tall and almost as wide and deep. A thin film of rust covered every inch of it, and its legs had sunk into the mud.

  Mark’s hand trembled as he put it upon the first of four dials that lined the upper right side of the safe.

  He set the dials to 1-9-7-9 and, without pausing to think, pushed down hard on the safe handle. It remained closed. He pulled up. Nothing gave.

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  He wiped his forehead with his rust-covered hand and inspected the dials again.

  It was 1979 when the Shah left and Ayatollah Khomeini took over. But the demonstrations had started a year earlier.

  Mark tried 1978. The lever didn’t budge. He considered dragging Amir Bayat down into the hole and making him open the safe himself. Then he remembered that Iranians didn’t use the same calendar as the West. Instead of counting from the birth of Christ, they counted from the year that Muhammad had fled from Mecca to Medina. To convert the Western calendar to the Iranian calendar, you needed to subtract 622 or 621 from the Western calendar, depending on what time of year it was…

  Mark subtracted 622 from 1979, entered the numbers 1-3-5-7, and pulled on the handle.

  The safe opened. Inside sat a naked man, a broken giant, huddled up with knees pressed into his chest and his mouth pressed against the wall.

  Mark hesitated before touching the body, not completely sure that it was even Decker’s.

  The arms and legs were purple with bruises, the face swollen and caked with dried blood. The ammonia smell of piss made him dizzy.

  Mark knew that Decker had always gone out of his way to operate anonymously when behind enemy lines. Which meant there were no SEAL trident symbols or other tattoos on his body that could identify him as an American.

  But before he’d joined the SEALs, Mark knew that Decker had gotten a tattoo—a bad approximation of the Millennium Falcon—while in high school. He’d had it removed years ago, leaving only a slight discoloration on his left calf, which had grown less and less noticeable with each passing year.

  Mark gently touched the left calf of the body in the safe, intending to scrape away some of the dirt and blood so he could look for the little bleached patch of skin. He noted, almost with surprise, that the body was still warm.

  Mark didn’t have time to react to the onslaught.

  One second he was crouched in front of Decker and the next he was rocketing backward, out of the safe and into the mud. Two hands were clenched around his throat. He tried to cry out but produced nothing but choking sounds.

  Decker drove him through the mud like a plow, all the way across the dirt floor and into the corner.

  Mark tried to cry out again, but couldn’t. Decker’s choke hold was blocking the blood flow to his brain while simultaneously crushing his esophagus. In a few more seconds, he’d pass out.

  Despite the ferocity of his initial onslaught, however, Decker was weak. Mark felt a momentary slackening around his neck and used the respite to suck in a quick breath, throw a knee to Decker’s groin, and yell, “It’s Mark!”

  Decker’s hands tightened again around his neck. But this time, Mark didn’t resist. Instead he allowed his head to sink back into the mud and with his right hand gave Decker two taps on the back—the martial arts signal that you’ve given up.

  Decker continued to squeeze, but only for a second longer. Then he went completely slack and slipped to the side onto his back.

  For a moment they were both silent, hyperventilating in the weak light. Mark looked over at what passed for Decker’s face. Both eyes appeared to be swollen shut—Decker was operating blind.

  “Who are you?” asked Decker.

  “It’s Mark. Your friend, Deck. Your friend.”

  66

  DECKER WAS SHIVERING and had trouble standing—his left ankle appeared to be broken, and the untreated bullet wounds on his left thigh and shin were oozing.

  Mark helped him find the rickety ladder that led out of the hole to the basement floor. Decker pulled himself up it, but then collapsed in a fetal position on the dirty Persian rug.

  Mark inspected his friend’s eyes. They were like a boxer’s after losing a brutal fight. “Can you see anything?”

  Decker was still on the floor and seemed completely dazed by the turn of events. Mark repeated the question.


  “A little bit.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Out of my right eye.”

  “Can you fire a gun?”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  Mark took a Makarov pistol from the dead Iranian on the steps. “Careful, it’s off safety.”

  “Will I need it?”

  “I don’t know. I think the house is clear but I haven’t done a sweep.”

  He heaved Decker up to a standing position again and together they navigated the steps up to the ground floor.

  Decker blinked at the bright natural light spilling in from the windows.

  “Daria!” called Mark. “I got him.”

  They stumbled into the front foyer. The Paykan was still lodged in the entrance door.

  “Back it up,” said Mark. “We’re getting out of here.”

  Daria, who’d been concealed behind an overturned table in an adjacent room, showed herself.

  “John, God…” She looked horrified. “What did they do to you?”

  Decker was filthy, leaning to one side as he favored his good leg, and barely recognizable. He was also buck naked, and the dirt couldn’t hide his massive torso and tree-trunk thighs.

  “Back up the car, we’re getting out of here,” Mark repeated.

  Daria kept her eyes fixed on Decker.

  “Daria, let’s go,” said Mark.

  She climbed over the hood of the car and slipped into the driver’s seat. The hood was smashed in, but the car started. She pulled back a few feet. Mark helped Decker to the rear door, intending to seat him opposite Amir Bayat.

  Decker took one quick look at Bayat, raised his Makarov, and—without even seeming to think—shot Bayat in the temple.

  “I promised him I’d let him live,” said Mark.

  “I didn’t,” said Decker.

  67

  Northern Iran

  THE CABIN WAS tiny, partially hidden by a grove of date palms, and one of twenty in a largely vacant vacation camp that was nestled on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Its roof was covered with quaint-looking thatch that had been put there for show, but the rusted corrugated metal beneath it was visible.