“We get paid to stick our nose in other people’s business,” said Rocky.
“I know,” said Frank. He shivered and looked at his hands. “And Belinsky paid a hell of a price.”
“I gotta give’m credit,” said Rocky. “He put himself on the line.”
“Again and again. All those trips to Qom. Taking me to the university to corner Lermontov. Setting up the GRU guy. I know he had his weaknesses, but it takes a lot to do what Chuck did.”
“Yeah, it does. And you’re right. He paid a hell of a price.” Rocky didn’t dwell on Belinsky’s virtues for long. “Your buddy Munair, he give up any names?”
Funeral’s over, thought Frank. Back to business. Munair had provided the names of the scheming clergyman and all four gunmen.
“He said the leader of the pack recognized you.”
“Eagle-4,” said Rocky, scanning the list. “Had a meet with’m just a couple weeks back. He was still talkin’ a pretty good pro-Shah line.”
“From what Munair said, maybe he is still pro-Shah. But another one was Chuck’s taxi driver. According to Munair, that guy wanted to blow away all three of us. Argument, all in whispers, got pretty hot. Munair thinks another minute they might’ve started blasting away at each other till Eagle-4 pumped a couple into Chuck and everybody else turned and did the same.”
“How’s Munair know all this shit?”
“He coordinates the work of the komiteh. All the komiteh. Including Savama.”
“Write it up,” said Rocky.
* * *
After a street-corner pickup, Lermontov had him driven to a safe house new to Frank. He served Stolichnaya, but no caviar.
“Your material on the takeover of the airport proved both timely and accurate. Moscow approved a modest bonus, also for your cable on the penetration of Savak.”
He handed Frank a letter-size envelope and poured them each a long draught of vodka. Frank hefted the envelope.
“A thousand?” he guessed.
“Correct,” said Lermontov. “You’re getting so used to your dirty pieces of silver, you don’t even have to count them anymore. That’s good.” They clinked glasses. Lermontov swallowed his vodka in a Russian gulp. Frank took a deep breath and did the same.
“You still aren’t a Russian,” said Lermontov, “but at least you try.”
* * *
Fearful of attracting attention anywhere in town, Frank and Munair met again at the navy’s all but deserted building on the grounds of Supreme Commander’s Headquarters.
“Representatives of the air force say they will meet with Ayatollah Khomeini after morning prayers at the Alawi Girls’ School within two days and pledge their allegiance to him,” Munair said. “If they go through with this, and I believe they will, representatives of the revolutionary komiteh in the army and navy will do the same.”
“How representative are the committees?”
“At this stage, all but totally.”
“There must be some who have doubts,” ventured Frank.
“Always there will be some who harbor doubts,” said Munair. “But fear will silence the doubters. Otherwise, the komiteh represent all. All but the most senior officers. And even some senior officers.”
“How did you hear this?”
“Of course, through my contacts with the komiteh.”
Frank thought of Anwar the Taller, the Mojahedin, and Anwar the Smarter, the doubter. Sorry, he thought. There’s two the Islamic komiteh don’t represent.
“Something else,” Munair hesitated, then added softly, “I have not been authorized by my contacts on the komiteh to tell you. But now that the danger has passed, I can speak. The head of the air force, Amir-Hossein Rabii, proposed to the other generals that the air force should shoot down the plane bringing the Imam home, or at least force it to land in a remote area where troops on the ground could safely arrest him.”
“Didn’t the generals realize what would happen if they tried anything that dumb?”
“Of course,” said Munair. “No one supported him. And the leaders of the military komiteh warned the Imam’s people in Paris. They were very clever. They invited over a hundred journalists from all over the world, including many Americans, to fly with the Imam aboard his plane. And they let the world know it. In any event, by that time, General Rabii could not have found enough air force personnel to carry out his craziness.”
“Thank God,” said Frank.
“Allah-o akbar,” said Munair.
