* * *
Forty minutes later, he was at the diner. He was surprised. The diner ‘Eats,’ still existed. He parked and walked in. The same waitresses were still there serving people with a frown. They looked a hundred then and thirty years later, they still look a hundred. Jason surmised that someone built the diner around a group of grandmothers playing bridge, and then offered the women jobs for the inconvenience. The ketchup and mustard jars were the original, just re-filled. The mustard was that bright yellow color they use to paint median stripes on roads. The ketchup was just a little too brown to be fresh. The chairs all reeked of fried food. Fried heart attacks were the daily special.
I hope dad won’t make me eat any of this shit.
In came, or out went, the regulars. Starving or fully stuffed, depending on direction. The food must have been good. The crowds were all enjoying themselves. The door opened again. It was his dad. He got up to greet him. They gave each other a manly handshake and a quick hug. Jason had not hugged his dad since he was a child. Hugging was not what his dad did. He saw him visibly shaken, trying to be strong, trying to be the dad he always knew.
“You want something to eat?” His lips were quivering as he sat down, picking up a menu.
“Sure Dad. Let’s get something to eat.” Jason knew it must be bad, whatever it was. He could stomach a little greasy fried food for his dad.
“So, Dad, what’s going on? I’ve never seen you like this. Is everything o.k. with you and mom? Are any of you sick? What’s up?” Jason asked in a low, anxious voice.
“We’ll take two lunch specials and two coffees, black,” his father told the waitress standing near him.
“I’ll tell you, just wait, don’t rush me!” He put the menu back behind the condiments holder and started to look around. Just looking, but not for anything special. Jason was very patient when it came to his dad. He said nothing more and waited. His dad sat there looking around again, playing with his fork and knife, getting his poise back. Then he suddenly looked up at Jason.
“O.K, first, we’re fine. We’re not sick and we’re not dying. And, no, we’re not in any trouble.” He leaned closer to Jason, pulling him in as he whispered near his ear, just a few sentences. Jason sat straight, his eyes focused on his dad. He waited for the meal and said nothing.
The meals finally arrived. They both ate without a word. They drank their coffee, no refills. Jason paid in cash and walked his dad to his car. He then went to his rental car, grabbing his duffle bag, walking back to his dad’s car. He opened his dad’s trunk, dropping the duffle bag in and pulling out some running clothes. He began to change from his street clothes to his running outfit.
“Dad, I want you to drive us to Mike’s house,” he said while quickly looking around and, just as quickly, dropping his pants and switching to his shorts. He finished putting on his running shoes and t-shirt. Zipping up the duffle bag, he slammed the trunk shut. They both sat in Gordon’s car, leaving the rental behind.
“Drive around the back and drop me off at the fire station. I’ll run the last several miles over the hills. I don’t want anyone to see us arriving, just in case. Please Dad, don’t talk about anything till I get there. Just stick to small talk.”
They sat quietly in the car as Gordon drove, shaken by what had happened, yet both feeling more determined with every mile. Jason gave his dad a great deal of energy. The last thing they wanted was to be weak in front of Mike and his family. They arrived at the fire station. Jason got out, looked at his watch compass to get his bearings, and then shut the door waving his father off. He started running. His dad drove the rest of the way alone, feeling better now that his son was involved.
Gordon knew his son had been involved in certain work of which he never spoke, things that should never be spoken of or about in polite conversation. He also knew that the things his son did was always for the good of his country, and that he had raised an honorable person, a good man. He trusted his son. He knew his son’s background, training, language skills, would all come to great use in getting Bobby back. To Gordon, his son was the only salvation, the only solution.
* * *
The drive around the front was a short one. Gordon finally got to the gate for his routine meeting with the guard. Inside the gatehouse sat a man, with a clipboard, always looking official, even though he knew Gordon was a friend and a regular.
“Do you have an appointment?” he asked sarcastically, pausing briefly before opening the gate, winking at Gordon.
