The Peregrine Spy (49 page)

“The ambassador has to go back to the palace tomorrow,” said Rocky. “Washington sent another laundry list of questions plus a list of folks the Shah should consider for a Council of Experts to run the country. Dumbest list I ever saw. Mostly people who hate each other’s balls.”

“The ambassador should have an interesting day.”

“He’s not too keen on the whole idea. Including having to drive up there in the middle of a general strike. No tellin’ what kinda shit’s likely to break loose. Jesus, Lermontov sure gave you a ton of shit. All in Russian, except for his notes. Here’s his list. More stuff on Afghanistan. Stuff on these two characters Ghotzbadeh and Yazdi who front for Khomeini in Paris. Both educated in the States, neither one a cleric. More dumb shit on Khomeini workin’ for the CIA. Jesus. An organizational breakdown of their Tehran station. The ambassador’s the fuckin’
rezident
. I never heard of that before.
Savak
keeps tellin’ us the KGB head honcho is the ambassador’s second in command. Langley’s gonna love this shit, but we’re gonna have a long night.”

*   *   *

Late the next evening, soon after his meeting with Lermontov, Frank and Rocky had barely settled into the bubble when Rocky said, “So he had you taxied to his place?”

“How’d you know?”

“After we found out where it’s at, I asked
Savak
to put the place under surveillance, just in case. They said they already had it under surveillance, but, since I know they can get careless, I asked them to upgrade the surveil. I had one of our guys check out the
Savak
op every couple of days, just to keep those boogers on their toes. When they saw you goin’ in there, they had a shit fit, and one of their guys drove over here to let us know. I’ll get a video for you.”

“Never mind,” said Frank.

“Hey, you can show it to your grandkids. Look what granddaddy did during the war. Here he is, betraying his country to the Soviets.”

“Very funny.”

“We had you tailed coming out.”

“Lermontov said we were being followed.”

“He’s very good. Shook the tail in a couple of blocks. Where’d he drop you?”

“Soviet Embassy. Front gate. Back off Ferdowsi. Great intersection. Churchill and Stalin. My car was parked there.”

“What a prick. You can be sure that’s on video, too.”

“I can understand you having his house under surveillance and trying to follow us, but why all this bullshit on his part?”

“Because he’s one shrewd bastard. All this shows his
rezidenza
that he owns you, which may take some heat off him as the guy the mole is trying to finger. And he’s got tapes to prove he owns you to our shop if what he really wants to do is fuck you up with Henry James.”

“Playing cat and mouse isn’t much fun when you’re the mouse.”

“Come on,” said Rocky with a grin that made Frank uncomfortable. “Let’s see the take.”

Lermontov had used hand gestures to tell Frank to slip the material under the Peugeot’s passenger seat into his briefcase. Now, Rocky riffled through it.

“Good shit,” he muttered. “Includin’ a bio on his ambassador. A full general in KGB. I’d been wonderin’ about him. It’s amazin’ in a post like this to have a guy of Lermontov’s caliber—and rank—second in command. The Shah’s right about how central Iran is, maybe not for us but for damn sure to the Soviets. You take Iran and Afghanistan next door, you got maybe two thousand miles of border with the Soviet Union.”

Frank nodded. “Lermontov’s told me pretty much the same thing.”

“Intellectual thugs are my favorite kinda thugs,” said Rocky, looking up from Lermontov’s material. “I still wish I was…” He looked away from Frank and started turning the pages of the day’s take. “When’s your next meet?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“You give him a note about a meet at our safe house?”

“Yeah. In the car. I labeled it ‘Read Now.’ He did but just shook his head and gave it back to me.”

“He is spooked,” said Rocky. “Keep tryin’. Let’s see what else he sent us.”

Meticulous Lermontov had included several hand-labeled envelopes in the package that Frank had pulled out from under his seat in the Peugeot. One read “Afghanistan”; another, “Tehran”; two said, “Iran,” and another said “Next Meeting.” Rocky opened it.

“Right on top. What’s happening on arrangements for his medical treatment? I think he worries more about that than he does the mole. I hate to tell you this, Sully, but we got a fuckin’ fly in the ointment. Not a fly. More like a hornet. When Henry James gets a bee up his ass, watch out.”

“Keep talkin’,” said Frank, consciously imitating Rocky.

