He recalled Trevor’s tutelage on his first posting, in Prague: To achieve your ideals, you may need to be ruthless. There is nothing like well-placed leverage to secure noble ends.
* * *
—
FRANÇOISE CALLED. HER voice was so clear, he thought she was in Georgetown.
“I’m in my embassy in Baghdad,” she said, and they went secure. He entered the codes and waited till the static cleared. The call resumed in classified format, the static gone, blocking out intruding ears.
“The intermediary made the arrangements,” she told him. “Khomeini has given me assurances for your security. He’ll receive you, if your talks go well.”
The Imam was the only one who could free the hostages and ensure his safety. Or could he? Did the Ayatollah control Montana and the RGs?
“David,” Françoise interrupted his thoughts. “Watch out for Serge Klein. He’s been seen with Hosein Hanif.”
My God, Weiseman thought, Hanif again, first with Seyyed, now Klein. What was that about?
He took the elevator down from his office and strolled outside, moved slowly to the Mall, and stood at the reflecting pool. It was Labor Day. Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, were in Detroit, launching the final stretch of their campaigns.
He was about to put himself at great risk, and he wasn’t doing so for Jimmy Carter and damn sure not for Bobby Beauford and his blasted October surprise. He was doing so for the hostages.
He stared at Lincoln on his stone throne and thought, we’re all hostages. The men and women trussed up in the embassy. The Shah, who tried to live up to his image of his father. Hanif, who had ruthlessly served two now-dead shahs. Khomeini, who had emerged from exile to carry out macabre dreams. Carter, whose political fortunes were dependent on how the crisis played out. Françoise, who remained at least somewhat beholden to Gramont. And me, he thought ruefully…restitution for his escape from Berlin long ago.
He caught Lincoln’s stony stare. There comes a time, Weiseman told himself, when you have to act, to do something, if you’re going to justify the life your father saved.
He strode back to his office and phoned Françoise back. He told her he would be away, pulling loose threads together. He didn’t want her going back to Iran, and he kept secret the Israeli talks. There were still outer bounds.
He called Trevor and told him he was ready to go.
“Good,” Trevor said. “Time is running short. Anything that works. Do it!”
* * *
—
SURPRISINGLY, HIS ARRIVAL at Mehrabad went smoothly and was hassle-free—thanks to Bani-Sadr, Weiseman surmised, surely not Klein. When he left the terminal, he walked over to a bus stop and climbed aboard an ancient vehicle with peeling paint and blemishes of rust. It was packed with Iranians from the provinces, arms filled with wailing children and suitcases tied with heavy ropes. The odor of charcoal and cooked meats filled the air. A man in the row ahead of him clung tightly to a squirming, flapping chicken. A four-year-old girl with dark eyes reached over and touched his arm. “Nice man,” she said in Farsi.
It took two hours for the bus to make its way through local villages, past local mosques, and to finally enter the center of Tehran, affording him one more view of this elusive country. At the last stop before Tehran, the little girl who’d called him a “nice man” hopped off her mother’s lap and climbed onto Weiseman’s, kissing his cheek. “Nice man,” she repeated, then scampered down, taking her mother’s hand and stepping gingerly from the bus. From outside, he saw her blow him a kiss, and he sent one back, wondering whether this nightmare would be over when she was old enough to be a student, and kidnap more Americans.
By the time the bus finally stopped at the Intercon, a newsreel of failures was racing through his mind: the Carter visit on New Year’s Eve 1977 when he told the world how he admired the Shah’s Iran; the collapsing monarchy in 1978; the flight of the Shah and Khomeini’s return, with the proclamation of the Islamic Republic, in January 1979; the seizure of the American embassy hostages in November 1979; and the Desert One rescue fiasco in April 1980.
How, he wondered, could we have gotten it so wrong…so often?
* * *
—
THE NEXT MORNING, a car arranged personally by Trevor, with tinted windows for extra security, picked Weiseman up for his appointment to see Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. On the way, he stared out the window at the swirl of traffic passing by as smog enveloped the city and hid the surrounding mountains. There was tightness in the way people walked, glancing over their shoulders as if aware of perpetual danger.
