The napkin I’d been arranging into a smooth pyramid fell when I took my hand away. “What am I supposed to tell Ali when I get back? He still thinks he paid for this trip.”
Arsenjani spread his hands on the table. “I’m sure you can make up a story. If you prefer not to, tell him Zahedi is a GEM agent; tell him we know everything he does.” Arsenjani abruptly leaned forward. “When you report back to Ali, you’ll put the fear of God into him. We know everything he does, everyone he talks to; he’ll know he can’t fart without our smelling it.”
“You underestimate Ali,” I said evenly. “He’s too passionate, but he’s intelligent. Iran could use him.”
“Then you tell him to return here and bring his skills back to where they’re needed. Tell him to stop his nonsense and return to help us build a better country for our people.”
“No reprisals?”
“No reprisals. You have my personal word on that.” Now he leaned back in his chair. He looked rather satisfied with himself. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
“Yeah. Where have you got Garth?”
Jet lag and wine again; it was absolutely the wrong thing to say, the wrong attitude to take. The self-satisfied smile on Arsenjani’s face froze, then turned ugly. “You’re a fool. Now you will come with me, please.”
11
It looked as though I’d worn out my welcome; Arsenjani, without another word, rose and stiffly descended the stone steps to the car. I followed and got into the back, as before, but Arsenjani slid into the front seat beside the chauffeur. Cut off from any conversation by a glass partition, I leaned back in the rich-smelling leather vastness of the back seat and tried to relax; the car felt like a tomb.
A half hour later the car braked to a stop. I looked out the small opera window and was surprised to find that we seemed to be in the middle of the city, in front of a building that announced in both French and Farsi, BANK MELI. Across the street, barely discernible in the moonlight shadows, two soldiers with submachine guns stood stiffly at attention. The facade of the bank was shrouded in darkness, except for a single dimly lighted doorway on the left.
The glass partition in the car rolled down. “Go into the building through the lighted doorway, Frederickson,” Arsenjani said. “The car and driver will be waiting for you when you come out. I will not; I won’t be seeing you again.” He slowly turned around in his seat and fixed me with his eyes, which now seemed cold, hard, almost luminous. “I hope I won’t be seeing you again.”
“Who’s inside the building, Arsenjani?”
“No more questions. Go.” The partition whizzed up, ominously punctuating the SAVAK chief’s sentence.
Very conscious of the gunmen, I slipped out of the car and walked the twenty yards to the lighted doorway. I walked past another grim-faced guard, down a long corridor and through a massive armored door that had obviously been left open for me. I found myself in a huge chamber that shimmered with bright light. It took a few moments to become accustomed to the glare, and then I felt my stomach muscles tighten when I realized where I was.
The room was crowded with long rows of glass display cases. Inside the cases were dozens of gold, jewel-encrusted crowns and daggers; platters piled high with emeralds, topazes, opals, diamonds. I was looking at the most fabulous collection of treasure in the world—the Crown Jewels of Iran.
I heard footsteps behind me, wheeled and involuntarily took a step backward when I recognized one of the few remaining total rulers on earth. The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was wearing a beige cashmere sport jacket, gray turtleneck and matching slacks, black shoes; except for blurred photographs taken on Swiss ski slopes, it was the first time I’d ever seen him outside a military uniform with a chestful of medals. He was shorter than I’d imagined, but oddly enough he seemed even more regal in civilian clothes, removed from the trappings of crowns, jewels and robes; he was a man who obviously took the king business seriously. He wasn’t tall, but he had an electric, commanding presence, with sharp facial features. His hair was white and wavy, in sharp contrast to his piercing black eyes and eyebrows. He had the ruddy, weathered complexion of an outdoor sportsman and—as if to reassure me that even Shahs are human—a razor nick on his chin.
Human, maybe; but one casual cough from the man and Garth, I, or anyone else he didn’t fancy would be dead. Fencing with Arsenjani was one thing, playing with Himself quite another. He—or his naked power—frightened me, and I was going to be very careful of what I said.
