The Peregrine Spy (27 page)

“Why do you think the soldiers won’t shoot?”

“Because the Imam tells them not to. They, too, will hear this tape in the mosques. Their brothers and sisters, their fathers and mothers, will hear it, and they will tell the soldiers not to harm the people. Khomeini tells the people not to attack the soldiers. He tells the people to let the soldiers shoot at them, kill them. He says if enough of you become martyrs the soldiers who kill you will turn against their masters. He tells the people to carry flowers and give them to the soldiers. He tells the people to have young girls in chadors to carry flowers and put flowers in the barrels of the guns the soldiers carry and for young men to put flowers in the gun barrels of the tanks.”

“Will the
Mojahedin
be involved?”

“Not as
Mojahedin.
Not as
homafaran
. But some of us, we will hear this tape, and we may be there. Not as
Mojahedin,
but as followers of the Imam.”

Frank noticed that, for the first time, Anwar had begun referring to Khomeini not as Khomeini or even as the Ayatollah but by the more reverent title of Imam. The door opened. The sergeant again looked in on them. He nodded at Anwar, glanced toward the recorder still relaying the word of the Imam, and said in English, “Good.” He looked at Frank. He stood with his arms at his side, not touching the .45. He nodded back toward the recorder, then again at Frank, and said, “Good.” He turned and left, shutting the door behind him.

“Sergeant Abbas approves,” said Frank.

“Perhaps,” said Anwar.

CHAPTER TEN

Khomeini’s raspy, high-pitched voice sliced out at them, far too loud in the hushed confines of the bubble. Frank, who had driven straight from Dowshan Tappeh to the embassy, eased the volume.

“This is incredible,” said Belinsky. “This is
jihad.
Holy war. What they’ve been waiting for to fire up their people.”

Frank listened, grateful that Belinsky’s reading supported what Anwar the Taller had told him, but still wondering why Belinsky avoided his inquisitive eyes.

“I thought the military government meant an end to this stuff,” said Rocky.

“It has been quiet,” said the ambassador.

“
Moharram
will be quiet,” said Belinsky. “Peaceful but powerful. Because that’s the way Khomeini wants it.”

“I have to tell you,” said Frank, putting aside his concerns about Belinsky, “tonight, when he played this for me, my gym buddy, Anwar Two, well, he’s always sounded skeptical about Khomeini. But tonight, as he listened to this, he had fire in his eyes. Called him the Imam.”

“I can understand,” said Belinsky. “Martyrdom. Flowers in the gun barrels. At one point he says you don’t have to shoot the soldiers in the breast. Touch them in their hearts. He had me about ready to take to the streets.”

“If he gets his way,” said Frank, “he’ll have all Iran taking to the streets.”

“Balls,” said Rocky. “You guys are listening to one squeaky-voice preacher and forgetting that the Shah has a forty-thousand-man military in back of a military government. No way they’re gonna let this unholy holy man take over the streets.”

“I hope you’re right,” said the ambassador.

“I’ll talk to Eagle-1 about it,” said Rocky. “See what
Savak
thinks. See what the
Tudeh
party is up to. I don’t suppose your
homafar
pal had anything to say about that.”

Frank shrugged. “You know. Far as he’s concerned, they don’t exist.”

“Yeah, well, we know better.” He caught Frank’s eye and nodded. “Don’t we?”

In the presence of the ambassador and Belinsky, Frank knew, Rocky wouldn’t mention Lermontov, but the Russian was on both their minds.
I will contact you,
Lermontov wrote. But when? And what are the British up to?

*   *   *

As Gus had predicted, Rocky refused to transmit Frank’s cable on the release of key
Mojahedin
and Ayatollah Taleqani from prison. Rocky dismissed Taleqani as just another holy man and said
Savak
had already reported on the release of the
Mojahedin.

“Kinda like bangin’ your head against a wall,” said Gus.

“A fucking Rocky wall,” said Frank.

That afternoon, tense and quiet, Frank continued drafting his atmospherics cable in the office they shared with the absent Stan Rushmore. They had decided Gus should undertake some domestic errands, including a run to the commissary. Frank’s fingers danced on the keyboard of Rushmore’s IBM, choreographing images that would build an atmosphere of a Tehran at war with itself.

