The Peregrine Spy

by Edmund P. Murray

  “If I find out, I’ll let you know,” said Gus. “You and Anwar seem to have hit it off. I’m puttin’ in the cable that if we try to recruit him, you should be the one to pitch him.”

  Frank nodded.

  “Give you somethin’ to do,” said Gus. “While you’re waitin’ to hear from Moscow.”

  * * *

  Their Sunday Jayface meeting began with a long discussion of their idea for setting up a daily newspaper published and distributed by the military. Frank described the newspaper effort as a possible forerunner to a military broadcasting system with a mix of news, entertainment, and educational programming. It included a role for an adviser with a background in Western private sector and Third World governmental mass media.

  “Oh, I like that idea,” said General Merid. “The suggestion for an adviser. Perhaps that’s a role you could fill yourself, Major Sullivan.”

  “Well, we have a long way to go before we have to think about that,” said Frank.

  “But we must press ahead,” said the general. “How soon can we have your ideas in writing?”

  You can have them now, thought Frank. But he remembered Gus’s warning about Bunker.

  “Well, so far it’s just an idea. We’ll need some time to work it up.”

  “This is all very urgent,” said the general. “Especially with a military government in place. Gentlemen, I would like to make a suggestion. Commander Simpson and you, Major Sullivan…” Still unused to his fictitious title, it took Frank a moment to realize he was Major Sullivan and another moment to focus on General Merid’s words. “You will have so much to do,” said the general. “So I suggest we continue to meet every morning but allow our American friends to spend their afternoons drafting the various proposals I will present to the deputy prime minister. You can work here if you wish.”

  “Ah, it might be best if we worked at our office at Dowshan Tappeh,” said Gus, frowning over his glasses to underline his sincerity. “We have access there to equipment and background materials we may need. We can even cable for anything we don’t have here.”

  “Yes,” said the general, “I’m sure your offices are better equipped than what we have.”

  “General, I have another suggestion, if I may,” said Frank.

  “Of course. Of course.”

  “In view of what’s happened—the new government—and the impact that’s going to have on the nature and, ah, the urgency, of our work, I’d like to have your permission to take notes and prepare minutes, which we could review and amend at the next meeting.”

  “Excellent idea. Excellent.” The general had begun again to bounce, ever so slightly, on his toes. “Excellent idea.”

  As the general’s high subsided, his expression saddened. Even the civic action projects failed to engage him. Frank guessed that the general’s mind drifted to fears about the fate of Major Nazih. The other Iranians had hurried off after General Merid again called a four o’clock halt to their discussion. Anwar lingered.

  “You seem tired,” he said.

  “To be honest,” said Frank, “I haven’t been sleeping well. Back home I’m used to burning up nervous energy by working out. I jog almost every day, and I have a set of weights.”

  “You should use the gym at Dowshan Tappeh,” said Anwar.

  “Is it okay for Americans?” he asked.

  “Of course,” said Anwar. “The base is Iranian, but Americans at Dowshan Tappeh have full access. In fact, it would be a good way for you to meet some of the homafaran.”

  “Homafar? You’ve got to, please, pardon my ignorance. But what’s a homafar?”

  Anwar’s dark eyes studied Frank, not with the intensity of the navy’s Captain Irfani, but with a questioning, skeptical curiosity. Without speaking, he asked, I wonder how much I can tell you? They stood at the head of the marble stairway with its crowning, unlit chandelier, waiting for Gus, who had gone in search of Ali and their car.

  “I have so much to learn. About homafaran, Islam, even about the gym at Dowshan Tappeh.”

  “You will find everything,” said Anwar. “With patience. Sometimes Americans barge in, in big groups, and try to take over everything—the weights, the boxing bags, the running track, and especially the basketball courts. But if you are patient and do not go with a group that tries to take over all the equipment, you will find everything.”

  Frank nodded. “I understand.”

  “Perhaps we can meet, at Dowshan Tappeh, this evening. Say around six. In the cafeteria. I will show you around the gym. Perhaps introduce you to some friends.”

  “That would be good,” said Frank.

  “There will be news,” said Anwar. Frank sensed that Anwar was testing him. “Within a few days. Now that you’re going into the ashkhalee business, you should be interested in news.”

