“So it seems. Especially not for an American on the loose. Can you suggest a place for me to stay for a while? I do not trust the people at Hotel Semiramis.”
“As well you should not. They were passing information about you. There are hotels here in the Bazaar. If I vouch for you, you will be safe enough.”
“Somebody in the Bazaar took a shot at me a few days ago.”
“So I heard. Probably the SAVAK, though who really knows? If it was them, you no longer have to worry about that. The Shah is gone, their job is over. The ones that haven’t joined the Revolution are the hunted now, fearing reprisals. Many people seek retribution. How long are you remaining in Tehran? Are you joining the stampede of Americans?”
“I have some business to attend to, and I have arranged transport out when the time comes.”
“Mr. Fonko, possibly you could help me with a problem. I do not think my son, Saeed, will fare well in the Ayatollah’s Iran. He has become too westernized. People know of his American education and sympathies. He has no future here. His life may be in danger, even. I was hoping he might inherit my business, but my other sons could do that as well. Do you think he would have a future in America?”
“Saeed? Sure. He’d do well there.”
“Is there some way you could help him to leave Iran? With his background he may have exit problems. As it is, I am keeping him out of sight.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I was pretty sure I could do something, because I’d been let in on a secret. Alan Bristow, seeing how the Revolutionaries were muscling in on Western businesses and getting some heat himself, was laying plans to flee the coop, lock, stock and barrel. He wouldn’t give me details but told me to stay tuned and be ready to roll at the beginning of March. That suited me fine, because I needed to gather more intel on the course of things in Iran for the Shah.
Ben Millstein had cabled me that he’d sold the Kashans and the Tabrizes, and wanted more carpets if I could get them. He feared supplies would soon be cut off. It fit my cover, so I arranged to fly with Bristow to several carpet centers around Iran. I’d take Saeed along as an assistant, and sound him out to see how I could help him leave.
I passed an idea along to Razi Q’ereshi. He was losing his customers, but they were stuck with carpets they could not in the heat of the moment transport out of the country. It was an opportunity for him either to offer shipping services, or to buy the carpets back from fleeing Americans—at his usual rates of profit, of course. At that suggestion he seemed a little less woeful when I left him to check out of the Semiramis and get my kit. Returning to check in at the Bazaar, I had the taxi driver do what he could to shake any tails.
So for the next two weeks I observed the demise of one regime and the onset of another. It wasn’t as bad as Phnom Penh, I’ll give it that. Everybody was still in town, giving me crowds to hide in, plus the streets didn’t stink of rotting corpses. The fighting continued everywhere. Strikes created shortages and shut down transportation. Life crept steadily tougher for the Iranian on the street. I traveled as JAveed Faruki again. Saeed and I found bargains galore at the carpet factories, whose owners feared business, not to mention the Iranian economy, was collapsing into chaos, and wanted to raise hard currency in their overseas accounts. A step ahead of European buyers, we shipped some beauties to Ben Millstein, C.O.D.
On February 21 the American ambassador, William Sullivan, informed the Ayatollah’s Prime Minister, Barzargan, that the US accepted the Revolution. I doubted that the Ayatollah much cared whether the Great Satan accepted it or not. It was a fact.
Our pilot told me to be at Bristow’s Tehran base on March 2 with one piece of luggage. They were okay with Saeed going along; he didn’t take up much space, and he’d proved useful to them while traveling around with me. They listed us on the manifest as oil company office workers.
On March 4 they staged their own jailbreak. They’d positioned their entire fleet of choppers at several coastal cities. At a prearranged time they all set out for various destinations across the Persian Gulf, and all of them evaded the Iranian Air Force and made it. Alan Bristow got his people and his capital out of the Ayatollah’s Iran, taking me and Saeed along for the ride (I tapped the Shah’s account to make a little gift for their inconvenience). In a short time I deplaned in Bahrain with my Kruggerands, my SIG, my essential personal belongings and my hide intact (I salvaged the Philippe Patek wristwatch and the Mont Blanc pen, but the Hilton could donate the rest of Gianni Franco’s designer wardrobe to the poor children, for all I cared). No more fake identities, I was plain old Jake Fonko. Looking back, I could have fared a lot worse.
