November 17 marked a humiliation for the King of Kings. It was the date of the annual armed forces parade, a formal review of the troops by the Shah himself. In the past it had been an all day affair, a massive march through center of the city. This year, for the sake of public safety, a much subdued parade took place on one of the highways out of town. For security reasons, the Shah did not take the salute of the troops from the reviewing stand. The demonstrators got the message.
A few days later soldiers opened fire on crowds in Shiraz and Mashhad. In the latter city the troops invaded the hospital and finished off some of the wounded.
Shortly thereafter Kent Copley summoned me to his office in the Embassy. “Now half the country’s on strike to protest Mashhad. Why didn’t the CIA see this coming?” he grumped. “Why didn’t anybody see it coming? We’ve got CIA people overflowing the Embassy. What’s the use?”
“Didn’t Carter issue orders that nobody in the US contingent here was to say anything critical about the Shah?”
“Yes, and that fucked us royally,” Copley allowed. “Of course nobody knowing what Carter, with his Human Rights bug up his butt, would construe as ‘critical’, nobody said anything at all. Expats are starting to leave already, despite Carter’s refusal to authorize an evacuation. Doesn’t want to embarrass the Shah. The airport’s at capacity, and it’s just a trickle of the flood we might see. Regular flights already can’t handle it. Where will anybody find enough charters? There are ll,000 Americans down at Isfahan alone. You were at Isfahan recently. What can you tell me about Isfahan?”
Isfahan, Isfahan…those beautiful, high knot-count floral designs. “What I can tell you for sure is, there are designs in Isfahan, very tight, very knotty.”
MARK FOUR
“Knotty designs in Isfahan? Do you mean…?”
“Yes.”
“Just what I feared most! So we should…?”
“ASAP”
“Thank God, at least a little prior warning! Fonko, you’re a life saver. Anything else you can pass on?”
I mentioned my trip to Tabriz but said I was still collating my data. When I left his mental state had improved from hysterical to merely panic-stricken, so I’d served my country, at least a little.
And a week later rioters burned the four story Grumman headquarters building in Isfahan, along with four banks. No Americans were hurt, a lot of the important stuff was saved, and Copley was singing my praises. Which got around the intel community. Directly, Dick Hedd was after me for inside dope on Tabriz, which was having its share of troubles. Tabriz, home of some of the best Persian carpets: “In Tabriz the important thing is to examine the back,” I intoned, remembering how well the tightly-knotted designs came through on the backs of Tabriz carpets.
MARK FIVE
“And what am I supposed to do with that?” he asked.
“If you look, you’ll see how clear it is,” I answered.
He thought for a moment. “Okay, we’ll look.”
A couple days later a big demonstration in Tabriz was routed by government troops attacking from the rear. A number were killed. That too circulated through the intel community. And also to the Revolutionary Komiteh. Everybody was receiving glowing reports of Jake Fonko’s espionage prowess.
Events were moving quickly, and I needed a way to confer with the Shah more often, for quick updates and briefings. By that time the Shah had issued Gianni the BMW the Princess had picked me up in, which I drove to the Palace sans SAVAK escort and left parked at the Hilton when I switched back to Jake. Still, shuttling Gianni Franco in and out was too awkward for quick, short meetings, so we added another role to my repertoire: motorcycle courier. It was a plausible way to get me into the Palace, and it solved another problem: mobility. Demonstrations and strikes were bringing public transportation to a standstill. Jake Fonko would go to the Ministry of Trade for a business matter and would be set to wait for official attention in a closed office. And then as a uniformed courier I would emerge from the rear of the building and take off for the Palace. The bike enabled me to skirt around main roads and avoid demonstrations and traffic jams by taking back streets and alleyways. By then I knew Tehran well enough to pull it off…
…except the day I started down an alley between apartment blocks, to find my exit blocked by a pack of pissed-off Revolutionaries who thought they’d cornered one of the Shah’s lackeys. Which I was, come to think of it. I spun the bike around and started back out the way I came in, to find a squad of government troops stomping in to meet them. I estimated that the Revolutionaries were less well trained and armed, so turned around once again and gunned the bike right at them, brodied it to a halt and lit into them. As a motorcycle courier would not be expected to be highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat, I took out a couple of them as awkwardly as I could make it look. I heard gunshots, and a couple slugs whined past me, scattering the rest. I hopped on the bike and took off. Whatever part of the government the thugs down the alley represented, I didn’t want them to nail me for that silenced pistol. But now they were on the lookout for the Lone Ranger in a courier costume—whoever “they” were. They hadn’t seen me come out of the Ministry, so this gig still had legs if I kept vigilant. If it came to it, I had the SIG, but I really didn’t want it to come to that. The SAVAK may have a license to kill, but for an American carpet buyer with a silenced pistol, doing that could be a beheading offense. Demonstrators were still not shooting back, and the SIG stayed holstered.