  “Ashkhalee?”

  “The garbage man. Our main source of news. We told you about them. You are interested in news, aren’t you.”

  “Sure,” said Frank, trying to sound casual.

  “Within a day or so General Nasseri, who headed Savak for many years, will be arrested. And others, including Amir Abbas Hoveida, the former prime minister, and Dariush Houmayun. They say he wrote an article that appeared in Ittelat attacking Ayatollah Khomeini last January.”

  Nasseri, Hoveida, Dariush Houmayun. Nasseri, Hoveida, Dariush Houmayun. Frank kept repeating the names to himself as Anwar added other details.

  Others will be arrested, the Shah had said, far more important than this Major Nazih.

  “But why would the Shah arrest his own people?”

  “He throws some bones to the National Front, to Khomeini,” said Anwar. “The National Front it may appease, but not Khomeini. It will only increase his blood lust for more.”

  Frank suspected there would be more cables to write. Anwar touched his elbow as a group of Iranian Army officers, chattering loudly, entered through the ground floor doors. Frank and Anwar started down the wide stairway. The army men fell silent, glancing at Frank, as they passed.

  Frank and Anwar stood at the foot of the stairway that led nowhere, their breath frosting the air as they waited for Gus and their car. Frank remembered Hamid’s alert to Gus: Anwar and his family want to get to America. He decided to push a bit harder.

  “We’ve heard reports, our embassy has heard reports that the generals are planning a coup, an actual takeover that would replace the Shah with his son and a regency council.”

  Anwar smiled. “The generals may talk,” he said, “but they do not plan. They discuss and decide against. They know generals can’t make a coup by themselves. They talk to each other. They talk to the American generals or the American Embassy about a coup. But they can’t make a coup without soldiers. Without the pilots and homafaran.”

  “There must be some support for the Shah,” said Frank.

  “Javadan, the Imperial Guard, they can count on. They can count on Savak. Not even the police. You must realize, the soldiers are simple, uneducated young men. They are as religious as the people they come from. They go to the same mosques. They listen to the same religious leaders. They listen to Khomeini. When they fire at demonstrators, they fire at their own people. Khomeini tells the people to let the soldiers kill them. To be a martyr for Allah is sacred, and Khomeini knows the soldiers will not go on killing their own people. The soldiers may make a coup for Khomeini, but not for their generals or the Crown Prince. You must watch Khomeini. The opposition parties, the militant groups, Mojahedin, Feda’iyan, the student factions, all divided. But Khomeini unites all opposition.”

  “I understand,” said Frank.

  “Do you?” His dark, inquisitive eyes again studied Frank.

  “No, I guess I don’t.” Frank felt betrayed by his own ignorance. Mojahedin, Feda’iyan—he had never heard of the groups Anwar had mentioned. He wondered if he would meet other Iranians as willing as Anwar to educate him.

  “What do you know,” he asked, “about a Qazvini Mafia?”


  Anwar smiled. “What have you heard?”

  “Just someone mentioned it,” said Frank, not wanting to let Anwar know it had been Colonel Kasravi. “Someone who just smiled when I asked about it. Said I should look at a map.”

  “And did you?”

  “I found a town called Qazvin, northwest of here, maybe a hundred and fifty kilometers.”

  “That’s it. Home of your famous friend, Major Nazih.”

  “I didn’t know he was so famous.”

  “He is now,” said Anwar. “Along with all his friends from the palace who were arrested with him. All from Qazvin, so they say, which is famous for the lusts of its men for each other. Of course, people from Qazvin say the real homosexuals all come from Isfahan, and the Isfahanis say Tehran is the real capital city of queers. What it all adds up to is that somewhere in Iran there must be a few.”

  “General Merid?”

  “He is also from Qazvin,” said Anwar with an echo of Colonel Kasravi’s knowing smile.

  “Will he be arrested?”

  “I doubt,” said Anwar. “He is from Qazvin but not, I think, part of his nephew’s Mafia.” The bulletproof Nova pulled up beside them. “I will tell you more this evening,” said Anwar.

  “This evening,” said Frank.

