Whirlwind

by James Clavell

  “True! They’re peasants and they’ve parasited themselves throughout the Middle East and our Gulf, taking the best jobs.”

  “Yes,” another agreed. “They’re worse than the Jews…”

  Rakoczy laughed to himself. He enjoyed his job very much, enjoyed working with university students—always a fertile field—enjoyed being a teacher. But that’s what I am, he thought contentedly, a professor of terrorism, of power and the seizing of power. Perhaps I’m more like a farmer: I plant the seed, nurture it, guard it, and harvest it, working all hours and all seasons as a fanner must. Some years are good and some bad but every year a little further forward, a little more experienced, a little wiser about the land, ever more patient—spring summer autumn winter—always the same farm, Iran, always with the same aim: at best for Iran to become Russian soil, at worst a Russian satellite to protect the sacred motherland of Russia. With our foot on the Strait of Hormuz…

  Ah, he thought, an unearthly, consuming religious glow pervading him, if I could give Iran to Mother Russia my life will not have been lived in vain.

  The West deserves to lose, particularly the Americans. They’re such fools, so egocentric, but most of all so stupid. It’s inconceivable this Carter doesn’t see the value of Hormuz in general and Iran in particular and what a catastrophe to the West their loss will be. But there it is; for all practical purposes he’s given us Iran.

  Rakoczy remembered the shock wave of disbelief that had soared to the very top when their innermost contacts in Washington had whispered that Carter was going to forsake the Shah. Ah, what an ally Carter has been to us. If I believed in God I’d pray: God is Great, God is Great, protect our best ally, President Peanut, and let him win a second term! With him in for a second term we’ll own America and so rule the world! God is Great, God is…

  Abruptly he felt chilled. He had been pretending to be Muslim for so long that sometimes his cover overcame his real self, and he began to question and have doubts.

  Am I still Igor Mzytryk, captain KGB, married to my darling Delaurah, my oh so beautiful Armenian, who’s waiting in Tbilisi for me to come home? Is she at home, she who oh so secretly believes in God—the God of the Christians that is the same as the God of the Muslims and of the Jews?

  God. God who has a thousand names. Is there a God?

  There is no God, he told himself like a litany, and put that thought back into its compartment and concentrated on the riot to be.

  Around them tension was growing nicely among the massed students, angry cries raging back and forth: “We didn’t spill our blood for mullahs to take all the power! Unite, brothers and sisters! Unite under the Tudeh banners…”

  “Down with the Tudeh! Unite for the holy Islamic-Marxist cause, we mujhadin spilled our blood and we are the martyrs of Imam Ali, Lord of the Martyrs, and Lenin…”

  “Down with the mullahs and Khomeini, archtraitor to Iran…”

  Vast cheers greeted this shout and others took it up, then gradually, again the dominating voice was: “Unite, brothers and sisters, unite to the real leaders of the revolution, the Tudeh, unite to protect th—”

  Rakoczy watched the crowd critically. It was still in pieces, formless, not yet a mob that could be directed and used as a weapon. Some bystanders, Islamics, watched and listened with varying degrees of contempt or rage. The few moderates shook their heads and walked away, leaving the stage to the vast majority who were deeply committed and anti-Khomeini.

  Around them the buildings were tall, and brick, the university built by Reza Shah in the thirties. Five years ago Rakoczy had spent a few terms here pretending to be an Azerbaijani though the Tudeh knew him as Dimitri Yazernov and that he had been sent—continuing a pattern—to organize university cells. Since its beginning the university was always a place of dissension, anti-Shah, although Mohammed Shah, more than any monarch in Persia’s history, had lavishly supported education. The Tehran students had been the vanguard of the rebellion, long before Khomeini had become the coalescing core.

  Without Khomeini, we’d never’ve succeeded, he thought. Khomeini was the flame around which we could all cluster and unite to tip the Shah off the throne and the U.S. out. He’s not senile or a bigot as many say but a ruthless leader with a dangerously clear plan, a dangerously great charisma, and dangerously huge power among the Shi’ites—so now it’s time he joined the god that never was.

  Rakoczy laughed suddenly.

  “What is it?” Farmad asked.

  “I was just thinking what Khomeini and all the mullahs will say when they discover there’s no god and never was a god—there’s no heaven, no hell, no houris, and it’s all a myth.”

