Kathy shook her head as she basted the roast lamb. When he replaced the phone and came into the kitchen, she asked sweetly, “Who was that? George Morris or John the Baptist?”
Arnold smirked but could not smile. “I guess we’ll see it later on the news, but some terrorist group just released every major political prisoner in Israel, blew up the jail, killed the guards, and got ’em all out in a couple of helicopters.”
“Good lord!” said Kathy.
“That’s what I just told John the Baptist,” said Arnold. “I know it sounds kinda crazy, but there’s forty-seven of these fanatics on the loose. And we don’t want ’em here.”
“No, we sure don’t.”
“And there’s another twist to this. These guys were led and trained by some clever son of a bitch. George and his boys think it was that missing SAS Major we talked about last year. Kerman, from London. They never found him.”
“I remember the stuff in the English papers,” she replied. “Rich family, but he turned out to be a Muslim.”
“That’s him,” said the Admiral. “And, if I am any judge, he spells real trouble. George thinks his gang not only robbed two banks for $100 million, he’s just liberated the world’s most dangerous group of men from an impregnable prison.”
“That’s not good,” said Kathy.
“No. It’s not…and the entire thing smacked of Special Forces. There were no survivors on the jail staff, no witnesses, no one wounded and left there. Everyone killed absolutely clinically. And, as usual with jails, Nimrod security was totally geared to stop anyone getting out. I’ll bet no one ever gave a thought to preventing anyone from getting in.
“First thing tomorrow I want to talk to that new ambassador who just arrived here.”
“Try to be specific, my darling. Ambassador? China? Peru? Mongolia?”
“Iran, silly,” replied Admiral Morgan, smiling and shaking his head in mock exasperation. “Iran, state sponsors of international terrorism these past twenty years…and birthplace of Major Raymond Kerman.”
4
Eleven Months Later
Friday, May 5, 2006
Kerman, Southeast Iran
GENERAL RAVI RASHOOD and Shakira Sabah sat in deep conversation in the vaulted underground teahouse of the sprawling Bazar-e Vakil in the center of the desert city of Kerman. For Ravi it was a pilgrimage, to the one place he remembered from a far-lost childhood. At least, he remembered the pastries, sweet, delicious pastries made with honey and almonds, and he remembered the covered bazaar. The actual teahouse, much more vague in the caverns of his memory, had taken two hours to find, but now they were here, and Ravi held Shakira’s hand in their little booth, and told her about his mother.
For Shakira, it was a voyage of discovery rather than rediscovery. She had never been to Iran, and Ravi had never told her much about it, mainly because he could remember so little. But he had told her about the outstanding pastries he and his mother had sampled in a place with great Gothic archways and fine, elegant brickwork, like a church or a mosque. But he could not remember the tea, or the house, or anything else, which was why it had taken so long to find.
Today, they both wore Western clothes, and they had already visited the lofty, yellow stone Mosque-e Jame, Kerman’s greatest building. Ravi had remembered that, and he knew that he and his family had lived very near. But, try as they did, he and Shakira could not locate the old house, principally because Ravi could only recall its walled courtyard, with a fountain and a tree casting shade on the stone floor throughout the day.
Somehow, though, the bustling, noisy teahouse had made the journey worthwhile for one of the world’s most wanted men and the slender, dark-haired Palestinian beauty who was prepared to lay down her life for him, as once she had very nearly done. And that was before she knew him.
“Well,” she said, smiling. “You kept telling me you would understand everything better if we could just come here. We are here—did it work?”
Ravi laughed softly. She always wanted answers. Direct, simple answers. Shades of truth and description, nuance and allusion, went right past her…Do you think they should all die? Will we be safe? Are the Israelis the worst people on earth? Do you love me enough to marry me?
The words maybe, possibly, and perhaps, and phrases like let’s give it a little time, it depends on your point of view, and sometimes I think so might have been uttered in Mandarin Chinese so far as Shakira Sabah was concerned.
