Among the Ruins

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  And then she heard the sound of a car door. And the skittering of gravel as the car drove away.

  Larijani had gone.

  “Hurry,” Khattak whispered back to her. They moved at a furious pace, crawling on their elbows through the sand, listening for the approach of the others. An argument had broken out between them. Rachel didn’t care. She had a face full of sand, but she’d reached the tender’s berth.

  The tender dipped as Khattak climbed aboard. He made his way portside to the cabin, where he vanished from Rachel’s view. She saw movement in the cabin and waited. A minute later, he reappeared, giving her a signal. He kept his eye on the boardwalk as Rachel leapt aboard.

  She followed Khattak’s course. The wheelhouse was deserted, the cabin empty. The tender could have taken a dozen or more passengers. She looked around for a weapon or a place to hide. They could duck behind the last row of seats in the cabin or take their chances in the wheelhouse. But the most they could do in the wheelhouse was take one man by surprise.

  Rachel explored the lower deck.

  “We can hide down here, sir. Chances are they’ll stay up top.”

  “We’d better wait for them to radio the cargo ship they’re on their way.”

  He worked his way through the ship’s compartments. He pulled a toolbox out of stowage, helping himself to a hammer and the largest of four wrenches. He passed the hammer to Rachel. The boat dipped again. They climbed back to the upper deck, scouting their quarry from the windows. Rachel checked her watch. Ten minutes past eight. The cargo ship was preparing to depart. Where was Barid Rud? Why hadn’t he reached the tender yet?

  She spotted him on the boardwalk. He was hemmed in by Mordashov’s men, the three men arguing over the case in Barid Rud’s hands. Something in his manner or something at the scene tugged at her memory. She’d witnessed a similar scene before.

  Rachel bit her lip. What if they went to the runabout instead?

  But she’d guessed right about the guards. They were headed to the tender. They’d yielded the case to Barid, but were shepherding him between their massive bodies. Rachel looked doubtfully at the hammer.

  Barid waved the case in the direction of the boat. Rachel and Khattak drew away from the cabin windows, ducking behind the last row of seats. Their hope was that all three men would head directly to the wheelhouse. They could follow them up the stairs, catching them by surprise. Beyond that, they were relying on their wits.

  Rachel jumped. Voices from the pier rose in an angry exchange. The boat rocked to one side. Rachel’s stomach lurched into her throat. She swallowed back her nausea. The voices were growing louder, quick staccato commands. An answer was grunted back.

  Footsteps moved up the stairs to the wheelhouse. A moment later, the engines caught. The boat hummed under Rachel’s feet. She heard the heavy fall of a rope being thrown. Khattak peered up at the stairs. He shook his head. They couldn’t see anything.

  The radio crackled to life. A disembodied voice offered a few words in Russian. Khattak nodded at Rachel. He was holding a smaller wrench in his left hand. He tossed it to the back of the cabin. The engines gunned, the boat moved out of its berth. Footsteps pounded the stairs.

  Rachel and Khattak crouched in the shadows. She was counting. One man or two?

  Whoever had come down the stairs was taking his time. Pausing halfway, he flipped on a light in the small alcove between the stairs and the entrance to the lower deck.

  Rachel’s hand was slippery on the hammer. Her blood thrummed in her ears. Khattak had whispered a Russian phrase to her, one he’d learned from his phone.

  One of the guards stepped into the cabin.

  Rachel blocked his path, tugging down her head scarf, the hammer behind her back.

  In broken Russian she managed, “Please, I’m a stowaway. I want to leave Iran.”

  The man scowled at her in the dark. His gun drawn, he grabbed at Rachel’s wrist.

  Khattak smashed the heaviest wrench against the back of his head.

  His mouth formed an O. He sank to his knees. He wasn’t unconscious. Rachel knocked him out with the hammer. The gun slid out of his hand.

  The second guard lunged from the stairs. His shot went wild as the boat veered into open water. Khattak scrambled for the gun on the deck. It went sliding under the row of seats, the passenger tender crashing into the waves. Rachel lost her balance. She fell heavily on her knees. Khattak charged past her, knocking the guard sideways. The impact of the collision winded both men. They fought furiously for control of the second Russian’s gun.

