Barry Eisler: Fault line

He didn't want to talk to her right then, didn't want to have to explain. He hadn't invited her to the meeting. She was too outspoken at times, and while he respected her gumption in private, he didn't trust her to know her place in front of a roomful of VCs. Hilzoy was his show, and he didn't want anyone else in the limelight.

Anyway, even if Sarah were as prim and proper as a first-year should be, she was still bound to be a distraction. Everyone would get one look at her lustrous black hair, caramel skin, and ripe lips and wonder why Alex had brought her to the meeting. Were they involved? Was he hoping for something?

Well, yeah, of course he was hoping for something. And it wasn't just that she was gorgeous. Part of what made him crazy was that she did nothing to flaunt it. She used hardly any makeup, kept her hair tied back, and favored skirts hemmed below the knee. But Alex saw her several evenings a week in the firm's gym, where she typically wore some kind of yoga outfit, and her body was so lusciously long and curvy that Alex had to look away for fear his own body would betray his thoughts. Sometimes, late at night, in the bedroom of the house he had inherited from his parents and lived in still, he would close his eyes and take himself in hand and imagine himself with her, imagine what he wanted her to do, how she would do it, and even more than her beauty it was the existence of those fantasies, and the way their presence in his mind would linger into the next day, that made him awkward with her, made him err in the direction of feigned disinterest and even disdain lest she suspect his secret.

But she didn't seem the least bit interested. And even if she were, what would people say if a senior associate, someone who God willing would be up for partner soon, were dating a first-year ten years his junior? And what would happen if he made partner? What would he do then? A partner couldn't be involved with an associate, at least not publicly. There were trysts at Sullivan, Greenwald, of course, enough to keep the rumor mill spinning full-time, but those people were already partners, they could afford to be known as pigs. Maybe when Alex had made it to the top of the heap he'd hit on hot associates, too, maybe even summer associates, for Christ's sake, but not now. He didn't need complications like that. He had to stay focused.

“Alex,” she said, a little surprise in her voice. “Where's Hilzoy? I thought you would have-”

“He's not here. I… I don't think he's coming.”

“What about the meeting?”

She seemed genuinely concerned, not at all resentful that he'd excluded her. He felt a pang of gratitude, and of guilt. He wanted to say something, something real, but…

“Alex?” she said.

He looked at her and wondered whether he'd been blushing. He was about to excuse himself, but realized that would seem weird. Maybe he should just bring her up to speed on Hilzoy.

“Can you help me kill twelve minutes?” he said.

They went back to his office and closed the door. He told her what had happened, how Alisa was at Hilzoy's apartment now.

“Oh my God,” she said. “You think he's, you think-”

“I don't know what to think. But I have a bad feeling.”

His words surprised him. He never talked about his feelings-or anything else the least bit private-with anyone in the office, and especially not with Sarah. Well, he was under stress right now. This thing with Hilzoy- Oh no. Oh please God no -it was just bringing up some bad memories, that was all.

They talked more. Something about Sarah, some wellspring of empathy in her brown eyes, made him feel better. There was something so… comforting, when someone could look at you like that, when someone made you feel she understood you completely and was completely on your side. He sensed she would know what it was like to stare for hours at the swinging waiting room doors, desperate for news and at the same time terrified of what the news might be.

He cleared his throat and glanced at his watch. The meeting started in five minutes. Hilzoy could show right now and it would still be too late.

But Hilzoy wasn't going to show. Not today, not ever. Alex could feel it, a sad, sickening weight in the pit of his stomach. He knew the feeling. He remembered it.

“I better call the VCs,” he said.

Ben sheltered from the rain under one of the elegant porticos of the Blue Mosque, surrounded by scores of chattering tourists and keeping an oblique eye on the mosque's exit, fifty feet away. The Iranians had gone in ten minutes earlier, having walked from the hotel exactly as Ben had hoped. He knew from his earlier reconnaissance of the area that there was only one exit, so he hadn't followed them in.

The people around him conferred over their guidebooks in a dozen languages and snapped nonstop photos of the soaring minarets and massive semidomes and rows of ablution spigots. Ben kept his hat pulled low and the jacket zippered over his chin, his breath fogging before him. This wasn't an ideal place to do the job-it was too open, there were too many potential witnesses, it was too close to where he had been staying-but if an opportunity presented itself, he would take it, and he didn't want to be recognizable afterward in some idiot tourist's photos.

During their stroll from the hotel to the mosque, the scientists had showed no sign of security awareness. The VAVAK guys, though, were reasonably sharp. They had stayed one ahead and one behind the scientists, never letting the gap between their positions close to below twenty-five feet. Dropping one at point-blank range would mean having to engage the other from a distance, and possibly allowing the scientists to escape in the meantime. Going after the scientists first would mean giving the VAVAK guys an extra second to get their shit together and then an opportunity to engage from two different directions. The ideal was to drop all four almost instantly and walk away clean, and the VAVAK guys were naturally trying to make something like that as difficult as possible.

In addition to their tactical positioning, the VAVAK guys were also obviously surveillance conscious, but here they were operating at a disadvantage. Ben was pretty sure he knew their likely destinations-the major attractions of Sultanahmet and Seraglio Point-and their likely routes, so he could afford to lose visual contact from time to time. Also, the area was crowded with tourists, many of whom would be walking from one spot to the next in the same sequence the Iranians were following. Under the circumstances, multiple sightings of the same person wouldn't mean much. Toughest of all, about half the hundreds of people in the area were hunkering under black umbrellas and keeping their heads down against the chill and the rain, as Ben was, which made it hell to pick out individuals.

But Ben was operating under one significant disadvantage: he was alone, while the people he was using for concealment were mostly in pairs and groups. So from time to time he made sure to consult his own guidebook with studied fascination, to jot down some notes about the mosque's six minarets and turreted corner domes and special entrance for the sultan, to shoot a few photos, and to otherwise blend as much as he could with the tourists around him.

When the Iranians emerged, one of the scientists and one of the VAVAK guys headed down the steps and turned left while the other two remained under the portico. Ben instantly understood why they were splitting up: the scientist had to hit the head. He knew the restroom they were going to use, too, and it would have been ideal: small, secluded, at the bottom of a flight of stairs at the corner of the mosque grounds. But if something went wrong, he might come out of this with only half the job done, maybe less. No, better to wait for the right moment when he could catch them all closer together.