Gordon loved the drive up to Mike’s house. He loved to see the house pop up on the final turn through the trees. The house was indeed beautiful, but what sorrows it must now hold. What the family must be enduring was unimaginable. He drove to the backside of the crescent shaped house, around the circle and parked in front of the main door. He grabbed the duffle bag from the trunk and walked to the door, ringing the doorbell.
* * *
The door opened remotely. Gordon entered and walked towards Mike’s office, where he recalled enjoying wine and many games of backgammon together. He walked in to see Mike at his desk, with one of the desk monitors showing video feeds from around the property. He dropped the duffle bag inside the door.
“Where’s Jason?” Mike said, standing to shake Gordon’s hand.
Gordon placed his finger against his lips and gestured Mike to be quiet. “Oh, he’s still in Monterey and won’t be here till his fall break.” Gordon moved in for a fast shake, walking towards the desk for a piece of paper and pen. He wrote,
He is running around the topside and should be here soon.
Mike sat back behind his desk, turning the monitor towards Gordon, so he would see his son arriving. Gordon continued writing.
He wanted to make sure no one saw him coming.
They both began staring at the monitor, frozen in thought. Ten minutes later, they saw Jason running past the back garages and to the side entrance. As he got closer, Mike clicked several keys on his computer and the door opened for Jason. He was in the hallway leading to the kitchen. He stopped in the kitchen to grab a glass of water, hearing the dads talking in the office. He drank his fill. Grabbing a kitchen towel, he walked over to the office.
He entered the room, and before anyone could say a word, he grabbed the radio from his duffle bag, turning it on. It was a broad-spectrum frequency scrambler and jammer.
“It’s o.k. to talk now,” he said, placing the device on the desk.
He then gave Mike a big hug, promising that everything would be fine. Bobby, his godson, and Sean were like brothers. Bobby was practically his son too. He sat down on the couch as Mike retold the whole story, timeline and details. Mike showed him the package received from the county offices, as well as all of the contracts and stadium design specs. He covered the coffee table with everything he had.
Jason grabbed his duffle bag. Reaching inside, he removed a USB flash drive, plugging it into Mike’s computer. He turned the computer off and rebooted into the flash drive operating system. He began typing, bringing up several tabs on the browser and started several other programs. He asked for Mike’s cell phone, reading the URL link from the message and typing it into the computer. On certain web pages he made sure he had Mike’s IP address, in case they were keeping tabs, and on others, he masked it with random global IP addresses. All the while, he was studying the URL routing, to see where it would end up. In another tab, he watched the video of Bobby, several times, looking for clues. He was looking for signs of others in the room, a reflection, a window, a view, anything of value. He then walked over to the coffee table. He reviewed the documents for a good long while, and then moved back to the computer. He sent several emails and sat there waiting, quietly in thought. The dads were both on the couch, noiseless like two scolded boys, staring at Jason as he typed, read, and waited.
A good hour passed as Jason poured over everything on the coffee table and on the computer. He sent and received numerous emails and text messages. He finally leaned back an
d looked at the two worried dads.
“The bad news is that these guys are very good.”
“Is there any good news?” both dads echoed from the couch.
“Yes!” he said smiling, “We’re better.”
Jason explained how these Iranians had worked the system in their favor, covering their tracks. He explained, in more detail, how the Thor Network and Onion domains worked to support all of that. Now, this all works great if you are a person, a company or a less sophisticated government. Jason explained how servers operated or owned by the U.S., or manufactured by the U.S. performed most URL routing services. In short, the U.S. can get the final and real destination of any URL, if it wanted to. It would be highly illegal and confidential, but very much possible.
The message source is somewhat known, at the very least, the city of origin, and perhaps even a section of the city. More importantly, there are other local players. In the county offices, there was at least one person who knew something about this or was part of the plan. Also, the chair re-design showed a new cavity, allowing for inclusions, indicating some risk factors. Some pieces of the puzzle were becoming clear. From nothing, Jason now had multiple leads to follow.
