Reverb (Story of CI #2)

by Rachel Moschell

  There. She had just committed herself to a boldfaced lie, but she didn’t see any other choice that would allow her to protect others.

  Shahrukh hmmmed at her answer, and his voice tinged on disappointed. “The fax of your passport copy you left at immigration when you entered Iran will be arriving tomorrow morning. Then we will see if your identity checks out.” The bazju actually yawned, and Wara cringed at the scent of old garlic that wafted across her face. She immediately perked up, however, at his next words.

  “That will be all for tonight, Ms. Sandiego. I’m sure you’ve realized that it’s already quite late. My family will have to be kept waiting for me until tomorrow night; just another night on the job. I’ll be here bright and early to continue our chat, possibly over a cup of tea. You do like tea?”

  Wara’s heart lurched, thrilled with the friendly vibes leaking into this interrogation. Or was that just the tactic they always used, right before breaking out the cattle prods? “I love tea,” she answered warily.

  The interrogator snapped his legal pad shut and shuffled over towards the door. “Sohrab will come take you to your cell,” he said. “I hope you won’t find it too distasteful. Let’s all hope that soon we can have this little misunderstanding cleared up. Your story seems to check out. We have no record of you being involved in any of these satanic, illegal concerts before. You are here on a tourist visa. I assume we should be able to get you out of here in a day or two. Would that be to your liking, Ms. Sandiego?”

  Wara’s shoulders slumped and she leaned on the desk, slack-kneed with relief.

  31

  Tarsa

  THE MATRONLY SOHRAB LED WARA INTO her cell, the closed space black as pitch, alive with the whistling of even breathing. Her cellmates, whoever they might be remained silent and quite asleep. The female guard guided Wara to some sort of pallet on the ground and ordered her to lie down.

  “There is absolutely no talking after lights out,” she whispered sternly, then handed Wara a thin, scratchy blanket and patted the pallet. Wara curled up on the lumpy mattress and pulled the foul-smelling blanket over her, fighting images of rats and beady-eyed cockroaches. Amazingly, she quickly dropped off to sleep, not stirring again until rustling around her awakened her to streaming light and morning.

  Her eyes snapped open and dizzily orientated to scuffed, turquoise plaster walls and a concrete floor entirely covered with two other pallets and her own. A girl was sitting cross-legged on a blanket near Wara, watching her with hooded eyes. Inhaling sharply, Wara swung her legs to one side and scooted back against the wall, leaning against it to catch her breath.

  She was in jail. In Iran. Thankfully, her late-night visions of rabid rodents and cockroaches seemed to be pure imagination; the floor and walls of this cell were old but clean, and the door that barred her in was newly-varnished wood.

  Before Wara could manage to greet her staring cellmate, the cell door ground open, causing Wara to freeze. The unfamiliar face of a young female guard peered in, motioning to a third woman Wara just now realized was sprawled on the blanket in the corner. “Let’s go,” the guard said, and the other woman sat up, revealing a plump form of about forty years old with messy black hair. Bloodshot eyes speared the guard, then flipped over to the younger girl with the hint of a smile.

  “Pass me my veil, Tarsa, would you?” she said, and the other girl rummaged around near her blanket and tossed a ream of the odious brown fabric towards her cellmate. The plump woman smiled primly and tied on her veil, then hoisted herself up to follow the waiting guard. The door shuddered closed behind them, and Wara’s remaining companion faced the newcomer in her cell.

  “This is your first time?” she asked, and Wara’s eyes widened, fumbling to understand the quick Farsi in her current state.

  “Uh, yes,” she answered. The dumb look in her eyes was surely enough to give her away.

  The girl on the other blanket seemed to be a bit younger than Wara, slight, with a hooked nose and dyed blond hair scattered over her shoulders. Her pale lips twisted into a wry smile. “Well, they’re not taking her away to be beaten,” she informed Wara sagely. “It’s just that Miriam is up for exercise. First hour of the day.”

  She must have noticed Wara was a little lost, and leaned closer, intrigued. “You’re not Iranian, are you?”

  Wara shook her head, willing all the Farsi she had studied over the past few weeks to come out of hiding. “I-I’m from South America,” she stammered. “From Argentina.”

