The Peregrine Spy

by Edmund P. Murray

  “Ah, what kind of trouble?”

  “Just at the end,” said Frank. “As we circled the city. So many fires. So much smoke.”

  “Ah,” said the general, with only the hint of a smile. “More smoke than fire. Burning tires. Some minor arson. Student pranks. Leftist troublemakers.”

  “Frankly, sir, it looked like more than that…”

  General Merid raised a hand. “Do you agree?” he asked, turning to Gus.

  “I was asleep,” said Gus.

  “Ah, a man after my own heart. I always like to nap when I fly. That way I arrive refreshed. Ready for anything, even after a long flight.”

  “Do you travel much?” asked Gus.

  “I used to. In the early 1960s, in fact, I was our embassy’s military attaché in Washington. Then, four years in Rome. I loved Rome.”

  “That’s where I’ve been based the past two years,” said Gus.

  Building, slowly building, thought Frank. He watched Gus play the general.

  “Wonderful city,” Gus continued. “Since I retired from the navy, my wife and I feel quite settled there. Some consulting work. Department of Defense. Nothing I can talk much about. You know.”

  “Of course,” said General Merid.

  Though he was not much of a tennis player himself, it occurred to Frank that he and Gus might make a good doubles team. Gus moved well where Frank stumbled. Frank drove hard where Gus lay back. As Gus learned more about the general by asking more about Rome, Frank glanced at Anwar. The young major smiled and looked away.

  The dark waiter with the white jacket returned with their tea. Two men of military bearing followed him into the room. One, in civilian clothes, bore what Frank thought of as classic Middle Eastern features: swarthy complexion; hooked nose and high cheekbones framing piercing eyes that were as jet black as his hair; of medium height but with tensed muscles that tested the limits of his inexpensive gray suit. The other, in the uniform of an army major, was younger and fair, with a bounce to his step as he led the way into the room.

  He bypassed the others and went straight to General Merid, who stood to greet him. They saluted, shook hands, and embraced.

  “Daheejon,” said the major.

  “My son,” said General Merid in English. “This is Major Nazih, Hossein Nazih, my nephew, my protégé, you might say.”

  Behind their backs, Anwar rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Like Frank and Gus, following the general’s lead, he had stood to greet the new arrivals. He turned to shake hands with the beak-nosed man in civilian clothes.

  Frank noticed Gus studying their waiter, who seemed to linger longer than necessary. At a reproving glance from Anwar, the waiter, moving slowly, left the room.

  “How has it been, uncle?” said Major Nazih.

  “Tiring,” said the general. “Very tiring.”

  “You should not take these things so seriously. We will soon have it all under control.” He turned to the others. “Gentlemen. You must forgive us.” His words had the tone of an order rather than an apology. “But I haven’t seen my uncle for a week now. Pressing matters at the palace.”

  “My nephew is very close to His Imperial Majesty,” General Merid said softly to Gus.

  “Oh? How is the Shah holding up these days?” asked Gus.

  “Ah, are you the Sullivan one? Francis Sullivan?”

  “No,” said Gus. “I’m the Simpson one.” He nodded toward Frank. “That’s the Sullivan.”

  “Ah, I must have a word with you,” said the major, with a lingering glance at Frank. “A plus tard.” He moved to the chair just to the right of General Merid. “May I take this chair, Uncle?”

  “Of course,” said the general. “Please.”

  Until his own name had been mentioned, Frank had taken more interest in the beak-nosed man in the gray suit. Now he realized the man’s piercing black eyes studied him, perhaps wondering why Major Nazih had singled him out. He perched behind the metal chair to Anwar’s left, bent slightly forward, his hands cleaving to the chair back like talons on a tree branch. The coal-black eyes held steady on Frank, who noticed, for the first time, the small, dark, egg-shaped bump high on his forehead.

  “Well, now that we are all here,” said the general, taking his seat and folding his hands on the table, “perhaps we can begin.”

  The man in the gray suit was the last to sit, taking the chair opposite Frank. Frank, uncomfortable, looked away. The dark eyes went on studying him.