The giant, teetering construction crane they had seen in the muddy field near the soccer stadium became a symbol of all the abandoned projects undertaken by the Shah. They passed it often in the limited compass of their travels through the city. Surrounded by the prefabricated shells of what had been intended as military housing, it still managed to stand, sucked ever deeper in mud, tilting more precariously, like the fossil of a trapped raptor incapable of recognizing that it had already become extinct. He’d seen many cranes like it in all parts of the city, as many as half a dozen to a site, though none in such danger of collapse, looming like abandoned sentinels over fields of lost battles, shells of buildings and windows without glass staring blankly over cluttered, fenced-in lots, speaking mutely of a stalled economy.

He sketched a portrait of a military that, except for the Imperial Guard, seemed alienated from its role as protector of the Shah, its Supreme Commander. He described their Jayface meetings in detail and all he had been told there, as well as his meetings with the
homafaran
in the gym and all he had learned of Kho-meini’s use of cassette tapes and of the inroads made by the
Mojahedin
. He kept his narrative descriptive, emphasizing the smells of the gym, Khomeini’s high-pitched voice, and the way the Ayatollah’s photo showed up in odd places, like their still-functioning neighborhood liquor store; he told how drivers of the city’s orange jitney taxis had photos of the Shah pasted to one windshield visor and of Khomeini taped to the other, with the Shah flipped down if they were passing a military roadblock and the Shah turned up out of sight and Khomeini made visible when close to the university, the bazaar, or one of Tehran’s many mosques.

Only in asides made by one of the contacts in the sweaty gym or the chilly meeting room at Supreme Commander’s Headquarters did he quote anything about the
Tudeh
party’s limited role or the clerical leadership’s strong hostility toward the atheistic Russians. He noted that no one displayed photos of Stalin or Brezhnev or Noureddin Kianouri, the exiled head of the
Tudeh
party. Then he wondered if that might be a stroke too much. By late afternoon, when Gus returned, Frank guessed he was halfway through.

Frank kept working while Gus read what he’d done. “This is great,” said Gus when he’d caught up. “We’ll make an intelligence officer, or at least a bureaucrat, out of you yet. It needs some editing, but you’re on your way.”

“Edit away,” said Frank. “I appreciate a good editor.”

“Okay.” Gus looked at his watch. “What’s your schedule?”

“Shit.” Frank pushed himself back from the typewriter. “I should do some work on our civic action program. And I need to get over to the gym by six. I need to see my workout buddies.”

“How ’bout I work on editing this a while. You put in about an hour on civic action, then head for the gym. I’ll pick up where you leave off on the civic action stuff. When you’re done in the gym, come back here and pick me up. We’ll be good boys and put everything in the safe and go home and get some chow.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Frank.

“And get ready for Mr. Bunker.”

“Oh. I forgot about that,” said Frank.

*   *   *

Frank had just finished moving his belongings into the back, windowless bedroom.

“Good,” said Gus. He leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded across his chest. “It’s smaller, there’s no view and no air, but I’ll sleep better knowing you’re not in the grenade room.”

Frank started hanging the clothes he’d dumped on the bed in a wardrobe closet. “I don’t much like moving a couple of weeks after I moved in.”

“You know, you might be right,” said Gus. “It might have been smarter to let Bunker get here, see how much nicer that front room is, and pull rank to take it away from you.”

“An hour ago you told me I should move in here before Bunker shows up.”

“You’re as bad as Joan,” said Gus. “She says every time I make my mind up I always change my mind. Like I did about retiring.”

A loud buzzer cut through the air, and both men jumped.

“What was that?” said Frank.

The buzzer sounded again. Gus had disappeared; his muffled voice crept into the room from the dark hallway. “I think it’s the doorbell.”

“I didn’t even know we had a doorbell,” said Frank.

Gus peered at him around the doorjamb. “Well, we haven’t had many callers.”

“Yeah, I know. And the last guy threw pebbles at the window.” The buzzer sounded again.

“Bunker,” said Gus. “If we hadn’t left the lights on, we could pretend we’re not home. Don’t worry. You’ll love him and his uptight Mormon soul. A real stand-up guy and an outstanding paper pusher.”

Frank remembered Dan Nitzke’s description: a straitlaced Mormon and a real good bureaucrat. Their descriptions didn’t help. He didn’t know much about the ways of bureaucrats, and he realized he understood as little about Mormons as he did about Muslims.

