Night in Tehran

by Kaplan, Philip

  Well, they told him, he’s only been here two months. But of course, there are still some matters to be sorted out.

  Translation: you want him to stay in our country; don’t forget the rental payments due us.

  While he waited for instructions, Weiseman and Françoise spent the weekend together. The first morning they walked from Chapultepec Park to the zoo, taking in the massive expanse of the park where the rich enjoyed their leisure hours and the poor fought their daily battles for survival. Coming out of the park, Françoise saw a young woman playing “The Devil’s Trill” on the violin. When it was over, Françoise went to the woman, quietly placed a ten dollar bill in the open violin case, and began to speak with the woman in fluent Spanish. He had not known she spoke Spanish.

  He asked what she had said to the young woman. “I told her that I took violin lessons as a girl but I gave it up, that I didn’t want her to make that mistake. I wanted to give her hope.”

  They dined alfresco in a small café in the Zona Rosa, and the tensions of the past frantic months gave way to a nimbus of romantic banter. They ate a platter of red and green enchiladas, quesadillas and mole, and sipped a specialty cocktail with two straws, while they were serenaded by a handsome Mexican caballero.

  They emerged from the café under a full moon to see a boy of three or four sipping foul water from a filthy puddle on the Paseo de la Reforma. Along the paseo, prostitutes with heavily rouged faces, short skirts, and platform shoes plied their trade with obese norteamericanos, while skinny pimps in tight suits and slicked-down hair, cigarette butts teetering from their lips, stood guard over their assets.

  Around the corner from the hotel, they saw a man brandishing a gun at a well-dressed Mexican woman. “Wait here,” Weiseman said. He strode straight ahead, slipped up behind the gunman and twisted his arm behind his back. A karate chop sent the weapon flying to the side of the road. The man ran off into the dark night.

  “Señor, how can I thank you,” the woman said, embracing him, and then Françoise.

  “He’s a good man,” Françoise said to the woman. She turned to Weiseman and took his arm. “It really matters when you don’t need to do it.”

  On Monday, they went on to Cuernavaca, a resort town southwest of Mexico City known for its silver mines, and proceeded to the Shah’s complex. There was no hint of the Shah to be seen anywhere. Outside the gate to his hideaway, a guard pointed to the large walled villa. “He sleeps quite a lot these days.”

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING, reality returned. Françoise received a call.

  “It was Laurent,” she said. “A reign of terror has broken out in Tehran. A political purge is underway, women are demonstrating, being beaten by RGs, universities being shut down.”

  Moments later, as if coordinated, Trevor phoned. “You’ve got to go back. Tell Amin and whoever else you can reach that we’ve got to take him in, for a short while. Tell them he’s a dead man. Tell them that we can do business with them.”

  Trevor paused. Weiseman heard him try to suppress a telltale cough. “Tell your friend Amin that Laurent agrees.”

  At the airport the next day, she told him, “The cells at Evin Prison are worse than anybody knows.”

  Weiseman’s memory called up the image of Montana dangling a roll of film in midair, fixing him with a menacing glare.

  “Promise me,” she insisted, “you will be prudent.”

  He handed her a three-by-five card with a code word to upgrade their communication and scramble their telephone and cable communications so they could speak securely. Then he headed down the ramp toward the plane.

  28

  REIGN OF TERROR

  THE FLIGHT ACROSS the Atlantic and, after a four-hour wait in Heathrow’s Mideast lounge, the miserable connecting flight delivered Weiseman across eight and a half time zones. He was tense from the moment he set foot in Mehrabad. Everywhere around him he saw the suspicious stares of shop merchants and baggage handlers. With his only bag on his right shoulder, he strolled as casually as he could through the Nothing to Declare channel.

  A hand grabbed his arm. A skinny bearded man said, “This way, brother. Your bag.”

  “Diplomat,” he said reflexively, and flashed his black passport.

  The man said, “In the Islamic Republic, brother, everyone is equal,” and he nudged him forward. And then they took his bag apart, removing all the contents and picking at them meticulously. They turned socks inside out, one by one. They emptied his toothpaste tube into a rubber vat. They ordered him to remove his shoes and then pried off the heels.

