“Unbelievable,” Crocker said.
“Maybe we should tell the driver to turn this thing around and beat it out of here,” Akil suggested.
“That’s not gonna happen,” Crocker said, examining the map he had picked up at the airport. On it he found a small ad for the Hotel Casablanca, which was part of something called the Parana Country Club.
They continued ten more minutes to a gate, where a guard wrote down their names and passport numbers, and gave them directions to the hotel, which was past another golf course.
“We should have brought our clubs,” Crocker joked.
Neither of the big men played golf.
They walked through the open front door and found no one at the desk. A man with short dreadlocks and a Real Madrid soccer jersey sauntered over sipping a can of coconut water, offered his hand, and said, “My name’s David. Call me DZ.”
“Tom Mansfield and Jerid Salam.”
“Cool, man. Follow me.”
The room was clean and large, with a magnificent view of the Guaraní River. Crocker and Akil were more or less the same size, six feet two and 210 pounds, so Crocker lent him some underwear, a pair of black chinos, and a black T-shirt, which Akil said looked a hell of a lot better on him.
A half hour later the three men were in town, sitting at an outdoor café across from something called the Jebai Shopping Center. It could have been lifted out of Beirut, Cairo, or any other Middle Eastern city. Stands sold hummus, shawarma, and roasted lamb; Lebanese flags hung everywhere. Pasted over walls and windows were slogans from the Koran: “The curse of God on the infidels!” “Take not Christians or Jews as friends.” “Fight for the cause of God!”
They drank coffee, then Crocker and Akil followed DZ into a store with high aluminum shelves packed with bottles of J&B, Johnnie Walker, Marlboros, portable CD players, and cell phones. Watching them through a cracked glass partition was a guard cradling a pump-action Mitchell Escalade 12-gauge shotgun.
Two Middle Eastern–looking men sat behind a high counter. One read a newspaper and puffed on a hookah. The other measured bags of pistachios on a scale.
“I’m looking for Hamid,” DZ said in Spanish.
The man operating the scale pushed a buzzer that unlocked a door to a stairway and held up three fingers. At the third-floor landing they entered a door covered with Arabic script. An old man with a jeweler’s loupe on his eyeglasses looked up.
DZ pointed to Crocker and said, “My friend here wants to buy a bracelet for his wife. I was hoping that Hamid could help us.”
The jeweler pushed a button, spoke into an intercom on the wall beside his desk, and nodded at four dirty black leather chairs, indicating that they should take a seat. Two minutes later a short, skinny young man bounced out of the back room in a ball of energy. He looked liked a grown-up kid, with yellow streaks in black hair worn in a pompadour, tight black jeans, and a tight blue shirt with skull and crossbones printed on it.
“Hamid, this is my friend Tom Mansfield,” DZ said. “He’s looking for a bracelet for his wife. I told him you could hook him up at a reasonable price.”
Hamid pointed to the room behind him. “Step inside, Mr. Mansfield. I think I can help you.”
It was small, with a high ceiling and a large frosted window along one wall. At the back sat an old wooden desk. On either side of it were tall cabinets with rows of little drawers.
“What did you have in mind?” Hamid asked, meeting Crocker’s eyes.
“I’m not sure.”
“They’re the ones who are looking for a Learjet that landed yesterday from Caracas,” DZ explained.
“Which side of the border?” Hamid asked, rubbing his sharp chin.
Crocker: “We don’t know.”
“Walk around and meet me at the Pietro Santo for lunch at one o’clock,” Hamid said. “DZ knows where it is.”
“Thanks.”
Once they were outside, DZ whispered in Crocker’s ear, “Hamid works for Israeli intelligence.” Crocker had worked with Mossad in the past, and had found it overrated.
The restaurant was appropriately dark and foreboding. Glass-covered red-checked tablecloths, an old map of the boot of Italy on one wall, faded frescoes of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Michelangelo’s David, and Mount Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples decorating the others. They sat eating breadsticks and kalamata olives, and talking sports. Crocker thought finding the Iranians in a place like this would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But when Hamid arrived twenty minutes late, he said he had a lead. Two men who had arrived last night from Venezuela had met up with two other men. The four of them were staying in a guesthouse behind a Shiite mosque and religious center called Ali Hassam. The Learjet they had arrived in had left early in the morning and returned to Venezuela. He didn’t know whether it was carrying cargo or passengers.