but the 125 made a perfect touchdown, snow flaring from her wheels in a vast spray. his dread increased. and the sound of his own heartbeat. "as god wants," he muttered and got into the back of the car, partitioned from the chauffeur and ahmed, his most trusted counselor and bodyguard, by the movable, bulletproof glass. "intercept it," he ordered and checked the revolver, leaving the safety off.
the 125 came off the far end of the runway into the feeder area, turned into the wind and stopped. it was bleak here, just snowdrifts and empty space. the big black rolls pulled up alongside, and the door of the jet swung open. he saw hashemi fazir standing there, beckoning him, "salaam! peace be upon you, highness, come aboard."
abdollah khan opened the window and called back, "salaam, peace be upon you, excellency, join me here." you must think me a fool to put my head in such a trap, he thought. "ahmed, go aboard, go armed and pretend you don't speak english."
ahmed dursak was a muslim turkoman, very strong, very quick with a knife or gun. he got out, the submachine gun loose in one hand, and ran nimbly up the steps, the wind pulling at his long coat. "salaam, excellency colonel," he said in farsi, standing outside on the top step. "my master begs you to please join him in the car cabins of small jets make him disquieted. in the car you can talk in private and in peace, totally alone if you wish. he asks if you will honor his poor house and stay with him during your stay here."
hashemi was shocked that abdollah had had the effrontery and confidence to send the emissary armed. going to the car did not suit him either, too easy to be bugged, or booby-trapped. "tell his highness i sometimes have car sickness and i beg him to come here. here we can speak in private, be alone also and it would be a favor to me. of course you should search the cabin in case a foul alien sneaked aboard."
"my master would prefer, excellency, that you j "
hashemi came closer to him and now his lips were a thin line and his voice as tight. "search the airplane! now! and do it quickly, ahmed dursak, three times murderer one a woman called najmeh and do what i order or you will not last one more week on this earth."
"then all the sooner i will be in paradise because serving the khan i do god's work," ahmed dursak said, "but i will search as you wish." he stepped through the doorway and saw the two pilots in the cockpit. in the cabin was armstrong. his eyes narrowed but he said nothing, just went past politely and opened the lavatory door making sure it was empty. there was nowhere else that anyone could hide. "should what you suggest be possible, excellency, the pilots will leave?"
earlier hashemi had asked the captain, john hogg, if he would oblige, should it become necessary.
"sorry, sir," hogg had said, "but i don't like that idea at all."
"it would only be for a few minutes. you can take the ignition key with you and the circuit breakers," robert armstrong had said. "i will personally guarantee no one gets into the cockpit or touches anything."
"i still don't like that idea, sir."
"i know," armstrong had said. "but captain mclver told you you were to do what we asked. within reason. and this's within reason."
hashemi saw the arrogance in ahmed's face and he wanted to smash it off. that comes later, he promised himself. "the pilots will wait in the car."
"and the infidel?"
"this infidel speaks better farsi than you, lice, and if you're wise, lice, you'll be polite to him and call him excellency for i can assure you and your dog turkoman ancestors he has as long a memory as me and can be more cruel than you can imagine."
ahmed's mouth smiled. "and his excellency, the infidel, he waits on the runway also?"
"he stays here. the pilots wait in the car. should his highness want one guard with him to make sure no assassins wait in ambush he is of course welcome. if this arrangement does not suit him, then perhaps we should meet in police headquarters. now take your foul manners away."
ahmed thanked him politely and strode back and told the khan what had been said, adding, "i think that dog's turd must be very sure of himself to be so rude." and in the airplane hashemi was saying in english, "robert, that son of a dog must be very sure of himself to have such arrogant servants."
"you'd really haul the khan of all the gorgons down to police hq?"
"i could try." hashemi lit another cigarette. "i don't think i'd succeed. his nephew mazardi's still chief of police and police here still hold most of their power green bands and komitehs aren't dominant. yet."
"because of abdollah?"
"of course abdollah. for months, on his orders, the tabrizi police covertly supported khomeini. the only difference from shah days to khomeini days is that shah pictures have been replaced with khomeini pictures, shah emblems taken off all uniforms, and now abdollah's grasp is tighter than ever." a chill draft came through the half-open door. "azerbaijanis are a treacherous breed, and cruel the qajar shahs came from tabriz so did shah abbas, who built isfahan and tried to ensure his longevity by murdering his eldest son and blinding another..."
hashemi fazir was watching the car out of the window, willing abdollah khan to concede. he was feeling better now and more confident that he would see holy day this week than he had been on sunday evening when general janan had burst into his hq with orders for the dissolution of inner intelligence and had taken possession of the cassettes and rakoczy. all that night he had been at his wits' end, then at dawn yesterday when he had left his house he had found men tailing him and, during the morning, his wife and children were jostled on the streets. it had taken him until early afternoon to lose those who followed him. by that time one of his secret group four leaders was waiting at a safe house and that evening when general janan got out of his bulletproof limousine to go into his home, a nearby parked car filled with plastic explosive blew him and two of his most trusted assistants to pieces, totally wrecking his house, obliterating his wife and three children and seven servants and his elderly, bedridden father. men shouting leftist mujhadin slogans were heard
running away. in their wake they left crudely written pamphlets: "death to savak now savama."
in the early hours of this morning, half an hour after abrim pahmudi had discreetly left the bed of his very secret mistress, cruel men had paid her a visit. more leftist slogans were heard and the same message daubed on her walls, using her blood and vomit and feces for paint. at nine this morning he had gone by appointment to give his condolences to abrim pahmudi for both tragedies of course inner intelligence had informed him of them. as a pishkesh he brought part of rakoczy's testimony as though it was information that had come into his hands from another source just enough to be of value. "i'm sure, excellency, if i were allowed to resume my work i could gather much more. and if my department was to be honored with your confidence and allowed to operate as before but to report solely to you and no other power i could prevent such foul deeds and perhaps smash these terrorist dogs off the earth."
while he was there an aide had rushed in, distraught, to say that more terrorists had assassinated one of the most important ayatollahs in tehran another car bomb and the revolutionary komiteh required pahmudi's immediate presence. at once pahmudi had got up but before he left he rescinded his previous order. "i agree, excellency colonel. for thirty days. you have thirty days to prove your value."
