In moments Robert Armstrong was part of the rush-hour traffic. The two men slid off their green armbands and pocketed them. “Sorry we lost that young bastard, Robert,” the older of the two said in fluent English, American-accented. He was a clean-shaven man in his fifties—Colonel Hashemi Fazir, deputy chief of Inner Intelligence, U.S. trained and SAVAK before the separate secret service department was formed.
“Not to worry, Hashemi,” Armstrong said.
The younger man in the backseat said, “We’ve got Kyabi on film at the embassy riot, Agha. And at the university.” He was in his twenties, with a luxuriant mustache and his lips twisted cruelly. “We’ll pick him up tomorrow.”
“Now that he’s on the run, I wouldn’t if I were you, Lieutenant,” Armstrong said, driving carefully. “Since he’s pegged, just tail him—he’ll lead you to bigger fish. He led you to Dimitri Yazernov.”
The others laughed. “Yes, yes, he did.”
“And Yazernov’ll lead us to all sorts of interesting people and places.” Hashemi lit a cigarette, offered them. “Robert?”
“Thanks.” Armstrong took a puff and grimaced. “My God, Hashemi, these are awful, they’ll really kill you.”
“As God wants.” Then Hashemi quoted in Farsi, “‘Wash me in wine when I die,/At my funeral use a text concerning wine,/Would you wish to find me on the Day of Doom,/Look for me in the dust at the wineshop’s door.’”
“Cigarettes, not wine’ll kill you,” Armstrong said dryly, the lilt of the Farsi words beautiful.
“The colonel was quoting from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám,” the young man in the back said helpfully in English. “It means th—”
“He knows what it means, Mohammed,” Hashemi interrupted. “Mr. Armstrong speaks perfect Farsi—you’ve a lot to learn.” He puffed his cigarette for a while, watching the traffic. “Pull over for a moment, will you, Robert?”
When the car stopped, Hashemi said, “Mohammed, go back to the HQ and wait for me there. Make sure no one—no one—gets at Yazernov before me. Tell the team just to make sure everything’s ready. I want to start at midnight.”
“Yes, Colonel.” The younger man left them.
Hashemi watched him vanish into the crowds. “I could use a large whisky and soda. Drive on for a while, Robert.”
“Sure.” Armstrong let out the clutch, glanced at him, hearing an undercurrent. “Problem?”
“Many.” Hashemi studied the traffic and the pedestrians, his face set. “I don’t know how long we’ll be allowed to operate, how long we’re safe, or who to trust.”
“What else’s new?” Armstrong smiled mirthlessly. “That’s an occupational hazard,” he said—the lesson well learned from eleven years as adviser to Inner Intelligence, and twenty years before that in the Hong Kong police.
“You want to be present when Yazernov’s interrogated, Robert?”
“Yes, if I’m not in the way.”
“What does MI6 want with him?”
“I’m just an ex-CID, Special Branch, on private contract to help you fellows set up the equivalent service, remember?”
“I remember very well. Two five-year contracts, the last happily extended until next year when you retire with a pension.”
“Fat chance,” Armstrong said disgustedly. “Khomeini and the government’ll pay my pension? Fat chance.” It was very much on his mind that now all his Iranian service was wasted, and with the devaluation of the Hong Kong dollar since he retired in ’66, his real retirement would be scratchy. “My pension’s had it.”
The dark eyes hardened. “Robert, what does MI6 want with this bastard?”
Armstrong frowned. Something was very wrong tonight. The youth Kyabi should not have escaped the net and Hashemi’s as nervous as a rookie agent on his first drop behind the lines. “Far as I know they don’t. I’m interested in him. Me,” he said casually.
“Why?”
Such a long story, Armstrong thought. Should I tell you that Dimitri Yazernov’s a cover for Fedor Rakoczy, the Russian Islamic-Marxist you’ve been trying to catch for months? Should I tell you the real reason I was told to help you grab him tonight is that, quite by chance, MI6’s just discovered through a Czech defector his real name is Igor Mzytryk, son of Petr Oleg Mzytryk who back in my Hong Kong days used to be known as Gregor Suslev, master spy, we thought long since dead.