  “Perhaps we should all introduce ourselves,” said the general. “Each one telling a little bit about himself. Let’s begin with you, Commander Simpson.”

  The freshman icebreaker, thought Frank. Again, he was glad Gus sat closer to the general.

  “Lieutenant Commander Gus Simpson. U.S. Navy retired.” Frank’s peripheral vision told him the dark-eyed man had at last shifted his gaze as Gus continued. “Second lieutenant in World War II. Background as a Marine Corps public information officer. Military attaché, Athens, London. Briefing officer in Saigon. Pentagon spokesman. Currently on a DOD consulting contract, posted in Rome. Till they asked me to come over here and meet General Merid.”

  “Very good,” said the general, beaming.

  Very good, Frank agreed. Gus had kept his lies close to the truth.

  “And now you, Major Sullivan.”

  “Frank Sullivan. Air force. Before that, a few years as a newspaperman, reporter. Like Commander Simpson, background as a public information officer, civic and community service programs, adviser to military public information officers in several African countries.”

  “What were you doing in Ethiopia?” said the youthful Major Nazih.

  Frank hadn’t expected trouble so soon. He felt the burning dark eyes swing back to him.

  “That was a bit different. I was involved with the IEG military, but the Ethiopians asked to have me detached to work with their Ministry of Information.”

  “And with their Imperial Majesty, so I understand.”

  Frank studied the young major, who had come to their meeting directly from the palace. No contact with the palace and the Shah, he’d been told. Absolutely no contact.

  “Well, yes,” said Frank, forcing a smile. “When an emperor makes a request, it’s hard to turn him down. Haile Selassie liked the way I wrote. So I started doing some speeches for him, policy statements, things like that.”

  “You just about ran the country, so they tell me.”

  “Nothing like that,” said Frank. “I was just a fast man at the typewriter was all.”

  “My uncle, ah, not General Merid, my uncle at the palace, he has liaison with your embassy. He has informed the Shah of your presence. The Shah remembers you well. He is fond of you.”

  “I’m honored,” said Frank. “And surprised. We only spoke a few times.”

  “And poor Haile Selassie. He did not end well, did he?” said the major.

  “No,” said Frank. “They said he died in his sleep.”

  “But we know someone helped with a pillow over his face, don’t we?” said Nazih.

  “I heard that’s what happened.”

  “And Ethiopia suffers badly without him. But I suppose all that happened after you left?”

  “Three years after,” said Frank.

  Major Nazih studied him. Frank, tired of being stared at, stared back. He detected a languid, feminine fluttering of the major’s dark eyelashes.

  “Perhaps we’ll have to keep you here forever,” said the major, turning his long lashess toward the general. “We wouldn’t want the Shah to suffer Haile Selassie’s fate, would we?”

  * * *

  A beep sounded from General Merid’s wrist. He checked his watch.

  “Ah, four o’clock. I must be going. An important meeting.” The general stood, scraping his chair on the concrete floor. Five chairs echoed the sound. “Shall we adjourn?” said the general. “And at zero eight hundred hours, precisely, tomorrow we will meet again. And Mr. Sullivan will have an agenda for us, am I
correct?”

  “Correct,” said Frank. He checked his Timex, which tended to run fast. Five after four. The dark-eyed man, who had introduced himself as Captain Munair Irfani of the Iranian Navy, and Nazih followed the general. Major Anwar Amini of the air force lingered while Frank and Gus struggled into their parkas.

  “You must be fatigued,” said Anwar.

  “I know I should be polite and lie about it,” said Frank.

  He had fought hard to keep awake, stifling yawns and pinching himself after the heavy lunch they’d eaten at their conference room table. The overcooked lamb on soggy rice with cabbage and unleavened bread and sweet tea rebelled in his stomach. He’d ventured into the bathroom after lunch and found it consisted of several holes in the concrete floor, a pitcher of water next to each. Frank, tightening his sphincter, urinated down one of the holes and vowed to stuff a pocket with toilet paper for tomorrow.

  He’d noticed Gus nodding off several times during their afternoon session as the general droned on about the importance of getting the armed forces involved in civic action programs with the population, particularly in the rural areas, which he referred to, often, as “the real Iran.”

