The Peregrine Spy (12 page)

“Lots of luck,” grunted Gus.

Frank tried for yogurt, but there was
nah
yogurt.

Outside, Todd and Dwight stood by the blue Fiat.

“I take it it’s not a good idea to park on the street,” said Gus.

“It’s a very bad idea, sir,” said Dwight. “About the best thing could happen, someone would steal it or slash your tires or put sugar in your gas tank. But you’d be real surprised how fast a raghead can hook up a bomb to your ignition while you’re in a place with steamed-up windows.”

“And it’s always a good idea to look in your back seat before you get behind the wheel,” said Todd. “By the way, if you want to get some wine to wash this stuff down with, believe it or not there’s still a liquor store around the corner.”

“Maybe the last one in Tay-fuckin’-ran,” said Dwight.

*   *   *

Frank and Gus had just settled into their candlelit dinner at their Formica-topped kitchen table when the lights suddenly came on.

“And the Lord said, ‘Let there be electricity once in a while.’”

“Inshallah,”
said Frank and blew out the candles.

The lights briefly flickered, then glowed.

“It must be a sign,” said Gus. He had opened one of the bottles of a South African Riesling of “guaranteed excellence” they had bought at the dark and nearly barren liquor store they found not far from the
chelakebab
parlor. Todd and Dwight had described the drawn blinds on the windows and the poster-size portrait of Khomeini on the door. A smaller color photo of the Ayatollah had been tacked to the empty shelves behind the counter. The owner confessed his love for “that man,” even though his business would be finished when Khomeini came.

“And you think he will come?” said Gus.

“He will come,” said the man. “He is here.”

“He can’t be good for business,” said Gus.

“No. Not good for business. Even now, so many foreigners have gone. And Persians, they still buy, but … I must confess, gentlemen, in this country to make an honest living these days you have to be a crook. And I can’t cheat Persians the way I can cheat foreigners.”

“I wonder how much he cheated us,” said Gus as he sipped the wine.

“Probably not as much as he could have,” said Frank. “Anyway, God is good. We have light, wine, even food.”

“Sort of food.” Gus ignored the overcooked cabbage, finished chewing a chunk of lamb, and tested a forkful of rice. “You know, until I got here, I thought this was all about the Tudeh party, Russian troops massing on the border, socialist students, and Communist guerrillas. Now I think it’s about bad food and benzene lines and the old man with the long white beard.”

“I had a talk with Steele about the PX. He’ll take us tomorrow. That may help,” said Frank.

“It won’t make the man with the white beard go away. And, according to a public opinion poll of one liquor store owner, the problem isn’t Russia. The problem is the enigma wrapped in a tall black turban.”

“We should ask our friends at the Supreme Commander’s about this Khomeini.”

“Dollars to doughnuts, or rials to soggy rice, we’ll get the standard
Savak-
embassy line.”

“Maybe not from all of them,” said Frank.

“You will as long as they’re all together. And I don’t think the general would take too kindly to us trying to go one-on-one.”

“The general’s going to get bored—and careless.”

“Maybe,” said Gus. “But I have to admit, right now I am more interested in getting to the PX. Besides, I remember you saying you’re a pretty good cook.”

“My son likes my cooking. Least he says so.”

“How old is he?”

“Eleven.”

“That’s old enough to speak his mind.”

“That job in Washington, we’re supposed to start livin’ together down there.” Frank couldn’t hold back a grin.

“Sounds like you’re lookin’ forward to that.”

“I am,” said Frank. “But I know it’s an awesome responsibility.”

“Life in the Washington ’burbs won’t be as bad as life here,” said Gus. “Just concentrate on good home cookin’. You cook. I’ll wash the dishes. When Bunker gets here, we’ll let him dry. We’ll manage the perfect ménage.” He poured each of them another glass of the Riesling. “Now that we finished the lamb, young Mister Sullivan, I’ve got a bone to pick.”

“Oh?”

“From what our little friend Major Nazih had to say this morning, seems like there might’ve been a few things you didn’t tell me about your briefing at Langley.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Like about the Shah,” said Gus. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

“Probably.”

“When the old need-to-know bugaboo butts heads with keepin’ your workin’ buddy in the dark, I don’t know about you, but I vote for turnin’ on the light. Like havin’ that flashlight in my suitcase, remember? I don’t like workin’ in the dark.”

