The Last Refuge (31 page)

He’d awoken to a tray that had fruit on it—two bananas and a handful of figs—as well as a glass of milk and a bowl of muesli. At lunch, half a loaf of bread had arrived along with several pieces of cheese, slices of some sort of meat that he couldn’t identify, and a soda, which was very sweet and had the faint aftertaste of formaldehyde.

Because they had barely fed him since his abduction, Meir ate ravenously, then got sick afterward, both in the morning and in the afternoon. Still, when he heard the steel key turning again in the early evening, he anticipated another round of food.

Instead, the door opened and Achabar, his attorney, was standing in the doorway with two armed guards.

“Do you like your new accommodations, Kohl?” asked Achabar, a cigarette in his hand, which he brought to his mouth. “It looks like a room at the Hilton. I understand they even brought you food from the staff cafeteria.”

“Come to Tel Aviv sometime and I will return the favor,” said Meir, lying down on the cot.

Achabar laughed.

“Tel Aviv,” said Achabar. “I hear it’s beautiful. A pearl, as someone once told me. The problem is, Jews make me break out in hives.”

“That’s the difference between us,” said Meir. “I don’t hate you just because you’re Iranian; I hate you because you’re trying to destroy us. You hate me simply for being Israeli.”

“Actually, that’s quite well put,” said Achabar. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“The problem you will have is that you are in the minority, even in your own country,” said Meir.

“What do you mean?” asked Achabar.

He stepped into Meir’s cell. As he did so, he tossed his cigarette on the ground, then stepped on it with his shoe. He took a seat in the steel chair that was bolted near the bed.

“You know exactly what I mean, Achabar. You’re outnumbered. Iranians want freedom. Your mullahs are growing old. The only thing that keeps them in power is thugs like Paria and VEVAK, and, of course, vermin like you.”

Achabar grinned, but a flash of anger creased his lips.

“Ah, there you’re wrong,” said Achabar. “There is always more clergy. Meanwhile, the numbers of citizens who desire a caliphate, who want strict Islamic rule, those numbers grow every day. It is an inevitable tide. The time to have beaten us was in the nineties. Perhaps even a little earlier. But we’re too entrenched now. You missed your window.”

“We’ll beat you. Unlike Iran, unlike every country in the Middle East, Israel is united with its people. Its people
are
the country. Here, you kill your own citizens simply for something they say. No, you can’t survive as long as your rule is based upon the enslavement, the murder, the abuse of your own citizens, which it is.”

Achabar leaned back.

“Well, let’s agree to disagree then, yes,” said Achabar. “Unfortunately, you will not be around to win this debate, I’m afraid. Judge Khasni has made his decision. That is why I’m here.”

Meir stared at Achabar’s brown, snakelike eyes.

“I assume I’ll be able to appeal?” asked Meir as he sat up.

Achabar laughed.

“You have a strange sense of humor,” he said.

*   *   *

At the Supreme Judicial Court, Meir was led to the cage at the front of Khasni’s courtroom.

The room was mostly empty. Paria, Meir noted as he sat in the chair inside the cage, was absent. Behind the prosecution table, a photographer was seated, holding a large camera and snapping photos of the whole proceeding.

Judge Khasni was writing on a pad of paper, and he continued to do so for several minutes.

Meir glanced at the clock: 8:10
P.M.

Finally, Khasni stood up. He picked up a gavel and hammered it gently down on the table.

“Good evening, everyone,” said Khasni. “It’s my duty to reconvene the matter of the Islamic Republic of Iran versus Kohl Meir. Before I begin, I must ask Mr. Achabar, do you have any further exculpatory evidence to present on behalf of your client?”

“No, I do not,” said Achabar, who looked at Meir and grinned.

“Very well,” said Khasni. “Let us begin. With the permission of Allah, I am here this evening to render justice on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran and five of its hardworking citizens, all of whom lost their lives due to the actions of the defendant, Kohl Meir. While one could argue, as the defense has, that the four Iranians killed aboard the
Adeli
lost their lives in battle, in an undeclared war, so to speak, between Iran and Israel, and that the defendant was merely following orders and acting in self-defense of his nation, I found this line of reasoning to be a fallacy. This was an offensive operation conducted in Iranian waters—”

“No, it wasn’t,” said Meir.

“Please, let me finish,” barked Khasni, looking at Meir. “I will not have you once again turn this courtroom into a circus.”

