Saeed’s Wednesday morning guided tour of the Bazaar was efficient and informative. He led me along the main pathways and showed me the prime shortcuts. We passed through the major clusters of merchants, not that I wanted to buy a lot of tin ware, or sandals, or table linen, but by the time we were done I had a working knowledge of how it all fit together. Better than that, he explained how the Bazaar worked.
“This Bazaar started here long before the city of Tehran was built. In the beginning it was the city. That was many centuries ago. What you see here now is a city within the city. It has everything—banks, hotels, mosques, merchants of every good and service imaginable. Until recently the Bazaar was the center of power in Tehran. The Bazaaris could bend the Shahs to their will, but of course they rarely needed to. Like any political system the money and the power worked in concert.
“So there is far more wealth concentrated here than one would guess, just looking at it. The bankers finance commerce internationally. The bigger merchants have far-reaching interests—buying, selling, transportation, political fixing. In broader Tehran people are lackadaisical—they do the minimum work, with the minimum application and care, that they can get away with. ‘Made in Iran’ is not a recommendation, except for carpets and caviar. The Bazaaris don’t mess around, their skin is in the game. Not so for government workers and bureaucrats out there drawing a paycheck for sitting on their butts in air conditioned offices. As long as they please the guy above them, they’ve got it made.”
“Your father said that the Shah does not have much support here.”
“Well, that’s an understatement. The Bazaaris hate him.”
“Because of the corruption?”
“Bazaaris don’t mind corruption. They won’t brook dishonesty—this place operates on trust, and any Bazaari who breaks his word is O U T—but corruption is how our world works. The problem is, the oil money started gushing in, and the Shah, his family and his cronies hogged it. They didn’t spread the corruption around fairly, is the gripe in these parts. The Shah brought in big banks and big stores outside. The Bazaaris feel they were soldiered out of their share of the swag.”
“What do the Bazaaris think would be different if the Shah were out and Khomeini were back?”
“One thing you have to understand is that Bazaaris are faithful Faithful—devout Shi’ite Muslims. Most of these guys sport Hajj caps—they did the Mecca thing. They pray five times a day. So there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the Shah’s modernization. Khomeini was exiled because he fought the White Revolution. The Bazaaris would like to go back to the old ways, and that’s why they support Khomeini.” He paused. “But you know, if the Shah had spread more of the oil money in this direction, I don’t think they’d mind him so much.”
Several days later Lou Scannon left a message and a phone number at the Semiramis. I dialed the number, which turned out to be an office of Defense Intelligence, and Lou came on the line. He was brief. Dick Hedd had mentioned me to him, and he wanted to get together, get acquainted as fellow Americans, and, oh yes, also sound me out about some things. He suggested dinner, named a place and we negotiated a time.
My meeting with Lou Scannon was on August 12, the day after the beginning of Ramazan, the Muslim period of fasting. The Faithful are allowed no food between sunrise and sundown, and only enough water to sustain. Also no smoking or sex. It makes for a touchy time, especially when it falls during the long, hot summer days. Blood sugar gets low, patience and tempers are stretched. That doesn’t stop us Infidels from eating whatever and whenever, though doing it in front of the Faithful was considered bad manners, by them at least. Lou and I were to convene at a restaurant popular with American expats. Fortunately for me, my cabbie remembered that he needed to stop for a couple errands en route, which involved his cousins trying to sell me things, so I arrived a few minutes after somebody bombed the place.