“I hear you,” said Frank. “Tell you the truth, by the time those guys in Near East got done with me, I was ready to turn this damn job down. No contact with the Shah who could be a gold mine of intel. No contact with anybody beyond Jayface. And then it got worse.”

“You gonna tell Papa Gus, or not?”

Frank proceeded to tell Gus more about Vassily Lermontov than he needed to know.

“Now that you told me all that,” said Gus, “I kind of wish you hadn’t told me.”

“If he does show up,” said Frank, “maybe you will need to know.”

“No contact,” said Gus. “Remember?”

“Yeah, but Near East also told me no contact with the Shah. Rocky said it again up in the bubble, but after listening to Nazih this morning I wonder how long that’s going to last.”

“I dunno,” said Gus. “You may have a pretty good rabbi in Pete Howard, but in his own domain the chief of station is king. And if Rocky says, ‘Tick,’ you better not tock.”

“No contact with Lermontov. A guy I’ve been involved with for ten years or more. Just show the flag and don’t stir up any trouble. It didn’t sound like a job worth doing, but when I started to let Dean Lomax know how I felt…”

“And Pete Howard?”

“Yeah, Pete was there, but what bothers me, I’m sitting there in Dean’s office, not wanting to go to Iran, and I let it happen to me.”

“You sound like Joan,” said Gus. “Talking about me. You must’ve noticed. At the airport in Rome. That’s why she was so pissed. She likes to remind me I wound up in Vietnam same way I wound up in the marines.”

“How’s that?” asked Frank, puzzled.

“Lettin’ other people decide things for me. Most people in the Marine Corps got there because they enlisted. Me, I got drafted.”

“I thought the marines never needed the draft to fill their quota.”

“What can I tell you? They must’ve had a bad week. And I wasn’t exactly what you’d call prime gyrene material. I was a dumpy little thing. Kids used to call me Wimpy Simpson. I not only got drafted, I drew a drill instructor who decided he’d make a marine out of me if it killed both of us. Damn near did. But I’ll tell you what. About halfway through I saw a way for Wimpy to eat the can of spinach and turn into Popeye. I went through hell to become a marine, but I did it. I even got to be a hand-to-hand instructor at Parris Island. Even did that for the agency for a while down at the farm. But for what? I mean, I like a knife fight as much as the next guy, but how often can you use that stuff? Knowing how to write a good cable, now, that you can use.”

“Today at least, I had a pretty good drill instructor.”

“Don’t count on it. You’re gonna have to learn to open your own can of spinach. Other part you don’t know,” said Gus, “you went to Ethiopia on a two-year contract, right?” Frank nodded. “Same deal I had in Zambia,” said Gus. “Except when my two years were up the deal was over. You wound up staying in Ethiopia, what, six, seven years?”

“Like that.”

“When my two years were up, the agency asked to me go to Vietnam. And I went along with it, which really pissed Joan off. If you had stayed in Ethiopia only two years, you would’ve got the same offer—and had a shot at all the fun, all the pussy, and all the promotions that went with it.” Gus paused, reading Frank carefully. “And you prob’ly would’ve let it happen.”

“That’s what bothers me,” said Frank. “I let things happen.” Gus uncorked another bottle of Riesling. Frank tipped his glass for the pour, then let it sit. “Locked in.”

“If you feel locked in, you can always just quit and get out,” said Gus. “No matter what they say in the spy books, it’s really not like the Mafia.”

Frank nodded but went on as though Gus’s words hadn’t penetrated. “The bind I’m in now, the other part I didn’t tell you, no matter what Rocky says, or what Near East says, Pete wants me to take a crack at Lermontov.”

“Ever think,” said Gus, “maybe without Lermontov there is no Frank Sullivan, or at least no Peregrine? Ever give that a maybe? Like he’s Pete Howard’s real reason for sending you here.”

“Yeah,” said Frank. “And it’s a scary thought. That is what Pete wants.”

“What do you want?” said Gus.

“All of it. My son. The job in Washington. Lermontov. The Shah. And I want myself. I want to quit letting things happen to me.”

