A young American with sharp features and a bouquet of papers clutched in his bony hand made his way through the circling crowd on the far side of the table. He inserted himself like a letter opener between the stubby-fingered Iranian and the irate Americans and their dog. He spoke to the Americans, nodding like a tightly wound-up doll. Whatever the young American said to his distraught countrymen, it had a calming effect. The woman even picked up his nods; her screams faded to weeping. Armed Iranians appeared behind them and gestured to the man to close their bags and pick them up. Loaded down with four overstuffed pieces of leather luggage, the man staggered behind an escort of Iranians. Cradling the pet cage to her, the woman followed. Two more Iranians trailed, gently poking with their weapons. They disappeared around the far end of the table.
Frank had his suitcase and carry-on bag on the table and opened before anyone noticed him. The man who had screamed at the woman with the pet cage poked into Frank’s luggage. Fully bearded, he wore a green-and-red headband and displayed the Ayatollah’s photo like a badge on his coat. He seemed to find nothing that interested him. He muttered a series of
nah
-somethings Frank took to mean no guns, no knives, no jewelry, no secret papers, no camera, no forbidden photos, or stash of hidden currency.
The Iranian looked up. Frank smiled and took a chance.
“Nah saag,”
he said.
The man looked puzzled, then grinned and started to laugh and repeat Frank’s joke to others.
“Nah saag. Nah saag.”
From the way the others joined in his laughter, he gathered the Iranians had not had much fun during their long day. The no-dog man motioned for Frank to close his suitcase.
“Farsi mi-danid?”
If that means do I speak Farsi, thought Frank, the answer is no.
“Nah,”
he tried. He held thumb and forefinger close together in the universal sign for “very little.”
“Kami,”
he said.
“Okay,” answered the Iranian.
“Maash-allah. Safar be-kheyr.”
Except for hearing an
“Allah,”
Frank had no idea what the man had said. He hoped it meant something like “Go with God.”
“Mamnoon am.”
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now where the hell is my passport?
And then he saw him. The man in the unbuttoned black wool jacket with the hood pulled over his head and the empty left sleeve swinging loose as he moved toward Frank. His first thought, crazily, was to show the man his passport. Then he remembered he didn’t have his passport. Or a gun. The man in black, who appeared to be alone, reached inside his jacket.
Frank had not noticed the
homafaran
closing in behind the
Savak
assassin. One of them, whom Frank recognized as the silent, heavy-set weight lifter from the gym, had grabbed the man in black from behind just as he reached into his open jacket. He and a second
homafar
pulled the jacket down over the hooded man’s right arm and the stump that ended just above his left elbow. With the concealing hood pulled back, the man ducked his head. Frank still could not see his face.
Sa’id slid into position directly in front of the man. Holding his G3 in one hand, jutting it into the man’s stomach, with the other he removed the metallic M61 machine pistol from its shoulder holster. It had happened very quickly, noticed by only a few people. The Americans who witnessed the scene stood openmouthed. The Iranians looked away and backed off.
The two
homafaran
who had grabbed the man kicked his legs out from under him. Sa’id yanked the man’s hair and forced his head up till he looked directly at Frank. The man spat, and Frank studied his burning, bloodshot eyes, nose hooked like a scimitar, and dark, bearded face, sure that someday, somewhere he would see this man again. The arms of the two
homafaran
formed a yoke, wrapped through the man’s armpits and around the back of his neck, where each man clasped the wrist of the other. It was only as they trundled him out of the waiting area through a side door, with Sa’id leading the way, that Frank noticed Anwar following, with his G3 leveled at the man’s back.
No one turned to acknowledge Frank. No one had spoken to him.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, lugging his luggage, he approached the banshee backs of the howling mob at what he took to be the ticket counter. He thought of Teasdale. Not a bad way to travel. Sedated. Probably driven out onto the tarmac. Propped up in a first-class seat with a solicitous doctor at his side. Guardian angels like Rocky and Cantwell to watch over him. His luggage whisked through customs by someone else. His passport given a peremptory check. He even gets to fly to Rome and enjoy the mild weather. I fly to Frankfurt and a German winter.
