Steve was thinking that whether one lived or died had much to do with the luck of the draw, regardless of how much karma had been accumulated through good deeds or whether one flossed. Had they been a few feet back in the tunnel, they would not have gotten out. Had Kharazzi and his men been a few minutes slower or faster, they might still be alive.
The balconies of a seven-story hotel were piled up one on top of another where the entrance had been. A truck with a spotlight arrived in front of an apartment building across the street. Its beam revealed a deep V in the facade down to the third floor. The two sidewalls were still up completing the letter M. People were waving for help from their apartments exposed now because the front wall was down in the street burying those it had fallen on. Most buildings higher than two stories were damaged. They drove past buildings offering cut away views with floors slanting at steep angles toward the ground and everything inside having slid to one side or into the street.
Gas explosions were starting fires, too many for the town’s firefighting capabilities.
When they reached the hospital, the driver got out to open the back of his vehicle, and two other men rushed to carry Farah inside. Steve closed the back, climbed in the driver’s seat, motioned Naurouz back in, and drove the ambulance away. “This is plan B,” he announced.
Looking uncertain, Naurouz said, “The police will come after us.”
“The police are busy,” Steve quickly replied.
Naurouz gazed around them at the chaos and destructions. “I must go back to see how my parents are, the building...” he said.
Steve hesitated, his mind focused on reaching a rendezvous point with agency operatives. However, he felt that Naurouz had no choice but to check on his family before anything else. Neither did he have a choice but to help Naurouz. “Okay, tell me how to get there,” he said.
They encountered no roadblocks on their way back.
* **
The house was dark when they reached it. Naurouz rushed in still wielding his flashlight. Steve and Kella followed. Once inside, they saw that a TV set had been thrown across the floor ripping the electric extension from its molding at the base of the wall; decorations had been shaken from their shelves; and a diagonal crack extended across one wall.
Holding a candle, Jemshid walked out of a back first floor bedroom. Naurouz embraced him and asked about his mother Maryam before seeing her appear behind Jemshid. Except for internal breakage and the fall of the badgir—the windcatcher—from the roof, the house had withstood the quake.
“This is not the first time that investing in stone and concrete construction has paid off. Naurouz should not have worried,” Jemshid said.
As Naurouz and his parents spoke in Farsi, Steve grew impatient. Kella rested her hand on his arm, and Steve held off a few more minutes.
“I think it’s time for us to leave. Naurouz, if you can give us some directions, we’ll be off,” but Naurouz held his hand up.
“No, no. We’ll go through with the plan. A mere earthquake never stopped our community. We haven’t survived several thousand years of hardships by backing down at the first obstacle. In any case, Leila is waiting for you. I will take you there, and we’ll regroup then.”
They got back in the ambulance and left with Naurouz at the wheel.
“Too bad we don’t have uniforms that go with the ambulance,” Steve said.
“We’re lucky to have the ambulance,” Kella reminded him.
Naurouz, apparently inspired by Steve’s comment, said, “That’s a good idea. We’ll take a very small detour.” He looked at them with the grin of a good boy discovering the pleasures of breaking the rules.
Within five minutes, they stopped in front of a large building in an industrial area. “Kharazzi is in the import-export business, and this is one of his warehouses,” Naurouz said. “Let’s see how he can help us tonight. I know he deals in medical supplies.” He disappeared around the back.
Kella moved from the back to the front seat with Steve and asked, “What about Farah? Should we check up on her before we leave?”
“Why?” he answered, surprised.
“Well, I couldn’t feel her pulse. She lost a lot of blood. But I’m no doctor. Maybe I was wrong.”
“There’s no way we can go back into that hospital without getting caught. If she were alive, she couldn’t travel with us. Without medical care, she would die for sure. She’s best where she is, alive or dead. Agree?”
Kella nodded. “She was a good person. Life wasn’t fair to her.”
Steve put his arm around her then let her go to ask, “In your last message, did you tell them we’re on our way to the coast?”
“I said we were heading for Shiraz. How far do you think Naurouz is going to take us?”
“I don’t know. I expect that he’ll pass us along to his Z network somewhere. He hasn’t volunteered much information.”
“Neither have we.”
When Naurouz didn’t return for ten minutes, Steve said, “I’m going to look for him.”
“Not without me you’re not,” she insisted.
Just then, Naurouz strode around the corner of the building, holding several green uniforms in clear-plastic wrappings.
“The guards are long gone and the quake destroyed the lock on the front door. I just walked in.” He handed a package to each Kella and to Steve. “I didn’t have time to check for sizes.”
* **
They were stopped twice on their way out of town. At each checkpoint, Naurouz drove to the head of the line of waiting vehicles.
Once they saw the Iranian Red Crescent markings on the ambulance, the guards gave them only a cursory look and asked about the earthquake. Naurouz filled them in quickly,