He walked quickly forward, lightly pressed his fingertips together. “Welcome to Iran, Dr. Frederickson. Or may I call you Mongo?”
“You may call me anything you like, Your, er, Majesty.”
He looked at me oddly for a moment, then abruptly shoved his hands into his pockets and began to pace back and forth in front of one of the cases; the pacing was not nervous, but the casual—indeed, elegant—lope of a thoughtful man who knew he was completely in charge. “You’ve performed a number of times at Rainier’s Monaco Circus Festival. You are an incredibly gifted man, and I mean that in every sense of the word.”
I heard myself clearing my throat. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Impressive, isn’t it?” he said, abruptly changing the subject and indicating the room with a grand sweep of his arm.
“Uh, yes, Your Majesty. ‘Impressive’ might be one way of putting it.”
He smiled easily. “There are some who’ll tell you that it’s all paste, that I’ve spirited the real jewels away to secret vaults in Zurich. It’s not true, you know. Everything you see here is authentic; the jewels form the backing for our currency.”
“I’d have thought you had enough oil to take care of that.” The Shah wanted to chat: I’d chat.
Pahlavi shook his head impatiently. “One day the oil will run out; thirty, fifty, one hundred years from now, and it will be gone. If we are not a completely industrialized nation by then, self-sufficient and independent of our oil revenues, we will again be nothing more than a once-great nation that other countries make sport of. I intend to make certain that does not happen.” He paused, touched his forehead, added distantly, “It’s hard being king.”
I looked into his face to see if he was joking. He most definitely was not.
“This country is my responsibility, Dr. Frederickson,” he continued, apparently seeing something in my face he didn’t like. “Mine alone. There is no one else to responsibly look after it. Can you understand that?”
“Uh, I certainly can.”
Something in my voice must not have rung true. “You don’t think much of kings, do you?” he asked, a slight, angry tremor in his voice. “I assume you find someone like me faintly … ridiculous?”
“On the contrary, Your Majesty: I find you most impressive.
“Ah,” he intoned, half-raising one regal, impeccably manicured hand, “but you’ve made certain moral judgments. Tell me: why do you assume somebody like Mehdi Zahedi or any one of the other GEM thugs can do more for Iran than I can? These people would bring chaos, I assure you.”
The point. It seemed the pawn was being given the royal treatment by the biggest major piece of all, the only piece that really counted. It made the pawn very curious. Others could argue, as I’d heard them do, whether or not the Shah of Iran was the ultimate existentialist hero; a self-made man who’d become an enlightened king, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. To me, at the moment, he was simply the most dangerous enemy I’d ever faced.
“Consider the possibility that GEM could cause enough upheaval to allow the Russians to move in,” the Shah continued. “They would, you know, given half a chance. They’ve tried it before, in the north. Would Iran be better off as a Russian satellite?”
“I’m sure not, Your Majesty,” I said quietly.
“GEM means to kill me.”
“I know, Your Majesty.”
He looked at me sharply. “Understand: I am not personally afraid for my life; I am prepared
to die at any time. But my death would be a tragedy for Iran. I must remain alive in order to lead Iran to its rightful place as a leading world power. Iran needs me; my people need me.”
“Uh, excuse me, Your Majesty, but I don’t quite see what all of this has to do with me.”
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi removed a key from his jacket pocket and inserted it into the lock on one of the glass cases. Immediately the silence was shattered by an alarm. The Shah snapped his fingers; the guard in the room with us ran out of the chamber, and a moment later the alarm was shut off. The Shah opened the case and removed a huge diamond from a tray filled with more than a hundred. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger. “I believe that when this unpleasantness is over you will find, like most people, that you have developed an attachment for Iran—our magnificent culture, and our way of life. Perhaps you might even care to … represent … Iran in some capacity.”
