The man rolled down the window. “The mullah asked for a translator, I was helping him, not you,” he said, his lips curling. “If you had not come to Iran, those young fools would not have been tempted by your disgusting display of material wealth.”
“Sorry, I just wanted to th—”
“And if it wasn’t for your equally disgusting films and television that glorify your godless street gangs and rebellious classrooms that the Shah imported at the behest of his masters to corrupt our youth—my own son and own pupils included—those poor fools would be all correctly law-abiding. Better for you to leave before you too arc caught breaking the law.” He rolled up the window and, angrily, jabbed the horn.
AT LOCHART’S APARTMENT: 2:37 P.M. Her knuckles rapped a short code on the penthouse door. She was wearing a veil and dirt-stained chador.
A series of knocks answered her. Again she tapped four rapid and one slow. At once the door swung open a crack, Teymour was there with a gun in her face, and she laughed. “Don’t you trust anyone, my darling?” she said in Arabic, Palestinian dialect.
“No, Sayada, not even you,” he replied, and when he was sure she truly was Sayada Bertolin and alone, he opened the door wider, and she pulled away her veil and scarf and went into his arms. He kicked the door shut and relocked it. “Not even you.” Then they kissed hungrily. “You’re late.”
“On time. You’re early.” Again she laughed and broke away and handed him the bag. “About half’s there, I’ll bring the rest tomorrow.”
“Where did you leave the rest?”
“In a locker at the French Club.” Sayada Bertolin put her chador aside and was transformed. She wore a padded ski jacket and warm cashmere turtleneck sweater and tartan skirt and thick socks and high fur boots, all of it couturier. “Where are the others?” she asked.
His eyes smiled. “I sent them out.”
“Ah, love in the afternoon. When do they return?”
“Sunset.”
“Perfect. First a shower—the water’s still hot?”
“Oh, yes, and central heating’s on, and the electric blanket. Such luxury! Lochart and his wife knew how to live, this’s a veritable pasha’s—what’s the French word?—ah, yes, garçonnière.”
Her laugh warmed him. “You’ve no idea what a pishkesh a hot shower is, my darling, so much nicer than a bath—let alone the rest.” She sat on a chair to slip off her boots. “But it was old lecher Jared Bakravan, not Lochart, who knew how to live—originally this apartment was for a mistress.”
“You?” he asked without malice.
“No, my darling, he required them young, very young. I’m mistress to no one, not even my husband. Sharazad told me. Old Jared knew how to live, a pity he didn’t have more luck in his dying.”
“He had served his purpose.”
“That was no way for such a man. Stupid!”
“He was a notorious usurer and Shah supporter, even though he gave to Khomeini lavishly. He had offended the laws of God an—”
“The laws of zealots, my darling, zealots—as you and I break all sorts of laws, eh?” She got up and kissed him lightly, walked down the corridor on the lovely carpets, and went into Sharazad and Lochart’s bedroom, across it into the luxurious mirrored bathroom, and turned on the shower, and stood there waiting for the water to heat up. “I always loved this apartment.”
He leaned against the doorway. “My superiors thank you for suggesting it. How was the march?”
“Awful. Iranians are such animals, hurling abuse and filth at us, waving their penises at us, all because we want to be a little equal, want to dress as we want, to try to be beautiful for such a little time, we’re young such a little time.” Again she put her hand under the water, testing it. “Your Khomeini will have to relent.”
He laughed. “Never—that’s his strength. And only some are animals, Sayada, the rest know no better. Where’s your civilized Palestinian tolerance?”
“Your men here have put it all into a squatting hole, Teymour. If you were a woman you’d understand.” She tried the water again and felt the heat beginning. “It’s time I went back to Beirut—I never feel clean here. I haven’t felt clean in months.”
“I’ll be glad to get back too. The war here is over, but not in Palestine, Lebanon, or Jordan—they need trained fighters there. There are Jews to kill, the curse of Zion to cast out, and holy places to recapture.”