The egress of Bristow Helicopters was in reality more complex than I’ve described, of course. Managing a fleet of helicopters for a major operation like this under the watchful and suspicious eyes of a revolutionary government who hates your guts required careful planning, flawless execution and the usual amount of luck. James Clavell fictionalized the escapade in his novel, Whirlwind, in great detail. So much detail that reading his book would require more real time from the average reader than the operation itself took.
Razi Q’ereshi had contacts in Bahrain; Saeed could see after himself. We promised to look one another up in the States and separated. My next task was to join the Shah’s party. He had stayed at the Aswan resort area in Egypt only five days before being invited to leave, then piled back into his 707s and moved on. I sent a cable to the address he’d given me. Shortly I received his answer. I was off on the road to Morocco.
The Shah cabled me a new account number for expenses and a contact in Bahrain, who authorized me to draw on the account. I took a room in the Kempinski Grand Hotel and spent a couple days resting, reviving, hoisting a few cold ones in some US Navy hangouts, and enjoying the freedom missing during the last few months in Tehran. I bought a few duds to fill out the little I’d carried in my hasty departure—NOT from designers’ row this time. The contact arranged my flights to Marrakesh and alerted the Shah I was coming. The flight across Arabia and Northern Africa to the west coast traversed four time-zones and most of the day. Very soon the novelty of the scenery below wore off. Sand, sand, sand, mountains, sand, sand, sand—and here I thought Iran was barren. The Shah’s two men waiting for me steered me around passport control and customs, allaying my concerns about the silenced SIG and five pounds of Kruggerands in my suitcase. We drove in their Merc sedan to the Shah’s hotel; his party occupied an entire floor, with armed guards at each entrance.
The Shah looked more haggard than when I’d last seen him. He introduced me to Empress Farah as a man who had been a great help to him. The little I saw of her, she struck me as a fine and gracious lady. The Shah was anxious to hear my report, so we repaired to a private room. I went over what I’d seen since he departed Iran. The news dumbfounded him.
“That is NOT what the people around me are saying. They are continually spinning fantastic yarns and devising plans and schemes for my return to the throne when Khomeini is overthrown by the popular will, which they assure me will happen any day. Now some of them are even plotting ways to shoot down or hijack the Ayatollah’s plane when he next flies to France. But from what you say, there is nothing to be done.”
“It looks bleak, sir,” I said. “On February 1 there were two million people in the streets, in Tehran alone, welcoming the Ayatollah. Since he arrived the Islamic Fundamentalists have pushed the student Revolutionaries aside and occupied the government ministries. They are setting up Sharia courts, holding trials and executing people. Most of the Army and the Air Force have thrown in on his side. It’s the same all over Iran. The people are strongly behind him. I shudder to think of the reaction if you returned.”
The Shah sighed. “It’s been him or me ever since the White Revolution. I thought modernization was in the best interests of Iran. He was my most vehement opponent. I finally sent him into exile. Though I think that, more than the modernizi
ng, what really set him against me was confiscating mullah holdings in my land reform. I redistributed land from private owners as well. Some of them owned dozens of villages. None of them was impoverished, some even came out ahead, yet they are so bitter. The Koran does not frown on wealth, as long one is generous with the poor. Mullahs are as greedy as anyone else. I thought the people who got the land for their own would appreciate it. Wrong I was.”
“Do you have any plans in mind now?”
“Just finding a place to stop is difficult enough. It seems that all my former allies are now concerned to stay on the good side of the new regime. The Ayatollah has oil and I do not. I am learning the lesson of your Shakespeare’s King Lear, the difference between friendship and authority that Kings do not realize until too late. Anwar Sadat and King Hassan may have been friends when I sat on the throne, but friendship counts for little against the affairs of state. Sadat could not get rid of me fast enough. When we left after five days he laid out a red carpet and detailed an honor guard of 100 to see us off. Unfortunately they did not move away from the plane before the pilot hit the throttles. The jet engine backblast damned near roasted the lot…a sad farewell,” he chuckled. “Likewise I do not think our welcome here in Morocco is long term. Crowds demonstrated against me at the airport and in the streets. The French are concerned about their ally here, King Hassan, so are advising him against me. It seems the Faithful are everywhere, and these rulers must live with them. Furthermore that dog Khomeini has canceled our Iranian passports. Ashraf has good contacts at the United Nations, so she called Kurt Waldheim and secured UN refugee passports. The Shah and the Empress, traveling as refugees…disgraceful,” he sighed. “We are working with your State Department to find a place that will put up with us. Do you have any ideas?”
