The file is open on the floor. He positions all of the bank statements, affidavits, canceled checks, contracts, company names, easements, water, electric, gas bills, insurance papers, documents, references, copies of the passport, and a green card. He is surprised to find a copy of a Social Security card, for he didn’t know he was now an American citizen. Quickly, Jalal begins photographing each and every page.
The German camera whirrs, clicks, and flashes effortlessly. He turns over each document then photographs them again. He had probably taken about sixty photos. After he has completed his task, he stacks the documents together and returns them to the file, flips it closed, and returns Sadegh Muzahedi’s file into the filing cabinet drawer. He closes it quietly. He picks up the flashlight, tiptoes to the window, and climbs down the rope into the alley.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The driver slows and turns into an alley. Down-shifting, he drives behind the dark, intense, silent buildings that take up an entire block. A sentry waves the car through the checkpoint.
Good, Sadegh thinks. The sentries are lax, used to the routine of me arriving at my office just before curfew.
He never enters SAVAK headquarters through its front entrance, always through the back alley. The driver turns into the general’s designated space alongside the colonel’s car. Two jeeps are parked in the spaces next to the colonel’s car. Car idling, the driver asks the general if he should wait.
Sadegh dismisses him curtly, telling him to pick him up at home in the morning. Sadegh gets out of the car, walks a few steps, and unlocks the heavy metal door leading into the windowless building. Entering, he savors the perfect quietness surrounding him as he enters his office. The sound-proofed walls and flooring hide the screams and terror from the basement below of the prisoners being tortured. In this building, there is no curfew. Extracting information continues twenty-four hours a day. Very few people entering the basements come out alive.
The chief of operations salutes smartly and hands the general a large folder that contains daily reports.
Sadegh puts it on his desk. “I’ll read it later. What is the code color for driving tonight?”
“White circle, passenger side. The sticker is attached to your folder on your desk, sir,” replies the colonel. “Which car are you using, Sir? I am happy to attach it for you.”
“Thank you, Colonel, I will do it myself. Relax, Khalil, I have a few minutes before my wife picks me up. Whisky as usual?”
The colonel sits down. “Thank you, sir.”
His back to the colonel, Sadegh pours a few drops of colorless liquid into the glass, then pours a generous shot of Chivas Regal. He stirs the whisky then adds ice. He gives the glass to the colonel.
Selecting another glass, he pours a splash for himself. “Salut.” They both drink.
Sadegh knows the sedative will take about one to two minutes to knock out the colonel.
“Khalil, forget your report. Tell me the truth, how bad
was today?”
“Well, sir, today was the worst day so far. Just in our sector alone, including the bazaar district, mujahidin have killed 64 men. Twenty-nine are soldiers. Bombings are escalating, as are the firebombs. Sixteen buildings have been bombed. More and more prisoners, under torture, are implicating the Bazaaries, who control and run all the open-air market places in the cities. The Bazaaries account for more than half the business and commerce in our country, and have always supported the Shah. We cannot understand why they are now financing Khomeini’s fanatics. I’m trying to set up an appointment for you to meet with the Bazaaries’ group of elders tomorrow which will include their bankers, traders, and merchants.”
“Good, arrange for them to meet me here. Drink up, my friend. I will have to leave soon.”
The colonel drains his glass. Sadegh watches him as he gets up and walks toward the desk. In mid-stride, he grunts and shakes his head. His right leg bends, then buckles. The colonel collapses.
Sadegh lifts up the telephone. “Captain, this is time for interrogations. Make sure that I am not disturbed under any circumstances. Is that clear? Thank you, Captain.” Sadegh puts down the phone.
He bends over Khalil, picks up his legs, and drags him into the colonel’s office. He leaves the younger officer sprawled on the floor.
Sadegh returns into his own office and opens the closet. He then selects one uniform and takes it into his washroom, hanging it on the hook behind the door. Sadegh glances at his watch. Maryam will soon be arriving to pick him up, bringing the gardener. The man had been hired not for his gardening skills, but because he was approximately the same height and build as Sadegh, and has a similar beard.