  The boat curved a wide arc to the east. Khattak stumbled out of the cabin and onto the causeway, where he lost his footing. The Russian lunged at him. They wrestled, but Khattak was no match for the other man’s size and strength. Twisting the man’s arm, he was sent sailing into the water, followed by the gun. Now the Russian turned to Rachel. She flung the hammer at his head. It missed by a mile, pitching into the water.

  Barid called down from the wheelhouse. The Russian shouted back. Rachel’s frantic thought was for the radio. The Russian grabbed her by the shoulders, lifting her off her feet and shaking her like a doll. One large hand fastened on her throat and squeezed.

  Her eyes rolled back in her head, her body went limp. She had a moment to realize she was going to suffocate before he tossed her body into the sea. She scrabbled weakly at his grip, his fingers gouged her throat. A mist of red rose behind her eyes, capillaries bursting with blood.

  A noise clanged against her temples. The world went briefly black.

  The punishing grip came loose, the Russian falling facedown with a thud.

  Rachel gasped for air, blood pounding in her ears. She blinked salt spray from her eyes, a man’s silhouette appearing between the outline of the waves and the glare of the open lightbulb. The passenger boat picked up speed, the man’s face swung into view.

  It was Simon Graves, grinning at her in the dark. He held up a fire extinguisher in one hand. He used it to break the bulb. He jerked his head at the stairs.

  “Can’t have him seeing what we’re up to.”

  “Simon?” Rachel wiped a hand over her face. “Simon, thank God! Look for my partner in the water!”

  She dived back into the cabin, searching for the missing gun. How far out was the cargo ship? Five minutes? Two? She scrambled under the seats until she felt a solid weight. The gun wavered in her hands. Her vision was still blurry. She took the cabin stairs two at a time, launching herself into the wheelhouse. Barid Rud turned to face her. His left eye was cloudy.

  He wasn’t armed. He reached for the cabin radio.

  Rachel lifted her chin and aimed the gun at his chest. He held up his hands, his dark eyes watchful.

  “Cut the engine,” she told him. “I’m an excellent shot.”

  He did as she said. The engine sputtered into silence. They were halfway to the platform where the Caspian Rose was docked. There wasn’t much time before Mordashov figured out their boat had changed course.

  “Simon, get up here.”

  She knew Khattak could swim.

  Simon hovered at her elbow.

  “Can you get us back to shore?”

  “I’m no expert, but I think so.”

  “No time for caution, hold the gun.”

  There was a loop of rope hanging from a hook in the wheelhouse. Rachel used it to tie Barid Rud’s arms and legs. He swore at her in a guttural Farsi. She knocked him to his knees, taking the gun back from Simon. He switched on the engine, setting a course for the dock.

  “I see him!” he shouted.

  Rachel careened down the stairs. Simon had switched on the headlights. Khattak’s white face loomed up against the waves.

  “We’re coming!”

  She tossed him the life preserver she’d found beneath the gunwale. He raised his hand in weary acknowledgment. Five minutes passed before she was dragging him out of the sea. He coughed vigorously, water dribbling down his chin. Rachel found him a blanket in the cab
in.

  “Come up to the wheelhouse when you can.”

  She checked on Barid and Simon, desperately grateful that Simon had risked following her. They were minutes from the dock. Mordashov’s men were still out. Maybe for ten minutes, maybe for the night, she didn’t have time to check. She scanned the wheelhouse for the case.

  It was sitting on the dashboard above the wheel, a hard black case the size of an electronic tablet, square and sleek.

  Rachel reached for the case behind the wheel. Barid began to swear.

  “What’s in it?” Simon asked her. He cut his speed as they neared the dock.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Khattak lumbered up the stairs wearing the woolen blanket like a cape.

  Barid Rud let out a stream of Farsi. Khattak answered him in English.

  “I wouldn’t worry about your money or Radan. But I’d get out of Iran if I were you.” He turned to Rachel. “Is that it?”