At their Jayface meeting General Merid told them that Ayatollah Khomeini, not more than an hour earlier, had named Mahdi Bazargan as head of the provisional Islamic government. Two weeks ago, Munair provided a tape on which Khomeini told religious leaders he would name Bazargan within days of his return. Now, four days after his jet set down at Meharabad, he had done so.
“I have no complaints about how soon you let me know what you know,” said Frank.
“Thank you,” said Munair.
“I only wish you would stay in touch after I leave.”
“You do not give up, do you?” said Munair.
“Do you?”
“I am a Muslim. We can never give up our faith.”
* * *
“How many of these places do you have?” asked Frank.
After another street-corner pickup, Lermontov had driven him to yet another safe house.
“An instructor in our training program once told a joke,” said Lermontov. “He said there are four things there’s no such thing as too many of. Too many mistresses for a Frenchman; too many drinks for an Irishman; too much money for a Jew; and too many safe houses for a KGB officer.”
Frank did not respond.
“Are you sensitive about the Irishman? Or the Jew?” Frank shrugged. “Myself,” said Lermontov, “I don’t like the part about the Jew. We Russians are far too casual about our history in that regard.”
“You aren’t alone,” said Frank.
* * *
Rocky and Frank sat opposite each other under the bubble. Rocky skimmed the material Lermontov had provided.
“Not much,” said Rocky.
“No,” agreed Frank. “Meeting every other day is more than we need to swap stories, but it could be less than we need if Lermontov suddenly gets the hook.”
“Anything cookin’ on that front?”
“Not since the GRU and Aeroflot guys got pulled out.”
“Good,” said Rocky. “At this point, no news may be the best news.”
“That include no news from Henry James on the mole?”
“Not a peep. But that’s his way. James expects everybody else to tell him everything they know. But he don’t tell nobody nothin’.”
“One other thing,” said Frank. He related what Munair had told him about the plans for the air force and probably other military units to make a public avowal of loyalty to Khomeini and the aborted proposal to shoot down Khomeini’s plane.
“Do a cable on the pledge of allegiance,” said Rocky, “for what it’s worth. The other’s old news. The generals used their ambassador in Washington to try to get U.S. approval from Brzezinski. You really got no need to know this, but the way I get it the basic answer was … what’s that guy in the Bible? Pontius Pilate, right? You wanna stage a coup? We wash our hands. You wanna shoot holy Khomeini’s plane outta the sky? Pass the soap.”
“Nothing I like better,” said Frank, “than peddling old news.”
“Don’t sweat it,” said Rocky, returning his attention to Lermontov’s thin material. “Your KGB buddy also asks if you checked out our new safe house.”
“Twice,” said Frank. “Tried the keys. Checked the rooms. Looks good. Except I worry about the neighborhood.”
“How come?”
“Well, it’s so American.” Frank had found the safe house on the same block as the U.S. Air Force guards’ bachelor quarters.
“Yeah, well, let’s face it. You’re not gonna be havin’ a whole lot of meets there. Maybe only one, and
that one prob’ly after the shit hits the fan, so the less drivin’ through town you gotta do the better. ’Sides, I shouldn’t tell you this, ’cause the ambassador doesn’t want folks to panic, but we’ve got some emergency plans to get all the Americans together in protected compounds where we can round them up in a hurry in case we have to evacuate in a hurry. And you and Gus and a bunch of others from that part of town have reservations at a compound on that block. So when the shit hits the fan, which it will real soon, you’ll be livin’ on the same block as your safe house.”
“Sounds convenient for me,” said Frank. “But it’s a long way from Lermontov’s place.”
“Yeah, I know, but hell, he needs to get used to hangin’ out in an American neighborhood. You have any problems with the safe house, Steele’s in charge of it now. He’s also got keys.”
“Good,” said Frank.
“Your buddy also says, ‘If we can’t meet at my place some day, let’s try your new place for the next three days starting at four.’ He says he won’t be wired. But listen to this part. He says, ‘Do not forget. I am still not in America. But our penetration agent is. He may still do us harm.’”