  * * *

  Frank sat in the American cafeteria at Dowshan Tappeh, stirring with a plastic spoon the black, unsweetened coffee in his plastic cup, checking his watch, checking the doors, wondering if Anwar would keep their appointment. Frank sniffed at his plastic coffee. It had no smell. He sipped it. It was burning hot but had no taste.

  “The food is terrible here.” The voice behind him startled Frank. “But I enjoy the apple pie.” Anwar slid a tray onto the table and sat opposite Frank. “I haven’t had really good apple pie since I left Texas.”

  “You should come over to our place for dinner some evening. I make a real good apple pie.” It was a lie. Frank seldom baked, but he knew he could manage to make a decent apple pie. He’d tried a couple of times for Jake. The first proved a watery disaster. Jake was polite. The next had been better, at least on the second day, warmed over and served with ice cream.

  Recruiting and seduction seemed to parody each other, he thought. Offer a sweet, tell a white lie. Get your target to come to your place.

  “I had them heat it up,” said Anwar, already wolfing down the dried-out slice before him. “It helps a bit. Besides, I wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

  “I didn’t see you come in.”

  “Good. I noticed you watching the doors. I came in through the kitchen. My father’s sister works back there.”

  “You’re full of surprises.”

  “Good. I don’t want to be obvious. I also wanted to check with my aunt to make sure my cousin, her son, didn’t change his mind.”

  “Cousin?”

  “He’s a homafar. And a bodybuilder. And, I suspect, Mojahedin.”

  Frank did not want to jump on this last revelation. “You were going to tell me about the homafaran.” He would ask about his cousin’s ties to the Mojahedin later.

  “Was I?” said Anwar, scraping his pie plate, “Yes. You should learn. A class apart. A rank apart. NCOs but higher in rank than a master sergeant. Only in the air force. The name comes from the homa, a mythical bird of ancient Persia. Not a peacock, like the Shah. You should not—this is important—you should not let the homafaran know you meet with the Shah.”

  “Why not?”

  “To them, the Shah represents all the evil, all the corruption, that tears apart our country.”

  “Are they right?”

  “It goes deeper than one man. But yes, the Shah is at the heart of the corruption.”

  “Does it bother you that I meet with him?”

  Anwar shrugged. “Does it not bother you?”

  “Perhaps it should,” said Frank. “But when we meet, when I talk to him, it’s hard to imagine him being…”

  “A killer?”

  “It’s hard to imagine.”

  “A tyrant? A thief? I know you have to meet with him. You have your job to do. You must learn what you can from him. From us all. I understand. But do not let the homafaran know you sit at the feet of the Shah. Remember, they are also Mojahedin. Men of the left. They will be the key.”

  “To what?”

  “To everything.” Anwar curved his hands around a steaming cup of tea. Frank suspected that, like the coffee, its greatest asset was its warmth. “They are highly respected. For their skill. For their training. They are of the people, but they are the key to the world of modern technology that can lead Iran out of the dark ages. They tend to be secular, and yet they are committed to Khomeini.”

  “That sounds like a contradiction,” said Frank.

  “Uniquely Persian. I, too, love Khomeini. Yet, when he comes, I will have to go.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his idea of Islam will take us back in time, shut us away from the West, and we need the West. I love him because he is pure of heart and he will drive out all that has made our country corrupt. But when the Shah falls, the Mojahedin may be our best hope against the new tyranny. We could have a just Islamic government, with leaders like Shariat-Madari and Ayatollah Taleqani. But religious leaders like Shariat-Madari may not survive the new tyranny. The Mojahedin may not survive.”

  “Because of Khomeini?” asked Frank.

  “Yes,” said Anwar. “Because of Khomeini.”

  “And yet you admire him.”

  “Uniquely Persian,” said Anwar. “I am Persian. I am Muslim. And even I am devout, not as devout as our friend from the navy, but devout.”

  “Munair Irfani. He seems, well … strange. Tell me about him.”

  “Name, you know. Rank, captain. I don’t know his serial number. Why call him strange?”

  “That bump on his forehead. And the way he stares at me. I thought I’d read somewhere Iranians are very shy about making eye contact.”

