“Shit, piss, fuck … what happened?”
“A grenade,” said Frank.
“Through the window?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure it wasn’t a rock?”
“It looked like a grenade.”
“A grenade would’ve gone off by now.”
“It rolled under the bed.”
Gus grunted. Frank could hear him struggling to his feet.
“Even under the bed, if it’s a grenade it would’ve gone off by now.”
Frank heard footsteps and looked up just far enough to see Gus’s shoes coming into the hall.
“What I suggest we do is we get out of here and tell our friends about it and let them send some bomb squad types over here and check it out.”
“Okay.” Frank warily pushed himself up.
“And if I’ve got any broken kneecaps,” said Gus, “I’m going to sue.”
* * *
Tom Troy wasn’t in, and a square-shouldered young corporal named Cantwell had told them Colonel Troy would have some paperwork to go through when they returned to the base in the afternoon. Frank and Gus exchanged a glance, shrugged, and, following Cantwell, carried their briefcases out to the bulletproof Chevy Nova that waited for them. Cantwell, in the uniform of the air force military police, cautioned them about the jube.
“Leastways, that’s what the I-ranians call it,” he said pointing to a guttered, frozen-over stream that ran along the side of the road where their car waited. Its exhaust had melted a hole in the ice. “Open sewer to me,” said Cantwell. “Got ’em all over the city. Looks frozen over, right? But some places that ice is real thin. You step on it and it cracks, no tellin’ what you might step into.”
“We’ll be careful,” said Gus.
A tall, heavy-set Iranian stood by the car. His round, weathered face wore a tired half smile.
“This is your Iranian military driver,” said Cantwell. “He’s authorized to shuttle you between here and Supreme Commander’s, where you meet with your Iranian counterparts. Sergeant, this is Commander Simpson and Major Sullivan.”
“Sergeant Ali Zarakesh, at your service.” He snapped to attention, but his civilian outfit belied the military posture. He wore a brown leather jacket over an open-throated shirt faded to an uncertain gray. Gus and Frank casually returned his formal salute.
Ali had warmed the car’s interior against the biting cold that had turned morning dew into hoarfrost. Steam covered the windows. “Don’t wipe,” said Ali, as he circled a gray rag over the windshield in front of him. “The driver has to see out. No one has to see in.”
Frank and Gus each wore dark stocking caps pulled low over their foreheads and winter parkas over their suits and ties. I wish I’d kept my beard, thought Frank.
Traffic was light. Only patches of overnight snow remained on streets that shimmered in the morning sun. Frank sat up front with Ali, asking about the route they followed.
“We drive west but not too far,” said Ali. “Not as far as the university, and a little south but not so far south as the bazaar.”
“And not past the Grand Mosque,” said Gus.
“Not past any mosque,” said Ali.
“Good,” said Gus.
From the occasional street sign Frank could make out through the veil of steam on the windows, he realized how often Tehran streets changed their names. The bilingual street signs impressed him. He had grown used to African cities, where street signs were rare and people knew the names of only a few main thoroughfares.
“Look, this one’s called Roosevelt,” he noted as Ali turned onto another broad street. “In Addis, the main drag was Churchill Road.”
“We have a Churchill Road here, too,” said Ali. “And another called Eisenhower. But I don’t know for how long.”
“The Shah must be a great admirer of America,” said Gus.
“Our pilots fly your F-4s,” said Ali. “Our soldiers shoot at students with your M-14s.”
Ali drove so rapidly and his turns were so abrupt that Frank soon became confused.
“Where are we?”
“Not far from your embassy. But burning tires block so many streets…”
For no reason Frank could see, Ali swung the car around in the narrow street, tilted two wheels up on the sidewalk, and sped back in the opposite direction.
They passed a vacant, muddy expanse littered with the prefabricated ruins of an abandoned construction site. A giant building crane, pitched at a precarious angle, slipped even further on its muddy base as he watched. Through the fogged windows, the image reminded him of the crane he’d seen through clouds and smoke as their plane descended into Tehran.