  Anwar escorted them down the wide marble staircase under the graceful, unlit chandelier, which Frank now realized had the shape of a crown. Anwar held open the glass doors, and they walked into the bracing air.

  “Tell me something,” said Gus. “Our waiter. Does he speak English?”

  “Hamid? As a matter of fact,” said Anwar, “he does. Why do you ask?”

  “He seemed to pay attention to the conversation. And we weren’t speaking Persian.”

  “You are very observant,” said Anwar. “Yes, he speaks English and he spies on us. At least for Savak.”

  “At least for Savak? Does he work for anyone else?” said Gus.

  “Ask him,” said Anwar.

  The room’s got to be bugged, thought Frank. A waiter who might eavesdrop on their meetings did not seem much of a threat. He looked up at the stone stairway that led to a blank wall.

  “Does anyone know about that stairway?” he asked.

  Anwar looked up, shaking his head. “No one knows.” He looked out beyond the thousand eyes of the chain-link fence at the city beyond. Four funnels of smoke bracketed the gray sky into nearly symmetrical quadrants. “No one knows,” Anwar repeated.

  Their Chevy edged away from a cluster of parked military vehicles and eased toward them. Anwar continued to study the funnels of smoke that drifted across the sky.

  “Almost like tornadoes, aren’t they? When I was stationed in Texas, taking courses with your air force, the same base where they now have the Crown Prince, I saw a tornado. Very impressive. Two months ago we had even more smoke signals to watch. It started with Ayd-e Fetr, the end of Ramadan.”

  “The month of fasting?” said Gus.

  “Yes,” said Anwar. “It fell, I believe, on your 4 September. Just two months ago, isn’t it? The breaking of the fast. It started fairly peaceful that day. Demonstrations at the university, the bazaar. And from all over the city people marched on Shahyad Square, the huge monument you must have seen on your drive in from the airport.”

  “I remember it,” said Frank.

  “Peaceful that day, but over the next three days the demonstrations grew. New demands, new slogans attacked the Shah more openly. Then, on 7 September, he declared martial law. The next day there were many confrontations— casualties at the university, but the worst was at Jaleh Square, near Dowshan Tappeh, where you have your office. Hundreds were killed, mostly secondary school students who staged a sit-down demonstration. The soldiers fired on them, on schoolchildren in the open square. Hundreds they killed. Black Friday, the people call it, and since then we have been at war.”

  “Who’s winning?” said Frank.

  Anwar shrugged. “Watch the smoke signals,” he said. “Perhaps they can tell you.”

  * * *

  Frank, sitting up front, had persuaded Ali to let him lower the window. He wanted to think, to follow the route Ali took back to Dowshan Tappeh, to study the streets for any hint they might convey about what was happening. He worried about his confrontation with Major Nazih. The others, including Gus, had heard him reveal Frank’s previous contact with the Shah.

  He hadn’t told Gus about that. Or about Lermontov. Or the conflicting directives he’d been given about both by Near East Division and Pete Howard. He’d followed the agency’s basic rule about compartmentalization. Even people working on the same team shared information only on a need-to-know basis. Gus didn’t need to know about his previous dealings with the Shah and Lermontov, but now Gus had heard about the Shah from Nazih.

  He felt guilty about not telling his new partner but hoped Gus would understand. The more Frank thought about Nazih’s revelation, the more it worried him. Nazih’s words could compromise him with any of the Jayface members who might have contacts with the opposition. He remembered how guarded the Iranians had been as General Merid led them through their introductions. Major Nazih had revealed more about himself—and perhaps about the general—than he’d intended. The others had offered little more than name, rank, and branch of service. When they were done, Frank had counted to himself, sure they were missing someone. He reviewed the scene in his mind, remembering how he had turned to the general.

  “Weren’t we supposed to have someone else? A colonel from the…”

  The general had cut him off. “No, no colonel … ah, the colonel won’t be able to work with us. Other pressing duties.”

  “I see.” In this case not even a name, thought Frank. “No replacement?”