  “I’m so sorry.” The girl made a face, then smiled. “My name’s Tarsa.”

  “I’m Petra.” Wara paused and pulled her knees closer to her chest. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

  Tarsa flipped a lock of wiry hair behind one thin shoulder and tried an encouraging smile. “You’ll find out,” she shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’ve been here for six months, I think. But they haven’t exactly told me yet. I didn’t go to my trial yet to hear the charge, but I think it’s treason and espionage. Contact with foreign governments. That sort of thing.”

  Just the sort of thing Wara was really hoping to avoid. This poor girl, Tarsa, had been here six months, and hadn’t heard the charge? How could she stand it?

  Tarsa drew up knees up and propped her chin on one palm, regarding Wara. Something in that sly gaze was ringing a bell in Wara’s brain. “Whatever the charge is, I know why they want me here,” Tarsa was saying calmly, with the tone of those who fear absolutely nothing. “I’m an apostate. I used to be a Muslim and now I believe in Jesus. You’re from the West; are you a Christian too?”

  Wara felt herself nodding at the same time as she realized the image she had in her head of the girl across from her was somewhat discordant with the drab brown manteau and grungy hair Tarsa now presented. Wara was picturing the thin face in front of her with yellow aviator sunglasses. And a wide, glossy purse.

  Tarsa.

  Wara’s tongue suddenly felt thick and it took her a second to get the words out. “Are…are you part of Ashavan?”

  Tarsa’s face lit up and she smiled widely. “Are you serious? You’ve heard of us? I thought we were really only popular in Europe. Well, and here in Iran. Not in, uh, Argentina.”

  Wara’s jaw dropped. She was really here, with one of the Christians who was arrested with Sami. They were sitting here in jail together. In Iran. “I…” Wara stopped, having no idea where to start. “I never heard your music before I came to Iran,” she stammered. “But I know you. I mean, I know about you.” She kept her voice low, in case they were being monitored. “I’m friends with Mirza. And Neelam.” Wara fidgeted with excitement, trying to think how to explain all this. “We just met when I came to Iran a few weeks ago, but they told me all about you.”

  Now Tarsa’s jaw had dropped, and her eyes cooled to a sea of shock. “You can’t be serious!” she gasped, lowering her voice as well. “You know Mirza? Neelam? Neelam’s my best friend!” Tears rose to the border of Tarsa’s eyes and she ignored them, leaning towards Wara. “Where did you meet them?”

  For the moment, Wara was forgetting she was in prison. The bazju, Shahrukh, had said within a few days they were going to let her go. But she had been here, seen Tarsa in prison. She would go back to the States and tell everyone about what she saw here. People had to help Tarsa and the others who were prisoners because of their faith. How could they not care about this? Sami himself could even still be alive. Wara’s pulse raced and she found herself grinning.

  “I met them at the bachelor flat,” she said, winking at Tarsa. “Everyone there was remembering you. And the others.”

  Tarsa gasped and then her expression dissolved into glee. “So Mirza is your brother, and Neelam your sister?” she asked.

  “Oh, definitely,” Wara kept grinning, but then felt her mouth flatten as the awful truth returned to her mind. “But I have horrible news. Last night, I was at a concert with Mirza and Neelam. We were all arrested.”

  Tarsa’s thin fingers knitted together and her lowe
r lips quivered, pain flashing through her eyes. “They are arrested?” she echoed brokenly. “I…I can’t believe it. They will kill us all.”

  “Have you heard news here, about the rest of Ashavan?” What if Tarsa hadn’t heard that Sami was reported dead? But her eyes told the whole story. They darkened with pain at the same time her jaw set bravely. Tarsa leaned backward against the plaster wall, throat exposed as she stared fixedly at the ceiling.

  “I know Jalan and Ardalan are still here. Sometimes my mother comes to visit and she tells me what she knows. And I heard about Sami’s trial and…what they did to him.” She swallowed hard and lowered reddened eyes to Wara’s. “He was one of my best friends, you know? A big brother to me. None of the other bands wanted to have anything to do with a girl, but he let me write songs and even sing in the band. Even though I wasn’t supposed to.” Tarsa smiled sadly. “He even taught me to play the guitar. I can’t believe what they did to him,” she whispered. “When they come for me, I’m not afraid. But I don’t want to die. There’s so much to do. I know Sami didn’t want to die.”