“He’s right,” said Frank. “We bought some time, but until we get Lermontov to the States safe and sound, we aren’t out of the woods.”
“Fuck Lermontov,” said Rocky. “Until we get all of us back to the States, none of us are fucking safe.”
Not even then, thought Frank, remembering what Munair had told him about the fatwa that would follow him even to America.
* * *
Realizing they had little to discuss, General Merid had decided the Jayface team would not meet on Thursday as well as Friday. Unexpectedly, Munair showed up at Dowshan Tappeh late Thursday morning.
“You must forgive me for coming here.”
“Of course,” said Frank. He knew something important must have prompted such a breach of normal procedures. “Did you have trouble getting through the gates?”
“General Kasravi paved the way with a call to the commander of the air force. This is about the air force, you see.”
Stan Rushmore had abandoned his office to Frank on Munair’s arrival.
“Early this morning,” said Munair, “airmen in uniform demonstrated openly outside the Alawi Girls’ School in support of the Ayatollah and the Bazargan government. I came all this way to tell you because … their defiance … General Kasravi, of course, is very well informed. He contacted me through Admiral Hayati.”
“He expects trouble?”
“General Kasravi said the Bodyguard will not tolerate the defiance by the air force or by any other sector of the armed forces. He said he wanted you to know this and asked if I could contact you. I said I would try.”
“Thank you,” said Frank.
“We expect … we expect to see violence. Very soon. Military arsenals have been looted. The people, neighborhood komiteh, have sidearms. They have no training. But the Mojahedin, the Feda’iyan, they now have heavy weapons and they are well disciplined. And many defectors from the military now will defend the Islamic Republic.”
“Where do you expect trouble?” asked Gus.
“Here,” said Munair.
“Here?” echoed Frank.
“It could begin at the university. Bazargan speaks at the prayer meeting there tomorrow. It could be at Jaleh Square. It could be at any of the prisons or military installations. But we believe here. The homafaran are united, and they have won most of the air force to their side.”
“How soon?” said Frank.
Munair shrugged. “Inshallah, never. But perhaps much sooner.”
PART IV
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FEBRUARY 9, 1979
Early winter dark had begun to settle in when they heard the first firing. “Is that the sound of shit hitting the fan?” said Gus, hunched over the IBM Selectric in Stan Rushmore’s office.
Heavy feet thudded down the hallway, echoing the gunfire. Frank hurried to the door in time to see Cantwell and Steele rushing outside. The treble of rockets and the bass of flares stretched the scale that accompanied the unseen battle.
Frank’s throat tightened. He took a deep breath and managed to say, “Let’s go watch.”
They stuffed papers and ribbons into the safe, locked it, and pulled on parkas and stocking caps. Outside in the frozen air, they could distinguish the crackle of automatic weapons from the thump of heavier equipment. Stuttering helicopter rotors drew their eyes to circling raptors that spat down rockets and heavy-caliber machine-gun fire. Whatever forces contended, the struggle crackled within the base’s Iranian section. Bill Steele had driven Frank through that section and out a back gate on their way to Anwar’s compound. It had seemed so tight, so disciplined, so secure then. Now chaos echoed from that quarter, and Frank wondered what direction the rebellion followed.
“Maybe we should go home,” said Gus.
“Maybe we should try,” said Frank. He checked the pocket of his parka and found the keys to the bulletproof Nova. They got no farther than the chained gates.
“Trouble,” said the Iranian air force guard. “Trouble on Damavand. Trouble coming.”
Frank backed the Nova away from the gate, U-turned, and pulled up outside their Quonset hut. “Looks like we’re here for the duration,” he said.
Bill Steele hurtled past them. “Don’t ask,” he said as he thumped inside. They followed him into Troy’s office.
“Hold on a second,” said Troy into his secure phone to Rocky’s office. “Whatcha got?”
“Bodyguard,” said Steele. “They’ve had a unit here watching over the air force types. They got into it with the homafaran and a bunch of civilian techies.”
“Those guys don’t have guns,” said Troy.