“I’m glad you’ll be back in Beirut,” she said, her eyes inviting. “I’ve been told to go home too in a couple of weeks which suits me perfectly—then I can still be a marcher. The protest planned for Thursday’s going to be the biggest ever!”
“I don’t understand why you bother, Iran’s not your problem and all your marches and protest meetings will achieve nothing.”
“You’re wrong—Khomeini’s not a fool—I take part in the marches for the same reason I work for the PLO—for our home, for equality, equality for the women of Palestine…and yes, and for women everywhere.” Her brown eyes were suddenly fiery and he had never seen her more beautiful. “Women are on the march, my darling, and by God of the Copts, the One God, and by your Marxist-Lenin you secretly admire, the day of man’s dominance is over!”
“I agree,” he said at once and laughed.
Abruptly she laughed with him. “You’re a chauvinist—you who know differently.” The temperature of the water was perfect. She took off her ski jacket. “Let’s shower together.”
“Good, tell me about the papers.”
“Afterward.” She undressed without shame and so did he, both aroused but patient, for they were confident lovers—lovers of three years, in Lebanon and Palestine and here in Tehran—and he soaped her and she soaped him and they toyed, one with another, their playing gradually more intimate and more sensuous and more erotic until she cried out and cried again, and then, the instant he was within they melded perfectly, ever more urgent now, one with another, imploding together—then later at peace together lying in the bed the electric blanket warming them.
“What’s the time?” she said sleepily with a great sigh.
“Time for love.”
Quietly she reached over and he jerked, unprepared, and retreated protesting, then caught her hand and held her closely. “Not yet, not even you, my love!” she said, content in his arms.
“Five minutes.”
“Not for five hours, Teymour.”
“One hour…”
“Two hours,” she said smiling. “In two you’ll be ready again but by then I won’t be here—you’ll have to bed one of your soldier whores.” She stifled a yawn, then stretched as a cat would stretch. “Oh, Teymour, you’re a wonderful lover, wonderful.” Then her ears caught a sound. “Is that the shower?”
“Yes. I left it running. What luxury, eh?”
“Yes, yes, it is, but a waste.”
She slid out of bed and closed the bathroom door, used the bidet, then went into the shower, and sang to herself as she washed her hair, then wrapped a fine towel around herself, dried her hair with an electric dryer and when she came back she expected to find him contentedly asleep. But he wasn’t. He was lying in bed with his throat cut. The blanket that half covered him was soaked with blood, his severed genitals were neatly on the pillow beside him, and two men stood there watching her. Both were armed, their revolvers fitted with silencers. Through the open bedroom door she saw another man by the front door, on guard.
“Where’re the rest of the papers?” one of the men said in curiously accented English, the revolver pointed at her.
“At…at the French Club.”
“Where at the French Club?”
“In a locker.” She had been too many years in the PLO undercover, and too versed in life to panic. Her heartbeat was slow and she was trying to decide what to do before she died. There was a knife in her handbag but she had left the handbag on the bedside table and now it was on the bed, the contents spilled out, and there was no knife. No weapon near at hand to help her. Nothing but time—
at sunset the others came back. It was nowhere near sunset. “In the ladies’ section,” she added.
“Which locker?”
“I don’t know—there are no numbers and it’s the custom to give whatever you want kept safely to the woman attendant, you sign your name in the book which she initials, and she will give whatever it is back to you when you ask for it—but only to you.”
The man glanced at the other one who nodded briefly. Both men were dark-haired and dark-eyed, mustached, and she could not place the accent. They could be Iranian, Arab, or Jew—and from anywhere, from Egypt to Syria or south to Yemen. “Get dressed. If you try anything you will not go to hell painlessly like this man—we did not wake him first. Clear?”
“Yes.” Sayada went back and began to dress. She did not try to hide. The man stood at the doorway and watched carefully, not her body but her hands. They’re professionals, she thought, sickened.
