Escape

by James Clavell

  Bleakly Erikki nodded. ‘Yes, but we had another row just before we left. He still disapproves of our marriage.’

  After a pause Christian said, ‘Perhaps it’s because you don’t have a child yet, you know how Iranians are.’

  ‘Plenty of time for children,’ Erikki said, sick at heart. We’ll have children in good time, he thought. Dr Nutt says she’s fine. Shit! If I tell her what Christian said about her Iranian papers she’ll never leave; if I don’t tell her and she’s refused re-entry she’ll never forgive me, and anyway she’d never leave without her father’s permission. ‘To get her new papers means we’ll have to go back and, well, I don’t want to go back.’

  ‘Why, Erikki? Usually you can’t wait to get to Tabriz.’

  ‘Rakoczy.’ Erikki had told him everything that had happened—except the killing of the mujhadin at the roadblock and Rakoczy killing others during the rescue. Some details are best untold, he thought grimly.

  Christian Tollonen sipped his vodka. ‘What’s the real problem?’

  ‘Rakoczy.’ Erikki held his gaze steady.

  Christian shrugged. Two refills emptied the bottle. ‘Prosit!’

  ‘Prosit! Thanks for the papers and passports.’

  Shouting outside distracted them again. The crowd was well disciplined though it was becoming noisier. In the American courtyard more floodlights were on now, and they could see faces clearly in the embassy windows. ‘Just as well they’ve their own generators.’

  ‘Yes—and their own heating units, gasoline pumps, PX, everything.’ Christian went over to the sideboard and brought out a fresh bottle. ‘That and their special status in Iran—no visas necessary, not being subject to Iranian laws—has caused a lot of the hatred.’

  ‘By God, it’s cold in here, Christian. Don’t you have any wood?’

  ‘Not a damned bit. The damned heat’s been off ever since I moved in here—three months, that’s almost all winter.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s just as well.’ Erikki motioned at the pair of shoes. ‘You have heat enough. Eh?’

  Christian grinned. ‘Sometimes. I will admit Tehran is one of the—used to be one of the great places on earth for all sorts of pleasures. But now, now, old friend. . .’ a shadow went over his face. ‘Now I think Iran won’t be the paradise those poor bastards out there believe they’ve won, but a hell on earth for most of them. Particularly the women.’ He sipped his vodka. There was an eddy of excitement beside the compound wall as a youth, with his U.S. Army rifle slung, climbed on the shoulders of others and tried unsuccessfully to reach the top. ‘I wonder what I’d do if that was my wall and those bastards started coming over at me in strength.’

  ‘You’d blow their heads off—which’d be quite legal. Wouldn’t it?’

  Christian laughed suddenly. ‘Only if you got away with it.’ He looked back at Erikki. ‘What about you? What’s your plan?’

  ‘I don’t have one. Not until I talk to McIver—there was no chance this morning. He and the others were busy trying to track down the Iranian partners, then they had meetings at the British embassy with someone called—I think they said Talbot. . .’

  Christian masked his sudden interest. ‘George Talbot?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. D’you know him?’

  ‘Yes, he’s second secretary.’ Christian did not add: Talbot’s also covert chief of British Intelligence in Iran, has been for years, and is one very important operator. ‘I didn’t know he was still in Tehran—I thought he’d left a couple of days ago. What did McIver want with him?’

  Erikki shrugged, absently watching more youths trying to scale the wall, his mind concerned with what to do about Azadeh’s papers.

  ‘Did they find out what they wanted to know?’

  Again Erikki shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I never caught up with them. I was. . .’ He stopped and studied the other man. ‘Is it important?’

  ‘No—no, not at all. You hungry? Are you and Azadeh free for dinner?’

  ‘Sorry, not tonight.’ Erikki glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better be getting back. Thanks again for the help.’

  ‘Nothing. You were saying about McIver? They have a plan to change operations here?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I was supposed to meet them at 3 p.m. to go to the airport but seeing you and getting the passports was more important to me.’ Erikki stood up and put out his hand, towering over him. ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘Nothing.’ Christian shook hands warmly. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Now in the street the shouting had ceased and there was an ominous silence. Both men ran for the window. All attention turned towards the main road once called Roosevelt. Then they heard the growing, ‘Allahhhh-uuuu Akbarrrr!’

