"perhaps you would accept this gift from all of us in our camp who are grateful for your guidance and protection. after all, didn't you break down the gates and take possession of the base in the name of the people? didn't you win the toboggan race, beating the best of us, through the quality of your courage?"
another rustle in the room, everyone waited filled with delight as the contest stiffened, though all knew the infidel had said only what was true. the silence grew, then the khan reached over and picked up the lighter and looked at it closely. his gnarled thumb clicked up the lid as he had seen others in the camp do. with hardly any motion it lit the very first time and everyone was as pleased as he was with the quality of the pishkesh.
"what guidance does his excellency need?"
"nothing in particular, not really, excellency kalandar," lochart said deprecatingly, continuing the game according to ancient custom.
"but there must be something that might make his excellency's lot better?" the old man stubbed his cigarette into the earth.
at length lochart allowed himself to be persuaded. "well, since your excellency has the magnanimity to ask, if your excellency would intercede for us with the komiteh to give us a little more time, i would be very grateful. your excellency, who knows these mountains like the inside of his own eating bowl, knows we cannot obey the orders of strangers who obviously don't know we cannot clear the rigs of personnel, nor safeguard the rigs the zagros property of the illustrious yazdek branch of the kash'kai nor take away our machines and spares by tomorrow sunset."
"true, strangers know nothing," nitchak khan said agreeably. yes, he thought, strangers know nothing and those sons of dogs who dared to try to implant their filthy strangers' ways were quickly punished by god. "perhaps the komiteh would grant an extra day."
"that would be more than i would dare ask. but, kalandar, it would hardly be enough to show them how little they know about your zagros. perhaps they need to be taught a lesson. they should be told at least two weeks after all, you are kalandar of yazdek and of all eleven rigs and the whole zagros knows of nitchak khan."
nitchak khan was very proud and so were the villagers, pleasantly swept along with the infidel's logic. he took out his cigarettes and his lighter. it lit the first time. "two weeks," he said and everyone was very satisfied, including lochart. then he added, to give himself time to consider if two weeks was too long, "i will send a messenger and ask for two weeks."
lochart got up and thanked the khan profusely. two weeks would give mciver time. outside, the air tasted like wine and he filled his lungs gratefully, pleased with the way he had handled the delicate negotiation. "salaam, nitchak khan, peace be upon you."
"and upon you."
across the square was the mosque, and beside it the ruined schoolhouse. the other side of the mosque was nitchak khan's two- storied house and, at the door, his wife and two of his children with some other village women also colorfully dressed.
"why was the schoolhouse burned, kalandar?"
"one of the komiteh was heard to say, 'thus should perish everything foreign. thus will perish the base and all that it contains we need no foreigners here, want no foreigners here.'"
lochart was saddened. that's what most of you believe, if not all of you, he thought. and yet lots of us try to be part of iran, speak the language, want to be accepted but never will be. then why do we stay, why do we try? perhaps for the same reason alexander the great stayed, why he and ten thousand of his officers married iranian women in one vast ceremony because there's a magic to them and to iran that is indefinable, totally obsessive, that consumes as i am consumed.
a burst of laughter came from the women surrounding nitchak khan's wife at something she had said.
"it's better when wives are happy, eh? that's god's gift to men, eh?" the khan said jovially, and lochart nodded, thinking how fantastically lucky nitchak khan had been and what a gift of god his wife was like sharazad was to him and, thinking of her, once more the horror of last night welled up, his terror of almost losing her, her madness and unhappiness, then hitting her and seeing the bruises when all he wanted was her happiness in this world and the next, if there was a next.
"and lucky for me, god made her such a fine shot, eh?"
"yes," lochart said before he could stop himself. his stomach heaved and
he cursed himself for letting his attention wander. he saw the shrewd eyes watching him and added hastily, "shot? your wife's a fine shot? please excuse me, excellency, i didn't hear you clearly. you mean with a rifle?"
the old man said nothing, just studied him, then nodded thoughtfully. lochart kept his gaze steady and looked back across the square, wondering if it had been a deliberate trap. "i've heard that many kash'kai women can use a rifle. it would seem that, er, that god has blessed you in many ways, kalandar."
after a moment nitchak khan said, "i will send word to you tomorrow, how much time the komiteh agrees. peace be upon you."
going back to the base lochart asked himself, was it a trap i fell into? if the remark was involuntary, made from pride in her, then perhaps, perhaps we're safe and scot's safe. in any event we've time perhaps we have, but perhaps scot hasn't.
the sun had gone from this part of the plateau and the temperature had quickly fallen below freezing again. the cold helped to clear his head but did not eliminate his anxiety or overcome his weariness.
a week, two weeks, or a few days, you've not much time, he thought. in tehran, mciver had told him about getting export licenses for three 212s to go to al shargaz "for repairs."
