Oath of Office

Ysabel gave a sheepish grin. “Nima’s mobile phone is broken. She hadn’t talk to her mother in months.”

Jack took a couple of deep breaths, working to keep his voice calm. “Did she already make the call?”

Ysabel nodded. “She was talking when I woke up.”

Jack had to concentrate to keep his voice at a whisper. “How did she—”

“She must have taken it from the briefcase while we were asleep,” Ysabel said. “I checked the call log. It looks like she spoke for less than three minutes. She assured me she never mentioned us or said where she was.”

Nima glanced up from the kettle. “I will pay for the call,” she said. “I didn’t think anyone would mind.”

“No worries,” Ryan said, though he had plenty. He changed the subject. “Did you sleep well?”

Dovzhenko was already tying on his boots. “Nima,” he said. “You must leave at once.”

She waved off the thought. “I have many appointments today,” she said. “The call was only for a moment. I doubt even the Sepah-e Pasdaran are that all-seeing.”

“Still,” Ysabel said. “Erik is right. You should not take that chance.”

“You all worry far too much,” Nima said. “I will be fine. I promise.”

Ysabel turned to Jack. “You should let me look at that ear before we go.”

“Later,” Ryan said, turning to head for the bathroom. “We need to go. Now.”

* * *

Dovzhenko turned on the radio, filling the cab with techno-guitar music. Ysabel, who’d taken shotgun again, turned sideways to glare at him. He reached to turn it off, but not before a deep Persian voice came over the air, sounding somber and somewhat nasal, like a muezzin’s call to prayer.

Ryan couldn’t understand what was being said, but Ysabel sat up straighter. Dovzhenko shot her a glance, getting the gist of it. And then the traffic began to slow.

“What?” Ryan asked, leaning forward to rest on the seat.

Ysabel held up an open hand to shush him.

The speaker droned on for another fifteen seconds, and then the station returned to Persian pop.

“There are protests ahead,” Ysabel said. “We will have to go around.”

“Where ahead?” Ryan asked.

“Hard to know,” Dovzhenko said. “It is difficult for protesters to communicate with phones and social media dampened by authorities. This announcer was helping, telling people where to show up, but he was interrupted in the middle of his report. Somewhere to the west of the city. That is not enough to know.”

“The hospital is west of the city,” Ryan said.

Ysabel tuned the radio past more music stations until she found another news program.

“Here,” she said. She translated as she listened.

“This is a government radio station so the announcer is urging everyone to stay away. He assures law-abiding citizens that the authorities will be on hand to quell any violence on the part of the protesters.”

“Or bring their own violence,” Dovzhenko said.

Traffic was at a virtual standstill now.

Ryan had seen video of recent demonstrations. Tehran, Isfahan, Qom — all across Iran. With three million people, Mashhad had enough youth to pack the streets — and they often did.

The Hilux inched along, covering less than a mile in the next twenty minutes. Impatient drivers changed into and out of the lane ahead each time there was an opening. So far, there had been no place to turn off that was not also jammed.

They didn’t see the policeman until they’d crested a small hill. By then, it was too late.

A young, clean-shaven man, he was dressed in the black knee boots of a motorcycle officer. His bike, a Chinese BMW knockoff, was parked on the shoulder of the roadway. Another motor officer worked the second lane, each of them scanning the interior of each vehicle, pointing, giving directions to avoid the protests ahead.

“The guns?” Dovzhenko asked without turning around.

“They’re covered,” Ryan said. “It’s going to be tough to explain my ear.”

“You don’t speak Farsi,” Ysabel said. “Your ear is the least of our worries.”

The officer gave a friendly but official wave as he approached the driver’s-side window.

“Okay,” Dovzhenko said. “I will do the talking.” He rolled the window down, giving Ryan a blast of sulfur fumes from the dirty gasoline manufactured in Iran.

The officer leaned down to look in the window, at which point Dovzhenko showed him a credential case and barked something to him in accented Persian. He was polite but curt, as if he wanted the officer to clear away the traffic for him.

The officer took the leather case and perused it for a moment before handing it back. He whistled to his partner, shouting something Ryan couldn’t quite hear, let alone understand, before pointing to the shoulder of the road in front of the two bikes.

Ryan’s stomach fell when he thought they were ordering the truck to pull over. But the officer held traffic long enough for Dovzhenko to inch over and speed along to the next exit, where he passed under the highway, to loop well south of downtown.

“What was that all about?” Ryan asked.

Dovzhenko released a long-captive sigh. “I showed him my embassy credentials and asked where the counterprotest was.”

“Counterprotest?”