“That’s a lot,” said Gus. “But tell you what. You wanna work inside, you’re gonna have to join the team and forget this self of yours. You aren’t the Lone Ranger anymore. And I ain’t Tonto.”

Frank nodded, staring at the Riesling. Maybe Gus was right. He needed Lermontov to validate his own career within the agency, to complete it. To put to rest, as Pete Howard had said, all suspicions that Lermontov might have turned him into a KGB mole. But he didn’t want to let it happen. He wanted to make it happen.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Have you heard the news?”

General Merid stood at the head of the table, bouncing on his toes, a smile curved and sharp as a scimitar stretching his round cheeks. Frank and Gus barely had entered the room.

“News?” said Gus, struggling out of his parka.

“The Shah plans to announce tomorrow the formation of a military government. Headed by General Nazeri of the Imperial Guard. Do you realize what this will mean for us?”

“Ah, no, I don’t,” said Gus.

“It means our work becomes central. It means the military is now the government, and a military program to win the hearts and minds of the people becomes a government program. Our friend Hossein Kasravi, the chicken colonel who has not been with us these days because of his pressing duties, will now be deputy prime minister. We will have total support for our work.”

“Say, that is good news. Mind if I hang up my coat? I want to take some notes on this.”

Frank stretched out his hand to the general. “Congratulations. You must be very pleased.”

“It is a great moment for our country. And for our committee.”

“The new government has also banned all newspapers,” said Anwar, catching Frank’s eye. “From now on you’ll have to listen for the garbage man.”

“Why the garbage man?”

“They are our country’s real news carriers,” said Anwar. He was younger and trimmer than the general, and his blue air force major’s uniform was worn more casually than the general’s crisp khakis, but the lines of his face reflected more thought and care than did the general’s unwrinkled brow. “The
ashkhalees
, as we call them, gossip with all the servants and housewives putting out their garbage, even the servants of our leaders. Then they gossip with each other, so among them they have the news of the whole town, and they carry it with them on their rounds, and the servants and the housewives relay it to the men who run, or at least think they run, the house. And the country. I’m sure that’s how even the Shah gets his news, although he may not know it. What his ministers’ servants get from the garbage men, his ministers pass on to the Shah.”

“You must have heard them,” said Nazih, the fair young army major. “They come round yelling,
‘Ashkhalee, ashkhalee, ashkhalee.’
And the women come out of their houses with their garbage and their gossip.”

“I have heard them,” said Frank. “Usually before I’m awake.”

“As long as we have garbage men,” said Nazih, gazing at Frank, “we don’t need newspapers.”

*   *   *

Frank’s agenda had made a big hit with their counterparts at Jayface. It provided a format for talk about civic action programs Iran could have put into effect a decade before but would be impossible to attempt now in a nation at war with itself. No one mentioned the impossibility. Gus talked about the success of such programs in other countries. Frank argued for a major propaganda offensive behind the civic action program, a daily newspaper in Farsi and possibly in Arabic in the south, armed forces television, and, most important of all, radio broadcasts.

“That’s true,” said Anwar. “Not many people have television yet, but everyone has radio.” He paused, jabbing an index finger at the agenda. “And many, many, many have cassette recorders.”

“Cassettes?” said Frank. “That’s interesting.” He began taking notes. “Maybe we could do something with that.”

“Hah,” said General Merid. It was a comment rather than a laugh.

“The Imam is already a master of that,” said Munair Irfani, the navy’s representative, whose dark eyes, as usual, fixed on Frank. He spoke gently. “Ayatollah Khomeini and his people.”

“Tell me about that,” said Frank, trying not to stare at the blood-flecked knot on Munair’s forehead.

“Well, even when he was in Iraq, before our government convinced the Iraqis to banish him … but the others know all that.” Munair paused. The general had managed to catch his eye. “I don’t want to take up everyone’s time with all that. Perhaps you and I could talk some other time.”

“Sure,” said Frank. “We could do that.”

He wondered if they ever would. He tried to pay attention as General Merid launched a monologue about a course in military civic action programs he had taken at Fort Myer while assigned as an attaché in Washington.

“Maximization of the civilian infrastructure in third party nations can proffer a solidifying basis for the coherent reorganization of military units in productive operational activities, not only in peacetime, but also at times of civil stress…”