As Frank watched, the tottering crane seemed to bounce, then caught itself and held, like a skeletal version of the leaning tower of Pisa.
“What was happening there?” asked Frank.
“That one? Military barracks. And fancy apartments for officers with families. Stopped now. Like everything. All over Tehran, cranes like that stand useless. The Shah wanted to lift up the whole country. No more.”
Frank made mental notes but had trouble following Ali’s route. “I need a map,” he said to Ali.
“More than a map,” said Ali. “To know Tehran you need a hundred years. Only the martyrs know Tehran, and for them it’s too late.” Ali made a sudden turn to his right. “And you need a nose,” he continued. “To tell you what trouble or traffic comes soon and which way to change. And three eyes. Right, left, and rear view to see where you’ve been and who’s behind you.”
Gus turned and peered through the steamy rear window. With an index finger, he wiped a tiny patch clear. “Like the big black job behind us?”
Ali nodded. “Paykan. Persian copy of Russian car. Savak always use those when they want you to know they’re with you. Otherwise, they use blue Mercedes.”
“It’s nice to know we’re worth so much attention.”
“Oh, Americans always get attention here. It must be a very big country. So rich.”
Frank listened as Gus carried the conversation, impressed by the casual questions that began to develop a portrait and, beyond the portrait, the outlines of a landscape.
“You’re an army man?”
“Seventeen years, sir. I used to drive a tank, a Sherman tank. But now I have trouble with my kidney. So now for you I drive this American tank.” He patted the dashboard. “A good car.”
“I noticed you’re not in uniform,” said Gus.
“Commander Simpson?” said Ali, glancing at Gus in the rearview mirror.
“Yes.”
Ali turned to Frank. “And Major Sullivan?”
“That’s me,” said Frank.
“Uniforms are not very popular here these days.”
“We can appreciate that,” said Gus.
“Thank you, sir. I try to be careful. I have too many children otherwise.”
“How many?” asked Gus.
“Six, sir.”
“That’s not so many.”
“May I ask how many, sir, you have?”
“Oh, six less than you,” said Gus. “But we’ve learned to live with that.”
“It is God’s will.”
“Inshallah,” said Gus. He fell silent, staring at the steamed-up window beside him. Frank sensed that Gus and his wife might not quite have learned to live with that.
“Are your children with you?” he asked Ali.
“My oldest, seventeen, is in the army. Stationed in Isfahan. I worry about him. It is a very religious city there.”
“Troubles?” said Gus.
“Not so much as here. But I worry about my son, about soldiers in a holy city like Isfahan. Many there support Khomeini and hate the Shah.”
“How ’bout your other children?”
“Well, they are in the north. I sent them with their mother to my family near Rasht. We have some olive trees up there, land I bought for my parents.”
Frank resolved to get himself a street map, even if
it meant photocopying section by section the map on Tom Troy’s wall. He knew the day would come when he would have to negotiate the city without Ali’s help. Ahead, he spotted a long tangle of motionless cars. He expected Ali to make one of his sudden cuts into a side street. Ali continued straight ahead, edging to his left.
“Traffic jam?” asked Frank, wondering how a tie-up could have developed when there were so few trucks or cars on the streets.
“Not traffic jam,” said Ali. “Benzene line.” Ali now drove on the wrong side of a broad, two-way street. The few vehicles coming in the opposite direction kept to the far right.
The veil of steam on the windows had thinned and, refracted through streams of moisture, Frank could see the long cluster of double- and triple-parked vehicles. Drivers stood in groups, stomping their feet and flapping their arms to keep warm. From his newspaper reading Frank knew that Iran, despite its vast supplies of oil, suffered gasoline and fuel shortages because strikes and sabotage had hit the refineries as part of the growing rebellion against the Shah’s government. The jumbled knot of cars curved up a street to their right. He couldn’t spot the end of the haphazard line or the filling station it targeted.
“Peaceful,” said Ali. “But people will get killed on that line, get into fights and get killed, when it starts to move. Persians don’t know how to queue.”