No, we don’t want Yazernov but we do want—I want—the father who’s supposed to live just north of the border somewhere, within reach, oh, God, let him be alive and within reach, for we would dearly like to debrief that sod by any means possible—ex-intelligence chief, Far East, senior lecturer in espionage at Vladivostok University, senior Party member and God knows what since.
“I think—we think—Yazernov’s more important than just Tudeh liaison with students. He’s a dead ringer for your Kurdish dissident, Ali bin Hassan Karakose.”
“You mean he’s the same man?”
“Yes.”
“Impossible.”
Armstrong shrugged. He had thrown him a bone; if he didn’t want to gnaw it that was his problem. The traffic was snarled again, everyone hooting and cursing. The big man shut his ears to the noise, stubbed out the local Iranian cigarette.
Hashemi frowned, watching him. “What’s your interest in Karakose and the Kurds—if what you say’s true?”
“Kurds straddle all the borders, Soviet, Iraqi, Turkish, and Iranian,” he said easily. “The whole Kurdish national movement’s very sensitive and easy for the Soviets to exploit—with heavy international implications throughout Asia Minor. Of course we’re interested.”
The colonel stared out of the window, lost in thought, snow falling lightly. A cyclist squeezed past, carelessly banging the side of the car. To Armstrong’s surprise—usually Hashemi was well tempered—he furiously wound down his window and cursed the youth and all his generations. Grimly he stubbed his cigarette out. “Drop me here, Robert. We’ll begin with Yazernov at midnight. You’re welcome.” He started to open the door.
“Hang on, old son,” Armstrong said. “We’ve been friends a long time. What the hell’s up?”
The colonel hesitated. Then he closed the door. “SAVAK’s been outlawed by the government, so have all intelligence departments, including us, and ordered disbanded at once.”
“Yes, but the prime minister’s office has already told you to continue, undercover. You’ve nothing to fear, Hashemi. You’re not tainted. You’ve been told to smash the Tudeh, the fedayeen, and the Islamic-Marxists…you showed me the order. Wasn’t tonight’s operation following this line?”
“Yes. Yes, it was.” Again Hashemi paused, his face set and his voice thick. “Yes, it was—but! What do you know about the Islamic Revolutionary Komiteh?”
“Only that it’s supposed to consist of men personally selected by Khomeini,” Armstrong began honestly. “Its powers are loose, we don’t know the who, how many, where, or when they meet or even if Khomeini presides or what.”
“I now know for a fact that, with Khomeini’s approval, in future ultimate power is to be invested in this komiteh, that Bazargan is only a momentary figurehead until the komiteh issues the new Islamic Constitution which will put us back to the time of the Prophet.”
“Bloody hell!” Armstrong muttered. “No elected government?”
“None.” Hashemi was beside himself with rage. “Not as we know the term.”
“Perhaps the Constitution’ll be rejected, Hashemi. The people’ll have to vote it in, not everyone’s a fanatic support—”
“By God and the Prophet, don’t fool yourself, Robert!” the colonel said harshly. “The vast majority are fundamentalist, that’s all they’ve got to hang on to. Our bourgeois, rich, and middle classes are Tehranis, Tabrizis, Abadanis, Isfahanis, all Shah-sponsored, a handful compared to the other thirty-six million of us, most of whom can’t even read or write. Of course whatever Khomeini approves will be voted in! And we both know what his vision of Islam, the Koran, and Sharia is.”
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“How soon will…how soon will they have the Constitution ready?”
“Do you understand so little about us, after all this time?” Hashemi said irritably. “The moment we seize power we use it before it slips away. The new Constitution went into effect the moment that poor bastard Bakhtiar was betrayed by Carter, betrayed by the generals, and forced to flee. As to Bazargan, pious, honest, fair, and democratically inclined, Khomeini-appointed, legal prime minister pending elections, the poor bastard’s just a dupe for anything and everything that goes wrong between now and then.”
“You mean he’ll be the scapegoat—be put on trial?”
“Trial? What trial? Haven’t I told you what the komiteh considers a trial? If they charge him, he’s shot. Insha’Allah! Last, and why I can’t think straight and I’m so angry I need to get drunk, I heard this afternoon, very privately, I heard that SAVAK’s been secretly reorganized, it’s going to be rechristened SAVAMA—and Abrim Pahmudi’s been made director!”