December 2 marked the Beginning if Muharran, and the Shah called for a curfew the nights of the 1st and 2nd in an effort to quell the rioting. From Paris Khomeini issued a directive, “DEFY THE CURFEW,” and thousands took to the streets on December 1. Troops killed scores of them. The next night nearly a half million came out, and hundreds of thousands workers and civil servants went on strike in protest. The new Prime Minister, Mr. Azari, tried to blame the Tudeh party, but it clearly was Khomeini’s show.
December 11 was another Muslim holiday, Day of Tassua. The Shah lifted the curfew, so the crowd had nothing to defy. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators (organizers claimed two million) stormed about the streets of Tehran, the biggest mob yet. The next day even more, and in cities all over Iran as well. To the astonishment of all, the crowd remained relatively calm.
Except in Isfahan, where they torched the SAVAK headquarters and a number of other buildings, and hit an American school bus with a molotov cocktail. Knotty indeed.
It’s been estimated that in the French and Russian Revolutions no more than 1% of the population took an active role. Iran was racking up a participation rate of 10% out rampaging in high dudgeon, setting a world record of sorts.
The Shah hardly needed me to tell him the truth any more. It was slapping him in the face, right and left repeatedly. I went to the Palace as Gianni, as he needed more time to talk to me. I noted en route that a number of the mansions and palaces in north Tehran looked recently vacated. The Palace was strangely deserted, considering all that was going outside it. Princess Ashraf told me he spent much time alone staring out at his gardens in moody silence. He talked with Empress Farah more than anyone, placing more faith in her advice than in that of his advisors. Consequently anyone wishing to reach him went through her. He was looking ever more haggard. Everyone blamed on the stress and strain he was undergoing. He kept the secret of his illness well.
“At least you gave me some warning,” he told me. “Had I been relying on official reports, all of this would have fallen on me out of the blue. It is really out of control now. There are more in Khomeini’s camp than I’d ever imagined. The workers have turned against me. If I have any supporters among the people, they are certainly lying low. I do not see how the situation can be turned around. The soldiers are only making things worse. The Empress Farah went on pilgrimage to several important Shi’ite shrines to demonstrate our allegiance to the Faith. I don’t think anyone will cr
edit it. Do you see any glimmers of hope?”
“You’re asking the wrong man,” I cautioned him. “My expertise is recon, intel and jungle warfare. Government is not my strong suit. I’m no policy guy.”
“But you are practical, Jake. You have common sense. You have no stake in the game, no position to protect. You can be objective. Tell me how the situation looks to you.”
“Bleak,” I said. “Because no specific solution is clear. Too many factions demand too many contradictory things. Give something to one group and the others will just hate you all the more. I’m sorry to say that the only thing uniting them is their opposition to you.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry to hear you say it, but I fear you are correct. So…what? Clearly, continuing to shoot my own people will not solve anything. It is not just troublemakers, it is the majority.”
