Escape to Turkey

I’d found a smuggler named Agha-Nouri, a soft-spoken man, tall, with white skin, who wore thick glasses, and was almost bald. He had a good reputation among his kind. The deal we struck was worth US$15,000, money I had acquired from selling my car and borrowing from a friend. For that fee, Shahram would be escorted overland to Turkey. There would be three payments of five thousand dollars each, one just prior to departure, the second to be split among the guides taking Shahram over the border, and a third payment once Shahram had crossed safely into Turkey. At that point, he would phone me. Of course, Shahram and I would have our code language to confirm that he had actually arrived safely, and where exactly he was.

A few days after first contacting Nouri, I met him at his stationery shop. This time, he was accompanied by another smuggler, a Turkish Kurd named Bigler. Bigler was tall, heavy-set, olive skinned, with a thick black moustache. He...