“Yes, but…” was her standard parry, before asking the question all over again. Ravi Rashood was enchanted by her, and not just by her beauty and obvious intellect. He had witnessed her courage, her loyalty, and her determination to fight for what she believed was right. Shakira was also devout in the faith of Islam. She read the Koran to the ex-SAS Major; taught him the words of the Prophet as she had been taught; made him understand the path to Allah and the kindness and moral correctness of that vastly misunderstood religion.
These days, even the amplified call from the minarets, of the muezzins summoning their people to prayer, held a new and soulful meaning for the former Ray Kerman. In the echoing, ancient tones laid down by the Prophet 1,400 years ago, he heard the true voice of his new religion; plaintive and suffering yet rich in faith and hope.
And now the question stood before him. We are here—did it work? That ingrained English sense of mannered hedging, honed at Harrow School, urged him to, well, hedge his reply. But he knew that would be hopeless. Shakira would just ask again equally bluntly: We are here—did it work?
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, it did.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I feel that I belong here. Almost as if I have come home. However long my parents spent turning me into an Englishman, I am not, and cannot be, English. I am Iranian, and my forbears were Bedouin. Neither my father nor the British Army could alter that. We are all what we are, even you, my darling.”
Shakira looked serious. “But if you had never been posted to Israel, never fought in the Jerusalem Road, and never killed two men, just to save me—would you still have one day found your way home?”
“I don’t think so. I would have gone on as before, and doubtless ended up in command of a battalion, and then gone into the family business. It was in Hebron that I first felt something in the market, talking to people. It was strange, but I felt an emotional tie, an excitement, just being there.”
“That was before you even knew me?”
“Yes. It was.”
“So I’m not entirely responsible for your actions?”
“No. No, you’re not. I was already feeling this strange sensation, a really powerful pull toward the Palestinians. It all reminded me of a story one of my troopers told me in Northern Ireland. He was a nice guy named Pat Byrne, and he had an uncle in Philadelphia who had left Ireland when he was eleven and lived for the next fifty-six years in Pennsylvania. And then one day the old uncle—he was a widower—decided to go for a ten-day holiday to Derry, where he still had relatives but had never once visited in all those years.
“Do you know he never went back to the United States? He settled into a typical Irish village near the sea with a couple of cousins. Then he called an estate agent back in Philadelphia and told him to sell his two cars, his house, and everything in it. He’s still in Ireland, some little place in Donegal, happy as a lark.
“And whatever he felt in Ireland was what I feel here in the Middle East. I’ve hardly any memory of Kerman, but my heart tells me I’m home.”
“But didn’t you feel at home in London?”
“Yes, I did. My family was there. Everyone I knew. But I think I always felt I was different and that other people thought I was different. When you’re a kid you push things like that to the back of your mind. But I knew when I got here that I wasn’t different any more. And then I met you….”
“Does that mean we’re not going to end up in Donegal? We’re staying here?”
General Rashood laughed. “We have a lot
of work to do, you and I….”
“Yes, but are we staying here?”
“In Iran?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. But we’re going to be here for some time. And even if we leave, it will be to live in Syria, or Jordan, or even Egypt. It will be in an Islamic country, I know that. Anyway, I could never return to the West, not to live.”
“They’ll hang you, eh?”
“They might.”
“Well, I won’t let them. I’ll blow up their silly courtroom, like that Israeli tank.”
“Then they might hang us both.”
“Not us. We’re too smart.”
Ravi put his arm around her. “Smart but careful, that’s the trick,” he told her. “Remember, our business is very dangerous. One serious mistake could end our lives.”
Shakira looked thoughtful. “Do you sometimes think we have done enough? You know, we should just retire from the battle and go and live somewhere peaceful?”
“I do sometimes think that. But I would like to see a great Islamic State, free of the influences of the West and Israel. Certainly here in the Middle East. And I think I know how to achieve it. Which is why we are here. A lot of people are counting on me, and I’m not ready to let everyone down.”
