City of Whispering Stone

by George C. Chesbro

  “C’mon, Ali, you’re going to blow a blood vessel. I know the SAVAK is here; I read the papers. I’m just not sure how much help they get from us.”

  The desperate anger in him seemed to pass as quickly as it had come. His shoulders sagged and he sighed resignedly. “It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly. “You will find out for yourself if you continue to investigate this matter. In any case, I have decided to trust you.”

  “Gee, Ali, that’s swell.”

  He missed or ignored the sarcasm. “I want to help you, Dr. Frederickson.” He’d begun to talk very rapidly. “I can’t tell you where your man is, but I can tell you what he is.”

  “I thought you already had: he’s a nasty refugee jock from some Iranian gym.”

  “There’s more. I said he was an assassin, but I didn’t tell you why I was so sure. And I am sure. I’m also sure I know whom he came here to kill.” His voice grew softer, then broke, as if he were choking on his words. “I believe he may already have succeeded, and that’s why you can’t find him.”

  “Let’s back up a minute, Ali. Khordad’s been with an American circus for two years, and the last time we spoke you hadn’t even heard of him.”

  “I don’t have to know him personally to know what he is; he is SAVAK. If he were not, he would have no interest whatsoever in joining an American circus. You simply must be made to understand that. Hassan Khordad’s only purpose in coming here was to take care of some kind of business for the Shah. Sincere members of the Zur-khaneh are interested only in developing the body, mind and spirit; they care nothing for circuses.” He paused, drummed his fingers on the table. “Just last month an anti-Shah general was assassinated in Iraq by a group of SAVAK agents. Check it out if you don’t believe me.”

  “And you claim the Shah ordered that?”

  “Of course not. The Shah doesn’t order any of these things, any more than your President personally gives orders to an individual C.I.A. agent. It just isn’t done that way.”

  “Who gives the orders in Iran?”

  “The head of the SAVAK is a man by the name of Bahman Arsenjani. Arsenjani is very powerful; he comes from a family that is famous for producing SAVAK personnel. Indeed, it’s rumored that he uses members of his family to spy on other SAVAK agents. It is Arsenjani’s job to anticipate the wishes of the Shah. If Bahman Arsenjani thinks that the Shah would be made happy by somebody’s death, Arsenjani will see to it that the individual is killed. Arsenjani is ruthless, and he has a completely free hand. He will go to great lengths to search out and destroy the Shah’s enemies, wherever they may be. Perhaps now you’ll understand why I believe that Hassan Khordad was sent here to kill an enemy of the Shah, and that the circus was only a … a … what do you call it?”

  “We call it a cover. Whom would Khordad want to kill?”

  “Mehdi Zahedi. Mehdi is the president of our chapter, as well as president of the national organization. He is a student here.”

  It was the name Anna had spoken over the telephone. It still sounded familiar and I still couldn’t place it. I said so.

  “Mehdi is a postdoctoral economics fellow,” Ali said. “But this year he has been away from the campus a great deal. He is a wonderful speaker and is very good at organizing demonstrations. That is what he has been doing.”

  “Speaking and organizing against the Shah?”

  “Of course. He began receiving national attention around December.”

  “When does he find time to study?”

  “He studies,” Ali said with a shrug. “He is a genius; as far as I know, he’s never failed an examination. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him. There was a long article on him in The New York Times.”

  “When?”

  “Sometime in January.”

  That explained it; I’d spent the entire month of January holed up in an experimental crime lab. “Go on,” I said.

  Ali whispered something I couldn’t make out. I leaned forward and asked him to repeat it.

  “GEM,” he said, quickly glancing over his shoulder. “The Shah may deny that it exists, but we know—”

  “Hold it, Ali. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He swallowed hard, and I watched as his eyes grew wide and very bright with excitement. His voice was still barely above a whisper, but it hummed with passion. “There is an organization in Iran we call the Grouhe Enghelaby Makhfi—‘secret revolutionary group.’ They have had that bastard Shah chasing his tail for years; GEM has become a legend. Twice, it is rumored, they almost killed the Shah. Soon—Allah be with us—they will succeed. The Shah and SAVAK deny that GEM even exists, but we all know better.”

  “Did Zahedi belong to GEM?”

  Ali sadly shook his head. “If Mehdi had been GEM, he wouldn’t have been here. No one knows who belongs to GEM. I … I would gladly trade the rest of my life for the chance to serve just one year with GEM … if only they would ask me.” Incredibly, there were tears in his eyes. He quickly wiped them away with the back of his hand. “But the way must be prepared. The new John Foster Dulleses of this world must know that Iran can be free without posing any threat to them. Your government, your people, must be prepared for the death of the Shah and the coming revolution in Iran. That is what Mehdi had been doing so well. Mehdi was speaking, and people were listening. That is why he was so dangerous to the Shah.” Ali paused and stared directly into my eyes. “Mehdi has been missing since February twenty-second. I don’t believe it is a coincidence that your man is missing too; Hassan Khordad was almost certainly sent here to assassinate Mehdi.”

  “Khordad was here a long time before Zahedi surfaced,” I said. “Besides, the dates are wrong. Khordad left the circus on March fifteenth. That’s three weeks after your president turned up missing.”