Within ten minutes the driver turned into a narrow alley and stopped before a nondescript one-story brick building on which a black plaque whispered, PRIVATE OFFICE. The front door opened. A man in a shaggy gray sweater led him down a drab hallway, knocked on a door, and then opened it. “He’s here,” the man said and drifted away.
Weiseman recognized Ghotbzadeh from the photos the CIA had provided. The foreign minister, wearing a black turtleneck sweater, sat on a blue fabric Scandinavian sofa, manipulating green and white worry beads. “Come in,” he said, rising to shake hands, revealing a massive body grown soft. The face was almost handsome—black wavy hair, soft eyes, and a nose that flared above a strong mouth, but with a growth of graying beard. There was something wary about the way his dark eyes measured his visitor.
“Is this about the hostages?” Ghotbzadeh said. “Look, I don’t give a damn about the hostages. The Ayatollah is ill. He’s in hospital.”
“My condolences,” Weiseman said, wondering how that might affect the hostages.
“The Revolutionary Guards are filling the vacuum,” Ghotbzadeh said. “They’re hoodlums, squeezing me. Can your government do anything about them?”
“Perhaps we could help you with Bani-Sadr,” Weiseman said.
“Fuck Bani-Sadr. Gramont briefed you before you came here, didn’t he? Don’t you see what’s going on here?”
Ok, thought Weiseman. Let him have it.
“Sure. It’s about power, and here’s my message. You’re dealing with a superpower. My president will do whatever is necessary to free the hostages. If you want to stay in power, you’ll lend a hand. Do you get it?”
The Iranian became agitated, but he visibly willed himself to settle down. He let a moment go by, then said softly, “You know, I went to college in America.”
“Right, and so did I, as did Amin, your predecessor. You saw what happened to him.”
Ghotbzadeh stared hard at him before drinking from a tall glass of Perrier. “I studied economics,” he said. “I learned it always comes down to money.”
So, it was to be another shakedown.
Ghotbzadeh got up and led Weiseman to a round table at the center of the room. “Sit,” he said, then disappeared through a door. Two minutes later, he came back, flipping the pages of a thick leather binder. “The mullahs are saying Bani-Sadr and I are selling out to America. Bani-Sadr will get it in the neck.” Ghotbzadeh emitted a shrill laugh. “I’ve learned to speak like a mullah,” he said. “To show respect to the Imam.”
He flipped further to the black binder and passed it over to Weiseman. There were ledgers, filled with dollar figures, and lists with headings for the Shah’s assets, military equipment, and other entries Weiseman couldn’t translate. He had Ghotbzadeh explain it to him, knowing he wouldn’t get a copy. He was fairly sure that this was Ghotbzadeh’s own wish list and that Khomeini had never seen it, much less Bani-Sadr. It came to over $10 billion.
“After you kidnapped our diplomats? You’re dreaming.”
Ghotbzadeh waved his hand dismissively. He pointed to an item at the bottom of the chart for over $5 million. There was no descriptive heading.
“It’s for you, isn’t it? Your commission.”
“This is Persia, Mr. Weiseman. Nothing’s free.”
Weiseman stifled the temptation to tell him to stuff it. Instead he played along. After all, he was here to
corrupt this greedy fat man, not to reform him.
“Well,” he said. “Now that we know your price, tell me what we get for our money.”
* * *
—
BACK AT THE Intercon, Weiseman strode by Daud and rode the elevator to the fourth floor, then hurried toward the presidential suite. Inserting the key, he opened the door, turned on the light, and stopped in his tracks at the sight of the intermediary with whom Françoise had arranged his visit to Tehran, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“You?”
“Better hurry,” Jacques Schreiber said. “There’s a helicopter on the roof.”
“A helicopter?” Weiseman asked. “The presidential palace is right across town.”
“Monsieur Weiseman, Bani-Sadr est—comment dit-on? Incapacitated.”
“They handed their own president over to Montana?”
“Bani-Sadr is in hiding,” Jacques said, and pointed toward the door. “Hurry. We’re going to Qom. To the Imam.”