  The others laughed too. One didn’t, Ibrahim Kyabi. There was no laughter left in him, just the wish for revenge. When he had gone home yesterday afternoon he had discovered his house in turmoil, his mother prostrate in tears, his brothers and sisters in anguish. The news had just arrived that his engineer father had been murdered by Islamic Guards outside his IranOil HQ at Ahwaz and that his body had been left to the vultures.

  “For what?” he had screamed.

  “For—for crimes against Islam,” his uncle, Dewar Kyabi, who had brought home the terrible news, said through his own tears. “That’s what they told us—his murderers. They were from Abadan, fanatics, illiterates mostly, and they told us that he was an American quisling, that for years he had cooperated with the enemies of Islam, allowing and helping them to steal our oil, th—”

  “Lies, all lies,” Ibrahim had shouted at him. “Father was anti-Shah, a patriot—a Believer! Who were those dogs? Who? I will burn them and their fathers. What were their names?”

  “It was the Will of God, Ibrahim, that they did it. Insha’Allah! Oh, my poor brother! The Will of God…”

  “There is no God!”

  The others had stared at him, shocked. This was the first time Ibrahim had articulated a thought that had been building for many years, nurtured by student friends returning from overseas, friends at the university, fed by some of the teachers who had never said this openly, merely encouraging them to question anything and everything.

  “Insha’Allah is for fools,” he had said, “a curse of superstition for fools to hide under!”

  “You mustn’t say that, my son!” his mother had cried out, frightened. “Go to the mosque, beg God’s forgiveness—that your father is dead is the Will of God, nothing more. Go to the mosque.”

  “I will,” he had said, but in his heart he knew his life had changed—no God could have allowed this to happen. “Who were those men, Uncle? Describe them.”

  “They were just ordinary, Ibrahim, as I already told you, younger than you, most of them—there was no leader or mullah with them, though there was one in the foreigners’ helicopter that came from Bandar Delam. But my poor brother died cursing Khomeini; if only he hadn’t come back by the foreigners’ helicopters, if only…but then, Insha’Allah, they were waiting for him anyway.”

  “There was a mullah in the helicopter?”

  “Yes, yes, there was.”

  “You will go to the mosque, Ibrahim?” his mother had asked him again.

  “Yes,” he had said, the first lie he had ever told her. It had taken him no time to find the university Tudeh leaders and Dimitri Yazernov, to swear allegiance, to get a machine gun, and, most of all, to ask them to find the name of the mullah in the helicopter of Bandar Delam. And now he stood there waiting, wanting vengeance, his soul crying out against the outrage committed against his father in the name of the false god. “Dimitri, let’s begin!” he said, his fury whipped by the shouting of the crowd.

  “We must wait, Ibrahim,” Rakoczy said gently, very pleased to have the youth with them. “Don’t forget the mob is a means to an end—remember the plan!” When he had told it to them an hour ago they had been stunned.

  “Raid the American embassy?”

  “Yes,” he had said calmly, “a quick raid, in and out, tomorrow or the next day. Tonight the rally will
become a mob. The embassy’s hardly a mile and a half away. It will be easy to send the mob rampaging that way as an experiment. What more perfect cover could we have for a raid than a riot? We let the enemy mujhadin and fedayeen go against Islamics and kill each other off while we take the initiative. Tonight we plant more seeds. Tomorrow or the next day we’ll raid the U.S. embassy.”

  “But it’s impossible, Dimitri, impossible!”

  “It’s easy. Just a raid, not an attempt at a takeover, that will come later. A raid will be unexpected, it’s simple to execute. You can easily grab the embassy for an hour, hold the ambassador and everyone captive for an hour or so while you sack it. Americans do not have the will to resist. That’s the key to them! Here are the plans of the buildings and the numbers of marines and I will be there to help. Your coup will be immense—it will hit world headlines and totally embarrass Bazargan and Khomeini, and even more the Americans. Don’t forget who the real enemy is and that now you have to act fast to grab the initiative from Khomeini…”

  It had been easy to convince them. It will be easy to create the diversion, he thought. And it’ll be easy to go straight to the CIA basement office and radio room, blow the safe, and empty it of all documents and cipher books, then up the back stairs to the second landing, turn left, into the third room on the left, the ambassador’s bedroom, to the safe behind the oil painting hanging over the bed, blow that and empty it similarly. Sudden, swift, and violent—if there’s any opposition.