“What about your health? Have you arranged treatment yet?”
“I still have told no one, though confidential feelers are out. Your State Department is wary about letting me in. Like everyone else, they want to stay on the good side of Iran’s petroleum, and they fear for their own people still in Iran should they offend the Ayatollah. They have finally realized that his rules differ greatly from those of their own so-called civilized rules.”
“Would you like me to see what I could do about getting medical care for you?”
“Jake, if you could accomplish that I would be eternally grateful.”
So I suppose you could say that the hostage crisis was all my fault. Completing my briefing for the Shah took several more days, including the time I took to scope out Marrakesh. I’d long heard of it, was curious to see what it looked like. Once was enough. Whatever recreational drugs it might have exported to the US (its hashish was said to be top notch), it was not a place that beckoned me to hang around. It was greener and more developed than I’d expected, with areas of quaintness. As in other Arab locales, the wealthy lived well there. All in all, a sort of grimy Palm Springs without the night life or the bikinis, boasting squalid slums and a shitload of flies.
Thus my next assignment for the Shah was to fly back to California and see what I could do about medical treatment. He said price was no object, which made my job easier. I rented a car at LAX and went not to my Malibu pad, but to Mom’s in Pacific Palisades. Mom was happy to see me, not least because my return promised more points to score on her canasta club buddies. Evanston ushered me into his den, and we got down to it.
“I’m still in the dark about what you’re after,” he said. “You’re working for the Shah, and he’s now in exile. Where do I fit into this?”
“This is absolutely confidential,” I began. “The Shah has cancer, a form of lymph cancer, “Waldenstrom’s macroglobulmemia,” it’s called. The State Department does not know it. The CIA does not know it. His family and entourage do not know it. He has been secretly treated by a French doctor. Medications have been slowing it, but his condition is worsening. Everyone thinks it is just the stress of recent events. I found out the truth, and that’s why he’s sent me here.”
“Of course I’ll keep it confidential. But what do you think I can do?”
“The Ayatollah now controls Iran, and he absolutely hates the Shah. No country in the world that either uses petroleum or has a sizeable Muslim population wants anything to do with the Shah. The US wants to continue on good terms with Iran, but this is perhaps the only place on earth where he could come for the treatment he needs. You told me you have influential contacts. I wonder if you approach some of them to see what can be done about medical treatment for the Shah.” I paused for a moment. “Though it would be in the cause of basic human kindness and decency, price is no object, of course.”
“Between those two noble motives, I may be able to find some people who’d be eager to help,” Evanston assured me.
I’d had my mail forwarded to Mom’s house, and there was a stack of it. Utilities, insurance premiums and the like I’d had put on autopilot; and Mom had forwarded anything personal. So a lot was junk, but there was a business-looking envelope with an EDS logo for the return address that had arrived recently, and inside it was a check. Ross Perot was more generous than I thought my meager contribution merited, but he was known for rewarding good performance, so I guess I’d helped.
I drove over to “Ali bin Suleiman Palace of Fine Oriental Carpets” to check in with Ben Millstein. He was ecstatic to see me. “Jake, if you ever want to quit whatever it is you’re doing and get into the carpet business, you’ve got a job here. The supply is drying up. You sent some of the last ones out.”
“I had to keep my cover credible. Razi Q’ereshi was a great help.”
“You picked a good ally over there. A lot of those Bazaaris, I can’t do business with. Iran was supposed to be a friend of the Jews, but not everybody got the message. Just a minute, I’ll be right back,” he added and went into the office. He returned a minute later. “What do you hear from Rachel?”