  Erikki muttered, ‘Is there a back way out of the building?’

  ‘No. No, there isn’t.’

  The new oncoming horde had mullahs and Green Bands in their front ranks, most of them armed like the following mass of the young men. All were shouting in unison, God is Great, God is Great, totally outnumbering the student demonstration in front of the embassy, though the men there were equally armed.

  At once the leftists poured into well-chosen defensive positions in doorways and among the traffic. Men, women and children trapped in cars and trucks began to scatter. The Islamics approached fast. As the front ranks flowed along the sidewalks and through the stalled vehicles and approached the floodlit walls, the tempo of their shouting increased, their pace quickened, and everyone readied. Then, astonishingly, the students began to retreat. Silently. The Green Bands hesitated, nonplussed.

  The retreat was peaceful and so the horde became peaceful. Soon the protesters had moved away and now none of them threatened the embassy. Mullahs and Green Bands began directing traffic. Those bystanders who had fled or abandoned their vehicles breathed again, thanked God for His intercession and swarmed back. At once the hooting and cursing opened up in a growing frenzy as cars and trucks and pedestrians fought for space. The great iron gates of the embassy did not open, though a side door did.

  Christian’s throat felt dry. ‘I’d’ve bet my life there was going to be a pitched battle.’

  Erikki was equally astonished. ‘It’s almost as though. . . as though it was a rehearsal for som—’ He stopped and went closer to the window, his face suddenly flushed. ‘Look! Down there in that doorway, that’s Rakoczy.’

  ‘Where? Wh—oh, you mean the man in the flight jacket talking to the short guy?’ Christian squinted into the darkness below. The two men were half in shadow, then they shook hands and came into the light. It was Rakoczy all right. ‘Are you sure that. . .’

  But Erikki had already pulled the front door open and was halfway down the stairs. Christian had a fleeting glimpse of him as he pulled the great pukoh knife from his belt holster and slipped it into his sleeve, haft in his palm. ‘Erikki, don’t be a fool,’ he shouted but Erikki had already vanished. Christian rushed back to the window and was just in time to see Erikki run out of the doorway below, shove through the crowds in pursuit, Rakoczy nowhere to be seen.

  But Erikki had him in view. Rakoczy was half a hundred yards away and he just caught sight of him turning south into Roosevelt to disappear. When Erikki got to the corner, he saw the Soviet ahead, walking quickly but not too quickly, many pedestrians between them, the traffic slow and very noisy. Making a detour around a tangle of trucks, Rakoczy stepped out into the road, waited for a hooting, battered old Volkswagen to squeeze past and glanced around. He saw Erikki. It would have been almost impossible to miss him—almost a foot taller than almost everyone else. Without hesitation Rakoczy took to his heels, weaving through the crowds, and cut down a side street, running fast. Erikki saw him go and raced after him. Pedestrians cursed both of them, one old man sent flying into the filthy dirt as Rakoczy shoved past into another turning.

  The side street was narrow, refuse strewn everyw
here, no stalls or shops open now and no streetlights, a few weary pedestrians trudging homewards with multitudes of doorways and archways leading to hovels and staircases of more hovels—the whole area smelling of urine and waste and offal and rotting vegetables.

  Rakoczy was a little more than forty yards ahead. He turned into a smaller alley, crashing through the street stalls where families were sleeping—howls of rage in his wake—changed direction and fled into a passageway and into another, cut across it into an alley, quite lost now, into another, down this and into another. Aghast, he stopped, seeing that this was a cul-de-sac. His hand went for his automatic, then he noticed a passageway just ahead and rushed for it.

  The walls were so close he could touch both of them as he charged down it, his chest heaving, going ever deeper into the curling, twisting warren. Ahead an old woman was emptying night soil into the festering joub and he sent her sprawling as others cowered against the walls to get out of his way. Now Erikki was only twenty yards behind, his rage feeding his strength, and he jumped over the old woman who was still sprawled, half in and half out of the joub, and redoubled his efforts, closing the gap. Just around the corner his adversary stopped, pulled an ancient street stall into the way, and, before Erikki could avoid it, he crashed into it and went down half stunned. With a bellow of rage he groped to his feet, swayed dizzily for a moment, climbed over the wreckage, then rushed onward again, the knife now openly in his hand, and turned the corner.

