by Nathan Swain
“Are we under surveillance?”
Tadita looked at him askance. “Of course, my darling. This is Tehran.”
Chapter 51
According to the information provided by Pearl, Owen Sandwith lived in Elahieh, a cosmopolitan neighborhood in northern Tehran that was home to some of the wealthiest industrialists and clerics in the country.
Before Eastgate left, he had warned Olivia that they were probably already under surveillance by the Ettela’at. Still, as her taxi sputtered along Fereshteh Street, Olivia felt oddly at peace. She was a British citizen traveling under a false identity in a country known for repression and hatred of the West. But preparing to meet with Sandwith, a fellow scholar and Englishman, it was as if she were back at Cambridge, loping down the hallway to discuss some arcane point of Akkadian translation with a fellow professor. She was back in her wheelhouse.
Olivia decided to walk the last part. Boutiques, cafes, and restaurants lined the narrow, neighborhood streets. Groceries displayed almonds, plums, apricots, and figs. Mint and tarragon spilled out of cedar boxes by the street curb. Vendors sold scarves and kitchen equipment.
The late-morning sun bathed the busy streets in a golden light, which cut through the gauze of the thick smog that hung above the city. It seemed like almost the entire population was Olivia’s age or younger.
The house matching the address provided by Pearl was at the end of a block and set behind a large, ornamental garden. The hedgerows in the front reminded her of Cambridge. She could see into the home through a large bay window on the first floor. A bust of Beethoven, with his inimitable flowing hair and melodramatic scowl, sat in the corner of the room.
This is clearly the right address. Clerics don’t idolize Romantic German composers. Standing at the front doorstep, Olivia realized that she hadn’t thought out what she would say to Sandwith. How am I going to explain this? Do I tell him the whole story? He’s going to think I’m mad.
Then, Olivia heard a voice from above. “Professor Nazarian?”
Olivia looked up. Standing on the balcony on the third floor of the house was a man with a book in his hand. He had a curly mop of cottony white hair.
“Yes,” Olivia said. Then she remembered her alias. “I mean, no. I’m Canadian. I mean, I’m a Canadian botanist.”
“I see.”
Olivia took a deep breath. Spy craft was not her strong suit, clearly. “I’m sorry. Do you know me?”
“I thought I recognized you from a conference I attended several years ago at the University of Leicester. I believe you lectured on the similarities between Gilgamesh and Beowulf. Unless I’m mistaking you for someone else.”
“That’s me. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m a bit on edge.”
“All of Tehran is on edge, my dear,” said the man.
Olivia looked nervously down the street. She did not think it would be wise to carry on for too long. Some auntie, no doubt, was poking her head out the window at that very moment, ready to soak up all the gossip and send the police bearing down on her.
The sun was shining directly into Olivia’s face. All she could see of the man on the balcony was his snowy white curls.
“How did you recognize me in this outfit?” she asked, her hand raised above her eye to block out the glare.
“I must admit that I have an unfair advantage. I’ve been waiting for you to come.”
The gate in front of the garden buzzed and swung open.
“Owen Sandwith,” the man said, greeting her at the front door. “Please come in. We have much to discuss.”
Chapter 52
Sandwith’s face was creased and his skin looked to have tanned. Otherwise, he closely resembled the photograph in his book, down to the same red turtle neck sweater and hounds tooth jacket. This sartorial quirk didn’t surprise Olivia. She knew more than a few academics who wore the exact same outfit every day, as if their intellectual burdens left them no time to deal with the mundane business of life, like wearing proper clothes.
His white, unruly curls tumbled over his forehead. His turtleneck was untucked and his wool socks had holes in them. For a moment, he reminded Olivia of Allison.
While Sandwith’s appearance was sloppy, his home was immaculate. The furniture was sleek. A white leather couch sat in the living room beneath three small, ornate Persian rugs hung on a wall. Busts of Brahms, Bach, and Schubert were positioned next to Beethoven on a credenza in front of the bay window. A sea of books covered the wall opposite the couch. Olivia recognized many of them by the color of the spine and the style of the font. It was the Assyriology canon.
“Follow me,” Sandwith said, leading Olivia to a study in the back of the house. “We can speak here privately without being watched or heard.”
“How do you know?”
“They give me privacy. It’s part of my deal,” Sandwith said.
Deal with who? The Flaming Sword? Is Sandwith aligned with them? Have I walked into a trap?
Olivia tried to remain calm by absorbing the details around her. The floor of Sandwith’s study was hardwood. The furniture was mid-century modern, probably Danish or Norwegian, including a wood desk in the middle of the room. Instead of books, most of the walls were lined with paintings. Many of them, as Olivia could tell after a few furtive glances, were in the style of the British poet and artist William Blake. Among those Olivia could identify from memory: Cain Flees, Nebuchadnezzar, and the full series from Illustrations from The Book of Job. All of the paintings appeared to have a Biblical theme.
Behind the desk was a massive bureau displaying scores of tiny figurines. Olivia was not surprised to see several dozen cherubim among them.
“I expected to hear from you weeks ago,” Sandwith said, offering Olivia a seat.
