maybe killed them off in previous wars. Because no one protested when a dozen brown-uniformed men climbed the stairs to the stage, escorting the condemned, who were chained hand and foot.
Vayl and I exchanged a look. Knowing I wanted to speak he leaned in close, so no one who stood near the back of the crowd with us could overhear. “Women?” I hissed, clenching my teeth to keep from screaming. “They’re hanging women in the public square?”
Vayl shot me his give-me-a-break look. “Come now, Jasmine. You, of all people, should know that women are capable of some of the most heinous acts imaginable.”
So true. I struggled to control my temper. I’d jumped to conclusions, just because I’d identified with them. Major mistake and one that might, at some point, get me killed. I didn’t even know what they’d done. Maybe they’d killed their kids. In which case, they did deserve to die.
The younger one had begun to cry. The older woman was comforting her.
An officer with so many medals pinned to his chest, if he jumped in a pond he’d probably sink right to the bottom, stepped to the front of the stage and read a proclamation. The crowd reacted with angry murmurs that escalated to shouted demands. I wished Cole was around. I wanted to know the details. Especially when the older prisoner started shouting back.
The uniform standing closest to her slammed her so hard on the side of the head that she slumped to the ground. Cheers from the crowd. The younger woman tried to go to her but was forcibly restrained.
All of this visibly excited the mahghul, which covered every rooftop, signpost and power line around the square. They stood shoulder to shoulder, bouncing up and down on their muscular legs, craning their necks, stretching those long wings with a whispering sort of rasp I couldn’t believe no one else heard.
The uniforms approached the younger woman guardedly, as if she might tear through her bonds and jump into the crowd. She stood absolutely still, and I thought she was going to take it lying down. But just before they pulled the hood over her face, she shouted a name.
“Who’s FarjAd Daei?” I asked.
“I have never heard of him,” said Vayl, who kept up with world movers and shakers even better than I did. The crowd sure had. Many of the men took the time to spit beside their shoes when they heard his name. But a few made a gesture so casual I wouldn’t have noticed if one man, about my age, hadn’t caught my attention. He drew the thumb of his right hand across his thigh, then turned his hand, palm outward, toward the doomed woman. When he caught me staring he nodded once and mouthed the word “Freedom.” I raised my eyebrows at him and he nodded again before melting into the crowd.
The young woman went through the trapdoor with a mahghul draped over her head like a second scarf. Already its comrades had begun to feed off the uniformed men, some of whom watched her body swing while others stared off into the crowd as if this execution had as little to do with their lives as a classic-car auction.
When the second woman dropped, her chador came off. She’d pinned a picture to the white dress she wore underneath. I couldn’t see the details, couldn’t read the bold black captions above and beneath the photo, which covered her entire chest. But those in the crowd who stood closest to her shouted in outrage.
The crowd surged forward, their screams encouraging those behind them to join in, and within seconds the bodies disappeared beneath their tearing hands.
“Time to leave,” Vayl murmured. I could feel his power rising to shield us from watching eyes as he took me by the arm and steered me out of the plaza.
Behind us the rest of the mahghul had joined their brethren, sweeping down on the rioters, shrieking joyfully as they fed on the violence.
Vayl and I didn’t speak as we rushed away from the scene. Within five minutes we arrived at our destination. As soon as we saw the place we reached an unspoken agreement to put the nightmare of the plaza behind us, at least temporarily. Duty called. As usual, it surprised me.
I’d expected the Oasis to present me with a dimly lit throwback to the 1860s. A men only sign on the front door. Cigar smoke so thick you’d have lung cancer by the time you sat down. Dancing girls entertaining the high rollers in the back room.
What I found was a thirty-year-old, white-block two-story building housing an Internet cafe, with single booths stationed around the perimeter of the room, each holding a PC, most with an avid user glued to the blocky, fifteen- inch monitors. In the middle, tables with red-cushioned chairs invited customers to sit and chat face-to-face, rather than online. Either way, it made no sense to me.
Why would the Wizard, a guy who’d sent a letter to the BBC stating that “America is the infant England should have aborted,” agree to party in a cafe surrounded by reminders of the very country he despised? Okay, so it’s the World Wide Web. The whole concept of freedom of information is so American it practically square dances
.
We sat down. Since the place had signs in both Farsi and English, we felt free to reveal our foreign natures. At least to some degree. Vayl lapsed into his accent to order us both tea. And when the waiter inquired as to our countries of origin, Vayl told him we were from Romania, attending a family funeral. I didn’t speak at all until the waiter left.
“Nosy, isn’t he?” I whispered.
Vayl’s eyes followed the waiter as he cleared a table across the room. “He could be freelancing for the government. You never know.”
Too true
. “Listen, do you really think we’ve got the right location?” I shared my doubts.
“Perhaps that is why he has never been caught,” my boss replied. “By maintaining continual unpredictability he has evaded the authorities for nearly twenty-five years.”
“I guess,” I said. I badly wanted to study the photograph Dave had given us again. Ask it questions neither one of us could answer.
Vayl nodded his head behind me. “This is a modern building. They actually have public restrooms. Given the rate at which tea passes through the system, I would say our best shot at the Wizard will be any one of the three