  Wara’s throat ached and she felt made of stone. What could she say? This girl in front of her was probably going to die in here, because she wouldn’t stop following Jesus. Her friend, Sami, was probably beaten to a pulp here in prison and then had his head chopped off.

  Wara felt herself breathing faster, fighting nausea.

  “I’m going to tell people about you,” she heard herself promise hoarsely. “They said I’m going to get out of here in a few days, and I won’t forget you.”

  Wara’s body lurched as the heavy wood door banged open, but she told herself it must only be their roommate, back from exercising.

  Calm down, Wara. Breathe.

  She was just about to when she saw who was at the door and heard his brown loafers scuff the tile, stomping towards her with a vengeance. The orange leather jacket and shoes clued her in that this man was her bazju from last night. That greasy lock of black hair still hung into his eyes, but otherwise the man’s face barely resembled the in-control interrogator she had sat in the room with yesterday. A thick purple vein bulged from one side of Shahrukh’s sweaty forehead, and a mottled band of red ran across the bridge of the man’s nose.

  Wara huddled, horrified, as he stormed across the small cell directly towards her, fist clutching a sheet of paper. She was seeing his face today, without a blindfold.

  “You lied to me!” he growled. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Here I was, about to let you out, about to send you home. I was kind to you; I was only here to help you confess your crimes. And all this time, you lied to me!”

  Wara cowered, shrinking lower against the smooth wall. “Please!” she pleaded, at the same time as the bazju flapped the piece of paper in front of her face, yelling, “You can’t hide the truth from me!”

  Wara’s vision swam and she desperately tried to concentrate on the paper in front of her, where black photocopied lines danced wildly in and out of focus. “We know who you really are!” Shahrukh yelled, and all at once the image on the sheet of paper solidified. She was staring at a picture of herself in black and white, wearing a Bolivian alpaca sweater and scarf. Her hair was short and clipped back from her face, and she smiled politely for the camera.

  A surveillance photo from one of the parties? Of course not. Wara knew the photograph was of herself, but she hadn’t dressed like that for a long time, and her hair was now much longer. Her eyes fell to the bottom of the photo and she gasped, not wanting to believe the bold print underneath the photo.

  “Please pray for Wara Cadogan, missionary currently on assignment in Bolivia. Please pray for many unbelievers to become Christians.”

  The air left Wara’s lungs and the room lurched a sharp left. Across the top of the page obviously printed from her home church’s website, ran large letters proclaiming: “Pray for our missionaries in the field.”

  “You thought you could hide your real identity from us, didn’t you?” Shahrukh snatched the paper away and crouched down to glare at her with darkened eyes. “Well, your evil plans are done. Through. We know who you really are. This is who you really are.”

  Shahrukh stabbed at the paper, and all sorts of titles ran dizzily through Wara’s brain, all of them equivalent to being a major criminal here in Iran: Missionary. Christian. Spy. American.

  And Wara had been arrested with Mirza and Neelam.

  Oh God. The room began to tilt faster. This can’t be happening.

  Sandal had erased Wara’s picture from the church’s website months ago, along with any mention of her anywhere on the web. The church had been asked not to post it again. How could this be happening? Could Iran really scan her picture somehow and pick this one photo out from all those on the internet? She hadn’t even been here a day, and they already had her pegged as an American missionary!

  They are going to try me for the same things as Sami and Ashavan. I can’t get out to tell everyone what is happening.

  The floor suddenly flew up towards Wara’s forehead, and for the first time ever she fainted from sheer terror.

  32

  Concentrate, Alejo

  TWO DAYS, SIXTEEN HOURS, AND TWENTY three minutes had passed since the call came.

  “The police raided the concert,” Rostam had gasped into the phone. “Heavy-duty ones from the government with big guns.” Just that bit of information had already sent Alejo reeling. The usual cast for raiding “satanic” Western rock concerts would be the paramilitary groups, like Ansar-e Hezbollah: dangerous, but just enough to break things up and bring in a few young people to chew out as examples. Something was really wrong, and Alejo felt his entire body tense like steel.