“James sent me an eyes-only cable. Says more or less the Soviets will never okay medical treatment for Lermontov by a doctor not on their Washington embassy’s approved list. And if Lermontov wants the best America has to offer, it won’t be some sawbones who’s a Soviet flunky.”

“Don’t you think Lermontov would have thought of that?”

“Sure he would’ve thought of that. What he figures to do, James figured out, once he’s in the States he’ll want to defect and get the best medical treatment we can arrange for him, and fuck what the Soviets think about it.”

“Then James won’t have an agent in place. Just another defector.”

“Exactly.”

“So what’s the downside? We get a defector, maybe the highest KGB defector ever.”

“The downside is James wants an agent in place for as long as possible. He wants to find his mole. Now he figures Lermontov’s maybe playin’ us about the latest word from the mole, tryin’ t’ put pressure on us t’ maybe pull Lermontov outta here. So he’s not sure, in his own wonderful phrase, we should consummate.”

“How do I convey all this to Lermontov?”

“You don’t, pending further cogitation and inspiration from the Holy Ghost.”

“Am I supposed to know about this?”

“No.”

“Suppose I try to draft a response for you? Outline the reason you think we should proceed, even on the assumption Lermontov will want to defect as soon as possible once he gets to the States. But not until we get enough on the mole to nail him.”

“Do it,” said Rocky. “And you better come with some ideas to keep this mole from bitin’ Lermontov’s ass. Doesn’t look like we’re gonna get any help from the Holy Ghost.”

“Okay if I talk to Gus about it?”

“Why?”

“Gus is a good idea man,” said Frank, thinking of the atmospherics cable. “He knows covert action, black ops.”

“What the hell. Try him,” said Rocky. “Some-fuckin’-body better come up with an idea.”

*   *   *

Ever since
Ashura
the rooftop cries of
Allah-o akbar
sounded louder and closer. After his long nights in the bubble and the communications room with Rocky, Frank could hear them as he turned off Damavand. His neighbors, mostly middle class, many benefiting from the vast American presence, and nearly all, until recently, loyal to the Shah, followed Khomeini’s instructions. They shouted God’s power from the rooftops in defiance of the curfew.

When he opened the door of the Fiat, the cries seemed to surround him. None yet on this block but closer and louder than the night before.
Allah-o akbar. Allah-o akbar. Allah-o akbar.
Unseen voices in the long, dark night.

A full moon edged out between dark, low-lying clouds. Frank thought of the friendly soldiers who had stopped him a few nights before. He studied the face of the moon but saw no image of Khomeini outlined by its craters. A man in the moon, perhaps, but no beard or turban, no craggy features.

He remembered standing on a Brooklyn street corner one night many years before, when he was about Jake’s age, with a classmate who told him that if he looked hard enough at the full moon he would be able to see Monsignor Heinz, pastor of their church, who had recently died. Frank tried, squinting till he saw stars, but the best his eleven-year-old imagination could come up with was the usual man in the moon.

“Can you see him? Can you see him?” asked his friend.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can see him,” Frank lied. “Monsignor Heinz, for sure.”

He found a note from Gus on the kitchen table.
I cooked and left leftovers in the fridge.
Starving, Frank tore at fried chicken, ate salad by hand, and forked down cold rice. He washed it all down with beer and burped gratefully. He fell quickly into sleep, hearing the mantra
Allah-o akbar, Allah-o akbar
and wondering what the day of the general strike would bring.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Have you heard what happened?” asked Anwar during their tea break.

“About the strike?”

“Well, yes, the strike appears successful. Almost everything has stopped, just as the Ayatollah wanted. But something more serious has happened. This morning. Have you heard?”

Frank shook his head, surprised to notice that Anwar had traded his blue air force uniform for a tweed jacket, brown slacks, and a tan shirt open at the throat.

“A noncommissioned officer in the Imperial Guards, a sergeant, I heard, walked into the officers’ mess hall at breakfast and opened fire with an M-16. They say he managed to get a second clip into his weapon and began firing again, a second clip of thirty rounds before they shot him. They have their own medical facilities right there, so we may never know how many he killed or wounded. But no matter how many, he struck a terrible blow against our country. The
Javadan,
the Immortals, swear to protect the Shah and the country. And if the Immortals have begun to kill each other, we truly have civil war.”