Frank squinted through the steam-streaked window, troubled by the thought of even a few Iranians killing each other on filling station lines in the middle of a revolution that saw Iranians killing each other by the hundreds.
“The same for cooking oil,” said Ali. “Men will kill for benzene, and women will cut and scratch and claw, and yes, even kill for cooking oil.”
Ali turned to the right onto another broad avenue. On their left chain-link fences, topped by concertina wire, partly obscured a vast complex of two- and three-storied buildings of poured concrete. Armored personnel carriers and jeeps with mounted machine guns patrolled both sides of the fence. Two tanks stood sentinel outside what appeared to be the main gate.
For the first time that morning they encountered heavy traffic moving fast in both directions. Ali drove ahead another half mile and swung into a traffic circle with scattered vehicles that swirled like angry bees. Ali accelerated where Frank would have slowed, cut right where Frank would have eased left.
“Remind me never to drive in this town,” said Gus from his back seat. Frank made a mental note to drive like a New York cab driver.
Ali snapped the Nova to the right coming out of the circle. He crowded the curb, slowed, and began tapping his horn as he approached the main gate. He edged the Nova into the narrow alley created by the two tanks. He rolled his window down, stuck his head out, and waved toward a kiosk.
A young soldier with a corporal’s inverted chevrons stepped out, one hand holding a clipboard, the other on the handle of a holstered .45. A half dozen other soldiers with automatic weapons stepped out from behind the kiosk. They kept their weapons at hip level but trained on the car. Gus sank low in the back seat.
Ali spoke to the corporal, who appeared to recognize him. As the corporal relaxed, Ali tugged what Frank guessed were his own military ID papers from the thick rubber band that secured them to his windshield visor. Ali spoke slowly in Farsi, glancing at Frank and Gus, as the soldier checked and returned his papers. The soldier studied his clipboard. From Ali’s jumble of Farsi, Frank heard him enunciate, “Soo-li-van. Siimp-sohn.”
The soldier nodded and peered through the window at Frank and Gus, who had removed his cap and sat upright. The soldier waved them through; the gates parted wider, and Ali drove ahead.
He picked his way toward the largest of the buildings, a multisided structure shaped like a gerrymandered voting district. They pulled up parallel to an outside staircase where a trim, coatless man of about Frank’s age stood waiting. From his brief exposure at Dowshan Tappeh Frank recognized the blue uniform as Iranian Air Force. Ali killed the ignition, tugged at the emergency brake, said, “Wait me,” and eased his bulk from the car.
Gus wiped the window on his right with his glove and studied the staircase.
“That’s what I thought. Those stairs don’t go anywhere,” he announced.
“Looks to me like they go up,” said Frank.
“Yeah. They go up to the second floor, but there’s no door up there.”
Ali opened Frank’s door. “No one is here but the major. He will take you upstairs.”
“Up those stairs?” called Gus from the back seat.
“No. No one understands those stairs. Up stairs inside.”
They clambered out of the car. The slim, dark-eyed Iranian Air Force officer saluted with a motion that managed to combine crisp, military respect and an open curiosity.
“Major Anwar Amini,” he said. “Welcome.”
Frank moved toward him, hand extended, saying, “Frank, ah, Major Francis Sullivan. U.S. Air Force.” They studied each other intently as they shook hands. “And this,” said Frank, “is Lieutenant Commander Gus Simpson, U.S. Naval Reserve.”
He realized how stiff and formal he sounded. Gus lightened the tone.
“Call me Gus,” he said, shaking Major Amini’s hand and grasping him by the elbow.
“Anwar,” said the major.
“Glad to meet you, Anwar,” said Gus.
“Anwar,” echoed Frank.
“I will be part of the interservice committee working with you,” said the major.
“Jayface?” said Gus.
“I’m afraid so.” Anwar smiled. “Our bureau is just upstairs. Please. Will you follow? The sergeant will be waiting for you when you are finished.”
“Thanks for the ride,” said Gus.
Ali grinned, saluting in mufti.