In the silence I imagined I could hear my heart beating. “I’m sorry, sir,” I said carefully, watching him. “The main reason I came here was to search for my brother. I haven’t found him yet.”
“And you think your brother is here?”
“Colonel Arsenjani confirmed that he entered the country.”
“If your brother is here, then Arsenjani will find him for you,” he said impatiently. “It is not a problem.”
“It is for me,” I said evenly. “Until I know he’s safe, I can’t concentrate on anything else.”
“But you might be able to concentrate on … other things … if you were to find your brother?”
“Yes,” I said quickly.
The Shah stared at me for what seemed a long time, then unexpectedly broke into a smile which revealed absolutely nothing. “Then we can only hope that you find him soon. Perhaps by now he’s already back in the United States.”
“Perhaps.”
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Frederickson,” he said abruptly. “Your car is waiting for you, and I’ve assigned a guide for the duration of your visit. Please consider our country to be your own.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty, Do you think there’s a possibility that my brother might show up if I wait here long enough?”
“I’m sure you understand I cannot bother myself with such trivial details. These things are taken care of by the SAVAK. Of course, you should do what you believe to be in your brother’s interest … and your own. Goodbye.”
With that, the Shah brushed past me and walked quickly from the room. Although I was only a few seconds behind him, his entourage was already gone by the time I left the bank. The guards were gone, and the lights in the bank blinked off as I reached the sidewalk. There was a heavy grinding sound, then a bang as the vault door was closed and sealed. I got into the car and gave the driver directions to take me back to my hotel.
Even with my massive ego, I had serious doubts that I could be of any real use to Iran, in the United States or anywhere else; yet the Shah himself, if only as a sort of regal self-amusement, had seen fit to step in and make a kind of offer. Also, Arsenjani had told at least one big whopper: the leaders of GEM might be many things, but no one had accused them of stupidity; it would be sheer insanity for them to try to hide Khordad in a circus when the owner was obviously hyping him into a headliner with a major publicity campaign in every city. The deadly, maddening game continued, and I was getting tired of being treated like the village idiot.
12
New York City, like Los Angeles, was the home of some of the most skillful liars in the world, and I’d met more than my share. Arsenjani was a master liar, but not the champ by any means. And I was bothered by more than the obvious fallacy of GEM’s trying to hide Khordad in a circus. Like those of any talented liar, Arsenjani’s lies were undoubtedly laced with large doses of truth. At the moment it was impossible for me to tell which was which, but it was enough for me to know he was lying. The evening’s bizarre exercise had been designed to make me think I was potentially invaluable to the Shah and SAVAK. I considered that nonsense. Also, as angry as Garth had been, as heartsick, he would never willingly have overstayed a planned visit to Iran without finally contacting me—precisely because he knew I’d come after him, even if it meant my death. The SAVAK had known it too; I was still convinced they had him. Maybe they’d let him go if I went back to the United States, maybe they wouldn’t; maybe I’d already been programmed for whatever charade the SAVAK was playing, and Garth was dead. In any case, I wasn’t about to sit around and depend on the good graces of the SAVAK. It seemed to me that my best option was to go back to basics and hope to find the secret square. It was time to force the issue.
The next morning, I discovered that Arsenjani didn’t want me doing any comparative shopping for an alternative to his story. I’d picked up a tail. It was nothing serious; he was a small man with scuffed brown shoes and a worn, shiny suit that would no longer take a press. He kept his face hidden behind a newspaper which he held too high, and he never turned the pages; I doubted whether he’d be able to follow a train if he were riding in the caboose. He looked like one of Arsenjani’s jokes, a not-so-subtle reminder that the SAVAK chief was unhappy with the idea of me running around the game board by myself.
I sat down in a chair in the lobby and let my mind wander through the labyrinth of possibilities. The obvious presence of the shadow seemed a strange move which could be a simple blunder by the spy chief, or a dangerous gambit. The man in the shiny suit was probably a decoy. When I lost him, their real ace would go into action. And my going to the trouble of losing him would be an admission that this particular pawn was on the move, trying to take control of the game.