We sat quietly, contemplatively, for a while. “I have committed myself to keeping the Monarchy on the throne,” he began. “An unbroken string of 466 Shahs, the longest continuously reigning monarchy on Earth—it has lasted more than 2,500 years! Yet the one thing I do not hear is that anyone wants a Shah. If there were some way for me to go away, at least for a time, until things calm down…”
“There is the matter of your health, sir. Perhaps if you went to the US for treatment, by the time you recovered, the situation would have stabilized and you could institute the constitutional monarchy you’ve talked of.”
“Yes, perhaps…That is possible. The Empress and I are going skiing for a few days. It is respite I dearly need, and it will give me some time to think.”
The Shah returned from his ski vacation looking a little refreshed. He told me that a trip abroad sounded appealing, especially to the Empress. I asked him about logistics, and he said he had two 707s he could use. I suggested that he might start discreetly loading them with what he would need for an extended trip abroad. He allowed that would be prudent, and we discussed possible plans. He also told me he had told Princess Ashraf to pack up her Palace and go west.
I touched base with Razi Q’ereshi. “I hear that the Shah’s people are moving massive amounts of capital out of the country,” he told me. “Not saying that you are among those dogs, but you would be well advised to do likewise.”
“Is this happening among the Bazaaris as well?”
“The dogs bark and the caravan moves on. The Bazaar has been here for a long time, and what has been, will be. We do not fear the future, we welcome it. We come by our money honestly. We will be allowed to keep it. But in your case, who knows? I think Infidels will not be popular. In Muslim societies they have fewer rights, if any rights at all. You have visited the gold sellers. That is wise. Especially, do not leave anything sitting in a bank here.”
He had gotten in a new shipment of carpets from Kashan, probably the last available for a while. Those designs were popular in California. Ben Millstein liked the Tabrizes, so I bought a bunch Kashans of various sizes and had them airfreighted. Only a Bazaari could move merchandise in the chaotic conditions prevailing in Tehran.
And I heeded Q’ereshi’s advice re banks and gold shops. Leaving the Bazaar after one Kruggerand buy, a burkha-clad woman brushed up against me and said, very distinctly, “Jake, they are on to you. Get out while you can.” Then she turned and merged into the flow.
Rachel?
Which “they”?
Which “you”?
On December 28 I got a message at the desk in the Semiramis. I went to a phone elsewhere I’d been using and retuned the call. It was the home number of one of the top people at Electronic Data Systems, EDS, Ross Perot’s company. “Mr. Fonko, Dick Hedd at the Embassy recommended I talk to you. Could you come right over? It’s pretty urgent.”
Transportation was dicey in Tehran just then, but I told him I’d see what I could do. It took a while, but extra rials conquer all, and eventually I arrived at one of the new high rise apartment buildings, went up the lift and knocked on his door.
He had the aura of earnestness and competence that characterizes overseas American managers. Our corporations send good people out to do those jobs. At the moment, however, he was agitated. “Thanks for coming on short notice. An emergency has come up and for political reasons the US Embassy can’t get involved in what we’re thinking of doing, so Dick Hedd thought you might be able to help.”
“What’s the problem?”
His tale was this: EDS had been contracted to set up a computer data processing and information system for the Ministry of Health. There had been some disputes with their government contacts, possibly related to the fact that Perot did not like paying bribes, nor getting squeezed. A deal was a deal. The disputes culminated in two EDS employees being arrested and, after a hearing at the Ministry, being held on $13 million bail. Perot dismissed this as pure and simple extortion and was not going to pay it. Instead, he wanted the men sprung.
“Ross Perot wants to stage a jail break? From an Iranian prison? With the streets teeming with hotheads who hate Americans? And the government collapsing? He’s ambitious, I’ll give him that.”
“You won’t help?”
“I wish I could. The problem is, my combat experience was in jungle recon, with small squads of men.” I explained to him about LRRPs. “I couldn’t handle something like this. I don’t want to discourage you, but it’s a very sticky situation. The logistics alone would be daunting.”
