Night in Tehran

by Kaplan, Philip

  They walked away from the scene of devastation now, passing small children still playing ball on the sand, scavenging, seemingly impervious to the violence. She stopped briefly to chat with them, in French, in Arabic, and suddenly she revived.

  A stout Belgian was dozing on a ratty blanket in his Speedo swimsuit, a cooler with a Stella Artois by his side. A Lebanese boy with dark curly hair stole up to the blanket, nipped his shoulder bag, and ran off.

  “Pierre called,” she suddenly told him, as though the sight of the boy reminded her of the Lebanese lawyer who had arranged Weiseman’s kidnapping in Tehran. “I gave him hell for the way they treated you. This time you’ll see the Sheikh.”

  I’m stuck. Her words echoed in his head, and the image of Gramont at the stained glass windows returned. And am I stuck, too? he wondered. The two of us hostage to our masters.

  Alone with her on this beach, he realized he wanted her now, more than more answers. Later, there would be time to speak of where she fit into Laurent Gramont’s plans, and who was betraying whom.

  * * *

  —

  SHE STEERED THE black sports car north along Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast, past the mountain forts left by the Romans, and the ruins of ancient wars. Arafat had been holed up farther along the road, she told him, just shy of the Israeli and Syrian borders, until Hafez Assad’s assassins came for the itinerant Palestinian leader, and he barely escaped to Tunisia.

  “Over there,” she continued with the same precision he had noticed in her tutoring of him on Iran before he flew to Tehran. But now he was focused less on her incisive history lessons than on how her golden hair blew free in the breeze.

  Shortly after the car entered Byblos, she turned into a palm-shaded driveway of a private cottage with an orange gabled roof.

  She took him around her compact hideaway, filled with books and impressionist-style paintings she had done of the Mediterranean landscape, aquarelles she had painted of the Côte d’Azur, and sketches of Iran and Iraq and the Lebanese coast. The cottage, she told him, is where she came to recuperate after her ordeals in Paris with Laurent Gramont.

  “Remarkable,” he said. “Your two lives, in Europe and the Middle East.”

  From a balcony off the room, he could watch the vast Mediterranean, stretching out as far as the eye could see. It was strange—such an idyllic scene, scant miles from the rocket attack. She stepped out next to him, and he suddenly turned, pulled her close. They kissed, and afterward she took his hand and led him back inside.

  Later, they strolled hand-in-hand through the old city, by tourist sites they barely noticed. She led him to the sandy beach, and they sat under a big beach umbrella with the colors of the French and American flags.

  As the sun began to fade in the darkening azure sky, she sighed and finally broke the languorous silence. “It’s done,” she said. “Alain spoke to Gramont, and Laurent surprised me by going along.”

  “Meaning what,” he asked, abruptly alert again to things he hadn’t been thinking about.

  “Meaning, Khomeini returns. Alain said Gramont got it approved by the Élysée. It’s a fait accompli. But then, we do what’s necessary to squeeze the Islamists, to contain the revolution.”

  “Françoise, it’s a con. You know Gramont. Once Khomeini is back, the ayatollahs will take over, they’ll be in control. They won’t need Paris, except for Jacques’s weapons…on credit.”

  “David. Alain is on our side. He told me it’s too late to find a successor to the Shah, that we need a placeholder who can be removed when we find a permanent successor.”

  “I see,” he said. So Gramont had won this battle. But not yet the war. And if this now enabled them to join forces, to tighten the grip on the ayatollahs with the help of de Rose’s operatives, well, why not.

  Her eyes willed him not to betray her. There was not a word of Ankara, perhaps because, as Weiseman now suspected, Trevor may have shared that with Gramont. Weiseman had suspected for a long time that the two of them had been plotting together, sharing ideas without telling him. He had seen enough powerful men to recognize that power and amorality were dubious companions.

  But then it was as if there was nothing more to say; everything was on the table now. They walked slowly back to the cottage, then more quickly to the bedroom, ignoring the ringing of the phone call they knew must be from Trevor or Gramont.