  Ali was studying the palms of his hands. “I can’t explain that; I just know what I feel in my stomach. It is enough that both of them have disappeared.”

  “You think the Shah really considered Mehdi Zahedi that much of a threat to him?”

  “Yes!” Ali said, his eyes and voice heating up again. “Our struggle can succeed only if the United States stays out of it. Don’t underestimate the role public relations plays in modern-day revolutions.”

  “That’s not exactly Maoist thinking.”

  “It’s realistic thinking. The Confederation, with Mehdi as our spokesman, has been acting as the unofficial propaganda arm of GEM. In view of recent Iranian history, it is vitally important that the United States Government be persuaded that its interests will not be harmed by a revolution in Iran. Nothing else can be accomplished until that basic step is taken.”

  Ali swallowed the rest of his tea in a single gulp, then wrapped his hand around the cup so hard I was afraid it would shatter. I moved my chair back a foot. “In the view of your government,” he continued, “the Shah represents stability in the only Middle East nation, except for Israel, uncompromisingly friendly to the United States. Never mind the fact that Iran is a total police state. The Shah spends millions of dollars a year polishing his image. What we needed was a spokesman who could effectively present the truth about that pig Pahlavi to the American people. The fact that people—important people—were starting to listen to Mehdi was sufficient reason for him to be killed.”

  “All right; you had an Iranian Alexander Solzhenitsyn.”

  “Exactly, GEM, when it is able to surface and fight openly, must be seen as a group of freedom fighters, the hope for Iran’s future. Mehdi was able to drive that point home. At this very moment there are thousands of political prisoners rotting in Iranian jails. Some are tortured so badly they can’t walk, talk, piss or shit; they die in the poisons generated by their own bodies! If we can make the American public aware of this, they will make it very embarrassing for this government to interfere in our revolution.”

  “Who finances you?”

  “I won’t tell you that. I will say only that much of the money comes from Iranians living in the United
States. They are men opposed to the Shah who feel, for one reason or another, that they can’t be quite so outspoken.”

  “That’s called hedging your bets.”

  “Of course. But it makes no difference to us; we’ll take anyone’s money.”

  “When did Zahedi begin all this activity?”

  “He’s been in the graduate school a year and a half, and he’s been politically active since the day he arrived.”

  “Where’d he come from?”

  “Iran. Tehran University. He left when he realized he could no longer tolerate seeing his country raped by the Shah.”

  “Why did the Iranian Government let him out in the first place?”

  “Mehdi hadn’t been politically active in Iran. He realized it would be useless to try to raise his voice in a country where he would be thrown into prison five minutes after he opened his mouth. Originally he simply planned to leave. It wasn’t until he got here that he realized he had special gifts of leadership which could contribute something to GEM’s cause. He quickly rose to the presidency of our local chapter, and was elected national president six months after that.”

  “Still,” I said, “Khordad was here before your president started his political number. Unless this Bahman Arsenjani is psychic, it wouldn’t make any sense for him to bury an agent in a circus while he was waiting for Zahedi to get his act together.” Actually, I was in no position to discount any possibility, especially in view of the fact that Khordad had almost certainly had a contact at the university; that contact could have fingered Zahedi, marked him as a target. But Ali was more than a little excitable, and I wanted to make sure I had all my facts straight before I started drawing any conclusions.

  Ali’s face was flushed. “I’m not saying Khordad was originally sent here with a specific order to kill Mehdi. I am only saying he was sent here on the Shah’s business, and that business became the killing of Mehdi. If you don’t want to believe me, that’s your business.”

  “It’s not a question of belief, Ali. It’s a matter of making all the pieces fit.” One problem was Khordad’s behavior. Governments don’t send amateurs out to bring off assassinations on foreign soil; disappearing and leaving all your belongings behind was definitely sloppy and just didn’t match Ali’s fantasy of a cold-blooded, professional agent.

  Ali had begun to sulk. He was beating a nervous tattoo on the tabletop with a long, manicured fingernail. “The pieces will fit, Dr. Frederickson. But Mehdi is one of those pieces; you can’t solve your puzzle without him.”

  “All right, let’s go over it again. Your president just vanished on February twenty-second.”

  “He didn’t exactly ‘vanish.’”

  “What, then?”

  Azad thought for a moment. “He received a call that morning at the Confederation office. I was there when it came in.”

  “He must have received lots of calls.”

  “Yes, but they didn’t usually upset him.”

  “This one did?”

  “Yes. He told me he had to go to Washington that evening for a meeting with some Congressmen. He said he’d be gone three days.”

  “And when he didn’t return, you notified the police?”

  “Yes. They were very polite about it,” Ali said, sarcasm bleeding into the bitterness in his voice. “They said they’d certainly let us know if they turned up anything on him.”

  “I take it you didn’t believe them.”

  “If Mehdi was murdered in this country by the SAVAK, your government will make certain nothing is done about it.”

  “You really believe that?”

  Ali stared at me for a long time, then said quietly, “It is a fact.”