“Christ Almighty!” Armstrong felt as though he’d been smashed in the stomach. Abrim Pahmudi was one of three lifelong friends of the Shah who had been to school with him in Iran and later in Switzerland, who had risen to become high in the Imperial council, SAVAK, and, it was rumored, after the Shah’s family, his most-sought-after counselor—and who right now was supposed to be in hiding, waiting an opportunity to negotiate with the Bazargan government on the Shah’s behalf a constitutional monarchy and the Shah’s abdication in favor of his son Reza. “Christ Almighty! That explains a lot.”
“Yes,” Hashemi said bitterly. “For years that bastard’s been part of almost every crucial military or political meeting, every head of state conference, every secret agreement, and in the last days part of every important meeting with the U.S. ambassador, U.S. generals, every important decision of the Shah, of our generals, and present every time a coup d’état was discussed—and turned down.” He was so angry that tears ran down his cheeks, “We’re all betrayed. The Shah, the revolution, the people, you, me, everyone! How many times have we reported to him over the years together, and me dozens of other times? With lists, names, bank accounts, liaisons, secrets that only we could find out and know. Everything—everything in writing but one copy only—wasn’t that the rule? We’re all betrayed.”
Armstrong felt chilled. Of course Pahmudi knew all about his involvement with Inner Intelligence. Pahmudi had to know everything of value about George Talbot, about Masterson, his CIA opposite number, Lavenov, his Soviet opposite number, all our short and long contingency planning, invasion planning, operations to neutralize the CIA’s top secret radar sites with men like young Captain Ross.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, at the same time furious that their own sources had not forewarned them. Pahmudi, suave, intelligent, trilingual, and discreet. Never once over the years had there been the slightest suspicion against him. Never. How could he have escaped cleanly, even from the Shah who was constantly having his top associates checked and double-checked and rechecked. With every right, he thought. Five assassination attempts against him, bullets in his body and face, wasn’t he ruler of a people known for violence toward and from their rulers?
Christ! Where will it all end?
IN THE SAME TRAFFIC: 9:15 A.M. McIver was inching along, well to the south, heading for the bazaar area where Jared Bakravan’s family house was, Tom Lochart beside him.
“It’ll all work out,” McIver said, sick with worry.
“Sure, Mac. No sweat.”
“Yes, not to worry.” When McIver had got back home to his apartment from Ali Kia and the Ministry, elated, Tom Lochart was there, arrived just moments before. His even greater joy at finding Tom Lochart safe was dashed at once by the look of him and by the news Pettikin gave him about Freddy Ayre’s relayed radio call from Scot Gavallan at Zagros, and about Starke being taken by the Kowiss komiteh for questioning about “the Isfahan escape.”
“It’s all my goddamn fault, Mac, all of it,” Tom Lochart had said.
“No, not your fault, Tom. We were both trapped—anyway I okayed the flight, not that it helped Valik. Were they all aboard; how the hell did you get out? Tell us what happened, then I’ll call Freddy—you’d like a drink?”
“No, no, thanks. Listen, Mac, I’ve got to find Sharazad. She wasn’t home, I’m hoping she’s at her folks’ house and I’ve got t—”
“She’s there, I know she’s there, Tom. Erikki told me just before he left this morning for Tabriz. Did you hear about her father?”
“Yes, I have, awful, bloody awful! You’re sure she’s there?”
“Yes.” McIver walked heavily over to the sideboard and fixed himself a drink as he continued: “She hasn’t been at your flat since you left and she was fine until… Erikki and Azadeh saw her day before yesterday. Yesterday they…”
“Did Erikki say how she was?”
“He said she was as well as could be expected—you know how close Iranian families are. We don’t know anything about her dad other than what Erikki told us—that he had been ordered to the jail as a witness, and the next thing the family was told to pick up his body, he’d been shot for ‘crimes against Islam.’ Erikki said they picked up the, er, the body and, well, yesterday they were in mourning. Sorry, but there you are.” He took a deep swallow of the lovely, peat-tasting drink and felt a little better. “She’s safe at home—first tell us what happened to you, then I’ll call Freddy and we’ll go and find Sharazad.”