  But the passageway ahead was empty. Erikki skidded to a stop. His breath was coming in great, aching gasps and he was bathed in sweat. It was hard to see though his night vision was very good. Then he noticed the small archway. Carefully he went through it, knife ready. The passage led to an open courtyard strewn with rubble and the rusty skeleton of a ravaged car. Many doorways and openings led off this dingy space, some with doors, some leading to rickety stairways and upper storeys. It was silent—the silence ominous. He could feel eyes watching him. Rats scuttled out of some refuse and vanished under a pile of rubble.

  To one side was another archway. Above it was an ancient inscription in Farsi that he could not read. Through the archway the darkness seemed deeper. The pitted vaulted entrance stopped at an open doorway. The door was wooden and girt with bands of ancient iron and half off its hinges. Beyond, there seemed to be a room. As he went closer he saw a candle guttering.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The man’s voice came out of the darkness at him, the hair on Erikki’s neck twisted. The voice was in English—not Rakoczy’s—the accent foreign, a gruff eeriness to it.

  ‘Who—who’re you?’ he asked uneasily, his senses searching the darkness, wondering if it was Rakoczy pretending to be someone else.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I—I want—I’m following a man,’ he said, not knowing where to talk to, his voice echoing eerily from the unseen, high-vaulted roof above.

  ‘The man you seek is not here. Go away.’

  ‘Who’re you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Go away.’

  The candle flame was just a tiny speck of light in the darkness, making the darkness seem more strong. ‘Did you see anyone come this way—come running this way?’

  The man laughed softly and said something in Farsi. At once rustling and some muted laughter surrounded Erikki and he whirled, his knife protectively weaving in front of him. ‘Who are you?’

  The rustling continued. All around him. Somewhere water dripped into a cistern. The air smelled dank and rancid. Sound of distant firing. Another rustle. Again he whirled, feeling someone close by but seeing no one, only the archway and the dim night beyond. The sweat was running down his face. Cautiously he went to the doorway and put his back against a wall, sure now that Rakoczy was here. The silence grew heavier.

  ‘Why don’t you answer?’ he said. ‘Did you see anyone?’

  Again a soft chuckle. ‘Go away.’ Then silence.

  ‘Why’re you afraid? Who are you?’

  ‘Who I am is nothing to you, and there’s no fear here, except yours.’ The voice was as gentle as before. Then the man added something in Farsi and another ripple of amusement surrounded him.

  ‘Why do you speak English to me?’

  ‘I speak English to you because no Iranian or reader of the language of the Book would come here by day or by night. Only a fool would come here.’

  Erikki’s peripheral vision saw something or someone go between him and the candle. At once his knife came on guard. ‘Rakoczy?’

  ‘Is that the name of the man you seek?’

  ‘Yes—yes that’s him. He’s here, isn’t he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, whoever you are!’

  Silence, then a deep sigh. ‘As God wants,’ and a soft order in Farsi that Erikki did not understand.

  Matches flickered all around him. Candles caught, and small oil lamps. Erikki gasped. There were ragged bundles against the walls and columns of the high-domed cavern. Hundreds of them. Men and women. The diseased, festering remains of men and women lying on straw or beds of rags. Eyes in ravaged faces staring at him. Stumps of limbs. One old crone was almost beside his feet and he leapt away in panic to the centre of the doorway.

  ‘We are all lepers here,’ the man said. He was propped against a nearby column, a helpless mound of rags. Another rag half covered the sockets of his eyes. Almost nothing was left of his face except his lips. Feebly he waved the stump of an arm. ‘We’re all lepers here—unclean. This is a house of lepers. Do you see this man among us?’

  ‘No—no. I’m—I’m sorry,’ Erikki said shakily.

  ‘Sorry?’ The man’s voice was heavy with irony. ‘Yes. We are all sorry. Insha’Allah! Insha’Allah.’

  Erikki wanted desperately to turn and flee but his legs would not move. Someone coughed, a hacking, frightful cough. Then his mouth said, ‘Who—who are you?’