Acrid smoke from the blast was still wafting out the newly opened facade, Semtex, a Commie explosive, Czech to be precise—I recognized the smell from my combat tour in Nam. I dashed inside over a glitter of window glass shards to offer what help I could. People were down all over the place, the room a chaos of busted furniture, shattered dishware and strewn entrees. Blood Red prominently colored the room. Groans, screams and pleas for help provided background music. They’d already raided the pantry for clean tablecloths and napkins, so I helped apply tourniquets and bandages. We liberated a couple bottles of vodka as a stopgap disinfectant, as well as anesthetic for both wounded and responders. Police and ambulances arrived in wailing, flashing droves. The professionals took over and I stood down, getting out of their way. One dead and about forty injured was the count. A shaken but otherwise undamaged man came up to me, American, dressed in a lightweight business suit that would soon take a trip to the cleaners. “You wouldn’t by any chance be Jake Fonko?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m Lou Scannon. Dick Hedd recommended that we get together, thought you’d be a good resource for me to cultivate. This, um, wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I called you. Better if we go somewhere else. I know another place,” he said. “First time I was ever grateful for getting a lousy table. May have saved my life.”
He led me a couple blocks away, to a less conspicuously American-patronized restaurant, where we sat down to dinner. It was past sundown, and the local Muslims were chowing down with gusto. Scannon gave me background on his work, essentially analyzing Iran’s defense needs and scoping out how America could assist. “The major unanswered threat right now is the Russian border. They seem to be preparing something over there. Domestically the Shah’s covered. He’s got 700.000 troops, and all of the workers and most of the people are behind him. What opposition there is, is split: the students groups are Marxist, so they’ll never get together with the Islamics.”
“That last, is that an official assessment?”
“It’s what the National Security Agency is putting out, yes.”
“Is there someone there I could talk to?”
“My contact is Hugh Gigot. I’ll give you his particulars. Anyhow, Dick Hedd tells me you’ve got CIA creds up the kazoo, though he wasn’t clear on what your assignment is in Tehran. Look, getting good intelligence here is damn near impossible. I don’t think a true statement is made in Tehran, by anybody, more than once a week. So I was wondering, without getting into the specifics of your mission, is there anything you’ve found out that you could share with us?”
“Well, you might take a look at Afghanistan. I think if the Russkies are cooking up something, it could be aimed there, not here.”
Scannon looked at me and shook his head back and forth patronizingly. “It’s called ‘The Great Game,’ Jake. The Russkies have been cooking up something there for 100 years. Read Kim by Rudyard Kipling. No, I’m sure the threat is here, and I’m under the gun to provide a shopping list to the DOD.”
If the KGB had sent Grotesqcu to Afghanistan, it wasn’t just to get him out from underfoot in the office. Huh. Try to help people. “So, you don’t think there’s any chance this place is going to blow?”
“If I gave you a list of the military hardware the Shah has on hand, there’d be no doubt in your mind. Not a chance in the world. People are just a little antsy, that’s all. It’s Ramazan, you know.”
“Okay, I’ll keep alert for anything that comes my way I can give you.”
In the next few days I heard reports that rioting was breaking out all over the country—Yazd, Qom, Shiraz, Tabriz. Young men attacked anything that smacked of the regime. In response the Shah declared a state of emergency and imposed martial law. More troops sporting automatic weapons patrolled the streets.
The next time Gianni Franco convened with the Shah, Jake Fonko “took off for Kermanshah.” Midday, Princess Ashraf stepped into the office and interrupted our work. “Mr. Fonko, an interesting rumor reached my ears. Did you know that Gianni
Franco is in the Carlo family of the Mafia and leaves horses in people’s beds? And here I thought he was just another sleazy Italian parasite on the rich and famous.”
The Shah sat up straight. “What? This is not good. How did this story get started?” Old sailors’ wisdom: Never trust a whore. I explained the situation to the Shah. “Well, we’re only human, after all,” he allowed. “Don’t worry about it, Jake. I will have the situation take care of.” He turned to the Princess. “Ashraf, I’m glad you dropped by. I’ve been meaning to say something about this casino project of yours. I want you to desist on that. It looks bad, that the Shah’s family is fostering gambling, which the Koran forbids.”
“Well, Mohammad, we’re only human, as you said. Many people do like to gamble, and at present they go to Monaco, or Germany, or Las Vegas, or Macau, to do it. Why not keep their money in our country? Also the money of our wealthy Arab friends. My casino is in Kish, where few of the Faithful ever venture, so it is out of sight and shouldn’t bother anyone.”