"tom, i'll send one of yours, one from here, and one from kowiss thence to nigeria, but for god's sake keep that part to yourself. here're the exit papers dated for wednesday next. i think you should go yourself, and get out while you can. you get out and stay at al shargaz there're plenty of pilots there to take the 212 onwards."
mac just doesn't understand, he thought. he came up out of the trees and saw the base, scot and jean-luc waiting for him beside a 212.
i'll send scot on the ferry whatever happens, lochart thought, and having made the decision, some of his concern left him. the main decision's do we start the evacuation or not? to decide that, you have to decide how far to trust nitchak khan. not very far at all.
at inner intelligence hq: 6:42 p.m. it was barely twenty-three hours since rakoczy had been captured, but he was already broken and babbling the third level the truth. the first two levels were cover stories of partial truths rehearsed and rerehearsed by all career agents until they were deeply embedded into the subconscious in the hope that these partial truths would deflect questioners from probing deeper, or make them believe they already had all the truth. unfortunately for rakoczy, his interrogators were expert and anxious to probe ever deeper. their problem was to keep the torment from killing him first. his problem was how to die quickly.
when he had been caught yesterday evening, he had at once tried to get his teeth into the point of his collar where the poison vial was sewn a trained reflex action. but his captors had forestalled him, held his head backward while they chloroformed him, then carefully stripped him, probed his mouth for a false tooth of poison and his anus for a capsule.
he had expected beating and psychedelic drugs: "if they use those on you, captain mzytryk, you're finished," his teachers had said. "nothing much to do but to try to die before giving secrets away. better to die before they break
you. never forget we'll avenge you. our reach can span fifty years and we'll get those who betrayed you."
but he had not expected the level of agony to which they had taken him so fast, or the unspeakable things they had done to him, electrodes inside him, in his nose mouth stomach rectum, on his testicles and eyeballs with drug injections to put him to sleep, to wake him up, minutes only between sleep wake sleep wake, disoriented, upside down, inside out.
"for christ's sake, hashemi," robert armstrong had said, sickened, long long ago in the beginning, "why don't you just give him the truth drugs, you've got them, no need for all this shit."
colonel hashemi fazir had shrugged. "a little cruelty is good for the soul. by allah, you've seen the files, you've seen what the kgb's done to some of our citizens who weren't even spies."
"that's no excuse."
"we need his information quickly, by god. we need to reach the third level you're always harping about. i've no time for your twisted ethics, robert. if you don't want to stay, leave."
armstrong had stayed. he had mumed his ears against the screams, loathing the brutality. no need for that, not nowadays, he had said to himself, knowing he would have died long since.
he watched the two men through the one-sided mirror as they worked rakoczy over again in the small, well-equipped chamber, sorry for him in an oblique way after all, rakoczy was a professional like him, a brave man who had held out against them extraordinarily.
abruptly the screams stopped and rakoczy was again inert. hashemi spoke into the mike that fed into the earphones of the man below. "is he dead? i told you stupid sons of dogs to be careful!"
one of the two men was a doctor. the headset he wore cut out all sound except instructions from the interrogators. irritably he lifted rakoczy's eyelids and peered at his eyes, then, with his stethoscope, listened to his heartbeat.
"he's alive, colonel. he's... there's still a way to go yet."
"give him five minutes, then wake him up. and don't kill him until i say so." angrily, hashemi clicked off the mike and cursed the man. "don't want him dead when we're so close to cleaning him out." he glanced at armstrong, eyes glittering. "he's the best we've ever had, ever, eh? by god, robert, he's a gold mine."
rakoczy had babbled out his two covers long since and then his real name, kgb number, where he was educated, born, married, lived, his known superiors in tbilisi, their involvement in iran, the tudeh, the mujhadin, how and where they supported the kurdish independence movement, who his contacts were.
"who's the top kgb azerbaijani?"
"i... no more please... pleasestoppppp it's abdollah khan of tabriz... him, only him of importance and he... he was... is to to to be the first president when azer... azerbaijan be... becomes independent but now he's too big and inde... independent so... so now he's a section 16/a..."
"you're not telling us all the truth teach him a lesson!"
"oh i amlamiampleaseeeeee..."
then reviving him and his babbling again, about ibrahim kyabi, ibrahim's father, the mullah kowissi, who the tudeh student leaders were, about his own wife, about his father and where he lived in tbilisi, and about his grandfather who was in the tsar's secret police before being a founding member of the cheka, then ogpu, nkvd, and finally the kgb founded in '54 by khrushchev after beria had been shot as a western spy.
"you believe beria was a spy for us, mzytryk?"
"yes... yes... yes he was, the kgb had proof oh yes... please stoppppp... please stopppppp i'll tell you anyththingggggg..."
"how could they have proof to that lie?"
"yes it was a lie but we were to believe it we were... we had to had to had to... please stopppppp i begggggg you..."
"stop hurting him, you devils." armstrong's voice came in on cue. "no need to hurt him if he's cooperating how many times do i have to tell you! so long as he tells the truth don't touch him. give him a glass of water. now, mzytryk, tell us all you know about gregor suslev."
"he's... he's a spy i think."
"you're not telling us the truth!" hashemi roared at him, on cue. "teach him a lesson!"
"no... no... noplease stopppppppppohgodplease stoppppp he's he's petr oleg mzytryk my father my father... suslev was his... his cover name in the in the far east based out of vlad... vladivostok and and and another cover's brodnin... and and and he lives in in tbilisi and he's commissar and senior ad... adviser iranian affairs and con controller of abdollah abdollah khan..."
"you're lying again. how could you know such secrets? teach him a les "
"please no i swearrrrrr i'm not lying 1... read his secret dossier and i know it's true... brodnin was last and then he... allah helppppp meeeeee..." again he fainted again. again they revived him.
"how does abdollah khan contact his controller?"
"he... my... they meet when whenever... some... sometimes at the... at the dacha sometimes at tabriz..."
"where in tabriz?"
"at... at the khan's palace..."
"how do they arrange a meeting?"
"by code... coded telex from tehran... from hq..."
"what code?"
"the... g16... g16..."
"what's abdollah khan's code name?"
"ivanovitch."