Deuel looked at him and said, “Jason, that’s the problem. There won’t be a Goddamn thing any of us will be able to do about it. We don’t do policy, remember?” He turned back to the window.
57. Firuzabad, Iran
Kurosh had just returned to his house in the northwestern part of the city near the university, after visiting City Hall to obtain a pass. Having changed into clothes that Kurosh had given them, Steve and Kella had been waiting for him impatiently nibbling from a large bowl of almonds, which they had learned was a local staple.
Kurosh, still animated from mixing with the crowd of people trying to obtain passes, told them, “This is an incredible act on the part of the government. Tehran, as usual, doesn’t care about us. Everyone is upset. There is no precedent for this. The bazaaris are the most upset. They have influence. I can’t believe that this blockade can continue for very long. There will be demonstrations, mark my words. Tehran is strangling our economy, strangling us.”
“Were you able to get a pass?” Steve asked.
Kurosh took a folded paper from his pocket and handed it to Steve who took it and asked, “Let’s see what we can do with this, Kurosh, where is your computer?”
As Kurosh led them to the study, there was a knock at the door. He motioned for them to go ahead while he went to the door and opened it. A minute later, he brought two men into the study. They were obviously not city people. One wore riding boots and the other running shoes. Both had long black hair, grayish trousers, and long sleeve shirts that had not been washed in some time and been ironed never. One was in his early thirties and the other about ten years older. Their clothes were downright shabby, with the exception of the boots on the younger man and of the sunglasses that the older of the two had put on top of his head.
“I’m not sure who they are, but I think that they’re looking for you,” Kurosh said.
Steve looked at Kurosh with alarm and Kurosh added, “They said that they were friends.”
“Sunglasses” told Kurosh in fluent Farsi, “Excuse us one second,” and he guided Steve and Kella to a corner of the room.
With a wry grin, he smiled and said in excellent English, “If you can convince me we’ve got the right address, we’re the cavalry.”
* **
A short while later, Steve and Kella shared the back of a large pickup truck with five sheep, a lot of straw, farming tools, and boxes of colorful Qashqai wool saddlebags. The truck bed had wooden sides about six feet high and a canvas roof. A tailgate kept the sheep in, and a canvas curtain tied to the tail gate prevented anyone from seeing into the back. However, the bleating and the smell could not hide what was inside.
Steve and Kella were hidden under a weatherproof black tarp behind the boxes. As the truck crossed a bridge over the Rudkhaneye River, Kella whispered, “I hate this.”
Steve, with a hand on a small backpack that contained Firuz’s CD, said, “We have to stop meeting like this.” Not getting any reply, he added, “It won’t be long. We can get some air after we go through the roadblock.”
Before thanking and leaving Kurosh, Steve and Kella had learned that “Sunglasses” was an agency officer using the name Ali and that his friend “Boots” was Khosrow Khan, a cousin of the Qashqai leader Abdollah Mansur Khan. The agency had a small number of its paramilitary officers, most of whom had served in the special operations forces of the military, in Iran under the legal authorization of a 2008 Presidential Finding.
Steve asked Ali to wait while he printed out passes that would resemble the one Kurosh had obtained, but Ali merely said, “Don’t worry about that. We got here without passes.”
He pulled tomans, Iranian currency, from his pocket and said, “This is the best Laissez Passer around here. Besides, the guard at the roadblock is a Qashqai. Getting in was not a problem; we’re going back the same way.”
The truck stopped moving, and Steve assumed they were in line to get through the roadblock. The sheep were bleating, and one was trying to eat through the tarp pressing against Steve’s knee. Steve gave him a gentle elbow punch, which produced no results. He tried again with more force, and the sheep backed up complaining loudly about the violation of his space. The wait dragged on until, finally a guard approached them.
Steve could hear but could not understand a conversation that was getting more heated. There was yelling and shouting then silence, and then the voice of a second guard and what seemed like bargaining. Khosrow and Ali got out of the truck, untied the back flap, lowered the tailgate and someone climbed in. Steve and Kella stopped breathing. They could hear the sheep complaining and Khosrow’s voice answering. A few minutes later, Khosrow got out, the gate was closed and the truck was moving again. Steve and Kella pushed the tarp aside and breathed while the sheep looked at them with as much interest as they were capable of.
After a few miles, the truck pulled over, and Ali lowered the gate and stuck his head in. “Listen up. Things are good, except that the cost of your exfiltration went up by the cost of one sheep. I hope you’re worth it.”
Steve laughed. “Our Qashqai friend at the roadblock disappeared. Off duty? Who knows? The captain would settle for no less than an entire sheep. Didn’t even want the Tomans. Who can blame him?”
“Can we ride up front now?” Kella asked.
“I don’t think so. Can you tell me that there are no