“Why not call the FBI?” Jason asked out of curiosity.
Mike explained he was not sure whom to trust. Besides, if this ever gets out, no Iranian-American would ever be trusted. There were millions of Iranians living in the U.S. All had some persons or loved ones back in Iran, and they had spent decades rebuilding their lives. Mike was not dismissing calls for help, but wanted to be sure that it was the safest route. His son’s safety was paramount.
“We won’t call any of the authorities, but we will have to call others. And, we’ll need money, lots of money to pay for things, and to bribe people.” Jason interrupted, to which Mike got up and directed them to the library.
The walk to the library was down a beautifully decorated hall with artfully framed LCD screens, which adjusted the imagery to the taste of the person closest, and who happened to have a pre-programmed active RFID tag on them. Mike’s watch contained the RFID tag, which changed the pictures as he walked by. They arrived in the library. The lights turned on and adjusted automatically. Mike’s favorite music list came on. All the images changed to a tropical forest theme. Mike pulled a beautiful Esfahan Persian carpet back from the middle of the room to reveal a steel door. It had an embedded digital keypad. He typed in a long sequence of numbers and pressed his thumb on the reader. The steel door dropped a foot and slid under the floor. The lights turned on, illuminating a staircase down into a room nearly the size of the library. They all walked down and into the underground room. The room was a large vault with different size drawers and nothing else visible. Mike opened one of the drawers and took out a tray filled with diamonds, hundreds of them, from quarter carat to two carats in size.
“What else do you need?” He asked Jason as he filled a velvet drawstring bag with diamonds.
“Cash, Dollars and Euros, would be great,” Jason said, while standing next to his dad, both with their jaws near the floor. All of those years of coming to this house, they had never known this room existed.
Mike opened another drawer and showed him the cash. He added that he has several accounts in Europe, should he need to access some money while there. Jason took several stacks of hundred-dollar bills leaving the Euros behind. We will get the Euros in Europe from your other accounts. This cash is for our U.S. needs. I will be asking for a lot more, later.
“Anytime, any amount. Just let me know.”
Suddenly there was a commotion above them. It was Mike’s wife Parisa, home from a day out with the girls. She was staring down the pit, as she called it, seeing Jason and Gordon. She smiled, surprised to see them.
“What are you guys doing here? Good to see you Jason, it’s been a while. Come on up, all of you,” she said as she walked towards the kitchen.
“You have to tell her,” Gordon whispered as they were getting out of the vault. Mike pressed a button as he took the final step out of the vault. The door started moving back in place. Mike walked towards the kitchen, after his wife. The other two pulled the carpet back over the steel door and walked back to the office.
Gordon and Jason were back in the office, when Mike’s wife walked in. Happy and smiling, she moved in for a big hug from Jason. Mike closed the door behind him as his wife was greeting everyone, a kiss on each cheek, a hug and a smile.
“What’s going on?” she asked probingly, “You’re all acting pretty weird!”
Mike walked her over to the couch, sat her down, and started telling her as briefly as he could what had happened to Bobby. He told her everything, leaving out the video.
She fell to her knees screaming. A scream only a mother who had lost her child could put across. She started yelling at him, blaming him for letting Bobby go to that god-forsaken country. She wanted to leave the office. Gordon stopped her. Mike grabbed her and brought her back to the couch.
“You have to stay here. We have to talk about things, in this office, and ONLY in this office.” Jason commanded.
She held Mike tightly, as Jason instructed them on how they should behave, and what they can or cannot say and to whom, and other specific cautionary notes.
“Honey,” Mike interjected, “We should keep acting as normal as possible, and let these guys start figuring out what needs to be done.”
Parisa stood, straightening her skirt and blouse, opened the office door, and walked upstairs to her room, crying.