He started up the shaky wooden ladder to the roof, and Weiseman followed behind.
Sometimes one had to sup with the devil.
* * *
—
THEY TRAVELED IN SILENCE. Strong winds buffeted the helicopter in the smoggy darkness; the only light inside emanated from Jacques’s cigar.
The layers of intrigue were deep, fed by fear and greed, resting on power and money. Seyyed conspiring with Hanif. Jacques Schreiber now helping him, on orders no doubt from Gramont, who had played him from the beginning. Trevor, at least, had given him fair warning: trust no one.
When they finally landed near the Ayatollah’s house, Weiseman jumped out and hurried up the steps without a word to Jacques, his gaze rapidly scanning around for Montana.
A door opened. Sheikh Khalaji said, “The Imam is ready.”
Khomeini sat in a straight wooden chair beside the prayer mat, the translator at his left elbow. A nurse hovered to his right. Behind her was a tangle of wires and tubes—blood transfusion equipment.
The old man spoke so softly that Weiseman had to move very close to hear him. “It is time to settle our affairs,” the Ayatollah said, as if he were dictating his will. “The Islamic Republic will go on—” Khomeini coughed and his face turned red. The nurse edged closer to him, but he shook his head and she receded.
The Ayatollah leaned closer to his ear. “The hostages have served their purpose.”
Finally!
“We will establish ordinary relations with America, just as with other countries.”
Khomeini began to cough again, and now his face turned white, as if the blood had seeped out of his skin. This time the nurse ignored his headshakes of protest. She pushed aside her niqab, found the spot with her rubber glove, and injected a hypodermic needle into his arm.
The Sheikh stepped forward. “That’s enough, you have weakened the Imam.”
Weiseman hesitated, afraid Khomeini would die in his presence. He and the hostages would be killed in retaliation. He rose to go, but the Ayatollah’s fingers grasped his sleeve.
A guttural whisper. “You will see. I will make this happen. Soon.”
Despite himself, he bowed slightly to the ailing leader. He hated everything Khomeini stood for, and he deeply doubted what he had just heard, but something impelled him to acknowledge the man’s power—his unique position in history.
When he emerged, he saw Montana with a dagger in his belt, lurking on the side of the house. Jacques called out from the helicopter—“Vite, trés vite—”
Weiseman raced down the stairs toward the helicopter, its motor revving, and hopped quickly in. Out the window, he saw Montana rush toward him. From a second helicopter hovering above them, a shadow leveled a high-powered rifle toward their copter.
“Allons-y!” Jacques shouted, as the pilot revved the motor.
Weiseman saw the rifle rise, then abruptly shift. The burst of fire was deafening.
Montana’s huge body went down, spurting blood, as their helicopter rose into the sky. Weiseman cranked his head to look up at the other copter, floating high above, tracking them. Was it there to safeguard their return to Tehran…or to terminate it?
“A toute vitesse!” Jacques shouted. Faster…faster.
The other helicopter dived toward them, skimmed across the grass fifty yards away, then began to climb again into the sooty sky…But not before Weiseman saw the assassin’s face.
Hosein Hanif.
They drifted through the misty Persian sky in silence. Weiseman thought Shirin Majid had finally been avenged, as had Alana, Shapour, and their father.
He tried to piece together how Hanif fit in to the counterrevolution he had been promoting, how he had survived. Sitting next to him, apparently composed after the terror of the departure, Jacques said, “We’re safe now, you can relax. Hanif was here to provide security, and to take down Montana.”
Of course, Weiseman thought, Hanif would have had the backing of his hard men of SAVAK, along with access to the safe houses, the networks of informers, and all the weapons he had bought from Jacques Schreiber and from the United States. For Hanif, the choice was either to leave the country or to fight the mullahs who had brought down his Shah. For such a man, exile would be a curse. So, now he was allied, however temporarily, to Seyyed, to Jacques, and only he knew to whom else.
And then Weiseman remembered what Trevor had said to Hanif: “You’re our man, Hosein.” And he recalled another Trevor adage: Never break entirely with any adversary, you never know when you’ll need them one day.