“They do now,” said Steele. “Must have raided the arsenal. They’ve got air force military police with them. Bodyguards let loose with rockets and flares, helicopter gunships, I guess just to scare the air force guys, but they didn’t scare. Bunch of American advisers got trapped over there, and tell him we got a bunch of other Americans trapped here.”
“Like us,” muttered Gus.
Troy repeated it all to Rocky, then listened, grunted, and hung up.
“He’ll get the ambassador on it,” said Troy. “He’s got special phone numbers for some of Khomeini’s honchos. Maybe they can help, but meanwhile we better break out weapons.”
Frank put in a bid for a Browning nine millimeter.
“You know you’re not checked out on it,” said Steele.
“I’m not checked out on anything,” said Frank. “But I did learn how to use one.”
“Unofficially?”
Frank nodded.
“Not good enough,” said Steele. “Besides, for what we might be up against an automatic’s not your best weapon.” He unlocked and swung open the doors of a tall steel cabinet. Chain-locked gun racks and deep metal drawers, each with its own thick padlock, glared out at them. “Shotguns are what you guys need. If anything.”
“Let’s hope nothing,” said Gus. “God willing and the creek don’t rise.”
“Take a couple of these,” said Steele, undoing the chains on a rack of shotguns. “Winchester M97s. Twelve-gauge, buckshot. Designed for riot control. Pump action, five-shot magazines.” He demonstrated the pump action and showed them how to release and insert the tubular magazine.
“We can count on the homafaran and the Bodyguard keeping their war to themselves, but word is some of these Islamic committees are on their way to help out the homafaran. Most likely, they’ll come from the area around Jaleh Square, which means they’ll hit the base from the other side. But others are out on Damavand, setting bonfires, burning tires, in case the Bodyguard tries to send in reinforcements from that direction.”
“Basically,” said Gus, “you just told us the hostiles have us surrounded.”
“Basically,” said Steele. “And if they try to come over or through our fences, we’ll have you ou
t there with some of the rest of us and some air force guards on a firing line. Shotguns and tear gas grenade launchers. I’ll get gas masks for you. The idea is to stop the crowd, not shoot or kill anybody. What you do with the shotguns, you don’t fire at the crowd. You fire at the ground in front of them. That way, you turn the ground into shrapnel that skips into the crowd, low, along with your buckshot. Nobody gets killed, but it hurts like hell and can turn a crowd around in a hurry.”
“Suppose they shoot back?” said Gus.
“If they’re armed, heavily armed, we forget about it. Pull back in here and try to negotiate our way out. I’ll give you guys an extra magazine each. If ten rounds of buckshot from each of a bunch of us, plus tear gas, doesn’t turn them…” He left the sentence unfinished.
Cantwell, his face flushed from running through the cold, hurried into the office. “The Iranian guards supposed to be at the gates…” He caught his breath. “They disappeared.”
* * *
Frank hadn’t seen the cafeteria so crowded since Sergeant Abbas had frightened off its customers. Close to fifty Americans and a handful of Iranian workers huddled around a uniformed air force officer. He introduced himself as Captain William Petry.
“As you can see, some of us are bearing weapons, but we believe this sector will not, repeat, will not face any danger.” Petry’s face, new to Frank, belied his words. Heavy frown lines betrayed the effort he made to keep his eyes from shifting toward the gunfire beyond the walls. “Calm is what’s required. Our chances of leaving the base anytime soon do not, repeat, do not look good. Food and refreshments will be free. We’ve got some movies and some Super Bowl tapes we’ll be running. So let’s keep our heads and make the best of it. We’ll keep you informed.”
* * *
Cradling the shotgun he’d been issued, Frank walked outside. Cantwell, standing in the walkway, turned at the sound of the door. “Prob’ly not a good idea to be out here, sir.” Full dark surrounded them.
“You’re here.”
“I have to be.”
“What’s going on?” said Frank. To his left he could see and hear evidence of the fighting that continued on the base.
The Peregrine Spy Page 51