  “Checking for microfilm,” the skinny bearded man said smugly. “This way, brother.”

  Two stocky Revolutionary Guards pushed him roughly into a small room where a third man with yellow teeth and dirty finger nails gave him the most thorough and disgusting pat down he’d ever experienced. When it was done, he was ordered to disrobe, down to his undershorts. The dirty digits resumed their filthy, invasive journey; they pulled down his shorts and probed, while the other two RGs stared. He wanted to strangle the guy, but he knew that any move would mean a one-way trip to Evin Prison.

  When they were done, the three men walked out of the room, leaving his clothes and the contents of his luggage in a shambles. He dressed quickly, managed to hammer his heels back on, and repacked his bag.

  He waited a few minutes, controlling his rage, then gingerly opened the squeaky door and poked his head out. He saw the three men leading another foreigner toward a doorway down the corridor. He picked up his bag and slipped quietly back into the Nothing to Declare channel, through the automatic doors, and into the airport terminal. Anxious to get out, he strode past the fortune-tellers, by men offering taxis to town, beneath Ayatollah Khomeini’s ominous glare.

  Outside the terminal, he hurried toward the waiting Ford, but Sammy wasn’t behind the wheel. And there was a woman in the back seat. Weiseman got in the front passenger seat, and the driver steered the car out of the airport toward the highway. The woman in the back seat pulled off her niqab. It was Alana. “Everything is okay,” she said. “Everything is okay.”

  But everything wasn’t okay. Shapour, Alana told him, was in Evin, packed into a tiny crowded cell next to his father’s.

  “Give me the details,” he said. “Perhaps Amin can help.”

  “David, Ali Amin will be lucky if he doesn’t end up in Evin himself.”

  The driver swerved to the edge of the road. On a billboard above them, Khomeini was seated on his prayer mat in Qom, with Sheikh Khalaji hovering behind him.

  “They have an Islamic police force now,” Alana said nervously. “The Sheikh runs it.” And before he could ask, “Montana runs Evin.”

  An Islamist SAVAK, he thought. Evil remains the same, only its costume changes.

  * * *

  —

  TREVOR’S INSTRUCTIONS WERE clear, although the means for enacting them weren’t: Tell the mullahs we’ve got to take him in. Tell them we can do business with them.

  On a hot summer day later that week, Weiseman was squeezed between two Revolutionary Guards in the back seat of an ancient Chevrolet convertible as it bumped down a potholed road. When he’d gotten in the car, one of them—a skinny bearded RG called Nejab, pressed against him, thigh to thigh—had pulled a green handkerchief from his pocket and tied it tightly around Weiseman’s eyes. The swirling dust from open windows caused him to gag. The car bumped along.

  It was a more harrowing reprise of his earlier kidnapping to Amin’s farmhouse. The trip seemed endless, with the dust and the sweaty men on either side of him.

  He heard the men swigging beer, and it made them seem all the more ominous to him. After all, Muslims don’t drink alcohol. These men were more like mercenaries, with no moral code save violence. Still, it reminded him of his thirst, and he asked for a drink. Nejab slammed the bottle against Weiseman’s knee, and a sharp pain shot down his leg. The car stopped and Nejab got out. Weiseman heard and s
melled the trickle of urine against the road.

  Time went by. The Chevy bounced down the riven road. Finally, the driver mumbled and pulled over. The pressure of the RG’s thigh on Weiseman’s evaporated. The car door opened on his side and Nejab pushed him out. A pair of hands untied the handkerchief covering his eyes. He blinked in the sharp sunlight and pushed out his chest, forcing himself to stand tall.

  His sight was still blurry, but he drew in the scent of a woman in front of him. Amazed, he blinked again, distrusting his eyes. A chador and a black headscarf covered all but her face.

  She must have followed him to Tehran, taken the next flight, there for him again.

  “Justin Trevor called Laurent,” Françoise said in a tight whisper. “I’ve spoken to the Imam.” Her voice was tremulous, her body tense. “You must be very prudent here.”

