The Peregrine Spy

by Edmund P. Murray

  “And I am called Frank Sullivan. An American with a lot to learn—about homafaran and Persia and Islam and Ayatollah Khomeini—and other things.”

  It was only as the others stopped exercising, except for the man with the Indian clubs, that Frank noticed the small cassette player on a bench against a far wall playing what Frank took to be popular Iranian music, a female vocalist backed by strings.

  “My cousin also tells me you also want to work out.”

  “If that’s possible.”

  “Of course. American air forces are allowed. This is a good time. Not crowded, as you see. And we are often here.” He hesitated, studying Frank with an intensity matching that of the navy man at Jayface. “Other times you can also come, but be careful. Others, enlisted men, even homafaran who are not—not like us—might be unfriendly. Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Anwar the Taller turned his back on Frank and crossed the floor to the cassette player. He popped out the tape that had been playing and selected another from a neatly piled stack on the bench. He turned the volume up as the voice of a muezzin began the high-pitched wailing of the traditional call to prayer. There was a pause. All the Iranians, except the man still intent on his twirling Indian clubs, stood with folded hands, waiting.

  A new voice, equally high pitched, but different, began to speak. The tone shrilled from the tiny cassette player, both strident and strangely flat. Anwar the Taller caught Frank’s eye and glanced toward the cassette with a nod that told Frank this was the voice of Ayatollah Khomeini. Anwar again turned up the volume and approached Frank.

  “Even those of us who are of a secular mind recognize his greatness.”

  “The tape,” said Frank. “It came from Paris?”

  Anwar smiled. “No, not this tape. It is only a copy of what came from Paris. You must understand. These days the Ayatollah’s tapes come from everywhere. The original of this may have been telephoned by the Ayatollah from his base in Neauphle-le-Château and read into someone’s tape recorder right here in Tehran. But the quality of telephone transmission from France is not great. So a cassette recorded there may have come here on a flight from Paris, with a pilot, a steward, someone. But in Mashhad they come through Afghanistan. In Abadan they come through Kuwait. In Bandar Abbas they come across the Gulf, across the Shatt al Arab to Ahwaz. In Tabriz they come from Van in Turkey or even from Baku in Soviet Azerbaijan. Even from Baghdad they come across the Zagros Mountains to Kermanshah and Hamadan and Qom. The people can listen to the BBC, and, yes, they make tapes of Khomeini’s interviews on BBC, and they make copies of those and copies of those copies. The tapes come from everywhere. They come from heaven. Allah-o akbar.”

  “Allah-o akbar,” echoed the other homafaran.

  * * *

  Frank had set his cassette deck on their kitchen table and played the tape Anwar the Taller had given him.

  “He doesn’t turn me on,” said Gus.

  “He turns Iranians on.”

  “Well, Hitler turned the Germans on, but there was a difference. I don’t speak German any more than I do Persian, but you hear those old broadcasts of Hitler or see those old movies, you get what it was that got to people. This … this just sounds like a squeaky, cranky old man.”

  “Maybe that’s what he is,” said Frank. “But Iranians listen and do what he tells them.”

  “Which is?”

  “One thing he tells them on here is to take his tapes and make copies and spread them around and make copies of the copies.”

  “Did they give you a translation?”

  “No, but I taped Anwar, the other Anwar, while he was talking to me. He said this isn’t a new tape, but he wanted me to hear this so we could see how Khomeini gives the marching orders to the mullahs and how what he says to do gets done. Someplace on here he talks about the burning down of that movie house in the south … in Abadan when all those people were killed. He talks about the protests two days after that. Says they happened yesterday. We can check the date of the fire, add three, and have a probable date for Khomeini’s tape.”

  “Looks like you’re gonna have some heavy cable-writing duty.”

  “I already did. A start anyway. Since I was at the base, I checked out our office. Bill Steele was on duty, and he set me up. I drafted as much as I could.”

  “I’m impressed. All this and you cook, too. Will you marry me?”

  “I don’t think so. But I will fix up something to eat. And I guess anyway we better get into the office early. I’ll need you to check over what I drafted before we arrange to get the tape down to the embassy. Oh, he said we shouldn’t get the tape translated at the embassy.”