  “Dimitri! Look!”

  Rakoczy spun around. Coming down the road were hundreds of youths—Green Bands and mullahs at the head. At once Rakoczy roared, “Death to Khomeini!” and fired a burst into the air. The suddenness of the shots whipped everyone into a frenzy, there were shouts and countershouts, simultaneously other guns went off all over the quadrangle, and everyone began to scatter, trampling over one another in their haste, the screams beginning.

  Before he could stop him, he saw Ibrahim aim at the oncoming Green Bands and fire. Some men in the front rank went down, a howl of rage burst from them, and guns opened up in their direction. He dived to the ground, cursing. The torrent of bullets missed him but got Farmad and others nearby but not Ibrahim and the remaining three Tudeh leaders. He shouted at them and they all hugged the cement as panic-stricken students opened up with carbines and pistols.

  Many were wounded before the big mujhadin Rakoczy had marked for execution rallied his men around him and led a charge at the Islamics and drove them back. At once others came to his aid and the retreat became a rout, a roar went through the students, and the rally became a mob.

  Rakoczy grabbed Ibrahim who was just about to charge off mindlessly.

  “Follow me!” he ordered, half shoved Ibrahim and the others farther into the lee of the building, then, when he was sure they were with him, took to his heels in a frantic, chest-hurting retreat.

  At a junction of paths in the snow-covered gardens, he stopped a moment to catch his breath. The wind was chill and night on them now.

  “What about Farmad?” Ibrahim gasped. “He was wounded!”

  “No,” he said, “he was dying. Come on!”

  Again he led the rush unerringly through the garden, along the street near the scientific faculty, across the parking lot into the next, and he did not stop till the sound of the riot was distant. There was a stitch in his side and his breathing came in great pants, tearing at him. When he could speak, he said, “Don’t worry about anything. Go back to your homes or your dormitories. Get everyone ready for the raid, tomorrow or the next day—the committee will give the order.” He hurried away into the gathering night.

  AT LOCHART’S APARTMENT: 7:30 P.M. Sharazad was lying in a foam bath, her head propped on a waterproof pillow, eyes closed, her hair tied up in a towel. “Oh, Azadeh, darling,” she said drowsily, perspiration beading her forehead, “I’m so happy.”

  Azadeh was also in the bath and she lay with her head at the other end, enjoying the heat and the intimacy and the sweet perfumed water and the luxury—her long hair also up in a pure white towel—the bath large and deep and comfortable for two. But there were still dark rings under her eyes, and she could not shake off the terrors of yesterday at the roadblock or in the helicopter. Outside the curtains, night had come. Gunfire echoed in the distance. Neither paid it any attention.

  “I wish Erikki would come back,” Azadeh said.

  “He won’t be long, there’s lots of time, darling. Dinner’s not till nine, so we’ve almost two hours to get ready.” Sharazad opened her eyes and put her hand on Azadeh’s slender thighs, enjoying the touch of her. “Don’t worry, darling Azadeh, he’ll be back soon, your redheaded giant! And don’t forget I’m spending the night with my parents so you two can run naked together all night long! Enjoy our bath, be happy, and swoon when he returns.” They laughed together. “Everything’s wonderful now, you’re safe, we’re all safe, Iran’s safe—with the Help of God the Imam has conquered and Iran’s safe and free.”

  “I wish I could believe it, I wish I could believe it as you do,” Azadeh said. “I can’t explain how terrible those people near the roadblock were—it was as though I was being choked by their hate. Why should they hate us—hate me and Erikki? What had we done to them? Nothing at all and yet they hated us.”

  “Don’t think about them, my dear one.” Sharazad stifled a yawn. “Leftists are all mad, claiming to be Muslim and at the same time Marxist. They’re anti-God and therefore cursed. The villagers? Villagers are uneducated as you know too well, and most of them simple. Don’t worry—that’s past, now everything is going to be better, you’ll see.”

  “I hope, oh, how I hope you’re right. I don’t want it better but just as it was, normal, like it’s always been, normal again.”