  16

  THE SHEIKH

  BACK IN TEHRAN, the rendezvous with Sheikh Khalaji was postponed three times. Finally, on Saturday night, Pierre Jubril picked up Weiseman in his red Ferrari. In Byblos, Françoise had described the lawyer as a champagne radical whose leftist politics reserved space for a high lifestyle.

  Jubril steered carefully along the length of Tehran’s Pahlavi Boulevard, past the dim café where Madame Zed performed her card tricks, past the gloomy American embassy where Lyman Palmer had directed that barriers be installed, apparently awaiting the imminent arrival of the ayatollahs.

  Finally, a seedy sector of nightclubs and discos came into view. Weiseman thought, This is where I’m to meet the Sheikh? Perhaps the idea was to throw off Hanif and his henchmen.

  Jubril slowed and parked the car, camouflaged under a tree with wide branches at the foot of a hill a few blocks away from the clubs. “We’ll walk,” he mumbled, then tossed a coin to a sallow teenager who took up his post as car watcher under the shadow of Mount Damavand.

  They hiked up the windy hill. Weiseman had no idea where they were. Every time he met up with the Islamists, he noted, it was in a dark, isolated place. It gave him a queasy feeling.

  They arrived outside a Catholic church with a gold cross dominating a spectacular green dome and a slim spire that stretched up through the starry night toward the heavens. Jubril led Weiseman up the steps to the front door, where a huge, muscular man with a trim mustache stood under the doorway’s arch, his skin tanned by the sun, illuminated by the moon.

  It was Guido Montana, just as in the photo Trevor had wired him. Jubril left Weiseman and went to speak to him. A half dozen men Weiseman hadn’t noticed previously, suddenly gathered at the base of the steps, conferred together briefly, then dispersed, disappearing from sight around the perimeter. Weiseman was getting bad vibes and he didn’t trust Jubril. He considered leaving, but how? He was surrounded. What’s more, he needed to see the Sheikh; he’d been working toward this meeting for months.

  Suddenly, Jubril was back. “The meeting’s in a different place,” he said.

  Montana led them down the stairs and across the square. Weiseman watched him, and Jubril, warily. They passed a swath of strip clubs with erotic names rendered in French. Young women dressed in short skirts and tank tops moved seductively in storefronts, inviting the bearded men watching them inside. When Montana approached, the men backed off quickly. He led Jubril and Weiseman down a narrow alley, into a club. Au Lapin Agile.

  It was a boîte, a place for drinking and dancing. Fluorescent lights blinked, illuminating posters that imitated paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec. One close to the entrance depicted a naked blonde with one leg propped on the edge of a table to paint her toenails blood red. An admirer, possibly a client, looked on.

  Weiseman made his way past a muscular guy in a tight yellow T-shirt bumping and grinding with a woman on the dance floor. Once they reached the far side of the dance floor, Montana said, “Wait here,” and disappeared into a back room. An orange sign read: CABARET DES ASSASSINS.

  “What the hell is this?” Weiseman demanded of Jubril, jutting his chin at the sign.

  “Don’t worry,” Jubril said, puffing furiously on his cigarette. Beads of sweat ran down his face. “It’s the former name of this joint.”

  The door opened. Weiseman could see a half dozen men in a smoky room, crowded around a table. “This way,” Montana said, gesturing toward the room.

  “No.” Weiseman decided it was his turn to change plans. “We meet in the square,” he insisted. “There are tables out there where we can talk.
The Sheikh and me. Alone.”

  The big man got into his face, silent and imposing, towering four inches over him.

  Weiseman stood his ground. He saw Montana’s big hand grip the dagger in his belt.

  “That will do, Hamid,” an eerie, high-pitched voice suddenly said. Its owner wore a shiny, gray, double-breasted suit and a white, open-collared shirt with green enamel cuff links.

  “I think Mr. Weiseman and I will take some air,” said Khalaji.

  He linked arms with Weiseman and they walked slowly to the outdoor terrace, where they sat at a table. Weiseman studied him—a beak-like nose, gray eyes under rimless dark glasses, fleshy lips. The Sheikh rested two arthritic hands on his lap, gnarled into fists that gripped onto green and white worry beads. “I believe you wanted to see me,” he said in his reedy voice.