I already had a tension headache. I bought a bottle of aspirin and went back up to my room, where I stretched out on the bed and began thumbing through Kayhan. I found it a surprisingly good newspaper, sophisticated and cosmopolitan. There were no articles criticizing the Shah, to be sure, but there was no gross propagandizing either.
I suddenly stopped skimming when I came to a classified section listing a number of English-speaking individuals offering their services as tour guides. There was one girl’s name that looked distinctly American, and I circled it: Kathy Martin. I wanted something more than the “official” tour.
There was a number. I dialed it and spoke to a bright, intelligent voice with just a trace of an Irish accent. She was available. I gave her a story about being a visiting professor, and we made arrangements to meet at the north end of the bazaar in the morning. I doubted Arsenjani would hold anything against a person I’d so obviously picked at random from the newspaper.
The next morning I rose early, dressed casually and draped a camera bag over my shoulder before going down into the lobby. I walked out the doors without looking back. I didn’t have to look to know that the man with the shiny suit was standing next to a newspaper kiosk; I wondered if he’d been there all night.
I spent a few minutes strolling around, looking into the shop windows and pointing my camera at some of the more exotic sights. I bought a few small items, then hailed a taxi, allowing my shadow plenty of time to find one of his own. I knew I was walking on eggs and didn’t want the other man to have the slightest suspicion that I knew I was being tailed. Considering his incompetence, that could prove to be a difficult job; I was afraid I might have to start crawling on all fours. When I did lose him, it would have to look like a thoroughly convincing accident.
After giving the driver directions in passable Farsi, I settled back in my seat and took a series of deep breaths, trying to relax. I got off at the east end of the bazaar, walked around for fifteen minutes, then slipped my companion in a bona fide crowd scene. When I was sure I’d lost any backup man who might be trailing the action, I doubled back through the bazaar and came out at the north end.
Kathy Martin was immediately recognizable. She was standing near a soft-drink stand talking animatedly with a group of young Iranians. I put her age at around twenty; her skin was very light and freckled, and
her wheat-colored hair was tied back in a pony tail held in place with a red plaid scarf. Her trim body was clad in jeans and a denim work shirt; the overall effect was one of femininity and vulnerability. I wondered how she’d ended up in Iran.
I went over and introduced myself. The frailty of her body was offset by the green, liquid fire of her eyes.
“You’re Dr. Frederickson?” It was the exclamation of a child, not intended to insult or hurt. Immediately she flushed and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”
After smiling to show that all was forgiven, I shifted the conversation to a more professional bent. “How’s your Farsi?” She started to rattle on in Farsi, much too fast for me to follow. “Okay,” I said, raising my hands in surrender, “you’ll do.”
She grinned back, showing even white teeth. “I read and write, too.”
The attractive blonde and the dwarf were beginning to attract attention, and attention was something we could do without. I suggested we discuss our business over tea.
We crossed the street and walked a few blocks until we found one of the small, ubiquitous chai houses. We sat at a table near the rear and ordered two cups of the aromatic Iranian tea. She didn’t seem to mind talking about herself, and I didn’t mind listening. Her father was a well-known Iranologist. She attended the University of Tehran and spent summers guiding tourists while her father worked around the country at various archaeological digs; she’d spent most of her life in Iran, returning to the United States at regular intervals, but preferring the quiet, firm order of Iran to the seemingly incessant turmoil of her homeland. She was extremely pro-Shah, and doubted that Iran could accomplish anything without him. I listened to her political views and commented on her slight Irish brogue. She sounded pleased to discover that she still had it.
“Kathy,” I said during a lull in the conversation, “I need a translator who’s willing to travel a bit. I’m a gentleman at all times, and I’ll pay your going wage, plus expenses.”
City of Whispering Stone Page 14