Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Lakshmi Dhawan and Jack Berglund had arrived in Tehran a week earlier. Through Dr. Tarek al Khatib they had established email contact with a merchant by the name of Ali, whose last name was unknown. Despite the dose of secrecy bordering on the paranoia surrounding the activities in the Iranian capital, the man had provided them with a cell phone number, and they had arranged to visit him discreetly in the store that Ali had in the Bazaar of the city.
The bazaar has been much more than a shopping and supply center in all of Persia's history. It is a center of political, economic and social activity in each city in which it is located, with great financial power. It also has a prominent role in religious and social life and a containment fence against modernist tendencies that were struggling to change certain aspects of Persian life.