  ‘Once I was a teacher of English—now I am unclean, one of the living dead. As God wants. Go away. Bless God for His mercy.’

  Numbed, Erikki saw the man motion with the remains of his arms. Obediently, around the cavern the lights began to go out, eyes still watching him.

  Outside in the night air, he had to make a grim effort to stop himself from running away in terror, feeling filthy, wanting to cast off his clothes at once and bathe and soap and bathe and soap and bathe again.

  ‘Stop it,’ he muttered, his skin crawling, ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  Wednesday

  Chapter 7

  Tehran: 4:17 P.M. Both men were staring anxiously at the telex machine in the S-G penthouse office. ‘Come on for God’s sake!’ McIver muttered and glanced again at his watch.

  Pettikin was rocking absently in a creaky old chair. ‘Soon as Gen arrives we’ll leave.’

  This was the first day the komiteh had allowed any foreigners back into the building. Most of the morning had been spent cleaning up and restarting their generator that had, of course, run out of fuel. Almost at once the telex machine had chattered into life: ‘Urgent! Please confirm your telex is working and inform Mr McIver I have an Avisyard telex for him.’ The telex was from S-G HQ in Aberdeen. ‘Avisyard’ was a company code, used rarely, meaning a top classified message for McIver’s eyes only and to operate the machine himself. It took him four tries to get the Aberdeen callback.

  ‘So long as we haven’t lost a bird,’ Pettikin said with an inward prayer.

  ‘I was thinking that too.’ McIver eased his shoulders.

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Don’t think so. Squeezing our two remaining partners helped a lot.’ McIver had tracked them down, and had extracted five million rials in cash—a little over sixty thousand, a pittance against what the partners owed—with promises for more every week, in return for a promise, and a handwritten note, to reimburse them personall
y ‘outside the country, should it be necessary, and passage on the company 125 should it be necessary’.

  ‘All right, but there’s the matter of almost four million dollars owing on work already completed, apart from our aircraft lease payments overdue, long overdue.’

  ‘If the banks were open you’d have the money. It’s not our fault the Shah’s pestilential allies ruined him and ruined Iran. We are not to blame for any of the catastrophes, none. As to the monies owed, haven’t we paid in the past?’

  ‘Yes. Usually six months late, but I agree, dear friend, eventually we have extracted our share. But if all joint ventures are suspended as the mullah Tehrani told me, how do we operate from now on?’

  ‘Some joint ventures, not all—your information is exaggerated and incorrect. We are on notice to get back to normal as soon as possible—crews can leave once their replacements are safely here. Oil fields must be returned to full production. There will be no problems. But to forestall any trouble, once more we have bailed out the partnership. Tomorrow my illustrious cousin, Finance Minister Ali Kia joins the board a—’

  ‘Hold on a minute! I have prior approval of any change in the board!’

  ‘You used to have that power, but the board voted to change that byelaw. If you wish to go against the board you can bring it up at the next meeting in London—but under the circumstances the change is necessary and reasonable. Minister Kia has assured us we’ll be exempt. Of course Minister Kia’s fees and percentage will come out of your share. . .’

  McIver tried not to watch the telex machine but he found it difficult, trying to think a way out of the trap. ‘One moment everything seems okay, the next it’s rotten again.’

  ‘Yes. Talbot was today’s clincher.’

  This morning, early, they had met Talbot briefly. ‘Oh, yes, old boy, joint ventures are definitely persona non grata now, so sorry,’ he had told them dryly. ‘The “On High” have decreed that all joint ventures are suspended, pending instructions, though what instructions and from whom, they didn’t impart. Or who the “On High” are. We presume the Olympian decree is from the dear old Rev Komiteh, whoever they are! On the other side of the coin, old chap, the Ayatollah and Prime Minister Bazargan have both said all foreign debts will be honoured. Of course Khomeini overrides Bazargan and issues counter-instructions, Bazargan issues instructions which the Revolutionary Komiteh overrules, the local komitehs are vigilantes who’re taking their own version of law as gospel, and not one rotten little urchin has yet handed in a weapon. The jails are filling up nicely, heads rolling—and apart from the tumbrils it all has a jolly old tediously familiar ring, old boy, and rather suggests we should all retire to Margate for the duration.’