“But you’re wrong,” said Meir calmly. “It was in international waters. At least get your facts straight, dickhead.”

Khasni scrambled for his gavel, found it, then hammered it down on the table several times.

“I told you to be quiet or else—”

“Or else what?” said Meir. “What will you do? Take away my conjugal visit privileges with your wife?”

“
Silence!
”

“Everyone in this courtroom knows what your verdict is,” said Meir. “Even that silly pimp of a photographer knows what the verdict is. Don’t you?”

Meir nodded toward the photographer, a pimply faced young man with greasy hair who glanced nervously around the courtroom, but said nothing.

“Fine!”
yelled Khasni, leaning down and scribbling onto a piece of paper. “In
international
waters! Is that better?”

“Much,” said Meir. “I’ll sleep better now.”

Khasni breathed in deeply, regaining his composure.

“As I was saying, this was an offensive operation conducted by Israel in international waters. The court acknowledges that the defendant himself believes the men to be members of the political party known as Hezbollah, but that, in this judge’s opinion, is an obfuscation designed to cloak the facts of his own murders in the shadowy, rumor-filled world of such affairs. The defendant has failed to demonstrate the victims’ purported membership in this group, and, more to the point, even if there was in fact proof they were members, it still would not change the fact that Kohl Meir murdered these men.”

“Brilliant,” said Meir. “You’ll win a Nobel for this, Khasni.”

Khasni’s nostrils flared and his face began again to redden in anger, but he breathed in deeply and said nothing for several seconds.

The photographer continued to take photographs of Meir.

“In addition, there is the matter of the dead prison guard,” continued Khasni. “If a case could be any more clear-cut, I have not yet seen it in my twenty-two years as a jurist. Without provocation, and by his own admission, as seen by several witnesses, Mr. Meir did cruelly and with malicious intent strangle and kill an innocent prison guard who, according to witnesses, was simply picking up a plastic water bottle from the ground.”

“I broke his neck,” interrupted Meir. “I didn’t strangle him.”

“Thus, it is my duty to render the following verdict,” continued Khasni, ignoring Meir. “In the matter of docket seventeen hundred forty-seven, I find the defendant, Mr. Kohl Meir, guilty in the murders of Siamak Azizi, of Chabahar; Payman Kadivar, of Bukan; Massoud Nouruz, of Kermanshah; and Akbar Tabatabaei, age thirty-three, of Ilam. In addition, I find the defendant guilty for the murder of Akbar Javadi, of Tehran.”

The photographer stood now and moved closer to Meir, continuing to take pictures.

“The penalty for each individual murder is left to the discretion of the judge, but we must follow the rules as set down by Iranian law and judicial precedent,” said Khasni. “After much reflection and contemplation, I do hereby sentence the defendant to death by firing squad. For each murder, this is the sentence. Obviously, due to the nature of the sentences, it would be impossible to administer these penalties consecutively. In other words, there is no way to shoot the defendant five times in a row.”

A small cough emanated from Achabar.

“If you don’t get a raise after this I’m going to kill myself,” said Meir.

Khasni shook his head, but ignored Meir’s remark.

“The date of the firing squad is tomorrow,” said the judge. “As to the location, due to security ramifications, that decision is confidential. The execution of Kohl Meir will take place in a secret location. Thank you all for your hard work and participation.”

“You’re welcome,” said Meir from the cage. “Let’s do it again sometime.”

42

DO
Ğ
UBAYAZIT, TURKEY

Do
ğ
ubayazit was a small, ramshackle town with unpaved roads in the far eastern reaches of Turkey. It was the closest town to the Iranian border, mostly inhabited by Kurds; a rural town in the dusty, often cold high plains, surrounded by hills dotted with small farms and mud huts.

Some people came to Do
ğ
ubayazit in order to see Mount Ararat, about ten miles to the north. For most, the town was a convenient pit stop; travelers on their way to Iran, and truckers needing to get a meal, a night’s sleep at one of the seedy motels. The central town had more than a dozen Internet cafés.

It took Dewey six hours to drive the semi from Erzurum to Do
ğ
ubayazit. He exited the paved Turkey–Iran highway and headed into the town.