“I guess you shouldn’t be so brilliant, my darling,” she replied. “At the Nimrod Jail, you showed everyone a standard of professionalism they had never seen before. Now you are some kind of messiah to half the Arab nations.”
“I can teach them,” said Ravi, quietly. “But first I must show them.”
They left the teahouse shortly afterward and took a taxi back to the Kerman Grand Inn, packed, and left for the airport for the once-a-week Iran Air flight down to Bandar Abbas, a distance of around 320 miles.
It left on time at six o’clock and arrived at the seaport forty-five minutes later. They checked into the now jaded but once renowned old Hotel Gamerun on the south side of Bolvar-e Pasdaran, overlooking the Gulf. Renamed the Homa Hotel, it still carried an air of opulence, and its restaurant, once famous, was now adequate. Just. But the chef knew how to make battered prawns with fresh steamed rice, the staple dish of Iran. They drank mango juice, and then tea, before taking a walk in the gardens overlooking the ocean.
The night was warm and the moon rose in the east, from out of the desert, casting a light on several strollers along the pathways. The hotel was full, mainly with tourists, as it often was at this time of year. Bookings were impossible, but the Iranian Navy had several permanent rooms under contract, which was how Ravi and Shakira had slipped so smoothly onto the guest list with three days’ notice.
News of the Nimrod jailbreak had had a stunning effect on Arab morale. But it was the Ayatollahs who had insisted on Hamas revealing who, precisely, had been responsible. Hamas had been shy, guarding the identity of their military leader. But as the months went by, the Ayatollahs, who had done so much to finance operations in the Middle East, had their way. The name of General Rashood was given to them, along with the shining fact that he was an Iranian-born Muslim.
This quiet walk in the garden may have seemed like a carefree, romantic interlude for two people who had been devotedly in love for almost two years. But the atmosphere between them was fraught with tensions. First thing in the morning, General Rashood was to report to the Iranian Naval yard on the western side of the town, where he had been summoned to discuss the future with the top brass of Hezbollah, plus that organization’s military sympathizers and two senior hard-line clerics from Tehran who had for many years provided funds for various acts of destruction against the West.
An Ayatollah paymaster of very senior government rank would chair the meeting, which would take place behind locked doors in the Ops Room Block. Four guards would patrol every entrance. All notes and notebooks would be surrendered for inspection at the conclusion of the discussions. For many months, no one would ever be informed of the decisions reached nor indeed what any single person had stated.
As classified military gatherings go, this one was secret. And it would decide the immediate future of General Ravi and his Palestinian bride-to-be. Neither of them knew what tomorrow might bring, even though the main purpose of the meeting in the dockyard was to hear the world view of the revered Hamas military Chief.
Ravi and Shakira slept restlessly, each in turn awakening and wondering where they would go and what tasks might be allotted them. Shakira would not be permitted to attend the meeting, but for the moment she was a guest of the Islamic State of Iran and would remain at the hotel until the General’s business was concluded.
They went down the wide stairs for breakfast at eight o’clock, Shakira eating the traditional lavash bread with yogurt and honey, Ravi insisting on cornflakes and then a couple of fried eggs with toast despite, by Iranian standards, the monumental cost. The Homa Hotel’s accounting department reasoned that anyone who wanted a thoroughly Western breakfast was a thoroughly Western tourist with thoroughly Western cash, which was, essentially, to be encouraged.
The Navy staff car arrived for the General at a quarter to nine. He wore Arab dress and spoke Arabic to the driver, who steered them westward through the seaport and out toward the Headquarters of the Iranian Navy.
Ravi noted the big sign to the left of the main entrance: HEADQUARTERS FIRST NAVAL DISTRICT. Below these large white letters was an uncompromising communication:
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
INTRUDERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT
Their route to the Ops Center took them past the jetties. Ravi, like all SAS Commanders, was familiar with warships and he recognized a guided-missile frigate when he saw one. Right before his eyes was moored Iran’s 1,300-ton Alvano Class Vosper MK5, Sabalan, which was built over thirty years ago in England and now carrying the very adequate Chinese cruise missile C-802.