  Set the rules of engagement at the start, Weiseman thought.

  “My government has no official contacts with your…representatives.”

  “Of course, Mr. Weiseman. America stands with the Shah. But soon the Shah will be gone, and with him your good friend Hosein Hanif.”

  Khalaji looked up into the starry sky, as if asking, is there some reason you wanted to meet with me. His thumbs set the glass beads in motion, round and round, headed nowhere.

  “Do you have a message? From your president?”

  “I have no such message.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “To open up a channel, to explore our respective concerns.”

  It added up to just about nothing, but in a strange way it was all Weiseman could say. He was there to open a line of communication in case the Islamists seized power despite his best efforts. He knew that, even with this limited effort, he had exceeded his authority, and he did not expect to get anywhere with this man. Diplomacy often worked this way. You make all the preparations, take risks, political and physical, and then what? Nothing. It was an exercise in constructive ambiguity, passing smoke signals across a chasm of distrust. But it usually was better than war.

  He had to wait almost a minute for an answer. “Ours are a pious people,” the Sheikh finally said, his large hands gesticulating now. “Violence is an unfortunate part of life. To us, tradition matters most, and justice under the laws of Islam.” A brittle cough interrupted his homily. “America has a religious tradition. Your president is said to be a religious man. The Ayatollah, bless him in heaven, does not desire violence against anyone.”

  “The Shah—”

  “The Shah is a dead man,” the Sheikh said softly, but with certainty, as if he had been briefed by the Shah’s doctor. “He has cancer. He’ll be gone by his sixtieth birthday. Perhaps sooner.”

  Weiseman said, “Perhaps Allah himself has decided to make a peaceful change in Iran.”

  A waiter came by. One glance from the Sheikh sent him scurrying away.

  “Please, Mr. Weiseman. We are not politicians. We are men of God. We desire America’s support in removing Pahlavi, Hanif, their entire corrupt entourage.”

  “And why would we do that, Sheikh Khalaji?”

  The Sheikh sipped his tea. He grasped the paper napkin in his twisted fingers and dabbed at his lips. Under the streetlights, his eyes seemed opaque.

  It was only then that Weiseman realized: The Sheikh was blind.

  “Because,” the Sheikh said, and pushed himself up from his chair, casting those sightless eyes upon Weiseman “because God is on our side. We will prevail and you will lose your voice in Iran, the way you lost in China and Cuba and Vietnam.”

  As the Sheikh stood, Montana, standing back by the pub, took the cue that the meeting was over and began striding toward them, with Jubril just behind him.

  “One more thing,” Weiseman said, and the Sheikh raised his right hand. The others stopped, some fifty feet away.

  He needed something from this meeting, for Trevor, to keep the channel open.

  “The United States is concerned about human rights—political freedom and religious tolerance. Would a new regime in Iran share our concerns?”

  The Sheikh’s face became a quizzical frown, jaundiced in the overhead lights. “That is an American question,” he finally said. “We will rule according to the Koran, glory be to God.”

  “And the Ayatollah Khomeini?” Weiseman said.

  The beads jiggled. “What is your question?”

  “Our countries have worked to keep peace in your region. That could continue, or—”

  The lights from the square seemed to capture the Sheikh in an eerie glow as he curtly signaled for Montana to come get him. “It is the will of Allah, all praise be to Him,” he said, then slipped off with his escort, now seeming an insignificant man in a cheap Western suit.

  From the distance, an accordion played what struck Weiseman as a totally incongruous “La Vie en Rose,” as he watched the Sheikh disappear into the crowd in the square, his cane tap-tapping across the paving blocks. It was like the final scene of a movie.

  Jubril came close to him and whispered, “What did he say?”

  “That God was on his side,” Weiseman muttered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  17

  RAMADAN

  THE DIRTY PONTIAC WAS STIFLING. The usually voluble Shapour was silent, almost sullen. When they passed a poster of the Shah and Empress hanging on a gray building, he sliced his index finger across his throat.