  There was an electronic lock on the case. Rachel demanded the combination. Barid Rud supplied it at the business end of her gun. Holding her breath, Rachel punched in the numbers. The clasps of the case flicked open.

  A pink fire flared in the dim light of the wheelhouse.

  They’d found the Darya-e Nur.

  58

  The day before Nowruz, snow tinseled the streets of Tehran, the rooftops sheathed with a coating of ice. A faltering bonfire gave a paltry warmth to the group huddled in the courtyard of the Hotel Shah Nameh. Except for their party, the courtyard was deserted.

  Rachel drank her tea, listening and observing, as Khattak narrated their adventures at the Caspian to an attentive group of listeners: three handsome young men, and two women, one with a mischievous face, the other with an aura of abject misery, who could hardly stir herself to attend to Khattak’s recital.

  They had turned the Darya-e Nur over to Touka Swan. In the aftermath of a carefully worded phone call, Touka had been invited to escort Maryam Ghorbani to the office of the Supreme Leader. There, a quiet and desperate negotiation had taken place. Threats were made, concessions offered. Barsam Radan was under arrest, his trial pending. The following morning, Touka had driven Maryam to the gates of Evin. After a morning of additional negotiations, Roxana Najafi had been released to her family’s care. All three women had wept.

  Touka Swan had left the country the same night.

  Rachel and Esa were leaving for Toronto on the afternoon flight from Tehran. The sense of danger that had hung like a pall over Esa’s visit to Tehran had vanished. Touka had made her dossier of events available to the representative of the Supreme Leader. She had advised him that copies of the dossier would be given to the international press in the event of a move against persons whose interests she represented. She didn’t name names, but they both knew she meant the Green Birds.

  According to Touka’s account of the meeting, the resumption of diplomatic relations between Canada and Iran was something desired by both sides. Iran’s government wished to return to the community of nations—its treatment of political prisoners wouldn’t change, but it was prepared to sacrifice Radan to move relations forward. Talk of the opening of the Canadian embassy had reignited, and Touka’s masters were pleased.

  And Touka had made one final, non-negotiable request in exchange for the unpublicized return of the Darya-e Nur.

  Rachel was still coming to terms with the fact she’d held one of the world’s most famous diamonds in her hand. She’d felt the weight of the stone’s history in her palm, glowing with an arcane fire.

  The Green Birds were enthralled by Khattak’s story. Though Nasreen hadn’t spoken, her lambent eyes were fixed on his face. Her black-and-white scarf had fallen away, a trail of swallows flitting down her shoulder.

  Rachel frowned.

  She was thinking of the case that had held the Darya-e Nur, the sense of déjà vu it had occasioned. She scrolled through the photographs on her phone, half her attention on Khattak’s recital. She studied the prison gatehouse, the camera straps at Zahra’s neck, Zahra’s hands reaching for someone.

  Rachel paused at the photograph of Barid Rud, on the hill outside the prison. His eyes were searching for someone in the crowd. Rachel scrolled through the photographs again. The crowd was mostly women in black chadors. A young man supported an elderly woman. And there in the background, a bearded man with a shadowed face not far from Barid Rud. Barid’s eyes weren’t on the man with the beard. They were on the case in his hands.

  Had Barsam Radan arranged the transfer of the Darya-e Nur on the very day Zahra Sobhani had decided to visit Evin? If so, it was an improbable coincidence.

  Why hand the stone over at Evin, instead of a handoff shrouded in secrecy?

  Was it, in fact, the same case?

  She slipped away to another table, pulling up the photographs on the larger screen of her laptop, conscious of Khattak’s eyes on her back.

  The full-size photograph made it clear. It was the same case they’d found on the Caspian Rose: the coincidence beggared belief.

  She motioned Khattak to join her.

  He looked lighter and fresher than she’d seen him in weeks. Restored to himself, ready for the challenges ahead. He leaned down to study the photograph on the screen.

  “Why, sir?”

  He moved his fingers on the laptop’s touchpad, running Zahra’s photographs as a slideshow. The sequence told a story. It told them Zahra hadn’t been at Evin to demand the release of Roxana. She’d been there to photograph the transfer of the diamond. If a handoff had been attempted, she’d missed it, but she’d photographed the parties involved: Barid, Radan, and the man with the case. Khattak couldn’t see his face, but he guessed the man was Larijani.