  “Most Iranians, yes. But in the military we are trained to look directly at our superior officers. To establish trust. And of course to do exactly what they tell us. To establish discipline. But I must admit, even for a military man, Munair does stare at you … hard.” He finished the last mouthful of apple pie. “Truly tasteless. Munair tries to figure you out. He doesn’t understand why you’re here.”

  “If he figures it out, ask him to tell me.”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Not really. I get the feeling there’s so much we don’t know about Iran. That’s one reason, I guess, why we’re here.”

  “That would be a very good reason. America needs to know more about Iran. Munair wonders if maybe that’s why you’re here. And he wonders if you can be trusted. So does my cousin, the homafar.”

  “And…?”

  “I told him I don’t know but that I had decided to trust you. My cousin wonders if you are CIA.”

  Frank sensed trouble. “What did you tell him?”

  Anwar shrugged. “He hopes you are CIA. For reasons he will tell you, if he begins to trust.”

  I can guess his reasons, thought Frank. He wants to defect and get a ticket to the U.S.A.

  “Sounds interesting,” he said. “What about Munair?”

  “Munair wonders if an American can be trusted to understand Islam. He is truly devout. That’s why he has that bump on his forehead. He prays very hard, not just bowing to Mecca but bringing his head to the tiles of the mosque floor when he kneels and bows to Mecca. So hard, so often, he’s raised that bump. He wonders if someone from the West can understand how much our religion means to us. And how much we love Ayatollah Khomeini.”

  “You don’t have a bump on your forehead,” said Frank.

  “I told you I am not so devout. I love Ayatollah Khomeini because my country needs him, but I am a man of the modern world.”

  Frank thought of the demonstrators screaming, “Death to America,” at the embassy gates and of the possibility that some the
n circled the compound to wait at the back gate in hopes of being admitted to the consulate to apply for an American visa. Like Anwar, uniquely Persian.

  “It seems to me Iran will need men like you here. And your cousin. Especially if Khomeini comes, to help keep Iran in the modern world.”

  “Iran will need men of the modern world,” said Anwar. “But Khomeini will destroy such men. If I am lucky, perhaps I will be able to go before he comes.”

  If you’re lucky, thought Frank, and if you find some American like me to help you.

  * * *

  The gym smelled like a gym. Sweat and wintergreen and unwashed towels and rancid gym clothes and dust rising from the floor as a heavy barbell crashed, slipping from the wet palms of an overweight lifter who had just completed a series of military presses. The smell of sweat-stained leather bounced off the heavy bag thudded by a chiseled young man in shorts and sneakers. Frank had begun to wonder about the absence of smells in Tehran. Perhaps it was the cold, dry winter air. The stench from the holes in the floor that passed for a bathroom at Supreme Commander’s Headquarters stood out as one exception, and he was sure that in summer the jubes must be redolent of the odors of Iran, but now the gutters were frozen over most of the time. Even the smells of the chelakebab shop had seemed washed out by steam, but the gym smelled like a gym.

  Only a handful of Iranians occupied the gym. No Americans. “That is my cousin, beating up the leather man,” said Anwar.

  “Not a man,” said the boxer, who worked the heavy bag bare-handed. “Only a bag.”

  Two men thwacked a medicine ball off each other’s bellies at close range. Another, deep in concentration, worked four Indian clubs in an intricate routine. The lifter walked off the strain of his last set of presses.

  “These are all homafaran,” said Anwar. His cousin gave the heavy bag a reprieve. Frank noticed the bleeding, callused knuckles. “They are also all Mojahedin.” Anwar spoke softly. “They think I don’t know that, but I do.”

  “You know nothing, cousin.” He turned to Frank and extended his hand. “Welcome, American.” His tone made the greeting sound like Welcome, Satan. He stood taller than Frank had realized when he first saw him, bent with such intensity into punishing the heavy bag. Frank guessed him to be six-three, unusual for an Iranian, probably a light heavyweight, with the powerful, sloping shoulders of a boxer and the fine-cut muscular definition of a dedicated bodybuilder. “My name is also Anwar Amini, but you can call me Anwar the Taller.” He smiled and glanced at his cousin. “He is called in the family Anwar the Smarter.”