* * *
They followed Major Amini, who ushered them in through glass doors, then up a broad marble stairway under an unlit crystal chandelier. Frank’s first impression of luxury quickly faded. Bare concrete floors, plasterboard walls, and weak fluorescent lights greeted them on the second story. The walls seemed to ooze a damp chill. Frank sensed an odor like cabbage that had been cooking too long. He noticed a coat rack of metal pipes with a few wire hangers, a single military overcoat, and, on the rack above, an air force officer’s cap.
As they crossed toward an open-doored conference room, the fluorescent lights went out. They entered a spacious but windowless rectangular room.
“The others will just be coming,” said the major. “Let me take your coats.” They shed their parkas. Anwar carried them to the hallway coat rack.
“Can I get you some tea?” he asked as he returned. “Cold drinks?”
Frank’s stomach rumbled. “Tea,” he said.
“Tea,” echoed Gus.
“Maybe some rolls,” ventured Frank.
The major pressed a green button on the wall. Frank’s mind veered from the button to speculation about how the room was bugged and by whom. He barely heard Anwar’s question.
“Do you have an agenda for today’s meeting?”
Frank looked blankly to Gus.
“Well, ah, no,” said Gus. “We thought today should be more of an exploratory, ah, get-acquainted, exploratory session. Tomorrow…” Frank admired the sincerity of his frown. “Tomorrow we’ll have an agenda.”
Fuckin’-A we will, thought Frank. He realized again how ill prepared they were for their hastily conceived mission—and the hidden agenda Pete Howard had given him.
“I’d like to hear your thoughts,” said Frank. “I mean, while we’re waiting for the others. Your thoughts on the situation. The situation and what we might do.”
Anwar smiled. His eyes were watchful, alert. “You have seen the situation. Today is especially bad. Riots. Marches.” His hands spread outward. “I have no idea what we should do.”
“Between us, we’ll think of something,” said Gus. All three smiled.
“Yes, sir.” A short, very dark young man with a drooping black mustache stood in
the doorway. He wore a white waiter’s jacket over chino slacks, white socks, and plastic slippers. “Chay,” said Anwar. Frank guessed chay must be a variation on chi, the standard Middle Eastern word for tea, but the rest of their conversation was lost on him.
“No rolls,” said Anwar, “but there will be our barbari bread with chelakebab for lunch. If the barbari is ready before lunch, he says he will bring. But I doubt.”
“Tea will be fine,” said Frank.
“Good morning.” There was no mistaking the general: two stars on each shoulder. A round, unwrinkled, well-fed man, he wore a uniform that fit and flattered him so well Frank suspected it had been custom made. A widow’s peak was his only apparent concession to age. His olive complexion and Vaseline-slicked black hair would have enabled him to pass as a native in Rome. Frank guessed his office must be in the building, for he showed no signs of having just entered from the cold. Anwar saluted, casually. The general merely nodded.
“I am General Dariush Merid,” he said looking from Gus to Frank. “At your service, gentlemen. Let us be seated. The others are here and will join us just now.”
General Merid marched the length of the table to take the high-backed wooden chair at its head. Gus and Frank followed, taking the metal chairs to the general’s right. Anwar left one chair vacant and sat on the general’s left.
“Well,” said Merid. “Welcome.” Something shy slowed the unfolding of his smile. He shifted his weight and tried a brighter smile. “Was your trip comfortable?”
“Very comfortable,” said Gus.
Frank was grateful that Gus sat closer to the general. The general’s lob of a question had thrown him. He never could have volleyed a reply as quickly as Gus had. Instead, Frank’s mind spun through the whole absurd sequence of his landing in Washington and, totally unprepared, flying back through JFK and Rome to Tehran.
“Comfortable,” Frank managed to say at last. “But troubling.”
The general, who appeared uneasy with small talk, hadn’t been prepared for “troubling.” He studied Frank evenly. Only the whitening tips of his pudgy fingers, gripping the edge of the table, betrayed his tension.
The Peregrine Spy Page 5