  “Mirza took the girls and ran away out the back, down a tunnel,” Rostam had continued his breathless recital. “The police followed, and arrested all three of them. Some of us peeped out into the alleyway and saw them being taken away. Someone caught it all on film.” His voice lowered and he heaved a deep sigh. “Whatever’s going on, it can’t be good.”

  Well spoken, Rostam. The thought of Wara in Iranian police custody had nearly sent Alejo into a breakdown, and he locked himself into the Happy Paris bathroom for a good five minutes before he could relate the news to Sandal.

  And then he had called Rupert.

  The travel arrangements had taken a little time, but the man who was Alejo’s new boss should be arriving here, the little dumpy hotel Alejo had fled to, at any minute. Sandal had left Iran the same night of the arrest, at Rupert’s insistence. Alejo had flat-out refused.

  He was currently tracking Rupert’s flight in Realtime from his cell, more than aware that the plane had landed over an hour ago. Where was the guy? When he came in the door, Alejo was still unsure if he would collapse into Rupert’s arms and cry or hit him in the solar plexus, hard. This was all Rupert’s fault; back on the ostrich farm in Bolivia Alejo had told him he wanted Wara to be safe, not involved in all the danger Rupert and his organization entailed.

  And now Wara had been taken by the police in Tehran. Pacing the bedraggled gray carpet, Alejo decided that he really would rather kill Rupert than sob in front of him. For years, he had kept it all together, been the calm, cool leader of a whole continent of Prism operatives.

  But because of this girl, this one girl, he was falling apart. Rupert had done this.

  A calm, firm knock sounded on the door and Alejo froze. “Come in,” he croaked, gripping a fat iron towel bar he had wrenched from the bathroom.

  A dull flash of light reflected off the top of the newcomer’s head, and Alejo found himself greeted by cool blue eyes. “Alejo,” Rupert said gruffly, before closing the door firmly behind him. “Any news?”

  Alejo was horrified to feel his face crumple and he shook his head, standing there like a forlorn puppy. “Nothing,” he grated, then cleared his throat and dropped numbly onto the unmade bed, losing the heavy towel bar with a clang.

  “Hey, it’s going to be alright.” Rupert
plopped down next to him and squeezed his shoulder. Alejo massaged his forehead, then turned reddened eyes towards Rupert. He felt his jaw square.

  “I really don’t think it’s going to be alright, Rupert,” he ground out. “I told you I wanted to help Wara start a new life, after what I did to her. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. This was all your idea.”

  Far from being offended, Rupert simply nodded and fixed Alejo with those ice blue eyes. “You’re right. It was my idea. But don’t forget that Wara accepted this too. We’re going to find her.”

  But I could have gone with her, he thought. I was a coward not to go. I let her go alone.

  “I should have gone too, Rupert,” Alejo said. Rupert hadn’t heard the sordid story of Alejo’s friend from Tehran and his trip to Evin. “It isn’t really your fault. It’s mine.”

  Rupert snorted and cocked a bushy eyebrow at Alejo. “Now you’re talking nonsense. This was no one’s fault. You were right not to go to Tehran, since you know half the city there. What were you going to do, anyway? Karate chop the entire police force? Concentrate, Alejo.”

  Alejo blinked, and the fog over his tortured brain seemed to clear a little. He looked away from Rupert and stared at the grimy carpet, trying to order his thoughts.

  “It’s been nearly 72 hours,” he said. “Heydar, a friend of the Samadis, hasn’t heard anything from any of them. Even Hosseini didn’t get any info yet. Rostam and Ava have disappeared into thin air. We’re worried about them, too.”

  “You’ve told Wara’s parents?”

  Alejo winced and nodded curtly. He had sweated for an hour before picking up the phone at two in the morning to call the Cadogans. Back in Montana, it was barely dusk, but Alejo had still faltered before dialing the number, examining again the mental image of Wara’s father and his shotgun. How could he face them, even on the phone, after this? His status of trust in the Cadogan family was already on very thin ice indeed. And now he was calling to announce their daughter had been hauled off by the Iranian police?