Quickly Lochart did so. They listened, appalled. “When Rudi told me that this Iranian Air Force officer, Abbasi, was the one who shot down HBC I almost went mad. I, I kinda collapsed and the next thing I remember was the next day. Abbasi and the others had gone by then and it was all SOP. Mac, Charlie’s idea about a ‘hijack’—that’s not going to stand up—no way!”
“We know that, Tom,” McIver had said. “First finish your story.”
“I couldn’t get a clearance to fly back so I borrowed a car, just got back a couple of hours ago and went straight to the apartment. The bastard of it is it’s been confiscated by Green Bands, along with all Mr. Bakravan’s property, except the shop in the bazaar and his family home.”
Lochart told them what had happened, adding, “I’m—I’m a waif in the storm. I’ve nothing now, we’ve nothing, Sharazad and I.” He laughed and it was a bad laugh and McIver could see that he was dying inside. “It’s true it was Jared’s building, the apartment and everything in it, though…though part of Sharazad’s, er, dowry… Let’s go, huh, Mac?”
“First let me call Freddy. Th—”
“Oh, of course, sure, sorry. I’m so worried I can’t think straight.”
McIver finished his drink and went to the HF. He stared at it. “Tom,” he said sadly, “what do you want to do about Zagros?”
Tom Lochart hesitated. “I could take Sharazad there with me.”
“Too dangerous, laddie. Sorry, but there it is.” McIver saw Lochart look into himself and measure himself, and sighed, feeling very old.
“If Sharazad’s okay I’ll go back with Jean-Luc tomorrow morning and we’ll sort out Zagros, and she goes on the next shuttle to Al Shargaz,” Lochart said. “Depending on what we find at Zagros…if we have to close down, Insha’Allah, we’ll ferry all our riggers to Shiraz to go out by regular flights—their company’ll tell them where they’re to go—and we’ll move everything to Kowiss, airplanes, spares, and personnel. Okay?”
“Yes. Meanwhile I’ll get on to the Ministry first thing tomorrow and see if I can straighten it out.” McIver clicked on the sender. “Kowiss, this is HQ. Do you read?”
Almost instantly: “HQ this is Kowiss, Captain Ayre, go ahead please, Captain McIver.”
“First, about Zagros Three: Tell Captain Gavallan that Captains Lochart and Sessonne will be back tomorrow around noon with instructions. Meanwhile prepare plans to obey the komiteh.” Rotten bloody sods, he thought, then went on for the benefit of those who were listening in: “The Zagros IranOil
base manager should remind the komiteh that the Ayatollah and the government have specifically ordered oil production back to normal. Closing down Zagros will severely interfere with orderly production in that area. Inform Captain Gavallan I will take this up at once with Minister Kia personally who, an hour ago, confirmed this to me, and gave me written approvals to take out and replace crew by our own 125 until…”
“Christ, Mac, that’s great news,” came over the airwaves involuntarily.
“Yes…by our own 125 until regular service resumes. Crew replacements and replacement aircraft to service all the extra work and Guerney contracts the government are asking us to service, so I cannot understand the actions of the local komiteh. Got it, Captain Ayre?”
“Yessir. Message received five by five.”
“Has Captain Starke returned yet?”
A long silence, then: “Negative, HQ.”
McIver’s voice became even colder. “Call me at once when he does. Captain Ayre, just between you and me and to go no further: if he has any problems whatsoever and isn’t safe back at base by dawn, I will ground all our aircraft throughout Iran, close down all our operations, and order 100 percent of all our personnel out of Iran.”
“Good, Mac,” Pettikin said softly.
McIver was too concentrated to hear him. “Did you get that, Kowiss?”
Silence, then: “Affirmative.”
“As far as you’re concerned,” McIver added, developing his sudden thought, “inform Major Changiz and Hotshot from me, I’m ordering you right now to cease all operations including all CASEVACs until Starke’s back on the base. Got that?”
Silence, then: “Affirmative. The message will be relayed at once.”
“Good. But only the information that applies to your base. The rest’s private until dawn.” He smiled grimly, then added, “I’ll be making an inspection trip as soon as the 125 returns so make sure all manifests are up to date. Anything else?”
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