“Where did you get the papers?”
“From someone called Ali. I’ve never seen him befo—”
“Stop!” The word cut like a razor though it was softly said. “The next time you lie to us I will slice off that beautiful nipple and make you eat it, Sayada Bertolin. One lie, to experiment, is forgiven. Never again. Go on.”
Fear now gushed through her “The man’s name was Abdollah bin Ali Saba, and this morning he went with me to the old tenement near the university. He led the way to the apartment and we searched where we had been told.”
“Who told you?”
“The ‘Voice.’ The voice on the phone—I only know him as a voice. From…from time to time, he calls me with special instructions.”
“How do you recognize him?”
“By his voice, and there is always a code.” She pulled her sweater over her head and now she was dressed, except for her boots. The automatic with the silencer had never wavered. “The code is that he always mentions the previous day in some way or another in the first few minutes, whatever the day is.”
“Go on.”
“We searched under the floorboards and found the material—letters, files, and some books. I put them into my bag and went to the French Club and…and then, because the strap on the bag broke, I left half and came here.”
“When did you meet the man, Dimitri Yazernov?”
“I never have, I was just told to go there with Abdollah and to make sure that no one was watching, to find the papers and to give them to Teymour.”
“Why Teymour?”
“I did not ask. I never ask.”
“Wise. What does—what did Teymour do?”
“I don’t know, exactly, other than he’s…he was an Iranian, trained as a Freedom Fighter by the PLO,” she said.
“Which branch?”
“I don’t know.” Beyond the man she could see into the bedroom but she kept her eyes away from the bed and on this man who knew too much. From the questioning they could be agents of SAVAMA, KGB, CIA, MI6, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, even one of the PLO extremist groups who did not acknowledge Arafat as leader—all of whom would like possession of the contents of the U.S. ambassador’s safe.
“When does the Frenchman, your lover, return?”
“I don’t know,” she said at once, allowing her surprise to show.
“Where is he now?”
“At his base in the Zagros. It’s called Zagros Three.”
“Where is the pilot Lochart?”
“I think also at Zagros.”
“When does he return here?”
“You mean here? This apartment? I don’t think he’ll ever return here.”
“To Tehran?”
Her eyes strayed to the bedroom as much as she tried to resist and she saw Teymour. Her stomach revolted, she groped for the toilet and was violently sick. The man watched without emotion, satisfied that one of her barriers was broken. He was used to bodies reacting of their own volition to terror. Even so, his gun covered her and he watched carefully in case of a trick.
When the spasm had passed, she cleaned her mouth with a little water, trying to dominate her nausea, cursing Teymour for being so stupid as to send the others away. Stupid! she wanted to shriek, stupid when you’re surrounded by enemies on the Right, or the Left, or in the Center—did it ever bother me before to make love when others were around, so long as the door was closed?
She leaned back against the basin, facing her nemesis.
“First we go to the French Club,” he said. “You will get the rest of the material and give it to me. Clear?”
“Yes.”
“From now on you will work for us. Secretly. You will work for us. Agreed?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes. You can die. Badly.” The man’s lips thinned even more and his eyes became reptilian. “After you have died, a child by the name of Yassar Bialik will receive attention.”
All color left her face.
“Ah, good! Then you remember your little son who lives with your uncle’s family in Beirut’s Street of the Flower Merchants?” The man stared at her, then demanded, “Well, do you?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” she said, barely able to talk. Impossible for them to know about my darling Yassar, even my husband doesn’t kn—
“What happened to the boy’s father?”
“He…he was killed…he was…killed.”
“Where?”
“In…the Golan Heights.”
“Sad to lose a young husband just a few months married,” the man said thinly. “How old were you then?”
“Sev…seventeen.”
“Your memory does not fail you. Good. Now if you choose to work for us, you and your son and uncle and his family are safe. If you do not obey us perfectly, or if you try to betray us, or commit suicide, the boy Yassar will cease to be a man and cease to see. Clear?”