  The two RGs led him around her and up the steps of the modest two-story, wooden building. He recalled what Yasmine had said about Montana’s threat to kill her. He turned and saw Françoise led away, to another filthy car between two other RGs.

  Someone pushed him inside the building. He walked slowly down a hallway, telling himself to focus.

  A door opened. He heard Sheikh Khalaji’s voice. “The American is here, Imam.”

  He tried to recall Trevor’s instructions, which were not to be exceeded: Probe gently. See if you can find a way to work with them.

  Justin had been quite clear. Things were always clear in Washington. But this was Qom—the Ayatollah’s house. He turned around, expecting Montana to appear behind him.

  “Come,” the Sheikh said, and Weiseman walked in slowly. He heard the door close behind him and turned to see that the RGs remained in the corridor, and the Sheikh was gone. Weiseman was alone with the holy man sitting cross-legged on a simple prayer mat, only a sole bearded man sitting nearby to translate.

  The Ayatollah sat, taking no notice of Weiseman. With his head down and his eyes tightly shut, he seemed deep in prayer, a mystic in touch with another world, not to be swayed by the kind of diplomatically turned, polished phrases Trevor had sent him to deliver. Khomeini had his own agenda. Above all, he must be thinking of the new Islamic Republic and how it could survive. In fact, for the Ayatollah there would be no distinction between this world and any spiritual world. The rules of one would be the rules of the other.

  The priest stirred.

  “So,” he said in Farsi, “what message do you bring us from the Great Satan?”

  Weiseman decided to forgo Trevor’s talking points. They had no meaning in this place.

  “We are not destined to be friends, Imam.”

  Khomeini held his gaze. “So it is,” he said in a soft voice.

  Follow his lead, Weiseman thought. Use his archaic language.

  “So be it,” he confirmed. “But there is a corridor of common interest, for your survival, for us to maintain our presence here. To conduct normal relations, as normal as possible.”

  “And Pahlavi?” Khomeini asked, his voice barely audible.

  “Imam, he is very ill. He’s tied up to medical machines, unable to travel.”

  “Then it’s up to you, everything that will happen.”

  Weiseman stared into the fiery eyes, knowing Khomeini wasn’t interested in any excuses, reasonable or otherwise. This was a man not accustomed or inclined to negotiate, but rather a religious fanatic issuing an edict, and expecting it to be obeyed. He wanted the Shah and his fortune, and the United States was not about to give him that. But surely he wanted to survive, too.

  “Imam,” Weiseman began, “in both of our countries, there are those seeking a confrontation between us. Influential voices, persistent people. It would be best to avoid—”

  Khomeini’s eyes opened widely at the cold threat to his survival. Startled, he began to cough. The door opened and Montana was there, but the Ayatollah waved him off. The door closed. Khomeini stared silently at Weiseman.

  Weiseman told himself the vital point had been made, giving Khomeini something to think about. Piling on now would be counterproductive…and Montana was on the other side of that door.

  But there were many lives at stake.

  Try it, Weiseman thought. Two lives are more important than impossible dreams.

  “Imam, there are two innocents locked up in Evin. Hosein Hanif put a man there. The Revolutionary Guards have arrested his son. I ask you to release them, as an act of mercy.”

  Khomeini’s face was entirely immobile. “And Pahlavi?” he repeated.

  “I saw the Shah in Mexico, Imam. He will die soon. If he comes to New York, it will be only for an instant.”

  The Ayatollah seemed to stir a moment, his eyes darted back and forth, as if in thought. Then he slowly raised his right hand to end the interview, and said mystically, “So be it,” leaving Weiseman in the dark regarding his intentions.

  * * *

  —

  FRANÇOISE WASN’T THERE when the RGs bundled him again into the back seat of the car between them. They kept the blindfold on and his wrists bound all the way back to Tehran. Two hours. His hands ached; the dust forced him to cough. He asked for water.

  Nejab said, “This is not an American tavern, brother.”

