I freeze. There’s my missing individual who leaves heat signatures on keypads. The voice comes from the other side of the warehouse. Shit. He must have heard the detector buzz.
It’s closer. He’s coming this way. I quickly move back the way I came, treading lightly, hoping he’s not sure exactly where the sound came from. I keep moving until I reach a darker aisle. I quickly negotiate the shelving here, climb on top of a crate, and pull myself to the top shelf. They’d need forklifts to place and remove objects from this height. I lie facedown and wait.
Sure enough, I see the lone elderly night watchman walk slowly into my aisle. He’s not sure what he heard or if he heard anything at all. Nevertheless the poor guy looks scared. This tells me there’s nothing in this warehouse that’s of any interest. If there were illegal arms here, the Shop wouldn’t guard them with a lone sixty-year-old grandfather.
He eventually gives up and returns to the desk at the front of the warehouse. I can see him clearly from where I’m lying. He sits, opens the book, and begins to read. Every now and then he looks up and scans the aisles in his view, then goes back to reading. Damn. How long am I going to have to stay here?
I really don’t want to do it, but I have no choice. I’m not going to spend the rest of the night in this goddamned warehouse. I slowly pull the SC-20K off my shoulder and reach for another ring airfoil projectile. I load the rifle and aim for the old guy’s head. At this range it shouldn’t do much damage. It’ll knock him out for a while and he’ll have a nasty headache when he wakes up, but that’ll be it.
I aim at the back of his head and squeeze the trigger. Perfect shot. The watchman slumps forward and looks as if he’s fallen asleep while reading.
I climb down from my lofty position and head toward the back of the warehouse. Everything looks innocent enough and I’m about to call it a night and leave when I notice the office. It’s in the back corner — an enclosed room with windows and a door. It’s unlocked, too.
Using the night-vision mode so I don’t have to turn on the office lights, I riffle through the papers on the desk. Most of it means nothing to me. However, I do come across a blank “shipping manifest” form that is written in both Farsi and English. Where there’s one, there must be more. I turn to the filing cabinets and pull them open one by one. I eventually find a drawer that’s full of shipping manifest forms — and these are filled out. I scan the dates and find the folder for last month’s shipments. Again, I don’t understand a lot of it, but I do recognize certain city and country names.
The Tabriz Container Company apparently ships its products all over the Middle East. I see that they have customers in Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and even Israel. There are clients in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, the Czech Republic, and Poland.
So those containers I saw in Arbil could have come from anywhere. This has turned out to be a false lead.
Then I see something that’s interesting. I find some Shipping Manifests to Akdabar Enterprises in Van, Turkey. This is the company that Reza told me about. The one owned by that humanitarian guy, Basaran. There are also manifests to his charity organization, Tirma. A coincidence?
I put everything back the way I found it and leave the office. When I get back to the front of the warehouse, I see that my friend the night watchman is still counting sheep. I approach him silently and determine that he’s breathing steadily. He’ll be all right. I go out the front door, walk back to the Pazhan, and drive into town.
At daybreak I’ll head towards Turkey. I think it’s time I meet this Namik Basaran fellow and see what he’s really all about. I’ll send a report to Lambert, say goodbye to Reza, and chalk up my visit to Iran as educational but ultimately a dead end.
17
Sarah had been drunk on two previous occasions, and neither of them had been pleasant. The first time was when she was in high school. She and some girlfriends had been at a party in which the boys had gotten hold of a keg of beer. It was an unchaperoned event, and just about everyone had too much to drink. Some parents found out about it and there was hell to pay at school the next day. Sarah’s father had been disappointed but didn’t punish her too severely. He just made sure that adults would be around the next time his daughter went to a party.
The second time was about a month after she had left home to go to college in Evanston. She was with a boy she had just begun dating, and one night he procured a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He mixed it with Coke and she drank three glasses. It made her violently sick, much to the boy’s chagrin.
Who was it that said the “third time’s the charm”? This thought went through Sarah’s head as she sipped the glass of red wine. Rivka had already announced that she planned to drink enough to get “tipsy,” and the boys proclaimed they were going to drink much more than that. Sarah decided that she, too, would drink enough to feel a buzz. She just didn’t want to feel sick.
They were in a bar in the New City. It was a place Noel had been to several times, and he was sure the girls wouldn’t be asked for IDs. They weren’t. Noel and Eli started by buying two bottles of wine, and then the quartet sat in a booth in the back of the smoky dive, unseen by the few patrons that were too lost in their own drinks to pay much attention to the laughing, happy young people.
At first Sarah thought the bar looked dumpy and was depressing. Eli assured her they would liven up the place. Sure enough, after one bottle was empty, the boys and girls were having a grand time in the little back room. Eli and Noel could be very funny, especially when they told off-color jokes, and Sarah and Rivka were thoroughly entertained by them. It didn’t hurt that in-between laughs the boys planted kisses on their dates.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Eli said. He looked at Noel. “What do you think, Noel? Irish Car Bombs?”
Noel’s eyes widened and he grinned. “Yeah!”
“Huh? What’s that?” Sarah asked.
“Irish Car Bomb! You’ll love it,” Noel said.
“Irish Car Bomb?” Rivka asked, giggling. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a drink, silly,” Eli said. “I’ll be right back.” He got up and left the room, heading toward the bar.
“You didn’t know this was an Irish pub, did you?” Noel asked the girls.
“This is an Irish pub? In Jerusalem?” Sarah asked.
“It doesn’t look like an Irish pub,” Rivka said.
A few minutes later Eli returned with a tray carrying four pint glasses of what appeared to be beer and four shot glasses of an odd, creamy brown liquid.
Eli sat down and pointed to a pint glass. “This is a half-pint of Guinness.” He then pointed to a shot glass. “This is Irish whiskey mixed with Bailey’s Irish Cream.” He then proceeded to take the shot glasses and drop them — glass and liquid—
“Wow,” Sarah said.
“Drink up, before the cream curdles!” Noel commanded. He took one of the glasses and chugged the mixture faster than Eli had.
“Come on, ladies,” Eli said. “Your turn.”
Rivka took one of the glasses and asked, “I’m supposed to drink it all at once?”
“Chug it,” Noel said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“You can’t sip it,” Eli added.
“Okay, here goes.” She turned up the glass and started drinking. The shot glass slid down and hit her nose. She almost laughed but kept going. The boys chanted, “Go, go, go, go…!” When she got it all down, Rivka slammed the glass on the table as she had seen the guys do it.
“Wow, that was great!” she said.
“Your turn, Sarah!” Eli said.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, eyeing the drink warily.