Helplessly she nodded, her face ashen.
“If we die, others will make sure we are avenged. Do not doubt it. Now, what’s your choice?”
“I will serve you,” and make my son safe and be avenged but how, how?
“Good, on the eyes and balls and cock of your son you will serve us?”
“Yes. Pl…please, who…who do I serve?”
Both men smiled. Without humor. “Never ask again or try to find out. We will tell you when it is necessary, if it is necessary. Clear?”
“Yes.”
The man with the gun unscrewed the silencer and put it and the gun into his pocket. “We want to know immediately when either the Frenchman or Lochart return—you will make it your duty to find out—also how many helicopters they have here in Tehran and where. Clear?”
“Yes. How do I get in touch with you, please?”
“You will be given a phone number.” The eyes flattened even more. “For yourself alone. Clear?”
“Yes.”
“Where does Armstrong live? Robert Armstrong?”
“I don’t know.” Warning signals rushed through her. Rumor had it that Armstrong was a trained assassin employed by M16.
“Who is George Telbot?”
“Talbot? He’s an official in the British embassy.”
“What official? What’s his job?”
“I don’t know, just an official.”
“Are either of them your lovers?”
“No. They…they go to the French Club sometimes. Acquaintances.”
“You will become Armstrong’s mistress. Clear?”
“I… I will try.”
“You have two weeks. Where is Lochart’s wife?”
“I… I think at the Bakravan family house near the bazaar.”
“You will make sure. And get a key to the front door.” The man saw her eyes flicker and hid his amusement. If that goes against your scruples, he thought, never mind. Soon you’ll be eating shit with great joy if we wish it. “Get your coat, we go at once.”
Her knees were weak as she went across the bedroom, heading for the front door.
“Wait!” The man stuffed the contents back i
nto her handbag and then, as an afterthought, carelessly wrapped that which was on the pillow in one of her paper tissues and put that also into the handbag. “To remind you to obey.”
“No, please.” Her tears flooded. “I can’t…not that.”
The man shoved the handbag into her hands. “Then get rid of it.”
In misery she staggered back to the bathroom and threw it into the squatter and was very sick again, more than before.
“Hurry up!”
When she could make her legs work she faced him. “When the others…when they come back and find…if I’m not here they…they will know that…that I’m part of those who…who did this and…”
“Of course. Do you think we’re fools? Do you think we’re alone? The moment the four of them return they’re dead and this place conflagrated.”
AT McIVER’S APARTMENT: 4:20 P.M. Ross said, “I don’t know, Mr. Gavallan, I don’t remember much after I left Azadeh on the hill and went into the base, more or less up to the time we got here.” He was wearing one of Pettikin’s uniform shirts and a black sweater and black trousers and black shoes and was shaved and neat, but his face showed his utter exhaustion. “But before that, everything happened as…as I told you.”
“Terrible,” Gavallan said. “But, thank God for you, Captain. But for you the others’d be dead. Without you they’d all be lost. Let’s have a drink, it’s so damned cold. We’ve some whisky.” He motioned to Pettikin. “Charlie?”
Pettikin went to the sideboard. “Sure, Andy,”
“I won’t, thanks, Mr. McIver,” Ross said.
“I’m afraid I will and the sun’s not over the yardarm,” McIver said.
“So will I,” Gavallan said. The two of them had arrived not long ago, still shaken from their almost disaster and worried because at the Bakravan house they had used the iron door knocker again and again but to no avail. Then they had come here. Ross, dozing on the sofa, had almost leaped out of sleep when the front door opened, kookri threateningly in his hand.
“Sorry,” he had said shakily, sheathing the weapon.
“That’s all right,” Gavallan had pretended, not over his fright. “I’m Andrew Gavallan. Hi, Charlie! Where’s Azadeh?”
“She’s still asleep in the spare bedroom,” Pettikin answered.
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