"thank you, excellency, your confidence overwhelms me, you may be sure of my loyalty. may i have rakoczy back, please?"
"that dog, general janan, allowed him to escape."
then he had gone to the airport and joined robert armstrong at the 125, and, once airborne, had laughed and laughed. it was the first time that a car bomb with a remote detonator had been used in iran. "by god, robert," he had said jovially, "it's totally efficient. from a hundred yards away you wait until you're sure it's him, then you just touch the switch on the sender that's no bigger than a pack of cigarettes and... boom! another enemy gone forever and his father!" he wiped the tears out of his eyes, his laughter infectious. "that's what really got to pahmudi. yes, and without group four it would've been me and my family."
group four had grown out of a suggestion of armstrong's that he had taken and elaborated: small teams of very select bands of men and women, highly trained in the most modern antiterrorist tactics, very highly paid and carefully protected all non-iranian, none of whom knew any of the other cells and all known and loyal only to hashemi. their anonymity meant that some could be used against the others if necessary, individually they were expendable and easily replaceable in the middle and near east there was too much poverty, too many betrayed causes, too much hatred, too many beliefs, too many home
less not to provide a ready ocean of men, and women, desperate for such a job.
over the years his group four team had prospered, its coups secret, the vast majority secret even from armstrong. he looked at him and smiled. "without them i'd be dead."
"me too, probably i was very bloody frightened when that bugger janan said, 'i give you a day and a night for past services." that bugger'd never've let me get out."
"true." a few thousand feet below them the land was deep in snow and the jet already high over the mountains, the journey to tabriz little more than half an hour.
"what about rakoczy? you believe what pahmudi said about him escaping?"
"of course not, robert. rakoczy was a trade, a pishkesh. when pahmudi found the tapes empty and the state rakoczy was in he had no value other than as a payment for past favors he couldn't possibly know the connection with your petr oleg mzytryk. or could he?"
"not likely i'd say impossible."
"it's probable he's in soviet hq if he's not already dead. soviets'd want to know what he gave away... could he tell them anything?"
"i doubt it he was on the brink." armstrong shook his head. "doubt it. what'll you do now that you're mr. big again? feed pahmudi more of his info within the thirty days if he's alive in thirty days."
hashemi smiled thinly and did not reply. i'm not your mr. big yet, he thought, or even safe until pahmudi's in hell with many others. i may still have to use your passport. armstrong had given it to him before takeoff. he had checked it very carefully.
then he had closed his eyes and settled back, enjoying the luxury and convenience of the private jet that was already over qazvin, just a quarter of an hour out of tabriz. but he did not nap. he spent the time considering what to do about savama, pahmudi, and abdollah khan, and what to do about robert armstrong who knew too much.
through the cabin window, he continued to watch the rolls, big, immaculate, and possessed by so few on earth. by god and the prophet, what riches, he thought, awed at this proof of the khan's position and power. what power to flaunt such a possession so fearlessly in the faces of the komitehs, and mine. abdollah khan won't be easy to bend.
he knew that here in the airplane they were dangerously exposed easy targets if abdollah ordered his men to fire on them but he had dismissed that possibility, certain that even abdollah khan would not dare such an open murder of three infidels and one jet, and him. but just in case the khan arranged
an "accident," two group four teams were already enroute by road, one for abdollah personally, the other for his family, to be stopped only by code word from him personally. he smiled. once robert armstrong had told him that a chinese punishment for an important person in olden days was "death and all his generations."
"i like that, robert," he had said. "that has style."
he saw the front side door of the car open. ahmed got out, carrying the submachine gun oddly, then walked to the back door and opened it for abdollah.
"you win the first round, hashemi," armstrong said and went forward as agreed. "all right, captain. we'll be as quick as we can."
reluctantly the two pilots squeezed out of the little cockpit, pulled on their parkas, and hurried out into the cold and down the steps. they saluted the khan politely. he motioned them into the back of the car, began to climb the gangway, ahmed following him.
"salaam, highness, peace be upon you," hashemi said warmly, greeting him at the door, a concession that abdollah noted at once.
"and upon you, excellency colonel." they shook hands. abdollah walked past him into the cabin, his eyes on armstrong, and sat in the chair nearest the exit.
"salaam, highness," armstrong said. "peace be upon you."
"this is a colleague of mine," hashemi said, sitting opposite the khan. "an englishman, robert armstrong."
"ah, yes, the excellency who speaks farsi better than my ahmed and is famous for his memory and cruelty." behind him ahmed had closed the heavy curtain over the outside door and stood with his back to the cockpit, on guard, gun ready but not impolitely so. "eh?"
armstrong smiled. "that was a pleasantry of the colonel, highness."
"i don't agree. even in tabriz we've heard of the special branch expert, twelve years in service of the shah, and running dog of his running dogs," abdollah said scornfully in farsi. the smile vanished from armstrong's face, and both he and hashemi tensed at the blatant bad manners. "i've read your record." he turned his black eyes on hashemi, completely sure that his plan would work: ahmed would kill them at his signal, booby-trap the airplane, send the pilots back aboard and into a hasty takeoff and fiery death nothing to do with him, as god wants, and he, himself, after such a wonderful discussion where he had promised "complete support for the central government," would be filled with sadness.