“Nothing. She checked out of her hotel and vanished, not a word to me. She may have spoken to me from under a burqa, but I couldn’t tell for certain. I thought maybe you’d heard something.”
“No, not me either. I hope she’s okay.”
“I’d think the Mossad can take care of itself.”
“Oh, you figured that out? Yeah, you’d think so. She’s a capable gal. She’s gone off on assignments before. Just have to wait and see,” A girl came out of the office with an envelope and handed it to Ben. “Here you go, Jake, with gratitude,” he said, relaying it to me.
“What’s this?”
“Your commission. You bought me dozens of top quality carpets. I’ve sold ‘em all. They didn’t stay in the shop for long. Too bad I can’t send you back there for more. It’s dried up completely the last few weeks. Everybody’s cryin’ for Persians. The Turks, the Afghanis, the Pakistanis, they can’t compete. There’s word the Indians and the Chinese are going to start producing imitations, but they won’t fool anybody.”
“But that was just my cover story. I wasn’t seriously buying carpets.”
“Those were serious carpets, let me tell you. What, you want me to get a reputation for stiffing my help? Take it and run like a thief.”
I stayed around LA just a week, seeing a few people, getting back in touch. I didn’t bother opening up my house, as I was going back out of town for an indefinite period. My bank account was looking perky, and the price of gold had ramped up nicely. I left the Kruggerands with Evanston, also the SIG, which I didn’t think I’d need any more. By now the Shah and his entourage had ricocheted to Paradise Island, in the Bahamas. The word was that a boodle had changed hands to bring out the welcome mat there. Before I left I sat down with Evanston to find out how my proposal had fared.
“I think it will work, Jake, but it’s touchy. Jimmy Carter will be torn into little pieces over it. After all his pious claptrap about human rights and humanitarian goals, he can’t very well turn away an ailing Shah.
But there’s also the matter of oil, and not only does a lot come from Iran, but most of it from Kuwait, Iraq and the Emirates goes out to the world through the Straits of Hormuz, which the Ayatollah controls. Carter’s not as stupid as he seems—he was a ‘nu-cue-ler engineer’ after all, but he’s scared shitless that he might have to order somebody to shoot somebody. He doesn’t want to take any measures or stands that might force that decision. He’d let even Castro in for medical treatment—that wouldn’t provoke violence. But no telling what those fundamentalist loonies would do if he welcomed the Shah.”
“Oh I have a good idea what they’d do,” I said. “And they’ve got Carter’s number. He’s hoping that if he’s nice and diplomatic and all toothy smiles, they’ll reciprocate. Uh unh. They respect force. They push, he doesn’t push back. They know he won’t risk that kind of confrontation. He’ll wimp out if he can.”
“Quite so,” Evanston agreed. “Okay, here’s where we stand. I asked around, and I’ve located some people who will smooth the way for him to get treatment. They will quietly contact him and work it out. It will be strictly secret. It will take some time. They have to arrange for medical facilities, square it with the State Department, find accommodation and so forth. It will be delicate and messy. And the Ayatollah will probably hit the fan.”
“What makes you confident that it will work?”
“Jake, didn’t you tell me that price was no object?”
I flew out to the Bahamas to report the results of my trip. The Shah had found hospitality of a sort on Paradise Island, one of the Bahamas’ ritzier spots. Linked to Nassau Island by a bridge, it was formerly called Hog Island until Huntington Hartford bought it, renamed it, and turned it into a gambling/golfing resort development for the world’s wealthy. The Shah and his family sojourned in the only place the Bahamas government allowed him to stop—the private home of James Crosby, chairman of Resorts International, who had bought Paradise Island in 1966. It was open to the beach but tiny, so the rest of the entourage displaced twenty rooms’ worth of guests at nearby Ocean Club (at $250 per night, each). The Ayatollah wanted the Shah retrieved to stand trial for treason, and Yasser Arafat, who had taken over the former Israeli Mission in Tehran, vowed to send a kidnap/assassination team after him. The Bahamas police provided extra guards, and thirty men from an American security firm were brought in to set up a screen around the Shah and his family.
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3 Page 41