Dewey passed through Do
ğ
ubayazit’s central square just after two in the morning, driving slowly and avoiding the few pedestrians still out, even a few dogs and chickens, wandering around the town’s dirt roads oblivious to the cars and trucks driving through on their way to the Iranian border. The few people still up were dressed in traditional Kurdish attire. The town itself looked like something out of the Old West with a smattering of austere, plain-looking concrete buildings.

A few miles from the center of town, Dewey pulled into a dilapidated series of trailers and a lit sign reading
ISFAHAN HOTEL
. Another sign read
INTERNET
. He parked the truck next to a gasoline tanker, then went inside the small concrete building that looked like the entrance.

The lobby was empty except for an elderly man with gray hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He said hello to Dewey in Turkish.

“Internet?” Dewey asked.

“Internet.” He pointed across the lobby to a table with a keyboard and a large, older computer on it.

“Thank you,” said Dewey.

The computer was an old Sony. Dewey went to his e-mail and signed in.

There was one message, from Tacoma. The message had been sent the day before.

Meir guilty

Nothing from Taris, the reporter. He was about to enter Iran, a country bigger than the state of California, with a fake nuclear bomb and absolutely no clue where to go with it.

“Fuck me,” Dewey whispered.

He stood up and went to the bathroom at the back of the lobby, closing the door behind him. The bathroom was squalid. He went to the bathroom, washed his hands, then looked in the mirror. He smiled as he looked at the brown-eyed, dark-skinned man in the hijab staring back at him from the mirror. He didn’t even recognize himself.

He went to the front desk, paid, then went back to the truck.

He walked in front of the semi’s grille, heading for the passenger door. As he rounded the front of the truck, Dewey was surprised to see two men. They were standing in front of the door. Both had black hair, cut short. They wore jeans and T-shirts. Both men were small. There was nothing unusual about them, except that one clenched a long fixed-blade knife in his right hand.

The man without the knife stepped forward, a grin on his face. He said something in Kurdish, which Dewey didn’t understand. Dewey stood still.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Money,” he said in broken English. “Your truck too.”

Dewey nodded. He couldn’t help smiling. Curiosity got the better of him.

“Why do you want the truck?” asked Dewey.

“Gasoline,” the man said.

“Why do you need gasoline?”

“We sell it,” said the Kurd with the knife, smiling conspiratorially.

They were young and small, each about five-five, and thin as beanpoles. He assessed the blade; he held it reasonably well. Part of Dewey wanted to simply walk past the two and go about his business. But sometimes, Dewey knew, desperation created unpredictable and irrational behavior.

“When it rains, it pours,” said Dewey.

“What?” asked one of them.

“Nothing.”

If they were surprised by Dewey’s six-four height and his wide berth, they didn’t show it.

Without taking his eyes off the thief with the knife, Dewey took a step back, then squared off against the pair.

“Walk away,” said Dewey, pointing at the field next to the truck.

The one with the knife smiled and giggled, almost like a cackle.

“Walk away,” he repeated a bit louder.

The other one reached behind his back. He pulled a small handgun out.

Dewey remained still.

“Money and keys,” the Kurd said, a hint of anger now on his dark, stubble-covered face.

“I’ll give you some money,” said Dewey, raising his hands. “I can’t give you the truck.”

“Keys!”
the short thug screamed.

And then he fired the weapon. The crack of the bullet sounded like a firecracker. It was a warning shot; the bullet sailed past Dewey’s head.

“Really simple,” said the one with the knife. “Money and keys.”

Dewey’s eyes moved back and forth between the two thugs.

“Okay,” Dewey said. He reached into his pocket and removed the keys to the truck. Holding them in his right hand, he took a step forward.

The knife-wielding Kurd was to his left, the gunman to his right.

He stepped toward the one with the knife. He held his left hand out toward Dewey. Dewey let the keys drop to the ground. In the moment after they hit the dirt, with both Kurds watching them fall, Dewey grabbed the small man by the left wrist. The thief swung the blade at Dewey. As his arm slashed through the air, Dewey grabbed him at the wrist, ripped his arm hard, then threw him like a rag doll at the gunman, who, in his panic, fired, sending a bullet into the leg of his knife-wielding friend, who screamed. In the same moment, before the gunman could fire again, Dewey reached over and struck the Kurd, lurching at the gunman, thrusting with his fist; all his strength behind the blow, which he aimed at the man’s neck. It was a ferocious blow and Dewey knew immediately that he’d broken the young man’s trachea.