  “He who?”

  “Anwar the Taller, the homafar. He said there are leaks, locals who work in the embassy but who love Khomeini.”

  “The ambassador will shit.”

  * * *

  Frank woke the next morning to the cries of the ashkhalee man and the rattling garbage cans. I-cash-clothes. I-cash-clothes. I-cash-clothes. He had been dreaming, and part of his dream had been the tall man with a long black beard and black hat and long black coat who made his rounds through the courtyards and alleys of the Brooklyn apartments and tenements Frank had grown up in. It had taken Frank many childhood years to translate the sounds that echoed up the narrow courtyard as oy-gesh-close. He thought the words might be Yiddish, but there were no Jews he knew well enough to ask. Though the neighborhood was mixed, the neighbors did not mix. Jews, Italians, Irish, Poles, Germans all walked the same streets, but seldom in each other’s company. The I-cash-clothes man bought used clothes and, at least with the Jewish housewives, exchanged neighborhood gossip.

  Ashkhalee and I-cash-clothes. Who needs newspapers? He thought of his own summers, spent first as a paper stabber, then driving a thick-tired Toro garbage hauler on the beach at Riis Park and quarter-ton garbage trucks to the dump opposite Floyd Bennett Field, and he realized he must have dreamt about that, too, and he thought how every job he’d ever held for very long had been the same job, the same dream. Always the plough and the stars. Finding stuff and one way or another delivering it somewhere else. I-cash-clothes and the rattling of trolley cars on Nostrand Avenue. Reporter. Novelist. Spy. Always looking for a story to tell. Always struggling for the words to tell it. Not a dream, he thought. It’s my life. Ashkhalee and the rattling of garbage cans.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Sullivan, you’re a fuckin’ pisser. You been here not even a couple of weeks and you stirred up more shit than a barrel of monkeys could in a couple of years.”

  Frank read Rocky as being in a good mood. He waved Gus and Frank to two metal chairs that flanked his desk and went on talking.

  “You really spooked the ambassador about the embassy havin’ leaks. Leaks,” repeated Rocky. “Hah. He damn near pissed his pants.”

  “I thought you’d like that one,” said Frank, hoping Rocky would file the cable he’d drafted.

  “And this one, about the Qazvini queer Mafia. It may not be important, but the folks back home’ll get their little vicarious jollies off. I’ll file it, but all this other stuff from this Anwar Two.” Rocky glanced at the papers on his desk. “The fuckin’ Tudeh party doesn’t amount to squat. All the Russians do is put this Khomeini character on Radio Baku. The Mojahedin and these homafaran are the key. The generals couldn’t stage a coup if their flabby asses depended on it. What you’re askin’ me to file contradicts everything the embassy and the station have been filing about the Soviets and their Tudeh party and the military for months, make that years. I can’t do it, Sullivan. I won’t.”

  Frank said nothing. He exchanged a glance with Gus, looked back at Rocky, and shrugged, remembering other cables Rocky had told him to forget about. Lermontov’s reporting on Afghanistan, the weaknesses of the Soviet Union, all that the Shah had told him. He had expected trouble from Rocky. Again, it stared him in the face.

  Rocky studied him, then nodded. “Look, I know how you feel. But we c
an’t contradict ourselves without … It needs … more support. Okay, tell me … We know all about the Mojahedin. Savak files a ton on them every fuckin’ day. But who are these homofurs?”

  “Homa,” said Frank. “With an a at the end. Homafar. I don’t know what the ‘far’ is about, but the homa is a mythical Persian bird, a symbol for the air force.”

  “We never heard of them before. If there’s a bunch of them at Dowshan Tappeh, how come Troy never filed anything on them?”

  “Maybe,” said Gus, “there was never anything to file on them before.”

  “What is it about you, Sullivan? You get here and the walls start to talk.” Rocky’s tone had turned sharper. “Right now, before we go any further, we have to assess this fucking homafar’s reliability.”

  “Traces come back?” asked Frank.

  “SDTRIB-2.” Rocky riffled through the cables on his desk. “Air force homafar. Not much on him. Took some technical training in the states, U.S. Air Force, someplace in Texas, I forget where.” He pushed the cables aside. “No derogatories.”