Closing the colonel’s inter-leading door, Sadegh walks through his office and unlocks the outside door. Maryam is parked alongside his car with the engine running. Striding to the vehicles, Sadegh opening the passenger door of his wife’s car and climbs in.
“Cheri,” he says. She smiles, turns her face for him to kiss her cheek.
“Wait outside,” he says to the gardener, who is sitting in the back, a worried look on his face. The man gets out the car and closes the door.
“I have a present for you, my cheri. I have to ask you to wait patiently, for about 30 minutes, while I finish my work.”
“Husband, you have never been on time,” she teases. “After so many years of having to wait until you finish up your work, I have my book to read, but to wait half an hour, the present I am sure will be better than the earrings you gave me last week.”
Looking at her, he smiles. “You drive a hard bargain, my cheri. I will obviously have to make it something extra special.” He kisses her on the lips, squeezes her hand, and gets out the car.
“Come,” he says to the gardener. The man follows him silently up the short walk into his office.
Sadegh locks the door behind him and points to his washroom, “Go in there, then put on the uniform and shoes behind the door. My wife and I are attending a banquet. My regular driver is sick. You will take his place. Hurry up, we are already late. When you finish dressing, put your clothes in the plastic bag behind the door.”
Hesitantly, unsure, in awe he is in the great general’s private office, the man walks into the washroom.
Sadegh strides over to the large ornate cabinet next to his desk. Pulling open the top drawer, he lifts out a two-foot-long iron bar. One end of the bar is ridged and grooved, so that it can be held securely in his hand without it slipping from his grasp. This is his favorite tool. The iron bar is heavy enough to inflict maximum pain when breaking hands, arms, legs or ribs. Sadegh can, and has, completely shattered a man’s knee with just one blow. Standing outside the washroom door, he waits.
Dressed in Sadegh’s uniform, the gardener walks tentatively out of the washroom, eyes downcast. Sadegh swings hard, accurately hitting the man on the forehead. The gardener collapses. Sadegh turns the man over on his back so that he can disfigure his face making identification difficult. He swings again, aiming at the teeth and jaw so forensics won’t identify him through dental records.
With the chaos in the country worsening, there will not be a thorough investigation. SAVAK does not have enough resources now to waste time on the obvious. If a man in Sadegh’s uniform, of similar height and weight, and wearing a beard, is found dead in Sadegh’s office, it will obviously be the general.
Aiming more carefully, Sadegh starts hitting down savagely so that the face is completely disfigured. The face is raw bloodied meat when he stops. Blood, bone fragments, and shattered bits of teeth are scattered all over the carpet. Breathing heavily, Sadegh makes his way to the bathroom. Pulling on a roll of toilet paper, he cleans the iron bar, then puts it back in the drawer.
Sadegh then strips off his clothes and pushes them into the plastic bag on top of the gardener’s clothes. Vigorously washing the blood off his hands, using a brush to remove the blood from under his nails, he washes his face and hair. Leaving his beard wet, Sadegh uses small scissors to cut off ch
unks of facial hair, also placing those into the plastic bag. Trimming his beard as short as possible, he attempts to make it easier to shave but cuts himself in many places. Looking in the mirror, Sadegh sees a face he has not seen in ten years. He is satisfied with the youthful face staring at him.
Sadegh walks into Colonel Khalil’s office and takes one of the uniforms hanging in the closet. Quickly, he gets dressed. Khalil, whose build is similar to the general’s, was also selectively chosen from the officers’ pool. Now dressed in the colonel’s uniform, Sadegh walks back into his own office, opens the wall safe, takes out three briefcases, unlocks one of them, and checks all three passports lying on bundles of Swiss francs and $100 bills.
From the safe, he takes out a gun with a silencer already attached, and a note written crudely in pencil on a piece of torn paper, puts them both in his pocket. With great care, he takes out two explosive devices, places one bomb on the floor next to Khalil’s body and sets the timer for exactly four minutes. The loud rhythmic ticking starts immediately. Khalil is a junior officer. No one will waste time identifying him.