Ravi could see the number 73 painted on her hull, and there were seamen boarding her and others leaving. He couldn’t work out whether she was just departing or just arriving. Either way, she looked like a force to be considered in a Naval confrontation.
They arrived at the Ops Center a little after nine o’clock, and the General was ushered into a downstairs office where he was greeted by the burly, bespectacled figure of Vice Admiral Mohammed Badr, Head of Tactical Headquarters and Iran’s most senior submarine expert.
“General Rashood!” he exclaimed with genuine warmth. “I am honored to meet you. We have all heard so much.”
“Some of it good?” said Ravi, offering the Muslim greeting, arching his hand down from his forehead.
“All of it superb, General,” said the Admiral, bowing his head and giving deference to the rank of the officer before him. This, despite the fact that Ravi had been commissioned in a dirt cellar and had never led a force of more than fifty men, while he, Mohammed Badr, was the Head of a National Navy comprising 40,000 personnel, and 180 ships, including three Russian-built Kilo Class submarines.
Admiral Badr, a native of the southern port of Bushehr, had been in command of the entire Kilo Class program of the Iranian Navy. Indeed he had been in command of the dockyard when an American hit squad had wrecked all three of the original deliveries four years previously. The three Kilos, now in his possession, were brand new, in pristine operational condition, and the Admiral intended they should stay that way.
He loathed America and everything the West stood for. He had actually been known to tremble with fury on the deck of an Iranian frigate when a line of giant U.S. tankers out of the Texan Gulf coast moved arrogantly through the Strait of Hormuz as if they owned it, to reload with crude oil, oil from the Persian Gulf, his country’s sea, his people’s oil. Not America’s.
On the wall of his office was a photograph of a young Naval officer dressed in the dark blue dress uniform of a Nakhoda Dovom (Commander), with four gold stripes on his sleeve, the uppermost one containing a gold circle.
“My son,” said the Admiral, glancing across the room. “Ben Badr, Commanding Officer of the
guided-missile frigate Sabalan. He’s a good man, thirty-five years old now. He’ll be here in a moment to meet you.”
“I’ll be honored,” replied Ravi. “Did the Sabalan just arrive? It looked busy.”
“She docked shortly after midnight,” said the Admiral.
“Will Ben join us at the meeting?”
“Certainly. He is very highly regarded here. A lot of people say I’m just keeping this chair warm for him.”
“Has he worked in submarines, like his father?” asked Ravi, slightly out of context.
But Admiral Badr did not regard it as such, and he replied steadily, “All of his career. This is his first surface command.”
“Broadening his experience, eh?”
“Precisely so.”
“Can’t have a Navy Chief who’s spent his entire life underwater, right?”
The Admiral chuckled. “Not these days. But Ben’s a quick learner, and he’s dedicated to our country and our cause. He’ll be promoted to Captain this year, and resume command of one of the Kilos.”
“That’s the Russian diesel electric?”
“That’s the one. We have three of them. Excellent ships…extremely quiet…”
“Until they rev up,” said Ravi, smiling.
“Generally speaking,” replied the Admiral. “We have learned when not to rev up! Ah, here’s Ben now….”
Through the door came Commander Badr, a dark-skinned man with jet black, close-cut hair and the build of an athlete, broad in the shoulder but lean, with a light walk, just one step from a full canter, and an easy smile. He was not quite as tall as his father, who was only a fraction under six feet two. But Ben Badr was better-looking and classic Persian, with a slim, slightly curved nose and a high forehead. It was a face of high intelligence.
“Good morning, General,” he said, without being introduced. “It’s my privilege to meet you.”
“Commander,” replied Ravi, smiling and offering his hand in greeting. “You know little about me, so you should perhaps hold judgment on how big a privilege it is.”
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