  He lingered over a photograph he hadn’t studied as closely, the one of Zahra’s car.

  Rachel saw it, too. The driver’s door was ajar in this photograph, but closed in the others. Khattak flicked through the slideshow again.

  His hand balled into a fist.

  Rachel looked up at him.

  His face had lost its color.

  “I think I know,” he said to Rachel. “I think I know why Zahra was there. Could you distract the others?”

  Rachel nodded. She moved to the other table.

  “Nasreen,” Khattak called. “Will you take a look at this for me?”

  * * *

  He’d examined the photographs piecemeal, over brief periods of time. Seeing them with fresh eyes, with the knowledge of who Barid Rud was, the photographs told a story. Radan’s presence at Evin, Barid looking for the man with the case, the letters Zahra had written on her sleeve, the case itself.

  And the woman in the head scarf bordered by a flight of birds.

  Esa’s hands were clammy, he felt perceptibly ill.

  He remembered a dark night in the woods in winter, and how long it had taken him to arrive at a decision, seconds strung like particles falling through infinite space.

  He showed Nasreen the photograph.

  “You were with Zahra at Evin, you drove her there.”

  Nasreen let her scarf fall to the ground. Khattak stooped to collect it. It was the same scarf she’d worn in the photograph, its tail end captured by the lens.

  “You told me you were closest to Zahra, you were the one she talked to.”

  “Because of Saneh.” Her voice was expressionless. “He was the subject of her second film. It surprised me.” She touched fingers that looked cold to her brow. “She could spare as much passion and energy for Saneh in Kahrizak as she could for Roxana in Evin.”

  She reached over and deleted the photograph from Rachel’s laptop.

  “No one was meant to know.”

  “No?” Khattak’s lips were stiff. “Then why write me the letters?”

  Her smile was bleak. “You said the letters were from Roxana.”

  “That’s what you wanted me to think. But how could Roxana have shadowed me in Esfahan? I suppose I knew she couldn’t have.” He
didn’t wait for an answer. “Why was Zahra at Evin that day?”

  Taraneh glanced over at them from the other table. She made a move to rise, Rachel stopped her.

  “Tell me,” Khattak said. He brought the force of his personality to bear, advancing his face to within inches of hers.

  A muscle beside her eye twitched. Her face was filled with secret knowledge.

  “Zahra knew Mehran was involved in the plan to steal the Darya-e Nur. Radan got the idea from the rumor about the Mossadegh letters. He knew he could use Mehran’s shipping business and his connections in Canada. He pressured Mehran to arrange the substitution and find him a buyer. Apparently, Mehran had mentioned a man named Mordashov many times. He had regular dealings with him. So Zahra told Mehran to go ahead with Radan’s plan. She thought they could turn the tables on Radan, using the theft to ensure Roxana’s freedom. She was certain it would work, and she was right.”

  “It didn’t turn out that way. Zahra was murdered at Evin.”

  “I know that.” Nasreen’s breath came out in little puffs. “Radan was suspicious of Zahra’s return. He knew Mehran would be influenced by her, so he had them followed. When she traveled to Shiraz, it became clear she knew Radan’s plan.”

  “So Radan had her killed to pre-empt her? Why not release Roxana to buy her silence?”

  “He knew it wouldn’t end there, Zahra wouldn’t stop. She’d have used her leverage to free others.”

  She was telling him Radan’s thoughts with an insider’s knowledge of them.

  “Zahra had a card to play, she didn’t need to go to Evin—why did you take her there?”

  In the icy light of the morning, Nasreen’s face was rigid with strain.

  “Radan came to me.” She fluttered a hand at the others. “We’ve been under surveillance since the election. When Zahra sought us out, he kept all of us under watch. I was vulnerable because of Saneh—he used my brother against me.”

  Horror rose at the back of Khattak’s throat.

  “I tried to use him, too. He wanted Zahra at Evin under any pretext. He needed to discredit her before she could expose him. That’s what he told me he would do.”