“And that is all? That is all you want?

“That’s all I want.”

He could see she was puzzled but relieved. She had no doubt been asked many things, and her supervisor prohibited all of them, but this one she had not been asked. This one, he could see in her eyes, intrigued her. He had happened on a girl with imagination. He saw her hand was no longer on the supplies, and she had moved a little to the left of the case.

“There is a way,” she said. “I will come for you, but you must leave this door open. I cannot knock, or she may hear.”

He remembered the knock—it was loud. But the door unlocked? He didn’t like that either.

“A slip of paper?” He said it without moving. He had a sense that if he did she might change her mind.

She looked over at the hotel pad, skinny, only a few pages. She took a step and scooped it into a pocket of her long apron.

“Slide it under the door. I’ll watch, right here,” he said, slowly pulling the chair out from the desk that segued into a credenza.

“It won’t be too long.”

“Good.”

“You must give me the things for the other room now.”

He suppressed a smile. She had entered into the plot with complete fidelity. He would hold a special place in his memories for this girl.

“There’s a sports jacket in the closet,” he said. She turned and guided the warped door to the left. The transistor was in its breast pocket. Whoever had planted the transistor in that driver’s mouth, whoever had followed its progress as he’d carried it with him from Dubai to Ahwaz, whoever intended to trap him, to harm him, to find him—they would find the transistor in a room Hoseyn was not inside. “Take that to the room on my right. If you don’t mind, it would be better if you didn’t look in the pockets. Can you promise me you won’t do that?”

“Yes,” she said, but he couldn’t tell if she would obey. She would at least know that she was to leave the transistor there. And what girl would fish a pocket for a transistor wafer? What would she want with taking it?

“It’s nothing of importance. It’s not money,” he said, turning to his wallet and taking out new bills. “I know this is risky for you, and I know, if something happens that we don’t expect, they’ll look for this on you. So I’m going to put it here,” he said, walking slowly to the curtain, lifting the ragged hem of it, and pushing the currency into the space between the lining and the heavier fabric. “It’ll be here for you, later.”

She smiled, a shy look, but he could tell she was pleased.