  I decided to change the subject. “So, the gist of all this is that you’d like me to let you know if I turn up anything on Zahedi while I’m looking for Khordad?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Give me the no part first.”

  “We will not ask you to work for us without payment.”

  “That’s not important; I already have a client. I’ll let you know if I find out anything. What’s the yes part?”

  “We knew we couldn’t count on the police, so we used some of our money to hire our own private detective. He came highly recommended. Two days after we hired him, he called and told me he thought he had a good lead.”

  “Did he say what it was?”

  “No, and we haven’t heard from him for over a week. There’s no answer at either his home or his office; I was hoping you might know him, or know where to find him. His name is John Simpson.”

  5

  The Confederation of Iranian Students was out one private investigator, and I had a case that was growing tentacles. That was what I told Garth.

  My brother listened to me patiently, then went and got the latest computer printout from Missing Persons. “Nothing’s turned up on your man,” he said, scanning the file. “Have you checked out the hospitals?”

  “Not yet. I came to find out if they’d done an autopsy on John Simpson.”

  Garth looked up. “Of course. Why?”

  “I take it he didn’t fall into the East River by himself.”

  “Somebody cracked his back for him. They found bruises around the spine.”

  “Lovely. What have you got on him?”

  “Well, he’d never had his license suspended, which makes him exceptional right away. He enjoyed a good reputation. Had a lot of girlfriends, but lived by himself. He ran a strictly one-man operation. He’s got some family out in Nevada. They’re coming in to get the body and arrange for his personal effects.”

  “Where was his office?”

  “He used a small brownstone in the East Forties for both home and business. We’ve got it sealed off until the D.A.’s office has had a chance to look over everything.”

  “How long is that going to take?”

  “How the hell should I know, brother? I’m not even assigned to the case.”

  “You sound a trifle irritable. I thought Neptune had totally mellowed you out.”

  “My love life’s fine. It’s too many goddamned reports.”

  “Isn’t that unusual?”

  “Too many reports?”

  I slapped him hard on the stomach. “Simpson, you dummy! I mean, it’s been a few days now since he was murdered. When his family gets here, I’d think you’d want to show them more than a sealed office.”

  “C’mon, Mongo, you know the statistics; the two things New York has piles of are dog shit and dead bodies.”

  “But you know the difference.”

  “Damn right I do, and the N.Y.P.D. damn well doesn’t need you to tell us how to do our job.” Garth paused. I waited. “Sorry, Mongo,” he continued quietly. “It is those damn reports; I see more papers than I do people.”

  “Can you get me into Simpson’s office?”

  “Is there really a Santa Claus? I told you it’s sealed. The D.A. would have your license and my job.”

  “Okay. What did Simpson have on him when you made the I.D.?”

  “A few laminated cards that the water didn’t get to. One of them had his name and address.”

  “Will you let me see his file?”

  “My God, you do believe in Santa Claus. The last file I showed you concerned our old friend Victor Rafferty. Before you could say ‘Mongo the Magnificent’ we had bodies piled up all over the place, intelligence agents from four countries climbing up each other’s backs, and you strung up, cut up and damn near electrocuted. You do remember Kaznakov?”

  “I remember Kaznakov,” I said quietly.

  “Well, I ended up with everyone up to and including the Commissioner stomping all over me. They still haven’t forgotten the Rafferty thing. And you want me to show you a file?”

  “C’mon, Garth,” I said with a shrug and a grin. “That was more than a year ago. I’m sure I’m universally beloved once again. There just may be a tie-in between my case and your dead detective. Hassan Khordad had a contact at t
he university, probably an Iranian. This Mehdi Zahedi I told you about disappears, then Khordad disappears. Simpson is hired to find Zahedi and he winds up with a broken back.”

  “Interesting,” Garth said as though he really didn’t think it was. “Aside from the fact that Zahedi and Khordad are both Iranian, where’s the connection?”

  “Uh, it takes a strong man to break another man’s back with his bare hands?”

  Garth groaned. “Pun intended?”

  “If you like.”

  “So you think this missing student may have been Khordad’s contact?”

  “Not likely. From what I understand, they were at opposite ends of the political spectrum.”

  “Then you don’t think they eloped?”

  I could understand Garth’s skepticism; I now found myself with the dubious distinction of defending a theory I’d dismissed the day before as rank paranoia. “Khordad is an assassin; Zahedi was his intended victim.”

  “Fifteen minutes ago you told me Khordad disappeared three weeks after Zahedi.”

  “Maybe Zahedi took off because he was warned.”

  “By whom?”

  “How the hell do I know? Hey, I didn’t say I was preaching the Gospel. But I’ve given you some information, and I think it would be nice if you did the same for me.”

  Garth laughed. “What information have you given me? All I’ve heard is a theory.”

  “Now you know whom Simpson was working for and whom he was looking for when he was killed. That should be worth a peek at his file.”

  Garth drummed his fingers on the desk for a few moments, then abruptly stood up. “You’re right. And what you say about the possible link makes sense. I’ll see that it’s looked into.” He paused, laughed again. “I know I’m going to regret this. I can’t wait for the phone to start ringing.” He stepped out of his office, then returned in a few minutes with the file on John Simpson.