  “Well, I can keep talking to him. See how what he says pans out. Is he right about what’s on the tapes?”

  “Who knows? We got a Farsi speaker checkin’ the tapes. But your other little buddy was right about that other stuff. Believe it or not, Savak arrested their old boss, General Nasseri, who was Eagle-fucking-1 until five, six months ago. Along with Hoveida, who was prime minister until last year, and the guy who wrote the nasty story about Khomeini in one of the Farsi papers. Oh, and they also banned all the newspapers, just like you said they would. So SDTRIB-1, Anwar the major, looks pretty good. SDTRIB-2, Anwar the homafar, I dunno.”

  “It’s SDTRIB-1 who gave me the stuff on the coup probability.”

  “I know. In that case it’s not so much the source. It’s the contradiction. The ambassador’ll say the same fuckin’ thing. He wants to see us again soon as he gets here with his Brit buddy from havin’ lunch with the Shah.”

  “With his Brit buddy?” said Gus.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Rocky. He glanced at Frank. “More shit your buddy Sullivan stirred up. Why the hell does the fuckin’ British ambassador wanna’ have a meet with you?”

  “No idea,” said Frank. “But something tells me it can’t be good.”

  “Maybe it’s that last name of yours,” said Gus. “Maybe he thinks you’re IRA.”

  Let’s hope it’s nothing worse, thought Frank.

  One of the phones on Rocky’s desk buzzed.

  “His nibs.” Rocky picked it up. “Yes, sir. You made good time getting back … Sullivan’s here. We’ll be right up.” He replaced the phone. “Whatever it is, Gus, it’s just Sullivan. Wait here. Let’s go, Sully. We’re on.”

  * * *

  The ambassador sat with another man on the couch in his office. Both rose.

  “Rocky, I’m sure you know His Excellency, Ambassador Oliver Hempstone.”

  “Good to see you, Mr. Novak,” said Hempstone. He did not extend his hand across the glass-topped coffee table that separated them. Rocky nodded and said nothing.

  “And this is the man you wanted to meet, Frank Sullivan.”

  “Yes, well, shall we get to it?” Hempstone stood a full head taller than Ambassador O’Connor; as pale as O’Connor was ruddy, he was slender with angular features and hair several shades lighter than his gray, snugly tailored pin-striped suit. His appearance made Frank think of a furled umbrella with a carved head for a handle.

  The four men stood awkwardly till O’Connor motioned to the two chairs across the coffee table and said, “Let’s be seated. This may take some time.”

  “Yes,” said Hempstone as he unfolded himself into his spot on the couch. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Novak, this is a bit awkward. We’ve been approached, point of fact, I myself was approached at a lunchtime farewell gathering for our chargé d’affaires. Approached, Mr. Sullivan, by a gentleman whom I understand you know.”

  “Let me guess,” said Rocky. “A gentleman named Vassily Lermontov, representing the Soviet news agency Tass, who wanted to interview you on the availability in Great Britain of medical treatment for a certain disorder of the pituitary system.”

  “Quite so,” said Hempstone. His smile seemed to relax him. “And quite good. How did you know?”

  “I know my target,” said Rocky.

  “He confided that he had been in touch with Mr. Sullivan and had met you, but…”

  “He and Sullivan go back a long way,” said Rocky.

  “Yes, but he indicated that you, you collectively, you Americans did not seem to appreciate the gravity of his situation.”

  “Oh, we appreciate it,” said Rocky. “But I didn’t realize he was shopping himself around.”

  There goes Lermontov, thought Frank, studying Hempstone, who avoided his look.

  “Where’s my buddy Gerry Mosley stand on this?” asked Rocky.

  “Yes, well, I naturally discussed Mr. Lermontov’s approach to me with Mr. Mosley. He informed me he’d been cultivating Mr. Lermontov for some time. Without my knowledge, I might add. He said his effort sounded like a go.” Hempstone turned from Rocky to Frank. “Until you, Mr. Sullivan, suddenly arrived. Mr. Lermontov, from that point until his recent approach to me, became … difficult to contact. When he did speak to me, he seemed to indicate a certain … reluctance to work with our intelligence.”