  “Oh, it will be.” Sharazad felt so contented, the water so silky and so warm and womblike. Ah, she thought, only three more days to be sure and then Tommy tells Father that oh, yes, of course he wants sons and daughters, and then, the next day, the great day, I should know for certain though I’m certain now. Haven’t I always been so regular? Then I can give Tommy my gift of God and he’ll be so proud. “The Imam does the Work of God. How can it be otherwise than good?”

  “I don’t know, Sharazad, but never in our history have mullahs been worthy of trust—just parasites on the back of the villagers.”

  “Ah, but now it’s different,” Sharazad told her, not really wanting to discuss such serious matters. “Now we have a real leader. Now he’s in control of Iran for the first time ever. Isn’t he the most pious of men, the most learned of Islam and the law? Doesn’t he do God’s work? Hasn’t he achieved the impossible, throwing out the Shah and his nasty corruption, stopping the generals from making a coup with the Americans? Father says we’re safer now than we’ve ever been.”

  “Are we?” Azadeh remembered Rakoczy in the chopper and what he had said about Khomeini and stepping backward in history, and she knew he had spoken the truth, a lot of truth, and she had clawed at him, hating him, wanting him dead, for of course he was one of those who would use the simpleminded mullahs to enslave everyone else. “You want to be ruled by Islamic laws of the Prophet’s time, almost fifteen hundred years ago—enforced chador, the loss of our hard-won rights of voting, working, and being equal?”

  “I don’t want to vote, or work, or be equal—how can a woman equal a man? I just want to be a good wife to Tommy, and in Iran I prefer the chador on the streets.” Delicately Sharazad covered another yawn, drowsed by the warmth. “Insha’Allah, Azadeh, darling. Of course everything will be as before but Father says more wonderful because now we possess ourselves, our land, our oil, and everything in our land. There’ll be no nasty foreign generals or politicians to disgrace us and with the evil Shah gone, we’ll all live happily ever after, you with your Erikki, me with my Tommy, and lots and lots of children. How else could it be? God is with the Imam and the Imam is with us! We’re so lucky.” She smiled at her and put her arm around her frien
d’s legs affectionately. “I’m so glad you’re staying with me, Azadeh. It seems such a long time since you were in Tehran.”

  “Yes.” They had been friends for many years. First in Switzerland where they had met at school, up in the High Country, though Sharazad had only stayed one term, unhappy to be away from her family and Iran, then later at the university in Tehran. And now, for a little over a year, because both had married foreigners in the same company, they had become even closer, closer than sisters, helping each other adapt to foreign idiosyncrasies:

  “Sometimes I just don’t understand my Tommy at all, Azadeh,” Sharazad had said tearfully in the beginning. “He enjoys being alone, I mean quite alone, just him and me, the house empty, not even one servant—he even told me he likes to be alone by himself, just reading, no family around or children, no conversation or friends. Oh, sometimes it’s just awful.”

  “Erikki’s just the same,” Azadeh had said. “Foreigners aren’t like us—they’re very strange. I want to spend days with friends and children and family, but Erikki doesn’t. It’s good that Erikki and Tommy work during the days—you’re luckier, Tommy’s off for two weeks at a time when you can be normal. Another thing, you know, Sharazad, it took me months to get used to sleeping in a bed an—”

  “I never could! Oh, so high off the floor, so easy to fall off, always a huge dip on his side, so you’re always uncomfortable and you wake up with an ache in your back. A bed’s so awful compared with soft quilts on beautiful carpets on the floor, so comfortable and civilized.”

  “Yes. But Erikki won’t use quilts and carpets, he insists on a bed. He just won’t try it anymore—sometimes it’s such a relief when he’s away.”

  “Oh, we sleep correctly now, Azadeh. I stopped the nonsense of a Western bed after the first month.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Oh, I’d sigh all night long and keep my poor darling awake—then I’d sleep during the day to be fresh again to sigh all night long.” Sharazad had laughed delightedly. “Seven nights and my darling collapsed, slept like a baby for the next three nights correctly, and now he always sleeps like a civilized person should—he even does so when he’s at Zagros! Why don’t you try it? I guarantee you’ll be successful, darling, particularly if you also complain just a tiny bit that the bed has caused a backache and of course you would still adore to make love but please be a little careful.”