  “No,” said General Merid. “His branch has … pressing duties.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Gus. “A chicken colonel from the Imperial Guard.”

  “A what?” said General Merid.

  “Chicken colonel. You must have heard that expression.”

  “No, no,” said the general, laughing. “Tell me. What does it mean? Chicken colonel.”

  “It’s the insignia, at least in the U.S. military. A colonel’s insignia is a silver eagle. The joke is that a colonel’s insignia isn’t a real eagle, just a chicken.”

  By now General Merid was laughing so hard his eyes teared. “Chicken colonel. I can hardly wait till I see him to make fun. Colonel Chicken.”

  “It’s a good name for him,” sniffed Major Nazih. “He won’t be missed. He’s a zero only good for keeping his nose up Savak’s ass.”

  Frank had glanced around the table. If the Imperial Guard chicken colonel wouldn’t be reporting their meetings to Savak, he wondered who would. He wondered about the general. Had Savak briefed him on the American passion for civic action programs? Perhaps Nazih, his irreverence adopted as cover for a clever agent. Or Major Amini, Anwar, the friendliest of the crew? Why was he so friendly—and cautious?

  Frank shivered. He’d been so wrapped up in thinking about their meeting, he’d forgotten that he sat next to Ali, heading back to their office at Dowshan Tappeh. The air cutting through the car’s partially open window had turned chillier.

  Behind him, Gus snored, a light, wheezing sound. Frank studied the all but empty streets. They told him nothing. He rolled up the window.

  * * *

  “You got trouble,” barked Troy as they entered his office. “Novak wants to see you, and there’s a mob burning tires outside the embassy gates.”

  “Nice,” said Gus. “Between a Rocky and a hot place.”

  “Here, I drew you a map,” said Troy. “There’s a back way in. They say that’s quiet. But you might be better off if the mob gets you. Novak’s got a bug up his ass about something. I just got off the fucking scramble phone, and my ears are still ringing.” He handed the map to Frank. “Take the Fiat. The Chevy’s bulletproof, but it looks too fuckin’ American. Now get goin’.”

  “Both of us?” asked Frank.

  “Well, he just wants to see you. But nobody goes anywhere alone in this to
wn these days. I can’t spare an escort, so Gus, you’ll have to go with him. Which might be a good thing. Facin’ a pissed-off Rocky, it might be a good thing to have a genuine knife fighter along.”

  “Knife fighter?” Frank couldn’t picture Gus wielding a knife in anger.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Troy. “Fact, last time I saw this guy he took out a couple of VCs that tried to off us in a blow-job bar in Saigon.” Frank studied Gus with new eyes.

  “Ancient history,” said Gus. “We’ve got a more recent problem to tell you about.”

  “Just what I need. Another problem.”

  “Frank here got an air mail special delivered through his bedroom window this morning.”

  “You got what?”

  “It looked a like a grenade,” said Frank. “It rolled under the bed, and we decided to get out of there without trying to get a better look.”

  “Couldn’t be too serious if it didn’t go off before you got outta there. I’ll have one of my guys break out his bomb squad gear and check it out.”

  “’Preciate it,” said Gus.

  “Why the fuck couldn’t Rocky keep you guys down in his own shop?” said Troy. “And outta my hair.”

  “You already told us,” said Gus. “Because Rocky wants to have as little to do with us as possible, since he doesn’t want us here in the first damn place.”

  “Yeah, you got that right,” said Troy. “Look, before you run outta here, some housekeeping, real quick.” He handed each a manila envelope. “Residency permit, pass to Dowshan Tappeh, pass to Supreme Commander’s Headquarters. This says you received them and won’t lose them on pain of death. Sign here,” he said.

  They signed the forms.

  “Good,” said Troy. “That makes you official. Now, turn around and get the fuck outta here. Mr. Novak is waiting.”

  * * *

  Frank caught a glimpse of spiraling smoke beyond the soccer field as he cut off Roosevelt. Gus sank lower in the seat next to him. Both had their stocking caps down to their eyebrows. Frank eased the Fiat left into another street barely wider than the car. He braked by a metal gate with a low brick guardhouse behind it. A marine in dress uniform stepped out.