“I don’t understand. How did you know I was looking for you?”
“I follow the chat groups online very closely. They’ve been obsessed with you for quite some time.”
“They? Who is they? Who is obsessed?”
“I think you know, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“The Flaming Sword.”
“Of course.”
Olivia’s mouth went dry again. This time more from fear than excitement. She could feel her cheeks flush.
“I thought the Flaming Sword was a secret society. How is it you know this?”
“They are secret,” Sandwith said, pausing as he considered his words, “to most of the world.”
Sandwith sipped from a bottle of Perrier and crossed his legs.
“As you know, I’ve been studying them for thirty years. They communicate in riddles and codes and symbols. When they moved their communications online, I was able to break their cypher after a good deal of effort.”
“What are they saying about me?’
“They’re looking for you quite desperately. You and an American chap.”
Sandwith gazed at Olivia probingly. He was sizing her up. To Olivia, it seemed like Sandwith was as curious about her as she was with him. The observation put her more at ease.
“Apparently, you have certain information that is of great value to them,” Sandwith said.
“What?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Olivia paused, unsure of her next move. She didn’t know how much she should share with Sandwith. She walked across the room and gazed at a print hung on the wall set in a gold frame.
“Elohim Creating Adam,” Olivia said, identifying one of Blake’s most famous works. The painting depicted a brawny and bearded deity, angelic wings flapping, pushing Adam to Earth, a serpent coiled around the man’s leg. “I take it you didn’t leave your interest in Bible studies behind when you left Alabama.”
Sandwith chuckled. “No, quite the opposite. Since freeing myself of teaching duties I’ve been able to devote myself full time to researching the Flaming Sword.”
“How is it that you came upon them?”
“The Flaming Sword? Oh, it was quite simple,
really. My father was a member.”
Sandwith picked up a figurine from his cabinet. “In fact, this,” he said, holding the figure aloft, “was his cherubim figurine. Do you see the vambraces on the forearms? The moon and star pattern was his insignia. Each cherubim has one. The insignia has special meaning to its members.”
Olivia was astonished. She expected him to say he discovered the Flaming Sword while thumbing through books in a long-neglected archive somewhere. As usual, the truth was far more interesting.
“You can guess what happened.”
“He tried to pass along the family business to you?”
“Yes.”
“And instead of joining you decided to expose them.”
“A Freudian psychologist would have a field day with the story, I admit.”
“Why did you do it?”
Sandwith walked over to Olivia. “How much do you know about the Flaming Sword?”
Olivia said nothing. She had read Sandwith’s book, which was written ten years ago. That’s all she knew. He interpreted her silence as an invitation to explain.
“The Book of Daniel tells the story of four young noblemen in exile: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Their king, Jehoiakim, was forced to pay tribute to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar ordered everyone in the kingdom to worship a golden statue. Devoted to the one, true God as they were, Daniel and the other three refused. They were cast into a furnace heated to an extraordinarily high temperature. Yet, as recorded in Daniel, chapter 3, when Nebuchadnezzar looked in, he saw them walking about the furnace unharmed. Awed by their power and seeming invulnerability, Nebuchadnezzar released them from captivity. But rather than return home to Israel, the four young men journeyed west, to an unknown destination. There, the story goes, they discovered the Garden of Eden, which featured two very distinct trees.”
“The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” Olivia said.
Sandwith excitedly raised his index finger in the air. “Precisely, and in the Garden, they experienced what can only be described as an ecstatic vision of an event that had taken place there millions of years earlier. The formation of Adam from the dust of the ground. The creation of Eve from Adam’s rib.” Animated, Sandwith acted as if he was telling the story for the first time. “The four returned to Babylon and shared their vision with the priests and prophets of Israel. Those priests and prophets wrote down the vision. Today, we know it as Genesis, chapters 2 and 3.”
Sandwith paused and ran his fingers through his beard. “But Genesis 2 and 3 was not just a story. It was also a prophecy, projecting the return of the young men as guardians of the Garden of Eden. They were symbolized by the cherubim—the creature with the faces of a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man. Shadrach, the warrior, was symbolized by the lion. Meshach, reliable and determined, was symbolized by the ox. Abednego, the steely and wise leader of the three, was symbolized by the eagle.”
“And Daniel?”
“Daniel was the highest among them. A prophet. He was symbolized by the face of man.”
“The Bible has many references to the cherubim,” Olivia said. “The prophet Ezekiel refers to four cherubim, each with the face of a lion, ox, eagle, and man. He describes them as having four wings.”
Sandwith nodded excitedly. It looked to Olivia like he was grateful to be talking shop again with another academic. “Ezekiel also says that the creatures resemble coals of fire from which lightning goes forth. He understood them to be the same young men from Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace.”
“What happened to them?”
“They had children. Their children had children and so on for thousands of years. The living descendants are known as the Flaming Sword. Just like their ancestors of thousands of years before them, they are given the honor and responsibility of protecting the Garden of Eden from those who would do it harm.”
“And you’re one of those ancestors.”
“Yes.”
