What blew Mark away was that he was involved in importing stuff into one of the crankiest and most uptight nations on Earth, and it was perfectly legit. Well, except for the vials of powder tucked away in his lurid green fanny-pack. They’d be good for a short gig between a wall and a bunch of automatic weapons if he got caught with them.

Hank, Jr. wound down. Otto took the CD out, put it in its plastic box, stuck it back in the rack built into the padded cream-toned dash. He took out another. Mark craned to see the cover. Lyle Lovett: Pontiac.

Another collection of adobe houses and bad stucco public boxes ghosted past outside. If anybody was up late, they weren’t showing any lights. In 1991 Iran, it paid not to be seen.

If anybody in the village pointed guns at the semi, Mark didn’t see.

Coming into Ruhollah Khomeini Airport in Tehran, you queued up for your official Customs boys in their trim mustaches and tan uniforms. Beyond them Pasdaran prowled in pairs and packs, wearing those turtleneck sweaters they love so much and carrying assault rifles. They were not official, but one way or another you had to get past them.

Jacobo Burckhardt Bustamante stood in line for Customs, smiling serenely beneath the impressive sweep of his seal-colored mustache. He was a trim man somewhere in middle age, with graying hair cropped close to his head. He wore a dark silk suit and darker shades. He had a London Fog trench coat on one arm and his mistress Elena on the other. With her fine features, light-brown hair, and long legs you knew she had to have a lot of Italian or German in her, as many Argentineans do. She wore an indigo dress with the bodice cut high by European standards, just showing the first hint of cleavage – enough to titillate, but not enough to enrage, puritanical zealots with guns. The short silver-fox jacket she wore against the spring chill up here on the Iranian Plateau, beneath the lofty Elburz Mountains, set off her color to excellent advantage.

Seсor Burckhardt’s goons, standing right behind him and the beauteous Seсorita Elena, shifting their weight and glaring suspiciously at the rag-heads in line with them, were dressed like goons. They might have come from anywhere in the West; in fact the dark, intense one could well have passed for Iranian. His partner was blond, but there are plenty of blonds in Argentina.

The blond one, who was the bulkier of the two, let his eyes slide toward a pair of Revolutionary Guardsmen who stood watching the Customs men open bags on a long table. They earned old-model M-16s slung.

“‘Look, Ma, I just stepped in some Shi’ite,’” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Shut the fuck up, Gary,” the dark one whispered back. “These boys twig to who we are, they’re definitely gonna want to luck you some before they stick the alligator clips on your balls and the tip of your click and plug in the transformer from the Ayatollah’s old Lionel train set.”

“I don’t like this,” the lovely Elena said. She gave her escort a look before clutching his arm tighter.

Seсor Burckhardt grinned back over his shoulder. “Iran is like what the Book of Common Prayer says about marriage: ‘It is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God.’”

“You betcha,” the dark goon said.

Their turn came. Burckhardt passed their papers to a plump man in Customs uniform, who glanced at them, pivoted, and passed them on to a lean, dark man in a buttoned trench coat and snap-brim hat who stood behind him.

Snap-brim stepped forward. “Seсor Burckhardt?”

Elena and the goons tensed. Burckhardt said, “Sн,” quite calmly.

“Of the FMA?” He spoke English.

“Yes. Fбbrica Militar de Aviones. Of Argentina, as you can see.”

The Iranian nodded. “Please come with me.”

Burckhardt cocked his arm. Elena hesitated. Her face was very pale. She threaded her arm through his, and they followed the man in the snap-brim hat. The goons walked behind them like kids on their way to school.

Snap-brim led them through a side door. Instead of to an interrogation chamber with tile walls and a drain in the floor, though, it led to a corridor, and then out into the Tehran night.

A gray stretch Mercedes limo was waiting for them. Snap-brim saw them inside; the goons seated facing back, Burckhardt and his mistress facing forward. Then he slid in next to the driver and signaled for him to move on.

“I am Ghodratollah,” he said. “Welcome to Tehran.”

“It’s always a pleasure,” Burckhardt said.

They drove too fast through streets that seemed too dark for a major world capital. Sometimes they came to barricades manned by shadowy figures with guns. They always drove through, without slowing and without being challenged.

Ghodratollah and Burckhardt conversed between the two goons, chaffing about an airplane FMA built. It was called the Pucarб, a light two-engine prop job designed primarily for a light counterinsurgency role. Evidently the Islamic Republic was enjoying the odd light insurgency, though Mr. Ghodratollah did not come out and say so. Both men knew a great deal about the Pucarб.

Eventually Elena and the goons relaxed.

The Mercedes pulled into the circular drive of a building shaped like a giant ring-cake section strung with Christmas lights and stopped. Ghodratollah stayed put while the driver got out and scurried back to open Burckhardt’s door.

“Your baggage is in your rooms already. Please enjoy your stay.”

“I always do.”

Helene Mistral Carlysle, also known as Helen or – currently – Elena, stood looking in wonder out over the sunken dining room. It was huge, and it was packed. A cut-glass chandelier blazed overhead like frozen fireworks.

She had changed to a long midnight-blue gown by a trendy Barcelona designer, a joker called Jordi. She wore a heavy choker of short silver bars. Her wrists were crossed at the small of her back.

Indecently dapper in evening dress, J. Robert Belew stepped up behind her and circled her wrists with his strong brown fingers. She colored. A beat, and then she stepped forward and pulled away.

“Don’t start taking your role too seriously,” she said. He laughed.

A maоtre d’ in Western tux and oil-slick hair materialized and escorted them to a table. The two goons, still wearing the cheap suits they’d arrived in, followed.

“So why do we have to masquerade as cheap muscle?” Lynn Saxon asked as he took his seat.

“Because you won’t pass for expensive muscle. Look around, son; what do you see?”

“Lot of fat rag-heads eating with their fingers.”

“And guarding them?”

“Arab dudes in suits, with necks larger than their heads and bulges under their arms,” Gary Hamilton put in hurriedly. He was feeling left out.

Belew nodded. “Indeed. Those are Husseinis. What they really are is soldiers of Jordan’s Arab Legion, probably the toughest outfit in the Arab world. They’re called Husseinis because everybody in Jordan is named Hussein. Jordanians let their services out as bodyguards. Every rag-head who’s anybody has them. I’m a paltry foreign infidel, so I have to make do with you.”

“I notice you got seated quick enough,” Hamilton said.

“Seсor Burckhardt is a well-connected infidel.”

“What’s all this FMA crap, anyway?” Saxon asked. “What does an Argie plane salesman want in Tehran?”

“Argentina’s air force, as most people don’t know, is trained by the Israelis. That’s why they did as well as they did against the Brits in ’82, when most of the Argentinean armed forces were a complete washout. Israel also happens to be one of Iran’s number-one suppliers of military matйriel and know-how. They can’t exactly do it openly, though. Argentinean military-industrial types are natural go-betweens.”