A rattling sound climbed the stairs. “Sounds like the ghost in
Christmas Carol,
” said Gus.

“Let’s go see.” Frank edged past Gus and went to the front bedroom. He knelt and looked out onto the street under the blind he had lowered to within two inches of the window frame. He stood, walked past Gus, and led the way down the stairs. “Stan Rushmore’s out there,” he said. “Standing in the street next to his Chevy.”

The door rattled again as Frank hurried down the stairs. “Hold your water.” The rattling stopped. “Who’s there?”

“Fred Bunker. Open up, for God’s sake.”

Frank unlatched the door. He stepped back and said, “It’s open.”

“Why hasn’t that lock on the gate been fixed?”

Bunker was tall, taller than Frank had imagined. As he stepped into the hallway, carrying a brown leather attaché case, Frank guessed six-two or three. He looked solidly built, and gray eyes glared out from behind steel-rimmed glasses. Early thirties, over 200, close-cropped, curly brown hair. A tan wash-dry poplin suit that was too light for the climate, with a lined London Fog coat draped over his arm. Frank took it all in very quickly. He could tell he was going to have to pay very close attention to this bureaucrat named Bunker.

“We haven’t done much about the bullet holes, either,” said Frank.

“What bullet holes?” Though he was only a few inches taller than Frank, Bunker had a way of lowering his head to look down at his listener through his steel rims when he spoke.

Frank moved past him to the open doorway. He waved at the bulky figure standing by the big car just beyond the pale circle that fell from a street lamp. “Thanks, Rush.”

Frank looked at the luggage at the foot of the stairs. In the half light he counted four large suitcases, two garment bags, two small bags, another, larger attaché case, and what looked like a portable typewriter case.

“You must be planning on a four-year tour.”

“Four weeks should do,” said Bunker.

“Come on,” said Frank. “I’ll give you a hand with that. The bullet holes can wait.”

With Gus’s help, he moved Bunker’s luggage into the front bedroom upstairs. While Bunker unpacked, Frank cooked a supper of grilled lamb, boiled spinach, and rice. He cooked without salt but made up for it with pepper, garlic, and herbs. With the rice he’d used a generous amount of saffron, which had become so expensive in the States he’d quit buying it. He’d selected his spices from open barrels at a market still operating opposite the air base, shopping with his sense of smell.

Frank retailed his shopping story to Bunker over dinner. He was proud of his cooking and enjoyed Gus’s grunts of appreciation.

“Not bad. All things considered. Not bad.”

“We’ll shop at the commissary tomorrow,” said Bunker. “This is all well and good, but there’s no point of having a commissary if you don’t take advantage of it.”

“I’ll clear the dishes,” said Gus. He made no move to clear the dishes but lit a cigarette instead. “Cigarette, Fred?”

“I don’t smoke,” said Bunker.

“Neither does Frank. Joan keeps telling me I should quit. And I do. But no matter how often I quit, she never seems satisfied. Did you ever smoke, Fred? It’s a filthy habit, like drinking. As I remember, you don’t drink, either, do you?”

“I enjoy a good wine with dinner,” said Bunker.

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Gus, who had been downing even more than usual through dinner and beyond.

Bunker cleared his throat. “This is probably a good time to work out our basic parameters.” Bunker spoke a language Frank barely understood. “I know both of you were dispatched here unexpectedly and without the chance to do the reading-in I’ve been implementing over the past ten days. As head of the KUSTAFF team, it’s my responsibility to brief you—briefly…” He allowed a fleeting smile. Even when sitting at the kitchen table, he managed to peer down at them. Frank watched the reflections in his steel-rimmed glasses of the bare ceiling bulb dancing, changing shapes, shifting angles. “I’ve been through the presidential finding, the latest NIE, a recent Forty Committee paper, a DDO memo under the rubric ‘Coup Considerations,’ the latest country survey, skimmed the State Department Area Handbook and all the recent cable traffic and internal memoranda. As head of the KUSTAFF team—I said that, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” said Gus and Frank, in unison. Gus poured himself another glass of wine.

“Before we go any further, gentlemen, could we synchronize our watches? I was all right up to Paris. A six-hour time difference, Washington-Paris. But when we got here, the flight attendants announced the local time as two and a half hours later than Paris. I made the adjustment, even though I couldn’t believe it. I now have local time eight-forty-seven. Is that correct?”