Sadegh counts thirty seconds then sets the second bomb’s timer for three and a half minutes, synchronizing it so both bombs will explode at the same time. He places the second bomb next to the gardener’s head and pulls up his arms to place both hands on the bomb. This will eliminate the man’s fingerprints when his fingers are blown up.
The Iranian general looks around at the office, his inner sanctum, magnificently and tastefully furnished, and knows it is the only thing he will miss. Pausing, reminiscing, remembering. A warmth of deep pleasure glows tinged with hidden sadness. He savors the long hours sitting here, planning, always planning, always winning. The large map of the world covering one wall represents his private chess game, the competition where he challenges himself. Playing chess is boring: trapping a king, game over. The area of conflict in chess is confined to a small board, black and white, no nuances or grey areas. Chess has no total obliteration or total devastation.
Thoughts course through Sadegh’s mind. However, in this room I have created my own game of chess where countries take the place of chess pieces and the whole world is a chessboard. Here I saw the rising of a situation, looking for imaginary, unexpected problems to solve that situation.
How far can one go to solve each problem? In how many ways can they be solved? The thrill is in finding solutions where supposedly there are none; making the impossible possible, the improbable probable, and total destruction of an enemy so complete that it will never rise again. How, for example, can one of the most recognizable SAVAK generals disappear from Iran?
He muses. Everyone knows my face, every enemy has traced my movements, tried to ambush and kill me half a dozen times. The family of every prisoner I’ve tortured or killed vowed blood revenge and howls in their dreams of how they will kill me. For years now, I’ve successfully eluded all the jackals, evil cowards, and vermin. I revel in their hatred, baiting them, using them, and if they get too close, find ways to kill them. It is the power of this office I have created, I rule this section of the city, and in ways, rule the entire country, and one day I will have another like this one. It has been all so easy. Time to move to a new game of chess, I’m tired of this one. There is no further challenges left in Iran, I am ready for the next game.
The Peacock Throne is in its death throes. The Shah’s time is finished, the Pavlavi’s game is over, the Shah, checkmated. It is now time for a new challenge—America. America will be far more formidable, far stronger, but I am ready. The planning for years on how to bring America to its knees will take a little while. It is as if I have been put on this earth for the final battle. Good against evil. America personifies all that is evil. America is the reincarnation of Satan. All my life before today has been to prepare me for this fight, and I am now ready. I will take on the United States and will find a way to destroy it.
In the stillness of his office, clocks are ticking. Closing his briefcase, Sadegh grabs the plastic bag and briefcases, unlocks the entrance door and leaves it open, slightly ajar. In less than three minutes, Sadegh Muzahedi, SAVAK general, will totally and irrevocably disappear.
Sadegh walks to his wife’s car. Maryam is reading and doesn’t look up. As he reaches the door, he notices the window is shut. His shadow falls across her book, and she turns toward him. Gently, he places the barrel of the gun against the window. It makes a cracking noise, loud, like a breaking twig, as it touches the glass. He shoots her twice in the face.
Unhurriedly, takes the note out of his jacket pocket, he leans through the shattered car window and places it on her chest. It reads, “Die, hangman’s whore. As easily as we executed you and assassinated your husband Sadegh Muzahedi, so will we kill all of SAVAK.”
He looks at her twisted body lying on the seat. Dark blood is slowly seeping from the two bullet wounds in her forehead. Her eyes and mouth are wide open. She still holds the book in her left hand, some pages are moving in the light breeze.
“I promised you something extra, my cheri.” Lifting his gun, he aims at her eye and shoots her once again.
The bombs will explode in about two minutes. Keys will be in the Jeep under the front seat, as always. Sadegh carries a spare in his pocket, just in case.