“Mr. Perot is very insistent. He wants his men. He refuses to pay. He tried the Embassy, but Carter’s got everybody hogtied. They can’t make waves, they have to go through diplomatic channels…which change every day, as the Iranian government is SNAFU. We think what’s going on is just par-for-the-course corruption. Diplomacy wouldn’t make a dent in it.”
They had that right. I couldn’t ask the Shah. What then…? “You know, if Perot is really serious about this…”
“You bet he is. You don’t know Mr. Perot.”
.”..the man he should talk to is ‘Bull’ Simons. Lt. Col Arthur D. Simons is his name. If anyone could pull that kind of operation off, he’s the man. He led the Son Tay assault team on a POW rescue mission in Nam. They came up empty because of faulty intel—the prisoners had been moved—but the mission itself was perfection. They say he’s the best leader of small groups Special Forces has. Or had. He may be retired by now. If Ross Perot can locate him and get him on board, he can’t do better.”
“I’ll relay that to him right away, Mr. Fonko.”
“I hope it works out. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
The next day the Shah announced a new Prime Minister, Bakhtiar, another attempt to placate the unplacatable. The previous one, General Azhari, had suffered a heart attack after two weeks on the job. The Revolutionaries took it as another sign of government weakness. Which it was.
This time Emil Grotesqcu got in touch with me and suggested a meeting. He thought the crush in the Bazaar was a good place to escape notice. We were shuffling through an area of pottery stalls and shops. “Jake,” he was saying, “I do not understand how you do it. At least you actually went to Tabriz and Isfahan, though mostly all you did was buy carpets. You were never seen at all in Mashhad, Shiraz, Kermanshah, Qom or Hamadan. I know you’re a shape-shifter, but how do you make yourself invisible?”
“It’s a secret I learned in the Orient, how to cloud men’s minds so they cannot see me.” I said, thinking of a radio serial of bygone days—The Shadow knows, heh heh heh…
“I don’t know but what I half believe you. What I wanted to talk to you about, do you have any idea what the Shah is going to do?”
“Is that important to the KGB?”
“Everything is important to the KGB. At least, if we miss some insignificant thing that later blows up, how could we have missed it? Of course, the Shah’s actions are hardly insignificant.”
“He’s in a pickle, that’s for sure.
”
A large vase exploded into colorful shards right in front of us, not quite masking the thwipp! of a suppressed pistol shot. It sounded very much like my SIG. We dropped behind the counter. “You’d think they’d hire competent marksmen for assassins,” Grotesqcu sniffed.
“Could have come from anywhere,” I said. “No directional clues from the pottery fragments—they went every which way. There’s a lot of cover here for a sniper.”
“It’s probably a one-off. Not likely he’d risk a shoot-out. He must have some idea who we are, and we’re both armed. Let’s give it a minute, then move apart behind the counter before we stand up.” The pottery merchant came storming over. “Let me handle this.”
We stood up. Grotesqcu kept the merchant between him and where he thought the shot came from. They argued round and round. “Jake, it’s a you-broke-it-you-bought-it situation, and according to him it was the most expensive item in the shop, a rare antique. Worth thousands.”
“Tell him if he doesn’t settle for 50 rials we’ll break some more.” The harangue revived, crescendoed, then waned. I gave him the 50, which he took with tears in his eyes. Judging from the pieces next to it, it was probably worth 30. No sense trying to locate the sniper in that confusion of people, structures, alleyways and bric-a-brac. He’d be long lost in the maze by now. Couldn’t have been an accident, might have been just a warning, could have been a lot of things. We resumed our stroll. “I wonder who’s after me now,” I mused.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Jake. I’ve been a little mischievous in my efforts to help the Tudeh Party.”
“I think your analysis of who will prevail was wrong,” I said.
“Sadly, yes, I’ve been backing the losing side. When the Ayatollah takes command, a lot of these rebels are going to miss what they had, flawed as it was. And we friends of the people will be out in the cold. How long do you give it?”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3 Page 39