A fatalistic instinct overtook him. He set his suitcase on its end and sat. The plane won’t take off without you, he told himself. No need to kill a fellow American, one of our own. Or get killed. He’d just encountered death. And lived through it. The crowd will thin. I’ll present my ticket and retrieve my passport. I hope.
“You owe me.” He turned to see Stan Rushmore looming above him. He wore the tweed jacket he’d had on the day they’d met. Frank noticed Rushmore had managed to button it. I guess I’m not the only one who lost weight, he thought. He stood and shook Rushmore’s hand.
“Now what have you done for me?”
“I got your passport.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out several blue-bound American passports. He thumbed through them. “Here you go. Francis Xavier Sullivan. I love that Xavier. Good Jebbie military school on Sixteenth Street. Remember it?”
“Yeah, I do, but how’d you get this?”
“The usual way. I spread some dollars around. Rocky thought we oughta make good use of some of the station’s excess, rather than just burnin’ it all. I know a Pan Am guy helps us out.”
“What about checking in?” said Frank, suddenly remembering the Aeroflot guy who helped out the GRU. And Belinsky.
“No problem,” said Rushmore. “I’ll take you around and my guy’ll stamp your ticket. I took care of your buddy Simpson a while ago. Come on.”
Frank followed him around the ticket counter. Rushmore nodded to two armed Iranians who stepped back and let them pass. “I spread some spare
rials
around, too. Gimme your ticket. Oh, and your suitcase. My buddy’ll check it through. Wait here.” Frank watched him disappear through a door behind the ticket counter. He returned in less than a minute.
“Everything should be so easy. Here you go. Passport. Exit visa. Luggage receipt. Ticket.”
“Seat assignment?”
“Catch-as-catch-can. Except for us who got assigned to ridin’ nursemaid on your friend the defective radio man.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Hasn’t got a care in the world. Him and the doctor, Rocky, and Cantwell all got on board already. For all the good it’ll do them. Look at that mob. Be hours before we get outta here.”
Frank surveyed the terminal. The noise level had climbed and tempers had shortened.
“Try to get on board early if you can,” said Rushmore. “But you still got passport controls and customs to go through.”
“I’ve been through customs.”
“That was just preliminary. Make sure you weren’t carrying anything into the airport you shouldn’t be. Like a bomb.”
“Or a poodle?”
“Like that,” said Rushmore. “Khomeini damn near shut down this whole operation last night when they found idiots on yesterday’s flights tryin’ to hide handguns and fancy knives in their carry-on kits. Couple of wives got pulled outta here today ’cause they had some fancy Iranian jewelry on them. Lot of folks just put just about everything they own in storage. Embassy’s got lists of where they stored personal effects. Cars, too. Even pets. For all the good it’ll do. Idea is, when things get back to normal, embassy’ll have it all shipped back home. But I think what you see out there now is as normal as this country’s gonna get for a long time to come.”
“I got a hunch you’re right,” said Frank.
“I talked to another friend of yours,” said Rushmore. “Back at the embassy. Navy officer named Munair Irfani. But in civvies. Showed up at Dowshan Tappeh couple of times there near the end. Said if I saw you to let you know you might have trouble here. Guy with one arm. Wears a black jacket with the hood pulled up.”
“Yeah,” said Frank. “I know who he means.”
“Involved in the Belinsky mess.”
Frank nodded.
“The navy guy said he also warned your
homafar
buddies from the gym. See any sign of ’em?”
“Yeah,” said Frank. “They helped me out.”
“Anything I can do?”
Frank shook his head. “They took care of it. For now, anyhow.”
* * *
Armed men searched Frank’s carry-on bag at three more checkpoints. No one frisked him, and he encountered no metal detectors. Only once did the search take more than a few minutes.
“Let me see your papers,” asked one of the inspectors. Young and clean shaven, the Iranian spoke excellent English with a British accent.
Frank opened the plastic packet and handed over passport, air force ID, and Iranian residency permit.
“You will not need this anymore,” said the Iranian. He tossed the residency permit into a box on the floor. “You are air force?”
“Yes,” said Frank.
“I also. Formerly captain, Iranian Air Force. Now I am comrade in the Islamic Air Force.”