  Frank spoke for the first time. “Does the Shah know about this?”

  “I’m afraid so. Yes,” said Hempstone.

  “That’s just dandy,” said Rocky. “What is it you Brits say? Sticky wicket?”

  “Much worse, I’m afraid. My Canadian counterpart tells me your Russian friend has also spoken to him.”

  “He sounds desperate,” said O’Connor.

  “He sounds like a time bomb,” said Rocky. “Tick plus Tock. Waiting to go off.”

  “The question is,” said Hempstone, “what shall we, we collectively, do about him?”

  “Lemme talk to Mosley,” said Rocky. “We get along pretty good.”

  “I hesitate to advocate that,” said Hempstone. “For one, we have this Lermontov’s reluctance to involve our intelligence community.”

  “Fuck, I mean, screw his reluctance,” said Rocky.

  “For another, special relationship with the U.S. and all that, I’m afraid Gerry Mosley has a rather traditional view of British interests in this part of the world, especially vis-à-vis the Russians. To him it’s still the Great Game.”

  “That sounds a bit nineteenth century,” said O’Connor.

  “Quite. And you lot are mere upstarts in his view.”

  “Mosley understands Commies,” said Rocky, “and we do get along pretty good. I’ll talk to him. We’ll work it out.”

  “Gerald might like nothing better, but I’m afraid it’s already gone beyond that. I’ve recommended to Her Majesty’s Government that we pursue this matter.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means, well, that I suggest you leave Comrade Lermontov to us.”

  “Why the hell should we do that?”

  “Rocky…” O’Connor raised a hand.

  Rocky ignored him. “Why the hell should we lay off?”

  “Well, for one, we have a bit more experience in this area. But perhaps the most compelling reason is that this appears to be what Mr. Lermontov wants,” said Hempstone.

  “Great,” said Rocky. “So we let the KGB set our agenda.”

  “I suspect that at this stage of his evolution, Mr. Lermontov and the KGB are perhaps not identical.”

  “I wish I could speak British the way you do,” said Rocky. “Maybe I could convince myself up is down. Fact is … Never mind. Lermontov is a legitimate American target.”

  “According to your legitimate target himself, he has changed his mind and now seeks British protection.”

  “Bullshit. He’s just playing you limey bastards to get a better deal from us.”

  “Ro
cky, really. There’s no need to be offensive.”

  “Yeah, there is. I’ve been offended.”

  Frank watched the three men go at each other, glad, for a change, to be a fly on the wall. For a moment, he wished Mosley were with them. And Lermontov and his ambassador. Let the great egos clash. All he wanted was to find a way to bring Lermontov to America.

  Rocky took a deep breath. He glanced at Frank, then turned to Hempstone. “Sorry, Your Excellency. I get carried away sometimes. What’s Her Majesty’s Government say about your recommendation?”

  “That we pursue Lermontov’s request? For asylum and medical treatment?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well…”

  “Well,” what a wonderful word, Frank said to himself. It gives you time to think. He noticed that the British diplomat used it often.

  “Well,” repeated Hempstone, “it’s a delicate matter. A response may take some time.” He turned to Frank. “This Lermontov seems an interesting chap. I do hope to get to know him better.”

  I wish you luck, thought Frank. Bad luck. He studied Hempstone’s eyes. They were a cold gray, halfway between the dark gray of his suit and the light gray of his hair.

  * * *

  As they left the ambassador’s office, Rocky poked an index finger upward. Frank followed him up the narrow metal stairs to the bubble.

  “This stinks,” said Rocky as he slumped into a chair.

  Frank sat beside him. “What do we do?”

  “We? I dunno what the fuck we do. I talk to Mosley.”

  “What do you say?”

  “I dunno. Yet. The ambassador’s right. Mosley is kinda nineteenth century, handlebar mustache, likes to quote Kipling. Spent a lot of years in Kenya, great white hunter type. Kept tryin’ to get me to go on a hunt with him when I first got here. I’m a city boy. Never catch me dead on anybody’s fuckin’ safari.”