Taking the oval white, plastic reflectors, he sticks them onto the front and back passenger-side windows. Oval white reflectors are given only to generals and their staff. All other personnel are given yellow squares. Command headquarters informs the military fifteen minutes before curfew where plastic reflectors should be placed on the windows of all vehicles. This ensures that terrorists who have captured military motorized vehicles cannot pose as soldiers and drive around in cars, ambulances, or jeeps while committing acts of terrorism.
The city is divided into sectors. Each night, different places are chosen as surprise checkpoints. As each patrol reaches a checkpoint, the soldiers get out of their vehicles, place their weapons behind them at their feet, and stand to attention, arms held in front of them at shoulder height. Their military papers are held in their right hands, and they look straight ahead. A Jeep with a machine gun mounted on it, manned by three soldiers at the ready, takes up a position behind the soldiers standing at attention. The machine gun is aimed at their backs. As bullets are loaded into the barrel of the machine gun, they make a metallic sound while clicking into ammunition slots. When they are ready, only then does an officer begin inspecting papers held in each soldier’s hands. This is the most effective way to stop terrorists from disguising themselves as soldiers.
Sadegh gets into the Jeep, starts its engine, and drives toward the sentry at the checkpoint. At curfew, only experienced soldiers will be guarding streets and manning checkpoints. Sixteen-year-olds, belonging to their school militia, take over sentry duties and other less critical aspects of sealing and controlling the city.
As Sadegh drives past, the young sentry looks straight ahead and salutes. Slowly Sadegh turns into a deserted street. Changing gears, he feels the whine of the Jeep’s engine as it begins to gather speed.
Humming to himself, he drives fast, glancing repeatedly at the rearview mirror. He sees a flash of flames light up the darkness long before he hears the massive explosion. He lets out a yell of sheer delight, hitting the steering wheel with his flat hand deliriously, and drives faster.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Bank Melli manager lifts the receiver and dials. The phone is answered on the fourth ring. From a list he has in front of him, he rapidly recites the names of each person who has visited his office today, and the amount of money he has told them they cannot withdraw. When he comes to the final name, he says, “Reilly, $240,000. That makes a total of $3,600,000 today.”
“Was that Jay Reilly” the voice asks.
Alarmed and fearing some sort of trap, the bank manager panics. He has under reported Reilly’s amount by $400,000, as he has been doing since he started on all accounts.
When General Sadegh sugge
sted a way to make big money fast, he’d agreed. Selecting which clients due to dubious businesses could not threaten him, he had begun refusing to pay out funds to bank clients’ four months ago, citing the unrest and internal bank problems. Then he skimmed off the top and under-reported each night a third of what he was really withholding.
Sweat pours down the manager’s forehead. If he isn’t believed, he is a dead man.
“Do you know this man, Reilly? Is he a friend of yours?” says the bank manager. “If so, I can release his money to him immediately. In his file, I have his business and home telephone numbers. I can even call him this very night if you so desire, my lord.”
“No, keep it. I want it included in today’s figures. As usual, deduct your twenty-five percent. My wife will be there in one hour. My share is to be half in dollars, the balance in Swiss francs. Make sure it is all there. I am making you a rich man, Abdullah, so I hope for your sake that you are not cheating me.”
“Cheat you, mon general? Never, never, as Allah is my witness, I would never ever think of cheating you as long as I live, my children and their children’s children will bless you, my lord. Twenty-five percent is so very generous, for after all, it was your brilliant idea. You are most kind. I will be waiting for your wife in the usual place behind the bank. Good night, mon General. I will call you at the same time tomorrow night. Salaam, and may, Allah be with you.”
Sadegh puts down the phone. He is at home and in the process of packing an overnight bag of important papers and personal things. Nightly, at a pre-arranged time, the bank manager phones him. Knows the manager is stealing from the top, but even so, he has been receiving over $2,000,000 a day for the last four months since martial law was declared.
He knows the little cockroach is cheating. The man is a parasite, disgusting and loathsome. Thank goodness, I only have to speak to him one more time, Sadegh thinks to himself.
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