“I hope good relations continue between our countries,” said Frank.
“I agree,” said the former captain in his clipped tone. “We need you for spare parts.”
* * *
Frank could see the door to the tarmac beyond a booth where Iranians checked passports and argued among themselves. They appeared to check each passport against names on a list. At least one man spoke English. He questioned each passenger and several times, with passport in hand, disappeared through a door beyond the booth. Each time he returned Frank expected to see someone hauled off behind the mysterious door. Instead, the questioning resumed. The process continued and the line crept forward.
Through the day he’d made a conscious effort not to look at his watch. He knew the time would pass slowly enough without constant reminders of how slowly the time passed. Now he weakened. Five after one. He estimated they had arrived at the embassy about seven, at the airport by ten. The long day promised to get longer. The line crawled. He glanced down its length and at the far end saw Bill Steele. Big as he is, thought Frank, funny I didn’t see him sooner.
Frank tucked his carry-on under his arm, turned, and pushed his way through the door to the tarmac. As he approached the plane, he turned back toward the terminal. The sign remained, just as he had seen it the day he arrived.
WELCOME TO TEHRAN
.
* * *
Three hours later, the plane sat where it had sat when he boarded. Bill Steele had nodded but not spoken when he walked down the aisle past Frank. He’d seen no one else he knew. Twice, armed Iranians had come through, checking passports. After the surly stewards who had staffed their Pan Am flight from Rome, he noted with pleasure that attractive stewardesses now patrolled the aisles, offering soft drinks and sympathy.
“We’re all volunteers,” said one who managed to find a can of seltzer for him. “But I’ll tell you, if we don’t get out of here soon, we may not get out of here at all. Another half hour it’ll be dark. The controllers are on strike again, and after dark we can’t take off without air traffic control.”
“Hey, push come to get stuck, we’ll just make the best of it. I’ll take you out, show you the town, all the bright bonfires, hit a few discos, drink some champagne.”
“Yeah, right,” said the stewardess, whose name tag read
CAROL
. “When we do get airborne,” said Carol, “you get the first drink.”
“Vodka rocks,” said Frank.
“You got it.”
A moment later, he wondered if they would ever get airborne. Another group of gun-wielding Iranians marched through, again checking passports. The man who looked at his passport held a slip of paper. Frank caught a glimpse and read “Bill Steele.”
The man returned his passport, and Frank said,
“Be-bakh-shid
.
Dast shoo-ii kojast?”
Politely, the man lowered his gun and pointed to the back of the plane, enunciating slowly in Farsi what Frank took to be instructions for finding the bathroom. He edged past the man with the gun and the even more dangerous piece of paper, relieved for a moment to see Bill in an aisle seat. He paused, touched Bill on the arm, and leaned close to his ear.
“These guys have your name, Bill Steele, on a piece of paper.”
Bill nodded. “I know. Rushmore tipped me.”
“Your passport read William Oliver Steele?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“William Oliver doesn’t look like Bill Steele. Since they’re lookin’ for ‘Bill,’ if you’re lucky they won’t get any further than ‘William.’ If you can, show the passport with your thumb over Steele.”
Bill nodded, and Frank continued to the back of the plane where he found one of the lavatories unoccupied. He hadn’t known his bladder had gotten so full. He peed long, zipped himself up, washed and dried his hands, and eased himself out of the bathroom. He looked down the aisle. The men with the guns had moved beyond the row where Bill sat. They edged aside to let him pass. He tapped Bill on the shoulder as he walked by.
The passport check proved to be the last. Frank heard doors closing and, according to his Timex at five-twenty-five, heard the pilot saying, “Flight crew, please prepare for takeoff. All passengers should be in their seats; seat belts fastened; trays in the upright position.”
Silence greeted the announcement, as though no one quite believed it. But soon the roar of the engines rattled the plane, and the 747 began to rock down the runway. The plane climbed swiftly to clear the foothills of the Elborz, then banked, heading west, still climbing as they arced above the Zagros Mountains that rose south of Tabriz. Though near dark had fallen over the tarmac at Mehrabad, at what Frank guessed might be twenty thousand feet a blazing sunset fired the sky.