  Much had changed in the last weeks, even days.

  The lobby of the Intercontinental, previously thronged with businessmen in slick haircuts and cuff-linked shirts and silk neckties, now held clusters of bearded clerics in round black turbans. Women sat in separate clusters, wearing chadors instead of the designer fashions of just days before. People spoke in whispers, a hand covering every mouth. The hotel restaurant, which once served rather good European cuisine, was now a cafeteria where all offerings were halal—properly slaughtered and prepared, permissible for the faithful to eat.

  A husky young man passed by in a black suit with an open-collared black shirt and Ray-Ban sunglasses. “I’m Jafar,” he whispered. “Trita’s brother. Let me know when and where,” and then he was gone.

  It took Weiseman a moment to recall how Seyyed had asked him to help his acolyte Trita’s brother, whose name was Jafar. Weiseman had agreed because of the important role in the transition he envisioned for Seyyed, but he sensed the small favor was about to become something more complicated.

  He turned toward the elevator and there was Daud, with the usual manila envelope, telling him it was from the palace and urgent.

  In his room, the minibar had been stripped of alcoholic beverages. On the walls, the Ayatollah Khomeini had replaced the Shah. He opened the window and heard the calls to prayer drowned out by the sirens of police cars speeding to a demonstration. In the street below, young mullahs marched in ranks, brandishing signs demanding that the Shah leave the country. SAVAK forces patrolled the streets but stopped no one.

  Weiseman turned on the TV and saw the Shah addressing the nation. It was Constitution Day, which coincided with the start of Ramadan. Weiseman followed the speech, courtesy of English subtitles. Modernization. Reforms. A more open society. Words to delight a Western democrat. Expansion of the White Revolution: health and education. Iran would soon be a first world country. If only, Weiseman thought.

  Outside, the Shia madrassa students were becoming strident. More sirens signaled SAVAK reinforcements. The wails intensified from the mosques. The country was tumbling into chaos.

  Weiseman went to the washroom, doused his head and face with cold water. After a moment he remembered the envelope and went back to the desk. The handwritten note was from Empress Farah.

  “Our friend, David. We wish to take your counsel.”

  Well then, he thought, it was a golden opportunity to win the Shah’s confidence.

  Lyman Palmer wouldn’t give the Shah any advice. Come to think of it, Weiseman realized he hadn’t seen a cable from Palmer in weeks. It was as if Justin Trevor had wa
ved his wand and the American ambassador had gone up in smoke.

  Better call him, though, he decided. Palmer would be enraged if Weiseman went to see the Shah without him. But Palmer wasn’t in the embassy when he phoned him, nor was he in the residence. A maid told him the American ambassador was now into his third week of home leave.

  Thomas Foster called Weiseman back. “I was wondering when you’d call.”

  That evening at the Brit’s residence, Weiseman told Sims and Foster of the message from the palace, then got to the point: He had received a defection request from a SAVAK officer, a brother of one of Seyyed’s acolytes. Could they help?

  “Yes, of course,” the two men answered nearly in unison.

  “You’ll need to take a trip south, to Abadan,” said Foster. “Our people will be there to assist. But he’s your man. You’ll do the handoff.”

  Sure, thought Weiseman. How many years in Evin for kidnapping a SAVAK officer?

  Millicent strolled in, perfectly timed to cut off debate. “I was with Farah this morning. We wrote that note together. I told her you would help Reza. She’s very worried about him.”

  “Of course, Millicent,” said Foster. “He can trust us.”

  Like your husband can trust you with Foster, Weiseman thought grimly, recalling his suspicions at the familiar way Millicent and Foster had interacted at the lunch in the British club shortly after he had arrived in Tehran.

  Foster told him that Ambasador Palmer would be back in time to be the scapegoat. “Trevor will see to that,” he said “Palmer will seek to shift the blame to me, which is what he does to deputies.”

  Weiseman said nothing, but quietly took in that Foster was no fool. Because it was much more likely that, actually, Palmer will point the finger at Weiseman himself if anything went wrong.

  * * *