“Nevertheless, we should be setting a good example for the people, and especially not setting a bad one. The mullahs know very well what goes on in Kish, and they excoriate us about it to their followers.”
“No harm, no foul,” the Princess quipped breezily. “Why don’t you come up and see me some time, Gianni?” she said, doing a bad Mae West imitation.
“Ever at your service, mi belladonna,” I rejoined. She laughed and left.
The Shah and I were about through with our conference when he winced, shivered and turned a little grey. He sat silent for a moment.
“Have you thought of going to the US for treatment?” I asked. “Our oncologists are the best in the world.”
He looked at me sharply, then softened. “This is supposed to be a secret. How can I rule this country if the people knew I have a terminal disease? Dr. Flandrin comes from France and gives me drugs for it, but it only gets worse. Medical facilities in this country are not sufficient, and even if they were, for security reasons I cannot use them. The doctor is a good man, and he is keeping it at bay as best he can, but he offers no definitive cure. There may be no cure. I insisted on French doctors because I thought they would be discreet. Where did you hear about this?”
I told him (“Women will be the death of me yet,” he muttered.) and I added, thinking of Evanston, “I know people who know people who might help you get treatment in America.”
“I will certainly keep that in mind. Well, it is your mission to find out the truth, so I suppose I must commend you for uncovering this. But not a word to anyone. No one else must know. I am committed to seeing Iran through these troubles, and that would be more difficult if my condition were known.”
“No, sir, not a word,” I avowed.
The Shah and I finished our discussions the next day. Jake returned from Kermanshah, and Gianni took off for Biarritz.
And then I got a call from Kent Copley, of the US State Department. He wanted to see me at the Embassy, urgently enough that we set up an appointment the next day. The American Embassy was a walled compound comprising about 60 acres, enclosing several dozen buildings—and not just the central office building and the military mission headquarters (whose rooftops bristled with forests of antennae). Like our Embassies in other Third World countries, it provided housing for the Foreign Service personnel stationed there, including amenities of the diplomatic lifestyle such as tennis courts, tall trees, mown lawns and air-conditioning. Living out on the economy would have been a severe hardship, not to mention inefficient, not to mention unsafe, for Americans. This arrangement meant that the Tehran diplomatic community was a close-knit crew, insulated from the texture of events outside their secured walls. Nor, most of them not speaking the language, did they learn much from locals they employed for the donkey work.
When I showed up at Copley’s office, his business didn’t seem so urgent after all. “Mr. Fonko, I really don’t want to hassle or harass you, but you have been noticed. I had you shadowed in the Bazaar the other day. You spend a lot of time at Q’ereshi’s shop, and while I know you’re here as a carpet buyer…” his voice rising as I started to say something. “I think there’s more to your visit than that. He is one of the most powerful men in the Bazaar, and his carpets aren’t much to speak of. You’re doing a lot of recon around the city, and these ‘buying trips’ you ostensibly go on, you haven’t actually left town, except the one time, and then you went to Bahrain.”
I was starting to get a little nervous with this line of conversation. “But,” he continued, “it’s not that you’re under suspicion or anything like that, and it is not our business to pry into the affairs of American citizens. Even though your behavior seems suspicious. The thing is, I looked into your background, which is very interesting indeed, and I was hoping you could help us. Intel is a problem in this country. Few of our people speak Farsi, and we tend to stand out like the proverbial sore thumbs. Intel is your specialty, and you’re reputedly good at it. Even though private citizens are not supposed to do espionage in foreign countries. What I’m getting at is, if you could just let me know if you turn up anything of interest, I’d sure appreciate it.”
“What sort of things do you think I should look out for?”
“That’s just it. If we knew that, I wouldn’t need you. This place is a mystery to me, frankly. Why they assigned me here beats the hell out of me. I don’t think the Iranians like me, and I can’t say I have much use for the duplicitous bastards. But here I am.”