Jason went back to Mike’s computer to install more software. He instructed Mike on how to use the new software for encrypted communication, and on how to initiate money transfers from any account to his two accounts. Jason left the scrambler behind telling Mike that all conversations should occur in this room with the device on. Further, under no circumstances should he talk away from the device or leave his computer on when not around. He prepared his duffle bag by loading it up with the documents from the coffee table. Handing it to his dad, he prepared for his run back to the fire station.
* * *
Parisa was upstairs, on her bed, with an album of pictures, each page having just one group picture for each of the kids’ birthdays. She too made an album, similar to Jason’s wife, so she could quickly see how the kids were growing up, what they each looked like, year to year, as well as the family.
She quickly went past the girls until she got to Bobby’s first picture. She worked her way through the years. They were all in the pictures, her family, Gordon and his wife, Jason and his family, friends, and neighbors. Happy times they were.
As she looked through the pictures, she noticed several without Jason. In actuality, there were many photos without Jason. She recalled the conversations, the roundabout chitchat about where he was or was not, the quiet conversations she had with her husband about what he was or wasn’t doing, all the rumors. Everybody knew just a little, just a hint, just enough to be worried, to be fearful.
She worked her way back downstairs. Jason and Gordon were getting ready to leave. She walked back into the office, closing the door. She was stone cold. Her face was red and her eyes glossy, yet she was calm. She looked at Jason, straight in to his eyes. They were face to face.
“I don’t know what you did in your secret life, before, whenever! It was something. Something we can use. So, if you have to kill every one of those fuckers, you do it, and you bring my son back, in one piece and unharmed.”
Jason took her hand, kissed it, and promised her just that, and nothing less.
* * *
After his run back down the hill, his father dropped him off at his rental car. Jason drove to his hotel, to study the documents and further his plans.
8 | Missed Birthdays
It was Bobby’s second birthday. Mike offered to help, knowing he could not. He was busy with several new and large construction contracts. Added to the stress was the completion of his new office building, in which they had to move
within two weeks. Then there were all the interviews he had to do supporting the recruiting process. The company was growing at a rapid pace. On the home front, his kitchen too was a busy place. Parisa was making breakfast and lunch for everyone. The girls were packing their backpacks, getting ready for school. Bobby was in his high chair smiling, playing, and eating his Cheerios. He was the youngest of all, and spoiled by each.
Every morning before he left for work, Mike would sit and stare at Bobby for a good ten minutes, while having his coffee, inhaling the little boy’s essence. It would give him so much energy.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Parisa said acknowledging the offer, tapping him on the backside, as he prepared his briefcase and refilled his coffee mug.
“The girls will help. Gordon and Charlene will be here early to help as well.”
“I told you, the godfather thing would come in handy,” Mike said smiling as he left the house.
Mike had been living in this subdivision, near where Gordon and his family moved after Iran. It was his first and only home in the US. A little small, but he liked it well enough. It was close to the schools and in a good district. The kids had their friends nearby. The low mortgage, allowed him to save a lot of money. His focus was on growing his business. The best part, however, was having his best friend and his family nearby, even though the children’s age discrepancies were vast. He felt a kinship with them, or better yet all of them with each other. Gordon had his son early, whereas Mike had his children much later in life.
Yet another price we pay for living through a revolution, Mike would always say.
He was proud to have Jason as Bobby’s godfather, and proud to be godfather to Jason’s son, Sean. The two boys were like peas in a pod.
* * *
It was nearly noon. Charlene came by, with the fruit platter, cupcakes, and gifts. She was always excited about birthdays. Bobby and Sean had birthdays near each other, both in time and location, so Charlene and Parisa had become a team in getting the ball rolling for each gathering. They were efficient and organized. Both worked leisurely, as they joked and laughed about the kids, husbands, and neighbors. They set the tables, placed the food, and stacked the gifts. All the while taking a sip or two of ice tea, and testing the snacks.
The Minders Page 5