“Is that why you’re wearing a suit?”

Anwar’s hand tugged at the open collar of his shirt. “In a civil war, when Imperial Guards shoot each other, a military uniform may not be a good idea.”

“It sounds like only one man who lost control,” said Frank. “He knew how and where to do a lot of damage, but it sounds like only one man who went crazy.”

“The whole country has gone crazy,” said Anwar. “In Hamadan and Kermanshah soldiers give guns to local supporters of Khomeini. In many cities officers cannot control their men, who go over to the local committees set up in Khomeini’s name. The oil workers and the civil servants who have been on strike take heart from the general strike. But all this means nothing. A crack in the Immortals could mean everything.”

*   *   *

Their meeting had broken up early. Frank was grateful to see Ali and their bulletproof Nova waiting.

“You are early, sir,” said Ali as Frank eased into the passenger seat beside him.

“I guess we decided to join the general strike,” said Frank as Gus and the subdued Bunker climbed into the back.

“You cannot do that, sir. The military cannot have strikes.”

“Relax. Just a joke.” Just a joke, but Anwar had switched to civilian clothes. And Ali, an army sergeant, had worn civvies since they’d known him. “Did you hear about a shooting at Imperial Guard headquarters?”

“No, sir. When, sir?”

“Today. Just now.”

“Mojahedin?”

Interesting reaction, thought Frank. Who would dare attack the Immortals? Leftist Islamic guerrillas. Of course.

“No,” said Frank. “I understand an Imperial Guard NCO shot up the officers’ mess hall.”

“That cannot be,” said Ali. “No member of the Imperial Guard would ever do that.”

Ali drove them back to Dowshan Tappeh through deserted streets. The cable traffic showed little except reports on the almost total shutdown of economic activity. A message summoned Bunker to the embassy for a meeting with Rocky. Frank took advantage of his absence to tell Gus about the penetration agent’s warning to Moscow.

“Jesus,” said Gus. “I’m surprised Rocky let you tell me about it. Something like this, especially with Henry James involved, gets held pretty tight.”

“I reminded him you’ve got more experience in this stuff than I do.”

“Yeah, but I’ve also got enough experience to keep my ass out of Henry James’s paranoid sights.”

“If you can come up with any ideas, we need help,” said Frank.

“Hey, you’re the guy with the creative energy. All’s I know how to do is write cables.”

“And use a knife,” said Frank. “On this one I need some help from a knife-fighting, cable-writing motherfucker.”

“I’ll think about it.” said Gus. “But if I do come up with anything, don’t tell Rocky it was my idea. You can have all the credit. And all the crap that comes with it.”

*   *   *

Frank secured his briefcase in Rushmore’s file cabinet and changed into his gym clothes. He wondered if the general strike had spread to Dowshan Tappeh. The building seemed quiet; the gym, deserted. He slipped on his leather mittens and shattered the silence, pounding the heavy bag. No one else arrived. He swung into his weight-lifting routine, punctuated by sit-ups and leg raises. Winded, drenched in sweat, with the blood beginning to dry on his knuckles, he called a halt at six-thirty. The
homafaran
never showed up.

Feeling dehydrated, he went to the cafeteria to pick up bottled water. He wished he hadn’t. He recognized the broad back of Sergeant Abdollah Abbas. As Frank watched, the sergeant popped open the strap that secured the weapon in his holster. His right hand gripped the butt of his .45. A dozen Americans, maybe fifteen, men and a few women, sat scattered around the cafeteria. A vision of the blood-splattered officers’ mess hall at Imperial Guard headquarters flashed through Frank’s mind. He backed out the door he’d just entered and headed for Troy’s offices. He found Bill Steele sitting with the colonel.

“We’ve got a problem,” said Frank.

“We’ve got lots of problems,” said Troy. “What’s your problem?”

“Bill, you remember that Iranian sergeant I asked you about?”

“I thought I told you to stay away from him.”

“I do. But he’s in the cafeteria.”

“Our cafeteria?” said Troy.

“He’s in the American cafeteria, counting heads with his hand on the handle of his .45.”

“Oh, shit,” said Steele, jumping to his feet. “Are your
homafar
buddies in the gym?”

“They didn’t show.”

“Figures,” said Steele. “You know what happened at the Imperial Guard?”