“Well, one thing I’ve noticed is that people on the streets in general seem out of sorts. I’ve seen a lot of demonstrations and protests, and the people in those are downright pissed off. Just the other night somebody bombed a restaurant full of Americans. Do you think there’s any possibility the place might be ready to blow?”
Copley looked at me horror-stricken. “Don’t even think that! If that happened…we’d be responsible for getting 50,000 Americans out through that airport! Think of the business American corporations would lose! Control of Hormuz would be in the hands of fanatics! Can you imagine that nightmare? Too ghastly to consider. This place can’t blow! And it won’t. That’s not going to happen. The Shah can’t be overthrown. He has 700,000 troops, and the support of all of the workers and most of the people. The opposition is divided between Marxists and Fundamentalists, and never shall those twain meet.”
“The Shah’s safe, then? That’s the official thinking?”
“He may be nuts and a megalomaniac, but the Shah’s safe as houses. Defense Intelligence issued a definitive report, with impeccable sourcing. So it’s not a worry. That’s official. But all kinds of worrisome things keep cropping up. Here’s an oddity that came up the other day. The Mafia is in town? Seems some American wise guy, Gianni Franco, slipped in here, got around passport control, skipped customs somehow. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have ever been issued a passport. He’s hanging out with Princess Ashraf, the most powerful woman in Iran. The SAVAK asked us what could he be up to. Drugs? Drugs are under government control here, even the illegal stuff, so now Princess Ashraf is under suspicion. Arms? Can’t be selling, must be buying. Lord knows the Shah has more than he needs, been buying from everywhere. If the Mafia is stocking up on anti-tank rockets, we should know about that. I don’t like the way it smells, Mafia links with the Shah’s family. They’re corrupt enough already. You talk to people. If you get a line on this guy, would you give me a heads up?”
“Always glad to help my country, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to it.” One hundred per cent sure, as a matter of fact. So I suppose that doesn’t count as a lie. On the other hand, were the CIA and SAVAK on Gianni’s case now?
The call from Hugh Gigot, National Security Agency, came shortly thereafter. His office was in one of the new glass-faced high rises, though it was listed under some innocuous business name. He was less muscle and more big dome than his CIA counterparts, had ri
mless glasses and a pocket protector. “Mr. Fonko, your name has been making the rounds. I don’t suppose you’d give me a straight answer if I asked your mission specifics here in Tehran?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Didn’t think so. Good for you. Well, I thought it would be a good idea to make your acquaintance, that’s why Lou Scannon recommended I call you. You never know, with situations developing here we Yanks should stick together.”
“OK by me. What situations do you have in mind?”
“All the unrest. Demonstrations. Strikes. That bomb in the restaurant the other night…”
“Do you think the place is about to blow?”
“God no. It can’t. We’d lose our listening posts on the eastern border, and then how would we monitor Soviet missile tests? But I don’t think there’s a danger of that. The Shah is impregnable. He has 700,000 troops, and the workers and most of the people support him. The opposition divides into a pair of perennial enemies—Marxists and the religious crowd—so while they can cause a lot of trouble, they can’t beat him.”
“Is that your own assessment?”
“We got it straight from the horse’s mouth—the SAVAK, we intercepted their intel. If anybody would know, they would. That’s what we do, monitoring and code breaking. We passed it straight on to Defense. Anyhow,” he continued, “I know something of your background, and while in Tehran you’ve been talking to a lot of people, so it’s possible you’re finding things out that would be useful to us.”
“Would it be useful for you to know that Russia seems to be cooking something up in Afghanistan?”
“What makes you think so?”
“I got an inkling from a source in the KGB?”
Gigot’s eyes went a little wider. “You penetrated the KGB? Right. Listen, whatever any Russian told you, count on it being disinformation. KGB? Really?”
“He says he is.”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3 Page 34