Jacques lit a cigarette, finally breaking the silence. “Don’t worry about Françoise. Our people took her to a safe place right after you arrived.”
Weiseman felt a wave of relief wash over him. “Thank you, Jacques,” he said.
“What happened with the Ayatollah?” Schreiber asked.
“I don’t know,” Weiseman said, thinking, tell him nothing. “It could be everything or nothing. Maybe it was a deathbed wish.”
Jacques Schreiber didn’t say another word; he just stared into the night.
The helicopter followed them all the way to Tehran, before veering away into the sky.
* * *
—
ON SEPTEMBER 10, the Majlis issued a statement spelling out the conditions for the release of the hostages: the United States would have to unfreeze all Iranian assets and transfer them back to Iran; commit to no US military or political intervention in Iranian affairs; and return all the Shah’s assets to Iran, or at least commit to assisting the Iranian government in pursuing those assets in American courts.
Two days later, on September 12, the Ayatollah issued a statement with more or less the same terms. Washington was ecstatic, for it seemed the Iranians might really be serious.
Then came a call from an Iranian diplomat named Sadeq Tabatabai. He wanted to meet in four days, in Bonn with an American authorized to discuss details of the hostage release. Now it appeared that Iran was in a hurry.
Weiseman phoned Ghotbzadeh, who told him that the Tabatabai family was of distinguished lineage in Iran. “He’s a relative of the Imam by marriage. He’s part of the inner circle.”
Weiseman passed this on to Trevor, who told him that the deputy secretary of state and a technical team would be in Bonn on Sunday, empowered to negotiate. “You’re not going,” Trevor said. “It will go on and on. They’ll fight for every dime.”
Mystified at being left out, angry after all he’d done, Weiseman started to push back, but Trevor cut him off. “It’s decided.”
Giving in, Weiseman called Tabatabai. The Iranian of noble lineage said, “Tell the deputy secretary we expect the US to supply the Islamic Republic with military spare parts.”
Still angry, Weiseman relayed the message to Trevor.
“Understood,” Trevor replied. “Oh, by the way, there’s just been a coup in Turkey. The military has taken over again. You can come home now, David.”
“Actually,” Weiseman said, “I’
ll be staying on awhile in Tehran. Things to do…”
“Well, David, that’s different. But remember, no prints.”
34
NO PRINTS
KARIM NASIR GAVE WEISEMAN a private base of operations in the back room of his house in the woods near Tehran University. Weiseman knew the White House had only one interest—to get the hostages out and secure an October surprise—and that there was little chance of upending the ayatollahs any time soon. They were consolidating their power through the time-honored practice of revolutionary terror. It would take time before Iranians, ecstatic at the departure of the Shah, would feel the lash of the new tyrants sufficiently to rise up against the economic hardship, the corruption, the repression. But the unbending certainty of the mullahs and their thuggish enforcers would alienate the people. Eventually.
Atatürk’s insight when faced with opponents of reform gnawed at him: “One should not wait before crushing a reactionary movement. One should act at once.” Or else, Weiseman realized, be prepared to pay the price over many years. The question was how effectively the film of Iranian history could be fast-forwarded. US hands must not be seen sabotaging the regime; that was clear. To do so would end the talks to bring the hostages home and would put them in danger, even though Khomeini had promised to let them go. No, for Weiseman the task was to cramp and complicate consolidation of the ayatollahs’ regime in ways that could not be traced back to American hands. That’s why the United States needed allies, and needed Iranians upfront.
With his agents in place, Weiseman could begin organizing demonstrations, funding opposition newspapers, developing channels for spreading propaganda, smuggling in weapons, arranging acts of subversion, setting off the occasional bomb near sites important to the mullahs, and corrupting the likes of Bani-Sadr and Ghotbazadeh.
This wouldn’t bring down the ayatollahs, not at once. But it could shake them, make them ever more repressive, and stir the anger of the population. With Montana dead, he thought he might have more latitude, but whispers soon disabused him of that notion. The mullahs had spread the word that he and Hanif were working together. And every day, power was accruing to the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian gestapo.
Night in Tehran Page 27