  When the car finally stopped, both men gripped Weiseman’s upper arms like steel hooks hauling a side of beef and dragged him out of the car and up a flight of metal steps. At the top, they undid his wrists and pulled off the blindfold. He shook his arms, blinked into flashing fluorescent lights, and then saw beneath him row after row of tiny cells.

  Evin Prison.

  They frog-marched him up four more flights of metal stairs, his legs buckling under him. At the top of the stairs, they reached a door and one of the RGs pushed it open. Seated at Hanif’s old desk was Guido Montana; the sign on his desk now announcing his true name: HAMID FAZLI.

  Weiseman tried to steel himself, not knowing if he was destined for the cell that Françoise had warned him about.

  “Come in, Mr. Weiseman. The Imam has instructed me to tell you about the release of the two men you inquired about.”

  “When can I see them?” he asked warily, aware that he was in Montana’s power, but knowing he had to try. He couldn’t let them rot there.

  “Why not now? Right away, in fact. Come with me.”

  “There’s also a woman, a prisoner of the Shah,” Weiseman said. “Hanif killed her father and raped her mother. There’s no reason for her to be your prisoner. She supports the revolution. Her name is Hannah Wiecorzek.”

  “I’ll check on this,” Montana said. He went to a steel safe near his desk. A moment passed. A second drawer opened. He studied a dossier. Finally, he said, “Yes, the prisoner is in cellblock 293. She’s not on our list; you can have her.” He picked up the phone and barked something indecipherable in Farsi before hanging up. “Now, let’s hurry along.”

  Montana led Weiseman back down the stairs, to the ground floor, out a steel door, and into a dusty yard. He saw Shapour across the yard, next to an older man who must be his father.

  A woman was being led out, in a chador and blue jeans barely visible above her tennis shoes. It was Alana. RGs placed her between her father and brother.

  “In a moment, Mr. Weiseman, we will release these counterrevolutionaries into your custody. But first we will release them into the custody of Allah.”

  A voice barked out an order. Seven soldiers clambered through a steel door.

  “No!” Weiseman screamed. He ran at full speed toward Alana.

  Two huge men intercepted him. Four soldiers aimed their rifles across the yard.

  “Long live Iran!” shouted the father, then Shapour and Alana.

  There was a sharp command, followed immediately by a deafening volley of shots. The three prisoners jerked and twisted as if in some sick puppet show, then crumpled to the ground.

  Blood stained the wall and the dust beneath their bodies.

  A soldier marched across the yard and fired a single bullet into each h
ead.

  Weiseman turned away and vomited in the dust.

  Montana said, “Now you, Weiseman. You will be escorted back to Mehrabad. Don’t come back to Iran again, or you’ll have a very special place on that same wall.”

  29

  AFTER THE WALL

  INEXPLICABLY, MONTANA HAD released Hannah. She was with Weiseman on the plane to Paris, vowing to return to Iran and avenge Alana’s murder.

  Weiseman was relieved by her release, but all the way to Paris the vision of the crumpled bodies tormented him and kept him awake despite his exhaustion. He told himself he should have been able to save Alana and Sammy and their father. He blamed himself for waiting too long to launch Ajax Two. He knew it would take a generation or more before the mullahs were gone and the reign of terror would give way, as it eventually did following the French Revolution, to a return to sanity, to an Iranian Thermidor…

  Weiseman called Françoise from Orly Airport. There was no answer at the Villa Schreiber or at her number at Le Figaro. Alarmed, he took a cab directly to Gramont’s residence. Laurent was out, but Margot Gramont—gasping at the sight of him—offered him a place to rest.

  When he awoke four hours later, she gave him the address of an apartment in the sixteenth arrondissement.

  * * *

  —

  FRANÇOISE TOOK HIM in and they stayed together in the apartment for days, explaining to each other how they’d gotten out of Iran, trying to exorcise demons that wouldn’t be exorcised. She told him she had gone back to Qom against Laurent’s orders, because he was there.

  A week passed before Trevor called him.

  Trevor uttered not a word about Weiseman’s absence, nor about what had happened on his trip, except to say, “I’m glad you’re safe.”