“But you gave up that honor,” Olivia said. “Why?”
Sandwith looked out the window of his study at the garden behind his house. It was neatly enclosed by red brick walls covered by creeping, green ivy. A gray partridge cleaned itself in a bird bath set under a white, ornately-carved trellis.
“You know, in Finland, the government gives a sword to those who earn PhDs. It’s to emphasize that they are protectors of truth. I have the heart of a guardian, just like my ancestors. But much like you,” Sandwith nodded at Olivia, “I am motivated by the truth more than familial bonds.” Olivia took this comment as a reference to Olivia’s well-publicized break with her father over the war.
“Yes, but your betrayal wasn’t broadcast on the BBC and Sky News.”
“No, thankfully. I don’t know if I’d have the courage to do what you did.”
He’s laying the flattery on. But why?
“The truth is that the Flaming Sword is a destructive force that must be stopped.”
Chapter 53
“Come with me,” Tadita said.
She clasped Eastgate’s rugged hand and led him to her living room.
They sat down on a couch. Eastgate was entranced by Tadita’s soft, bronzed skin and silky hair. He was transported to that summer over a decade ago. He had loved this woman. She had once loved him. That there were still feelings between them was clear.
“You know that I became a professor of art history. The pay was bad but I was tenure track and living my dream.”
Eastgate nodded. All this, he knew.
“After President Khatami was elected in ’97, my parents moved back here. They believed his promise to liberalize society. They wanted to believe things could be like they were under the Shah. My mother became very sick. Berkeley allowed me to take a sabbatical for a year to do research, and I moved here to take care of my mother. I thought I would move back to the States in a year.”
Eastgate scrutinized her voice. The movement of her eyes. She was telling the truth.
“The government watched me closely. I didn’t understand why. It turns out they had big plans for me.”
“I bet they did,” Eastgate said, starting to understand what had happened.
“At first they said I could return after doing a year of service for the revolution by teaching at the university. I was a daughter of Iran, they said, and I owed it to my country to educate my fellow countrymen. I let them convince me that was true. So, I stayed.”
“They never let you leave.”
“No. One year of teaching became two. My parents both died, but the government didn’t care. After two years, they told me I needed to serve the revolution again by working in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.”
“Why didn’t you tell the university? They would have raised hell with the media, the State Department.”
“I did. But they were shouted down. Washington wanted to believe in the idea of a reformist Iran,” Tadita said. “A professor held against her will didn’t fit that narrative. So, I was cut loose.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s what I needed. I belong here, and I happily serve the people now as head of the Ministry.”
Eastgate did a double take. “Tadita—”
“I know what you’re thinking, Will.”
“How could you willingly serve the government of Iran? I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true that I can never leave. But I wouldn’t want to now. My country is the last example of pure Islam in the world. Serving it is the greatest honor of my life.”
Eastgate’s stomach turned upside down. The woman he knew ten years ago was passionately opposed to fundamentalist religious belief, let alone an Islamic theocracy.
“Will, I know you can appreciate how satisfying it is to be part of something greater than yourself.”
Tadita was now speaking with the zeal of a true believer.
“As head of the Ministry, I am the chief protector in Iran of the influences of culture f
rom abroad on our people.”
Tadita walked over to a desk and pulled out two sheets of paper.
“When the educational visas of you and your colleague were entered into our database, I was informed immediately. You can imagine my surprise to see your beautiful face staring up at me from my computer screen.”
Eastgate was silent. His thoughts ran to Olivia. She’d be swept up in a moment by the government if she hadn’t been taken already. It was his fault. Going through Iran was a reckless gamble. Why did he agree to it? Was it the temptation of seeing Tadita again? Eastgate wondered.
“What are you doing in Iran, Will?” Tadita asked, her tone shifting seamlessly from friendly to inquisitorial.
“Who’s asking? Tadita or the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance?”
“The latter, I’m afraid.”
“Like the visa says—academic research.”
“That’s strange. The last I heard, you were a captain in the US Special Forces.”
Chapter 54
Sandwith left his study to make a pot of tea. Olivia perused the cherubim figurines in the cabinet. They varied in size and were made of different metals and material. Some shone brightly in vibrant colors of green, gold and red, while others appeared to be dulled and worn by what she could only guess was a thousand years of handling.
What do these figurines symbolize? Why does Sandwith have them? Sandwith returned with the tea, and instinctively answered Olivia’s questions before she could ask.
“They are my lineage,” Sandwith said. “These are the cherubim of my family on my father’s side going back hundreds of years before Christ. Not as far back as the founding cherubim, but almost. I inherited them.”
“This is all so incredible,” Olivia said, shaking her head. “I must admit, if you weren’t such a distinguished scholar I might not believe it.”
Sandwith poured two glasses of tea and set them down on a coffee table.
“Naturally, you want proof,” Sandwith said, walking to his desk. He opened a drawer and appeared to press a button. “Alright,” he said, “proof.” The room slowly darkened and the lights turned a gauzy purple. The gears of a small motor purred as a long display case, twice the size of Sandwith’s desk, emerged from the floor.
